#(i hope its alright to switch up names when referring to you!!)

[siren--squid]

So I'm pretty positive that my top spotify artists are gonna be waterparks (obviously), nicole dollanganger (because nrfti), and probably sugr? (steven suptic)

Mutuals hi hello hey good morning!! What are your predictions for your top things?? :3

[rinachains]

picture perfect [pt.1]

synopsis: in which you partner up with geto and he discovers a little secret of yours.

wc: 2.3k

contents: no-curses au, high-school au; geto x gn!reader; implied stalking, reader is a bit....unwell, but both of them are pretty questionable; ig this counts as dark content (?)

a/n: comments and reblogs are very much appreciated!

“Sorry, we all already have a partner, but maybe another time!”

Sorry smiles and exaggerated pouts grace the faces around you. A more than familiar sight accompanied by more than familiar words.

How many times have you heard this sentence before, in different variations?

“Oh, it’s fine”, you mutter, voice not betraying any emotion, not wanting to draw in unnecessary attention.

You knew from the moment your art teacher announced a partner project that it would lead to this. It’s almost like a routine; everyone immediately finds their partner and you are the odd one out, standing around awkwardly until your teacher either allows you to work on your own or forces another poor student to partner up with you. What would it be this time?

There’s something wrong with you. There’s no point in denying it, you know it and everyone else seems to know it, it is simply a fact. It’s not as if you’ve done something outrageous – in fact, you try to stay as far in the background as possible, never making a scene, but it appears that whatever is wrong with you is visible even to the closed eye.

You've always had a hard time connecting with others. Something holds you back, that something remaining unknown, unidentified to you, and you can’t free yourself from its tight grasp, no matter how hard you struggle against it. You once overheard a classmate say that you’re off putting, that something about you freaks them out. (Of course they referred to you as ‘this one person, the one that’s always alone’, not caring enough to learn and remember your name.)

But what can you do about it? What can you do about this something when you don’t even know what it is?

“Partner up with me”, a low, more than familiar voice suddenly comes from behind your shoulder, startling you. As you turn around, you are met with purple eyes that make your own widen.

“Ah, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you”, Geto apologizes sheepishly, his hands raised and a soft grin gracing his handsome face.

“Oh- no, it’s alright”, you manage to press out, your brain trying to register whatever is happening right now.

Geto chuckles lightly, the barely audible sound passing from his mouth through the distance between you until it reaches the left side of your chest, leaving behind tickling warmth.

“So, want to partner up?”

“Uhm, aren’t you going to partner up with Gojo?”, you ask carefully, confused by his unexpected request. As you peek behind him, you find Gojo with another student, pouting and with crossed arms, throwing a heated glare at Geto’s back.

“Gojo is hopeless at art and I don’t really want to fail, so I thought you would be a better choice”, Geto explains, shrugging. “Not to sound like I’m using you for a better grade, I would generally be interested in working with you. It’s good to sometimes switch things up.” 

You clasp your hands behind your back, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you think over what he said. Gojo’s lingering glare makes you hesitate. The last thing you want is to feel Gojo’s wrath, especially since you managed to fly under the radar and avoid becoming a victim of his teasing the past two years. You don’t really feel like changing that, sometimes remaining unknown being better than that something inside and outside of you becoming known.  

“Is this really okay?”

Geto sighs, apparently aware of Gojo’s silent tantrum. “Of course. Don’t mind him, he just can’t take not being a priority for once.”

You nod slowly, unclasping your hands from behind your back. “Right. Well, yeah, we can work together. I’m fine with that.” Your voice is more steady this time, hoping that you sound collected and unaffected by the whole situation.

Not like I have another choice, you add bitterly in your head.

“Great.” His smile widens at your agreement, the palm of your hands clamping at the sight. “Can I join you then?”, he nods his head toward your desk, already reaching out to grab an empty chair for himself.

“Yeah, sure…”

You observe as he puts the chair in front of your desk and sits down, your body following and carrying you to your own seat, guided by an invisible force. His scent coats you once you face him again, it’s nothing overpowering, actually subtle, but it’s all you can smell in that very moment. Woody, something fresh akin to mint, a lingering scent of the green tea that he prefers to drink during break.

Sometimes your mind would drift away during class and you’d sit here, chin rested on your fist, consumed by thoughts of your dark-haired classmate. Sometimes you’d imagine gently caressing the black, silky locks through your fingers, playing with it, relishing its softness, and helping him put it up in his signature bun.

It happened a few times that one of the girls would attempt to touch it, but Geto always swerved smoothly away from their grips, not giving anyone an actual chance to feel it. Not even Gojo. What if he allowed you to do it? To be the exception? You’d picture him leaning into your touch, half-lidded eyes fluttering as a purr comes out of his chest. But that’s all it is at the end; an image, blossoming from the deeply rooted loneliness inside you and spreading its roots through your body.

Sitting in front of Geto, glancing at him with widened eyes, makes you realize once again just how beneath him you are, despite being eye to eye. There was always a distance between you, a well guarded, endless bridge that seemed impossible to cross, and you wonder if maybe today you would be able to take a step on it, even if it’s just a singular foot landing on it cautiously.

It’s no wonder that girls and boys swoon over him – he has a natural elegance and smoothness to him that simply can’t be replicated. You aren’t an exception to his charm, and you have a feeling he’s well aware of it. His smile knowing, his eyes keen – nothing truly escapes him. Perhaps that’s what draws you to him; he sees everyone, including you.

It also doesn’t help that he’s polite and helpful, especially in comparison to Gojo. Sometimes you wonder how he can put up with his white-haired friend, but whenever you examine them together you notice how Geto would become more carefree and playful, a teasing glint appearing in his eyes, subtly joining in on his antics.

His voice is usually gentle, even when it’s laced with frustration or tiredness whenever he scolds Gojo. You ask yourself what it would be like to see him lose himself, for him to actually lose his composure, and raise his voice. So unlike his usual self, revealing an ugly side. Although, you’d never find it ugly - you don’t believe you could ever consider anything concerning him as less than perfect.

“So, do you have something in mind?”, Geto brings you out of your thoughts. You blink. He looks relaxed as always, his back slumped against the chair and arms crossed against his broad chest.

“Well…”, you begin, teeth sinking into your lower lip as you stare at the desk. “I’m not sure yet.” That's actually not a lie. You would describe yourself as a creative person, someone who has various thoughts running through their head every second, and normally you would have had a few ideas by now - but when you have Geto in front of you, your brain stops working and renders you frustratingly useless. Even if you tried to concentrate, you'd surely get distracted by him again, every little thing interrupting your thought process.

He cocks his head to the side and purses his lips. “You can tell me your ideas, you know? I’m pretty sure you can come up with something.”

Is he being condescending or supportive? You can’t really tell, but a part of you also doesn’t care as blood inevitably rushes to your cheeks. You’d take and bask in his attention, no matter how wretched it is. Perhaps you should feel embarrassed and ashamed at how desperate you are, but deep down you are long past shame.

“Mhm, you’re good at taking pictures, aren’t you?”, he muses then, spreading his legs wider to make himself more comfortable. “We could do something with that.”

Your lips crack open, a few seconds pass before they can form proper words. “I guess…they’re nothing special though”, your voice cracks slightly at the end, making you visibly cringe. Geto stares at you intently as the corners of his lips tug up, as if he found something endearing or entertaining, or perhaps even both.

“No need to down play it, we can make use of your talent.“

Talent. When did someone ever, except for your teacher who was way too pushy for your likening, refer to your work as talent? (When did someone ever pay enough attention to you to even notice your work?)

“You didn’t even see any of them”, you counter weakly, your hand coming up to rub your collarbone.

Geto raises a thin eyebrow. “Actually, I did, a month ago at the exhibition.”

Surely he can’t mean the exhibition that was held together by the photography and the art club, right? You, of course, took part of it, presenting a few of your own photographs, albeit reluctantly. How the hell did you miss him there?

“Oh”, you breathe out, trying to process the information he just casually threw at you. “Sorry, I don’t think I saw you there.” You would have never guessed that he would even be there in the first place, so even if you did unknowingly catch a glimpse of him, you probably have told yourself that you were mistaking a stranger for him, that you were too far gone in your delusion.

“It’s fine, I wasn’t there for a long time anyway, I left after seeing your pictures”, he lifts his shoulder in a half shrug, an action so simple but so graceful at the same time. 

“What? Why?” Your voice comes out louder than intended, immediately making you recoil when some of your classmates around you turn their heads to you. God, why can’t you just act cool?

A soft, honeyed laugh leaves Geto’s mouth, his eyes crinkling into crescent moons and his bang swinging against his face. You swallow as your mouth suddenly feels awfully dry. You don’t think you can compare this sight to anything you’ve ever seen, anything you’ve ever caught with your camera before.

“Well, I overheard our teacher praising you, so I thought that I should see them for myself. I definitely wasn’t disappointed.”

He averts his stare to the ground, his head tilted to the side which allows you to let your eyes wander alongside the smooth, pale skin of his strong neck.

“Honestly, I don’t know as much about photography as I’d like to, but I really enjoyed looking at your pictures”, he pauses for a moment, a contented expression taking over his face. “The way you capture everything – it’s like nothing escapes you.” Geto then looks up to you again, purple hues swirling with a strange, captivating glint. He finishes in a joking tone, “I hope I’m not freaking you out right now.”

“No”, you rapidly shake your head as you choke out a response. “No, of course not. I’m just surprised…”, you halt, trying to scramble together words to form a sentence. “I didn’t expect anyone to know about that. I never really speak with anyone about my photography.”

He clicks his tongue. “Ah, that won’t do. I guess I need to praise you more then.” Beneath your bashfulness, he catches the way you perk up, reminding him of a puppy that got praised by its owner, an imaginary wagging tail appearing behind you. He has to hold himself back to not let out a coo and reach up to pet your head. Aren’t you just so easy to appease?

“Since we’re doing this together, I want you to speak up. It’s only me after all, so we should be comfortable with each other, right?”

“Of course”, you say, “I’m sorry, it’s just-”, your tongue darts out to wet your chapped lips, his eyes discreetly following the movement.

“I think you know that I’m not…used to this.”

He hums. “I’m aware. But it’s something we can work on, don’t you think?”

“…Right”, you agree, voice almost coming out like a whisper.

“I’m glad then”, he nods, amusement tangled in his gentle tone. “And stop apologizing when there’s nothing to apologize for. You’re doing just fine.”

“Right, I’m sor-“, you stop yourself, realizing what you were about to say again. You rub the right side of your face, a strained chuckle escaping you. “I guess old habits die hard.”

Geto’s eyes flicker back and forth between your face and your body, taking in the way your back is slightly hunched, making yourself smaller than you actually are, and how one of your fingers now restlessly taps against the old, wooden desk.

And what you – usually so attentive, so observant – don’t notice is how his eyes then drift to your opened bag, revealing all the books, papers and other little belongings of yours. One item in particular catches his eye, calling to him like the apple to Eve in the Garden of Eden, promising his doom. He has to surpress a pleased chuckle – it’s a picture of him, on a day where he was out with Satoru in the city, checking out a newly released game after Satoru relentlessly begged Geto to come with him. Satoru is cropped out of this photo, the focus lies entirely on Geto.

You truly manage to capture everything, don’t you?

[wheeboo]

05:17pm | joshua hong

SYNOPSIS. in which you and your cousin joshua go on a trip together. PAIRING. cousin!joshua x gn!reader (ft. mentions of seungcheol x reader) GENRE. fluff, platonic/familial relationship WARNINGS. details in the drabble alluding to emergency contact WORD COUNT. 763

requested from anon: Hello emergency contact anon here! I just want to say thank you so much for accepting my request & doing them! I love the series so much and it brings me comfort whenever I read it 😊 (especially the final). Although I’m sad that we won’t know how Joshua got them together… And I also hope you don’t mind if I can please request platonic older cousin Joshua x reader? Whether as a side story of emergency contact or as a different story, that’s if you’re alright with writing platonic that is 🥺 Thank you again so much!

notes: i hope you’re fine with a brief drabble emergency contact anon (pls i love calling u that its so cute and if u want to be referred as something else lmk!) honestly was trying to think of a side plot and then i saw these gum wall photos on his insta and was like LMAO also cousin!joshua is a vibe he’d be so fun to hang out with

“Wait, wait, Y/N! Can you take some pictures of me in front of the gum wall?” Joshua shoves his phone in your hands, making you groan in annoyance as you switch to the camera and turn around to take some photos of him. 

You are met with an explosive array of colours and flavours of the gum wall as Joshua steps ridiculously close to it, posing in front as if the intense smell of old and dry bubblegum wasn’t surrounding the two of you and all the other tourists around. Okay, but who thought that planting bubblegum on the wall was a grand idea? It’s a strangely appealing popular attraction, but... why?

You couldn’t help but cringe playfully at some of the poses he was taking, but you obliged anyway knowing how much capturing memories meant to him and how much he thrived on posting photos online to his Instagram. You end up spamming probably around twenty photos in his camera roll, and perhaps a total of nearly a thousand throughout the entirety of the trip.

Once Joshua steps down from the wall, he walks up to you and eagerly grabs his phone back, flipping through the multitude of photos you took of him from all kinds of angles. 

“Wow, you got great shots,” Joshua gives you a few thankful pats on the back as the two of you quickly scatter out of the alleyway and back onto the bustling city sidewalks. “Thanks, Y/N.”

You scoff teasingly. “Pfft, what am I? Your personal photographer? You better be giving me credits when we get back home.”

Joshua gasps dramatically, raising a hand up as if surrendering. “It’s quite rude of you to think that I won’t be crediting you. I’ll even tag every single one of your socials, including your private accounts.”

You playfully shove him away, shaking your head dismissively. “Ah, I take it back. Don’t give me credits, please.”

Joshua just gives you a mischevious, amused look. “Too late. Come on, I know a good café around here.”

He leads you into a nearby café down a couple blocks away. As you enter together, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and pastries fills the air, and you already begin to feel the excitement of the day begin to subside into the café’s cozy and relaxing atmosphere. This was definitely your preferred place and crowd to exist in.

You find a table in the corner as Joshua heads to order for the two of you, peering around to the other tables to find everyone seemingly in their own little world. After a few moments, you feel your phone vibrate in your pocket, and you swiftly reach in to take it out.

The name that pops up in your notifications brings an immediate grin to your face, enough to somehow make the entire world fade into insignificance.

And you probably get a bit too lost that you don’t notice Joshua approaching with drinks.

“Texting Seungcheol?”

His voice almost makes you drop your phone in a panic.

“I... No, I-I wasn’t.” You snatch your drink from his hands and take a long sip to relieve yourself.

“Come on, I know you like him. Ever since the birthday party the two of you looked awfully close.” Joshua comments teasingly, sliding into the seat in front of you and leaning in close. “I think... if I remember correctly, the two of you left the house together for a walk at some point?”

Is this man a telepath or something? A wizard of some sorts? Was it the cousin instincts in him that was kicking in?

You feel the blush growing in your cheeks, making you take another sip of your drink to help cool away your nervousness. Joshua always had a knack for picking up the subtleties of your body language, even if he was all the way across a damn café. Or maybe you were just blatantly obvious𑁋that’s probably what it is.

“Out of all people he just happens to be one of your best friends.” You murmur lowly under your breath. 

“You’re saying that like it’s a curse.” Joshua chuckles, sipping his own drink.

You smile faintly to yourself. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just...” You look up to meet Joshua’s intrigued eyes. “...I want to do it right, you know? Relationships... have never been my thing.”

Joshua leans back in the seat, heaving out a sigh. He understands your hesitation. “Yeah, I know,” Then he leans back in. “but Seungcheol is patient, I can assure you. And... if you want to know anything more about him or any advice, you can always come to me. I can always work my magic.” And then he gives a stupidly disgusting wink.

All you do giggle and give him a grateful nod. Joshua is truly your cousin and best friend in one.

“Thanks, Shua.”

[stayarmytinyzenmoa-l]

okay i'm going to need a part 2 only if possible ofc of the taeyong drabbe

For you? Anything.

Spectral Lover [Pt. 2]

TW: Ghosts Genre: Romance Pairing: Lee Taeyong x Reader YN Pronouns: Not specified Word Count: 0.8K

[NCT Masterlist] | [NCT Spooky Season Masterlist] | [Part 1]

Notes: Fuck it why not?  Disclaimer: Please remember that this is an AU and a work of fiction, obviously the idols mentioned/written about in this story would never partake in these actions. The idols mentioned in this work are meant to be seen more as face claims rather than the actual idols themselves.

Feedback is greatly appreciated!! Thank you for reading!

You were always a huge believer in the supernatural. But you supported more of an idea that humans and ghosts coexist peacefully and, just like humans, there were the rogue few who stood out as "bad" entities.

So, when you moved into this new home and found out that it was apparently haunted, you were more excited than afraid. And so far, your excitement was well felt.

"Alright," you placed the contraption down in front of you while you sat cross-legged on the floor. It was essentially a laptop with its monitor on backward, and your hope is that it would help you communicate with your spectral roommate. "Mr. Ghost? If you're here with me right now, I made this device so we could communicate better."

Taeyong, of course, was always hanging around you, and was actually already seated in front of the keyboard. He looks at the device and whistles.

"According to what the movers said, you died back in the 19th century, so I don't expect you to know what this is," you muttered. You were right. "Basically, just type out what you want to say. Give it a shot," you invited him to do so, but Taeyong could see the doubt in your eyes. Hesitantly, he leans forward and looks over the keyboard, going through the rows of letters and symbols, before finally hovering his hand over it.

He was afraid.

Usually, when it came to material items, he couldn't actually touch them, but for whatever reason he was doing fine with moving objects around, this was a new development for him.

Then, when you sighed and slumped his shoulders, he pressed a key.

;

And your face lit up.

"No way..." your shock was clear and Taeyong was as excited as you. He quickly typed out something he'd been meaning to tell you for months now.

Hello

"Hi!" Your grin was angelic. "Oh, wow, I was afraid that this wouldn't have worked! Mr. Ghost, allow me to properly introduce myself, my name is (Y/N) (L/N)!"

My name is Taeyong Lee. As you said, I am who you usually refer to as 'Mr. Ghost.'

As Taeyong typed it, he muttered it to himself as well. How long has it been since he said his name?

"Taeyong, huh?" And how long has it been since he heard it? "I'm sorry for moving into your house, I'm sure you're very picky about who stays here."

You're fine, of all the newer owners, you're the only one who's respected me and this house.

"Is that so?" You read the monitor again. "I'm glad, I've heard many stories about you. Are they true?"

Unfortunately, yes. Though, all except one.

"Which is?"

I wasn't a hermit. I did have a partner.

"Oh, that's wonderful! This whole time I was sad that you were alone. Is that partner here in the house as well?"

In a way, yes.

"Amazing, together even after death," your voice was dreamy, and Taeyong melted into every word. "I'm assuming you were the one who helped me unpack?"

Yes, that was me.

"And I'm very thankful for that," you nodded, "were you also the one who switched out my dress that one night?" Taeyong chuckled. True, he loved you, but he knew he couldn't love you the way you deserved to be, so instead, he chose to help you find happiness another way, even if that meant he had to see someone else beside you.

Maybe, did your date like it?

"You have very good taste! He complimented me on it all night long." you chuckled.

Then, yes, it was me. I'm glad he liked it, I may be out of my time, but from the previous owners I've been able to keep up with the times.

"I think this is the start of something really cool, Mr. Lee!"

Please, just call me Taeyong.

"Taeyong it is, then! Thank you for speaking with me, I look forward to getting to know you better," you nodded. "If you ever have something to say, go ahead and use this machine, I think it'll be a good alternative than a ouija board."

And a much safer one as well.

"Exactly! Now, I do have to get to work, so I'll leave the house in your hands. Thanks, Taeyong!"

Of course, drive safely.

"Thank you!" And, you're gone, up the stairs to grab your things no doubt. Taeyong leaned back and watched you run up the stairs before whistling and turning back to the monitor. Then, he heard you run down the stairs and, as expected, a slight thud. "Ow! I'm okay!" You announced, and Taeyong couldn't hold back his laugh. Funny how things stay consistent over reincarnation. "Mr. Ghost? Are you laughing?!" Taeyong holds his tongue.

"Can you hear me, (Y/N)?" Taeyong shot up and near ran over to where you were, but you looked around the foyer for a sign of anything and, finally, you looked through him. You couldn't see him. "Oh... (Y/N)," he shakes his head.

"One day, we'll work on it, Taeyong," you nodded and adjusted your bag over your shoulder before leaving. Taeyong locked the door behind you.

General Tag List: @stopeatread @bat-shark-repellant @raeincitizen @umbralhelwolf @yangsrose @kazooms @sadcoffeecritic 

NCT Tag List: @cherrylovr @minjiville 

If you want to be added to either tag list or removed just send me a reply to this post, and ask, or a DM and I’ll add you as soon as possible!

[darkmetaknightspussy]

i don't believe i need to elaborate on why You are a bigender icon (you are bigender and also cool), but. zohar silhouettemirage requires explanation, being from an obscure sega saturn slash ps1 game that has a cool concept, mid-tier execution.

so. basically the entire lore of silhouete mirage is that every living being is either Silhouette (blue) or Mirage (red). you literally cannot naturally be both at once because silhouette and mirage powers repel each other to the point that you will not survive trying to harness both at once.

zohar (along with the player character, Shyna, and every other boss in the game) was part of an experiment to create a person who can harness both the powers of silhouette and mirage. as a result, zohar has two different forms (with different names, at that) that they can switch between at will: zohar metatron, their silhouette form, and zohar sandalphon, their mirage form. zohar is extremely powerful and proud of it, and because of this they are the rival of the player character, shyna.

now here’s the part where it gets bigender: their two forms have slightly different personalities and gender expression. metatron is more straight-up aggressive and masculine (and uses a sword), and sandalphon is more passive-aggressive and feminine (and uses a gun). (in general, they are kind-of an asshole but i love them for it they are so blorbo to me.)

in the japanese manuals and guidebooks, they aren’t referred to with pronouns (because that how standard japanese is) but in the game, every instance they are referred to with a pronoun or noun is gender-neutral—except for right after their introduction where shyna refers to them as something along the lines of “that man-and-woman” when “that person” would’ve worked just fine. in the english localisation, however, zohar is referred to with it/its in the manual and he/him in the like one instance they are ever referred to by a pronoun in the localisation. despite being referred to a he/him, they are referred to with gendered nouns based on their current form; metatron is “son”, and sandalphon is “daughter”.

too bad uh. the horrors happen to them. *opens my fix-it fic doc and adds another sentence*

also, the japanese-exclusive silhouette mirage guidebook has some funny little 1-panel comics. in one panel, shyna asks zohar how it is being both a man and a woman, and they’re like “meh, it’s alright” except they say it twice whilst switching between their forms—once in a more masculine way, and once in a more feminine way. in another panel, zohar is at a bathhouse, just standing there with a bucket and no idea if they should go in the men’s side or the women’s side.

other than that despite being obviously gender-non-conforming in whatever way their gender is never played or laughs or treated as anything weird or whatever. even the funny comic things in the guidebook are relatable. it’s so based.

i hope this fits in the askbox that's a lot of words

!!!!!!!!!

[goblinrockcandy]

hey guys im BACK baby and i have some words

here are links so you can still find everything, but be wary that these links are probably gonna break any minute when i start moving everything around. lets hope i can remember to fix them and that i dont take a year to get to doing that: ARCHIVE    MY ART    OTHER ORGANIZATION TAGS

IM STILL ALIVE. i like to think that i never rlly left, but I havent posted in a damn while and part of that is because life stuff caught up with me and moreso because uhhhhhh Well im not quite satisfied with the way my blogs formatted right now, it makes posting and organizing and navigating harder than it has to be and it makes it Not Fun to post things.

