#‘this just PROVES the the tories hate the arts!!!!!’

[shugthedug]

if only people could find the same outrage for the dwp declaring literal dead people as fit to work as they can for the government telling Fatima the fictional ballerina that when she ages out of her chosen profession a rewarding career awaits her in the digital economy if she so chooses :(

[statticscribbles]

Colour Vision

Summary: Jade West/Reader/Beck Oliver soulmate au where you see color when you look your soulmate in the eyes

Tori had said she’d be at the front office to meet you to help you with your schedule but she was probably late like always and you were getting worried you'd end up being late to your first class. She was the entire reason you'd transferred to Hollywood Arts. Your acting and singing skills got you in, you know that, but you would have never thought to actually audition if Tori hadn’t pushed you. It’s why you were her best friend at her old school. You knew she had new friends now and you didn’t feel threatened by them at all, in fact you were relieved it wasn’t just going to be the two of you. You still wanted to find your soulmate and since Tori had found hers you knew you’d have to branch out on your own to search.

“Are you alright?”

“Mhm, just waiting for Tori, Vega, she’s uh supposed to help me with my schedule…” You frown at your phone and look up when you hear a laugh.

“I’m Beck, one of Tori’s friends; she’s probably going to be late; but I can help, here.” Beck’s smile is so comforting you find yourself nodding and handing over your schedule to him.

“Thanks…”

“Y/N.” You smile back and look him in the eyes. Brown. His eyes are brown; but so much of the school is still gray when you know they should be bright colours; Tori has said as much and you want to say something but he just nods and spins you around.

“You first class is right there, I have to go, I’ll meet you here for lunch I swear. I can see colours too, don’t stress.”

You try not to think about it, how your soulmate might not even be your whole soulmate and he’d run off. You try your best to avoid saying anything or walking into anyone but of course that’s not your luck. You stumble, spilling a coffee over a girl, you frown, you can see the brown stain but everything about her outfit and hair are grey. You squeeze your eyes shut and sigh preparing to let her yell at you.

“Jade sit down, you can’t even see the stain, everyone knows brown is still gray to you.” The teacher chides and you think it should be a joke but it’s still harsh, Jade doesn’t seem upset but she still walks out. You sit next to another girl who introduces herself as Cat.

“So what was that about?”

“Oh Jade? Yeah she can’t see all the colours, Beck’s not really her soulmate…” Cat mumbles and Jade looks up having walked back in, glaring, but before she can threaten her, your eyes widen, her’s are blue green.

“Oh… that’s uh, interesting,, excuse me!” You turn and run out of the room. You knew the probability of meeting your soulmate was high. But you’d thought you’d already met him; Beck, who had helped you with your schedule had suddenly had brown eyes. You’ve never heard of anyone having two soulmates. And you knew with your luck, Jade, probably hated that guy's guts.

Of course you run into Beck and then before you can say anything Jade is on your heels and they’re both pulling you into a hug. You’re just squished between them and you’re expecting them to start yelling but instead they both sigh.

“We’re so happy to have found you.”

“Found me?” You blink at them, wide eyed and shocked, apparently they were both your soulmate, which made sense as they were each other’s but not complete without you, which was why they couldn’t see colour.

“What do you want from this?”

“To be with you, and you?”

“To be with you.” They answer at the same time and all three of you laugh.

Senior year; so much has happened. You, Jade and Beck and only grown stronger in your relationship, proving that the soulmate colours were always the right choices.

“So we’re actually going to graduate!”

“I know it feels like it’s been centuriessssss.” You drag it out and Jade laughs.

“While you two are making jokes, I’ve arranged a date for all of us.”

“A date?” “Mhm, after graduation.”

“Can we have a hint.” Jade smirks at him.

“Just figured we should start our ‘after high school’ journey with a good solid first date with all of us.”

“Are we going out for ice cream?”

“Uh, no…”

“We are!” You clap your hands together and Beck scowls playfully. Clearly annoyed you’ve gotten the date plan, it was the same as the first date Jade, you and him had all gone.

Beck seems far more nervous than a usual ice cream date and you and Jade go to the bathroom to try to guess what he’s worried about.

“I bet it’s about the college he got into… you know he was stressing about being near us.” You nod, Jade and you had been accepted to the same art college, but Beck had applied late so he was still waiting for his response.

Support My Writing?

[peterpansindrome]

brain rot.

[antiloreolympus]

11 Anti LO Asks

1. I feel like when RS was drafting this story she wanted Hades and Persephone to be on a united front with dealing with their issues and conflicts instead of having conflicts with one another to get over to make them look “perfect”. However the flaw with that, is when the outside characters (Minthe, Hera, Hecate, Thanatos, etc) criticize their relationship were not proven they’re wrong. Thanatos said it was nepotism and it was. Not only is hades covering for Persephone who isn’t even working as an intern just sitting cozy in his office while she’s wanted for the police, but staying at his place also. Shady much? Minthe knew something was up with Persephone and she was more than right, not only does she train Persephone the day after Persephone kisses her ex she learns that Persephone commuted a genocide. Hecate and Hera are worries for Persephone for her reputation and being young and naive. Persephone is young and naive and can’t make friends at school because hades took some kids eye out. Over and over RS proves these characters right and not make me root for the main couple because they’re just bad and for each other. And remember when Tori and the yellow girl student (from persephones class) mentioned Persephone is sleeping her way to the top? She’s just smooching her way to the top guys it’s fine. Persephone should receive punishment for killing a bunch of people, turning a nymph into a plant with more than just community service and hades should stay the hell away from Persephone. I hate how RS used “the immortal dating pool is small” excuse but that doesn’t mean a 19 year old should fix a 2000 year old man’s issues 

2. wish persephone would just be evil. shes not a girlboss if she was girlboss whys she always like "im sowwy 🥺" and "i wish i wasnt a bad girl 😭🥺" like no. just be evil. and not in the "hi im a murderer 😁" way in the "i am a fully fleshed out character that has complicated actions and can stand on my own 😐" way.

3. just off how many LO episodes there are now, and if they roughly follow the same 25 episode count for each volume, then you'd have to buy well over SEVEN books just off the current count of 180+ eps. Seeing as it's going past 200 eps, then that's even more. now let's say you get the hardcovers, so thats over 300 dollars for all the current eps you cant easily read for free instead. more so, the art and writing gets worse the longer it goes on, so what incentive is there to buy these anyway?

4. does ... does rachel know the whole point to helios in the hxp myth was that hes the most unbiased source and will always be honest? along with him and apollo they legit cant lie. why would she purposely make him a liar? to be another stupid fake antagonist to hxp? he was one of the few people in myth who supported them?

5. what i find so annoying about lo stans is they act like critique of LO is somehow against some poor underdog and we should stop picking on her (which isnt what critique is). Rachel is NOT some nobody getting unwarranted hate for her indie project. she has millions of readers, she's a published writer, she has merch, even (minor) awards, and much more. stop acting like she's some helpless nobody who needs protection. she's a professional in the industry, not a child in of a white knight.

6. im probably wrong here but i heard someone say hebe in lo is permanently stuck as a child? tell me thats not true :(

From OP: I haven’t seen any confirmation that Hebe will stay as a child.

7. i get why rachel doesnt do it because she herself cantt depict realistic couples well, but s2 hxp is so boring??? like its a romance, the conflict should be in the romance, and while the couple wasn't the source for it in s1, you get why they weren't an item because of other factors. but s2, now that theyre together, theyre just too functional, you know what i mean? they have nothing in conflict, including minthe being turned into a plant! like how did they get stale once they became a couple?

8. i just cant take any plot, relationship, or character "development" in LO seriously (esp if its the characters not being ~perfect~ and actually being realistically written) because i just know it'll be retconned in a week or two, because rachel lacks a backbone to stick to any writing choice and her fans have no sense of reading comprehension, so theyll complain and she'll bend over to appease them. the writing in lo was always weak, but its only gotten worse the more "fan input" she takes in.

9. the wild part to me is literally the majority of the issues in lo are just stuff rachel didnt need to add. she didnt need to make persephone 19. she didnt need to add in sexual assault, she didnt need to make hades a slave owner. she didnt need to add in the aow. she didnt need to add 30+ plots she cant keep track of. she didnt need to make hera a cheater. she didnt need to have apollo, leto, thetis, etc there, and it goes on. like she questions who made her write this? look in the mirror!

-----FP Spoilers/Mention-----

10. FP mention

It really annoys me that it looks like Persephone's only concern about her SA is "Will Hades still love me even if I'm damaged? 🥺🥺”

I know that we saw her being disstressed about being pregnant because of her SA and that she said that she doesn't feel comfortable being around him but all that is just mentioned when she's around Apollo or he's mentioned somehow, we never see her feeling bad about her body as she says, nor we see her having bad days she's always happy and almost sexually available for Hades and it's never brought up unless it's for ✨the drama✨ or making Hades look like a "perfect man" for respecting her boundaries (that's just the bare minimun jfc) or just to make Hades and Persephone closer

Like jfc she was talking about her trauma and how she feels about Apollo and suddenly there's a joke about Hades wanting to kill him and then Helios appears and there's unfunny jokes about it?? Same vibe as Persephone talking about her nymphs friends death in the same episode where there's a fart joke and that "oops a maybe-underage-Perse is naked!!! So funny" scene

11. fp// no offense but rachel seriously going with leto is the cause of apollo's sexual assaulting ways was legit such a stupid and cruel idea that i thought "no, surely rachel wouldnt stoop that low to try and get out of her bad writing choices" and yet??? someone pray for her editor, they need it.

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

AIGHT Y’ALL I wasn’t tagged but I’m doing this anyways because f u c k  i t

It's the year 2021 and you're obsessed with The Karate Kid. How are you feeling?

Deadasss weird as fuck, my dude. Like...out of all the things I could’ve predicted happening in our lord’s year 2021, it definitely was NOT getting hyperfixated on a hammy gay ship with a punk and a nerd from a goddamn karate soap opera. And yet...here we are??? I will never understand hyperfixations, my guy. But I’ve met a lot of really cool people in this fandom, so I can’t really complain.

Did you grow up with TKK or are you new to the series?

I have never seen a single Karate Kid movie in my entire life. When I was a kid, it looked kinda dumb so I never got into it XD But then I saw my roommate watching Cobra Kai on Youtube Red one day (he has every streaming service known to man) and I was hooked. And...here I am!

We gotta do the basics. Favorite character:  

Literally EVERYONE except for Kreese, Yasmine, Kyler, and Tory, sorry stans

Okay but if we gotta pick, Johnny Lawrence is my Problematic Fave. Also I love my boy Daniel, he’s trying his best!!! And Amanda LaRusso, we stan a queen!!!

Among the kids, definitely Miguel, with Demetri as a close second. I also love Sam, Aisha, Moon, and Hawk (pre- and post-Bastardization Arc, anyways XD)!

Favorite ship:  

Take a look at my username and take a WILD FUCKING GUESS lmao Yes it’s Eli/Demetri because DUH, every interaction they have is so fucking gay and Eli fucking saved him!!! And came back to him!!! And betrayed the world’s most terrifying dojo with a WAR CRIMINAL SENSEI all for Demetri!!! And how Demetri was willing to forgive him for everything at the drop of a hat because he always had faith there was still good in his best friend??? That’s TRUE LOVE motherfuckers. Please let them kiss in Season 4. I will sell you all of my limbs. Sam/Miguel is a close second because they’re cute as shit and it’s just so lovely to see two people so unapologetically smitten with each other. They are in LOVE, and I will RIOT if they break up again!!! Keep Sam and Miguel together 2k21!!!

Underrated character:

SAMANTHA LARUSSO!!! The amount of hate my girl gets for acting like a normal teenager and fucking up occasionally JUST like the rest of the cast makes me want to start punching things. She cares SO MUCH about her friends!!! And she loves the shit out of Miguel!!! She hasn’t always been the best friend but you know what??? Neither has Hawk, and we still forgave his ass!!! Also LET HER BE FEMININE but also kick utter ass, my god!!! Femininity should not be synonymous with being weak, y’all! ALSO DEMETRI, like yes, he likes to complain and occasionally run his mouth, but guess what else he likes to do??? Never give up on the love of his life his best friend Eli Moskowitz and refuse to lose faith in him no matter how much of a little shit he’s become, and I for one think that’s very badass of him. Also the way he takes care of Eli pre-Cobra Kai in his own snarky bastard way makes me absolutely Weak and needs more appreciation. Like the dude has charisma and COULD have probably made other friends and left Eli behind if he wanted, but did he??? No, he wants the weepy loser with the lip scar in the polo shirts and dorky sweaters and will protect him as much as his wimpy ass is able!!!

Underrated ship (don’t say therapy, lol):  

Among the adults, Daniel/Amanda!!! Like maybe I just don’t watch that much tv, but it seems kinda rare to me to see a happily married hetero couple, and it’s just nice to see a married couple who genuinely love each other and where there’s not like...lingering resentment or some shit. I feel like this ship gets overshadowed by Lawrusso a lot (which like--okay, fair!!! Daniel and Johnny do have a ridiculous amount of chemistry, and the gay undertones are undeniable, so I get it), and it makes me kinda sad. I do love Lawrusso, but I don’t like when Amanda has to get her heart broke for it to happen, you feel? Among the kids, honestly YasMoon. Like I really love the idea of Yasmine trying to better herself because of Moon’s influence on her and because Moon like...inspires her to be a better person, I guess? With their pretty strong friendship, it just makes more sense to me for Yasmine to get a redemption arc through Moon than through Demetri. ALSO girls DO often pull the whole “mean girl” shtick to cover up being closeted lesbians, and Moon IS canonically bi, so it could work!!! I just think this one could be a really interesting Friends to Lovers take, and could make a really nice coming-out arc for Yas. And MoonPiper too, honestly!!! Like they only got 5 seconds of screentime so I understand WHY it’s underrated, but I still love what we DID get and loved that there was a canon gay ship (even if only for 1 scene lmao). I’m really excited to potentially see more of them in Season 4!!! Please, I’m begging!!!

Wax On, Wax Off or Sweep the Leg?

Sweep the Leg because it will always be deeply hilarious to me how Demetri took note of the first move Eli ever used on him and spent presumably weeks perfecting it OUT OF SPITE just to get him back with it at the soccer game MONTHS later. Just goes to show how OBSESSED Demetri is with Eli and their little karate rivalry which is just NOT straight, I’m sorry

Which of Daniel’s dumb little outfits is your favorite?

There’s something so funny about this pretentious little fuck walking around in fancy suits once he becomes a #SuccessfulBusinessman, and still occasionally trying to do karate in a full-ass suit (take THAT, Tom Cole’s boba!!!) I’m also a big fan of how he looks in his gi with his little headband. Still killing that look as a 40-50-something!!!

Character from the films you most want to return, who’s not Terry Silver:

Tbh I have still never seen a single Karate Kid movie (they took them off of Netflix, RIP), so...I don’t really care if they bring anyone else back??? I’m invested in the characters we already have in the show, I don’t need some rando from the movies to make a cameo to have a good time XD The only character I really wanted them to bring back was Ali, and they already did, so like...I’m good??? That’s all I really needed, I can die in peace now XD

Scene that lives in your head rent-free:

Basically any fluffy Elimetri scene, but 5 in particular: ~Miguel first meeting Eli and Demetri at the lunch table, and Eli looking at Demetri like he hung every goddamn star in the sky ~Demetri going off at a terrifying, “unhinged” karate sensei on the first day of Cobra Kai because he made fun of Eli’s lip and Demetri is not about that shit ~ELI STEALING DEMETRI’S NACHO AND SMIRKING AT HIM, LIKE EXCUSE ME SIR PLEASE BE A LITTLE LESS HOMOSEXUAL IN FRONT OF YOUR GIRLFRIEND ~Eli yanking Demetri onstage during Valley Fest to hold a board, and Demetri being visibly like...extremely turned on when Eli breaks said board ~ELI SAVING DEMETRI DURING THE CHRISTMAS FIGHT, ELI APOLOGIZING, DEMETRI AND ELI KICKING COBRA ASS TOGETHER AKSBDCUWYVCBU

Will Anthony LaRusso ever be relevant?

I hope not! He’s kind of a funny meme character to pop up now and again but I don’t think he deserves a serious plotline when there are so many more interesting characters to follow.

You live in The Valley and are forced into the karate gang war. Which dojo do you join?

Miyagi-Do because Cobra Kai would eat me alive. Also I’d probably straight up get stuck and die in that cement mixer, if I even made it that far XD Besides, being salty that your friend who you have a crush on likes martial arts better than you and starting martial arts to impress them but also being too lazy to join anything TOO intense is a Big Mood and I am certainly not speaking from personal experience here, no sirree

What’s your training montage song?

"Shut Up and Drive” by Rihanna for a weight-training and bicep-flexing montage, “Whatever It Takes” by Imagine Dragons for a more intense punching-and-kicking-shit montage. I don’t know why this is, I just feel it in my heart.

It’s the crossover event of the century! Which TV show are you combining with Cobra Kai for an hour-long Saturday night special?

*Briefly panics because I don’t actually watch that much TV and most of the stuff I do watch is fantasy/sci fi shit that absolutely would not work for a CK crossover*

Hmmmm okay but ACTUALLY

You know what would be fucking funny as hell would be an It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia crossover. Allow me to elaborate: ~The Gang goes to LA on vacation during the height of the Karate Dojo Wars. They literally can get barely anything done without all these goddamn karate-fighting teenagers getting in the way. ~They are all very annoyed by this. Even the most obscure of tourist attractions is eventually intercepted by karate fights. ~Mac tries to join Cobra Kai because he sees all this karate fighting on, and wants to unquestionably prove both his badassery and masculinity. Both Johnny and Kreese are like “Wtf are you doing here? Aren’t you like 30?” ~Mac gets a planet-sized crush on Johnny after all of 5 minutes and endlessly gushes to the gang about him. The gang mercilessly roast him about this and about how much of a pathetic loser with his life together in no way whatsoever Johnny sounds like. They proceed to have exactly 0 self awareness about this. ~The Waitress is in town visiting family or something, and Charlie is stalking her, as per usual. However, every time he’s about to go up and talk to her, a pack of battling Miyagi-Dos and Cobra Kais throwing punches and kicks everywhere blocks his path. One times, Mac is among one of these packs and Charlie is like “???? He didn’t get kicked out of that teen karate dojo yet???” ~Seeing how much the Kids These Days seem to like fighting, Charlie drops by a local high school to try and sell Fight Milk to the kids doing karate. Only Kyler and Brucks buy into it, and subsequently get the entire West Valley High wrestling team sick. Charlie is inevitably arrested, as Counselor Blatt thinks he’s selling the kids drugs. ~Dennis makes a plan to have sex with every hot chick he can in Los Angeles. He meets Ali on a dating app post-divorce, and inevitably tries to bang her. It doesn’t work. ~Frank crashes the rental car, and inevitably the gang ends up at one of Daniel’s dealerships. Dee quickly takes a liking to Daniel and is like “Watch, assholes--Imma homewreck this guy’s marriage.” She starts frequenting the dealerships to attempt to flirt with Daniel, until one day she walks in on him having sex with Johnny in a back room and she’s like “Is that the guy from Mac’s goddamn dojo?!?!” ~Dennis, of course, tries to sleep with Amanda. Amanda is not having it, and rebukes him in the most snarky, Amanda-esque way possible. Dennis is just like “Oh not AGAIN--the women in this goddamn diva city have too high of standards!” ~Later on, the gang is at the beach and Dennis spots the blonde lady he went out on an ill-fate date with, and decides to give it another shot--that is, until he sees her go up and kiss another woman and he’s like “IS THAT THE LADY FROM THE CAR DEALERSHIP??? STUPID-KARATE-KICK-COMMERCIAL’S WIFE?!? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.” ~Dee complains to Dennis about her lack of luck getting laid, and Dennis is just like “Oh come ON, is everyone in Los Angeles gay???” Smash cut to Hawk and Demetri having sex, Moon and Piper making out, Bert and Nate holding hands, Chris and Mitch doing oral, and Amanda, Ali, and Carmen having a threesome. ~Frank tries to scam Kreese into buying cheaply-made karate equipment for his dojo. The gang ends up having to leave LA because Kreese is quite literally plotting all of their murders.

For tagging, uuuuhhhhhh @jackonthelongwalk @soe-leo @max-eagle-fang @cc-tinslebee @backawayfromthegay @asphodel-storm do the thing, if y’all haven’t yet!

[binbrookfairqueen]

The Homoerotic Subtext In Victorious: Jade and Tori

I’ve done a lot of nothing during quarantine. The same old same old, wake up at noon, eat something, find the homoerotic subtext in every straight film/show/video game I come across. Isn’t that how we all spend our afternoons? 

It started with Taylor Swift, and the wlw undertones in all of her newest songs. Despite being in a long term relationship with a man, she penned lyrics like “those days turned into nights, slept next to her, but I dreamt of you all summer long” and “what would he do if he found us out? he’s gonna burn this house to the ground,” So of course I went from hating on all of this straight media, to searching for queer scraps in the background of these art pieces. From the new summer Disney flick, Luca, to the characters in my newest copy of Red Dead Redemption 2 on Xbox One. 

I always loved Victorious, it’s been one of my favorite shows since I was a child. The strange humor, the funny remarks. Always wondering why I liked the sassy, demanding Jade instead of the swoon-worthy womanizer Beck.

So, in quarantine, when I heard that Victorious was coming to Netflix, I re watched the entire show and couldn’t help but notice all of the queer innuendos, and rather flirty scenes between female actors. Of course- I’m not the first person to ever notice this. The homoerotic implied relationship between Tori Vega and Jade West had been shipped plenty of times and edited to oblivion by young, gay teens.

Since this is all news to me, I thought I’d go through every episode of Victorious and tell you what is gay about it, from a lesbian’s point of view. 

Pilot

I never noticed how queer coded Victorious is, especially this very first episode. The sexual tension between the girls is almost too much, I have to drink some water every few minutes.

It’s clear to me that Jade is taking advantage of new girl Tori, and trying to establish her superiority because of her own fears and insecurities.

[Tori bumps into Beck, spilling coffee all over him] Tori: Oh my gosh! Beck: Ah, it’s cool Tori: No, here- I think it’s coming out. [Tori attempts to rub the coffee stain out of Beck’s shirt] Beck: You might be making it worse, actually. [Jade enters] Jade: Dude, why are you rubbing my boyfriend? Tori: I-I just spilled coffee on- Jade: Get away from him. Beck: Relax. [Beck kisses a reluctant Jade on the cheek]

Our very first introduction to Jade West is her making sure everybody knows Beck is her boyfriend. Multiple times throughout the episode, she cuddles up to him, picks him as her partner, and kisses him in front of the whole class. There’s a straight explanation to this, but there’s also a queer one. Jade is insecure in her attraction to girls and feels as though she needs to prove herself and everyone else that she does, in fact, like men.

Sikowitz: Jade, you will captain the first group of the day. Choose your actors. Jade: Cat, Eli, Beck, and Tori. Tori, why don’t you go wait in the hall? Tori: Uh, okay. Jade: I have great news that’ll cheer up this whole family. I went to the animal shelter and got us a dog. [Pulls Tori into the classroom by the arm] Tori: Uh, yep! I’m the new family dog. Woof. Jade: Uh oh, looks like this dog has bugs in her fur. [Jade strokes Tori’s hair] Tori: Uh, woof? Jade: Oh, it’s okay! I read on the internet that coffee works great for getting rid of fur bugs. Beck: Maybe you shouldn’t- Andre: Jade- [Jade dramatically pours the coffee on Tori’s head] Jade: What’s the prob, dog? [Tori runs out of the room, contemplating quitting Hollywood Arts]

Jade not only wants everyone to know that she’s straight, but she also wants everyone to know that she possesses a dominant personality, and isn’t afraid to get dirty. In this case, she does all that she can to make Tori’s day a living hell, all because she touched her boyfriend.

I don’t recall this as normal straight girlfriend behavior, there’s gotta be a fear of being outed rooted down deep in Jade’s bones- right?

The episode leads to a scene whereas the two girls are arguing, and there are only a few notable lines:

Jade: Just where did you come from? Tori: Kangaroos. Jade: Lousy animals, Kangaroos, they're awkward and dirty. Tori: Maybe they learned from you. [The classroom tenses, the girls getting more and more angry] Jade: No one talks to me like that. Tori: Obviously someone should. Jade: Please run in front of a bus! Tori: Quite obnoxious of you to say.

Jade: Really? Tori: Sure was.

Jade: Thanks. [Sarcastically]

Scenes get tense as the girls grow closer to each other, getting more and more upset.

But it’s also a lot like playing cat and mouse.

Day 1, Jade picks Tori for her team, day 2, Tori picks Jade for her team just to spite her. The submissive trying to declare dominance, whilst the real dom notices the attention seeking. When Jade says that no one speaks to her like that, and Tori proceeds to comment that someone should, a sexual tension is cast into the air. It’s obvious to any viewer. 

The condescending flirtatious “Really?” Followed up by the bold “Sure was.” Is very queer coded. No one talks like that to someone they don’t find attractive. C’mon.

Author’s Conclusion: Jade feels the need to be angry and rude to anyone who threatens her heterosexuality. She possesses a fear of being outed, and does whatever she can to maintain a normal relationship with a man. But even her attraction to girls and her dominant personality can’t hide, as her actions reveal the closet to be made of glass.

Tori Goes Platinum

Tori: “Everyone else was coming to cheer you on, so... Figured I would, too. And you look way better in that than I would have.”

Jade: “This isn’t right. This was supposed to be your night. I can’t do that to a friend.”

- Jade is the most concerned person in the room when Tori begins acting differently after landing a gig at the Platinum Music Awards. Leading a class wide discussion, Jade discusses Tori’s change in behavior and provides her own evidence and proof to back up her statements. When Tori enters the classroom, Jade confronts her without hesitation, and seems to be the only person who cares enough about the pop stars well being. (Authors note: Only someone who truly cared about another would notice when they’re acting different and confront them to try and fix the problem...)

- When Tori refuses to wear the ridiculous outfits the record label provides, her opportunity to perform at the Platinum Music Awards is stripped away. Jade is asked to fill her place, and despite saying yes, she hesitates for a moment. These matter of seconds prove Jade has some kind of moral in her mind telling her that doing this would hurt Tori, and hurt their relationship.

- Beck and Tori don’t realize that they are still on video call with Jade, and the two almost kiss. Tori backs away, the following conversation takes place.

Beck: “Then why can’t we kiss?”

Tori: “Kissing your friends ex boyfriend...”

Beck: “Since when are you and Jade friends?”

Tori: “We’re kind of friends, I think. And kissing her ex boyfriend... I can’t do that to a friend.”

Despite the overuse of the word friend, this is still a sweet moment, and when Jade overhears this exchange, she realizes taking this opportunity away from Tori isn’t the right thing to do.

- 

[vanaera]

Daffodil Rings

Synopsis | In a world where the red-string-of-fate tale has been proven true by science, each scientific journal has been up to date with every new-found “soulmate system,” and everyone out there has been in their never-ending search for their soulmates, there stands one bug in the system: You. You don’t believe in the absoluteness of the soulmate phenomenon, nor the too-perfect-to-work-out soulmate systems, arguing each and every bit of them are for everyone but you. With 17 years of defiance against such natural occurrence, you did not expect you will be literally swept off your feet by your soulmate on some ordinary Thursday into the wildest night of your life. Everything only goes downhill when you learn that “soulmate” of yours happens to be Park Jimin, the singer from the worldwide famous boy group BTS, you have embarrassingly crushed on for six years.

Characters | idol!Jimin x law student, part-time florist!you (soulmate au proven by science; strangers to lovers trope)

Genres | Fluff, angst, implied smut

Wordcount | 22.3k (I’m sorry)

Playlist | I was Made for Loving You by Tori Kelly ft. Ed Sheeran

Cross posted on | AO3

A/N | Hi everyone! Friendly reminder that everything in this story is fictional and has no intended connection with actual individuals and groups involved in this story. I just felt the need to remind you all ;)  

                 You always loved arguing. Whether it be about politics, philosophy, human rights issues, science advances, or if pineapples really do belong in pizza (which you agree with) – the topic doesn’t matter because you found it always necessary to go against the current. For check and balance, you insist. You don’t want to admit that “hobby” of yours was almost pathological.

               You tell people it started from a time you were five and went around your neighborhood. Your mother told you to get outside your introverted shell and talk with the kids of your age. However, instead of striking friendships, you started arguments, arguing person after person on the littlest of things–from the notion that ocean sunfishes are the stupidest animals to exist, to the fallacy behind ‘blood is thicker than water’.  Unlike your mother’s expectations, you earned angry snarls and glares to the point she was almost bothered by the stinging stares of anyone who will pass by your house. “Almost” is the keyword, because as soon as local debates were announced in your community centers, you became the most sought-out consultant of every single contestant. Times now seemed short of instances people can prove what they’re ideas are worth. Anyway, your mother forbade you to enter the contest because you were too young to join at that time (“Goodness, you’re just five!”). And because Mrs. Thornbow, your third grade English teacher and adviser, was not impressed of your carefree negligence of school rules, especially regarding proper attires. You guessed your teacher warned your mother of letting you participate in debates in your notorious black slacks, the one you always wear in school instead of your red plaid skirt, in case you get too “out of hand” again in school.

               Unlike the story you told everyone, the real origin of your almost-sick hobby has to do with the red string of fate. The invisible, indestructible string created by fate which ties two people together, two soulmates, for the rest of their lives. Generations upon generations were expecting to be paired with a person made by the heavens just for them. Even more, most relationships, marriages, and families are the fruits of this system. Thus, it will be unnatural for anyone to go against such destiny.

                The soulmate phenomenon was an inexplicable truth and people explained such phenomenon through the myth of these red strings, until 1986 when Professor Vandikes and Doctor Weber discovered biological evidences of the soulmate phenomenon. The two found extraneous neural interconnections of two “soulmates” through neuroimaging. Vandikes and Weber discovered that thoughts can be transmitted back and forth between the soulmates because of their identically coordinated neural activities. Even more, the soulmates simultaneously produced similar accurate results even when they’re living in two different countries.

               As soon as Vandikes and Weber’s study hit the news, everyone was automatically convinced in this soulmate science. It even prompted researchers to investigate every single existing soulmate systems. No wonder everyone accepted the soulmate phenomenon as an unarguable truth, an unbreakable tradition, and even as absurd as a purpose in life. Of course, everyone except you.    

               You didn’t believe in fate dictating who you should love when you already have enough of the society telling you who you should be. Science has proven fate is capable of planning someone to be awfully compatible with you but, it does not ensure it will always work.  Your existence was enough of a proof.

               You do not have any existing soulmate system countl. There is no “soulname” on your wrist, a permanent, inborn tattoo of the name of your soulmate, the very soulmate system your mother and father has. You do not feel any kind of “soulbond,” the emotional transparency system between two soulmates, nor do you see any “soul-art” decorating your body, a system of identical, dull tattoos, which only turn vibrant at the touch of a soulmate. You already see the world in color since you were born, unlike your playmate Jung Seolhee. She said she has “soul-vision��� as her soulmate system that’s why she sees the world in black and white until her soulmate comes and enters her field of vision. And, you most definitely do not have any thoughts, other than yours, rambling in your mind as you grow up unlike what Vandikes and Weber claim in the rare soulmate system, “soul connection”.

               In short, the soulmate phenomenon did not include you into their equation. Hence, at sixteen, you’re adamant about your disagreement with this red-string-of-fate bullshit–a sentiment you nurtured since you’re five–when everyone of your age has already set out to travel the world to find their soulmates. You decided you won’t base your life on what fate has dictated.  You will create your own path, your own life, and your own destiny. Cures for numerous illnesses have been discovered yet their effectivity for every single person are not identically applicable. The soulmate phenomenon excluded you and it most probably happened so because it’s not for you.

               You love arguing, most especially when it comes to the soulmate phenomenon. Your 17-year-defiance is enough of a solid proof and such experience warranted you enough skills not only to graduate college as the top of the class, but also to pursue law school. You just didn’t imagine your longest duration of arguing will not be against a competent lawyer inside the court, but against a stranger you met in a hole-in-the-wall bar, who unknowingly becomes your greatest misfortune of your night.

               It all started at ten o’clock, fifth of September 2019, in Marti’s Hub, a small bar you always frequent when you’re in need of intoxicating liquids. You never thought anything aberrant will happen as two hours prior, you were just mourning over the disappointing results of your Law 114 essay with some drinks with your bestfriend Lucy.

               “C’mon, Y/N, let’s dance! Stop being such a party pooper!” you feel Lucy’s insistent pull on the sleeve of your jacket and you glared at her before putting your drink down on the table.

               Actually, two hours prior to that dreadful ten o’clock, you were mulling over your Law 114 essay while Lucy is mulling about the probability of her soulmate appearing in the bar. And as much as you totally love arguing, there is only one exception to your uncontrollable hobby: you hate doing it with your bestfriend.

               Lucy Kim has been with you since you’re an intolerable ten-year-old in elementary and for the longest time your friendship lasted, it isn’t hard to tell the girl was a sensitive bunch. You remember her fat ugly tears in senior high when Peter Lee, the local asshole, told her her braids look dumb. Like every other friends, you’ve had fights here and there. Everytime you argued with her, you hated yourself a bit for making her feel bad and you feel much worse when you have to apologize and see her tear-streaked face. It’s ironic how you’re this soft for Lucy when you didn’t bat a damn eyelash at your mother whenever she complains you’re the frequent source of her headaches. In your defense, Lucy understood your anomalous hobby as your second nature far better than your mother could.

               However for tonight, you’re gonna cross the line and disregard the exception you reserved for your bestfriend.

               “Lucy, I told you I came here to drink. Not dance.” You picked the lime on the plate and took a bite.  Your fingers enclose firmly on your glass before your friend could attempt to take you away again. “Plus, I just agreed to tag you along because you told me you want to cry over your fruitless job hunt. I did not agree to accompany you to hunt for your soulmate tonight, which is what you’re doing right now.” You look pointedly at her.

               “Well,” Lucy drawls, rubbing her arm, “you can’t blame me. I’ve already searched our entire neighborhood, my hometown, and even my old university and still I can barely see any Michael Hudson coming my way.” Your eyes caught how she grazes her fingers on the soulname marked on her right wrist. You tried to sympathize with her but still-

               “That does not justify why you’re asking me to accompany you to the dance floor.”

               Your remark is returned with a scathing look from your friend. “Are you not listening to me? I told you I already searched the entire city! And you’ve always accompanied me in every single soulmate hunt! Plus, you didn’t have any qualms yesterday when you and I started to search in nightclubs. It won’t hurt for another try tonight.” You turn away, silent in the truth of what she said. Lucy huffs, “Also, a Michael Hudson sounds someone that usually goes to nightclubs.”

               “It does not,” you mutter, taking another swig from your drink.

               “Uh yeah?” Lucy’s frown deepens, eyes turning into slits as she glares at you like you’re an imbecile. Hypothetically, you are one based on your non-impressive streak in your law essays but that’s beside the incredulity of the things your bestfriend is spouting. Whether she understood the disinterest painted in your whole face or not, she continues on, “I already met lots of Michael’s yesterday and I just met two ‘bout 20 minutes ago. My Michael Hudson may actually be here.”

               You placed down your drink on the bar to stare at your friend. “Lucy, your argument is a false causation. Look,” you sigh, “a bar is not an ideal place to find true love. In this generation, it is more likely you’ll meet an asshole Michael in here instead of your prince charming Michael.” You grimace but you continue on, “Your Michael Hudson may be having some coffee right now in a sophisticated café while some ‘Michael’ here turns out to be a jerk who just wants to get into your pants. Why don’t we just go home, yeah? I’m already finished with my drink and I don’t want to drag your drunk ass back to your home again.”

               “Y/N, you don’t understand,” Lucy groans. “I feel he’s here right now. I can’t just go up and leave without trying. My guts are telling me to stay. It’s a soulmate thing!” You scrunch your face in a disgusted cringe. Lucy narrows her eyes. “See? You’re just saying these stuff because of your prejudice against the soulmate phenomenon.”

               “It’s not a prejudice. What I believe is true–”

               “Doesn’t matter. Look,” Lucy sighs, “If you want to go home, you can go. I’ll stay here and take my chances.” She doesn’t wait for your reply and turns around to head for the dance floor.

               A heavy rock settles on your chest. You don’t like arguing with your bestfriend especially when it comes to this soulmate thing where your views are in absolute disagreement with hers. You don’t like to come off as a bitter, unsupportive friend who ruins everyone’s mood with their cynicism. But sometimes, you can’t help but say a thing or two to wake Lucy up from her fantasies. After toxic relationships with already three Michael Hudsons in your university, you figured Lucy is annoyingly naïve for outright jumping in a relationship with anyone who has the same name as the words inked on her wrist.  You’ve already picked up broken piece after broken piece of herself from relationships after relationships, helping her stand on her feet again and again. You’ve always been by her side to not let her stay far too up in the clouds, balancing her happy-go-lucky spirit with your boring seriousness to help her grounded to reality. That’s why you can’t ignore the thorns pricking your chest when she dismisses your advice so easily as if she never learned anything from her hopeless romance just a week ago.

               You bite your lip and decide to have some soda. You’re not yet leaving but you most definitely won’t wait for her to go home with you. You just have to soften the heavy walls building on your chest so you won’t sleep tonight crying. You hate doing that.

               Another glass of soda and a plate of lime later, ten minutes have passed with just you indulging on a combo you know will be frowned upon by other bar patrons. Ten minutes of doing just that is also enough for you to notice the man in a navy button-down by your left was now a little too close to you. You saw him seated on the far left of the bar, about three feet from you prior to your argument with Lucy. He was ducked on the table, shoulders hunched, which guaranteed you no opportunity to assess his face before. Now, he’s by your side, elbow brushing against your jacket and back straightened enough to see a cringe-worthy smile he’s sending your way. You don’t manage to make out his whole face though because his disheveled brown locks were covering about half of his face. You take your focus back on your plate. Your grasp on your glass tightens. There’s no need to panic. Maybe the stranger transferred seats because your spot has closer proximity to the shelves where the bartender is situated. Maybe he’s sober and you’re just making this whole situation blow out of proportion in your head. Maybe–

               “Hi, doll. You seem tense. Wanna come over to my place to loosen up?” His breath against the shell of your ear makes the hair on your neck rise. Your shoulders stiffen and you gulp. You could feel a ghost of a hand looming on the exposed skin from your ripped jeans. Warning bells wail in your head.

               “I’m not interested,” you mutter between gritted teeth. You don’t look his way as you swat his hand away that was about to rest on your knee. You don’t want to make a scene when you’re about to finish your drink and leave this hole of a bar. You’ve had enough drama for the night already.

               However, the man seems to turn deaf because he smiles at you again. “Oh, don’t play hard to get now, doll. I know you want it. You’ve been staring at me earlier.” His alcohol-stained breath fans against your face and despite what you said earlier, he places his hand on your knee, grazes your clothed skin, and then gropes the swell of your thigh.

               Motherfucking hell–

               “Hey, man, can you please take your hands off my girl.”

               A voice from another stranger blares behind you and you freeze in your spot. What the fuck, now you have another gross man to deal with?! You grunt in annoyance and whipped your head to the side to finally yell the fuck out to these creeps. Social conventions be damned. You’re gonna make a scene.  However, the man behind you holds you on the curve of your shoulders, not too tight to hurt yet not loose enough for you to turn in your seat. You furrow your brows, bewildered. You lean away slightly to get a glimpse of this man’s face but it didn’t do much because his bleached blonde fringe is almost covering his eyes and a midnight black mask was pulled over the lower half of his face. Now you’re just terribly confused. Is he a wanted criminal to cover up almost majority of his face or is he severely ill with something much worse than the common cold? You don’t know whether to trust this man or be wary of him.

               “I don’t know man,” the drunk creep slurs, hand still poised too comfortably on your thigh. You wriggle in your seat but the man keeps his hold on you firm.  The stranger smirks at you, then to the stranger behind you. “From what I know, this girl is my chic. Go find your own, dickhead.”

               What the absolute fucking shit–You found your rage already growing the best of you and you swat his hand repeatedly but the man grips your thigh even tighter. You open your mouth to scream at the the drunk out of mixed pain, anger, and frustration–but the guy behind your back beats you to it again.

               “Look, man. Take your fucking hands off my girl before I call the cops. She’s my soulmate.”

               At the mention of ‘soulmate,’ the drunk man lets go of your thigh as if his hands were burned. He raises both arms to show he’s not touching any part of you anymore and before you could say something back at him–to redeem yourself and at least roast him into his next life–the guy behind you has already grabbed you by your shoulders, taking you in tow as he walks in fast, short steps towards the exit of the bar.

               The chilling wind of September slaps you in the face and even if you’re still shaken up from the whole deal earlier, you still have your brain on your head to make out the dark interior of the semi-vacant parking lot of the bar. Another set of warning bells blare inside your mind and you thrash your arms around, never caring who you’ll hit or if you’ll be hit, just to break free from the hold of the stranger. You’re not going to get kidnapped after being just indecently hitted on! The man instantly lets you go but it doesn’t put him in any good light for you not to turn around and raise an accusatory finger at him.

               “YOU! Just who do you think you are to hold and take me out here?! Who–”

               The man pulls down his black mask and immediately, words die in your throat.  It’s his drooped eyelids and warm brown eyes that hits you first, then it’s the small slope of his nose and the soft curves of his full, pink lips. Your eyes fleet toward the side of his face and goddamn, the long silver earrings dangling on his pierced ears were the same ones you were ogling at an online article you were reading yesterday.

               Your eyes widen and your jaw falls open in shock. “You-you-you’re–”

               Some random stranger was grabbing you by the shoulders earlier and now in front of you is fucking Park Jimin. Park Jimin, vocalist and dancer of BTS, the biggest boy band in the world who sang tracks upon tracks that earned the greatest number of music show awards in history. Park Jimin, member of BTS who performs in sold-out concerts in countless stadiums around the world. Park Jimin, the famed contemporary dancer from Busan, the beautiful man whose full lips and gentle eyes you’ve continuously written about in countless fanfictions since you started stanning BTS. Park Jimin, the person who may or maybe not have been your ultimate celebrity crush and the object of your both innocent and not-so-innocent fantasies for six years now. Goddamn, is he Park Jimin, the boy you straightaway took a liking to ever since you saw him in his cringe-worthy snapback and No More Dream black jersey ensemble in BTS’ 2013 debut music video.

               Your jaw twitches. “Oh my–Oh my God. You-you–”

               “Wait, don’t panic!” Jimin reaches for your trembling fingers and then you feel it–the explosion. Blinding silvery fireworks seem to go off behind your eyes as hot white combustions fill your chest  for a millisecond before their aftereffects register in a series of numbing kaleidoscope of feelings running hot and wild. Your body is tingling, your chest is burning, and searing pain is engraving its way down your arm from where the man touched you. You immediately pull up the sleeves of your jacket and there you see it–tens, no, hundreds of vibrant, yellow daffodils growing an inked garden in astounding speed from a bloom that has looped around your left ring finger. The blooms spread towards your elbow, creeping even further up to your chest where you can see a bud already peeking out on the skin exposed from your low-cut white tee. Your mouth remains open in shock. You clasp your right hand on your newly-tattooed left arm only for you to mumble a faint “oh my god” when you see your right hand–and right arm–also inked with the same yellow flowers.

               Still hunched over, your eyes fleet towards the stranger–towards Park Jimin, and it was only then you manage to let out audible words again. “You’re-you’re–”

               “–your soulmate.”

               “–Park, Jimin.”

               Jimin smiles, “Oh, you know me already. This wasn’t so hard as I thought.”

               You don’t register what he said, still caught up on the instant sleeves you are now sporting and the outlandish word the man in front of you spouted. “My soulmate,” you trail off, voice softening into a little above a whisper, “my–my soulmate. Oh my god.”

               Unaware of the war going on in your mind, Jimin chuckles. “Yeah, I’m your soulmate. I already know. You don’t have to repeat it again and again. It’s true–”

               “Out of all people, why you?!”

               Jimin’s face falls. “Why? What’s wrong with me?”

               “I–you–ugh!” you throw your hands up and cover your face in hopeless dismay.

               Jimin is more confused than he has ever been in his whole life. “Hey, what do you mean? What’s wrong with me?”

               Your eyes peek out from your hands and you see the distance Jimin has closed between the two of you as now his beautiful, perfect face is practically shoved in front of you. A gunfire inside your head resounds and you blow up. “You! What’s wrong is that you’re Park Jimin! Manggae of BTS who sing in sold out concerts in every goddamn country and the youngest recipients of the Order of the Cultural Merit from South Korea and are now the biggest boyvband in the world!” You huff out, breathless. And then you pale. Oh my god, did you just word-vomited–

               “I didn’t know you know me that well,” Jimin giggles. “That’s great! We’re off to a good start!”

               Confusion flickers in your eyes for only a second before it turns into aggravation. “Why is this not bothering you?! You’re an idol!”

               Jimin nods, “Yeah, I’m an idol. And I’m also your soulmate.” He takes a step toward you and you take one back. Seeing the apprehension in your tensed form, he doesn’t push further and instead opts to place his hands in the pockets of his ink black leather jacket. “Don’t you know why I came just in time before that drunk jerk even tried to further push his sick plan?”

               You don’t answer him, still shaken up from everything that’s suddenly happening.

               Jimin just smiles. “I felt you’re near and you’re distressed and anxious. Soulbond, as people say. I went with my gut feeling and I proved it true when I saw you at the bar with that man. It’s a soulmate thing. And oh, I also have this.” Jimin pulls up his sleeve and raises his left hand, flashing you his ring finger inked with a daffodil looped around it just as yours. His tattoo didn’t spread into a sleeve, hinted by the clear skin peeking from the seams of his leather jacket toward the rest of his hand. But still, his inked ring is undeniably a daffodil bloom just like yours. Jimin smirks, “I told you, I’m your soulmate.

               You could hear your heart pulsing loud against your ears and you could still feel your veins thrumming with the aftershocks of the explosions of stuff you don’t want to label anything that is already connected to the grinning boy in front of you. You open your mouth only for you to close it again. You cannot deny his statement when two full sleeves of tattooed flowers bloomed right in front both of your eyes. He’s your soulmate and that’s undeniable. However, a different chaos brews in your mind again when you remember that this man in front of you was very much the celebrity you have fawned over for the entire latter six years of your life. You must have weirded him out already when you blurted out the achievements of his group earlier. You cannot let yourself further creep him out by telling him you’ve always raved about him, dare even adored him way, way back then before this very night. Sure, you’ve never believed in this soulmate thing for 17 years of your life but it doesn’t mean you didn’t know about love nor experienced it. Your three ex-crushes under your belt and your six-long stable years of intense crushing on this boy in front of you (that even prompted you to write cheesy romance and dirty filth about him in your still-very-alive tumblr writing account) are enough to color your single-as-fuck-since-you-were-born life with enough joy and pain. But anyway, you can’t let him know everything about this. It’s too embarrassing. It will definitely make him run for the hills just like your three ex-crushes.

                You wouldn’t have to do all of this hassle in the first fucking place if Park Jimin is not your fucking soulmate. Goddamn it, you didn’t even imagine in your whole life you will actually fucking say that ridiculous “s” word.

               Frowning again, you storm off.

               Jimin laughs and joins you in your furious steps outside the parking lot.  

***

                Unlike your initial plan of running away, you didn’t know you will actually stay with Jimin into the night as he rambles about future date plans.

               Half past ten, the two of you are seated in Aunt Marie’s, a 24/7 retro-themed diner you frequent every finals week for late night dinners. Massive cheeseburgers are on your plates and Jimin is seated across you, sporting the mask you have seen on him earlier.

               You drop your utensils and sigh. “See? This won’t work. How the hell will we date if your face is always covered with that?”

               “I didn’t know you’re already thinking about dating me.” Jimin’s eyes sparkle as he sets his elbow on the table, cupping his face. “I’m liking this fast pace so far.”

               You didn’t know this man can easily evade your question by getting sidetracked like a pesky toddler. You purse your lips, unamused. “I’m not thinking about dating you. I’m just laying out a general probability for anyone who will date you. Don’t get ahead so fast, you don’t even know me.”

               “You know me.” Jimin shrugs. “At least that’s a headstart.” You glare at him and he laughs. Jimin continues, “We have lots of time to know each other. That’s why we’re here.”