SO. what we're gonna do is revamp things a lil bit. we're fucking doing this we are Making It Happen. what this'll do is itll make it easier for me to post things without having to remember every silly tag and rule i have set up here, and ill also just have a bit more of a laid-back and fun kinda art blog. i tried to do an elaborate tagging system, but MAN i am too forgetful for that.

so im just gonna keep it simple. character, fandom, content warnings, and maybe some other flavourtags. the sorts of things thatll make it easier for me to just pop up a quick drawing on even a busy day without having to go through a silly step by step process on how to tag things. because i love sharing my art and posting :)) but not so much when it is difficult </3

but hell who knows how thisll go after i reboot my bloggo. i think she was due for some maintenance for a long while. *pats the sidebar like you would soothe an agitated horse* there there girl, its gonna be alright. maybe ill even start making... casual posts? text posts? things like that??? damn Maybe.

im also gonna private some organization posts until i can properly wrangle then and sort out their kinks and oddities, and im gonna disable my blog theme for a bit. when i get a braincell on how to do an html and a css properly, THEN i can have a pretty theme. in the meantime, ill probably just set myself up with one of the tumblr defaults.

anyways. *ahem* for anyone who doesnt know me and this is their first stumble upon my blog while i move things around. feel free to click the read more if you want to subject yourself to the silliest introduction i could make for myself possible.

hi. i like to draw but lately my art skills have been a bit shakey, i think im out of practice so im probably gonna start out doing some studies. my styles and designs for characters are always changing, but lately ive been trying to cement some designs that are in my brain Onto Paper.

im goblinrockcandy but you can call me GRC if that's a mouthful (thats what i call me because i do not have time for 5 syllables). im a Knight of Heart and sometimes that gets shortened to KoH and so sometimes people call me koh. now KOH is also the chemical formula for potassium hydroxide, but no one calls me that (a real shame, it flows right off the tongue and i think its a lovely set of sounds), but potassium hydroxide also goes by another name and that is lye. so sometimes people call me lye. i don't have a name so if you want to refer to me you have to get creative or pick up my blog by the scruff of its handle like a really ugly cat and point at it and say "this motherfucker right here".

same goes for pronouns. my pronouns are none/applicable. you gotta BE CREATIVE if you want to refer to me... pronouns are a crutch. they were your training wheels and now im the final boss. you have to fight me with your other words, this is what you have been training for.......

im trans queer person of colour, painfully unfunny and addicted to bad jokes, and i love homestuck. my faves switch up every once in a blood moon but right now i really fuckin love jake english. you might have discerned that by the very subtle hints of I talk about Him all the time & dirt striber avatar.

[raplinesmoon]

The House The Sea Built (KNJ x F!Reader)

Inspired by the Korean film Il Mare, and Namjoon’s album Indigo

pairing: rapper!namjoon x artist!reader

genres/aus/rating: strangers to lovers, angst, smut, magical realism au, time travel au, 18+

summary: It was meant to be a simple, yet practical request - leaving behind the seaside cottage meant you had to find a way for your mail to get back to you. But the response you receive from the previous resident, a man named Namjoon, dated two years in the past, is anything but simple. With extraordinary circumstances allowing you to write to each other, your tired souls find solace in your shared loneliness, and friendship blossoms. But what happens when that isn’t enough? When the ability to change life before and the future ahead becomes too tempting to resist? Will you and Namjoon find the fulfillment you crave, or will the aftermath leave you even lonelier than before?

warnings: lots of pov switches, heartbreak, references to mental health, drinking, swearing, lots of little coincidences, mentions of breakups, lots of Indigo references, Namjoon gets angry, minor accident and injury, Taehyung cameo, character d*ath, happy ending!, smut warnings: masturbation (m and f), erotic letters, squirting

word count: 13.8k

a/n: It’s finally here. This literally has to be one of the most intense labors of love I’ve undertaken, but I love Kim Namjoon, and Indigo, and this is the result of that love. I hope this fic can help you believe in the magic that exists in our mundane little world, and that it can help some of your loneliness go away, or just be understood, much like Indigo did for us when it came out. I hope you enjoy!

Present Day, 2022

What was it about saying goodbye that made it so hard? People always reminded you that you’d have the memories to hold onto, cherished moments engraved in the delicate fabric of your mind. Still, they seemed so fleeting, easily doomed to fade into oblivion as their delicate threads tore off and disappeared into the fabric of your mind.

Lost in your thoughts, you hardly notice the slip of your pen across the cardstock, leaving a garish ink stain amongst the neat print. Sighing, you decide it’s best to end your letter here, hoping the next recipient wouldn’t mind the evidence of your daydreaming staring them down on the page.

Shivering, you wrap your arms tighter around you, taking in the surrounding sea one last time. While there had been many clear blue days during your time at the seaside cottage over the past year, today was not one of them. Today, the fog was so dense the mist clouded the horizon as far as anyone could see, the only sign of the water being the gentle sound of the waves lapping against the shore. Your toes itched to take one last walk on the feather-light sand and to feel it squish between your toes, but you didn’t want to get your shoes dirty before making it to your new apartment.

A soft meow calls your attention, and you look over to see a pair of curious green eyes studying you from the shadows. Smiling, you slip the postcard into its envelope, reaching for the heavy box of art supplies - the last imprint of yourself remaining in the house, and rising to your feet.

“Alright Bokboki, it’s time to go,” you whisper softly, your boots thudding against the gangplank that kept the house elevated from the rising tide. Handing your box to the movers, you remember to pick up the card, holding it tightly to your chest with one hand, while scooping up Bokboki with the other. The wind whipped around your face, your hair flying in all different directions as you stepped back to take a look at your home. 

Slipping the postcard into the rust-covered mailbox, you hoped the next resident would appreciate the place as much as you did. More importantly, though, you hoped they honour your request in the note - the letter you were expecting was too important to miss. 

Climbing into the taxi with Bokboki, you wave a final goodbye to the cottage, turning your gaze away to await the promise of the new life that lay ahead.

. . . 

Groaning you turn against the scratchy sheets of your new bed, temples throbbing with pain as you’re greeted by the rays of sunlight upon rising. You missed the dense fog of the house by the sea, allowing you to sleep in as long as you wanted. Here, in this lonely box of an apartment, you were a slave to everyone else’s clock, awakened by the unforgiving light that signaled it was time to have another productive day. You cover your face with the blanket, burrowing back into the sheets.

Five more minutes wouldn’t hurt.

. . .

Those five minutes had unexpectedly turned into twenty, and now you were tripping over the boxes you had yet to unpack, slipping and sliding on the cool tile as you struggled to put your heels on and smooth down your hair. First impressions mattered when it came to finding work in your field, and you had to present the polished, sophisticated image that won the hearts (and the pockets) of most gallery owners.

Locking the door behind you, you see the woman from across the hall step into her own apartment as you’re leaving yours.

“How are you today?” you ask with a smile, only to feel the wind from the door slamming shut in your face. Dejected, you make your way down the staircase with your shoulders slumped.

Passing by the mailbox, you wonder if it’s worth taking a look for your letter, but decide against it. It had only been the first day after all. Who knew if Taehyung was even awake right now, halfway across the world?

Shaking your head, you ward off the intrusive thoughts in your mind, knowing that the letter would come, and all your worries would be eased. For now, you had an interview to go to. 

. . . 

The cold glint of the gallery manager’s eyes is all you remember, his booming laugh echoing in your ears, the sound seeming less like the jolly joke he intended it to be when he called your work unrefined, and more like a mockery that made your skin crawl. All you’d wanted to do was curl in on yourself in that moment, your feet itching to run to the corner and collapse. Instead, you’d politely wished him a good day, waiting until you were outside to let the first tears fall.

With your eyes trained on the ground as you walk through the brightly lit streets, you barely take a moment to notice the joyful spirit that permeated the air, couples and families all out for a stroll in the chilly weather, enjoying each others’ company. It only made you feel more alone as you ascended the stairs to your apartment, Bokboki’s soft meows greeting you upon opening the door.

Looking at your phone, you see a missed call from Hyung-seo, your best friend, asking if you wanted to hang out tonight. Slumping onto your couch, you try to figure out the best excuse, when your eyes came across the picture of you in Taehyung in the corner, cheeks red from the cold and arms wrapping each other in a warm embrace. Your fingers tremble over the phone buttons, hesitating but never daring to press call. 

What was it about feeling sad that only made you want to be even alone? Humans were strange in that way.

Giving Bokboki a few scratches between the ears, you change into your pyjamas and brush your teeth. Tomorrow you’d go back to the house and check if the letter from Taehyung had arrived. You needed some kind of sign that things would be better from now on.

2 years ago, 2020

Namjoon looks at the tree with its vibrant leaves hued in red, orange and gold, and a twinge of sadness goes through him. As beautiful as they were, he knew he’d only get to enjoy them for a short while before the wind lifted them up and away, and winter settled in on the coast.

He hadn’t actually been inside yet. The company had dropped off all his things in the cottage, but Namjoon had been too scared to step over the threshold, because that meant accepting this new phase of his life. One where as the world had shut down and gone to sleep, he hoped that people wouldn’t notice how he faded into obscurity, never to be heard from again.

Quite frankly, Namjoon was tired of being heard from. As a performer and a rapper, he was used to thousands of eyes on him every second, whether it was at a concert or even through his pictures on the internet. The mask that he’d chosen to don as his alter ego, RM, had become heavy, the strings threatening to snap and reveal the tired, fragmented soul that lay underneath. He’d chosen to intervene before anyone could see him, the real him. He didn’t want to disappoint them.

Staring out at the sea, the wind ruffles the strands of his hair, and he knows he should get a haircut. But then again, who was gonna see him out here anyway? At most, maybe Yoongi or Hoseok would stop by, or his parents. They were the type of people who wouldn’t care if his hair was a little bedraggled, or if he gained or lost a couple of pounds. They’d love him anyway.

The garish ringtone of his cellphone jolts him awake from his thoughts, and he pulls it out of his pocket to see Hoseok’s name light up the screen, hitting the answer button.

“Namjoon-ah,” Hoseok’s voice rumbles through the screen. “You said you’d call when you got there.”

“Sorry, just unpacking,” Namjoon lied, hoping Hoseok wouldn’t catch on. “The house is nice. Do you know who designed it? It doesn’t seem like it was built by some generic construction company.”

He knows Hoseok is rolling his eyes on the other side of the phone, babbling that it was some architect, but Namjoon’s question had been sincere. He wondered who could have wanted to hide from the world bad enough that they’d design a house on this isolated beach, where the winds were wild and the sun shone rarely, and how someone who he’d never met could have understood his desire to not be found so deeply.

“Thanks for the Kaws figurine by the way,” Namjoon gives out at small smile when thinking of Hoseok’s parting gift. “I’ll find a nice place for it.”

Hoseok’s infectious laugh echoes through the speaker, and Namjoon feels his gut lurch, missing his friend.

“You better send me a picture of what you’ve done with the place, and don’t forget to call, huh? Me and Yoongi-hyung are gonna hold you to it.”

Namjoon remains silent on the other end, staring out at the vast horizon, nothing and no one around for miles.

Hoseok clears his throat on the other end, his voice becoming serious.

“Stay happy, Namjoon-ah, talk to you soon.”

“You too, Hob-ah,” Namjoon finally musters before the line cuts dead, leaving him alone once more. Staring at the open door, his new life waiting for him inside, he rises to his feet, walking towards the house that was now waiting for Namjoon to make it a home.

. . .

The first thing he had to tackle was his massive collection of books, the numerous volumes waiting to be homed on the weathered shelves. He knew they wouldn’t stay tidy for long, with his habit of taking one down every day to read and somehow never putting it back. Staring at the walls, he tries to assess the light filtering in through the window, wondering where he could hang his paintings. 

The entire house was blue, from the well-worn wood to the sunlight reflecting off the sea, casting a cerulean glow over the walls, matching the dark blue jeans he was wearing. Instead of being eerie, it reminded Namjoon of those dioramas of a ship in a bottle. This was now his space, his spot to look upon the world, instead of having the world look at him.

As he hung up the art on the wall, he stared at it, hoping it could look back at him, and offer him the inspiration to create he so desperately craved. Studying the strokes of the Lee Bae piece, the splotches and strokes only served to remind him of the dark abyss his mind had become. 

It seemed silly, the job Namjoon had. Who the fuck cared about him and his silly rhymes when the world outside was falling apart? When lives were changing like they never had before? At least for artists, their works could live on to be admired and reflected on without the pressures of the context it was created. For Namjoon, context was all that mattered - how he dressed, what he said, who he spoke to. Never how he felt.

Turning away from the lone painting hanging on the wall, he feels his temples throb with the beginning of a headache. Unpacking could wait. For now, he craved the fresh sea air, the whole reason he’d moved away from the city in the first place. 

The sand on the beach squished against his feet as he ran, feeling the wind blow through his hair, and Namjoon felt freeer than he had in months. Pausing by the oceanside, he panted, hands on his knees, and drew in his chest, screaming into the great beyond, his voice hoarse and tears streaming down his face.

. . .

Returning to the house, Namjoon paused outside the rust-covered mailbox. He probably should check if there had been any important communication from the label. After all, this break was not completely a break. At the end of it, Namjoon would still be pressured to show that the time off had been worth something. 

Reaching inside, he’s surprised to find an envelope within, feeling heavy cardstock in his hands. Curious, he opens it, finding a generic greeting card. Who could have sent him this? He flips the page open:

Hello there!

I’m the person that lived in this house before you did.

I have a favor to ask.

I’m waiting for a letter, actually.

So if you get anything addressed to me, could you please send it to this address?

Wishing you lots of luck in the new place.

Thank you again.

My best,

____

2022.

P.S. those pawprints by the door? They were there before I moved in. I tried my best to get rid of them, but I couldn’t. I hope you can forgive me.

Turning the letter in his hands, Namjoon is confused. The stamp was dated 2022, but it was only 2020. Whoever sent it had to be playing some kind of practical joke on him. As far as the realtor had explained to him, he was the first to live in the cottage, the architect’s lost labor of love away from the city appealing to his desire to get out of his hectic life. And there were no pawprints anywhere.

He pulls out his phone, ready to search your name on Google, but hesitates at the last minute. He knew what it was like to have his privacy invaded, to live a life under scrutiny in the age of the internet. Your letter seemed well-intentioned and even if you were a stranger, perhaps he could just do this one kind thing for you without expecting anything in return. 

Lost in thought, he almost misses the sound of a car crunching on the gravel outside, looking out the window to see a sleek black vehicle he knew all too well rolling up. Throwing his coat outside, he runs to it, a surprised expression on his face.

“Hyung!” he calls out to the two figures that exit, their expressions taking in the isolated area with nothing but the sea surrounding them. “What are you doing here?”

“So this is where you’re hiding from us,” Yoongi whistles, Hoseok nudging him in the stomach. 

“We brought some of your stuff from the studio,” Hoseok says cheerfully, his heart-shaped smile piercing through the fog.

“Do you want some tea?” Namjoon doesn’t want to invite them in, but feels like he has to.

Yoongi studies him, his dark eyes glimmering, and Namjoon senses something is up. They’d known each other for too long to keep secrets from one another. 

“This came for you,” he holds out a piece of paper. “It’s from Ji-hyeon.”

Namjoon flinches at the mention of his ex’s name, and instantly the walls he’d built up in his mind to keep them out of it crashing down, the bitter end of their relationship causing bile to burn in the back of his throat.

“Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it,” he spits out, and he watches Yoongi glance at him. He knew his hyung blamed Ji-hyeon for everything going south, for Namjoon needing to get away, but it hadn’t been just that. There was more going, more Namjoon wasn’t sure he was ready to share with anyone.

“The house looks great,” Hoseok interrupts the tension. “You’ll have to invite us in some other time. Hopefully you can actually learn to cook and clean up after yourself.”

He puts a hand on Yoongi’s shoulder, beckoning them to go, and Namjoon watches them leave, alone and finally able to breathe again. He hadn’t realized how stifling the presence of other people had become, even those closest to him. He just wanted to be alone.

Namjoon hears a whine from his side, looking over in surprise to see a kitten staring up at him with huge eyes, like it wanted something from him.

“Hey little goyangi,” he chuckles. “Who are you – Hey!” 

The kitten stares up at him for a few moments longer, before running towards the house, knocking over the can of paint by the entrance, Namjoon chasing after it. 

He walks in to see little black pawprints all over the entry, and is immediately reminded of the letter from earlier. 

P.S. those pawprints by the door? They were there before I moved in.

Namjoon runs to his study, tripping over boxes on the way, desperately searching for where he kept his pen and paper. He had to know how you knew about the pawprints, and whether you really were from the future.

Sitting against the wall, he’s unsure how to start - responding to yes your request seemed so trivial, limiting the ability to ask all the questions he wanted answers to. Instead, he decided to take a simpler approach, speaking from his heart:

Dear ____,

I’m fucking lonely…

Present Day, 2022

Curling tighter into your coat, you take in the old cottage, still standing as proudly and as empty as the day you moved in, a lone display piece against the backdrop of the sea. You’d contemplated coming back for a little while now, not having heard from Taehyung or the new resident. Taking matters into your own hands, you’d been surprised to hear that no one new had moved in, lying to the realtor that you’d left something behind. 

Key in hand, you open the door, greeted with the vast space that seemed cold and sad without the warmth of a human being and their possessions to fill it. Things had been rough lately, a few more visits with gallery owners and exhibitions not going the way you’d expected them to, and it made you remember why you loved this place so much.

Here, no one could remind you that you weren’t enough, that you’d have to try again. You were just free to be as you were, the ocean your silent partner. Throwing the sleeping bag onto the floor, you scoop up Bokboki, cuddling him in your lap. The two of you remain silent, watching the sky change and the clouds shift, until night falls and you drift off to sleep.

. . . 

You open your eyes with a start, the hard wood that you’d fallen asleep on causing pain to explode across your back. Turning, you see Bokboki snoozing off right next to you, his tiny body moving up and down with each breath. The first rays of sunlight have begun to break through the window, and you know it’s a sign that the weekend is almost over, and you’ll have to leave soon. 

Stretching, you wrap your sweater tight around yourself, slipping on your shoes to go check on the mail outside. The air is crisp and the fog dense. Slipping your hand inside the mailbox, you’re surprised when you feel an envelope in there, one that hadn’t been present at the start of the weekend. 

Taking it out, you open the envelope to find a plain piece of paper, the messy scrawl of black ink all over the pages. Could someone have responded to the card you’d left? Your eyes scan over the page:

Dear ____,

I’m fucking lonely. Sorry for the abrupt introduction, but I just had to get that off my chest, and as you probably know, there’s no one around for miles. As much as I want to help you, since it seems like you’re waiting for something (or someone?) important, but I think you sent that letter to the wrong address. I’m the very first person who’s lived here. I apologize for not being able to help more, and wish you the best of luck with your search.

Sincerely,

Kim Namjoon

Glancing at the stamp on the right hand corner, you see that it’s dated from 2020, and your eyes widen. Was this some kind of sick prank? Whatever it was, you weren’t going to put up with it. You’d been pushed around and dismissed by too many people in your life to stand for it with some stranger.

Rifling through your bag, you find your small sketchbook and a pen, tearing off a sheet. As much as it pained you to rip what could house a potentially new piece of art, this warranted a response and warranted one now.

Listen,

I don’t know why this letter sent to you, but if you’re playing some kind of joke, can you please just leave it where you found it? Thanks.

___

P.S. you’re not seriously sending me letters from 2020, are you? That has to be a typo. Also, the weather is getting colder outside, please make sure to bundle up.

Stuffing the letter back into the mailbox, you feel tears prick at your eyelids. Why couldn’t anyone ever take you seriously? You weren’t just some doll or plaything to be tossed around and abused. You were a real person, with real feelings, and it seemed like no one ever got that about you. You didn’t know why you’d ended with another well-wish, now this Namjoon guy would just think he could use you again.

Suddenly, you feel a cold splish! on the tip of your nose, looking up to see a soft scatter of snowflakes descend from the sky. You feel Bokboki brush against your leg, and smile, your anger of a moment ago forgotten. The tension in your shoulders eases as you close your eyes and make a silent wish that despite the bumpy start, the incoming snow would treat you kindly, and perhaps all that you deserved would finally come your way.

2 years ago, 2020

Namjoon shivers with his hands in his pockets, standing outside the mailbox once again. You’d sent another letter. He’d seen it on his way out to the nearby small village this morning, his empty fridge taunting him. While his fingers had itched to tear open the envelope, he needed time to sit and process whatever your response would be. 

Opening it, his eyes fall at your cold response, the only thing keeping his frozen tears at bay your request for him to stay warm. Maybe you did have a heart after all. Sighing, he shoves the letter into his pockets along with his hands, breaking into a run as he ventures to escape the frigid winter air.

Shaking the snow from his hair, he strips off his winter clothes, teeth chattering from the cold. He walks down the hallway to the bathroom, stripping the rest of his clothes and filling the tub up with warm water. At the sound of the dripping, his new cat friend comes pattering in. Namjoon had decided to keep the curious creature after much contemplation. Just because he felt lonely, didn’t mean he wanted to be completely alone.

He sighs as he steps into the tub, the water instantly filling him with warmth. Closing his eyes, he reaches for his phone on the bench nearby. His eyebrows furrow when he sees dozens of messages from Yoongi and Hoseok, asking about how he’d settled in. There was another text too - one from the company’s head, asking how the progress on his new album was going.

Namjoon wanted to bang his head against the wall. He’d barely had a break and already, people were demanding things of him again. He wondered when this all became so painful - when the fame began to feel like shackles, when everything began to seem forced. Namjoon swipes on the message, deleting it for good. He wouldn’t let the pressure get to him again. If he wanted to write music, he would. If he wanted to make poetry, he would. If he wanted to throw paint against a canvas, he would. But no one could tell him what to do.

His phone clatters against the bench, Namjoon dropping it in favor of the wineglass that rests by the tub. Taking a sip, he sighs, the hot water restoring life to his body and the alcohol numbing his brain. 

“I do wish me a lovely night,” he chuckles to himself.

Present Day, 2022

Dear ____

Like you predicted, the weather got colder. It even snowed! I’m afraid though, that with the wintertime cheer, I’ve gotten a cold. I don’t know what to make of this – I can’t tell whether you’re a prophet or a fortune teller or just someone who owns a lot of crystals. But somehow all of those are easier to believe than the fact that you’re from the year 2022. 

Best,

Namjoon

Clutching the letter to your chest, you sigh heavily, unsure why you’d decided to keep writing back to the strange man who seemed to live inside the mailbox at the cottage. He seemed less harmless than you thought he was, his words so sincere, you could almost imagine the smile that lit up his face as his messy scrawl danced across the page.

Reaching across your desk for a piece of paper, you dig through your collection of pens, finding your favorite one. You smile as you pen a quick response, refraining from telling him I told you so about the cold weather. It seemed extraordinary to be writing to him. Although you still couldn’t fully wrap your head around the fact that he was from the past, you hadn’t realized how lonely your life had become.

Ever since Taehyung had moved away, you’d only had Hyung-Seo. The life of an artist was lonelier than people realized. There were no glamorous gallery openings or art parties in dimly lit rooms. Many of the other artists you came across were cold and unwelcoming, preferring to stick to their already existing circles, and showing no interest in you or your pieces. Hyung-seo was the only friend you managed to hold on to, but even she had her own life to worry about.

Maybe that’s why it felt so right to be writing to this Namjoon guy. You’d been denying it, but there was a void in your life - you had no one to talk to, no one who would really listen to you. Even Bokboki couldn’t say anything back. But Namjoon listened to you - he wrote to you even when you’d been rude, searching for ways to prolong the conversation. And his words, despite how brief they were, made you feel just a little bit less lonely.

. . . 

2 years ago, 2020

Namjoon guzzles the last of the beer, the rush hitting him while he waits for Hoseok to come out of the convenience store. Pulling his mask up and his hood over his head, he looks down at the ground, hoping no one recognizes him at this hour. He didn’t have the capacity to deal with a fan sighting right now. In fact, he’d been hesitant to agree to Hoseok’s offer of hanging out in the city at all, preferring the peace and solitude he’d come to associate with the beach house.

He had a love-hate relationship with the place, the tall buildings and masses of people in the street only serving to make him feel lonely. For a place full of people, the city was full of sorrow. In the days he’d lived here, Namjoon’s only solace had been bike rides on the river, the briny smell of the water being the impetus that had spurred him to move out to the oceanside in the first place. While he missed it, he didn’t miss the feeling of being a wanderer, not having a place to belong in this vast metropolis. 

Hoseok comes out with his haul of snacks, the two of them ready to head back to his apartment. In the car, Namjoon reaches into his pocket, fingers brushing against the last letter you’d sent, and he has a spark of realization. The address you’d been writing him from was near Hoseok’s place, maybe five or ten minutes away. Maybe he could finally meet you, the mysterious woman who occupied most of his thoughts and activities these days, the one who made him feel a little less alone in the world. 

“Can we take a detour?” Namjoon asks suddenly, prompting Hoseok to look at him with raised eyebrows. “I have somewhere I need to see.”