               “Correction, we’re here because you told me you’re starving and this is the only near place I know that serves good food this late in the night.”

               “Which means we get to know each other,” Jimin repeats, smile turning into a grin. “I could have brought us to a place I know but you insisted going here, hence I learn tonight that you like eating at Aunt Marie’s.          Therefore, we are here to eat and also learn about each other. It is inevitable.” You sigh in defeat and Jimin smirks at his victory. “Also, I can eat, look.” He slices his burger, pulls down his mask and shoves a piece in his mouth, and then pulls up his mask on again. You can’t see his teasing smile but you could tell he’s already giggling because his cheeks grow rounder, making his eyes turn into crescent moons. Slicing another piece, Jimin says, “So, can I know more about you, Y/N?”

               Your mouth opens again like a blubbering fish. “Wait, how did you know my name? I haven’t told you my name yet.”

               For a second, you see his eyes widen but it passes like a blur when you find yourself starting to like the mischievous glint shining in his warm eyes. Jimin shrugs and answers, “It’s a soulmate thing.”

               You cringe and Jimin chortles. Okay, you take it back. You don’t like the mischievous glint if he does that while saying that ridiculous “s” word.  When his snickers die down, Jimin repeats his question, “So, can I now know more about you, Y/N?”

               You  dab your napkin on your lips and sigh for the nth time. “Well, everything about me is as plain as plain Jane can be. Name’s Y/N L/N, only child from a middle-class family. I had a quite nice childhood, playing here and there, making many…friends.” You can’t help but cringe at the word, quite unsure if you could ever tell your neighbors who consulted you during community debates were your friends. You want to make a good impression even if you weren’t still sold into this soulmate phenomenon. Unlike back then, you weren’t too fond of people seeing you less of what you are now. You pushed on, “Until middle school came and I learned how friendships work only if everyone gets to free-ride on projects and you carry the whole group.”

               Jimin snorts, “Who hurt you, Y/N?”

               “That asshole’s name is Kim Yeonjun. I still remember the cookie he stole from my lunchbox. Never gonna forgive him.” Your serious front breaks out into snickers and Jimin follows suit. “Anyway, I didn’t know my life will get more boring until high school came and our teachers taught us in detail about Vandikes and Weber’s soulmate science–”

               “Wait, this soulmate thing has a science behind it?” Jimin looks at you, eyes round.

               “Well, yeah,” you reply, brows scrunched. “Your teachers didn’t tell you about them? It was like the only thing any kid will actually remember from studying next to reading and writing.”

               “I don’t remember anything about such science. I studied in a performing arts school in Busan.”

               You look at him incredulous, “Impossible! It’s more likely you’ll know about the soulmate science before you even learn how to read. Parents already start the red string of fate bullshit as soon as their kid starts to speak gibberish. It’s impossible to leave out anyone from the soulmate science since everyone was raving about it–teens, adults, and even kids.”

               “Do you rave about it?”

               The furrows on your forehead deepen. “What? No!”

               “Well, that’s not everyone,” Jimin leans on his seat. “So, people like me who’ve never heard of such science are justified.”

               “Touché” you agree, “but that doesn’t mean you’ll get away without learning at least a two or thing about it because teachers start to teach soulmate science in basic sciences at the end of middle school.” You lean forward, eyes challenging his. “And everyone studies basic sciences in middle school. Heck, you even mentioned soulbond earlier. You’re just probably asleep when your teacher taught it in class.”

               “Okay, I surrender my fight,” Jimin mutters and you laugh.

               “So long story short, Vandikes and Weber first discovered  the biological proof of the soulmate phenomenon. They show how neural interconnections of two soulmates transmit info to each other at the same time even when they’re in two different countries. Which then means the soul connection and all other soulmate systems are scientifically accepted as a truth now than just some folklore.”

               “Wait, what’s the soul connection?”

               “It’s the soulmate system where two soulmates get to read or hear each other’s thoughts. It’s the phenomenon Vandikes and Weber witnessed while formulating their biological proof. Also, it’s rare. Only five couples were recorded to have that system. One of them was the participants of Vandikes and Weber’s study.”

               Jimin hums and you continue with your story, “Anyway, I was surrounded by screaming teenagers desperately looking for their soulmates and all that cringey stuff while I busy myself with studies because that’s the only thing I’m good at.”

               “And you’re busy loving pre-debut BTS.”

               You choke on your burger, eyes wide before you glare at him. How did he know? The guilt on your face must be evident because Jimin starts breaks into a laughing fit that other people (a couple of nightowl teens and couples) look at your way. In your defense, 2013 you didn’t know any better and just spent hours googling BTS and buying posters with each members’ faces on them (with always an extra poster of Jimin’s solo picture everytime you buy a bundle) instead of getting a social life. At least 2013 you were smart enough to realize you’re broke and you can’t afford to buy albums yet when you’re already struggling just to get your hands on required textbooks your teachers assign. You maintain your pointed look at him, refusing to admit to his very much true statement. You don’t want him to know even when the proof is right in your home–the posters you collected for three years, rolled up and still tucked in the corner of your closet. You never found it in yourself to dispose them even after every annual promise to throw them away.

               Jimin sniggers before he cues for you to continue on. “Sorry, it wasn’t funny.”

               “Anyway,” you stuff your face with the last piece of your burger and swallowed it, “I got high honors and got into my dream college. I realized next to studying, I was good at arguing–

               “–so true–”

               “–so I decided to go into law school.” You send Jimin another glare for his (very true) remark and he smiles. “So here I am now into my first year in law school, flunking every essay, and currently worth minimum wage.”

                 Jimin nods in interest, “Where do you work?”

               “Oh gee, I didn’t know you’re into asking occupations of your date like every other cliche dates.”

               You see Jimin’s eyes spark in interest and you regret what you just blurted out. “Oh, so you do see this as a date.”

               “Nooo,” you groan, heat already creeping up on your cheeks, almost like a wildfire. What the hell is happening to you? You always know how to control your word vomit; you’re never impulsive when it comes to speaking out. You’re a law student for Christ’s sake!

               “Don’t worry, I also see this as a date.” You could feel Jimin’s stare linger on your warm cheeks. You snug deeper into your jacket, wishing for the ground to break open and eat you up. Instead of further teasing you, Jimin repeats his question. “So, where do you work?”

               “At Petal Hill,” you mumble.  “It’s a flowershop two blocks away from my flat.”

               “Oh, a flowershop. Then, you must probably be knowledgeable of a lot of flowers.”

               “Yeah” you answer, a smile instantly tugging on your lips. “I get to recommend the best bouquets and sets to my customers, not to mention I have great grasp on the flower language to help them pick flowers they want to convey their messages through.”

               “Really?”

               “Yeah! I mean, I get to understand your confusing I Need You and Run music videos just with the two flowers used alone,” you blurt, thinking fondly of your Tumblr text-post, the only one that got you over 300 notes, where you wrote flower theories about BTS’ music videos. However, the moment you see Jimin gawking at what you said, it’s too late to undo what’s already let out in the open air.

               “Really? Oh my god, I never even knew the meaning behind those flowers. The directors just tell us to sit here, hold this or that, and do sad-emo-boi hours.”

               You stifle a giggle but it comes out unsuccessful when you break out into a huge grin, “You– what?”

               “Don’t get me wrong,” Jimin laughs, “We actually knew the plot of the music videos and internalized the characters assigned to us. But really, I never knew the flowers alone are a huge hint to the whole story.”

               “Well, my time to shine has finally arrived,” you grin, finding the need to stretch out your arms comically like how Tom does when he’s smug about catching Jerry. “The most iconic flower you guys used again and again is the white lily. Although the flower means rebirth, royalty, and purity with its delicate yet grand petals, they are often associated with funerals. White lilies symbolize the restored innocence the departed soul receives after death. That’s why the moment the music video flashes Seokjin’s character spreading six lily petals on the floor, I already knew either all your six characters or Seokjin’s, will die, before the video even reached to your guys’…sad-emo-boi hours.” Jimin nods in interest and you continue, “The Japanese version of the music video for I Need You was a large give-away since the large masses of flowers surrounding Seokjin, Taehyung, and Jungkook’s characters resemble like the clump of flowers thrown at a coffin being buried.” You gulp, “Anyway, going to the lighter side because I don’t want to dwell on such grim topics, the second flower you guys used that caught my eye was the blue rose.”

               “Oh yeah, that one!” Jimin eyes glimmer in recognition. “It was the only flower we used in the Run music video. What’s its meaning?”

               “Impossible love.” You said, lips forming a thin line. “Blue roses don’t occur in nature because roses do not have the specific gene to produce such color. Instead, they are made by placing blue dye into the bark of the roses’ roots. Since it’s impossible to produce blue roses naturally without artificial means, these roses mean impossible love. So when the video flashes the blue rose in the background of Yoongi and Jungkook’s characters fighting, it can be said their familial love for each other, as they were depicted like brothers in the videos, will be unable to mend the wreckage of their characters.”                

               “Wow, I didn’t know it’s possible to reach to such accurate perception with the flowers alone.”

               “Then are my theories true?” You lean forward.

               “Yeah, on Jungkook and Yoongi’s characters being brothers and their strained familial bond. Also with the connotation of the lilies, although,” Jimin leans forward, too, smirking, “I wouldn’t reveal to you who really died or didn’t in the music videos.”

               You scoff. “Wow, such torture. You’ve been keeping the fans in the shadows about the story far too long.”

               “Not my choice, blame Big Hit. The concept team just tells us anyway the plot when we have to shoot them so you can say I’m also in the dark” Jimin shrugs. “Also, I want to keep you on your toes, making theories and analyses. They interest me.  How did you easily connect the dots?”

               “I’m a part-time florist. And, I took English literature as my undergraduate study. The plot analyses and the story critiques we did really grew in me.”

               “Oh wow,” Jimin gasps, leaning back. “My god, I didn’t know you were so out of my league!”

               “What?” Out of his league? Is he fucking crazy? He’s the one across you who’s got millions of followers, followed everywhere by the media, known and loved in every country, not to mention, worth of millions of dollars. And you’re here, who’s got millions of bills to pay, followed by countless work and university deadlines, barely spared a glance from the people in your university and work, and you hate to mention again, worth minimum wage. Hell, you could tell Jimin’s face is glowingly beautiful even with his mask pulled on while you’re here, probably sporting a full oily face look. By all blatant circumstances, he’s the one who’s out of your league.

               At the sight of your frown, Jimin’s hands wave in front of you, trying to dismiss any misunderstanding. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way, I just–I didn’t know you’re such an intellectual. You read lots of books and do analyses and you’re so damn good in arguing. You always get me convinced. I haven’t done anything yet in our date but gawk and say ‘wow’ like a kid. I don’t…want to look stupid in front of you.”

               “You’re not.”

               “Huh?”

               You clear your throat. “You’re not stupid. And no, you didn’t just ‘gawk and say wow’ at me. You did a good job arguing with me earlier…about the ‘date.’ And that takes a lot because it looks like you’re having fun doing this friendly debate with me when people curse me for being so adamant in arguments.”

               “Why would they curse you? There’s nothing wrong in fighting for what you think is right.”

               You shrug, “They got nothing substantial to say so they resort to shaming you for what you know. Sick way of lifting yourself above others.  Anyway, why don’t you fire me some flower questions you have in mind? I’m in the mood to go all out in my flower-nerdiness today.”

               “Okay, so…what do you think is the best flower to give for your friends?”

               “Pink tulips are automatic to-gos. They mean ‘I care for you’ and also ‘good wishes’ so they’re also perfect for joyful gatherings. Pear blossoms also do the trick as they mean lasting friendship.” You glance upwards and hum before you return your eyes to Jimin, excitement thrumming in your nerves, “Oh, and Arborvitaes may not be popular but they’re the perfect flowers to give to a friend if you want to have ‘everlasting friendship.’”

               “Hmm, then what about the best one to give to your parents?”

               “Flowers of gratefulness are the top candidates. Campanulas, azaleas, and dark pink roses all mean gratitude and thankfulness.”

               “I’ll make sure to remember that next time I buy flowers for my mom,” Jimin smiles. “I always go for red roses every damn single time.”

               “It’s the classic. Can’t blame you though, it has the most generic message applicable to many kinds of relationships.”

               “Yeah, really?”

               “Yeah, they mean true love–True love for your friend, true love for your parent, or true love for your significant other. People usually use the connotation of “true love” for romantic relations when it’s actually applicable to familial bonds and friendships. After all, all of these relationships require truthfulness and love at the same time.”

               Jimin’s  mouth forms an o-shape. “Oh, I never really thought of that.”

               “Well now you know,” you grin.

               “Inked and stamped now, ma’am,” Jimin slaps his palm on his head and you giggle. At your laugh, Jimin smile grows bigger. “Okay, here’s another one: what flower is the best one to give to your mortal enemy?”

               “Are you insane? Who gives flowers to their mortal enemy?”

               Jimin shrugs. “Why not?”

               “Disregarding the money and time you’re wasting picking these flowers for such person,” you squint your eyes at him and Jimin laughs, “you should definitely go for foxgloves and orange lilies. They literally mean ‘Fuck you’ to the hardest core.”

               “‘Fuck you’ in what sense?” Jimin teases.

               You easily go along with it, mischief easily brewing inside your head. “They mean ‘fuck you’ as a curse, but if you mean the suggestive ‘fuck you’ then go for balsams. Though they may not be that arousing because they have these large, curving petals that look worn and limp, and you DON’T want to imply you’re like that flower.”

               Jimin guffaws, “Then why do they mean ‘fuck you’ if they’re not the least bit attractive?”

               “I don’t know, blame the Victorians who invented this floriography. Preferences change over time anyway so we can’t blame them for thinking balsams back then are ahhhsm.”

               You’re co-workers always found that joke dry and lame and yet in front of you, Jimin laughs as he holds his stomach, even finding the need for his other hand to slap the table again and again.  At this rate, he’s toning his abs from how hard he tries to keep his laughter not loud enough to disturb other customers. Despite the forming grin on your face, you found the need to say, “Okay, sorry that came out really, really suggestive.”

               “No, it’s okay,” Jimin assures. “I was the one who insinuated the suggestive themes anyway. I don’t mind at all.”

               “Me too,” you gulp. “It’s cool that we get to sit and chat like this without worrying about anything sexual.”

               “…Yeah, I agree,” Jimin tugs his shirt and clears his throat. “Anyway, what flower is the best one to give to your significant other? The most romantic one, the one that will instantly make your heart flutter?”

               “Well,” your fidget in your seat, “that depends on what the significant other likes. Flowers may hold different meanings but the preference for them still largely relies on the recipient.”

               “What do you like to receive?”

               You look at him, gaze questioning any ulterior intentions, any flirtatious comebacks he wants to blurt after possibly faking interest about such important topic. But when he tilts his head, waiting for your answer, you can’t help but blindly disregard your doubts and just answer his question. “I think pansies would be enough for me.”

               “Pansies?”

               “Yeah… They have these delicate, round petals and they’re resilient whether the sun beats too harsh on them or the winter almost freezes them to their roots. Whatever weather, whatever place they live in, they’ll always, always live. I guess that’s why they mean ‘You’re always in my mind.’ There’s nothing more infectious, more resilient, than any disease but a constant thought. That’s why I think being always in someone’s mind is a lot. To have a significant other that gets to see you, feel you, hear you, smell you, even taste you without them being aware of it is already akin to…love. You can’t control what passes through your mind, much less on what or who stays in it. But it doesn’t matter,” you laugh awkwardly, throat hurting in the process. “I’m not into receiving flowers. They’re over-the-top and they wilt and I just have to throw them away when they served all their worth.”

               “But what would you do if someone is willing to give you those pansies everyday, help you clean them away when they wilt, and assure you a new batch will make its way to you again?”

               “Then…I will accept it. Gifts are free and my labor will be lessened.”

               Jimin leans back, eyes shining. “I will make sure then to drop by in your shop and buy you a bouquet of those to make up for my lack of gifts for our date today.”

               You scoff at him. “You’re buying flowers right from my workplace to give to me? That’s not romantic.”

               “Wanna see me come over with a suit and tie, then?”

               “Oh my god, why are you like this?” you wail, palms covering your face. You’ve always adored Jimin’s unwavering determination in their reality shows, however, having him here in front of you showing you this stubbornness is something else. You don’t know whether to hit him or kiss him. Wait, what–

               “How about this then?” you feel Jimin’s fingers part your hands away from your face and a breath gets stuck in your throat. He has leant forward, mask pulled down to his jaw, and his eyes trained straight towards yours. You find yourself unable to tear your gaze away, too absorbed in Jimin’s intense stare. The thought that his vision is probably just filled with you and nothing else just like how your eyes only frame his entire face makes you queasy in your seat. You’ve never had someone look at you this, sincere and so open before that your long-time indignation to real-life romance and the whole soulmate thing has rendered you incapable of thinking what you should do–or if you should actually do anything than just get lost in another person’s eyes. You see Jimin’s lips pull into a soft curve of a smile. “Is this romantic enough?”

               Before you could choke on your own spit and indulge in awkward silence you know you’ll probably won’t get out of, a foreign voice by your side breaks your little bubble with Jimin. You glance to your left and a tall waiter bows. “Sorry to interrupt you, ma’am, sir, but would you like to order some dessert?”

               You look down at your plates to find everything in miniscule bits and crumbs, your meals completely finished. You sneak a peek at your wristwatch. It’s only 10:51, just mere twenty minutes have passed since you stepped onto the diner’s black and white tiles. You never imagined time could run so fast with another person invading your space than just your comfort zone.

               You see Jimin turn to the waiter. “Oh, no we’re finished. Can we ask for the bill?”

               Wait, you’re already finished? So soon? Your scrunched forehead must have gave out everything you’re thinking because Jimin turns to you and says, “I want to show you to some place. My turn to let you learn more about me.”

               Indifferent to the exchange between you two, the waiter hands Jimin the receipt. “Here it is, sir.”

               “Okay,” Jimin hands the payment on the waiter’s awaiting hands and you gape as you flounder for your own wallet. Jimin dismisses you. “I got this. You can pay me later.” He turns back to the waiter, “Thank you for the service.”

               “Thank you, too, sir.” The waiter returns and when you see him smile at Jimin again, his voice trails off and his eyes squint at the man across you. “Say, sir…you really look like Park Jimin from BTS.”

               “No.” Jimin’s smile drops into a frown and he quickly pulls up his mask.

               “No, really! I’ve been staring at you earlier and I can’t deny the similarities!” the waiter insists and you see his eyes spark in recognition. “You have the similar droopy eyes and familiar voice. Oh yeah, Jimin’s blonde hair on yesterday’s Music Bank is the same as yours–wait, don’t tell me,” The waiter pauses and raises his index finger to Jimin, “you’re the Park Jimin himself?” Jimin glances at you in panic and the waiter catches the small movement of denial. “Oh my god, you are Park Jimin! Damn, man, can I get an autograph? My sister loves you so much!”

               Neither you nor Jimin were able to say a thing after that, nor did you get a chance. The customers that didn’t care about your presence twenty minutes ago are now looking at your way with full, intent stares.

                “Jimin? Park Jimin? That singer from BTS?”

               “Jimin is here?!”

               “Oh my god, it is him! It’s Jimin! It’s the same hair color and jacket and earrings he wore in tonight’s V Live!”

               In the next second, everyone is screaming and rushing out of their tables to approach you.

               You’re frozen in your seat, chills rising in succession in your feet, arms, and spine. Crowds of faces were shoved right against your face, bunches of arms reaching and grabbing and thrashing around, and the screams and hollers were so loud they turn into garbled white noise. It’s like the zombie apocalypse except the creatures grabbing at you are still real, living people.

               “Jimin! Jimin!”

               “Oh my god, Jimin’s with a girl!”

               “Hey, Jimin, look here!”

               “Jimin, please sign this!”              

               “Wait, is that Jimin’s girlfriend?”

               “Jimin, can I take a picture with you?”

               “Jimin, who’s that girl?!”

               “Jimin, I love you!”

               The next moments are a blur. A second ago, jumpy teens and young adults were crowding your table, screaming and thrashing around. In the next second, Jimin has his hand clasped around yours, pulling you fast out of your table and out of the door. And now you’re here, running on the city street, your steps pounding on the cold pavement in heavy beats as a thunderous stampede follows close behind your tail.

               You’re finding it hard to take in all that is happening that the sudden pull on your arm toward your right has you dizzy and almost nauseous.

               “What’s ha-happening?”

               Jimin sneaks a glance at you and then back on the street. “Our fans are chasing us. Keep running. We don’t want them to ruin our date.”

               You purse your lips and will your legs to keep up with his pace. You’re about to chide him for what he said but you decide against it and just kept your mouth shut. You can’t bite back a witty comeback when you’re running out of breath.

               Huffing, he pulls down his mask to take a breath. “C’mon, let’s run faster!”

                The city whizzes by you, multicolored houses meshing into straight lines and warped shapes in a fast-forwarded reel. The streetlights overhead promise another corner to turn to and the pavement below your feet remains constant in its grayness and never-ending stretch. You and Jimin run and turn to corner after corner and it wasn’t until you’re stepping on the fifth street from your run do you realize your hand is still clasped in his.

                It feels weird to have another hand next to yours, much less a hand with fingers that oddly perfectly fill each gap between yours. What’s more odd is that you are comfortable, running to god knows where, hand in hand with a stranger. Well, Jimin’s not technically a stranger, given that you’ve known about him onscreen for six years, but still, everything feels too new and strange especially when he’s your…soulmate.

               The sleeve of your jacket has ridden upward your arm and your eyes immediately caught your inked daffodils. You’ve let your eyes miss their beauty in your shock earlier. But now, you can’t help but stare at awe when the flowers’ yellow petals rival the golden daylight as if the moonlight above has reflected every bit of the sun’s shine onto the art inked on your arms. You’ve never heard of this kind of soulmate system before, nor its strange incongruity with Jimin’s soulmate system. What is truly strange, is you’re already finding yourself dismissing any doubts about them. It’s horrifying that you can’t seem to care about anything anymore because all you could feel is…joy. Everything feels too perfect like a dream. Maybe it is true that you’re actually dreaming because as far as you’re concerned, the soulmate systems have ousted you since you were born. Everything about this daffodil sleeves and Jimin are probably just conjured by your unconscious, trying to make you feel better to ease the guilt of ruining Lucy’s night. You’ll wake up to your alarm to another shitty day in law school and then –

               “JIMIIIIIIN!”

               Unlike your expectations, it is a blaring scream that wakes you up to your senses.            

               “Where’s Jimin?!”

               “There, there! I can see his blonde hair AHHH!!!!”

               “Jimin! Don’t run away from us!”

               And then, you’re running fast again, lungs squeezing in short breaths as Jimin pulls you to corner after corner, maneuvering you in and out of street after street. Your legs are starting to numb from exhaustion but before you could start to whine at Jimin for a short break to rest, he has already pulled you into a dark, narrow alleyway crammed between two clothing retail stores. Only a few seconds later, a mass of shouting teens runs past the street.  You turned your face away, holding your breath in until the last one behind them misses your hiding spot, only finding it permissible to breathe again when the fans’ loud voices dissipate in the next corner.

               When you turn your head back to your front, you’re met with Jimin’s own flustered face. Only mere inches separate your lips from brushing against each other. Words are caught in your throat as you let your eyes take in his flushed state: his fringes matted on his forehead, his pink lips parted as he huffs, his ears reddened from the cold, and his warm brown eyes that reflect your own blushing face. If everything that has happened tonight really turns out to be a dream, you hope your sleep could be long enough to let you drag this night for as long as you could.

               “What are you staring at?”

               You’re suddenly brought back to where you are, pressed uncomfortably against the cold walls of the alley. Your eyes instantly moved down to your feet and with the motion, you caught a glowing thing sitting right atop on your left ring finger. It takes you a second to realize that the yellow glow is coming from the inked daffodil on your ring finger. Your daffodil ring is glowing like a fucking firefly. Your eyes widen and they fleet upward to meet Jimin’s eyes, your mouth gaping. “I–uh-uh–um–”

               Jimin raises his eyebrows, lips curving upwards. “Can’t get enough of my beautiful face?”

               “What? No!” You turn away and scowl, hoping the night could cool down the heat forming on your cheeks. You frantically pull the sleeves of your oversized jacket to hide your glowing tattoo.

               “Don’t need to be defensive. You can stare as long as you want, Y/N. After all,” Jimin raises his index finger and gestures to his face and down to his body, “you own all of these.”

               Your eyes twitch and your lips form an unamused frown. Jimin laughs.

               Jimin was the first one to squeeze out from the narrow space and you follow next. Despite your reaction earlier, you find it necessary to keep the frown on your face. You try to not let it show how much his words are making your heart pound loud and proud against your ears.

               You clear your throat. “You’ve got some serious fans out there.”

               Sighing, Jimin takes off the mask pulled under his jaw and stuffs it in his jacket pocket. “Ah, yeah. We always get that occasional…warm greeting whenever we land at airports. I guess we’re already used to that.”

               “Warm?! It’s borderline harassment!”

               “They’re just…excited to see me, that’s all. I can’t complain because I signed up for this when I decided to pursue this career.”

               “But still! That doesn’t mean they get to shove their faces to you and scream and demand you to take pictures with them or sign this or that. You still have your personal space and people should respect that. You’re still a human being, Chim.”

               Jimin stares at you before he breaks into a chuckling fit. “I didn’t know we’re on the stage to be making petnames for each other now, Y/Nie.”

               You gulp as you feel your cheeks heat up again. “I’m serious!”

               “Yeah, I know. I’m just joking to laugh off the heartbeats I hear pounding loud in my chest. You look at him, brows furrowed. Jimin shrugs. “I can’t help it. You make me feel like this.”

               You clear your throat again, diverting the conversation to where you are before he got sidetracked. “Anyway, can’t you get like a restraining order on them or something?”

               “You know that’s impossible.”

               “Yeah, you’re right. I’m just pissed off.” He looks at you smirking, and before he can come up with another cheesy line, you spoke out, “For you! Pissed off for you, yeah. Any person shouldn’t go through such trauma.” Jimin nods and you ramble on, “I only saw you guys’ airport fiascos on fancams. I never knew a toned down version of those like this will be already this bad. Heck, I’m already trembling with just a couple of fans hot on our toes, what more for you guys who get pushed and shoved and grabbed here and there by a flock of them. It’s goddamn scary and infuriating. If I were in your shoes I would have dropped down and screamed and cried. I’m glad I didn’t push my stupid 17-year-old dream of becoming an idol. I can’t do that stuff.”

               “I’m glad too you didn’t pursue that dream. I don’t want other men freely ogling my girl with no lawful repercussions.”

               “’…Ew. Don’t say that again.”

               “What?”

               You blanch despite the heat gathering on your cheeks. “The ‘my girl.’ It’s cringey.”

               “Oh hell no am I never gonna say that again if you’re blushing and being cute like this because of it. Oh my, Y/N, you can just say you like it! I can say it again if you want to–”

               “Oh please, no–”

               “My girl.”

               “Shut up!”

               “Ahh, you’re blushing more!”

***

               The skyline has long deepened in an inky indigo blanket yet you can’t feel your eyes fluttering close any minute now. It’s true because about eleven thirty, you’re still busy chirping away flower meanings to Jimin who was attentive to every word down to every flower color, to notice you two have already reached the business area of the city. There were no more residential areas or any run-down bars. Skyscrapers stood tall and brooding on strict two sides of the road while cut-straight gravel streets measure a meter or two to separate establishments. Unlike the streets from the bar to the diner, which were colored in various hues of maroon, beige, blue, and occasional flickers of yellow, the buildings in front of you followed a narrow color palette of light gray to black. However, the gloomy vicinity did nothing to dim the colorful trivia-dump you’re doing with Jimin.

               “Did you know, most yellow flowers usually have the most offensive meanings?”

               “Really?”

               “Yeah, like the marigold. Despite being a vibrant flower, it actually means envy and jealousy. And oh, don’t get me started with carnations. I always find myself inquiring young men who came into the shop picking yellow carnations if the flowers were for a first date.”

               “Why is that?” Jimin raises his brows.

               “It’s a horrible choice for a first date! Yellow carnations mean disdain and you DON’T want to jinx a starting relationship with such a negative connotation.”

               “What flower should I pick then for a first date?”

               “Roses are safe. Red, pink, or white are definitely the charmers. White carnations also do the trick for you as they mean sweet love. Although I mentioned yellow flowers usually have the most offensive meanings, there’s one flower I know that stands out, the most perfect one I think for a first date.”

               “What is it?”

               “Sunflowers,” you grin. “Despite all their beauty and all that mechanism where they turn towards the sun’s direction, they are quite tedious to grow. They’re needy of nutrients. They drain the soil from its nutrients, hogging them that no other kind of plant should be placed near them as they will easily die. That’s why they carry the meaning of draining love. But you know what? Even if they’re draining, they hold one of the most delicate and romantic message”

               “What is it?”

               “Everlasting love,” you smile. “They may be quite draining but their beauty is worth every effort. See? Wouldn’t be that the perfect flower for a first date?”

               Jimin nods. “Yeah, they are.” He looks at you, smiling and you bite your lip to prevent yourself from smiling too wide.

               When you turned to another street, Jimin asks, “Do you know another flower that holds such a…bittersweet message?”

               “Yeah, spiderlilies. But you know, I think that flower has the saddest story to tell.”

               “Why is that?”

               “It’s the flower of parting. It–” You suddenly trail off and Jimin stops in his step the minute you pull his arm into a stop. “Wait, where are we? Why are we in the business part of the town?”

               Jimin tilts his head, “I told you I’m gonna show you a place.”

               “A place? In here?”

               “Just trust me,” Jimin chuckles and he grabs your hand before you can utter another word.

               After a couple of minutes weaving down two streets and turning two corners to the left, the two of you stand in front of a humongous gravel gray tower. It would have looked uptight and intimidating if it weren’t for its darkening edges, from the soot or age, you couldn’t tell. All you know is that Jimin is already pushing through the large glass double doors with you in tow.

               “W-wait, what are you doing? This is trespassing and if you don’t know what it is, it’s illegal!”

               “We’re not trespassing. Trust me.”

               The furrows on your forehead deepen, anxiety grappling at the edges of your nerves, but you couldn’t do anything but follow him. You don’t want to admit your feet were walking on their own so you’re gonna blame Jimin for holding your hand too firmly.

               The ground floor of the tower wasn’t that much. All it has was clean white walls and cream-tiled floors. Its reception desk wasn’t too grand with just a gold bell, a couple of stacked news articles cased to the side, and a fake Picasso painting hung behind it. You can tell it’s Picasso because it was the same painting you always stare at in the guidance counselor’s room, with a small black label printed “Picasso” underneath it. And you know it’s fake because the guidance counselor told you the original piece of that painting now resides in the residence of an old Italian antique collector. The two of you wound a corridor and passed two hallways before you stop in front of metal double-doors, the ones used for fire exits in hospitals. It has a built-in lock and by the way Jimin pushes the door without any advances, you know it’s locked. Jimin fumbles for the back pocket of his jeans and produces his wallet, taking a silver key tucked in its small flaps.

               You gawk. “You have a key for this?”

               Jimin doesn’t answer but smiles, inserting the key. When you hear the doors unlock, he pushes one open and gestures for you to come inside. You didn’t have any qualms and just followed him. You figured that if Jimin has the key, then what you’re doing is not trespassing, and you find yourself relaxing eventhough you’re boggled as to why Jimin possesses such key when his entertainment company is in another twenty-six storey building on the opposite side of town.

               Jimin leads you down a wide hallway past the metal double-doors, now colored in gray walls and darker gray tiles instead of the standard white and cream of the rest of the ground floor. There were a couple of doors lining on the sides, each designated with a position of an authority you didn’t catch to read. At the end of the hallway, a set of stairs lead downwards and you find yourself yet again, waiting in front of another set of metal double doors as Jimin inserts another silver key into the built-in lock. He pushes the doors open and as you stepped inside, you feel your jaw drop to the floor.

               In front of you was a skating rink, surrounded by glass partitions that measure about a meter. Black benches surround the rink like the ones you see in the hockey games inserted in films. However, unlike the ones you watched, the benches weren’t many enough to hold spectators of a game, and the rink was too small to hold a proper hockey game. It’s probably ideal only for recreational skating like the ones you went to with your mother whenever she feels like taking you out in winter.    

               You turn to Jimin. “What is this skating rink? I thought we were inside a business building.”

               Jimin leans on one of the benches. “Me and my group always go here to let out stress. When we were stressing for our debut, when we need a breather for comebacks or, when the cameras and media were too much–we always go here. It’s a secret hangout place, tucked underneath this large corporate building.About 50 years ago, this building was like a winter sports complex. It has this large skating rink where monthly local competitions for hockey and curling are held. Sometimes, it’s lucky enough to hold regional competitions as this part of town was far from the business center back then. Aside from contests and trainings being held, anyone–kids, teens, adults–gets to arrange who uses the spare time from the fixed schedule of the complex for recreational hockey, curling, or just…skating round and round.” Jimin laughs. “Sometimes, the complex frees it schedule to invite anyone to come and skate for a downgraded price. You know, like how your local authorities turn the frozen lakes into a public skating area when winter comes.”

               Jimin’s lips form a straight line, “However, business turned sour in the long run because another sports complex was built near the area, equipped with more supplies and employees. So the owner of the complex and the land had to sell their whole business because of that, and also because her family is going to migrate to the States. This skating rink was supposed to be taken down but the first owner of the land run back to this town and made an agreement with the buyer. Pleaded nothing will change from the negotiation except she’ll pay anything just for the buyer to keep the rink. She went all out with her money then. Even sold her house and her ancestor’s villa in Taiwan.”

               “She…spent all her money for this?”

               “Well, yeah. She did go almost bankrupt but at least she got to keep her skating rink before she died.” Jimin glances at you, waiting for a reply but when you just return a stare, he tilts his head in inquiry.

               You pull on your sleeves. “I didn’t say she did bad choices…it’s just that–it’s a lot of risk. I don’t think anyone could do that but her.”

               “Anyone can do that, it just depends what they’re willing to risk. Because–well, some things are just worth risking everything for.”

               You stay silent, staring at him. Jimin chuckles and grabs your hand to lead you towards the locker room. He proceeds with his story, “The buyer built a commercial building but fulfilled his end of the agreement by keeping the rink. And when the buyer eventually handed over the building to his son, the skating rink was then cut into half as the 3rd owner got the building renovated and sold half of the land to another millionaire. The other section of the rink was turned into another building but this one remained because the owner’s son loved to skate whenever his dad brings him for bring-your-child-to-work day. Now the son, the current owner, kept this skating rink and even opened it to the public because unlike the previous owner, his dad, he’s fun and wants to let kids come into this concrete jungle just to play and hang out.”

               “How do you know all of these?”

               “I’m friends with the current owner. His name is Henry Kim, a friend from preschool, and I swear I never knew how filthy rich he was back then. We became friends because I got enticed by his story of the first land owner meeting her soulmate, her husband, in a local skating rink which inspired her to build the sports complex and even had the succeeding owners keep the rink. Henry even got me some articles about it to read. So now, I and the boys get to have alone time in here whenever we want, away from all the cameras and the media and the pizzaz. It’s a privilege, I know, given our…status, but I’d like to think it more as out of our friendship.” He turns back to smile at you. “It makes me warm.”

               You didn’t know how to reply to his last statement so you just returned his smile and let his hand guide you to the locker rooms where you can strap on your skating shoes. It didn’t take you too long to lace up your skating shoes and waddle onto the rink because within just a couple of minutes, you’re already giggling, waltzing on the ice. It’s been a while since you let yourself enjoy like a child like this–free from societal pressure, success strife stress, and family expectations; to laugh aloud and feel nothing akin but being on top of the world just because of simple things like this–skating round and round.

               “So you told me, it’s your turn to let me learn more about you,” you skid in front of Jimin, grinning. “When is that gonna happen? You’ve been rambling about on and on about a lot of other people.”

               “Well, there isn’t much,” Jimin skates in time with you towards the east end of the rink. “I practically showed and revealed everything already on TVs and magazines.”

               “Not true. You’re more than what the cameras show what you seem to be.”

               “You’re a fan though. You practically already know everything about me.”

               “Also not true. No one is capable of fully knowing everything about everyone. All you have is your perception of others and others’ perception of you, but they will never be enough to be everything about you nor others. People are like mirrors, you know. They see each other based on the images they envision them in so, they’re just staring at what their thoughts collectively created about another person. In the end, the only one who truly knows themselves are no one but themselves.” You sigh, turning to him and taking his hand as you let centripetal force control your balance and skate you backward. “How about this: you tell me things you’ve never told anyone before.”

               “Okay,” Jimin agrees and he pulls you back to his side, hands still connected. “Do you know I used to dream of becoming a fisherman?”

               “A fisherman? Do you even know how to fish?”

               “Well…no. But you know how preschool assigns you this homework where you have to draw your dream?” You nod. “Well,” Jimin continues, “I don’t really have a dream for me back then and I can’t draw for the life of me. And then, I figured a fisherman is easy to draw because you just have to get the trapezoidal boat, the swirling waves, the stickman, and the two lines of a fishing rod right. You can add puffy clouds and the ‘m’ birds for background. After that, I convinced myself all I ever wanted is to be a fisherman and when I told that to my mother, she almost fainted.”

               “Oh my god,” you giggle, “you just made up a dream for yourself out of a drawing?”

               “Yeah, and it wasn’t the only scenario,” Jimin laughs. “By 3rd grade, I learned how to draw a motorcycle from sticks and circles so when the draw-your-dream assignment came up again, I upgraded my drawing skills and changed my dream: I now want to be a pizza delivery guy. Of course, I told my mom about it again and this time, she also upgraded: she chased me around with a slipper.”

               “I understand your mom though,” you manage to chortle in between snickers. “Being a fisherman and a pizza delivery guy are honorable but they weren’t the greatest permanent jobs in this down-slope economy.”

                “True,” Jimin agrees and this time, he lets himself skate backward, keeping his hold on your hand, firm. “Anyway, the rest is history. The media already wrote about how I got into a contemporary arts school and from there I learned to love dance and eventually dreamed of becoming a performer.”

               “What did I tell you about not being only what the people see you to be?”

               “Okay, okay. Umm,” Jimin trails off, eyes wandering as if the things he wanted to say can be easily picked up in the skating rink. But just a second later, he’s suddenly looking straight into your eyes, his own ones glimmering. “Oh, I got one! I was a hell of a headache when I was a kid. I was always so jumpy, running around, loudy as hell–the type of kids you cannot contain in one place?”

               You nod, smiling. “A lot of kids were like that.”

               “Well,” he chuckles, “the difference is that I cannot still be contained in one place even I’m way past a kid. Anyway, the me back then was a whole different level. I like going to town after town, wandering around, always hoping for some adventure. I once got on top of a delivery van, parked near my neighbor’s house, so near that it was easy for me to jump on it from their balcony. Their balcony wasn’t that tall anyway because their house was some kind of a Spanish-inspired bungalow. We were playing hide and seek at that time. I was so competitive I thought if I got on top of the van and lied down very flat, I will be unnoticed. It turned out to be a good idea because ten minutes later, the kids are now calling out for my name, yelling for me to show up so we can start another game. When the van suddenly rumbled, I quickly realized what I did was a terrible idea. The van picked up its pace and now we’re really moving from the front of my neighbor’s house. You know what I did?”

               You shook your head, giggling.

               “I cried. Real loud. Snot, sweat, and tears mixing, I look like a dumb, reckless kid who always gets complaints from the neighbors.” Jimin laughed. “So after crying for like good two minutes, that I thought was an hour back then, I started choking on my own spit. With the wailing turned down, I heard my father running behind and screaming for the van to stop. I was lucky that the driver immediately stopped after hearing my father’s cries. But after that, I wasn’t lucky anymore. My mom felt the need to keep me away from vans and my neighbor’s balcony. God, it was so embarrassing.”

               “At least your ‘hobby’ got corrected,” you quip.

               “You think jumping on vans was my hobby?” Jimin scoffs then smirks. “Don’t underestimate me. I can do much more than jumping on vans. I even did bungee jumping. Remember that episode on Run BTS!, our TV show?”

               “Of course I remember. You screamed like a screeching pterodactyl.”

               “No, I did not. That was Taehyung.”

               “Okay, okay, touché. I was just trying to make you laugh.”

               Jimin grins. “You don’t have to try though. You can always effortlessly do that.”

               You tilt your head. “Are you telling me my existence is funny?”

               Jimin pulls you towards him and you almost tumble forward but his firm grip on your hand keeps you balanced on your skates. However, you could feel every bit of warmth coming from his body as his arms are now wound around yours, keeping you as close to him as possible. Close enough for you to feel his breath fan against yours, close enough for you to trace every constellation marking up his face, and close enough for you to see the reflection of your face in his eyes…again. Jimin breaks into a grin. “I’m trying to tell you that you can easily make me happy without even trying.”

               You feel scorching heat immediately spread on your chest and to the rest of your body. You lightly push Jimin away, scoffing. Jimin puts his hands into his pockets. You sputter out,“W-what? As if I can do that. I’m really really intolerable and insufferable, you know?”

               Jimin chuckles, “It’s okay. I can handle that.”

               Before you can mumble out another disagreement, Jimin grabs your hand again, leading the two of you to the other side of the rink, this time, skating side by side.

               “Continuing from what I left on, you know what good came out from my reckless days?”

               You don’t answer him but glance his way.

               Jimin continues on, “I managed to get lots of friends. I got a bunch of them in preschool, then in elementary. When I got into high school, my group of friends got so large that almost everyone in the school, not just our batch but the lower grade levels as well, practically knew me before I even knew their name. Man, it was crazy. I get to hang out with different people per week and I get to learn their stories. It’s so fun.”

                “You must be quite of a people-person even back then.”

               “Ah, yeah,” Jimin nods. “People said I thrive off people surrounding me. Said I like being complimented and that I grow more when I’m surrounded by them. Something about collective growth.”

               “But, who wouldn’t like compliments?”

               “True. Everyone likes them. It’s just…I think they are right, but sometimes…I beg to differ.”

               “What do you mean?”

               “I feel like it’s the people who thrive on me, not the other way around.”

               You look at him, curious. “How come?”

               Jimin breathes out, tugging the collar of his leather jacket closer to his neck with his free hand. “I thought why people liked me back then was because I was fun. You know that type of kid, who gets the crowd’s attention easily and entices everyone to join them in in whatever they do? That type of kid who’s easy-going and can effortlessly make boring things look cool? The people around me told me I was like that and at times, I do feel it’s the reason why I got so many friends. But as I grow up, I feel people liked me because I really love listening to their stories. I love it too much that it was even quite…abnormal.”

               “Abnormal?”

               “Yeah…abnormal. You see, back on the days, I used to latch on to person after person telling them, no, begging them to tell me their stories–the place they were born in, where they grew up in, their secrets and interests, anything. I learned how to clean vinyl records from an old unmarried man in our neighborhood. I got to travel to Geneva from a rich girl who told me her summer vacation at the playground. I even unknowingly caught up with the local gossip of a married man and his mistress three blocks from our neighborhood. I don’t know why exactly I did it. It just felt nice. It seems our generation’s now short of anyone willing to listen to what they have to say. So when people heard of my abnormal…hobby, they searched for me and spilled everything. They get someone to listen to them, and I get myself new stories. It’s a win-win situation.”

               Jimin steps to the side, creating a wider gap between your bodies as you skate but still kept your hands interlocked. “They treated me like a pond they could throw rocks into, entertaining them with my fascination and curiosity and assuring them I will not tell another soul about what they said. Just repeating what they said, nodding when they ask questions, and taking everything they told me inside when they bid their temporary farewells. They always come back for another listening session and everything will repeat. Some people I listened to talked too excitedly as if a day will never be enough to tell their story. A few talked in spurts that it’s hard to determine the beginning and the end of their stories. There were the factual lessons, rambles of nonsense, litanies of achievements, and some tear-jerkers.” Jimin sighs. “But the most amazing one I ever got to listen to was how my mom and dad met.”

               You purse your lips. “U-uh, who told you that story?”

               “My mom,” Jimin grins. “She told me the story of how they met as soon as I can understand anything. Of course, they told me the red string of fate story, but what interested me the most was their soulbond. Their soulmate system lets them know what each other is feeling even without talking about it. It’s amazing.”

               “How did they meet then?”

               “Well, my dad had a crush on my mom before he even knew she was his soulmate. My mom is my dad’s childhood friend. She became his friend in his very first day in school after she defended him from a group of kids bullying him for being too short. After that, all he ever did was admire her. He wasn’t too adamant about the soulmate system before then because all he could ever feel from his system was annoyance and irritation.  My mom lived next to dad’s house and belonged to the same group of friends he has so it was easy for him to always see her. However, talking to her was a difficult feat because my dad is one hell of an introvert and he always gets frozen feet just at the sight of her. So when my mom finally had enough of my father’s tiptoeing around her, she demanded for him to just tell her whatever issue he has with her so she can stop feeling awkward with his coldness.” Jimin giggles, “Of course my father is bad at confrontations so he just hiccupped and ran away in embarrassment. However, my mother’s words sunk in so he pulled out a recorded track he made about a month ago–a song he made just about my mother, and edited it, ending with a shy ‘I-I know you probably have many suitors by now…but can you please, please, please take a chance on me? Okay, that was too forward, shit, I’m sorry, how do I turn this off?’”

               Your jaw hangs open in disbelief. “You memorized it word per word?”

               “Of course,” Jimin chortles. “It’s too funny to let go!”

               “So after my mom heard about the record my dad left on her doorstep, she immediately asked him to dinner that night. And during their date, that’s when dad felt his soulbond feeling at peace and in love. It didn’t take them to put two-on-two together to tell they were each other’s soulmate. I swear, their soulmate system is wonderful. Dad can easily tell when mom is upset and he easily convinces her to talk it out with him. I always think communication is a strong foundation of every relationship, and to have such a soulmate system to let you feel easily what the other is feeling, it must be heaven! Imagine not having to guess or tiptoe around one another when conflicts arise. Feelings assure you the truth because no one can control what they want to feel, not to mention that soulmate system betters you to become a more empathic person.” Jimin turns and locks his eyes with yours. “Don’t you think it’s amazing to have such phenomenon? To have a significant other crafted by the universe just for you?

               You glance away. “…Yeah.”

               Jimin diverts his eyes back on the ice. “Unlike the me back then, I wasn’t that much into stories now.”

               “Why?”

               “These days, it’s hard for me to reach out and listen to people who have anything but hate or illusioned righteousness fueling their systems. The only things people tell me now were how great I was, how much I make from this job, how handsome I got. Sometimes I get to listen to bitter people who feel the need to question my career choices, making me feel bad to uplift themselves. And then majority of the time, I get people who idolize me so much, put me on the pedestal, and make me out as someone that wasn’t really me. I know some of them mean well, but sometimes…you’re just not comfortable anymore.”

               You look up at him, “Because you know you’re more than that?”

               “Well, yeah,” Jimin glances at you. “You put it really well into words. I’m impressed.”

               A question was on the tip of your tongue and you purse your lips, debating whether to ask him or not. But then, this might be your only chance you could ask him this, so you made up your mind and tugged his jacket. “Tell me, sometimes…do you ever wish you didn’t get this humongous fame at all?”

               Jimin stares at you and a couple of seconds passed before he decided to answer. “Yes, sometimes. I hate how people follow me everywhere, invade my privacy, and treat me more as a commodity than a human being. I hate how I have to hide my family and childhood friends from the limelight just so they don’t get dragged in any scandals people are so obsessed in making up. I hate having to wake up and unconsciously worry about my looks, my angles, and my weight more than anything else because I know more important matters in the society are more worth thinking and talking about–but I–I don’t know, I just can’t help it. I can’t help how the media changed me. Of course, there’re good and bad changes it brought to my life but I hated the bad ones to the very core.  But you know, when I look back and trace my steps to where I was before, I realize that fame made me happy before,” he looks at you, “and how it still does now. With this fame I was able to bring joy to lots of people and give them love they were unable to receive from those around them. With this fame I was able to give my parents a home they used to only dream about. With this fame, I was able to meet my bandmates who loved me like a family…and, I wouldn’t have met you if I didn’t become the Jimin now.”

               “H-how so?”

               “You wouldn’t have taken a chance on this date, on this soulmate thing for one whole night with me, if I wasn’t who I was today.”