Hoseok nods silently, and Namjoon is thankful he doesn’t question him. He gives the directions, and Hoseok drives, coming to a stop a few minutes later. Namjoon can stop himself from bolting out of the car, running up to where he know you live—

Only to find a construction site and a half-finished apartment complex, and his face falls. Taking a look at the exposed beams and the planks of wood, it finally hits Namjoon that you’re a real person. A person who’s going to live here. He wonders what you look like, what you do for work. He wants to know more about you, know where you are in the world, and when your paths will cross. 

“Why are we at a construction site?” Hoseok comes up beside him, concern etched in his features for his best friend.

“No reason,” Namjoon sighs. “I just thought there’d be something else here. Let’s go.”

2 years ago, 2020

Namjoon looks at the kitten, studying it with the utmost scrutiny. A tortoiseshell coat, and striking green eyes, and a little triangle patch of black hair in the middle of its head. 

He hadn’t known the little guy was supposed to have a name already, but now he’d just found out: Bokboki. Namjoon is unable to speak, sitting there stunned with his little companion after reading the letter you’d just sent, ranting about how you’d spent the entire day just lounging around with your cat, whom you’d found when you moved into the house. 

Namjoon hadn’t seen many other cats strolling around the beach, and since this one seemed to have a particular connection to the beach house, he realizes that in some strange twist of fate, the two of you owned the same pet, the fortuitous connection between you two only building and building. So, you really were from the future.

You’d sent him something else besides the letter, something that had shocked Namjoon even more than the revelation about little Bokboki. The piece itself is tiny, printed on a sheet even smaller than the one you’d written your letter on, but it’s nothing short of stunning. The simple flowers, not unlike the ones he’d seen growing by the beach, are shaded in different hues of blue. He can see where the acid caused the paint to stratify, feathery strokes running over the page, and the once vibrant flowers are now washed out to nothing but white, obliterated by the dark midnight of the background. In the very corner lies a small signature, and Namjoon realizes the neat scrawl is of your name. 

You were an artist. Just like him. 

Namjoon feels a pang within his chest, unable to reason why the tiny painting you’d shared affected him so. You hadn’t said anything about it, hadn’t bragged or even gone into detail about what it meant or why you’d chosen to paint it, or send it to him. And yet, Namjoon felt as if through this painting, he knew more about you than he had through the course of all your letters sent to each other. 

You understood him. You understood what the pressure to create was like, how hard it was to condense the vast world around you into a set of lyrics, or a single painting, and to still invoke a full-bodied spectrum of emotions. He wondered if you understood the burnout too - when art no longer felt like freedom, and more like a set of shackles. How when what once made your heart beat no longer touched it at all, it felt like dying your very first death. 

He doesn’t realize the tears have fallen down his face until he sees the paper he’d picked out to write back splotched with wet spots, and he sniffles.

Scrolling through his library of guide tracks until sleep makes his eyes heavy, Namjoon glances over occasionally at the painting, at a loss of words for how he could even begin to repay the beautiful gift you’d shared with him.

. . . 

Dear Namjoon,

Are you for real? A still life that does not stop, keep my flower blooming again. It’s like you wrote this about my painting!! But how could you, when I hadn’t even sent it to you yet? The song was amazing by the way, even though I had to go out and buy a CD player to listen to it. You’re very talented. You should release it! I’m sure it would go viral on Spotify.

I had an inkling you were an artist too. That’s why I sent you my piece. I’m glad you appreciate it, even when others don’t seem to. But enough about me, I want to talk about you! Your music is so addictive, I can’t stop listening to it. Do you like making songs? I know sometimes it can be hard to create things and not see them get the appreciation they deserve, but I have full faith that if you were to share your talent with the world, you’d find an audience for it (okay maybe the audience would just be me, but isn’t that reason enough?). It seems we’re living in a strange thread of time right? Our previously separate lives are intertwining, thread by thread, and I can’t help but think that there’s something bigger going on. But I’ll save you from my rambling. For now, I wish you good luck with your songwriting!

Sincerely, 

____

Namjoon stares at the letter, his eyes rimmed with red from tears and a lack of sleep. He wants to pull at the threads of his hair and yank them from his scalp. When he’d scrolled through his guides on a whim, choosing to send you a CD burned with Still Life, he’d never expected this reaction. He had never meant for you to hear it, or for anyone to hear it for that matter. It wasn’t the kind of music anyone expected from him, or the dark, sexy kind of song that made any money, and so he’d let it sit on his computer, abandoned.

Until now. 

Namjoon wants to tear up the letter into a million tiny pieces. How dare you say that to him? How dare you give him this fragile sense of hope, knowing any moment, this cruel world could snatch it away? You were wrong. In this day and age, no one was actually interested in music. Sure, they blasted songs through their headphones on the way to work, or while running outside, or in the clubs, but did anyone actually listen to what the artists were saying? No. The lyrics remained lost in the back of their brains, no one ever stopping to think about the conversation that he was trying to initiate. Everybody talked about him, but no one ever talked to him.

Finding another piece of paper, Namjoon nearly rips through it with the force of his pen scratching across the surface.

Dear ___,

You asked me if I like making music. I don’t know anymore. I just don’t know.

Present Day, 2022

Dear ___,

We’d like to thank you for your time spent applying to our gallery. Unfortunately, we regret to inform you…

You toss the letter in the trash before you can even read the rest, covering your mouth to stop the tears from spilling out while you were in the middle of the street. It hadn’t been a good week for you. Not only had Namjoon written you an abrupt response, leaving you to wonder whether he was angry, but you’d finally gotten the letter you were waiting for from Taehyung. Except, instead of the response you’d expected, you’d been greeted with nothing but a big red stamp - return to sender.

You shove your hands in your pockets, staring blankly ahead as you walk wherever your feet will take you, uncaring of people scolding you to get out of their way or to watch where you’re going. Eventually, you find a bench, plopping down on it with a sigh, only to be met with the rude stare of some old man who promptly gets up and leaves. You weren’t good enough for anyone it seemed.

From across the bench, you can see a rusty telephone booth, a relic you thought didn’t exist anymore, and an idea sparks in your brain. A very bad idea. But your mind is powerless to stop the way you rise, feet walking towards the phone booth. 

The door creaks when you open it, and you give the buttons of the phone a cursory tap, just to make sure they still work and you aren’t about to have your credit card eaten. Although it wouldn’t matter much if it was - it’s not like your name was worth much. Dialing the last number you knew to be Taehyung’s, you wait as the dial tone rings and rings.

“Hello?” a woman’s voice answers. “Hello?”

“Who is it?” a deep voice rumbles in the background, and you slam the phone back onto the receiver, your heart beating out of your chest. 

Running out of the booth, you don’t stop until your feet carry you all the way home.

. . . 

Shoving your coat and your shoes off, you strip off the rest of your clothes, throwing them against the wall with a thud. You want to scream. You want to break something. But you have nothing of value. Nothing that would equal the pain and the heartbreak you feel right now. All you have is yourself. And you’re completely alone.

You slam the door to your room shut, ignoring Bokboki’s soft meows, and collapse to the ground, sobs wracking your entire body. You lay there with your head against the door, wondering why the world had chosen to be so cruel to you, to leave you so lonely. 

That was the hard part about getting older. When you’d been in high school, everybody had told you your adult years would be the best of your life, with so many milestones to look forward to - getting a job, entering a relationship, getting married, buying a house, having kids. And that you’d have so many people by your side to witness it all. But the reality was, none of that was true. Instead, you felt more like you were wading through the wide open ocean, with no one around to see you struggle to keep your head above the surface. 

You muster enough strength to get up, stumbling over the desk, head in your hands as you stare at the piece of paper you’d chosen out to write your next letter to Namjoon. Tracing your hand over the edge, you pick up the pen, beginning to write.

I thought falling in love would make me so happy. But all it did was break me inside. It gave me fleeting happiness, only to snatch it away and laugh in my face, telling me that I’m not enough. That I will never be enough. Why though? Why does it have to be me who feels so lonely? Why do I have to go through this pain? Am I not worthy of being loved? Am I undesirable in some way? Once, just once, I wish I could love someone and have them love me back. And not in the transient, fleeting kind of way. No, I wish I could be loved, wholly and completely. I wish to know what it feels like to have someone who’ll sleep beside me every night, to wake up warm instead of freezing. To feel another pair of lips against my own, to have those lips both soothe me and undo me. To feel someone’s fingers inside me, bringing me to highs I can never reach alone. To know someone else’s body as well as I know mine, to lose myself in them completely while we make each other come.

As you write, an image flashes in your head, one of a faceless man. You have no idea what he looks like, but you can hear his voice. It’s the same voice that writes to you nearly every day, that hears your deepest thoughts, and you want him to know your darkest desires.

Your fingers slip underneath the waistband of your panties, warmth pooling in between your legs, and you resist the urge to rub your thighs together to relieve some of the pressure between them. You let out a staggered breath when you swipe through your folds, fingers sliding easily against the wetness that has begun to pool, and your hand rises to circle lightly around your clit.

You let out a moan you didn’t know you’d been holding in, closing your eyes and leaning back against the chair, your legs spreading on their own as the deep voice in your mind continues to talk to you, to repeat what you’d written in the letter, and you feel yourself clench involuntarily thinking about the faceless man in the back of your mind. 

Sinking a finger inside of you, you grind your hips, your throbbing clit catching the palm of your hands. You tremble at the wet noises you can hear, accompanied by the soft staccato of your whines, and your thumb circles back around your needy bud, increasing the pressure, the pleasure rapidly building as you slide in another finger, fucking yourself against your hand. 

It takes a split second for your walls to tighten around you and the taut knot in your stomach to snap, your body convulsing as your slick spilled all over your fingers, soaking your underwear and the chair below. 

You open your eyes, huffing breathlessly as you remove your sticky fingers from inside of you, your heart pounding in your eyes. Looking down at the piece of paper, you shove it to the side, shame flooding your entire body at the debauched fantasy of Namjoon you’d just gotten off to. He was your friend, not some cheap rebound attempt. Your fingers tremble as you grab the pen, trying to write another letter to him to quell your racing thoughts, hoping calm would find you again after the storm that had just ensued.

. . .

2 years ago, 2020

Namjoon shouldn’t be reading this. This clearly wasn’t meant for him. But wasn’t it? You’d put the letter in the mailbox, knowing it’d go through to him, knowing he’d read the very words that had his face flushing red and his cock stirring underneath his grey sweats. He felt like a total perv, getting hard when you were clearly vulnerable and sharing something personal with him, but he’d be lying if he hadn’t thought about how you looked, how you felt, how you tasted.

It’d been too long since Namjoon had sex, and he’d forgotten how strong and persuasive desire could be, leading him to do the most fucked up things. Namjoon reads the letter again, and again, and again, wondering if you touched yourself while you wrote it. Wondering if that’s why the words sounded so rushed, so frantic, spilling out of you like he’d never heard you speak before. He wonders who could make you feel that way, and jealousy stirs in his chest when he realizes it’s most likely someone else. Not him. 

Still, it doesn’t stop him from tugging his sweats down, his hard cock springing out, and he wraps one hand around it, leaning back against the bed. His eyes close as he pumps himself, imagining you behind his eyelids - your lips, your breasts, your pussy. But also your smile, your eyes, your hands. And Namjoon aches to touch you, to touch anyone, to banish the deep-rooted loneliness within his heart.

A bead of precum escapes the tip of his dick, and Namjoon slides it around himself, stroking harder, and faster, thrusting into his hand imagining it was you instead, just like you’d wished for him to do. Underneath him, the bed begins to creak, and Namjoon lets out a low groan, throbbing as he bucks his hips in time with his hands. 

“Fuck,” Namjoon growls as he explodes, curses falling from his lips as he slumps into the bed, chest falling and rising with heavy breaths. Sparks tingle under his skin, Namjoon’s body coming alive like it hadn’t for months. 

At the same time, the guilt settles in, and he feels as though a lead weight is pressed against his chest, crushing his lungs until he can’t breathe. He feels sick inside for taking your moment of vulnerability and using it for his own selfish gains. The gross feeling remains even after he’s gotten up and cleaned himself off, his head buried in his hands when he sits at his desk. 

Grabbing a piece of paper, he begins to write, words of apology flying off the page, hoping it’s enough to excuse his depravity, that you’ll forgive him, that you’ll still want to write to him. He doesn’t know what he’d do if you didn’t.

Dear ___,

I’m sorry you’re feeling this way. I don’t know if you meant to send me those vulnerable words, but if you did, I want to thank you for thinking that I’m trustworthy enough to share them with. I know nothing I say can completely heal the sadness within your heart, but maybe I can offer some wisdom from my own up-and-down experiences with love.

The reason we’re so tormented in life is because love goes on, not because it goes away. But even after we lose that love, the life of a person who’s been in love is more beautiful and vibrant than that of someone who’s never experienced love at all. Cheer up. Everything will work out the way it’s meant to.

- Namjoon

Namjoon stares at the letter for a few moments, unable to believe the poetic words that had just left him in this moment of shame when he’d been struggling to write for months. His brain churns with an idea, and he opens his mixing software, grabbing the notebook he uses to pen his lyrics, and beginning to write. 

If love ain’t for us

I’ll be satisfied with this

I don’t need your touch

I just need your love

Come closer, come closer

Present Day, 2022

Perusing the piece of paper, you wonder if Namjoon’s been drinking the past couple of days. He’s never opened up this much to you, preferring to keep your interactions surface level and friendly. But his last letter hadn’t been just friendly, it’d been poetic, reassuring you that love was worth it. You wonder if he’d been thinking of someone specific when he penned the words. Now, with this next letter, you finally had your answer.

Dear ____,

It was Ji-hyeon. Ji-hyeon was their name. I thought we had it all - the perfect chemistry, thought we wanted the same things. But I was a fool to think that love was for me. I’ve been trying so hard to let the memory of the breakup go, but it haunts me every day. Every day, a little piece of me chips off and withers away when I realize that I’m losing myself. I’m losing my sanity. I’ve ceased to be a human and instead become a prisoner to this industry. To making music. And I just want to let it all go. To quit. That’s why I moved out here in the first place, to find some peace away from the hectic city. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t. I can’t let it go because music is who I am, art is who I am. And it breaks me because the pull of creative expression will always overtake anything, or anyone in my life. I can’t live normally, as much as I yearn to. I can’t love anyone.

- Namjoon

You clamp your hand over your mouth to stop the tears from falling, Namjoon laying himself bare on the page, and your heart hurts for him. Not only because of his sadness, but because his loneliness is the same loneliness you feel, both of you wandering souls in this unforgiving world. 

Watching your clothes spin in the washing machine, you think of Taehyung, and how he was your Ji-hyeon. Except, it was different. You’d known love, you’d known happiness unlike Namjoon had.

Grabbing your notebook, you scribble across the page, telling him that it doesn’t have to be that way, that real love is like the beauty of an amazing art piece. Something can be both beautiful and full of love, it doesn’t have to be full of ugliness and heartbreak for it to inspire you to create. Pausing, you think back on a story from a while back, deciding to divulge it to him. 

The watercolor I sent you? It’s from two years ago, I was painting a whole series on wildflowers in cyanotype. But I went through so many different renditions, so many different drafts, that I ran out of my favorite watercolors, the . I ran to my favorite store, hoping, praying that the creative streak I was on wouldn’t leave me, that if I just had those watercolors, I could keep going. I could make something of myself. But they weren’t there. Someone had bought them just moments before I entered the store, the last set. After that, I just gave up. I was strapped for money and couldn’t afford another set, let alone the time it would take to scour the city looking for them. I haven’t touched the paintings since. 

. . . 

2 years ago, 2020

Namjoon throws his coat over his shoulders, stopping only to scratch Bokboki between the ears before he runs outside, stumbling into the taxi as he frantically tells the driver to take him into the city. The roads pass him by, the serene landscape becoming dotted with more and more buildings, more people as the minutes go on. He asks to be let off at a random intersection, tipping the driver generously before he’s off running again.

There were a million art stores here. Surely one of them had to have the watercolors you were looking for. Namjoon didn’t want you to become like him, paralyzed and unable to do what you enjoyed. No, he wanted better for you, and he’d make sure it happened, so your beautiful wildflowers could see the sun’s rays once again.

Finding one on the corner of a narrow street, he slips inside, greeting the store owner warmly before heading to the back wall full of paints. 

His eyes scan through the rainbow of tubes and pans, until he sees them, the Kuretake ones you’d talked about in his letter. And there was only one left. Grabbing it, he rushes over to the cashier, paying for it, and running back out into the cold air, excitement coursing through your veins when he thinks of how happy you’d be when you saw him.

On his way out, he brushes against a shoulder, apologizing to the woman he’d accidentally bumped into. She gives him a polite smile before continuing on her way inside, and Namjoon smiles back, continuing on his way until he can hail a cab.

When he reaches back home, he slips the colors in the mailbox, and waits. 

It’s a few days later when your response comes back, your joy evident in the way the ink bleeds across the page, telling him you’d sobbed happy tears when you saw the watercolors. You’d immediately gone to start another painting, and Namjoon feels joy bloom inside his chest at the kindness he’d done for you. 

Reaching inside the mailbox, he’s shocked when his fingers close around something soft and wollen, pulling it out to see a scarf, indigo in color. The deep blue and violet fabric warms him instantly, as well as the note attached.

They say indigo is the color of intuition and perception. This scarf helped me find wisdom when I was struggling. I hope it does the same for you.

Present Day, 2022

It was a stupid mistake.

Looking at the letter again, you roll your eyes. Men. They could be so emotional sometimes, and yet they’d blame women for not having control of themselves. A small smirk makes its way onto your face as you read Namjoon’s sheepish request, asking that you send him a new tape recorder, since he’d destroyed his in a fit of rage before moving to the cottage.

Part of you wanted to laugh at his impulsiveness, but the other part of you felt sorrow for all the work he’d probably lost, just because of one rash mistake. You didn’t want him to feel sad. You wanted him to feel empowered to create, to make music again. And so, you set out on your quest to find one. The winding city streets took you on quite a journey, passing by various cafes and bookshops and parks, but you didn’t let yourself get distracted. You were a woman on a mission. 

Your search finally took you to a little electronics store on the outskirts of your neighbourhood, and you look through the various tape recorders, wondering which color Namjoon would like. You wonder if he’s finally ready to start making music again, and smile when you think about being able to hear his songs again.

Paying for the tape recorder, you gather your things and walk out into the street, headphones in your ears. You’ve just stepped into the intersection when you hear a scream, feeling something slam into you from behind, sending you hurtling to the ground. Your ankle twists out of position as you topple over, and pain explodes across your entire leg as you hit the ground, scratching your hands.

Lying there, your mind chooses not to focus on how much pain you’re in, or the fact that you’re now bleeding. Instead you hyperfixate on the tape recorder that lies a few feet away, wondering how you were ever going to help Namjoon make his songs now. 

You don’t know how many moments pass like this.

Waking up, you hear the beeps of a blood pressure monitor, pain trickling from the back of your head down to your ankle. You’re not in your room. It’s a hospital bed, and across from you, you see Hyung-seo looking at you with concern, jolting up out of her seat when she sees your eyes are open.

“Here, drink some water,” she offers you a cup, and you accept, the liquid soothing your parched throat. “You sprained your ankle, please take it easy.”

“Hyung-seo,” you croak to her, still worrying about the tape recorder and Namjoon. “Can I ask you for a favor?”

. . . 

2 years ago, 2020

Namjoon can’t stop running. He’s probably run further down the beach than he should have, the house disappearing until it’s ceased to be a speck in the distance, disappearing completely from his view. He stops himself, bracing his hands on his knees, and heaves in a few deep breaths, suddenly realizing he forgot to feed Bokboki before he went out. 

He hadn’t been able to think straight for the past few days, opening the mailbox every couple of hours anticipating a tape recorder and another letter from you, but instead, he found nothing. At first, he was worried that something had happened to you. But as the days went on, an ugly feeling settled inside Namjoon’s chest. One that convinced him that you were ignoring him, that you’d purposefully grown tired of your interactions, and now wanted nothing to do with him. Maybe you’d found someone new.

Namjoon stumbles towards the ocean, feeling the waves lap at his feet, soaking through his running shoes. Fury floods his mind when he thinks of how open, how honest he’d been with everyone in his life, sacrificing his own damn mind to make them happy. And now, he didn’t even get the same back.

He wades deeper into the water, his waterlogged feet meeting resistance, and screams, his hands pulling at the strands of his hair. And then he screams again, louder this time. But no one is there to hear him.

It’s at least an hour before he returns to the house, shoes soaked with mud. Before he goes inside, he decides to peer inside the mailbox, knowing it’ll probably be worthless. As he opens the rust-covered door, his heart sinks with guilt when he sees a letter from you, and the tape recorder he’d so anxiously been waiting.

He wants to punch himself for his impatience when he reads the note, explaining that you’d met with a small accident and had been in the hospital for a couple days. His heart aches with concern for you? Were you okay? Did his selfish request cause you to get hurt?

Closing the door behind him, Namjoon looks at the tape recorder, wondering if it had even been worth it to ask for it from you. Would it really get him to work on his album? Or would it just taunt him as another reminder of his failures in life.

Sighing, he clicks the play button, ready to make the most of it no matter the outcome. But then he pauses. The sound of the tape is faint, but he can hear a voice on it. Your voice. You’re singing. Your voice is raspy, sounding unpolished, yet also rings clear and sweet. You riff a little melody, adding words that sound like a lullaby and Namjoon feels a pang in his chest. You sound so beautiful.

You end the brief recording with a laugh, apologizing for wasting space on the recorder, and telling him he can delete it. But Namjoon doesn’t delete it.

Bent over his desk, he takes the sincere melody and crafts it into a beat of his own, his low voice joining yours in perfect harmony.

With numerous thorns

The morning that comes and goes

In my own way

I'm gonna anesthetize myself, yeah-yeh

Present Day, 2022

Ride the A1 bus all the way until the second last stop. 

When you get off you’ll find a tree-lined street on both sides. 

If you cut through the patch of trees on the southwest, and walk exactly 1,632 steps, you’ll stumble upon something extraordinary.

I hope you like walking.

Holding the piece of paper with directions to your chest, you fight off a sheepish smile, heart pumping loudly in your ears as you think about Namjoon’s directions for your little “date”.

It wasn’t a real date, you see. The two of you had decided to send each other on adventures in your own time, but Namjoon had called it a date. The thought made you absolutely giddy. You hadn’t been on a date since Taehyung. As strange as it felt to be going somewhere on your own and calling it a date, it felt like Namjoon was with you, his spirit trapped in the letters of the page, leading you to somewhere wonderful.

You count your steps carefully as you walk, the trees lining your path on both sides, just like Namjoon had said. You marvel at their height, the blue sky peeking out from the canopy of their lives. Continuing to count each precise step, you look down at the ground until you reach 1,632. When you look up, you suck in a breath.

It’s a field full of wildflowers, the vibrant colors peeking through the grass like the twinkling of stars in a midnight sky. Your smile widens as you run into the field, laughing at the smell of the beautiful blooms, tracing your fingers along their delicate petals.

Finding a spot to put your bag down, you pull out your notebook, and begin to sketch, the wind ruffling your hair and Namjoon’s field of flowers keeping you company.

. . . 

2 years ago, 2020

Namjoon steps through the gallery, keeping his head down to avoid being recognized, sipping the coffe from the café you’d told him to go to before ending up here.

I think there’s an artist you’ll like, your letter had read, and Namjoon, like the smitten fool he was, was powerless against his own two feet as he immediately set off in search of the mysterious paintings. 

He hadn’t meant for the word date to come out. It just had. He knew you were lonely like this, and even though he couldn’t be there to erase your loneliness in person, he figured sending you to the wildflowers would be the next best thing. And it was. You’d excitedly written back, explaining that you’d come back with at least a dozen new sketches, ready to paint and turn into cyanotype. Namjoon had leaned back in his chair, his grin wider than the ocean, his heart pounding in his chest and his palms becoming sweaty when he thought about your smile, and remembered your beautiful laugh from the tape recording. 

The gallery isn’t busy this time of day, but he avoids talking to anyone, instead making a beeline for the corner you’d talked about. When he comes upon it, his jaw drops open in shock.

The strokes of the piece are ragged, burnt umber and ultramarine blue blending into a series of minimalist lines, the points where they blend creating a black deeper than any night sky Namjoon had seen.