               Your forehead furrows, your chest constricting in pain. “N-not true. Why are you telling me that –okay, maybe I gave you that impression of an obsessive fangirl because I blurted everything on my tongue when I first saw you, but honestly I wanted to know you more as a person and not as–”

               “No, no,” Jimin waves his hand, chuckling. “I’m sorry I implied it that way. What I mean is: You wouldn’t have trusted me enough to stay with me tonight and try this soulmate thing if I wasn’t able to love myself first before I met you.  I didn’t know what love was back then. I just imagine myself being unconditionally admired and taken care of my soulmate. And, I guess I wasn’t my best during that time. I complain a lot, demand too much, and bottle my feelings inside until they suffocate me. When things go wrong, I find it easy to blame someone else. I regarded too highly of myself that I’ve become selfish and insensitive to the people around me. So when I slowly started  to outgrow my horrible past-self, I then learned it’s impossible to trust someone about love and relationships if they are still unable to love themselves. Sure, people will argue that they can figure that out together. But still, I think it’s better if we learn how to be comfortable in our own skins before we demand others to love us. It’s not fair for them to tolerate their significant others who can’t love them right. How can we love others when we don’t know even know how love is supposed to be and feel like? That’s why…I’m glad I met you now, because I think I’m ready to love–” Jimin bites his lip, “Okay sorry, I got too sidetracked and went off the loop again , but do you get what I mean?”

               “Yeah, it’s just,” you close your eyes, shaking your head, “everything about this soulmate thing still shocks me and I’m still trying to get a hang of it so sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

               You keep your glance down, apologetic, waiting for Jimin’s reply. But all you got is, “Why do you like flowers so much?”

               You look up and Jimin looks at you, eyes warm, smile wide. You didn’t have to stare for long to know he’s trying to change the topic. Trying to make you comfortable again. Actually, he never failed to make you comfortable throughout the whole night. He has never pushed you to tell everything about yourself–never demanded for you to tell him about your family like how he openly talked about his, never forced you to reveal your weaknesses and insecurities when he let you in on his vulnerability.  And even though you’re starting to think whether to talk about each one of them or not now, he still gives you the choice to come back to your safe zone whenever you want. All of these are enough of a reason to grip his hand tighter in yours and pull him to the center of the rink, facing each other.

               “Wait, whoa!”

               “Okay, why don’t we dance?”

               Jimin’s eyes almost bulge out “Dance?”

               “Yeah, dance! You know what, I’ll take the lead.” You pulled him closer to you, looping your arms around his frame in a gentle hug. Jimin’s shocked and tensed for a bit, but it wasn’t long before you can feel him giggling behind your ear and returning the hug.

               “I didn’t know you were this…aggressive.”

               “Shut up,” you laugh. “Can you just indulge in my free offer and not say another cheesy pick-up line?”

               Jimin chuckles. “Okay, will do.”

               You didn’t move much. Just, swaying and turning in small motions with your arms wound around each other. You can’t exactly point out why you’re suddenly doing this when an hour ago, you’re too adamant showing him you’re not affected by him at all. All you know is you can no longer disagree that everything with him felt right. Even if you’re still afraid and unsure, everything you did with him made you feel good. Everything you did with him made you feel something akin to happiness.

               And this time, you feel the urge to take the risk and dive in. Just for this night, you’re going to do yourself a favor. Only for one night.

               “I… like flowers so much because words can sometimes be never be enough. Flowers are the only ones that can materialize them. They’re ephemeral and they wilt, like how words evaporate into thin air once you let them out in the open. But, you know that they once lived to fill a moment because you saw their beauty and their ugliness in such a short period of time. They did exist and you know it. And I guess,” you murmur, snuggling deeper into Jimin’s hug, “it’s only through those flowers I get to be true to myself.”

               “What do you mean?”

               “Out of all the things I said tonight, the truest of them all are only the flowers. I’m not a great…arguer at all. I’m a pathological liar. I lied to myself about my distrust in this soulmate system. My cynicism to it was never solely because I wanted to make my own destiny. It was because I saw my mother and father’s relationship go down the drain even when they’re already made for each other. They knew each other so well that it’s easy for them where to hurt each other each time one of them fucks up. They divorced and I have to live in a broken family, torn between the two of them, afloat and in limbo as to where I should stand when they’ve easily marked my days as to what kind of daughter I should portray whenever I have to visit them.  And for me to live without any soulmate system at all, it felt I was further kicked down to the curb by life. Because as much as important love is, sometimes what only matter the most is the assurance that somehow, someone will love me. Because that thought is enough of an emergency kit for my mind whenever I feel too cut off from the world. And having no soulmate system as any kind of assurance….I pitied myself, thinking I can never find out what love truly feels.”

               You hiccup. “I lied to myself for years that my mother’s disappointment in me didn’t bother me. I always knew I’m difficult and for her to see me grow as a woman that she did not expect me to be is hard. I was never into law. I’m into gardening. My mom knows that because I was the one who always tended to our plants and made our garden grow as much as it could even if we’re just in a single bedroom condo unit. I just decided to take law because I know I can’t make a living out of gardening yet. It’s sad, I know, but I have to push through so when the time comes I get to save enough, I can open my own garden shop. And,” you trail off, grasping Jimin tighter in your arms, “I lied to myself I hated every bit of this night with you when tonight’s probably the happiest I’ve ever been in my whole life.”

               Jimin didn’t say anything. He just hugged you tighter when your shoulders quiver, stroked your back when he felt stray tears wet the skin of his neck. He didn’t push you to say more. He lulled you back to comfort in his swaying, singing you a tender melody by your ear to help you feel at ease again. He is just there, unobtrusive, just patiently waiting for you to do anything.

                When he felt you loosen a bit in his hold, he lets out his voice. “Would you mind to continue the story of the spider lily? You left me quite hanging there.”

               You don’t know why he’s diverting the topic again, but you didn’t mind, having the chance to relieve yourself from years-worth of heaviness you just have mindlessly let out in the empty ice rink. After all, he’s a stranger and telling him everything in your mind wouldn’t hurt because they all leave unobtrusive marks in your life which they easily erase once it’s time for them to go. However, it pains you to type in Jimin as just a stranger in your life.

               You clear your throat. “The-the spider lily is the flower of parting. Their flowers only bloom when the leaves die. They were believed to be lovers who aren’t destined to be together at all.”

               “That’s…terrible.”

               You nod. “…Yeah.”

               “I’ll make sure our story does not go like that.”

               You draw back to look at his face. “What?”

               Jimin smiles. “I’ll make sure our story does not turn out like the spiderlily’s. I know you’re still probably against this soulmate phenomenon. But…I want you to know that you don’t have to feel alone and unloved anymore. I’m already here. And I’m serious about you. Soulmate or not, what we have now isn’t just a one-night thing.”

               “What do you mean?”

               “I love you.”

               Jimin stares at you and it only takes a second before he suddenly rubs the back of his neck with his hand. “I-I know it’s too soon and you don’t have to say it back but I can’t control what I feel and–”

               You lean forward and shut him up with a kiss. Jimin freezes in your hold for a second, and then he instantly melts in your arms and returns your kiss. You don’t know why you’re doing these–embracing him tighter, angling your head, deepening the kiss to taste more of him, letting him pull you closer so that you can now compare the matching rhythm of your heartbeats. You don’t know why you’re exactly doing these things with a man you just met, no, your soulmate you just found tonight, when hours ago you’re expressing your disdain on the existence of the soulmate phenomenon. The only thought unwaveringly running in your mind now is you don’t want this to stop.

               You don’t want to stop staring at Jimin, even when you struggled getting in the cab he hailed, too busy getting lost in his eyes. You don’t want to stop enjoying the warmth from the small kisses he places against your nape, even if you had difficulty pulling your house keys from your tight jeans pocket as you giggle and moan in his warmth. You don’t want to stop feeling hot and high, even when the coldness of your home starts to seep into your toes as Jimin sheds the clothes on your body, piece by slow aching piece. You don’t want to stop holding his hand, even when you had to strain one arm pulling off his black shirt as he laughs against your neck. But most of all, you don’t want to stop kissing his lips, even when you have to part from him for a second as you lose your breath when his hips bucked into you when he laid you down on your bed.

               Jimin hovers above you, kissing you with such passion as if it will be the last time he would be able to hold you. And, you tried to return the same intensity, to balance the heat he radiates on your burning skin, to pave every expanse of his skin you could reach as he ventures every curve and ridge he could touch. With your bodies bared and stripped naked to each other, you can no longer hide the plethora of feelings that has welled on your chest just from such dream-like night you had shared with him. When Jimin parts away to cup your face in his hands, thumbs slowly caressing your cheeks, you see nothing in his eyes but the image of you–breathless, flustered, happy. You almost wanted to cry.

               “Can you be my first and last, Y/N?” Jimin asks, voice almost quivering.

               You can only manage a whisper through parted lips. “I can, Jimin. A-and I want you to be mine too.”

               After that, you were a goner. No words are further exchanged as Jimin starts to leave a trail of kisses from the sunken juncture of your jaw, to the ridge of your collarbones and onto the valleys of your tender breasts. He travels the gentle swells of your stomach, onto the curve of your hips until he’s down to the banks of your hot core, aching and willing and waiting for him. No words are slipped past each other as he dives in and savors every inch of you, nipping, and licking, and kissing your sopping heat until you’re a moaning mess on your sheets. And when he finally brings you to your high, no words are enough for you to express the euphoria thrumming in your nerves, settling on your chest, filling your head. No words are needed when your eyes and his convey them for you as you plead for more, more, and more and Jimin willingly gives all of him to you.

               Every touch of his hand on your quivering hips has you groaning and pleading. Every caress on your waist and shoulders has you sighing and moaning. Every brush of his hard chest against the soft buds of your breasts has you moaning and wailing. And every graze of his lips against yours, you can’t help but melt and let your body speak your thoughts for you. You pull him desperately, cupping his face as you roll your hips against his that has him choking out a moan.

               “Jimin,” you breathe into him and he smiles.

               “W-What?”

               “Please.”

               You don’t need to say anything in words for your dazed and glimmering eyes are enough to convey them all. Jimin smiles and gives in. He captures your lips into another kiss, murmuring your name between interlocked mouths. You feel him shift in his position above you and when he deepens the kiss again, you finally feel him burying himself deep in you. Jimin gives himself to you in slow and deep strokes that have your back arching off the bed, fingernails digging into his skin. You sputter his name again and again and despite how far gone he is losing in your heat, his gaze on your eyes never wavers, nor loses trace of every bit of him he has exposed to you, making you lose yourself into him even more.

               Everything compounds into each other in such miniscule timeframe–from the moment Jimin intertwines his tongue with yours, to the second you clutch his head closer underneath your chin to continue his featherlight kisses on your jaw. When he angles his cock deeper into you, you can only think about nothing but him, him, and only him. As he holds your hand tight in his hold, with his lips on yours as he mutters “I love you, I love you, I love you,” in between every thrust, you finally feel what it’s like to be on top of the world.

               Like the explosion you felt when he first touched your hand, it only takes one second for Jimin to let you fall apart in his arms. Euphoria living alive in every inch of your nerves, you clutch desperately on his arms and Jimin draws you closer to him as your walls clamp onto him and coaxes him to also let go in your arms. The fullness and torrid heat of him spreads inside you and Jimin kisses you once more with everything he’s got–sloppy but passionate, messy but powerful–a beautiful mosaic of the feelings you had in the most wonderful night of your entire life.

               You’re dazed and shaken, wondering if it is possible for everything to be a dream. But when Jimin collapses next to you and pulls the blanket over your bodies, all thoughts cease in a staggering halt as he whispers, “I’m happy I get to know you.”

               You smile in his embrace, “Me too.” Sensations always hit first before thought and without thinking twice, you find yourself breathing out, “Promise me you’ll be by my side ‘til tomorrow morning.”

               Jimin kisses your left hand, the one with the daffodil ring, and as he says “I promise,” you fall into a peaceful slumber. His words are enough of an assurance for you.

***

               When tomorrow comes, you wake up on a cold bed. Jimin is nowhere to be found. You didn’t need to feel more of his side of the bed to know his clothes and shoes and every trace of him in your home is now gone. But still, he promised.

               You slip into your shirt discarded on the floor and drag your worn body to the living room. Your couch and your coffee table stood untouched. When you turn to your right, you find your kitchen and dining table empty. No smell of cooked food lingered in the air. You dashed to your shower even when you hear no sound of water splashing on the tiles. The door swings open and your shower stands empty, polished tiles dry, no trace of use on the faucet. With pounding steps, you run back to the living room, straight down to your door. Fingers skimming down on your bolts, your hand trembles when you find the knob and grasp it. When you twist it, your door clicks open as it unlocks.

               You refuse to acknowledge the obvious possibility looming on your head since you woke up. But now, it only takes one more second of you standing by your unlocked door before your thoughts crash down, choking out a broken sob from you. Jimin left the minute after what happened last night. He didn’t go outside to just buy something before coming back to your home. He didn’t even stay long enough to wash up and clean himself. He just got up, locked your door close, and went out, leaving you behind.

               You hunch over your doorstep, grunting, pain hammering on your chest as your body falls to the ground. Uneasiness, frustration, and desperation muddles into a heavy iron ball that sinks on your chest, sinking deeper and deeper until its heaviness constricts your lungs of any air.

               Jimin left and he didn’t even bother to leave a note. He doesn’t have your keys, nor your number. He isn’t planning to come back.

               You stiffle a broken scream on your clenched hands.

***

               Three taps on your desk grow louder by the second, each one nipping on your nerves.

               “Hey, Miss, my roses?”

               “O-oh, right,” you stir, eyes fluttering wide, taking in the bouquet of roses you were wrapping. The flower shop is brightly illuminated by the overhead lights and the morning daylight, yet everything looks so hazy, the frantic movements of your hands sticking out so aberrant from your perspective.

               “Here’s your bouquet, sir. Thank you for coming to Petal Hill.” The man waves off and your smile falls the second the glass door swings close in his exit.

               Everything went back to normal. You went to university in the morning, started your shift in the flower shop in the afternoon. You didn’t miss a day and you eat and sleep the same way. Routines are done the same way they are until they blur day after day, just how you live your days with sleep marking the end and beginning of every tomorrow. But, they are still not enough to fill the gaping hole in your chest. Whatever you do, they’re not enough to let you forget of that night. Even if you tried to convince yourself that you felt okay after Lucy made up with you, your false defense just crumbles whenever you so much glance at the inked flowers on your arms, the ones Jimin ignited to bloom that night. More so when now the flowers have dulled in their yellowness after he left.

               Even if you know it’s futile, you still did everything you can. You changed your sheets and cleaned your home. You refused to look into any online article pertaining to him. You busied yourself until you break down tired. You screamed and have already cried for so many nights. And you did something you abhorred: wait–wait for someone to come back without any assurance they have actually plans of coming back.

                You wait for Jimin to show up at your door, explain and apologize and fulfill his end of the promise. Because even if you abhorred the sight of your mother endlessly waiting for your father to come back and how you did the same for the both of them, Jimin is different. He is your soulmate and that night you met him, he convinced you it won’t hurt to give this soulmate phenomenon a chance. So each day after that dream-like night, you waited and waited until all seconds, hours, and days add into an excruciating week.

               For one week, Jimin didn’t show up and when a gray Sunday afternoon comes, eight days past the night, you’re starting to wonder if you should still keep your unrealistic hope alive.

               The glass door swings, ten footsteps echo in the silent shop, five pansies are laid down on your table–and then you stop. Your thoughts halt in a frozen limbo, your body stills in staggering shock.

               It’s the same bleached blonde hair, the same black leather jacket, the same silver earrings, the same drooped eyelids and warm, brown eyes – it’s Jimin, Park Jimin, who stands in front of you, waiting for you to wrap the pansies on your desk. It’s him, the soulmate you’ve been waiting to come back to you for so many days and nights and all you can do is–

               Your eyes immediately dart down to your desk as your fingers scramble to wrap the flowers. “If you just came here to make sure I won’t tell anybody what happened, don’t worry, I already plan not to. Your reputation will remain clean and you’ll still have millions of fans. You can leave after I wrap this.”

              “W-what? No, I’m not gonna do that, Y/N. Never...I came here to talk.”

              “Oh, so now you wanna talk. After a week of silence, you now decided you want to talk.”

              “Y/N–”

             “So now that you wanna talk, what are we gonna talk about? How everything that happened was a mistake?” you spit out. You’ve already thought about this but hearing them loud from your own lips starts to make your eyes sting with tears. You immediately look down again at the flowers you’re wrapping. You can’t cry in front of him again, let him see you this weak again. You can’t have him to kick you down to the curb again.

            “No, Y/N. I’m sorry. Please–please look at me.” Jimin says, a sob escaping his lips. Receiving no response, he places his palms on your desk and pulls down his mask as he leans forward to meet your downcasted eyes. “Y/N, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he repeats, voice cracking. “I’m sorry for leaving you. I’m sorry I wasn’t by your side that morning. But believe me, I didn’t want to break my promise, I just have to do something–”

              “What do you have to do?” you cut him as you raise your hand to wipe away the tear that has made its way down your cheeks. “What do you have to do that is so fucking important for you to just leave me as if nothing happened between us? Why do you have to disappear for a week without any word? Why do you have to just show up now? Why, Jimin, why?”

              You face Jimin, letting your eyes meet his for the first time and really look at him. His lips are chapped, his complexion pale, the bags under his eyes dark. He looks just as bad as you but you don’t want to dwell on it, afraid your resolve will crumble down when you should be keeping a strong front.

              “Y/N, I–I'm sorry,” Jimin says again as a tear escapes down his cheek. “What I did is unforgivable and I know you have every right to hate me right now. But I-I have actually planned to stay and make you breakfast and tell you–”

              “I don’t need to hear what you could have done because it did not happen,” you look at him and Jimin freezes. “You didn’t stay like you promised, Jimin.”

             “Y/N, please–” 

             “Just tell me why you left me. Why do you have to appear now?”

              “I,” Jimin starts and he sighs. “Namjoon called me around four, demanded where the hell I am. Apparently...the media has already published pictures of us getting in a cab together that night. Namjoon asked me to come back to the dorm right that instant before the media can do a massive stakeout in front of your building and barrage us with their cameras. So I didn’t come back the morning after to not raise any more suspicion. I waited a week to pass for the paparazzi to calm down and drive away their cars before I can go back to you.” He raises his hand to wipe a stray tear on his cheek but it’s not enough to prevent the small wet drop from landing on the pansies. “I-I can’t let the media invade your privacy and create horrendous articles about you. They can do that to me, but not to you. Never to you. You don’t deserve that.”

                You’ve imagined this confrontation scene again and again in your head for the last couple of days. You’ve planned what you’re going to say and how you would end this goddamn connection with Jimin once and for all. And yet...you couldn’t remember the words you’ve planned for so long to say right now. They just died immediately at the tip of your tongue as if they were never there in the first place. And you hate it. For once, you thought you could finally have some control over the effect of this man has on you. You feel ashamed. You feel as if you’ve betrayed yourself.

                Biting your lip, you bring your eyes back to the pansies. “I guess that’s better than having you figure out I’m just a simple nobody you can fuck over for one night of fun and throw away when you’re done and satisfied. Because that’s what I thought when you left me.”

               “No, Y/N, I’ll never do that to you–”  Jimin scrambles to reach for your hands but you take a step back away from him. You could see pain brim in his eyes and hurt pangs in your chest. You thought if you could deliver the same pain he brought to you, you would feel better. But no, you only felt worse. Worse for thinking hurting back the person you love is the right thing to do. Just like what your mom and dad did to each other. Tears sting your eyes at the thought. You swore never to become like them and you’re doing the very mistake they did. You hate this. You hate feeling so weak. You hate how you’re even thinking about Jimin and what he must be feeling when your own chest feels so heavy with the pain he caused.

               You tear your eyes away from him and dart them to your clenched hands. “I already heard your apology, Jimin. You don’t have to repeat it again to convince me. I’ll just finish these pansies so you can go.”

              “No, Y/N, you don’t understand. Can you please–please just look at me?”

             “What for, Jimin? I already heard you out, what more do you want?” You wipe away the tears that have streamed down your face, “Do you want me to hear now how sorry you are because you didn’t mean everything you said? Because if you do–”

              “I meant every single thing I said,” Jimin breathes out. “I love you, Y/N. So much that I want to do everything I can just for you to be happy. I waited for so long to finally meet you and I’m so, so, so sorry I broke my promise and fucked everything up. But I swear, Y/N, I want nothing but you and I meant everything I said especially when I told you I love you.”

              You raise your head to finally look at him and you almost wanted to regret your decision. Jimin stands in front of you, sobbing, eyes wrecked. He looks so vulnerable, cut wide open for you to see. You know he must be saying the truth but you still can’t ignore the doubt clouding in your head. You’ve already believed him once. You don’t want to repeat your mistake again.  “I would be lying if I told you I don’t want to believe what you said,” you choke out a sob, “But Jimin, I can’t just take you back and pretend what happened did not hurt me.”

               Jimin freezes. “N-no, Y/N, please–”

               “Jimin, I want you to prove you mean everything you said. I’m sorry, but I...I just can’t forgive someone so easily with mere words. I’ve seen hundreds of relationships go down because of that.” Your voice cracks, “Hell, I’ve seen my own mother and father destroy each other with repetitive apologies and forgiveness. I need to respect myself, Jimin, I–” you let out a shaky breath and hand over the wrapped pansies, “I’m sorry I can’t accept your apology now.”

               Jimin looks down and nods, “I understand, Y/N.” He doesn’t take the flowers and turns away, walking to the door. Each step he takes is synonymous to another crack making its way down your heart but you know you have to do this for yourself–for you to have enough reasons not to regret the decision you already made up in your mind about his and your future. You have to do this for yourself so you can finally deal with your fears and doubts about the soulmate phenomenon. So if Jimin can’t do what you request for, then you’ll let him go. You can’t let him and yourself experience the inevitable tragedy brought forth by the intense intimacy and transparency the soulmate phenomenon brings. You can’t take it if the both of you will face the same horrible ending your parents had.  

               Jimin stops by the door and you look up to see his retreating frame.

               “Keep the pansies. They’re for you. I-It was nice seeing you again, Y/N.”

               After that, he’s gone.

***

                You didn’t expect anything from him after your meeting in the flower shop. However, you know better than to anticipate nothing from Jimin but an effective counter-argument. You know your judgment is right when you found the proof first on your doorstep in the morning after of your talk, September 15. Five pansies stood in a small vase placed on the right of your door, next to your umbrella stand. Underneath it was a pink note, which said, “I’m sorry.”

               That evening, you stayed up late into the night. Your clock ticks ten thirty and then you hear it: a click of a button, a faint clink of glass, and Jimin’s soft voice.

               “Hi Y/N. I…I’m sorry for what I did. And I hope you know I won’t give up making it up to you for you to know I’m really serious about you. I–I’ve brought you pansies. I remember every single thing we talked about that night and after that night, the only thought that always comes to my mind ever since is you.”

               The morning after, you see the same vase and a fresh set of flowers, the wilted blooms probably cleaned up and taken out. However, instead of the note, a record lies next to the vase. When you slid it into your beat-up player, a relic you kept from your mother’s home, it plays his short message last night.  

               The routine falls into place the following days.

               “Hi Y/N. Our schedule today wasn’t full so I had the time to go to a library and read about flo-flo-floriography? My tongue always gets twisted when I say that so please don’t judge me. I’ll pronounce it better soon. So back to the book–I read that sweet peas mean ‘Thank you for the lovely time’ and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to give you that right after our date. After all, it was the happiest night of my life. Anyway, I got you some sweet peas now with the pansies. I hope you like them.”

               “Hi Y/N. I’m sorry I’m late.  We got dance practice until ten and I rushed here right after our choreographer called it a night. I wish I can show our dance to you now, but yeah…I guess you wouldn’t want to. You’ll probably throw the flowers I have now to my face. Okay, I’m kidding. I know you wouldn’t do that. I just want to make you laugh. I miss hearing you laugh.”

               “Hi Y/N. I stopped by Petal Hill this afternoon but I didn’t see you there. Someone filling in for you told me you skipped your shift to study for your tests. I wish I could help you like how guys in cheesy romance movies do but I guess I won’t be able to do that because I’m not that smart. I’ll leave early today so you can study. Eventhough I know you’ll slay it, I’ll still wish you good luck. I hope these gardenias with the pansies will give you additional good fortune.”

               “Hi Y/N. We did songwriting today and I wrote my first solo song. Guess who’s my ispiration. Surprise, Surprise, it’s you! Namjoon told us to just write out anything we’ve been thinking a lot lately and all I could think about is you. I can’t show it to you yet because it’s still messy but I promise, as soon as I made it perfect as it should be, you’ll be the first one to hear it!”

               “Hi Y/N. I read a book about flowers again! This time, I got curious about azaleas, the small, pretty pink blooms on the front shelf of Petal Hill? The flower book I read says they look like azaleas. Anyway, I learned that they require quite an effort to grow because they prefer a little sun and a little shade. I guess that’s why they mean ‘fragile’ in the older books of floriography. However, I read that even if they’re fragile, they can last for several weeks. Thus, they also mean ‘take care’ in modern floriography books. Isn’t that amazing? I brought azaleas today so they can last long and remind you to always take care of yourself.”

               Every morning you collect the records he leaves and every night you can’t help but forgive him bit by bit. His flowers and records make your mornings worthwhile; his soft voice and songs, a lullaby that you start to anticipate in the night. Jimin does his routine religiously night after night and it wasn’t long before you find your heart softening to him again, opening up for him so easily even when you didn’t want to.  There’s no use to deny the fluttering of your heart anymore because as nights go by, you already find yourself gathering up your courage to open the door and finally let him back in.

               For twelve nights, Jimin’s routine doesn’t fail. In the latter six nights, you’re by the door, practicing what to say. You plan to just throw open the door once you finally sorted out everything you want to say. However, that plan immediately goes down the drain because of one Monday night, the 14th night of Jimin’s supposed routine.

               “Hi Y/N. I know it’s late but….I have to say something important. I…I won’t be able to stop by for the next few days. We’re having our comeback tomorrow and soon after, promotions will require us to go overseas. I just came because I hope you’ll open the door by now and at least show me your face. Doesn’t matter if you throw the door close to my face the second after you show your  face. I just want to see you real bad. It would be long before I can see you again and I…I miss you. I miss you so much, Y/N. So can you please open the door? Because…I know you’ve already forgiven me.”

               Your body freezes and before you know it, your feet are pounding hard on your floor towards your door. The millisecond you tear open your door, you barely whisper, “Ho-How did you know that?!”

               Jimin stands in front of you, eyes wide. His hair is still bleached blonde like the last time you saw him, his gentle eyes still the same. He looked better than the last time you saw him, healthier. But unlike your expectations, there’s no vase and record this time. It’s just him and his flowers–a bouquet of pansies and sunflowers in his hands. Tears well up in your eyes and your lips tremble. But before you can say anything, he answers your question. “I–I can hear your thoughts.”

                “W-what?” Your jaw falls open. Oh my God.

               Jimin opens his mouth. “Oh my God.”

               Your forehead furrows. What the fuck, is he copying me?

               Jimin shrugs. “What the fuck, is he copying me?”              

               What the hell –“H-how did you know what I’m thinking? Wha-what–”

               “It’s my soulmate system,” Jimin looks into your eyes and your body goes rigid in shock. Jimin bites his lip. “I lied about soulbond being my soulmate system because…I don’t want to scare you that night that I practically already knew everything about you before I even met you. That I purposely went to Marti’s Hub just to get a glimpse of you when I knew you’re going to that bar to cry over your Law 114 essay and I just happened to be near that area. And that how I came to your rescue was not perfectly a coincidence, but intentional because I heard your…mental cries of help.”

               “The-then what about the-the daffodil ring?” You point to his left hand and Jimin breathes shakily.

               “This ring wasn’t because of your soulmate system…or mine,” he admits. “Remember that time when you’re fifteen and you thought about how romantic it will be to have a daffodil bloom inked around your ring finger instead of a wedding ring? I thought about that a lot until I can’t think about anything else. All I knew is that I have to own a permanent mark of you on my body because it felt wrong not to be tied to you in some way when you already own every part of me. I have a daffodil inked on my ring finger because,” he trails off and looks into your eyes. “What’s the meaning of the yellow daffodils?”

               You’re the only one.

               “You’re the only one,” Jimin breathes out. You felt your tears trailing down your cheeks and Jimin’s thumb wipes them away. He keeps his hand on your cheek and you look up into his eyes, into his eyes that reflect nothing but you. One second is all it takes for your defense to crumble down and fall. Fall into Jimin’s arms, fall into him again, letting him hold everything that you are–your strengths, burdens, weaknesses–everything.

               “B-but what about y-your parents?” you choke, “The-the soulbond–”

               “They’re true,” Jimin says, firm. “Excluding my soulbond soulmate system, everything I told you that night is true. My parents, my stories, my wishes, my intentions, my ‘I love you’–they’re true. All of them.”

               You tremble in his arms and Jimin holds you tighter. It is right then you decide to finally deal with your fears. “H-how can you be so sure, Jimin? How can we make this work? I-I’ve only known about you in one night.”

               “That’s not quite true,” Jimin chuckles. “You’ve known about me since 2013. I know I caught your eye the instant I showed up in the screen with the cringey snapback, trying hard to swag with cheap gold chains on my neck.”

               “But what about me? You only knew me i-in one night…”

               “Not true too.” Jimin cups your face in his hands. “I told you, I can hear your thoughts. I’ve been hearing them since you were born–all that you did, all the things you liked, all the people you disliked–I’ve already known you since I started hearing you. Hearing the minutest details of your thoughts for over so many years is enough for me to know about you.” He breathes out, smiling. “Enough for me to know my soulmate already loved me before she even meet me. And I want her to know I already felt the same before I even saw her.”

               Before you can say anything else, Jimin leans over and presses his soft lips against yours. It’s gentle, intimate–a delicate touch that conveys nothing but love. You make a noise of surprise but you already know you’ll be melting in his touch within mere seconds. You know because your cheeks feel warm and your chest flutters in joy. You know because everything about the night suddenly feels right. You know because even if you haven’t said it aloud, Jimin knows what he said is true.

               When you part, you’re greeted with his soft smile and gentle eyes that you love so much. And right then, you know that even if it scares you, you’ll have to say everything in your heart aloud. What’s let out in the open air cannot be undone anymore and you have no plans of taking back the words you will utter.

               “I love you, Jimin.”

               Jimin smiles and beams back, warm and bright. “And I won’t get tired telling you I love you, too, Y/N.”

               Standing there on your doorstep, as the world slowly turns around you, you think it’s finally time that you accept the tale of the red string of fate is more than just a fairytale for everyone else but you. Because right in front of you, is your own happy ending. And, you’re sure, even in another universe, you will relive that night you met Jimin again and again if it will grant you what you have now in your arms: love.

               You don’t need to glance at your glowing daffodil ring to prove that you’re right.

Epilogue

                As you touch your red-stained lips with one final dab, your voicemail beeps. Your free hand presses your telephone to hear the call you missed since you’ve been out of your house the whole day.

               “Hi Y/N. It’s mom. I…I wanted to tell you this in person but it would be a while before my bus reaches your place. I just…I just want to say that your father met up with me two weeks ago and…yesterday, we decided to give us another chance. I’m sorry I’m only telling you this when I always felt I should have said this way back before: the soulmate phenomenon works and I’m so sorry we caused you to distrust it and lose hope in love. I know we’re not the best parents out there, but Y/N, I want you to know that you are loved and someone out there made by the heavens and destined by fate will love you more and make you happier than we ever could. This soulmate thing–it works as long as you give it a chance and work hard too to make it work. We will be there at your place tomorrow with your father…We missed a lot about you these recent two weeks…especially your father, and I hope we can catch up. Always take care, Y/N. Mom and dad loves you.”

                   “You ready, Y/N?”

                  You turn to your boyfriend, smiling. “Yeah, Jimin, I’m done.” You grab your purse and take Jimin’s open hand, giggling when he presses a chaste kiss on the corner of your lips.

                   Smirking, you said, “You really know now how to kiss me without smearing my lipstick.”

                   Jimin looks at you, grinning, “Of course, I won’t ruin your perfect makeup. You made yourself pretty for our date tonight.” He leans to the crook of your ear and whispers, “Unless…you want me to do now what I have in mind for us later in the night.”

                  You cringe at him but Jimin probably already knows his words have affected you because you already feel your cheeks starting to heat up. “Ah, you’re so cute. I love teasing you,” Jimin chuckles as he interlocks your hand with his. When you step out of your home, you glance back to your telephone and then to your daffodil ring, glowing faintly. Smiling, you close your door.

A/N pt. 2 | Hi hons! Thank you for reading this 2nd long-ass oneshot I made after Translucent Fireworks! The inspiration from this fic came from one of the requests in my Songs to Read Playlist:

3 minutes of listening to I was Made for Loving You and one eureka moment are all it took for me to plot this story in detail from start to finish.Thus, I decided then to make this a full oneshot, and now, I am drained and tired after finishing this. This has sucked the lifeblood out of me as this kept me busy for one whole f*cking month and next week is all I have left of my summer break before uni starts hell again. But hey, at least I made up my lack of activity to you hons with lots of wordcount! Thank you for appreciating my works and I hope you all stick with me longer as I have a lot of upcoming works in store for you!

All Rights Reserved © Vanaera. Reposts, modifications, and translations of content are not allowed without direct permission.i

[the-observant-frisbeetarian]

George deValier (2015 profile)

since: 05-02-10, id: 2348750, Profile Updated: 06-02-13

country: 🇦🇺 Australia

Author has written 17 stories for Hetalia - Axis Powers.

If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you. – Henry Rollins

Hi! I’m George. One day, I will be a professor of history, who wears tweed suits and lives in a library. Right now, I am a graduate student, who wears jeans and t-shirts and… um… lives in a library.

Reviews and PMs.

I don’t demand or even expect reviews. They do, however, make me happy. So if you are kind enough to leave one after reading, please know that even though I may not reply, I read every single one, and I am incredibly grateful - your few words of praise have brightened a moment of my day. :-)

If you send me a Private Message and don’t receive a response immediately, please know that I am not deliberately ignoring you. I find it a little difficult to keep up with replying to PMs; if I haven’t responded to your message in at least three months, it’s usually because I’ve, er, lost it. Feel free to send me another one calling me a giant prat and demanding a response.

Fanart and Translations.

I am perfectly okay (quite ecstatically happy, actually) with people doing whatever they like with my fics – whether that be translations, fanart, cosplay, AMVs, whatever. You do not need to ask permission - I will always say yes. All I ask is three things. One: please credit me as the author (and a link to the original story would be fantastic). Two: please let me know so that I can check it out and thank you profusely! And three: something I hate to have to mention, but please never do anything to make money out of these works. Obviously, Hetalia does not belong to me – it belongs to the amazing Hidekaz Himaruya, who is incredibly awesome for giving us such fantastic characters to play with. :-D

MY STORIES

THE VERAVERSE

The Veraverse is a Hetalia World War Two AU, of fics involving different characters and pairings, all living within the same time period and all interconnected in some way. As each story in the series is named after and loosely based on the lyrics of a wartime song sung by Vera Lynn, I flippantly dubbed it the ‘Veraverse.’ The name has sort of stuck, however. I have posted a list of character's birth dates here: http://george-de-valier.deviantart.com/art/Hetalia-Veraverse-Birth-Dates-340315828

This series is, at its core, about the power of love over war. It's about the real reasons people fight, and the real reasons they survive. It's about finding something beautiful in the midst of something ugly and evil. But overall, although I hope there is more to these stories than just romance, they are essentially about love.

Don’t expect every fic to be updated quickly. These stories intertwine, and will be published simultaneously, and it may be a while between chapters for each specific story. Most can be read separately, however a few will require that you read at least one other story in the series to make sense of it (e.g. ‘My Echo’ does not make much sense unless you also read ‘Lily of the Lamplight.’) Rest assured, they will all be completed.

We'll Meet Again Alfred Jones/Arthur Kirkland (America/England)

Complete - Thirteen Chapters

‘We’ll Meet Again’ is about love arriving when you least expect it, and how it can transform loneliness.

Keep Smiling Through Alfred Jones/Arthur Kirkland (America/England)

Complete – One Shot

Just a little mini-sequel to ‘We’ll Meet Again’ about a brief moment in Alfred and Arthur’s lives.

Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart Ludwig Beilschmidt/Feliciano Vargas (Germany/Italy)

Complete - Eighteen chapters

‘Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart’ is about love being blind, proving stronger than hate, and lasting longer than war.

Bésame Mucho Antonio Fernandez Carriedo/Lovino Vargas (Spain/Romano)

In Progress – Fourteen chapters

‘Bésame Mucho’ is essentially about love overcoming fear.

Lily of the Lamplight Gilbert Beilschmidt/Roderich Edelstein (Prussia/Austria)

In Progress – Eighteen Chapters

‘Lily of the Lamplight’ is about selflessness, survival, and how love can change you for the better.

My Echo Unrequited Vash Zwingli/Roderich Edelstein (Switzerland/Austria)

In Progress – Six Chapters

‘My Echo’ is about how true love is selfless – even if it is unreturned.

Jealousy Ivan Braginski/Yao Wang (Russia/China)

In Progress – Six Chapters

‘Jealousy’ is a little different to the other stories in this series. It is about control, madness, and how love has the power to destroy as well as to save.

Something to Remember You By Sadik Adnan/Gupta Muhammad Hassan (Turkey/Egypt)

In Progress – Three Chapters

‘Something to Remember You By’ is about losing love, and yourself with it.

UPCOMING VERAVERSE FICS

Somewhere in France With You Francis Bonnefoy/Matthew Williams (France/Canada)

Darling, where better to meet again than the most beautiful city in the world?

It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow

Toris Laurinaitis/Feliks Łukasiewicz (Lithuania/Poland)

Art. Music. Passion. Destruction. Young, wild love, in the streets of Berlin, on the eve of war.

When I Grow Too Old to Dream Berwald Oxenstierna/Tino Väinämöinen (Sweden/Finland)

“What would you do if I just… took this tree? Claimed it for Finland?”

“I’d let ye take it.”

“This lake?”

“Ye can have it.”

“This entire forest?”

“’t’s yours.”

“Would you let me take your whole country, Berwald?”

“Yes. And you? What’f I just… took this rock?”

“You can’t have that rock. That’s a Finnish rock.”

You’ll Never Know

Elizaveta Héderváry/ Lili Zwingli (Hungary/Liechtenstein)

“But who knows? Maybe you'll meet a charming little Swiss girl with plaits and a basket who likes to yodel on mountaintops."

Elizaveta always hated it when Gilbert was right.

When the Lights go on Again

Eduard Von Bock/Raivis Galante (Estonia/Latvia)

"I will stay with him through this darkness. I will give my soul to keep it from him. And I swear, whatever I must do, that Raivis Galante will live to see the lights go on again.”

Room Five-Hundred-and-Four

Herakles Karpusi/Kiku Honda (Greece/Japan)

“Life's most important conversations take place in bars. Perhaps in places not too dissimilar from this - perhaps between people not so different from ourselves. Bars, after all, are where people meet, and where they rejoice; where they forget, and where they say goodbye. They are the crossroads of life."

"You sound like a philosopher. Though your name suggests a hero."

Faraway Places

Bad Friends Trio (France, Prussia, and Spain)

“Ah, those were the days, huh, Gil? Remember the time you tried to take on the entire Parisian police force?”

“Or the time you knocked yourself out running from that bull in Pamplona?”

“Or that time Francis tried to seduce your grandfather?!”

“Francis what?”

“Oh, look at that, I’ve finished my drink.”

Autumn Leaves

Augustus Roma Vargas (Ancient Rome)

But I miss you most of all, my darling, when autumn leaves start to fall.

OTHER FICS

THE MAPLEVERSE

This is a currently small modern AU, set in modern day Canada.

La Patisserie de la Rose Francis Bonnefoy/Matthew Williams (France/Canada)

Complete – Six Chapters

A birthday present for Claudia, aka ThisCouldTheoreticallyBeSparta

An essentially fluffy Franada with lots of cameos and cake and general silliness. I like to think this story is about friendship as much as it is about love. It's also about seeing something in someone that no one else can - not even themselves.

Libelle Hall Gilbert Beilschmidt/Roderich Edelstein (Prussia/Austria)

In Progress – Three Chapters

A Gift for Kay, aka Kay the Beta

‘Libelle Hall’ is about change, and about love growing from self-realisation. It’s also an examination of Gilbert and Roderich’s characters, and how they aren’t that different from each other, after all. And it’s a gift for my beta Kay, because she loves PruAus, and she’s awesome.

Of Ponies and Edelweiss Gilbert Beilschmidt/Roderich Edelstein (Prussia/Austria)

Complete – One Shot

A Valentines’ Day present for Claudia

Just a fluffy, romantic little fic for Valentines’ Day. Well, as romantic as Gilbert gets, anyway.

ONGOING MULTI-CHAPTERS

Catch Perfect Berwald Oxenstierna/Tino Väinämöinen (Sweden/Finland)

In Progress – Twelve Chapters

‘Catch Perfect’ is basically proof that I can’t even write crack without some semblance of plot and angst. I am still writing this, just ever so slowly.

The Tiger and the Dragon Ivan Braginski/Yao Wang (Russia/China)

In Progress – Seventeen Chapters

I first posted this story almost three years ago. Last year I started re-publishing it, mainly to fix up the writing quality and some plot points. Yes, it’s melodramatic; yes, it’s a bit cliché. Basically, if this were a published novel, it would be the type to have GAY EROTIC ROMANCE in tacky writing across the cover. But really, what the hell, it’s fun. :-D

COMPLETED ONE SHOTS

Stay With You Germany/Italy

A rare story with the characters as nations, and my very first posted fanfiction. I had just discovered Hetalia when I wrote this, and loved the random humour of it, but also wondered what it could be like if it was a more serious take on the Second World War. Also, it has always been blatantly obvious to me that Germany and Italy are in love with each other. Like, duh.

Gallipoli Australia and New Zealand

Another nation story from me, about a conflict embedded in the consciousness of every Australian. We haven’t been given much to go on with Australia’s characterisation, so I went with my gut instinct – he’s anti-authority, he’s an easily broken optimist, and he cares deeply about his men. Gallipoli shattered the romantic idea of war for this country. I think it would have shattered Australia, too.

Sleep, Little Bird Berwald Oxenstierna/Tino Väinämöinen (Sweden/Finland) and Peter (Sealand)

There is not much I can really say about this one, except sorry. Oh, and that it’s not in the same universe as ‘Catch Perfect.’ I wouldn’t do that. ;-)

LINKS!

http://george-de-valier.deviantart.com (deactivated account) - Where I fave and comment on the wonderful artwork that people have drawn for my stories. I adore fan art, so please tell me if you have drawn any! If I happen to come across art for my stories that I haven’t been told about, be warned, I WILL proceed to fave and comment on it anyway. :-)

www.youtube.com/user/ykwyh26 - My lovely and talented beta Kay’s YouTube site, where you can hear all the songs from my Veraverse stories.

VIDEOS

I am incredibly flattered that the amazingly talented Alyss Lane has written a gorgeous song based on ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart.’ It is called ‘Auf Wiedersehen,’ performed by Willow, and you can hear this beautiful song here – www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N8T4oIppS0

The following are awesome AMVs for my fics, made by some very talented artists.

The Veraverse

Sanctuary, by Insomniac3Ltd

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfvTV5b9Zwk (unavailable)

We'll Meet Again

We���ll Meet Again, by Shokora15

www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4COUwq9yzA

Wild Horses, by SirenShadow95

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaiMnawL3hM

Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart

Stereo Love, by snobo52

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH8-zY-3qiI

If I Die Young, by NightmareCCL

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkoVnwzwLlU

Stay, by PastaWithWurst

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i61AAOfNm4 (unavailable)

Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart, by Sydney Amber

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM9anzT81tM

Home, by Sanity4Fire

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjPTML1vjXA (unavailable)

Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart, by ShiroBaraLuv123

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qltINwf-ZkU (unavailable)

Bésame Mucho

Fear, by ykwyh26

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua5Ak4O9P88

Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, by Kayleigh Turgeon

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pDaLTw5wIs (unavailable)

The Only Exception, by InuLoverNr1Hitomi

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pt_sHtZfIw

Don’t Tell Me You Love Me If You Don’t Mean It, by AnnoyingGirl1234

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkcTKOAN8Y8 (unavailable)

Lily of the Lamplight

Lili Marlene, by xxEmoxxChibixx

www.youtube.com/watch?v=otYq31Qnct8

Sleep, Little Bird

Sleep, by Hetaliagirl96

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tOCsWjpNsk (unavailable)

La Patisserie de la Rose

Take Me Home, by Ahogemako

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwsX1rJ2CDo

Something to Remember You By

Lullabies, by Lanie P

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnRXhe2cdZw

STORIES WRITTEN FOR ME

These are all fantastic. Please check them out, you won’t be disappointed!

Mi Piachi perché Mi Piaci, by ThisCouldTheoreticallyBeSparta

(GerIta, Spamano, PruAus, BelgHun and teeny mentions of Franada, Netherlands/Australia, UsUk)

A wonderful birthday present of fluffy GerIta goodness from my wonderful friend Claudia.

www.fanfiction.net/s/7601790/1/Mi_Piaci_perche_Mi_Piaci

Maple Street, by fubibliophile

(Canada and America)

A really cool, atmospheric one shot from the very sweet fubibliophile.

www.fanfiction.net/s/7796628/1/Maple_Street

Chapter Four of Hetalia Fairy Tales, by Kitty-Kat Allie

(GiriPan)

An incredibly sweet GiriPan fairy tale from a wonderful author and a lovely person.

www.fanfiction.net/s/7730679/4/Hetalia_Fairy_Tales

1. Something To Remember You By » reviews

VV AU. 1914. Constantinople, Turkey. On the eve of war, street dweller Sadik Adnan's way of life and existence is called into question by the strange, beautiful Egyptian imam, Gupta Muhammad Hassan.

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: M - English - Romance/Tragedy - Chapters: 1 - Words: 4,732 - Reviews: 73 - Published: 5-30-13 - Turkey & Egypt

2. Lily of the Lamplight » reviews

WW2 AU. Austrian musician Roderich and German soldier Gilbert are forced into an army prison unit and a fight for survival on the Russian Front. But in the midst of blood and death and hell on earth, how long can they fight their desire for each other?

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: M - English - Romance/Angst - Chapters: 4 - Words: 27,329 - Reviews: 557 - Updated: 5-21-13 - Published: 11-20-11 - Prussia & Austria

3. Libelle Hall » reviews

Modern AU. When Roderich Edelstein – student, musician, and reluctant activist – attempts to save a local music hall from destruction, he is not prepared for the conflicting emotions evoked in him by arrogant demolition worker Gilbert Beilschmidt. Gift fic for Kay the Beta.

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: T - English - Romance/Friendship - Chapters: 2 - Words: 8,900 - Reviews: 174 - Updated: 5-6-13 - Published: 2-20-13 - Prussia & Austria

4. Jealousy »  reviews

WW2 AU. Insane Russian Commander Ivan Braginski is the terror of his battalion and his enemies alike. He controls the lives of thousands - but it is the memory of one that controls his own. Tie-in to 'Lily of the Lamplight.'

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: M - English - Romance/Tragedy - Chapters: 1 - Words: 3,077 - Reviews: 80 - Published: 11-29-12 - Russia & China

5. The Tiger and the Dragon » reviews

Human AU. Awkward, average chef Yao Wang is sick of being thought of as boring and predictable. When he meets the enigmatic and slightly unnerving Ivan Braginski, Yao is immediately captivated. As he falls deeper it becomes apparent just how dangerous Ivan really is… but Ivan is just as smitten, and Yao may be too in love to care about the consequences…

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: M - English - Romance/Drama - Chapters: 4 - Words: 12,967 - Reviews: 155 - Updated: 11-15-12 - Published: 8-25-12 - Russia & China

6. My Echo » reviews

WW2 AU. Captain Vash Zwingli is a soldier in someone else's war; a man mad enough to lead where others will not. He treads a fine line between life and death, between sanity and madness, in a constant battle to forget. But when Vash's past confronts him in the worst place on earth, will it finally tip him over the edge – or give him a chance for redemption? Unrequited SwissAus.