Moving closer, he studies everything, from the worn canvas, to spots where the paint appears thicker in one area than another. The simplicity of the piece blows Namjoon away - the honesty portrayed within, showing him that he doesn’t need to be flamboyant or ostentatious to make an impact. Minimalism spoke words.

Glancing down at the artist’s title card, he sees the name. Yun Hyong-keun.

Namjoon comes home and fires up his computer, looking up interviews and more about Yun, mesmerized by the artist’s perspective on life, emphasizing his own humanity before his duties as an artist.

After his research, Namjoon pens a thank you to you for showing him the work. Coming up on the end of the letter, a bold thought crosses his mind, and he dares to write it down.

___, I’d like to meet you in person if that’s okay? Can we meet here, on this very beach? I’ll give you a day, closer to your time, so you don’t have to wait. How about December 13, 2022 at 3:00? Let me know if that works.

- Namjoon

Present Day, 2022

You slam the dress onto the countertop, the cashier looking at you in surprise.

“Aren’t you going to try it on?” she asks, one eyebrow raised. 

“Nope, just pack it up, please,” you implore her, blushing at the bold red fabric you’d picked out. Namjoon couldn’t miss you in this.

You were losing it. The date he’d given you was in three days! Not nearly enough time to prepare. How was it fair that he got a whole two years and you only got a couple of days. You wanted to meet him, but you also weren’t ready. You wondered what he’d be like. If he’d be the same as you imagined him to be, or different. Whether his voice would sound as deep and melodious as the strings of a cello, or if he had short hair or long hair. In any case, you were sure he’d be wonderful.

The next couple of days pass by in nervous anticipation, with you talking nonstop to Bokboki about your hopes and fears for the foretold meeting. You re-read all the letters you’ve shared with Namjoon before bed, wanting to impress him with how well you know him.

When the sun rises two days later, you rise bright and early with it, hopping in the shower, making sure your hair is styled to perfection, and not a smudge of makeup is out of place. You feel shy putting in so much effort, but you didn’t want Namjoon to think you were a slob. Finally, you slip on the red dress, amazed at how it fits like a glove. 

Studying yourself in the mirror, you can’t help but notice that your skin looks brighter, your cheeks rosier, your hair shinier. You look like life has found its way to you once more, imbuing you with an overall glow that hadn’t existed since before you broke up with Taehyung. Your cheeks flush when you realize Namjoon is the reason for the glow, and you shake your head, banishing all your intrusive thoughts from your mind before slipping on your coat and running out the door.

It feels like the cab ride to the beach is longer today, your leg bouncing up and down in anticipation. When you finally see the beach come into view, you ask the cab driver to stop then and there, not even waiting for them to take you all the way up, instead throwing a handful of bills you hope will cover the ride.

You leap and sprint down the beach, until you reach right behind, the house, where Namjoon said he’d be. Looking around, your face falls. No one is here. Not wanting to give up, you spend a few minutes combing up and down the beach, looking for another human in sight. But there’s no one.

Returning to the house, you let out a soft gasp when you see a man there, his messy black hair blowing in the wind. Dread fills you as you realize you don’t even know what Namjoon looks like. But maybe this was him? You decide to tread carefully.

“Excuse me?” you ask him, and he turns to study you, his eyes reminding you of Bokboki, looking right through you. “Are you here to meet someone by chance?”

His polite smile turns into a grimace, and he shakes his head.

“Whoever your Tinder date is, it’s not me, I’m afraid,” he says. 

“Why are you here then?” you question him, looking around at the abandoned beach. “No offense, but this isn’t exactly a tourist hotspot.”

“I had a friend who used to come here, said it inspired him to make art about the woman he loved,” the man says sadly, and you decide not to press on, giving him his privacy.

“Hey!” you hear from behind you, looking to see him waving at you. “Good luck with whoever you’re looking for. I hope you find them.”

. . . 

2 years ago, 2020

Namjoon wants to yank at the strands of his hair. He pushes his glasses back up onto the bridge, looking at your letter. He’s so fucking confused. He can imagine your small tears dripping onto the paper when you returned home from the beach, disappointed that he didn’t show. But Namjoon is bewildered. 

He wouldn’t have missed meeting you for the world. There was no single excuse, no event, that could have caused him to miss such an important day. Unless, of course, it wasn’t up to him.

Namjoon takes a walk outside the house, descending the stairs to the beach, the indigo scarf you’d given him wrapped tightly around his neck. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and sending a wish out in to the vast world, a wish for your paths to finally connect.

It hadn’t hit Namjoon until he procured the bouquet of wildflowers in excitement for your date, going to the very field he’d shown you. His excitement had been palpable, until he’d returned home to Bokboki staring him down, and he realized he still had two years to go, and the flowers were going to wilt.

His chest had ached with the realization that it would be a long time before he ever met you, and even then, your meeting wasn’t guaranteed. Running a hand through his newly cut hair, Namjoon was struck finally with the revelation that had been creeping up on him through all these months - he’d fallen in love with you. He couldn’t pin it down to a specific moment, but rather the momentous collection of all the times you’d talked to each other. He was in love with you, despite having never seen your face or talked to you in person. His heart was many things, but it wasn’t a liar.

Which is why it broke him to think that he may never have a chance to tell you how he felt in person. That you’d never realize the depth of his feelings, because maybe your paths weren’t meant to converge. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to show the world his love, in the chances that maybe one day, you’d see it and come looking for him.

Fingering the scarf, he looks at its mellow hue, so like the sea before him, and a single thought occupies his mind.

“Indigo,” he whispers. His new album would be called Indigo.

Present Day, 2022

Sipping on your coffee, your ears perk up when you hear a voice behind you, one you hadn’t heard in a long time.

“Seojin, I’ll make it home for the engagement party, you have nothing to worry about,” Taehyung’s deep voice fills your ears, the hairs on your arms coming to stand up as he talks to someone on the phone. Your coffee cup falls out of your hand, tipping over and spilling onto your shirt.

“Shit!” you curse as the hot liquid burns you.

“___? Is that you?” you hear Taehyung’s voice call out, and you turn away, gathering your things and hiding your face.

You hear footsteps come up beside you, Taehyung’s tall figure looming over you, and you inhale the scent of his cologne, closing your eyes.

“It is, isn’t it?” Taehyung looks over at your turnt figure, reaching out an arm to pull you to face him. You can’t even look him in the eyes, instead looking at the floor. You want to tell him to go away, to fuck off, but you feel powerless and weak.

“Can we talk?” he says softly, and you don’t know why you nod. Maybe it’s finally to get the answers you’ve been searching for ever since you decided to wait for his letter in the mail.

You follow him listlessly to a table, looking out the window while he orders another coffee. Looking at your disinterested figure, you hear him let out a heavy sigh, before beginning to speak. 

“It wasn’t easy being abroad, having to study there all alone,” he begins, slipping off his coat. “At first, your letters gave me something to look forward to. But then I got tired of feeling so alone. I grew close to one of my colleagues, who was by my side the entire time. We’re getting married soon. I’m so sorry ___.”

Looking up at him, you know he can see the bloodshot look in your eyes, tears threatening to spill over the edge. You don’t say anything, throwing your coat over your shoulders and running out of the cafe, your feet aching in your heels until you’re all the way home.

Slumping onto the floor, you lean your head against the window, watching the rain fall softly outside. Bokboki piles into your lap with a soft meow, and you stroke his head, continuing to watch outside. Opening the drawer to the coffee table, you reach inside, finding the framed photo of you and Taehyung, your smiles taunting you from the other side of the frame.

Things had been so simple back then. You’d loved each other, you’d wanted to spend the rest of your lives together. So why hadn’t it worked out?

Immediately, your thoughts drift to Namjoon, and how you hadn’t been able to connect with him. Were you just doomed to be alone for the rest of your life?

No. You get up, traveling to your desk to pull out another piece of paper. You could change this. You could fix things between you and Taehyung. You could cure this crippling loneliness you felt. And you knew just the person to ask.

. . .

2 years ago, 2020

I thought I could forget him. But, from the moment I heard his voice, it all came back to me. The fact that he loves someone else, and the fact that I’m aware of that, and I still love him, brings me more pain than I can ever admit. I’m sorry that I’m asking you this, but please help me. Please help me not to lose him. I’m sorry, Namjoon.

Namjoon stares blankly at the letter, unable to process the words on the page that you’d written. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and clears his mind of all the thoughts currently at war with one another. He couldn’t think about what you’d just asked of him. He didn’t want to think about it, knowing his heart would splinter even further at the fact that you loved someone else. Someone who wasn’t him.

Leaving the safety of the beach house, he decides the fresh air will help him clear his head, catching a cab to the city. When he bids the driver goodbye, he wanders aimlessly through the streets, people all around him, and yet Namjoon can’t stop thinking about you.

You, who was never meant to be in his life except as a fleeting presence, as transient and ephemeral as the trains that stopped at each station, before continuing on their journey. He knew now that your paths were never meant to cross, and that he had to make his own way in this world, as alone as he’d been before he met you.

The dreadful realization hits him that he needs to leave the beach house - he couldn’t stay there any longer. It was too full of memories, ones he’d made while writing to you, and as painful as it was to forget them, it was time to let go.

He decides to catch the bus on his way back, standing alone at the stop, until suddenly, he’s joined by another person. Turning around, he sees a woman next to him. Her eyes meet his, and widen at his indigo scarf, looking closely at it. Namjoon coughs, and she averts her eyes. Something about her seemed familiar, but she was probably just another stranger. Namjoon wants to talk to her, to be able to talk to someone else besides you. He opens his mouth to make a comment about his scarf, but is interrupted when a tall, well-dressed man swoops in, his arm wrapping around the woman. 

The bus chooses that moment to arrive, and he watches the two of them climb on, the women looking back at him with a frown on her face when he fails to join them, his feet glued to the ground.

Not wanting to wait for the next bus, Namjoon walks towards the nearest cab, falling asleep on the ride home.

When he’s finally in the safety of his room again, he decides to write you again, knowing this will be the last letter he ever sends you. Because he loved you, and he wanted you to be happy with who you loved, he knew it was time to let you go.

Present Day, 2022

Holding your portfolio in your hands, your fingers tremble with excitement as you get off the bus, stepping right onto the street where Cypher Labels was located. You’d had a creative breakthrough, and someone finally wanted to hire you!

You would write to Namjoon and tell him the good news, of course. You bite your lip, worrying about him. You hadn’t heard from him since he sent the later saying he’d help you reunite with Taehyung. You had nothing but immense gratitude and affection for him in your heart. He was truly a good person, and you hoped only the best would find him in life. 

Do you remember the very first letter? You wished me luck in the house the sea built. This time, I wish you luck. I hope I can help you find what you’re looking for.

You step into the offfice, and the only two people there are two hushed men whispering to each other. At the sound of your heels clacking against the floor, they look up. The shorter of the two studies you curiously, and you can’t help but feel like he’s familiar. Maybe it’s his eyes which pierce through you.

“___! It’s you, right?” the other one gives you a heart shaped smile, his bubbly demeanor immediately putting you at ease. He beckons you to take a seat at the third chair.

“I’m Hoseok, and this is my business partner Yoongi. We’re so glad you could make it. Your artwork has us very intrigued.”

You blush at the compliment, holding your portfolio to your chest.

“Do you mind telling me a little bit about the album and the project itself?”

Hoseok looks over at Yoongi, his face suddenly falling, and Yoongi gives him a tilt of his chin.

“This project is, uh, it’s special to us,” Hoseok says softly. “It’s for a friend that we lost. He used to work with us here at the label, and we were so excited when we got the drafts from him. He’d been struggling to make music, but he moved out to the beach and began talking to someone, and he finally told us he was ready to share the music inspired by his time out there with the world. The album is called Indigo, named after a scarf he was given by the woman he loved, who inspired most of the pieces on the album.”

Your face pales at Hoseok’s description. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be true.

“We lost him in a car accident nearly a year and half ago. He was on his way to meet someone.”

“W-what was his name?” you manage to choke out in a whisper, and you see Yoongi’s nostrils flare at the tears that have collected in your eyes.

“His name was Namjoon.”

You’re up and running out of the studio before you can even process the news, sobs pouring from your body as you keep going, unable to keep the tears at bay.

Namjoon had loved you. He fell in love with you through the letters he wrote, and now he was gone. Gone after he was on his way to meet someone. You do the math in your head, and realize a year and a half ago was the day in Namjoon’s life after you’d written to him, asking him to help bring you and Taehyung together.

Your heart clutches in your chest, and you double over in pain. The album had been for you. It had all been for you, every little thing Namjoon had done. And now he was gone, and he’d never know the truth.

The truth that you’d realized after reading Namjoon’s response, after hearing his willingness to sacrifice his own happiness to ensure yours. That you’d fallen in love with him too.

Sniffling into your sleeve, you pull out your phone, calling a cab. When it arrives, the driver asks you for your destination, and you hesitate, not able to give the address to your apartment. That’s when it hits you. You could change things, just like you’d asked him to. You could write him a letter and deliver it to the mailbox, so hopefully, he wouldn’t go out that day to meet you and Taehyung. You could save him, so that he’d have a full and complete life like he deserved, even if it would never be by your side.

Giving the driver the address to the beach house, you pull your sketchbook out of your pocket, scribbling furiously on the paper.

Namjoon, please listen to me. Please don’t go to wherever me and Taehyung are, I’m begging you. Please listen, please stay home. 

The driver zooms towards the beach, sensing the urgency caused by your tears, and you nearly sob in relief when you see the house coming into view, not even waiting for the car to come to a full stop before you’re running towards the mailbox. Panting, you struggle to breathe against your tears, shoving the letter in the mailbox, hoping, praying that you’re not too late.

You collapse on the ground, whispering a silent prayer against the sand, hoping it wasn’t too late to show him your last act of love - saving his life.

Namjoon’s timeline, 1.5 years in the future

Namjoon never thought he’d return to the beach house, resolving to abandon it the moment he’d let go of you. But then he’d gotten the mysterious letter in the mailbox, telling him to stay home, and he figured he had to go investigate. Coming up upon the rickety house, it’s the exact same as he left it - the worn wood and creaky boards of the walkway. The sea around hasn’t changed either, the waves as calm as the day he’d moved in.

Except for the boxes. Namjoon’s eyes widen in surprise when there are a dozen or so boxes outside the door. Someone was finally moving in. Namjoon clutches the letter and waits by the mailbox, suddenly frozen. He didn’t know why he’d come here. As much as his feet wanted to turn back, he couldn’t.

He hears the door open, and a woman steps outside, wearing the same indigo scarf that he had around his neck, and in an instant, he knows it’s you. You’re even more beautiful than he could have imagined, and now he’s finally found you.

“___,” he calls out to you, and you look up to see where the deep voice is coming from,lips parting when you see Namjoon making his way towards the door.

You stare at him in silence for a few moments, and Namjoon is worried you don’t recognize him, that in this timeline, he means nothing to you, and his heart curls into itself, preparing for the inevitable heartbreak.

“Namjoon?” you whisper. “Is it really you?”

“I got your letter,” he shudders with a sob, holding out the piece of paper. He feels a raindrop splash on his head, and then another, before the heavens open and it begins to pour soaking you both.

Namjoon stays where he is, marveling at the fact that you’re finally here, right beside him. You step towards him, reaching for his scarf to pull him towards you, your lips pressing gently against his own. His arms come up to wrap around your waist, pulling you closer to him, his lips parting to engulf your own in a more passionate kiss, his cold fingers stroking your warm cheeks. Despite the raging storm around you, Namjoon finally feels at peace, the two of you finally finding your shared moment of forever, here in the house the sea built.

A/N pt. 2: Well now I’m fucking sad. But in all seriousness, I hope you enjoyed  reading this as much as I did writing it. And again, I hope it can provide some comfort. As always, any feedback or comments are much appreciated, but I appreciate you all anyway. Lots of love, Isi 💜

taglist: @miscelunaaa @luaspersona @whoisbts @blumenfeld @rapmonie2047 @little-dark-empress @lovemepie67 @ggukkieland @joonsytip @namjooningelsewhere @chrisellaxxjung @jub-jub @outro-kook @kamilamb @coffeedepressionsoup @fujinogf @wecanpretendit @lovely-joon @rkivian​ @rebloginfics​ @firesighgirl​ 

[steppin-on-the-last-train]

Stargazing

or, the six times you embarrass yourself in front of Wanda Maximoff, and the one time you impress her.

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x male!reader (you can still read it if you’re not male-aligned, just switch the pronouns)

Warning(s): None! This is complete fluff

Word Count: 8.6k

a/n: Yea it’s kinda long, I got a little carried away oops, but I hope you like it! This is me finally writing a requested fic, and it’s my first Wanda one as well. My inbox is open for anyone who wants to submit a request! Reader’s powers are based on the Norse god Balder! Also, I stole number four from my fav TV show, so if you get the reference, I love you <3

Requested by @theamazingmarvelblog using the prompt “You’re an idiot” “but you love me”

Terra, Midgard, Earth. All are among the names of the small planet that apparently, you’ve been called to. You know of both your brothers’ fascination with the place and its inhabitants. Humans, you believe they’re called.

Personally you’ve never had any interaction with the terrene, but the stories brought back by Thor of his travels there and the amusing nature of humans happened to peak your interest.

Unfortunately you’ve never had the time or warrant to go, your brother’s might providing sufficient power to defend the tiny planet. Today though, luck just happens to be in your favor when you’re informed of his new quest: chasing knowledge of the infinity stones across the galaxy.

It’s a beautiful day on Asgard, as it always is, the sun shining happily upon your home and its people. A gentle breeze swishes the golden cape you adorn back and forth as you make your way towards the Bifrost where Heimdall is expecting you. The light glints pleasantly off of the light silver of your armor, the darker blues that accent it contrasting nicely.

There’s some mission waiting for you on some allied planet of Asgard. Negotiations, politics, diplomatic relations, etc. are all part of keeping the Nine Realms in order, and you’re Odin’s chosen one to handle it all. As the god of light, joy, and purity you radiate a natural beauty and charm that gives you the ability to, say, persuade any rivals of your father’s into benefiting the king.

In other words you’re his little errand boy tasked with mopping up any of the All-Father’s messes, of which there are plenty. He’s most definitely not well known for his graciousness or patience. It’s not ideal, show ponying around in order to maintain peace, but your job is necessary for the preservation of Asgard. Your work of amity and harmony has gained you a reputation as the golden boy of Asgard, a figurehead for beauty and allure, a juxtaposition to your brother Loki, and a parallel to Thor.

Might you occasionally take advantage of this draw? Perhaps, but where would be the fun of possessing this power of magnetism if you couldn’t use it to attract some attention? In this way you are also known as a bit of a manwhore, or player, as you would come to know it on Earth. This label doesn’t bother you much, in fact it only seems to increase your larger than life prestige, somehow making people even more enamored by you.

Case in point, as you stride into the domed Bifrost a guard comes crashing into you from around the corner, causing you both to fall to the ground. You’re quicker on your feet than the other guy, who, as you offer your hand to help him up, is quite handsome. He has black hair that looks impossibly soft on top of his head and round brown eyes that stare up at you in surprise. You flash him a disarming grin as you help him up, one that works to fluster him as he looks down to brush imaginary dirt from his clothes.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going,” he apologizes quickly, his face reddening from a mix of embarrassment and bashfulness.

“It’s quite alright,” you assure, nodding your head and offering a flirtatious smirk upon noticing how easily the man blushes. “Just be more careful next time, I wouldn’t want anything to happen to that pretty face of yours.” A wink this time for good measure, sending him off after his friend down the bridge. You make a mental note to find the name of that guard later, and to pay him a visit when you do.

“When you’re done trying to seduce another guardsman will you get over here,” a deep voice calls out from the center of the room.

“I’m just having a moment of fun before I go off to talk politics for the next few days. It’s boring, Heimdall. And I need something to look forward to when I get back.” A shrug accompanies your words as you cross the space toward him, the pair of daggers along your belt jostling as you move.

“Actually, you’re going to Midgard. Thor has requested your assistance with keeping watch over the people there. He’s departing soon and wants you to take over for him.”

At that you cock an eyebrow, this could prove to be at least mildly interesting. While the planet is far behind the majority of the galaxy technologically speaking, and its inhabitants are rather tiny, there has to be a reason for your brother’s fondness of the place; a hidden charm that you want to seek. “What are we waiting for then? I’ve got a planet to defend.”

He shakes his head at you as he opens the Bifrost, “Oh, and did I mention I’m dropping you into the middle of a fight?”

“What!?” You turn to him with an incredulous look on your face, barely glimpsing the devious smirk on his before you’re hurtling through the portal.

One

Unprepared for the landing, you crash into the ground in a flash of burning light, which thankfully clears some of the space around you as you fall onto your face. “Not cool Heimdall,” you mutter, shaking your head and getting on your feet.

You look around to see exactly where you are and what you’re dealing with. You’re in a city, one that looks terribly worse for wear as people run about, tripping over debris from the ruined buildings around you. A child stops and stares at you, and you realize how out of place you must look, standing alone in the middle of the war torn street, your shiny armor glaring harshly amidst the dust and smoke. Ash covers the sky, pulling a gray blanket over the atmosphere and you instantly miss the clear day back on Asgard.

Your little staring contest with the girl is broken when you spot something moving behind her, aiming to shoot her where she stands. “Watch out!” You yell as you lift your arm and allow a beam of white light to blast from your palm, melting a neat hole through the robot’s head.

“Are you okay?” You ask as you run up to the kid, putting your hands up to show you’re not going to hurt her. When all you receive is a blank look in return, you realize that wherever you are they don’t speak English, giving you no way to verbally communicate with her. “Um, just. Here.” You hold your hand out for her to take and together you run through the town, with you shooting down robots as you go.

There seems to be an endless amount of the droids, and you constantly have to maneuver the child behind you and out of harm’s way as you race down the street. It’s quieter over here though compared to where you’re headed, following the sound of gunfire as you’re eager to find your brother and figure out what is going on. Surely once you do he can explain everything and you can deposit this small human into someone else’s custody.

Eventually you spot a red cape, similar to the one you wear through the chaos. “Brother!” You shout and wave your hand. He’s fighting off a horde of the androids, throwing his hammer around and leaving nothing but broken parts in his wake. Fighting next to him is a group of humans, all wearing colorful costumes and suits. You spot a man with a huge circular shield, one flying around in a metal suit, and even a giant green monster. At your call they all stop for a second and look at you as you rush toward them, child still in tow.

“Ah, I see Heimdall got my message and sent you here. Good to see you brother,” Thor greets, grasping your forearm in acknowledgment.

“Thor, who is this?” The blonde beside him asks, chest heaving from the fight.

“Well this is my brother, Y/N Odinson.”

At the mention of your relation to your brother the man stills, eyeing you with wariness. You’re confused until you remember Loki’s attack on Midgard a few years ago. This must be one of Earth’s champions who had fought him off.

“I’m here to help,” you insist, pointing to the frightened child you’ve collected on the way. “Look, I've brought you one of your younglings.” A beaming smile overtakes your face as you transfer the girl over to the soldier’s care.

“I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” A synthetic voice rings from the air above you, and you finally notice the giant robot hovering over the group. “I was kind of in the middle of my big villain speech,” he snarks, arms held out in annoyance.

Puzzling out that that’s what you’re here to stop, you turn to him, overconfidence flowing from your posture as you yell, “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Y/N!” As you so kindly introduce yourself you launch white hot light from your hand, searing the metal of his chest.

“You Odinsons are bothering me,” he spits, flying toward you. You unleash two beams as he nears, starting to melt his body. But he’s too fast and you’ve barely begun to make a dent before he seizes your shoulders and throws you across the street.

The Avengers all watch in shock as you go flying through the air, crashing into a building a hundred yards away.

Among them is a brunette witch with magic of a scarlet shade.

Thor’s words mark the resuming of the battle. “He’ll be fine.”

And that was your first impression on Wanda Maximoff.

Two

After a couple weeks of living and training with the Avengers you quickly realize that somehow you’ve managed to find the one person impervious to your magical charm. And unfortunately for you, it’s also the one person here that you have any interest in pursuing.

It’s not like she dislikes you persay, just more like she only speaks to you only enough to be polite. It’s a ‘hello’ in the hallway or a passing nod when you happen to be in the same room. She pays you no mind and it confuses you, hell you’d have more luck with her brother.

The two of you get along scarily well, your flirtatious and carefree nature lining up perfectly. And because of the time you spend together, and his twin intuition with his sister, it doesn’t take him long to figure out your little crush on the witch.