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: M - English - Angst/Drama - Chapters: 1 - Words: 2,378 - Reviews: 73 - Published: 11-15-12 - Switzerland

7. La Patisserie de la Rose » reviews

AU. Accountant Matthew Williams is used to being unnoticed, ignored, and forgotten. That is until pastry chef Francis Bonnefoy appears like a burst of colour in his dull, grey life. Gift fic for TCTBS.

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: M - English - Romance - Chapters: 6 - Words: 35,111 - Reviews: 573 - Updated: 10-10-12 - Published: 12-9-11 - France & Canada - Complete

8. Catch Perfect » reviews

AU. When Berwald loses everything he is forced to move into a share house with an insane Dane, a sociopathic Norwegian, an unfathomable Icelander and a perfect Finn who makes it all worth putting up with.

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: T - English - Romance/Friendship - Chapters: 8 - Words: 36,538 - Reviews: 582 - Updated: 9-22-12 - Published: 10-10-10 - Sweden & Finland

9. Blue, White, Red » reviews

Human AU. 1777; The American Revolutionary War. Three times, American rebel Alfred Jones meets British soldier Arthur Kirkland. One blue; one white; one red.

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: M - English - Angst/Romance - Chapters: 3 - Words: 5,981 - Reviews: 369 - Updated: 9-20-12 - Published: 8-26-12 - America & England/Britain - Complete

10. Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart » reviews

WW2 AU. Feliciano Vargas is a passionate, if slightly scared, Italian resistance member. Falling in love with a German fighter pilot was the last thing he expected... and it will test his national loyalty, and his heart, to their limits.

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: M - English - Romance/Angst - Chapters: 18 - Words: 104,322 - Reviews: 3246 - Updated: 8-11-12 - Published: 12-18-10 - Germany & N. Italy - Complete

11. Keep Smiling Through » reviews

'We'll Meet Again' mini-sequel. Keep smiling through, just like you always do; 'til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away! USUK

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: K - English - Romance - Chapters: 1 - Words: 2,376 - Reviews: 172 - Published: 6-28-12 - America & England/Britain - Complete

12. Bésame Mucho » reviews

WW2 AU. Lovino Vargas only ever wanted something exciting to happen in his boring, everyday Italian village existence. He never expected war, Resistance, love, passion, treason, or a cheerful, confusing, irritatingly attractive Spanish freedom fighter.

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: M - English - Romance/Angst - Chapters: 5 - Words: 39,037 - Reviews: 817 - Updated: 5-30-12 - Published: 8-1-11 - Spain & S. Italy/Romano

13. Of Ponies and Edelweiss » reviews

Gilbert Beilschmidt is not, generally speaking, a romantic man. Which makes his behaviour this particular Valentine's Day a little odd for Roderich to understand… Gift fic for TCTBS; spin-off of 'La Patisserie de la Rose.'

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: T - English - Romance - Chapters: 1 - Words: 4,143 - Reviews: 130 - Published: 2-14-12 - Prussia & Austria - Complete

14. Sleep, Little Bird » reviews

Human AU. Tino, Berwald and Peter are the perfect family. Things like this don't happen to people like them. But when they do, how are they supposed to accept it?

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: T - English - Family/Tragedy - Chapters: 1 - Words: 4,169 - Reviews: 294 - Published: 9-26-11 - Finland & Sweden - Complete

15. Gallipoli » reviews

Gallipoli, April 25, 1915. Australia is a young nation with plenty to prove. And war is where nations prove themselves.

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: T - English - Drama/Angst - Chapters: 1 - Words: 4,966 - Reviews: 48 - Published: 4-28-11 - Australia - Complete

16. We'll Meet Again » reviews

WW2 AU. London pub owner Arthur Kirkland is driven to distraction by loud, brash American fighter pilot Alfred Jones. Unable to stop it, Arthur finds himself falling for Alfred's charms... just as the pilot is preparing to leave for war.

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: M - English - Romance/Angst - Chapters: 13 - Words: 43,415 - Reviews: 1376 - Updated: 1-20-11 - Published: 7-18-10 - America & England/Britain - Complete

17. Stay With You » reviews

Germany lies defeated and alone in the aftermath of the Battle of Berlin... but not everyone has abandoned him.

Hetalia - Axis Powers - Rated: T - English - Angst/Romance - Chapters: 1 - Words: 1,325 - Reviews: 66 - Published: 5-4-10 - Germany & N. Italy - Complete

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THANK YOU MARVINHERE FOR FINDING THIS!

[summernightskyy]

Tag Game (thanks @nomattertheoceans​ 😄)

Nickname(s): Bud/Buddy by my brother (its honestly weird when he calls me my actual name), Tori by some people, Baby by my mom and grandparents, and Baby Duck by my dad

Zodiac sign: Pisces♓

Height: 5′2″ or ~1.58 m

Hogwarts house: Ravenclaw, even though according to Pottermore I’m a Slytherin

Last Thing I Googled: "Is something like San Junipero possible” and “nostalgia therapy”. I watched San Junipero recently, and like always I was in my feels about it. (If anyone has never seen San Junipero, I strongly recommend it) But I was curious if that kind of tech could ever come about.

Song Stuck In My Head: Small Talk by Niall Horan and The Night King by Ramin Djawadi (I’m weird and I like soundtrack music, and Game of Thrones in the end didn’t deserve Ramin, he’s amazing 😥😔)

Followers/Following: 102 followers (I’m crazy thankful to have this many followers, especially because I don’t really do anything, but anyways, thank you!) / 174 following

Hours Of Sleep: Well... lately I’ve been getting next to no sleep or tons of sleep, no in between

Lucky Number: 4 and 23!

Dream Job: As of right now, I want to be a physician - either a psychiatrist or an OBGYN, but sometimes I find myself wanting to be a screenwriter or something, cause things like GoT prove that more women are definitely needed in that industry.

Wearing: some comfy sweats and a tank top

Favourite Song(s): That is really, REALLY hard. I listen to a lot of different types of music. I guess right now, my favorite songs are She by Harry Styles, After Hours by The Weeknd, Scary Love by The Neighborhood, Somebody Else by The 1975, still feel. by half alive and then Swimming Pools by Kendrick Lamar has been one of my favorite songs since I was like 14 or 15. 

Favourite Instrument: I think the guitar - both normal and bass. I’d love to learn to play both, but its been hard so far to learn even the normal electric guitar because I have small hands 🙁

Favourite Author: I can’t really say I have an all time favorite author, but some of my favorites lately have been Sarah J. Maas, Holly Black, Leigh Bardugo and Becky Albertalli. 

Favourite Animal Noise: The sound of my doggy hiccuping - its just really cute to me, even though its probably very annoying to him!

Random Fact: Huh, I’ll give two I guess. 1) I’m slightly obsessed with Zero from The Nightmare Before Christmas and Scraps from The Corpse Bride (Tim Burton movie pets do it for me I guess) AND 2) I read To Kill a Mockingbird the first time when I was in middle school and hated it, but now its one of my favorite books!

(Art found at: piddies0709.deviantart.com)

Aesthetic: The sound of music playing softly in the background, a warm summer night in the desert stargazing, and ceiling to floor bookshelves.

Tagging: @eventide-moon​, @coldwandering​

[kurtty-drabbles]

Misfit au (the start)

N/A: I´d say redemption for characters is good if is earned, not every evil character should or can be the good guy, but, if DC can make Harley the good guy...why not the others?

@djinmer4 @sailorstar9 @dannybagpipesarecalling @discordsworld @look-ma-no-hands336

The weather is humid and is giving the impression of noir, as someone is running from prison, which, ironic, is the perfect feeling for this night to a certain group. The government of the US is sending their top agents to retrieve the fugitive, dead or alive, sadly for them, the fugitives are still missing.

"Miss Weller" the captain is talking with his boss "the Suicide Squad is still unknown" the captain speak uneasily as the general and the other men are searching in the dark for something that may be already out of the state, only God can know what those freaks can do.

"Captain Smith, retrieve your men right now, at this point, find them will be impossible, let´s clean our steps" is a silent order with many implications and the Captain understand what his real command is as the man shoot the scientists and their assists.

"The operation is cancelled" the Captain explained as many scientists are shoot "there´s no register of Suicide Squad"

Meanwhile, the fugitives are in the sewer, much to their dismay, the old cliche of comic books ended up saving their lives. Columbina, Blink, Ice Woman, Polaris, War Path and Croc Man are walking in the sewer and watching rats and crocodiles(an Urban Legend, but, this is New Gotham) alike without caring.

"So" Columbina  speaks breaking the silence "we went to magical electroshock that should have killed us, but, manage to take the chip in our minds, without giving any sequela, and we´re here...in the sewer, full of dirty water" Columbina speaks as she has a hard time to believe in anything that just happened, well, in a sense, Columbina needs to believe in order to keep her sanity.

Polaris, being the one with any source of light, as the sewer was never designed to have light, even in New Gotham " No, what impressed me is the someone design this" she points the sewer " to be bigger enough to any person or meta-human to walk freely, but, they refuse to put lights"

"Sometimes, we got to wonder," Columbine said "how self-aware is New Gotham truly is"

Tori only sighs and complains about taxes. "Seriously, I do my taxes for that?!"

Blink intervene "we´re under the Suicide Squad, no one pays taxes, ironically, this has to be the only advantage the government ever give to us"

Warpath watches the two women complain about taxes and government, as Kitty is finding amazing how they went through electroshock and their hair doesn´t even look messy. And Dr Croc really wants a beer.

"What" the Apache man speaks gaining the attention of the others " we will do now? Return for our old lives? Do we have this option?"

Kitty said nothing, neither did Polaris, as the green haired woman only speaks one line "I´m looking at a door, in the fucking sewer, and I can only say, only in New Gotham"

The silence rules of the group and the future is uncertain, Warpath is musing about the experience and the uncertainty of everything makes too real, freedom was a vague dream, and now, she´s offering many, many possibilities.

Freedom is at their hands and they still smell like they just get out of a sewer, well, they really did. And now, Polaris and the others are planning on what to do, New Gotham is dark now, and the sounds of sirens can be heard, is for them or for someone else?

People wearing hoods show up, speaking in a dialect that is akin to Chinese, Kitty deduces as she used to study languages before...Suicide Squad and the hood figures show weapons and are ready to fight.

Collective all they speak one thing. "Only in New Gotham" and quickly they all begin to fight with the hood figures, who, of course, know all the martial arts and magic one can think of, in the end, Suicide Squad wins over the hood figures as Columbina used her hammer to finishes the last enemy.

No blood or guts was meet, instead, only sand is left on the floor. "So, sand people are real?" Columbina asked and before she could receive an answer they are transported to a mansion.

Tori only sighs as she points out they are still in New Gotham, of course, in the Magical part. "When you´re rich why stay in the non-magical part of New Gotham? I hate rich people" Tori aka Ice Woman complains and War Path wonders what´s real anymore.

"Ah, finally, the Suicide Squad arrives" a new voice jolts them and they take a step back as Ra Al Ghoul is drinking wine and looking at them as a good host, everyone knows who Ra Al Ghoul is. Never make an enemy of this man. "Oh, please, don´t be afraid, if I´d want you dead you would be dead already"

"Thanks, that really breaks the ice," Kitty said and Tori resents that line. "But, why are we here?"

"I´ll explain, but, first, Lorna Dane Lesher, I owe you the biggest apology I can give " this surprise everyone, including Lorna herself, as no one expected this. Deep down, they are all thinking if Columbina is right and maybe the dirty water and the electroshock are a bad combination.

"Judge by all your confusing faces, I better explain myself, Lorna, your father, Erik Lesher was a good friend of mine, Magneto, the master of Magnetism, and when you went to live with your family by your mother´s side, Magneto asked me to keep an eye on you, you see," Ra paused for a moment and continues "he had many enemies and he wanted you, his only daughter, to be saved and have a normal life, I did the best I could, but, I was a fool to not think the government wouldn´t use someone with your abilities and for that I apologise" Ra finishes his speech and Lorna has no idea what to say. Lorna looks at Kitty and asked her, with her green eyes pleading and only that, to do something.

"Look," Kitty said "we went through hell, maybe you had seen many versions of hell" Ra agree he did, Kitty is not surprised "but, offer sand people to kill and apologies will do shit to our situation, we had no life, and nothing to grab on reality...I can´t speak by the others, but, I want revenge or justice, whatever appropriate word is need here, against the monsters who used me as a weapon, I want to kill them, and I´d not think you want to help us"

"But, Miss Pryde...I´d want to help" Ra speaks offering a smile "You all want to murder, and I can sympathise with revenge, but, I can give more than a shiny weapon, well, no one here needs a weapon, I can give you a cover"

Lorna now speaks, still shocked(in more ways than another) about the revelation and is gazing at Ra Al Ghoul "how can you help us?"

"And what this will cost us?" Kitty adds as no one would give big favour for free, especially someone like Ra Al Ghoul.

"I can give you the perfect cover, now, for the price...I just want everyone´s discretion" he offers in a velvet tone and the others take a minute to consider the option.

"Well, when the devil makes an offer and we have no other option and we just defeat sand people, why not?" Kitty said shrugging comically. Lorna has still no concrete idea of what to think right now, her father passed away and still surprises her even in the grave.

3 years later, one of the popular shows is "You´re wrong" is the most popular Talk show in the history of TV, only losing to "sketch TV" a show that introduces the news how people like and the fans and haters often point out many of the greatest or worst moments of the program, often using each moment to prove journalism is dead or is doing alright.

Few realize that Sketch TV is not a channel of journalism, is a comedy show, lead by Kitty Pryde, Tori Drake and Lorna Dane, Clarice Fong, James Jonathan Proudstar and Eric “Croc” James

"Ryder, careful" Vera speaks drinking her cup of coffee "you can be overshadowed by this Sketch TV"

"Vera, they are a comedy show," Ryder said a bit amused, but, as he´s looking at some of the old sketches, Kitty giving details about how a person can steal a diamond, something clicked in his mind "but life is a comedy" and he is off to investigate and prepare his next news.

[ashalaughs]

An Annotated List of Men’s Tinder Profiles Part 13

Tough times call for making fun of dudes on the internet. Transatlantic edition.

1. I drink a lot of pink lemonade and I don’t CARE who knows!: You do you, boo

2. I once accidentally stole a diamond, wanna know How?: Yes but not enough to talk to you

3. What kind of my type are you? The kind that starts riots, the kind that rides bikes irresponsibly, or the kind that want to escape into the woods and become a swamp witch?: Truly, a man of very specific tastes

4. Iam an uncomplicated person. I like to improvise and I like to know.: These seem like contradictory impulses.

5. I am a better cook than all aliens of the entire universe: A bold and totally unverifiable claim

6.  Aussie boy looking for a lovely local lass to teach me how to play the ugly stick: Is this…a euphemism?

7. Latino (original one, from Latin Europe :P): Who will explain to him that’s not what that means?

8. My dad always said “you want a lady on the streets but a freak in the sheets!” However I just want a freak everywhere!: What a fascinating father son relationship

9. I always face others sincerely and give others a smile! The countries that impress me the most are Iraq and Afghanistan!: I guess I’m just really curious about what work “impress” is doing in this sentence

10. I bet I can cook better than you your mum and Nan combined I will prove it if you let me. I have made Mike Tyson milkshake and cookies at 1:45am: I’m impressed but also neither of those things require cooking

11. I like my women, like I like my sake: cool, unfiltered, and on someone else’s tab: I truly cannot parse this one

12. Low-key looking for my Lady Macbeth: who isn’t longing for the kind of spouse that pushes you to murder?

13. Looking for fellow LGBTQ mental health and human rights activist with 0% hypocrisy: I mean, good luck buddy.

14. ONS/FWB is fine. If you’re drunk, desperate, or don’t care. But no fucking Tory. Even miserable pricks like me have some standards: Had to include this one for being hilariously British

15. If you’ve read “The Art of Seduction” and “The Prophet” we’ll probably vibe: A truly wild combination of books

16. PS: I absolutely do not look like the The Tinder Swindler and I have no enemies: Convincing!

17. Bras are like best friends. They are close to the heart and always there for support. Be my bra.: Classic tinder: a laboured simile that suggests a strangely non-reciprocal relationship

18. It’s a race and I always finish first: Can’t say he didn’t warn you

19. Not into myth… NO Medusas plz: An unnecessarily grand way to say no uggos but okay

20. Roses are red, violets are blue / This brown man’s arrange marriage is due / If you can save me from it, I’ll cook curry for you: Please someone save the poor woman who is supposed to marry this fool

21. For girls trying to find a guy in his mid 30s on a dating app it really truly is shopping at the discount rack. The sweater looks great from a far however it has a hole in it or one arm is longer than the other. Now it’s a perfectly good sweater, however it’s up to you to deal with imperfections: Love a man who will compare himself to a shoddily made garment

22. Hate – Wheelie bin teeth (1 black 1 green 1 f**g missing): Is this a thing you encounter regularly?

23. Already in love w another woman but need sex and intimacy from someone else before she falls in love with me too: This does not contain nearly enough information and also sounds like the plot of a terrible movie

24. There must be male models on this app because nobody matches with me and my mom says I’m pretty handsome. This is bs. Not vaccinated and never will be: Yes, male models are the only possible explanation for this mystery

25. I’m challenging, confident, stubborn, carry ½ the empathy I should, driven to always be trying or doing new things, exercise in someway three times a week, and eager to find similar: If you know any cold-hearted fitness girl bosses, hit this guy up

[scatteredrevelations]

They’re Not Just Scars

They’re the demons you fought at 3:00 am as the darkness overwhelmed you.

         They’re the insecurities and fears and emotions taking on a physical form.

They’re the evidence that proves even the strongest of souls can’t win every battle.

They’re a language; not one written in words, but one created with cuts and       bruises.              A language not written on paper, but our skin.

                         They’re the sealed entrances to the pain and tragedies that run                                                                                                    through our blood.

They’re our way of being in control; how, where, when, and why you do it.

                                                                    They’re the debris left after the war.

And that war was not easily fought.

                                                   What people don’t understand is the amount of                                                                     chaos and suffering a person must be                                                                experiencing to cause self – inflicted pain.

Do you think people who draw with a blade want to slice up their skin to the point the damage becomes permanent?

                                Do you think people like all the regret and hate that follows                                                                                                    each gash made?

Do you think people desire the pity and attention they receive if someone notices their marks?

                                        If you do, think again.

                                                    People harm themselves because they need                                                      something that reminds them that they’re alive.

People use their skin as a canvas because they want the thoughts and emotions to flow out of their body.

                 People who embrace their misfortunes don’t want scrutinized by                                others; they want to try and live their lives happily, because they                                                                                      were never able to before.

They’re not just scars. But pieces of art painted vigorously with a blade.                                                                                              They’re not just scars.                                                                                        But a piece of our bodies.

          You judge our scars.                                                 You judge us.�� And the judgments of other people is one of the reasons we have                        scars to begin with.

             If you see people with cuts or scars don’t fucking call them emo                                       Don’t call them attention-seekers                                                        Don’t stare                                                         Don’t ask                                                         Don’t joke

                               And most of all don’t reopen the wounds. 

                                                             They’re not as healed as you might think

With much love, _ Tori

[mechagalaxy]

John T. Mainer - Lure the Craftsmen

Lightfoot Diaries 2: To lure the Craftsmen

They were still here. Drocha had hunted them to extinction, everyone knew it. Everyone was wrong. King of the Mountain was something my pilots had never even heard of. I lead them to the Mountain, and we raged upon its slopes, not for pay, not to bring down hated enemy, hell half the people on here I knew, most of whom I liked, and some of whom were in our clan. No, this was about GLORY.

The local pilots were slow to grasp, but the excitement of the Mountain cast a spell on them, as it did all of us, and soon they were slavering to charge up the mountain, stroking the mecha bay bunnies with shaking hands, riding the dump shock while the techs pieced together our machines for yet another run, one step higher up the mountain, or die trying.

It worked. I don’t mean just teaching the new pilots to love the mountain, but the CRAFTSMEN heard us, and answered. They were not dead. A shiny new Nephillax was seen in our Clan mecha bay, and the pilots touched it with wide eyed wonder. Not a niode machine, a piece of Craftsman perfection that owed nothing to the Forerunners at all. This was a pure thing, a piece of glory made ferrite and bioptic, woven with gold crystal into a reality that simply expressed engineering perfection, mecha magnificence. I mean no pilot alive can see one and not get serious lust issues. The Craftsmen lived, and answered when the pilots battled as individuals upon the mountain, but individuals could not preserve the worlds from evil, that required armies. That required warrior clans.

They thought me mad, well I was by their standards. We led our poor doubting pilots into ancient starships that had not been used in generations, and we brought them into orbit over Vigrid, the war world.

No daring rush of orbital battle, the pilots had no experience with hot drops; the warship crew was barely competent with basic ship handling. We did this under full peacetime safety regs, and we still accidentally destroyed a drop ship from Free Points as they failed to course correct away from the lumbering form of our Troop Cruiser. You can turn a drop ship on a dime, but novice ship handlers need about a quarter orbit to turn a fully loaded troop cruiser, and that put us through the Free Points drop ship in an explosion of oxygen fueled flame. Very sparkly, and a good wake up call for our pilots; Clan war began in orbit, and ended in death or glory.

We fell screaming from the sky, the Lightfoot Bunnies dropped on the Division Five beacon. The officers, all experienced real world veterans screaming their war cries, the new pilots a mix of war cries, sobbing, and one person calling over and over again for help. There is no help, there is only war, and really, if no one is dropping a colony on you, there is nothing to complain about.

Terminator struggled to assemble as they scattered widely in their drop pods. Our own group was pushed mercilessly by their veteran leadership into some sort of order as we fell, so our assembly was faster.

I would be embarrassed by that drop by our lowest clan. The Guardians of Bunny leadership would have loaded everyone back up and practiced insertions all day until they could drop on the beacon in skirmish order, but this was the virgin drop of the Lightfoot bunnies, and while no Jumpmaster would be awarding any certifications for it, it was about as good a familiarization drop as you were going to get. Few were killed, almost none injured, only one upside down. We came together first and hit Terminator like an armored fist. They never had a second chance to get together and our veteran leadership proved a telling point as we had carved through them before they ever got mustered.

Metatryagain was a different manner. Their scouts skirmished with our scouts and the battle for information proved frustrating in the beginning. I decided that slow and steady was not our strength and lead us in a howling charge. Paul, Don, Mariea, Mark, Joe, Christian, Tim were all old hands who understood that shock and awe had their place. Switching from cautious probe to full assault, we hammered home and drove through Metatryagain, setting a pace they couldn’t match, forcing engagement on our own terms.

The problem loomed ahead. Myth and Legends Rogue Brigade. Two 150ton specialists, the same as I was defending at, showed they were planning on controlling the tight passes of the Jottunheim Mountains. Myth and Legends had blown their previous opponents out of the water by margins of over fifty. They boasted as many players level 20 and up as we did, and outnumbered us as well. Their specialists were lower level than I was, so I trusted I could win the battle for control of the passes, and allow my heavy forces to pass, while forcing theirs to go around.

The battle was far from one sided, I won sixteen lost once, in my attacks, and one of their top players was able to put together a 150 ton that could punch mine out of the way long enough to get his own heavies past, but my control over those passes left us with control of the pace of the engagement, and let my Bunnies loose on their vulnerable flanks.

This battle was not settled in an hour, and right up until the final hour, the mountains and valleys rang with cannon and missile, the sky flashed with the pulses of laser and flame. In the end, the Lightfoot Bunnies stood victorious, having waged a marathon war against an opponent who did not know how to quit.

Did it work? Did the Craftsmen who had so long hidden from Drocha see us make glorious war upon the Iron plains of Vigrid? Did they see the eternal war that was their calling, their art, their purpose for existence was raised again by warrior clans?

I did not know.

I should have had faith.

Standing in glorious and awesome potency were machines that would give Tory’s Inferno nightmares, and cause Smilodons to run for cover. Great ninety ton Regis stood in every officer’s bay, a command mecha with a bright golden medal shining upon its breast. The Craftsmen had seen us go to war again, and while they had not designed a Zadok yet in this universe, as they had never had Clans to so award, I had no doubt that soon they would dream the cyan killer into existence. Moved by our efforts, they saw fit to grace the golden clans with weapons of matchless power. I contacted my opposite number at the Myth and Legends to discover that silent black Onyx equipped with shining silver medals had awaited their return. The Warrior Clans would know the rewards of the Craftsmen. Drocha’s shadow was lifted from the land, and the Warrior Clans had learned what it was to come together in glory, come together in war, and return the richer for it.