He notices how your eyes linger on her in ways they don’t on anyone else and how you’re constantly trying to strike up a conversation with her. And he finds it absolutely hilarious that she’s able to brush off each of your attempts at gaining her attention like it’s nothing. Equally amusing is your confusion each time she walks off oblivious to your advances.

You have good reason to be confused though. In all of your encounters with well, anyone, you’d never met someone who wasn’t swayed by your beauty. You’d normally walk into a room and effortlessly capture the attention of everyone there, your charisma and ability to radiate joy making you supernaturally desirable.

Her own magic must be working to block yours out. And you did not find that anywhere near as amusing as the speedster beside you.

You’re both in the gym, you serve as a moving punching bag for him as he rushes at you with inhuman speed and tries to land blow after blow on you. The goal is to get you to the ground. A task that you know to be near impossible for the boy circling you. Your own ‘super’ Asgardian strength and speed combined with your invulnerability to all of his jabs makes you a pillar of stone, and him, a fly.

It’s rather amusing for you and a good exercise for him though as he rushes at you in an attempt to tackle you, but you sidestep the blur, causing him to smack into the wall. “Too slow, Maximoff,” you tease, playfully shaking your head at him as you mock chastise him.

As he gears up for another run at you, someone walking into the room catches your attention. It’s Wanda, and she looks as stunning as ever with her hair pulled back and workout clothes on. She notices you watching her and turns her enchanting green eyes on you, offering a small smile as she does.

Completely caught up in the girl’s gaze you don’t notice your training partner barreling directly into you. His momentum gained from his running start from across the room is enough to send you both flying across the room, tumbling over each other as you slide to a halt.

“Ha ha! I told you I’d get you! The mighty Asgardian has fallen,” he dramatically yells as he prances around your bewildered figure on the floor. That is until he notices his sister by the entrance of the gym. A devious smirk finds its way onto his face now as he looks between you and her, connecting the dots. “Ohhh.” And you can practically see his mind coming up with a new plan to expose your crush on the girl.

You’ve never been quicker to get up and rush over to the speedster, clapping a hand over his mouth right as it opens again. His hair is blown to the side from the force of the wind generated from your speeding by him.

“Pietro, I swear. Think very carefully about your next words,” you warn, desperation in your eyes as you stare him down.

He nods, miming zipping his lips as best he can with your hand in the way and you slowly remove it, trusting him to stay quiet.

You move to leave the room, and just as you’re about to make your exit you hear him call from the other side of the room.

“Sestra! Y/N wants to ask you out!”

You whip around, mouth agape in astonishment. No he did not. She turns to you, a question in her eyes and your face heats up in embarrassment, a red color creeping up your neck all the way to your cheeks. You see the boy who was supposed to be your friend laughing out of the corner of your vision as you stand there completely caught off guard.

Having no idea what to do, you run out of the room, you’d deal with this later.

You’d left in such a hurry you hadn’t even noticed the girl watching you with an adoring look on her face. She’d never noticed how cute you were before.

Three

Another thing that greatly confuses you about Earth is its technology. It isn’t very advanced, but way overly complicated in your opinion. Especially when you just want to get something to eat. You find yourself in the cooking room, you can’t remember the name they have for it, and you’re rummaging through all of the drawers and cabinets, looking for something to fill your growling stomach.

You also have no idea what any of these foods are or how they’re meant to be prepared or what they taste like. Oh no. You finally open a cabinet and find a box labeled Pop-Tarts. Pietro had introduced you to these a few days ago and you found them delightfully sugary. The perfect snack.

You open them up and start to eat one, and it’s good, but it feels like something is missing. Oh that’s right, he had made them warm when he gave one to you before, but you can’t remember how he had done so. You glance around the room, eyes finding a number of strange machines that could possibly be the one he had used.

There’s two box-like ones inserted into the wall, one smaller than the other, and both with doors on them. You open both of them, completely unaware of the brunette watching you from across the room as you continue on your quest to heat your snack.

She stifles a laugh as you press all of the buttons on the microwave and the oven, accomplishing nothing with a half eaten Pop-Tart placed in between your teeth.

After Pietro’s little stunt, interactions between you and her had become both more awkward and more frequent. She wants to get to know you more now, but everytime she talks to you you freeze up and end up leaving the room.

You aren’t sure what’s wrong with you, and it frustrates you that your lifetime of flirting and charming half the galaxy seems to disappear whenever she’s near. Normally, you’d be able to enchant whoever you desire with ease, many people, men and women alike back on Asgard being able to testify to such. But whenever you’re confronted with talking to her, you find yourself stuck, all your usual tricks evaporating into the tense air around you. Then your opportunity passes and you curse your brain for stalling out on you again.

Wanda finds it endearing, your big dog attitude dissolving at the sight of her. She thinks it’s cute whenever your eyes go wide and you blush, clumsily leaving the room before she can properly speak to you. Those feelings only grow as she watches you fumble your way around the kitchen, inspecting each appliance before using it wrong, and then moving onto the next one. You remind her of a lost puppy, trying to navigate a new world.

She also can’t help but notice the tight shirt you’re wearing, and the way it hugs your back and shoulders nicely, showing off your lean, but muscled frame. You must be taking fashion advice from Steve.

It’s when you stick your fingers inside the toaster after plugging it in that she steps in. She knows it’s not likely you’d be able to get hurt, but she’d like to prevent you from getting electrocuted today. “Hey do you need some help?”

You startle, yanking your fingers out of the new metal box you’d found on the counter and turning to look at who had spoken. When you find an all too familiar face looking at you in amusement, her hair falling in long waves across her shoulders you grimace. Of course it had to be her giving witness to you stumbling around the cooking room like an idiot.

“No.” You try to play it cool, like you hadn’t just been wandering from device to device, playing with switches and pressing buttons at random. And you still haven’t figured out how to fix the box of pastries sitting on the counter.

She fixes you with a look that says “really” and you relent, sighing in defeat. “Your people’s food machines are being difficult.”

She laughs at your blaming the appliances and you can’t help but think that it’s the most wonderful sound you’ve ever heard; and you’re instantly addicted. You want to hear her laugh, to see her smile all the time, and you want to be the reason behind her joy.

“Here. Just take one and put it in the slot,” she explains, grabbing a Pop-Tart and slipping it into the toaster. “Set it to a low number,” she puts it on two, “and push this down.” You watch as the food drops down into the machine and the insides start to glow orange.

“Thank you,” you laugh nervously, slightly embarrassed that she had to help you with such a simple task.

“Anytime,” she replies, looking into your eyes and you think you’ve found what you’ve been searching for right there as you gaze into her soul.

And then the moment ends, your snack popping up from the toaster and breaking the silence around you.

Four

You’d heard about the infamous Tony Stark despite not having seen him since the battle against the giant robot named Ultron. From what the team told you he was kind of like one of the leaders of the team, funding the entire compound you live in and designing everyone’s suits and weapons. Kind of a big deal.

So that’s why you’re eager to impress him when he comes to visit the Compound one day.

Everyone is excited to see their teammate, who had stepped away from the superhero life for a while to take a much needed break. They’re also pleasantly surprised when he’s joined by Pepper, maybe he’d behave a little better with her to keep him in line.

You’re all waiting in the lounge area when the couple walks in, the billionaire asking with his usual arrogance, “Did you miss me? Of course you did.”

The team starts up the usual conversation, Tony asking how things are going without him and the others wanting to know civilian life is. Well as civilian as things can be with Iron Man that is.

Feeling a little out of place within the group who’d worked together for years, you hang out in the corner, not wanting to step away in fear of being rude. The tall redhead notices your quiet form standing awkwardly away from the conversation and moves to introduce herself. “Hi, I’m Pepper. I don’t believe we’ve met before,” she says with a smile, reaching out to shake your hand.

You take it, a grateful grin on your face as you tell her your name. Upon hearing your surname she lights up in recognition, “You’re Thor’s brother?”

“Yep, I’m an Odinson through and through,” you say, happy to talk about your family and your home. Although you hadn’t quite processed how much you miss your brother and how homesick you’ve become. You like Midgard, you do, but sometimes you want nothing more than to travel home for a few days. To be back among your own people.

The woman notices your distant look and asks, “Are you alright?”

“Yes, of course Lady Pepper,” you snap back to reality, hoping that you hadn’t offended her by spacing out. Worried that you had done something wrong you hurriedly add, “Let me just tell you that you are a babe.”

At your words the entire room goes silent, everyone turning to you in shock. The woman you had been talking to just stares at you, wide-eyed and confused, had you meant what you just said? Wanda looks at you too, a different expression painted onto her face. She knows you’re a flirt and have somewhat of an ego sometimes, but hitting on Pepper Potts? Surely you had to know how out of pocket that was. A third person stifles a snicker from his seat across the room. He may have taught you that word, but without the correct context, and you had just played right into his prank. As you take in the array of disbelief and incredulity on everyone’s faces you begin to think that maybe you had messed up.

“I’m sorry, what did you just call her?” Tony asks, clearly insulted by what you had just said. You back up into the wall as he advances on you, an accusing finger pointing at your face.

“Um,” you stutter, at a loss for words as you can feel the anger radiating from the man in front of you. “A babe?”

“Yea, no. That’s not going to fly mini Thor.”

“I’m sorry Son of Stark, but I was told that was what you call beautiful women here,” you explain. “I'm starting to get the feeling that that’s not correct,” you grimace, letting him know it was an accident, whatever you had just called her.

He shakes his head now in exasperation and turns toward the group watching the exchange, allowing you to relax against the wall. “Alright, who was teaching Luke Skywalker incorrect slang?” You’d earned the nickname after he noticed your powers affect things much like a lightsaber, and you just kind of gave off those vibes.

He studies the crowd of faces around the room, picking out the one that looks more amused by the interaction than anything else. “Wilson. It was you wasn’t it?”

At being found out he doesn’t bother to hide his grin anymore, admitting to teaching you that calling someone ‘babe’ was just an innocent way to compliment a woman’s appearance. “Yea, but you can’t tell me that that wasn’t funny. Come on!”

Tony does not seem entertained, although it’s exactly the kind of joke he’d pull on someone else without blinking twice. He’s just not happy that he’s the one being played this time.

You look down in embarrassment, Wanda’s sympathetic eyes on you the entire time.

Five

Apparently, the time has been long overdue for a famous Stark party and the man himself has invited all of you to what has now been reverted back to Stark tower for a ‘small get-together’.

As you walk in, the endless chatter from the huge crowd of people, the clink of dozens of glasses, and the music being boomed from speakers along the walls slaps you in the face.

Small get-together my ass.

It doesn’t matter much either way to you though, the parties back on Asgard could easily reach volumes double this, and you’d been navigating the social world for centuries.

Your original plans have to do with Wanda by your side as you converse with the many humans who had been eagerly waiting for the arrival of the famed Avengers, but those are dashed when you see her brother sidle up protectively against her, and steer her away from the bulk of the crowd. That alone wasn’t going to stop you from still joining them, but as you turn to follow after the pair, a different arm seizes yours and begins to drag you into the sea of people.

You pivot to see who was responsible for your abrupt change in direction, your eyes settling on the man of the hour. The faint scent of alcohol and overwhelming stench of expensive cologne hits your nose as he looks at you. “Did you really think I’d just let you slink off into the corner and hide the entire night? No, no. I promised a bunch of lovely people they would be able to meet our newest recruit tonight, and I do not intend to let them down. Maybe if you’re lucky you can leave here tonight with one, or two I don’t discriminate.” He sends you a wink with that last comment and based on his animated attitude and wild gesturing you take it he’s already had a fair amount to drink.

Your dress shoes clap along the floor as you’re pulled into the throng, immediately being swarmed by a mob of overeager mortals. You scowl at the host of the party as he slips away, mouthing ‘good luck’ as he disappears.

“Is it true that you’re Thor’s younger brother?”

“What kind of powers do you have?”

“Tell us about Asgard! Is everyone there ultra good looking, or does it just run in the family?”

You quickly tire of the incessant line of questions, it seemed a lot of these people are reporters, or just fans, or maybe both. All of them are talking at you more than talking to you though, and it bothers you greatly, so you run off, telling them you have to go to the restroom.

You head there anyhow, finding a moment of peace as you stand back away from the roar of the party. Your head settles in your hand as you close your eyes and methodically massage your temples. You’re supposed to be impervious to headaches, but your mind feels seconds away from exploding.

Footsteps alert you to someone nearing your makeshift sanctuary and you hurriedly spin around to face the sinks and roll up your sleeves, pumping your hand full of soap right as the door opens. You don’t bother to see who it is as you wash your hands, mentally preparing for going back out there and facing the crowd.

You make your way over to the bar where a certain redhead is mixing drinks, dodging everyone who tries to grab your attention on the way. You let out a huff as you sit down, and noticing your exasperated state she clears the counter of any other stragglers.

“Leave it to Stark to throw a party tumultuous enough to tire a mighty Asgardian.” She gestures out to the huge area packed with people and you shake your head, the mere thought of going back out there stressing you out.

“I wish I could get drunk, but I’m afraid your alcohol is nowhere near strong enough to affect me.” You throw a wistful glance toward the rows of bottles behind Natasha as a knowing smirk spreads across her face.

“Well Odinson, you just might be in luck.” You watch her, wondering why she has to be so damn mysterious all the time as she ducks under the counter, searching for something. She reappears, a flask in hand. It looks completely unassuming, its contents probably nothing you couldn’t find in one of the many bottles in Stark’s collection. She pushes it toward you now and you take it, unscrewing the cap and taking a cautious whiff. “You’re welcome by the way. I had to hide that so the guys wouldn’t kill themselves trying to drink it.”

You smile when you realize what it is. Asgardian ale. Your brother must have brought some over last time he was here, and now you’re going to be stealing the leftovers. “Thank you Natasha. You have just saved my night,” you tell her as you take a big swig from the bottle.

“No problem, kid.” She leans back, taking a sip from her colorful drink as well, apparently you aren’t the only one who needs a little help tolerating the evening.

“I’m older than you, you know,” you insist, a small frown warping your features as you raise your flask in her direction.

“You look and act like a college student,” she deadpans, which only serves to deepen your frown.

Instead of arguing back your eyes sweep the room, on the lookout for someone in particular. “Hey, have you seen Wanda?”

Cracking a slight smile at your antics, which only prove her previous point, she shrugs, nonchalantly moving over to the other side of the bar where Maria Hill waits.

“Hold on, hold on.” You get up from the barstool, staring after her, unnecessarily mysterious, you swear.

“Come on Natasha, don’t leave the poor boy hanging,” the well-dressed SHIELD agent remarks upon seeing your pleading face and the sly smirk on her girlfriend’s.

Finally relenting, she gestures to a door up on the second level of the space. “I think I saw your crush head out to the balcony a few minutes ago.”

“I’m not a kid,” you mutter as you start to leave the bar, snatching the flask from the counter on the way. You’re halfway to the staircase when the redhead’s words dawn on you. “And she’s not my crush!”

You catch the pair laughing to each other before jogging up the stairs, eager to see your friend.

You push the door open, relieved to see that she really is out here, and that the former spy hadn’t tricked you for her own amusement.

She looks gorgeous, the pale moonlight highlighting her face as she stares up at the sky, a beer bottle clutched in one hand.

“You’re late.”

“Yea I know, believe it or not I’ve been trying to get to you all night, but Stark, he is smooth.” The cool breeze hits your face, and until now you hadn’t realized how warm it had been inside the tower. The night air is a welcome relief after being surrounded by way too many people for the last two hours.

“Well I hope you don’t mean he’s been flirting with you.” She raises a skeptical eyebrow at your choice of an excuse.

“No! No. Of course not. He just kept pushing me to talk to person after person, and I couldn’t catch a break.”

“Well I wouldn’t blame him, you look very dashing tonight Starboy, purple is definitely your color.” A blush rises along your cheeks so you take another gulp from your drink, hiding your face behind the container. You'd been receiving compliments all night long, yet somehow hers is the first one that feels real, that makes you want to give her a million in return.

“Thank you, Wanda. I love your dress. The color, it compliments your eyes quite well.” You’ve moved to mirror her position now, arms resting against the railing as you both peer down at the busy city below, a view neither of you are used to.

“You know when I was little, I used to dream of a life in America. And now I’m here, and it still doesn’t feel real.” She doesn’t know where the admittance comes from, just that it’s a feeling she needed to get off of her chest, and that you’re easy to talk to, she feels comfortable here with you.

You nod your head, eyes still scanning the view before you; the cars racing down the street, couples strolling past block after block, the twinkle of lights from a thousand windows. “Do you miss your home?”

She sighs, but it lacks any heaviness or malice, it’s simply an exaggerated exhale as she thinks about her answer. “Sokovia… it wasn’t a place without troubles. In fact, it probably had more trouble than most places, especially when I was growing up.”

You watch her face as she speaks, how it grows sadder as she thinks more about her old home. You want to hug her, as if that would shield her from the forlorn memories, but you feel as if that gesture would be inappropriate now, so you settle for just being here for her. To listen as she explores her complicated feelings.

“But I do miss it, my parents mostly. How we managed to make the best of our situation, and how much love they had for me and Pietro.” Tears shine against her eyes now, threatening to create a stream down her face. As soon as the first one falls, she quickly wipes it away, shaking her head as if to clear the grief from her mind and taking a sip from her beer. “Enough about my home. Do you miss yours?”

The question takes you aback, even when it shouldn’t. You’d been talking about her home, it only makes sense that she’d ask you about yours. You’d just been so focused on how Wanda felt that you’d neglected your own feelings.

“Yea I miss it. I do.” When confronted with the task of articulating those feelings however, your mind drew a blank. You heave a sigh, realizing there’s a lot you have to unpack about Asgard, your family, your path in life. “It’s complicated.” With another swig from your flask you notice the slight buzz from the alcohol starting to kick in.

“I get it. I’m here to listen whenever you figure it out though.” Of course she’d be understanding about this. Your mind tracks back to hugging her again as her green gaze settles on you. Scratch that, you want to kiss her.

The door banging open startles the two of you and you turn to see the Falcon grinning at you from the entryway. “Come on lovebirds, we need you for a round of pool.”

“We’ll be right in, Sam.” The girl answers for the both of you while you silently curse him for interrupting your moment. She saunters over to the door, looking back at you over her shoulder as she heads inside. “Come on, it'll be fun.”

You make your way over to where the Avengers are crowded around a green table with brightly colored balls laid out neatly in a triangle at one end. You’re pleased to note that the rest of Stark’s guests have cleared out by this hour, only leaving your small group.

“I heard we have been invited to play this game of pool,” you spread your arms out wide as you finish trotting up the stairs, tripping over the last one. You’d forgotten how strong that ale was, too long spent away from drinking with your brother. You recover before face planting though, striding up to the table with a bolstered confidence.

You’re handed a long stick and are told to use it to hit the white ball into the huddle of colorful ones. Easy, you think, going over to line up a shot. Wanda follows behind you, taking up a spot standing next to you as she watches you concentrate on aiming the ball.

Just as you’re about to strike the stick into the ball, she drapes an arm around your waist. The mindless act of affection startles you, the contact sending a giddy jolt through your body, causing you to overshoot your hit.

Overshoot might be a bit of an understatement, as you watch the white ball crash into the rest, sending all of them flying off the table in different directions. You have no idea how this game works, but you’re pretty sure that was not the goal.

The laughter flowing from the girl next to you confirms this, embarrassment flooding your senses as you realize the slip up had come from her closeness to you. The others seem to recognize this as well, joining in on making fun of your reaction to being held by the girl you obviously have feelings for.

The only one who seems oblivious as to what had caused your mistake is the person responsible for it.

“Oops.”

Six

A number of weeks go by as you and Wanda continue to skirt the line between friendship and something more. Locked gazes are held just a little too long, she falls asleep on your chest as you watch an unhealthy amount of old sitcoms, both of you glance at each other’s lips when you think the other isn’t not looking.

Eventually you’re fed up with dancing around the question, of avoiding taking the next step out of fear of rejection. You’re going to ask her out, formally, and you know just how to do it.

You take a motorcycle out to the city, plans of visiting Wanda’s favorite coffee shop and grabbing her a drink and a pastry at the front of your mind.

The weather is dull, heavy clouds crowding out the sun and threatening to open up and give way to a nasty storm. You refuse to let the weather interfere with your day though, and besides, what could be better than some comfort food on a day like this.

You smile up at the sky as it starts to sprinkle, imagining that it’s just your brother encouraging you on your mission to romance the girl you think you just might be in love with.

You pull up to the quaint store and cut the engine, swinging your leg up and over as you dismount your bike.

A bell rings as you enter, the strong scent of coffee hitting your nose. You inhale deeply, letting the aroma envelop your senses as you look around the calmly lit room.

You stride up to the counter, the noise of idle chatter backing you up as you recall the name of the coffee order Wanda is most fond of. Too lost in your search of the menu above you you don’t notice the barista that moves to greet you and take your order. Whenever you stop by while she’s working she makes it her mission to incessantly flirt with you, despite your obvious disinterest and outright discomfort in her doing so.

You finally find what sounds like the right name of the brew the witch likes and you look across the woman poised to not only make your coffee, but also to try her hand again at asking you out.

“Hey Y/N!” She chirps, yea she knows your name.

“Hi, can I get two grande mochas please? Oh and two chocolate chip cookies?” You try to keep your voice as professional as possible and leave her no room to start an uncomfortable conversation with you.

“Of course, anything for you.” You nod your head and only offer a tight smile in acknowledgment, turning to go wait a ways back when you hear her call you over. “Hey, can you come back over here? I just need you to sign the receipt.”

You trudge back over, taking a hand out of your pocket and setting it mindlessly on the counter, waiting for her to hand you a pen and the little slip of paper. Instead of giving you a receipt, she grabs your hand harshly, not at all like when Wanda takes it, you note, and the abruptness of her actions startles you. You stare at her, about to ask what’s going on when you notice she’s writing something on your palm. “Hey!” You yank your arm back, but not before she’s finished scribbling down a series of numbers in pen.

“My number,” she beams at you, a hint of crazy in her eyes as she clarifies. “Call me, pretty boy.”

All of a sudden a clap of thunder booms from outside, causing you to look out the window to see rain falling in heavy sheets now, just as you had predicted before. Maybe taking the motorcycle wasn’t such a great idea. Something else catches your eyes though when a flash of lightning streaks through the sky, a figure stomping angrily away.

It couldn’t be. No. It was most definitely the girl you had been planning to ask out tonight, and she had obviously just seen your entire incriminating interaction with the barista.

Shit. You have to explain to her that it wasn’t what it looked like from her position outside the shop.

You race outside, your clothes becoming soaked through in seconds as you shout. “Wanda, wait!”

She pauses for the slightest of seconds before continuing on towards the car she had taken, hurt and embarrassment flooding her heart. You catch up to her before she can get in, imploring her to look at you through the water dripping from her face, you’re not sure if it’s from the rain or her tears.

She glares at you, not giving you a chance to defend yourself before she jumps on you. “What’s going on? Tell me you weren’t just in there letting that girl give you her number, flirting with her!”

She looks so small and sad standing there, drenched to the bone, shivering from the cold, and you take a step toward her, instinctively wanting to wrap her in your arms and keep her warm. She steps back in retaliation as you do, so instead you open your mouth to speak, but she cuts you off, continuing her verbal assault. “I knew you were a prince back on Asgard. That you probably had people throwing themselves at you left and right.” She’s moved toward you now, close enough to give you a shove with her next words.

“I can’t believe I fell for your stupid little boy next door act, Y/N!” You stumble back in surprise as she pushes your chest, shoes slipping on the slick pavement beneath your feet. “Did you get bored playing with just one person? Was I not enough? I bet you missed all of the attention, so you snuck out here to reclaim that high.”

She finally finishes unleashing her piece, frustration lacing her bout of yelling, the rumble of the storm providing a dramatic undercurrent. Water droplets roll down the back of your exposed neck, sending shivers down your spine as you shake out your hair, sending an extra spray of water into the fray.

“Wanda, no,” you catch her hand as she turns away from you, stopping your speech until she looks back at you. “I tried to leave the Compound without you noticing because I wanted to surprise you. I know how much you like this place.” A flash of lightning illuminates both of your faces, revealing the desperation on yours and the distraught expression she wears.

“Then that girl in there… she messed it all up.” A defeated sigh escapes your lips as you shove your hands in your jacket pockets, and looking down, you discover your white t-shirt has totally soaked through, making it see through. Something that would certainly work to undermine your next point. “The truth is I haven’t missed who I was back on Asgard. I think I was hiding behind my powers, using the easy pleasure to distract myself from reality.” The confession works to stun the girl in front of you, and it even takes you aback.

“I could never tell when anyone was being honest with me, if they liked me because of me or because my powers were always subconsciously drawing them in. It was exhausting so I stopped trying to find something real.” You have tears in your eyes now too as you meet Wanda’s somber ones. You stop your anxious pacing for a second as you step closer to her, needing her to hear what you have to say next. “I didn’t think I’d ever find something real… until I met you. Wanda I want you, not that stupid barista, not anyone else in the entire universe. Because you’re beautiful and amazing and you terrify me but in the best way and-.”

She cuts off your nervous rambling and wild gesturing as she grabs the leather of your jacket collar and pulls you close, smashing your lips together. She tastes even sweeter than you had imagined, and you tangle your fingers in her hair as they come to rest on the sides of her face. You both savor in the tenderness of the kiss, even if it was rushed and filled with a million unsaid emotions.

Eventually you pull back for air, cheeks flushed and chest heaving as you stare at each other, breathless. The rain continues to patter down on your unguarded silhouettes as she gently takes your hand and rests her forehead against your own.

“I want you too.”

One

You race about the Compound, grabbing various items here and there, making sure that everything is set up to perfection.

Wanda is due back from her busy day in the city (thank you Pietro) any minute now, you’ve planned the perfect first date night.

You hear the door to the main entrance of the Compound open and you sprint downstairs, making it just in time to greet the returning siblings.

“Y/N!” The girl you’ve been waiting for almost trips over her own feet in her haste to get to you. “This fool has been running me around town all day. I am exhausted. And now you’re going to watch sitcoms with me.” She takes your hand and starts to drag you upstairs, and you let her. As you round the corner, you see Pietro send you a wink before you’re whisked away.

“Wanda this way.” You tug on her arm, pulling her past your room that she’s practically made hers as well with all the time she spends with you.

“Wait.” She slips her wrist from your grasp, standing stubbornly by the door. “We’re going to lay down and watch Dick Van Dyke and then you’re going to get me dinner.” Her arms are crossed and she looks at you defiantly, motioning toward the room.

You have other plans though, and a mischievous grin spreads across your face as you slowly walk backwards towards the end of the hall. “Trust me, I’ve got something much better planned.” You arc your arm in a signal for her to follow you and turn your back to her, silently telling her you’re leaving either way.

Intrigued by the eager look in your eyes and the energy that has you almost bouncing off the walls, she abandons her original plan in favor of following you. You open the door to the stairwell, sparing one sneaky glance back just to make sure she’s coming. When you note her figure making her way down the hall, you climb the steps, not stopping until you reach the roof.

Before you head outside you wait for her to catch up, accidentally getting way ahead of her in your haste to lead her up here.

“What are you doing?” Her voice echoes around the stairwell as curiosity shines through her expression.

Choosing to ignore her question, you send one back her way. “Are you ready for the most romantic night of your life, Wanda Maximoff?” A knowing smile and a pair of raised eyebrows crosses your face as you lean against the door, your hand on the handle in anticipation.

Without giving her the chance to answer, you fling it open, revealing your little setup. A picnic blanket lays flat on the ground, enough food to feed much more than two people lined meticulously around its edges. It’s almost completely dark out, the sun having conveniently set thirty minutes before, the only light coming from the soft glow of the lanterns that line the perimeter of the roof.

Beyond the Compound lies absolutely nothing except the surrounding nature. That’s one giant perk of being stationed in the middle of nowhere, any light or excess noise from the city fails to reach you, always leaving you with peace and quiet whenever you need a moment. The night sky is free to shine out here, the sea of stars stretching out farther than the eye can see uncontested by the touch of humanity. That’s why you picked this spot, the beauty of the landscape reminding you of the girl before you, and the secluded space would allow you to truly enjoy your night without interruption.

You step aside so she can take it in, watching her eyes go wide at your gesture. The silence is stifling, insecurity warping your mind as a hint of a smile appears on her lips. “Do you like it? I wasn’t sure how people here usually court others, but I saw this on TV once and I thought it was cute and then I remembered how you told me that one time about how you used to love studying the stars when you were younger and, well I thought this could be a nice way to spend the night.”

She waits patiently for you to finish your long-winded speech, unable to stifle the small laugh that bubbles up from her chest.

“What?” Dumbfounded, you cock your head, wondering what she found so funny.

“Nothing, you’re just cute when you’re nervous,” she casually remarks as she brushes past you and further onto the roof.

You stumble after her, smoothing out your shirt and fixing your hair as you do. “What? Me? I’m not nervous. No, not at all.”

You eye her carefully as she takes in your little setup. “You’ve really outdone yourself this time, Odinson.” She sends a coy smile your way and you reach out to take her hands in yours, a dopey grin lighting up your face.

“You really think so?”

“I know so.”

And with that she kisses you right there under the moonlit sky, the stars the only witnesses to the small display of affection. The kiss is gentle and filled with passion, the beginning of a new journey you’re about to embark on with the girl you’d give everything to.

The airiness of her perfume mixes perfectly with your cologne as you break apart, staring with a sickening amount of love and admiration into each other’s eyes.

Yea, you could get used to life on Earth.

[therealvinelle]

Ok I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I'm just now copying your Norwegian Bella AU into a text translator, and if you don't already have 50 people in your inbox demanding a translation then shame on ALL OF US because this is glorious! And while Google Translate does have a certain charm (it translated "piper hun ut" as "she beeps") I'm curious to see how you'd put it in English.

Troquantary is referring to this post. In which Bella doesn't speak English.

Fun fact, you're the only one who's gone into my inbox to request this. I was so sad, had the translation half-written and everything, but I was too proud to beg. So thank you, Troquantary, for popping this ask.

As for the dictionary fuckups, sounds about right. I made a few typos, too, that made Google Translate suffer even more. (Such as managing to mix up "henne" (her) and "hendene" (hands), resulting in Aro patting Bella instead of clapping his hands. Poor Google.)

Also, there are a few cultural references and language things that would be lost in the translation, in an attempt to keep them I included notes clarifying things.

Some things, like Aro and Carlisle's very old man way of speaking, are easier said than done to translate, you'll have to bear with me there.

Additional notes are that I added a few things to this version, many of them because translating is hard, but a few because while translating I thought "oh you know what would be much funnier-" and then wrote that.

Alright, without further ado:

When Renée left Charlie she did not go to Florida, she went to Oslo. And she went all in to make her daughter a true Norwegian, hiring Norwegian nannies and making sure never to speak English around the child. Since transatlantic flights are expensive, little Bella Swan rarely got to visit her father, and as such she never did learn what should have been her native language.

She quickly forgot what English she did have in favor of Norwegian, with the exception of words like “Yes”, “No”, and “I’m Bella”.

The few trips she took to visit her father were all the more awkward than in canon since she couldn’t play with the Black kids. Let not the blame fall upon Charlie: he took Norwegian classes and speaks conversational Norwegian. He can’t speak to Renée, because her Norwenglish is incomprehensible even to Norwegians, but he can communicate with Bella.

Not that he’s had a lot of chances to do so.

Bella makes it to seventeen years old, she’s in second grade at Handels* and is a major outsider among the preps there, and then Renée marries a handsome skier**. Together they shall travel the continent all winter to participate in as many skiing races as they can, and in the summer they’ll take gigs at Hurtigruta to see the coast.

*“Handels” is the nickname for an Oslo high school infamous for its pupils being rich and beautiful blonds who are going to be CEOs when they grow up.

**Skiing as a sport is huge in Norway

***Hurtigruta is a famous ferry that travels across the Norwegian West coast

Bella, who sucks at skiing and is too young to work at Hurtigruten, takes the hint.

With dread in her stomach and dictionary in hand she goes to her father in America.

Where she doesn’t speak the language.

Faen.

Charlie gives her a car, and I wish this meta was set in the present because I could have joked about electric cars and the automat only driver’s license*, but Twilight is set in 2005 so I can’t. The car part proceeds without drama.

*An increasing number of Norwegian youth take the driver’s license for automatic cars only, and we’re the country in the world with the highest percentage of electric car purchases.

School is worse than in canon, because she is now a thousand times more sensational than if she was merely the new student. She is from another country! All of Forks keels over with excitement.

To make matters even worse, our girl doesn’t understand a word of what people are saying.

She is too awkward to let them know she doesn’t know English. It’d become a thing, and they might think she’s dumb. To be fair, it’s not good that she’s been through primary, secondary, and now a year and a half of high school and still sucks at English.

So she nods, smiles, mumbles “Hi, I’m Bella” to the new faces, and blushes heavily when anybody says anything.

People assume she’s shy. That’s a bit boring, but oh well.

She has her biology class with the redhead hottie she noticed during lunch. She watched him and his family, they were fascinatingly pretty, but she doesn’t know anything more about them. Sure would have been great if she could have asked the tiny girl (was it Jess?) about them.

Biology proceeds as in canon - Edward badly wants to eat the delicious girl, but fortunately doesn’t.

She runs into him in the office when he tries to switch to another biology lesson, but she has no idea what he’s saying so she only has the suspicion that this somehow concerns her. Which is still uncomfortable, but Bella is probably the problem here. The hottie surely can’t be.

He’s missing from school for a week, Bella finds that weird.

He returns, and to her great horror he starts talking to her.

“Hello”, he says.

Bella dies inside. He’s too handsome!

"I'm Edward Cullen," he continues, and ok, she got that. The hottie is called Edward, that’s good to know. She’s not sure she caught that last name, though, Köln?

He says something else, it’s gibberish to Bella even though she’s concentrating, and at the end there he says ���Bella Swan”.

She gulps.

"I'm Bella Swan," she confirms and nods. That should be correct. God, she hopes it’s correct.

He smiles a crooked, boyish smile. She’s awed. She didn’t think it was possible to be so beautiful.

He says something else.

Bella didn’t catch it.

She blushes even harder, she hasn’t been more embarrassed in her life. Here he is, the most handsome guy in all the world, and she has nothing to say to him. Literally, they don’t speak the same language.

She should tell him.

It’s one thing to chicken out of telling the town she doesn’t speak English, but there’s something different about Edward Cullen. He deserves the truth.

But...

He’s the most beautiful person she has seen in her life. He is American, too, so the odds of him knowing Norwegian are microscopical. If he finds out she doesn’t understand a word he says he’ll stop talking to her, and selfish as she is she doesn’t want that.

So with a slightly guilty conscience (but not enough to fess up) she contributes to the conversation with enough words and smiles to pull through. "Yes", "No", "Thank you", and "That's nice".

He is surprised by several of these answers, but instead of giving her odd looks and losing interest he grows more invested in the conversation.

Class ends.

The next day the near accident happens, and he saves her. She is stunned - dear god, did he just pick up a whole car? After teleporting across the parking lot..?

Soon she’s in the ER, and more than a little bit stressed about that fact since she knows the Americans have a terrible healthcare system.

She hopes Charlie has an insurance.

An insanely beautiful man walks into the ER, and Bella is shocked. He is just as handsome as Edward and Edward’s lunch friends!

He introduces himself as Carlisle Cullen, and Bella can only assume this is someone’s older brother. Possibly related to the blonde girl.

He smiles at her, says something, and she answers, "I'm Bella Swan."

He frowns.

That must have been the wrong answer, then.

His hands return to investigating her scalp, and to her great surprise he switches to perfect Norwegian, "kjenner De* noe ubehag når jeg holder her?" Do you feel any discomfort when I touch here?

*De is the Norwegian polite pronoun for “you”. Du = thou = the French tu, and De = you = the French vous. These polite pronouns went out of use in the 1980’s, save for when addressing royal persons, and would be considered antiquated in 2005.

He hurries to add, "Norsk lærte jeg i... fjor sommer. Det var et nettkurs." I learned Norwegian… last year. Online class.

"Hvilket da?" Which one? Bella asks, because Charlie needs to hear about this. The doctor has beautiful, if slightly outdated, pronunciation.

The doctor’s smile turns uncertain. She gets the feeling there’s something he doesn’t want to say. "Husker ikke," I don’t remember, sier han etter en litt vel lang pause.

That’s a shame. And weird.

"De hadde hellet med Dem i dag, som ikke ble truffet av den bilen." You were lucky today, not getting hit by that car. he then says, noticeably changing the subject.

"Det var ikke hell, det var Edward," It wasn’t luck, it was Edward, she replies sharply.

The doctor definitely looks uncomfortable.

She continues, "Han krysset skolegården på et blunk, og plukket opp hele bilen. Jeg så det," He crossed the schoolyard in a moment, and picked up the whole car. I saw it,

The doctor laughs. "Om han kunne det hadde nok gymkarakteren hans vært meget bedre. Nei, frøken Swan*, jeg beklager å si at det høres ut som at De er litt omtåket. Det er helt normalt ved hjernerystelse." If he could do that, his PE grade would be a lot better. No, Miss Swan, I’m sorry to say you seem confused. That’s normal with concussions.

*Addressing a young woman as “frøken” is even more outdated than using polite pronouns.

Why does Bella get the feeling he’s lying?

She’s discharged.

We’ll jump ahead to her trip to La Push - that trip uneventful, since Jacob knows she doesn’t speak English. They stick their hands in their pockets and stare at the sea.

The next day she’s shanghaied to Port Angeles, because apparently she said “Yes” at the wrong time when talking to Jessica (Turns out Jess’s name was Jessica!) and accidentally said yes to a day trip to Port Angeles.

Like in canon she wanders away from the others, and as in canon she is nearly gang raped. And again as in canon she is saved at the last moment by Edward.

He buys her dinner, and she can’t believe her own luck- and misfortune. A date with the most handsome guy on the planet (hence the luck) and she can’t say a word to him (hence the misfortune)!

He says things to her, lends her his jacket, and really this is it for Bella, she’s peaked, life can’t get better than this.

(That’s a lie, it would be better if she spoke English.)

He’s so amazing.

She’s gotten pretty good at navigating conversations with him, so she nods and aha’s her way through.

In his car on the way home the tone takes a more serious turn.

He asks her about something, and it’s a serious question, that much she’s gathered. She answers in the confirmative.

He is silent.

Did she say anything wrong?

(Edward, on his end, just asked if she knows what he is. She said yes, so calmly, not even a trace of fear in her.)

A few days later he takes her out on a walk in the woods.

He shows her a meadow in the woods, and when he steps into it he lights up in the sunlight.

Bella is in shock.

She knew there was something different about him, but- holy cow. This guy isn’t human.

Is she dating a god?

She stumbles into the clearing after him, and they spend a day together where he says things, and she can barely hear any of it (nevermind understand it) because she’s so distracted by how pretty he is.

The next day he takes her to a house in the middle of nowhere. She doesn’t want to guess that this can be where he lives. Surely gods don’t live in houses?

He shows her inside the house, and introduces her for Dr. Cullen and a lady with a name she doesn’t catch.

Bit weird that these two are acting like a couple of parents, they’re far too young and divine for that.

Edward shows her around in an old-fashioned office, and she doesn’t know what to make of i when she sees a painting of Carlisle. Edward launches into a long story when he sees her watching it, unfortunately she doesn’t catch any dates or artist names. At one point she heard the word “suicide”, though, and that’s not good.

She doesn’t get much out of the story.

The baseball game doesn’t happen because Bella didn’t pick up on what Edward wanted and didn’t realize she was being invited to a thing. They spend the afternoon watching a movie instead.

The relationship continues, impeded slightly by communication problems, but she’s mostly able to cover those up.

Until her birthday comes around.

She gets a papercut.

Jasper lunges at her. Edward throws her into a glass table, and then everyone is leaving.

Carlisle is kind enough to switch to Norwegian when he’s stitching up her arm, perhaps remembering the last time she was his patient. "Jasper har ikke vært på dietten vår så veldig lenge." Jasper hasn’t been on our diet for very long.

"Diett?"she asks. She’s never seen Edward eat anything. She wasn’t clear on what the Cullens ate, honestly she thought they were above such things. She was thinking maybe photosynthesis. The knowledge that they apparently eat food astounds her, but diets?

"Dyreblod istedenfor menneskeblod," Animal blood in stead of human blood, Carlisle clarifies.

Whachasay?

Carlisle gives a slight smile. “Jaspers liv som vampyr fikk en brutal start." Jasper’s life as a vampire got off to a brutal start.

...

Vampire?!

Bella’s missed something here.

Oh dear lord, oh fy faen, she has missed something.

“Åja”, uh huh, is all she can say, and suddenly she’s very aware of the fact that she’s sitting there with a bleeding arm.

And Carlisle.

Who is a vampire.

Over the course of the following conversation Bella makes a host of discoveries.

Edward has been a vampire this whole time, and he’s a telepathic vampire. Whether Bella should be a vampire too or not has been a matter of hot debate, but due to religious reasons Edward doesn’t want that.

Carlisle also brings up how Edward died of the Spanish flu.

"Jeg var under den oppfatning at Edward fortalte deg bakhistorien min?" I was under the impression Edward told you my back story? Carlisle asks at one point, and Bella just has to ask very nicely if he’d be so kind as to repeat it.

Turns out the guy is nearly four hundred years old.

Jaha.

Jahahaha jaa ha.

That’s… a lot.

She wanders out of the house in shock, and hardly notices Edward’s strange behavior over the next couple of days.

One day he picks her up at school, and takes her behind the house.

That works out.

He’s a vampire, but he never hurt her. He is endlessly beautiful, perhaps easier to love now that she knows he’s not a god. He’s her Edward, and that’s suddenly easier now that she knows.

They can still be together.

But now that she knows this about him, it’s about time he knows something about her as well.

It’s time to finally be honest with him.

So when he opens his mouth, she opens her mouth as well, but she doesn’t get any further than to “Edward-” before he launches into a monologue.

She’ll have to wait until he’s done before saying her piece. It’s a bit embarrassing, but it doesn’t seem like he intends to stop talking anyway.

And what he’s saying seems to be serious, so it’s probably best to let him finish.

Edward concludes his monologue by kissing her forehead. Then he disappears.

Where did he go?

A big unsure, Bella goes back to the house. She’ll just have to wait until he gets back.

She doesn’t know what to think when Charlie returns from work and tells her the Cullens have all left.

Oh, god.

Edward must have found out she doesn’t speak English.

She made a mockery of him.

He has every right to leave.

Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to live with.

Bella sinks into a depression.

The hallucinations begin, as in canon, though Hallusinward speaks Norwegian. Thank god for small mercies.

The friendship with Jacob (dictionary in hand) blooms, as someone has to help her see those hallucinations.

The cliff diving happens, and Alice shows up. Bella’s not sure what this is about, but she has gotten good enough at English to know that something bad happened, and Alice wants them to do something.

She’s a bit surprised to find herself on a plane to Italy, though.

Alice tells her to “Run to Edward” and ok, she got that, actually.

So she saves Edward.

After that she’s taken into the sewer, which turns out to house dozens of vampires.

Bella, Edward, and Alice are received in some kind of hall, where an unusual vampire has quite a bit to say. She understands some of what he’s saying, at least the part about “la tua cantante”. She knows a bit about Italian, see, so she knows that he’s talking about a song now.

She wishes she knew the context.

At one point he takes her hand, and appears fascinated by it. She wonders if he’s a palmreader. Not very vampirey, but what does she know.

He asks her a question.

"Yes," she says.

Saying yes has gotten her this far, after all.

But when he lights up and claps his hands together, and Edward and Alice stare at her in shock and betrayal, she knows she must have said the wrong thing.

The two are dismissed from the room before Bella can do or say anything, she’s just listening to Edward make a racket outside in the hallway.

Not good.

The unusual vampire brings her further down in his sewer palace to a basement, and she is given comfortable clothes to wear.

This is getting terrifying.

The vampire leans towards her - and she chickens out.

"Jeg snakker ikke engelsk!" she squeaks. "Non habla ingles!" I don’t speak English.

Han stanser, og ser forvirret ut. "Que- Hva behager*?" I beg your pardon? spør han etter et øyeblikk.

*A very formal, and slightly outdated (you can use it, but people will think you’re putting on airs. And they will be right) way of saying ��excuse me?”

Sobbing, Bella tells him the whole story, from how she didn’t want to be the weird kid in school to how she’s now somehow in Italy without knowing why nor what she just agreed to.

When she’s done the vampire starts laughing.

"Dette forklarer jo en hel del," This explains quite a bit, ler han. "Men, kjære Bella, jeg er redd det ikke endrer noe." But, my dear Bella, I’m afraid it changes nothing.

He tells her that she has agreed to serve him and his army of undead warriors into eternity.

Well fuck.

"Du skal få slippe det, når du ikke visste hva du samtykket til - men skjebnen din forblir den samme. Loven er loven." You’re released from that promise, as you didn’t know what you agreed to - but your fate remains the same. The law is the law.

After a moment of silence, during which she looks terrified, he hurries to add, "Vi har en lov. Du må bli en av oss." We have a law. You must become one of us.

A law that Bella Swan has to become a vampire?

People are finally speaking Norwegian, and Bella is still lost. And it’s too embarrassing to keep pestering this poor, polite man with questions.

So she nods.

He gives her a glittering smile, and bites her.

When she wakes, Aro offers her an English course. A language course that, naturally, leads to her staying in Volterra. Why not learn a few more languages while we’re at it, dearest Bella?

Some time later Edward breaks into Volterra to save his Rapunzel, only to barely recognize her now that she’s a vampire who says things. Lots of things, she talks all the time now. WHAT DID ARO DO TO HER.

Too mortified to admit that she never spoke English, Bella claims she’s been brainwashed.

Aro is having too much fun to correct her, and the whole sad affair sets off a regrettable flood of rumors.

[n1kolaiz]

The Six Realms

Okay, so I was pretty close to giving up on writing analyses but I'm back LMFAO plus I see we're close to 100 followers and I just want to thank you guys for being so very supportive <3

Alright, I'm not sure if anyone's ever written about this, but if an analysis like this exists, please do let me know because I'm kind of curious as to what other people think about this, too!

Remember that time Fukuchi spoke about bringing "about the five signs of an angel's death"?

I read a little bit more about it, and as a minor content warning: this analysis will focus on a few religious aspects (Buddhism + Hinduism). So if I get any of the facts wrong, firstly: I do not mean any disrespect to either religion, and secondly: please do correct me if I interpret anything in the wrong way.

Spoilers for BSD chapter 90 onwards + BEAST!AU under the cut!

So I'll start by talking about the Decay of Angels. As we all know, the members include Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Sigma, and Bram Stoker, and their leader, Fukuchi Ochi. After Fyodor's arrest, the Decay of Angels came into light with Nikolai murdering four government officials in a week. These murders symbolise the Buddhist cycle of existence, or otherwise known as samsara: the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

"We are the Decay of Angels—hiding here as terrorists, a 'murder association', five people who will announce the demise of the celestial world."

Nikolai Gogol, chapter 57

Samsara is described to be a concept beyond human understanding. According to Hinduism, samsara is the physical world where every being has its soul trapped into a physical vessel. The Hindus believe that everything has a soul, and due to a soul's attachment to desire, it is forced into a deathless cycle of being born, dying, and reincarnating into a different body. In Buddhism, the ultimate way to break free from this cycle is by obtaining nirvana.

Nirvana is a Sanskrit word for the goal of the Buddhist path: enlightenment or awakening. In Pali, the language of some of the earliest Buddhist texts, the word is nibbana; in both languages it means "extinction" (like a lamp or flame) or "cessation." It refers to the extinction of greed, ill will, and delusion in the mind, the three poisons that perpetuate suffering. Nirvana is what the Buddha achieved on the night of his enlightenment: he became completely free from the three poisons. Everything he taught for the rest of his life was aimed at helping others to arrive at that same freedom.

- TRICYCLE'S definition of nirvana

As Fukuchi mentions in the panel above, there are six different realms of existence. These realms represent every possible state of existence, but one cannot live in a specific realm forever. Depending on whether or not one's past actions were morally good or bad, an individual is born into one of these realms. Basically, the controlling factor of which realm a person is born into is dependent on their respective karma. The realms are separated into two categories: the hellish ones and the heavenly ones.

The Deva Realm: where beings are rewarded for the good deeds they have done. This realm is void of anything unpleasant. It is basically paradise— empty of unfulfilled desires, any form of suffering, and fears of every kind. Religious individuals, however, do not seek to be born into this realm since its attitude is more or less carefree.

The Asura Realm: where demigods are admitted. Asuras are driven by greed and envy, and may come in conflict with human beings since they are quite similar. They are powerful beings, but quarrel with each other quite a bit, making this realm quite undesirable to be reborn into.