Next time I have no doubt some fool will try to destroy them, some great raid will descend upon the warrior clans to try to wipe out humanities defenders, but it is too late. We taught them to come together, to stand together, and to win. Let the raids come, even when Drocha’s last doomsday device tears us from this dimension, it will not matter.

The Warrior Clans live, the Craftsmen have returned to the Mountain. There will be new Kings upon the Mountain, there will be an eternity of war upon Vigrids plains. Clan War has come to the Metaverse. Peace and slavery are over. There is only an eternity of war, and the strong shield of the Warrior Clans is again over the free folk of this Metaverse. Our work is done.

John T Mainer 28840

[horriblegif]

LEVEL DRAMA 50

It’s not usually our style to respond to artworld dramas in any medium longer than a few tweets. They’re never particular exciting beyond the unholy fascination akin to watching some rats fight over a headless cockroach on the floor of a Subway. Moreover, they’re usually confined to a pattern - think of a writer publishing some text on something which upsets people by association and then using his/her social media to promote that text, thusly charging the gravitational pull of indignation and buying space for a pop-up arena of combative discourse below. An example of this would be Art in America’s 2014 piece ‘The Perils of Post-Internet Art’ by Brian Droitcour, itself a wavering diet-summation of a genre that seemed to evolve out of increasing access to technological means of image making and also began to historicise itself simultaneously. Weird right!!? Predictably, arguments followed on social media with responses from implicated parties and sideliners, running the gamut of indignant whiny rebuttal to carefully oriented endorsement. There’s a lot of wiggle room for staking out narratives, personalising them, claiming them or discrediting others, in other words a divine gift to every editorial intern for glossy art magazines that are half full of adverts for luxurious things and half full of tiny texts about arts beginning and ending with the authors name. Qualitative judgement and criticism in the Greenbergian sense is even more obsolete, obsolete accelerated, block-chained and stacked. The modern critique exercise garners no adhesion to the contemporary artscape even as an arse-aching literary nostalgia throwback. Old platforms haven’t all died and new platforms are not always replacing them, but reflective mediations serve commonplace delight regardless of the impossibility to predict.

Brexit and Trump, among many other unkind reminders given up to cultural onlookers, prove that despite our illusions of a slogging but mobile transition towards rectifying centuries of inherent vices within civilisation, there are still a lot of racists around. Not all supporters of Trump might have been racist, but nevertheless they did support one. Not all supporters of Brexit might have been racist, but the rise of hate crime against foreigners post-referendum says enough. Life goes on, whatever post-rationalised narrative you believe is the causation of this crisis in the west and until we’re in a full-blown totalitarian regime we have choices to resist without putting our lives at stake. These resistances can be boycotts, mild political integration or volunteering, adding to body count at protests, whatever.

The slightly shit TV adaptation of The Man In High Castle, which roughly follows a similar format to the Phillip K. Dick source material, does one thing quite well. It shows how many people can adapt or exist quite easily to life under fascism. Obviously the people that do are within regime-defined parameters of acceptable, something that Trump/May and the ukip scum keep trying to define with immigrants (first them, then us all). Most of the denizens of the art scene will not cease to exist, despite the general idea that fascist government wasn’t great for most art/artists. Over half of us fit into those parameters already! Futurism had a pretty big old boner for violence! But we think, given the tragedies within industrialised memory and after the late 60s that art is predominantly a progressive, liberal thing. Okay it has structural problems with insane gender and race bias, but that’s work in progress. As a concept, art galleries or institutions are not seen as part of a mechanism of state-sanctioned harm. Something like that, right? It’s the artists we turn to in dark times to offer cultural reflection and symbology for resistance. Yeah m9, not really so much.  Post-vetements overstyled white art males of the curatoriat continue to offer smug “everything is shit” commentary in which they can never be proved wrong. Declining to offer any meaningful critique of tories/republicans but always ready with a hatchet for liberals when they fail. Staying aloof, hand wringing and never forced to contemplate more than jokes about self-employed artist tax returns or some hot take post-potato. Other artists who proclaim radical actions and aesthetics go on to exhibit at art fairs, work with commercial galleries and operate easily within a cultural exchange network built on un-unionised work and cheap labour. An independent project space goes commercial, takes money for anyone, talks about feminism but hangs out with Anita Zabludowicz on her Venice Biennale yacht. Curator does interview and talks about the nature of rigorous critique, but freaks out when it is suggested that putting only their mates in an arts council funded exhibition might be something that is twatty. Pointing out hypocrisy and bad art practices become anti-art, hatin’, jealousy or some kind of trolling without good faith (what trolling with good faith is, please tell us on a postcard addressed to BBC FOUR, PO BOX 80085, Arsequake Kingdom). Artists are not only often creepily “libertarian” but, in the case of LD50 Gallery, sometimes outright mini-fascists.

At this juncture we finally arrive at the point of this longform rant. LD50, a small project space in dalston junction, had some exhibitions of questionable taste and arrangement in recent months. The alt-right exhibit it staged using scavenged parts of the aesthetic and philosophical matter online wasn’t immediately partisan on the surface. It could have been bad satire, it could have been one of those things many adult-child digital artists do where they incorporate the very thing they critique. Obviously the depraved chasm which 4chan and allotments of reddit are located in is morbidly fascinating, to someone who feels they’re on an important media archaeology tip even moreso. Despite the Hitler quotes coupled with anime motifs and other bizarre conflations of alt-right imagery, the show itself didn’t offer a concrete position. This is a commonplace exhibition model that allows “racy” subject matter to be presented with critical immunity, because the art moves to within a viewers praxis. More often this is used with cultural appropriation, where a white artist will extract reference points and framing devices from culture they do not belong to and situate the art itself on the intersection of their gaze, etc etc. So the art is about the white gaze on other culture, that way it removes itself from, at best, being accused of ignoring postcolonial theory or, at worst, just being mildly racist. Very meta though, and you can extract 2000 words from meta quite easily. With the benefit of hindsight plus a screenshot of a private fb conversation, it became obvious the curiosity with the alt-right wasn’t coolly detached in the LD50 show. Given the social media output of LD50 runs along moaning lines about the apolitical nature of net artists and glib rejoinders to political/social occurances, strangely they might have found the blazing political net art they were looking for… just the bad kind of politics. HEY, bad is a construct in art that is irrelevant after postmodernism and pop art, so who is to say it is bad? It’s just neo-reactionary. Sounds like the working title of a group of Final Fantasy rebels. These dodgy politics weren’t always so clear, even in that classic uncertain/ironic way, so it’s possible it was a slippery slope slodden down.

As said in the beginning of this longform rant, the social media microdramas of the art cottage industry aren’t very interesting in themselves beyond the sorry online appearances of calculated hostility and contrived artjoke acumen. But with artist Sophie Jung posting in a public way a ‘call-out’ to a curator of a gallery holding quite dodgy fascist views, the fallout is more interesting than the usual bruised/inflated egos or comment flame wars. The gallery itself has responded by “archiving” the post and all the comments on the main page, as doxing (a strategy of online shaming perfected by the alt-right) bait to sentient pepe memes and twitter eggs. It’s an obfuscatory and aloof reaction, one that shows particular acumen to online psychological skirmishing. Take away the veneer of irony and you see only a few slimy individuals toying with repugnant ideas that most good artists would give no merit, even as illusory discourse.

Is it right to call out someone by posting private convos? Well, check the gallery events and talks - they were pretty public (albeit small and within purposely obfuscating platforms) call outs to those neon genesis authoritarians. A lighter discourse than “is it ok to punch a nazi?” but no less annoying. Of course the answer is yes. Do you argue the inverse that the alt-right should be given platforms? Do you agree with the BBC giving airtime to UKIP but not the Green Party, who have existed for longer/have more members/more elected MPs/have actually run a fucking area of the country? Logic has associations, and while you can spin them away, we fucking see you. The alt-right would legislate for the structural, hidden bureaucratic violence against non-white/foreign people but it is not OK to punch them? They’d happily punch you. It can be so easy if it doesn’t affect you, or to think it wouldn’t, to think that exposing their bullshit is better. Hindenburg thought Hitler wouldn’t be as evil when he finally was given power, the tories seemed to think appeasing the UKIP types was the best way to keep themselves in power. Fuck m9, punch tories AND nazis if you can get away with it. Yeah, if you can back it up, calling people out on something as basic as nazi sympathies is OK. Why did it take so long to be called out on? The alt-right are super zeitgeisty right now and net art dorks are into that because it can be processed into smug “political” diatribe and gestural academica. Things within the art gallery mechanica are afforded un-anchored critical protection at least until the management are revealed to think the muslim ban is fine.

It’s creepy that artist who have exhibited there previously, such as the fantastic Joey Holder and John Russell, weren’t aware of the dodgy politics. Some probably were, such as the Brad Troemel replica dubiously created by AMC network Deanna Havas. Some, like confused net art bro who makes net art that is a bit fash Daniel Keller coyly sits on the fence, crashing a nice-guy routine who isn’t allowed to be sexist. Sad! Other obsessive high grade opinion-merchants like Daniel Rourke attempt to turn everything into irony, glib spectator drama etc. In our limited capacity of visiting LD50 a couple of times for exhibitions and being involved in an event unrelated to the programming, it never was apparent to us there was batshit mental “eugenics isn’t such a bad idea” mind thematic brewing. We have to get used to being surprised in 2016 and 17, though complicit white men wriggling to force jokes out of “paleoconservatism” or something has stopped being surprising since 2007. 

So all in all, it’s weird that Lucia Diego and by extension her gallery LD50 are so hot on nazi sympathisers or validating bigots. It’s less weird that a number of friends and collaborators gained before this right turn are just enjoying the spectacle as another performative event. Writer and curator Morgan Quaintance has written about the apolitical nature of the post-internet artist flotilla, the retreat into speculative reality depletes the apparatus to draw ethical lines and instead propels the artist/writer/whatever to pursue “gaming” the system instead. The autumn programming should be a public shame in itself, but the convo screenshot blew away clouds of doubt by direct admittance. But many white women still voted for Trump despite the “grab ‘em by the pussy” recording. Such is the dark art of spin. However, beyond LD50, this isn’t the first art gallery or curator with extreme ring wing views, no fucking shit. You’re aware the Zabludowicz Collection was built with arms dealing money, donates money to the tories and donates money to pro-israel lobby groups, right? To quote artist Patrick Goddard:

“Its been happening for some time and unfortunately artists and their work continue to be instrumentalized by ‘philanthropists’ with darker purposes and dirtier-than-usual money.

The Zabludowicz Collection is an artwashing operation designed to legitimate Israel’s systematic refusal of rights to Palestinians. (along with the BICOM lobbying group – also set up and funded by Zabludowicz money)

Zabludowicz’s strategy is part of a global shift to the right, and very much anticipates the US and UK state assault on arts funding, forcing culture increasingly to function as a vehicle of the right. Furthermore Poju Zabludowicz gives significant donations to the conservative party and a select few pro-Israeli Labour candidates. (Ruth Smeeth being a notable recipient of BICOM money – who kicked off the anti-Corbyn claims of anti-Semitism last year)”

The director of ZC doesn’t espouse any political opinion though, just a disturbingly banal desire to be press-shotted with artists and to fly around the world looking at arts. Their programming does not reflect the mechanism that the foundation operates, which apparently complicates the issue for artists enough that any mea culpa is fine. It looks like until some outright admission of fascist tendencies is made from the primary source, everything is up in the air conceptually. Another question is a worrying route into a sort of McCarthyism, where everyone who works with a place of dodgy politics is “besmirched” by association and the trend of the left attacking their own allies is further proof to right-wing nutcases like LD50 that post-internet art is trash. We can assume some people had suspicions of this gallery at the beginning, but no confirmation appeared in the absolute until the alt-right lovefest. Fair enough, net art people are often very weird anyway (which is fine!). Do you think the ZC doesn’t do similar things with Zionist interests, but without a programme of talks and some art to accompany it? Heather Phillipson, in a Nov 2016 interview with Adrian Searle says, and we quote ‘My next work will be furious. Fascism is on my doorstep’. Heather Phillipson has frequently worked with ZC beyond just exhibiting some work there. We really are at a loss to understand this kind of blindspot, how endemic it is among white artists in western cities. But without any provocation of fascist rhetoric it is unfair to start singling out artists and mudslinging - though we welcome all explanations as to how Heather Phillipson can be angry about fascism but be uncritical of an organisation that… ugh, just re-read what Patrick Goddard wrote. Research it, it’s not fucking secret. The mucus membrane between act and operation, is it that hard to see through? Is it really a massive, Trumpian stone wall? Would artists be ready to form a picket line outside LD50 if Richard Spencer was invited to speak? Even more neoliberal art apologists might refute that method of protest. Imagine the local community of Dalston Junction will hate artists in general even more if they notice white supremacist conferencing being held in a gallery. As if gentrification wasn’t enough! Do we all want to be associated with this kind of thing? Jake and Dinos Chapman are big fans of Nick Land and have shown work at LD50. The Chapmans are standard conservative reactionary britart hangover troll fossils. It’s embarrasing.The Guardian Newspaper employs a similar coterie of journalists that soften the dangerous ideologies of May/Trump et al. by zoning in and selectively extrapolating miniature nuggets of “leftism” (such as Trump’s opposition to TTIP) all the while crowing “he’s a monster he’s a monster but….”  and looking at their political games with the detachment of an old cunt with a southwest london mansion who enjoys playing chess on their Gateway 2000 PC, their only brush with anything “liberal” being time spent in a minor theatre company during youth.

If you’re an artist doing some part-time teaching at art schools, tell your students about this! Make sure they don’t enter into the post BA/MA world as apolitical vessels thirsty for a myth-made-real version of ideologically dubious expression, based on a default assumption that artists are sympathetic to labour. If you don’t teach, perhaps consider it a good way to pay for those easyJet flights to European museums or Rat Basel Miami, unless you are too busy arguing about how Adam Curtis is the anti-christ while Theresa May closes our borders to the refugees of wars our state was implicit in funding or operating in. Understand that complications arise when the main financial sponsor of Frieze Art Fair is also the bank of choice for the Trump family. Maybe you avoid the Deutschebank events if you’re exhibiting there, because wouldn’t that compromise your ideology? If you’re in a union, make sure you vote for a union director who isn’t pro-trident. Write to your MP, don’t just screenshot your ‘delete my uber’ account dissertation. It’s OK to criticise your peers, hold them to account for some kind of progressive standard of ethics but piling hate onto an old lefty is not productive when you’re both just trying to unpick capitalist lineage to better understand power and it’s movements. JJ Charlesworth, a writer of ArtReview is a essentially a lobbyist for Tory interests, negging on cultural boycotts or protests against hate-speech! Evidence is in his dodgy slightly-closed-closet-door bigot attitudes, I’m sure lots of people have screenshots of a trans bashing comment or something that betrays a concience. But he might review your shows, has a family, so let him have his tory views in peace, right and don’t forget the afterparty invite. Manick Govinda, an Ayn Rand lovin’ brexiter working in an artists development studio?? What the fuck do you think will happen down the line? Because when they face criticism they complain that their comments receive criticism as a result of the “left” being the “real” threat to “free speech” it should worry you, despite the trenchant desire within your loins to be knighted by their credible notice, or whatever pressure boost your economy-of-prestige fueled trajectory needs for the sake of yr neuroses.

Now LD50 is out of the bag as too right-wing for the art world to swallow without criticism, but people still will fight over how it is bad to post private convos and publicly ‘out’ people even if a few months before they had a fucking anti-semite skyping in. And that will still be spun with tailored words.

Because a lot of us in the London art scene are white and generally not on the breadline of poverty we’re kind of unaffected by LD50s fascism, there is a reluctance to stake out a vocal position because we’re taught to court ambiguity as successful methodology, or something like that. The non-position position, the entrepreneurial cloak, logic mazes eating themselves as the apex form to attitude. The gallery have since changed their trading name to TIVERSE LTD but their prognosis can’t be long-term survival, unless their instagram weirdness really galvanises the turncoats and creeps or finds some very rich David Ike fanboy to invest. Ignoring bad smells is never a great idea, our whole biological purpose of smell to detect invisible malaise and thus act upon removing the harm it can do to our bodies. Not the most high-brow parallel, can we get a point across without retweeting our twitter bot making garbled Bifo and Deleuze references?

What is the fear that forces us to hold back on committing to our views… views that SHOULD by default be progressive, inclusive and reformative? It’s not fucking Serpico, it’s art, but the stakes aren’t wildly different. Beyond art, a place in Dalston has offered those with academic fascist sympathies a place to organise. How is that anything but awful?

[sonmain]

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1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk?More milk2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day?No, it's hell3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books?Tissues, wrappers, receipts 4: how do you take your coffee/tea?Idk5: are you self-conscious of your smile?Yes, very6: do you keep plants?Yes!!! I had a fairy garden but one of the pots broke 😪7: do you name your plants?Yeah, I named the tree in our backyard Venosaur8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings?Oh, painting on canvas, or drawing with a pencil9: do you like singing/humming to yourself?Yes!! V v good stim!10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach?Side11: what's an inner joke you have with your friends?Fuckin...Furries12: what's your favorite planet?Earth, I love the animals and plants. She's so cute13: what's something that made you smile today?My friend said my story was good14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like?Probably kind of bright but also with some posters and nice decor and nice beds and a little window we can sit on.15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is!Space lightning is a thing16: what's your favorite pasta dish?Alfredo17: what color do you really want to dye your hair?Magenta, or turquoise 18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up.Oh I fell on my ass in the hallway and threw my MacBook. Only two people saw it19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it?Well not a conventional one but I've had journals before.20: what's your favorite eye color?Blue21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that's been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces.It's this golden and red bag and it's soft22: are you a morning person?Hahahahaha funny. Next question23: what's your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations?Make art or browse tumblr24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets?Yes25: what's the weirdest place you've ever broken into? I haven't broken in anywhere26: what are the shoes you've had for forever and wear with every single outfit?I don't have any shoes like that27: what's your favorite bubblegum flavor?Blue raspberry28: sunrise or sunset?Sunrise (ironic)29: what's something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing?Giggles30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared?Fucking yes31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks.I guess, sometimes, no32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends.I fucking tripped over my friend at a sleepover after she said "person here!"33: what's your fave pastry?Any really34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it?MOG, he was a green stuffed monkey thing with no hands or toes so I called him mog the monkey frog, I think I do still have him35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often?Idk36: which band's sound would fit your mood right now?Imagine dragons37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean?Clean but it usually ends up messy38: tell us about your pet peeves!LOUD NOISES AND PEOPLE MAKING FUN OF ME ASKING THEM TO STOP39: what color do you wear the most? black40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what's it's story? does it have any meaning to you?Um...my bracelet I got from my friend for Christmas 41: what's the last book you remember really, really loving?Artemis Fowl42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it!Starbucks, and the wonderful smells and hot chocolate43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with?My friend Tori44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything?Never45: do you trust your instincts a lot? Sorta46: tell us the worst pun you can think of.A man went to court for wearing only underwear. It was a brief case.47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe?48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? Losing friends, yes49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? No50: what's an odd thing you collect? Idk?51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? Tori-blu 52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? Pure memes53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them?No54: who's the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? Tori55: what's the most dramatic thing you've ever done to prove a point?Idk56: what are some things you find endearing in people?Laughs 57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics?It made me feel crazy and yes58: who's the wine mom and who's the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why?CHARLIE IS WINE MOM, TORI YOU KNOW YOURE VODKA AUNT FOR A REASON59: what's your favorite myth? Idk60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? Not really 61: what's the stupidest gift you've ever given? the stupidest one you've ever received?Leaves, leaves62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind?Orange, apple63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be?Kinda leave them be64: what color is the sky where you are right now?Light blue 65: is there anyone you haven't seen in a long time who you'd love to hang out with? OOhh um, Cheyanne and Kennadie66: what would your ideal flower crown look like?White and pink alternating with Blue and yellow over it67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel?Oh they make me feel...amazing. I like the different feel! And like the soft glow. And the new feelings of being on a dark bus during rain.68: what's winter like where you live? Well it used to be frozen hell...but now it's not 😥69: what are your favorite board games? Monopoly70: have you ever used a ouija board?No and I plan to never71: what's your favorite kind of tea?Peach72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you'll forget it? Not really, it's more procrastination that destroys me73: what are some of your worst habits?Procrastination, forgetting to eat, disregarding self care, self hate, 74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.They are the sweetest most amazing halminerd that loves my stories 75: tell us about your pets! Kiwi is my two year old boxer. We call her Moose, Meat brick, lazy doggo, and basically everything else lol76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren't?Probably a project 77: pink or yellow lemonade?Eh I like both78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub?Hate79: what's one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you?Made art for me. Omg I die 80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why?Grey81: describe one of your friend's eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of.Like swimming in the clearest and most murky waters, and feeling relaxed at free82: are/were you good in school? Sorta83: what's some of your favorite album art?I actually don't know84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones?No85: do you read comics? what are your faves?Well like..,Rock and Riot86: do you like concept albums? which ones?No87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? Zootopia, hocus pocus, 88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? Idk89: are you close to your parents? Yeah, sorta90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. The sky lines reach amazingly high, the city gets washed in the glow of the riding a setting sun. (It never said I couldn't be vague)91: where do you plan on traveling this year? Europe!92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? Drowns it93: what's the hairstyle you wear the most? Up in a pony94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? My sister's 95: what are your plans for this weekend? Going to the mall with a few friends 96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? Procrastinate 97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? Uhhhh aquarius and ravenclaw 98: when's the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? Yes! 99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. Arrietty's song, Sail, rocks, fireflies100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? Past, so I can do over and cause myself not to become an anxious fucky fuck that messes every thing upPhew!

[thistleandthorn-rpg]

Congrats Tori on your audition for Mike Chang! Please check out this page for what to do next and send us his blog within 48 hours! Welcome to the fam!

OOC INFORMATION:

Name/Alias: Tori Preferred pronoun: She/her Age: 25 Timezone/Country: Mountain Time RP Experience: 5+ years Activity Level: Medium. At least an hour a day.

IC INFORMATION:

Name: Mike Chang Designation: Dominant Age: 21 Faceclaim: Harry Shrum Jr. Birthday: January 20th Orientation: Bisexual Kinks: Somnophilia, Voyeurism, Basic Impact Play, Sensory Deprivation Anti-Kinks: Humiliation, Infantilizm, Scat, Vore

BIO: 

Growing up with exceedingly high expectations was always difficult for Mike and his siblings. Their father expected so much - straight A’s, perfect scores, college scholarships. All of this on top of living their marks to the best possible ability. Mike hated that he had to hide his passion. He wanted to show it off - find out just how good he really was and what he could really do with it. But just dancing in his room alone made that increasingly more difficult the more he learned and the more he fell in love with it. Now that he had graduated High School, he was hoping he could expand his dancing abilities and find out what he could truly do. Now his only hope was that his father did not shun him for it.

BIO QUESTIONS:

What is your biggest fear and why?

My biggest fear is going for my dream and failing. More than just losing my dream, it would prove my dad right. It would show that dancing is nothing but a stupid hobby, not a career.

What 3 objects/places mean the most to you and why?

The Football Field - In high school, football was a good stress reliever. I love it almost as much as dance and my parents actually approved of it, for the most part. It was the one place I could do something I enjoyed and not be looked down for it.

The Dance Studio - It’s the one place where I can truly let go of my worries and just be myself.

My copy of Footloose - Watching that movie was the first time I felt like dancing wasn’t a stupid thing for a guy to love.

Who is the one person you’d most like to meet (dead or alive)?

Sammy Davis Jr. He was a dance icon!

What is the one moment you would describe as your happiest/most excited?

My first dance lesson. I was able to talk my mom into letting me take them by convincing her that the arts lit up parts of the brain that improved academic performance. It wasn’t like I was lying, that’s a proven fact! But, that got her to sign me up. I remember being so excited, I thought I was going to throw up. By the end of the session my teacher was calling me ‘naturally gifted’ and I’ve been practicing every day since.