The Animal Realm: where beings are given the form of an animal (you probably guessed that lol). Individuals here don't actually have good karma to take pride in, but rather, they are born into this realm to work off their bad karma (by being slaughtered, hunted, or forced to work, etc). Being born into this realm forces one to atone for their past sins by living out their life as an animal.

The Hell Realm: where one is punished for their evil actions. The most merciless of realms, where one pays for their transgressions through pure suffering, methods of which include: dismemberment, starvation, and psychological/physical torture. However, once a person's term is fulfilled in this realm, they are presumably promised to be reborn into a higher state.

The Preta Realm: similar to the hell realm, in which beings pay for their past sins (specifically: greed and stinginess) by having to survive through hunger and thirst. This realm is also known as the 'ghost realm,' because some pretas are psychologically tortured by being forced to live in places their past selves have lived in. They are invisible to human beings living at that time, which pushes them to face the depths of despair and loneliness. Your typical horror movie, really.

The Human Realm: the only realm where one's actions determine their future. The status (social ranking, physical wellbeing, and so on) of a human being in this realm is determined by their past actions, but due to the fact that a person has their own conscience to differentiate good morals from bad, the actions they commit in this realm have the power to determine which realm they are sent to next.

Okay, so now that I've got that out of the way, let's shift our focus to the Book. Very little is known about the Book, but the basic fundamentals of how it works is that whatever is written in the book will come into existence only if its contents follow the rules of karma. In addition to that, only a few sentences can be written into a single page of the Book, and it must follow the current narrative of the story.

If I'm not wrong, the first time the Book was mentioned was by Fitzgerald, who wanted it to resurrect his deceased daughter in hopes of restoring his wife's mental health. The next time the Book is brought up is when Fyodor's intentions to possess it are divulged; his goal was to decimate the global population of ability-users. And now, the current arc has the Book as its central focus, with a single page in Fukuchi's possession.

[ BEAST!AU spoilers ]

The Book acts as the central point of multiverses, with each character's lives differing from universe to universe.

Dazai committing suicide in this alternate universe stands in sharp contrast with how he decided to start up a new life in the main universe.

Oda staying alive to act as a mentor to Akutagawa in the ADA differs from how Oda uses his death to prompt Dazai to "be on the side that saves people."

And of course, the way Atsushi and Akutagawa have their positions switched in the two universes depicts how different their lives would be if they were given the chance to be mentored by different people— these are just a few examples of how the Book houses an endless amount of possibilities.

[ end of BEAST!AU spoilers ]

Hypothetically speaking, this kind of reminds me of the differing realms I mentioned before, where suffering is promised in some realms, and better things are granted in the rest, depending on one's karma, or the deeds they've done in their past lives. In this scenario, perhaps one's past life can be understood as one's current life in a different universe. That's just a personal opinion though. Take it as you will.

side note: Keep in mind that the person who is more or less impervious to the Book's effect is Dazai, with his nullification ability. I wouldn't want to propose any theories in this aspect (I don't believe I'm fully fact-checked ;_;), but I could use Dazai as a raw example of how your choices affect your future. If Dazai had decided to stay in the Port Mafia after Oda's death, or if he even decided to go through with his suicidal fixations, life would've been different for him in the root universe (obviously, ryley) I mean, you could basically understand that from how he ended up in the BEAST au, but imagine if he really did slip up in his decision-making in any of the universes.

Many analysts have proposed that he went MIA (early in his life) from the main universe for a while to figure out how the BEAST universe worked, whilst having the Book to his advantage. Perhaps his actions were guided? I'm not saying he's all-knowing, but he's sure as hell smart. I'm not sure if Kafka was trying to highlight the concept of karma when it comes to Dazai, but if he is, then I suppose you could say that Dazai is pretty much unaffected by the rules of karma, existing as the centerpiece of all the multiverses. No Longer Human is the namesake of his ability, but the book talks about disqualification from societal norms and generally, the world. I was talking about it with a friend, and they reminded me that Yozo (the main protagonist) was pretty strong in his views against society. Like he didn't speak out of total defeat, he spoke out of defense. If there was anything Dazai actually lost to, it was his guilt— "Living itself is a source of sin."

Then again, that's my personal interpretation since everyone has their unique perspective of his writings. In terms of the actual adaptation, you could translate the word 'disqualification' to 'insusceptibilty' when if it came to the Book's effects on Dazai? This side note is becoming really long lmao anyways I'll link a few theories which afflicted me with brainrot down below.

Another thing before I wrap up, the name 'Decay of Angels' stemmed from Yukio Mishima's book entitled 'The Decay of An Angel.' This is the final novel to the author's tetralogy: 'The Sea of Fertility.' The main protagonist, Honda, meets a person he believes to be a reincarnation of his friend, Kiyoaki, who takes the form of a young teenage boy named Tōru. The last novel of this series enhances Mishima's dominant themes of the series as a whole:

the decay of courtly tradition in Japan

the essence and value of Buddhist philosophy and aesthetics

Mishima’s apocalyptic vision of the modern era

Again, this could be referred to what Fukuchi goes on to say:

Some people view the concept of samsara optimistically, justifying it by saying that perhaps each individual is given a second (third, fourth, fifth, who knows) chance to refine their actions in order to be birthed into a better realm, with their karma being the independent variable.

On the other hand, other people, specifically the Hindus, view the cycle of existence as some sort of plague. To them, the flow of life and being forced to endure the suffering of mere existence in any form was somewhat frowned down upon. Some Hindus viewed samsara as a trap. Besides, having one's soul being limited to a physical body for the rest of eternity was not very appealing, especially since where they ended up at depended on the karmic value their past actions surmounted.

Even so, particular types of Buddhists don't seek nirvana, but instead, like the Hindus, they make an effort to be good people of society, building up their good deeds to increase the likelihood of being reborn into one of the better realms.

As mentioned before, the Deva Realm was the home of angels, the most carefree, gratified beings to exist. Fukuchi describes these angels as the people who don't get their hands dirty, the people who act as the puppeteers of society: politicians.

In terms of parallels, angels were the most fortunate and powerful, but they didn't have anyone ruling over them. A lack of supervision would lead to the abuse of power, which is what I believe Fukuchi was referring to. Deeming himself the Decay of Angels, he sought to prove himself as the 'sign of death that falls on the nation's greed.'

A few fun facts (okay, not really) about Yukio Mishima: he committed seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment) on the day he held a speech to voice out his unpopular political beliefs to the public. Mishima deeply treasured traditions and opposed the modern mindset the nation was advancing forward to adapt eventually. In his last book, The Decay of an Angel, he spoke about the five signs which complete the death of an angel:

Here are the five greater signs: the once-immaculate robes are soiled, the flowers in the flowery crown fade and fall, sweat pours from the armpits, a fetid stench envelops the body, the angel is no longer happy in its proper place.

The Decay of an Angel, p.53

The reviews about this series I've read so far describe Mishima's works to be quite complex; his writings demanded a lot of time to deconstruct and understand. They were highly symbolic, and he was pretty obsessed with death and the 'spiritual barrenness of the modern world.' I think you could attach a few strings from here to the mindsets of the DOA members. Of course, this parallel is completely abstract, but I'll go on rambling anyway:

He should have armed them with the foreknowledge that would keep them from flinging themselves after their destinies, take away their wings, keep them from soaring, make them march in step with the crowd. The world does not approve of flying. Wings are dangerous weapons. They invite self-destruction before they can be used. If he had brought Isao to terms with the fools, then he could have pretended that he knew nothing of wings.

The Decay of an Angel, p.113

I suppose you could resonate Nikolai with that excerpt. As much as Fukuchi takes the lead in this whole murder association, I'd like to believe that each member of the DOA plays an equally interesting part in whatever movement they're trying to execute. Fyodor feels it is his god-sent purpose to cleanse the world of its sins, his motto being, "Let the hand of God guide you." Sigma doesn't know where he belongs, since his origination comes from a page in the Book, and is fueled by the desperation to find a reason to live. Bram holds one of the most powerful abilities which is counted to be one of the "Top Ten Calamities to Destroy the World."

What I mean to say is that the DOA members are incredibly powerful, and they're not your ordinary antagonists (or I'm just biased). It's not just overthrowing authorities, mass genocide, and world domination— you could say that each individual is trying to utilize their purposes to their fullest expenditures, and the way they're trying to assert their plan into action is a little more passive-aggressive (framing the Agency, having a convo with a suicidal dude in jail, etc). They're the gray area between evil and good. As they framed the good guys for their own crimes, they're trying to conquer the bad guys for exploiting the innocent as they please.

This post would definitely age well if all hell breaks loose in the current arc (as if it didn't) and Kafka doesn't give us a happy ending.

That's all I have to say for now I guess! Thank you for reading, and once again, if anyone else something they wanna share, feel free to do so <3

sources (tryna follow Q's example ^_^) :

the six realms

samsara

the decay of angels

beast!au

the book

the sea of fertility

yukio mishima

theory: dazai’s emotional/mental state in beast!au

q’s theory: dazai being the protector of the book

theory: beast!dazai and the book

[eirikaanemo]

Venti's crush is a sister in the Church of Favonius. That's the entire prompt. Okay, she may have overheard Venti when he asked for the Holy Lyre and maaaaybe she gave it to him (in the name of freedom!), but she probably wouldn't be a sister after that.

Venti x GN!Reader

1.7k Words

Warnings: Eviction? Kinda?

Notes: So, halfway through I remembered "Sister" is a gendered term, so I switched it to "Disciple". Hopefully that still works!

Part 2: His Fight

His Lyre

He first caught your attention while he was doing a street performance. You were walking down the street, minding your own business, when you heard a melody so beautiful that you swore it had to be Barbatos himself. Following your curiosity, you found him performing a ballad for a group of children. His clear tenor painted looks of wonder on their faces as he regaled them with tales of Vanessa and the revolution of freedom.

You couldn’t help but stop to watch as well. He had captivated you as much as he had the children and you didn’t regret a thing. After Vanessa’s tale he sang of the fall of the storm god, the rise of Barbatos, the shaping of the lands, and the rise of Mondstadt. Every song seemed almost more amazing than the last.

It was getting close to evening by the time you were able to free yourself from his spell. Or rather, he stopped casting it. His last few notes rang out and faded into the darkness. You almost didn’t dare to breathe in fear of breaking the serene silence that overtook the scene. Then his eyes opened.

This was your first real chance to get a good look at them as he was usually facing just slightly away from you. Everyone else had gone home, so as he scanned the area, his eyes fell on you. And suddenly all you could see was his eyes. They’re beautiful, you thought to yourself, a hint of blush warming your cheeks.

His braids swayed a bit as he tilted his head curiously and a smile flashed across his lips. “It’s not often I see a Disciple here, tell me, did you like what there was to hear?”

“I did,” you confirmed. “I’m very impressed! It was almost like I was listening to Barbatos himself!”

He looked stunned for a moment, then an odd look crossed his face before he quickly covered it up with a broad smile. “Thanks! I appreciate the sentiment! That’s really quite the compliment.”

You were able to spend the next little while chatting before you had to go, but similar scenes occurred fairly often as time went on. About the tenth time or so he decided that you were friends, which you had no objection to. Though there was always a small twinge in your heart whenever he called you that for some reason.

Along with becoming friends, you started to notice some things. His songs are… very detailed in a way that makes them line up with records that rarely see the light of day. While you do your best to share Barbatos’ gospel of freedom with everyone, some records are just too fragile to be available to the general public. So the Disciples, like you, memorize them and tell them to the worshipers who come to the Cathedral.

However, either on purpose or by accident, most of the time Disciples will mix up little details or paraphrase things or skip over sections in a way that can confuse the story some. But Venti’s songs match every detail shown in the records, and more. You had checked multiple times and it always came out the same way. He was one hundred percent correct, in every song he played.

Then there was his hair. You’d never seen anyone with their hair being tinted at the ends like that. And you couldn’t find the hair dye he used either. And oh boy had you looked. You wanted teal in your hair too dang it! And when you finally asked him where he got it he laughed and said it was natural. How is that fair?

And then there are the times where he just didn’t act quite human. Like forgetting to eat all day without realizing it. Or referring to other people as “humans”, as if he, himself, isn’t human. Or how he only ever wears one outfit. Or the way anemo energy seems to flow through him instead of around him. You wouldn’t even have noticed that last one if it wasn’t for the fact that you are hypersensitive to it due to how you use your anemo vision. From all of that, and more, you can just tell that something isn’t quite what it seems about him.

So when you’re cleaning the cathedral in the back and hear him out himself as Barbatos to Sister Gotelinde something just clicked. Oh, of course he was Barbatos. What else could he possibly be? Too much added up for it to not make sense! Unfortunately by the time you were done reeling from shock Sister Gotelinde had sent him right out the door.

You had caught enough of the conversation, though, that you knew that Venti- no, Barbatos had need of his lyre. So you came up with a plan. This was going to get you in so, so much trouble. But this is what needed to be done. You need to get him his lyre.

It was surprisingly easy to swipe the lyre from its pedestal and avoid the other inhabitants of the Cathedral by taking back passageways. You had almost made it out, you were so close when you suddenly ran into someone.

Holding a hand to the point of impact starting to swell on your forehead, you squint over towards the other group. When your brain registers that you just ran into Venti you gasp and scramble to your feet, still holding the holy lyre to your chest. “Oh my goodness, I’m so, so sorry Venti,” you apologize. “Or, uh, would you prefer I call you Barbatos?”

Your friend blinks once, then twice, dumbstruck by the situation. “Venti is fine,” he scrambles to assure you after a few moments. “How did you know?”

“You weren’t exactly the quietest when speaking with Sister Gotelinde, Venti. And I was cleaning just out of sight. It made a lot more sense than some other explanations for your weird behavior that I’d come up with.” You admit sheepishly. “And I believe this is yours.”

His face lit up as you held the holy lyre out towards him. “The Lyre de Himmel! Thank you so much! See that, Traveler? We didn’t even have to steal it! I promise to do my best to take care of it.” You quirk an eyebrow as the Traveler finishes shaking off the effects of running into you.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, and you better.” you tell him pointedly, causing him to giggle nervously. “Besides, the two of you need to go! I… didn’t exactly tell anyone about this. Good luck with Dvalin, Venti, Traveler. May Barbatos be with you!” You called out the last part out of habit.

Moments later you felt a hand clap onto your shoulder. “Dear,” Sister Gotelinde drawled slightly. “Please tell me you didn’t hand our sacred treasure over to that alcoholic bard.” You’re silent for a moment before years of being at the Cathedral won over your common sense. “You know I can’t do that, Sister.”

She sighs from her position behind you and her hand tightens on your shoulder. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how much trouble you’re in, especially if it doesn’t come back in one piece.” You gulp.

“Yes, Sister Gotelinde.” You murmur.

“Good, now get back to cleaning.” She instructs you curtly.

Nodding, you turn and walk past her towards where you were cleaning. She continued on, likely going to report the situation to Sister Barbara. You really hope that Venti keeps his promise.

While you try your best to put the situation out of your mind, your thoughts keep drifting back to it the whole next day. The nightmare you’d had that night hadn’t helped either. It had been a morbid scene, a broken lyre on the ground with an equally broken Venti as a triumphant Stormterror screeched over their still forms. You’d woken up sweaty.

Logically you knew that Barbatos- no, Venti wouldn’t fall to Stormterror. But the scene still wouldn’t go away. And neither did the awkward feeling that accompanied your usual duties as a disciple. Some of your regular duties were suddenly almost… laughable? You now knew that Barbatos didn’t care about a good chunk of what you did in the Cathedral that some considered absolutely essential.

Your attitude didn’t help your position though, not with everyone now knowing what you did and watching you closely. The day is long and you feel trapped every second of it. Then Venti returns victorious with a broken lyre and everything crumbles around you. You’re kicked out, banned for life, right after him, with a suitcase of your stuff chucked out after you. Even though he ‘fixed it’.

Part of you wants to just lay there and regret your life choices; but you can’t help but smile when Venti reaches a hand out to lift you up, laughing about the irony of the situation. A small smile manages to reach your face as Jean starts chuckling too.

“Don’t worry too much, I know you’ve done a great good for Mondstadt.” She reassures you. “I know you have a vision, an anemo vision at that.” She gives Venti a pointed look. “How would you like to become a knight?”

Your smile grows into something a little more natural. “I’d like that, thank you Jean.”

“It’s no problem, really the least I could do. I’m sorry it had to end like this. Now, come to my office when you have a moment so we can formalize it. But for now I need to go and formally close the Stormterror case.” With a sigh she walked past you towards the knights headquarters and the inevitable paperwork which awaits her.

“I’m sorry that you got kicked out,” Venti apologizes once Jean’s out of sight. “All you did was help and you got in trouble for it.”

“It’s alright, Venti,” you try to claim. “It was kind of awkward knowing that you are Barbatos anyway.”

“Still,” he pressed. “You put everything on the line for me and I really appreciate it. I’m really sorry I didn’t follow through. I’ll have to make it up to you. And I know just where to start.”

His kiss to your cheek was quick but sent a warmth blooming across your face, contrasting with the coolness of his lips.

“Of course,” you mumble, embarrassed. “It was your lyre anyway.”

“It was,” he agreed. “But you believed me. And that really does mean a lot to me. Thank you, really.”

[strawberryjamsara]

I want to hear the entirety of your Sara analysis. I need to brainrot

Aaaaah…. I don’t exactly have a full on analysis planned out so this is gonna be just scattered thoughts.

First of all, we have never seen her straight up interact with Mr. Chidouin and the more we see of him and the more we learn about her, the more I’m becoming firmly set that Mr Chidouin is a villainous player. First of all, the fact a teenage girl, some dorky kid who loves cute uniforms and making stupid jokes, is somehow going into simulations for a game that is somehow meant to revolve around her and being a merciless killer, to the point the organization can’t control her…. To the point she’s high ranking over the adults, people like Qtaro…. And again, when there’s so many hints the game is made for her that she somehow has the perfect personality type for it…. Something is fucking up. Someone also mentioned in a post of mine that when in Kais emails it’s mentioned that Mr Chidouin wants to leave the house behind, Sara says she didn’t hear of any plans implying that was just testing Kai’s loyalty whether it was to Mr Chidouin or Sara. And with the implication that Meister wrote the memorandum that adds a whole new layer of uncomfortable! Basically, Sara is an abuse victim in this essay I will-

Okay but moving on, I also want to talk about the significance of not just Joe but everyone in the death games influence on Sara. Although Joe is the most important. It’s very significant that Sara doesn’t use the key on herself in the first trial. Because Joe is her best friend. Joe has already handicapped her, because of how much she cares that she’s willing to put her life on the line and her trust in him so he turns out alright. And…. As much as I hate to reference it, this scene is expanded upon in the manga. She thinks of taking the key at first but can’t because it’s Joe. Joe is her human anchor. Her bond with and grief for him also do a lot to push her towards other people (she was willing to pull her gun out on Alice but Joe wanted to trust him, Gins counciling for her grief, their talk with Mishima, etc) There’s also several other people who factor in to her ability to keep hold on herself who weren’t accounted for, and one person who she might not have been able to make a bond with if it weren’t for Joe.

Reko- So Reko was a very important person to Sara, but I don’t think this was the case in the simulations. The AI of Reko was 2 years behind, and didn’t have her current kind personality. Our Reko often encourages Sara, wants to take responsibility off of her, and cares for her like a big sister. That switch up in personality I think does a lot for Sara.

Nao- Nao is an ASTRONOMICAL factor in keeping Sara grounded. Nao in many cases is willing to bear the weight of Sara’s pain, such as by pushing the fake Reko for her, or in the massacre ending where she is willing to bear the burden of everyone’s deaths for her. I also want to point out a very important scene: the monitor room. When Sara says “I’ve really lost it haven’t I?” Nao takes Sara in close and says “You haven’t lost anything.” It’s important that when Sara feels shes slipping off the deep end she hears someone tell her she’s perfectly okay. God, they mean the world to me…

And now the big one….

Keiji- Honestly I have enough thoughts on Keiji and Sara for its own analysis so I’ll try and not go off on a tangent. Sara is initially suspicious of Keiji because why wouldn’t she be? He randomly comes up to her and tries to befriend her (my personal theory for this is that he was told to do this as his handicap) while giving no information about himself. While he does grow attached to her by the first main game (even breaking that emotionless facade by mistake) it takes her a while before she starts to trust him. But by chapter 31B the effect is significant. In logic route, Ranmaru saying his name is all it takes to bring her back to reality when she was about to go full murder mode. That is huge. Keiji is essentially Sara’s new Joe, further signified by later during the banquet when in a parallel to chapter 2, she imagines Keiji encouraging her to get through the game. I see a lot of people jeering that you can’t turn down signing the contract, but sorry ladies, Keiji is important to Sara. He has become to her another anchor.

And speaking of choices (smooth transitions? What are those?) I wanna talk about the lack of choice to go with Ranmaru in logic route. I will say I am dissapointed we don’t have an ending where we go with Ranmaru. It’d be so rad. But I do think the fact we don’t have that option says a lot about Sara’s character. When the Yabusame dies, her thoughts are “I didn’t want this.” And she then decides to make the resolve to become a better person. That means a lot. Sara has been changed by her experiences and her friends. She is not the same person from the simulations and it is not too late for her to change herself. And I just. (Chefs kiss) Mama Mia that’s a spicy character development, and I am now firmly logic route supremacy.

I also want to talk about her narrative and the weight of responsibility. After the Russian Roulette game, Kai tells her not to push herself, a sentiment that gets lost when she realizes he’s her stalker. The adults in the game all put her on a leadership pedestal when it shouldn’t be her responsibility. I used to think the biggest culprit of this was Keiji, but looking back and replaying the game, I think the biggest, albeit probably not malicious factor, was Qtaro. I made a post awhile back about how Keiji began to realize pretty early on that making Sara the leader was a mistake, and tried to calm her down. The thing is, by that point it was too late. By that point, she put the priority of the group over her best friend. Abandoning that responsibility would triple her guilt. Again, logic route seems to have her realization she isn’t fit to be leader, and Qtaros acknowledgement she doesn’t have to be one so, logic route supremacy.

This wasn’t really a full analysis but I hope I helped with your brain rot

[ogravensimp]

this one is for@mistkissedmoon a lil more Dad!Constantine with a ft. from Jason Blood and John would be so terrible at taking care of ppl but still like really care, so I hope I captured that feeling in this

“This was your big emergency?”

Jason Blood gave a blank stare to the British man across from him.

He didn’t usually just drop everything to attend to someone; especially if that person was John Constantine, but ever since the exorcist decided to take care of the Gem of Scath he proposed it would be a good idea for John to keep him on speed dial.

He didn’t actually expect John to use said number.

Constantine was a demon expert in his own right. Jason believed that he was right to assume that the only reason his help would be sought after was only if the apocalypse had begun.

He felt a nerve in his temple twitch in annoyance (and, ashamedly in disappointment).

It's just that when John rang him and pressed for him to come to the House of Mystery, he had simply been expecting more...destruction. Maybe some blood and fire raining from the sky, the earth itself cracking open to release eldritch horrors of all kinds or even complete ripping of the fabrics of reality.

Anything along those lines would have justified his presence being required, but instead, he was met with-

“achoo!”

Jason looked down at the small form below him.

The spawn of evil incarnate was smaller than he thought it would be. If one ignored the glowing red gem wedged into its forehead, it could easily fool for another harmless 7-year old girl.

Especially as it laid half-dazed in its bed, staring up at the ceiling in a lucid trance. With only half its face poking out from under their star themed blanket, it sniffled pitifully due to the snot dripping out its flushed nose.

The room was perfectly mid-temperature, but the child has so drenched in sweat that even the towel on top of its forehead had over-soaked but yet it still shivered as if it was below -0 degrees.

Was the level of the child’s symptoms extreme? Yes.

Was it worth calling him for? Definitely not.

The daughter of Trigon was sick, yes, but it was obviously just the flu.

“That’s what I‘ve been saying.”

Jason turned to the source of the voice—a young woman stood in the doorway and held a tray of what seemed to be cups and bowls.

John had introduced her as Zed and he had just assumed they were in a relationship— to focused on the assumed threat to try to examine their personal lives.

Maybe he should’ve guessed this excursion would be a waste of time by Zed’s expressions. When he arrived she had shot him nothing but apologetic looks. At first, Jason believed the worst laid behind the doors he was led to but as he now knows, that was not the case.

“That idiot thinks it’s some paranormal curse,”, Zed huffed as she sent a glare at the blond man who began to try and defend himself.

“It's been weeks and she's still under the weather. You think Beelzebub gets the bloody sniffles?!”

“But a child of her age would! Especially one who reads in the tub and doesn't dry her hair before going outside in August,” Zed rolled her eyes as she spoke as if the answer was obvious—and they were, "maybe if you stopped treating her as the destroyer of worlds and instead as a 7-year-old, you won't have wasted the poor guys time."

Jason couldn't help but internally agree with her words.

John continued his defence, "All I'm saying is when I got a cold, I just carried on with my day maybe a bit foggy up there but hardly half-dead like Blackbird over 'ere."

Another eye roll from Zed was the only reply.

Approaching them, she extended the tray towards Jason. He gave a look at the cup of tea and noticed it seemed to be next to another 'sweat towel' in a bowl, he cringed a little before rejecting the offer.

Zed just shrugged before dropping the tray onto a side table and drinking the cup herself. Taking a seat at the edge of the bed, her gaze was soft as she stared down at the child, her hands ran through the child short dark tresses in a comforting manner.

Jason studied how she gently cupped the back of the Gem of Scath’s head and raised it, picking up a cup of water from the side and bringing it to the demon’s mouth and it drank with obedience.

The more Jason watched, the less he could even continue to refer to this child as a demon.

Etrigan was a demon—looked like one too.

How could he use the same term he'd use to describe the bastard in him, to describe this tiny looking thing before him? And though he could sense the hellish magic pouring out of her, for now, she was harmless.

"Alright, summon him out."

John's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. He gave him a perplexed look before asking, "Excuse me?"

"Etrigan. Your demon buddy," the way John looked and spoke, you could tell he saw no issue with his request, "Just wanna confirm from a primary source whether if this is something worse or natural way of life."

Jason was flabbergasted, 'was this why he was called?!'

John sighed.

Actually looking peeved by Jason's confusion.

To the side, he heard Zed's chuckle as she began to switch the towels on the girls head, "told you he wouldn't do it."

"Oh bog off," John retorted back before turning back to him and placing a hand on Jason's shoulder, "Listen, it's either you or I visit ol' Luci and I'm simply not really...eager to have that encounter. So do me a favour here, and just bloody say the rhyme."

Jason looked at the hand on his shoulder like it was a parasite before smacking it off. Taking a breath to compose himself, he turned to the exorcist, " I assure you, there is nothing Etrigan can assist you with that I cannot also offer."

"A huge fuck-off sword?"

Jason glared, "Let me see the child," he spat—obviously ignoring the previous statement.

John put his hands up in surrender before indicating with a turn of his head to the child who had actually risen during their conversation and was now sitting upright—well, slouched and she was staring half-lidded at the wall with the only sign she was awake being her harsh breaths.

He bent down as to be in her level of sight and stuck his hand out, "Hello, my name is Jason Blood, you must be..." "Raven." "-yes, thank you, Zed. They tell me you are a bit under the weather?"

Jason realized halfway that he never learnt the girl's name and had simply just been referring to her as the Gem of Scath. He felt a tinge of guilt for his rudeness, but the dazed stare the girl gave him was confirmation that she was barely conscious enough to even notice.

He also realized it was ridiculous to try to shake a child's hand and was bout to retract it when he felt a pair of smaller ones latch onto his fingers.

Looking up he met a sleepy pair of amethyst eyes trying to focus on him, "N-n-nwot sick...jus-jhwust..uh sleepy and...cwold," with a voice that was softer than a whisper, plus the slurring of her words due to the fever, she was basically incomprehensible.

He was going to try and retract his hand again when he felt something soft come in contact with it. He looked down to see that she had placed her face in the palm of it and wrapped around it like a snake.

With a single muttering of, "...warm...like hellfire", she fell asleep with his hand still under her.

He looked at Constantine.

Not really sure what to do, but the con-man only grinned before giving him a tap on the back, "Good lad Jason, put her to sleep. Even I couldn't do that, let alone Etrigan. Guess I'll leave it to you."

And with that, Zed and John stood up and began to exit the room.

Jason was still in shock to even speak; so before he realized what they were doing, they already switched off the lights and closed the door with a soft click.

He simply stared into the darkness, the only illumination being the moon and stars outside.

Sighing, looked down at the fiend holding his hand prisoner and contemplated yanking her off. She was small. it would incredibly easy to flick her away and then he could simply depart home...but then he felt a squeeze.

As if the girl sensed his thoughts, she clung harder onto his limb like it was a lifeline.

She looked truly at peace right now; her harsh breaths were now nothing but puffs and she was less...sweaty. Demon spawn or not, the girl was no more vulnerable than a newborn fawn at the moment. Jason just didn't have the heart to disturb her peace for his own gain.

Another sigh could be heard in the silent room.

'Maybe an hour longer won't hurt but after that, never accept a favour for John Constantine again.'

hope you like it, feels weird writing characters that aren't just raven and my other faves, hope I didn't make anyone ooc

[bagelbright-tok]

Take Me to Funkytown!

____   

Yellow Temperance proves to be a great enemy to Jotaro. Without much of an aid there to assist the teen, he hasn’t much of a choice but to fight for his life. After trying to burn and freeze temperance off of his finger, hope is lost. At least, until an odd individual dances their way into the fight. Ally or enemy? Temperance and Jotaro are unsure.

Jotaro x fem!Reader [Platonic One-shot]

Italics = the music

Word Count: 1,564 Warning(s): Violence, swearing, negligence, bit of social isolation, intense grooving, swearing again, gross horny man tries hitting on reader, I did not re-read __ Blame It on the Boogie! __

You were mostly just touring Singapore for your own personal reasons. You had nothing else to do and you got bored quickly. So, you packed your bags and left for Singapore. You had the essentials; clothes, personal hygiene products, and your Walkman cassette player and headphones. The flights over were smooth as could be. Not like you noticed much anyhow. Most of the time, you had your headphones on, listening to the several cassettes you also had brought in your bag. Since you’d left, you’d made 0 social interactions with other humans. That didn’t bother you in the least. You didn’t necessarily care much for making friends along the way. In fact, you dreaded when people would talk to you. They were annoying, quite frankly. So you would drown out the voices with your music. The only problem was that you would get sick of listening to the same songs over and over again. The perks of traveling were being able to try out new music from places around the world.

Your thoughts were mostly blank while you peered out of the train window at the city you were approaching. “Hey pretty lady~!”

A man’s voice quickly pierced the air around you. But you couldn’t hear him over your loud music. He noticed that quickly and took this as a sign to sit right next to you. “What’s a girl like you sitting all by yourself?”

You scooted away from him once you noticed he had sat next to you. Your smiling expression quickly turned into a frustrated one. You couldn’t hear the man, but his presence alone made you uncomfortable. You became infuriated when you felt his hand remove your headphones. “C’mon girl, don’t-”

You didn’t let him finish as you summoned your Stand, and sent it lunging at the man. Your Stand, Ace’s Wand, representing the tarot card Ace of Wands, was a Stand with the form that could vary depending on your mood and the sounds in the air. With you angry without music, your Stand took on a horrifying form that you could barely comprehend. The noises it made as well were scary. All you could see was the body of the annoying man getting flung like a ragdoll. His body was crumpled like a piece of paper on the other end of the train.

You scoffed, grabbed your headphones, and returned to your position. Your music continued and your site seeing went on. Everyone was scared and confused as they surrounded the man in concern. “Won’t you take me to Funkytown?” You bobbed your head to the beat while everyone whispered in a hushed and terrified tone.

***

The train ride turned into a cableway ride. You sat in a cable car with a man, his kid, and their dog. The kid happily snacked on his popsicle as he enjoyed the view from the car. You were doing the same, except you were listening to your music instead of snacking on a popsicle. Looking out the window, you noticed a guy on a cylindrical shaped building that was tall enough to reach the height of the cable car. It was an odd sight for sure, you even gave him a confused squint. You noticed his sights landing on your cable car. You blinked a couple of times. Your eyes quickly widened when you saw him back up, then charge forth towards your car.

“Oh shit!” You whispered loudly. The teen landed on the car and clutched to the side you had been viewing from. You noticed a purple figure emerge from him and rip the door off the car. Things only got weirder. The man peered at you, then turned his attention to the kid with the popsicle. 

“Hey kid, I am gonna need to use this.” The kid began to cry until the teen spoke again, “Alright, I’ll buy you a new popsicle when we reach the ground.”

The kid nodded, and the tall teen rose back to his height. Your headphones had been knocked off during the impact of the teen crashing into the car. You hardly noticed, even hearing the teen talk and hearing yourself talk. “Whoa! What an entrance! What the hell are you doing?” You blurted out.

“Is this your kid, lady?” The black haired teen asked.

“What? Hell no.”

“Then shut up and enjoy the view.”

Your brows furrowed at that statement. It was of annoyance, but then it turned into confusion when you noticed the yellow blob on the teen’s hand. Just what was going on? You could only ask this as the teen pressed the cold treat onto the yellow substance, wincing in pain in the process as the gross yellow jello spiked and stabbed into his hand. Things only escalated when another presence began to enter the cable car through the door that the teen had rudely ripped off. The presence was similar to the substance on the teenager’s hand, except larger and with another person inside.

“Can’t you get it through your thick skull?” The deep male voice spoke in a taunting manner that sent shivers down your own spine. “My Stand, Yellow Temperance, is indestructible! No matter how much power you may have, you cannot beat my Stand!”

Well shit. It means you’ve found yourself in a Stand battle. You found yourself even more infuriated than before on the train. The black haired teen referred to as Jotaro had ripped a pole from the car and tried to swing it at Yellow Temperance. It wasn't just Jotaro, though. It was his Stand, a large purple humanoid entity that was clearly fast and strong. Angered, you put on your headphones and stood up. It was as the Stand projected itself onto Jotaro and the cable car that things got weird.

Jotaro and the user of Yellow Temperance were now looking at you. Your expression was scrunched up and you could feel the heat rising. With the beat of your music, you had better control of your Stand. "Don't blame it on the sunshine!"

You moved with the rhythm and summoned your Stand without further comment. "Don't blame it on the moonlight."

"Holy shit!" Temperance's user yelled in horror as his eyes laid on your Stand. You could barely make that out with your music as loud as it is.

"What the hell!" Jotaro also exclaimed, but not as loud. Based on Temperance's reaction, it clued him in on the fact that you are clearly not with him. A relief, but also, you aren't with the Joestars.

"Don't blame it on the good times." Just as Temperance was about to latch onto you, you sent out your Stand first. "Blame it on the-!" "BOOGIE!" Your Stand screeched as it went up against the yellow Stand.

The enemy user only screamed as he witnessed your Stand vigorously and aggressively stabbing and digging through his sludge. Even while your Stand could make contact with his, it couldn't be said that the situation could be switched around. Your Stand's form was horrifying in itself, but the idea that his Stand with no weaknesses couldn't touch your Stand was just as terrifying. 

Jotaro realized the opportunity he had now. The enemy had even panicked and removed his Stand from Jotaro. He wasn't even paying attention to Jotaro anymore. You knew why. The fear was overwhelming. You are the greater threat at the moment to him. You bore your eyes into Jotaro, telling him to make his move if he wants it. Your Stand was slowly making its way closer and closer to the user with its claws. Just as your Stand was about to make it to the enemy, with him sobbing, Jotaro used his Stand's fist to punch the user and knock him unconscious. Your Ace's Wand stopped mere inches away from The Temperance card holder. Your Stand emitted a sickly wheeze of laughter before being de-manifested. You were still grooving to the song, though.

"This magic music grooves me! That dirty rhythm moves me! The devil's gotten to me through this dance!"

Jotaro was unsure of how to communicate with you. That uncertainty was cleared up, though, when you yourself removed your ear buds and spoke.

"Hey! Jotaro right?" You chuckled, pointing at him. Jotaro nodded, knowing you had caught his name in the fight. "That was pretty cool. We should do that again sometime."

"What?" Is all Jotaro could murmur in confusion as response to your suggestion.

"I'm [Y/N] [L/N]." Your pointing finger turned into an open palm hand to shake Jotaro's. "I'm a Stand user, too. Not like.." You looked down at the unconscious and shirtless man at your feet. "...him, though. I'm cool, like you."

Jotaro hated women who fawned over him. Most of the female students who crowded him referred to him as "cool," as well. Hearing you say it, though, was different. It wasn't of lust or love like those ladies at school. It was of genuine friendship and curiosity.

"That's.. Great." Jotaro said, extending his hand out and shaking yours. "Hey, I have a question…"

"Go ahead and shoot!" You shook his hand and returned yours to your side.

"Could you join us on our mission to Egypt?" Jotaro is well versed in being blunt and very straightforward. Not that you would know that.

You paused and processed what he had said. " "Our...?" Mission..? Egypt!?"

___

E N D.

A/N: AAAA! This has been sitting in my docs for sooo long! I had no idea where to take it and how to end it. Finally figured it out though! Apologies if it seems rushed or half-assed. This one is very similar to the In With A Bang one-shot. Introducing a character in that fashion. Also, In With A Bang has reached over 100 notes!! That's fuckin bonkers! Please go give it a read if you haven't! I promise it's better than this one, lol!

[mashup-writing]

Somebody else by 1975 and it is sparkles-✨

It worked out well; Park Chaeyoung (Blackpink)

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Summary: Y/N and Rosé had decided to announce their relationship, but they were gonna be extra about it.

Requested? ☑

"I remember it all too well."

--------------------٩(◕‿◕｡)۶--------------------

It was the final part of Y/N's concert and while he's used to the feeling of thousands of eyes on him, what's going to follow was something that made him extremely nervous, which says a lot. Especially when he was counting on the audience for his plan to work.

At the start of his career, he had announced that he was a Transgender man on all of his social media platforms. An action that took a lot of guts, and and an action that drew a lot of attention to him. At the rising point of his career when he was questioned about it in an interview, his answer was something that made him well known figure within the industry.

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"Now Y/N at the very beginning of your career, you told the world that you were a trans man. That must've taken extreme bravery on your part seeing as those people who are against your community- The LGBT community, can be downright nasty and ruthless in 'Expressing' their dislike. What mae you decide to do this so early on in your time in the spotlight?"

Y/N smiles in his seat, switching from a laid back posture to one that elegantly demands attention, his next words being the ones that made him an icon amongst allies and LGBT people alike. "I am an advocate of LGBT rights before I am an artist, at the very start of my career I wanted to make it clear that I didn't want bigots to be a part of my following or an avid listener of my music and while I'm a man who values my privacy, I value honesty and transparency just as much. So if you're someone who believes that transgender people are just 'Confused' or that they're a 'Crime' against nature? Then go ahead and consider me your worst nightmare."

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Y/N had been sitting on a chair for quite a few moments now, holding a Q&A onstage before he stands up and decides to follow through with the first part of his plan. "Alright, now today's intermission, I'm going to do a cover of my most favorite song called 'Somebody Else by The 1975'. Oh and don't worry you guys, the Q&A will still continue after this cover." The stadium fills with loud screams and cheers from the people watching as he places his mic back on its stand and goes to pick up his electric guitar. The lights dim into a sunset red as the opening notes of the music fill out through the speakers, Y/N starts singing and playing his guitar as the crowd claps along to the beat.

At the start of the second verse, Y/N takes off his guitar and takes the mic off of the stand, walking back to the guitar stand, he puts the instrument down before walking back to the front of the stage and hyping the people up to sing along with him in the pre-chorus. The entrance platform that had sunk back down starts rising as a distinctly feminine voice fills the stadium at the start of the chorus. Y/N smiles widely as the stage screens show Rosé walking towards him, offering her hand. He takes it and raises their hands up, leading the Blackpink member into a twirl, the crowd has gone wild at this point and the duo are pretty sure that somebody or multiple people in the audiences are Blinks seeing the way they've started chanting Rosé's name even without Y/N introducing her beforehand.

The bridge part comes along and the two singers alternate their lines. When the instrumental hits, Rosé takes his hands and starts dancing along to the beat, dorkily smiling and roping the man into dancing along. When the final chorus comes, Y/N and Rosé sing together, motioning for the crowd to sing along and the stadium fills with the sounds of music and the combined voices of a chanting crowd.

The song comes to an end with loud cheers for the two vocalists who are now smiling widely while catching their breaths. Y/N offers his hand to Rosé and when she takes it, the two raise their hands and perform a bow. He lets go of her hand once they've come up from the bow, turning to face her before speaking. "May I introduce, Park Chaeyoung of Blackpink everyone."

The woman in question laughs, shaking her head before going to bow once again and waving to the crowd with both hands, Y/N decides to push his luck. "Also known as Rosé of Blackpink, or Rosie, or Foodsé, or Chipm-" He runs as she jokingly tries to swat at his shoulder.

The cheers continue and the two laugh with each other before Rosè speaks to the crowd. "So how did you guys like our cover?" She's answered with loud cheers and Y/N's manager signals at the two from behind the curtain, raising both his hands up. 10 minutes left, Y/N nods at him and smiles while Rosé turns her attention back to the crowd, he gives the singers a thumbs up with a dorky smile before taking his leave. Y/N shakes his head in humor.

"I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for both me and Y/N over here when I say that we're happy to see you guys loved it." Y/N turns to Rosé to agree with her statement. Y/N speaks into the mic saying that he and Rosé will spend the last ten minutes of the concert for the Q&A. The following minutes fly by with questions aimed at Y/N, questions aimed at Rosé as well as questions aimed at both come in droves, until Y/N announce that the next question will be the last one before the event comes to an end and they have to start saying goodbye. Multiple people raise their hand, and he leaves it up to Rosé to pick who gets to ask the final question. She gives her mic to a girl in the front row, and the girl states her question.

"How did you come up with the idea to have Rosé make a special appearance for a cover? Going by your latest Instagram posts before this album dropped, it seemed like you guys were writing songs together. So we were really hyped for a collab." The fan hands the mic back to Rosé who smiles at Y/N as he takes a deep breath, steeling himself for what's to come next. The Western singer brings his mic up to his lips to answer.

"There's a pretty good reason for this cover actually. 'Somebody Else' is a song that holds special meaning for the both of us, besides being our favorite song." Y/N motion for Rosé to take the lead, and she steps closer to him before speaking. "There was a point in me and Y/N's life that we didn't know where we stood. It a point we could sort of compare to the kid's game: Tag." She looks over to the man beside her, silently asking if he wants to back out of it. Instead Y/N takes her hand, interlocks their fingers and squeezes. Go on, I'm ready.

"Long story short is that I was hung up and broken hearted over this person and he was hung up over me." Collective gasps resound through out the stadium. After all, the only thing they know about you and Rosé relationship up until this point was that she was helping you write songs. You bring your mic up to your lips and speak. "The pictures on my Instagram of her looking at the lyrics I wrote? That wasn't Rosé helping me write. That was Chaeyoung reading what I wrote about her." The crowd goes crazy over the newfound information, and Y/N's pretty sure that they miss the way he referred to her using her real name instead of her stage name. But Chaeyoung catches onto it and she smiles softly at the man.

"I can't even begin to describe how thankful I am to Y/N by the way. Staying up countless nights and listening to me ramble on about being torn up, being there for me in every single way, helping me heal and doing all of this without expecting anything in return. Such a gentleman really." The crowd collectively 'Awwwwws' and Y/N hangs his head low, hiding his blush from everyone, Rosé laughs as Y/N looks at the ceiling, composing himself before speaking.

"I would never expect anything in return from you and you don't have to thank me either, I was just doing what a friend would've done at a time like that. Anyways, I stuck by her in those times all while all I could think of afterwards was how stupid the person who broke her heart was, all while I wished I was the one she had ended up with instead of them. I never even hinted at how I felt about her in those times, much less actually tell her. I promised myself I wouldn't tell her how I felt until the time was right. I didn't want her to feel guilty or pressured at all by what I had to say." Y/N looks from the crowd infront of him to Rosé before continuing "Time passed and her heartbreak had healed. But she still wasn't ready for a relationship for a while after that whole ordeal, so I kept my promise and I waited."

"When I had told my members and Y/N that I was finally ready for another relationship- That like, I was completely okay. Y/N decided to court me instead of asking me outright to be his girlfriend. Can you believe this sap?" The crowd laughs with Rosé as Y/N's jaw hits the floor, he walks away from Rosé and heads to the other side of the stage. He crouches and points to Rosé "I was being noble, chivalrous and mind you I was trying to prove that I was boyfriend material! Then she goes and calls me a sap?! I can't believe this..." Y/N lowers the mic and shakes his head in mock disbelief. Rosé doubles over in laughter before walking over to him and resting her free hand on his shoulder.

"Yes, I'm calling you a sap because you are one. But it worked out didn't it?" She looks down at Y/N before continuing. "I gladly said yes." The crowd goes crazy, people cheering, some were jumping, and the others were speechless.

Y/N smiles, a full smile from ear to ear as he takes Chaeyoung's hand on his shoulder to bring it to his lips. "Yeah, yeah it worked out well in the end didn't it?"

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A/N: Damn writing in 3rd person is a TASK. I might never do it again, I hope this was good enough? I'm not too sure about the ending but I liked the idea of them announcing their relationship infront of a crowd instead of doing it via a social media post. So yeah.

[jojoboisimagines]

Snippets Ch.4 : Johnny and Josuke (4) with the Same Crush (3)

Previous Chapter

A set of multiple drabbles/oneshots combining characters (i.e Jojos) from multiple parts and AUs.

.::.

"That guy...do you think--" Josuke started.

"That's their boyfriend? No idea." Johnny quickly answered, trying to play it off as if he didn't care.

It was quite the opposite. He may have cared too much.

To say Johnny was jealous was an understatement. But it seemed like Josuke was feeling some of the heat too, seeing you hanging out with some guy and proceeding to talk about him with Josuke when the two of you went to lunch the other day.

Josuke was still in the dark about Johnny’s own crush on you, which was a relief for the jockey, but it was hell for him, having to be afraid of either guy winning you over first.

He just needed to muster up the courage to talk to you again, but it was a lot more difficult than he thought it’d be. You two always seemed to be busy when the other wasn’t. Of course he still had Gyro (and occasionally Josuke and Hot Pants) to keep him company, but he missed you.

The little spat the cousins had was forgotten for a while. They didn’t exactly apologize to each other, but just starting to talk normally again was enough sign there was no hard feelings. The younger teen was still very confused about Johnny’s intentions that day.

‘ Was he trying to be a good role model or was he just mad I was leaving him at home?’ he thought. It didn’t really matter to him anymore, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t concerned about what Johnny must’ve been thinking, and if he still did feel that way.

They sat at a small table on the far side of the kitchen. Josuke, looking rather bored, held his head on his palm, while Johnny was playing on their shared Switch. Or at least, was pretending to be after Josuke brought up the subject.

“Hey, can I ask you an honest question?” The Japanese teen breaks the icy silence once again.

Johnny merely raises an eyebrow with a low ‘hm’ that was barely audible. His heart silently raced thinking of what the boy sitting across from him had on his mind to ask.

“(y/n)...how long have you known them?” 

A simple enough question to start off with, Josuke thought. Yet Johnny’s lips still pursed.

“Uh...about half a year now. We got really close in that time I’d say.” That last part wasn’t even to get a rise out of Josuke, he just genuinely thought so. He really cared about you, romantically or not.

Meanwhile, Josuke had only known you for the duration of the summer, which was about to end in a couple of weeks. Perhaps if he’d beg Johnny to let him stay he’d have more time to bond with you, but there was also the issue of him feeling homesick from time to time.

God, if he could take you back to Morioh with him..it’d be like a dream come true.

They both had quickly forgotten about whatever guy Josuke was referring to earlier, mixed up in their own thoughts about their relationship with you. Besides, he had only ever seen the guy once, there was no way you’d switch up on him that quickly.

He had no dates or anything planned with you like he usually does, though. Not that he didn’t want to spend time with you, he just felt as if he was coming off as a little...clingy.

Higashikata had been trying to drop hints that he liked you, such as buying you things, having heart-to-heart conversations as he’d walk you home, calling you pet names, and ending his goodnight texts with a little heart emoji. He considered himself a romantic, but when it came to your reactions, you kinda brushed them off platonically. Perhaps you’d never been flirted with before?

His texts were still frequent, making sure you were having a good day and all, but he figured maybe he should start being a little more risky..

“What do you like about (y/n) anyways?” Johnny asked.

There was a pause for a couple of seconds, before Josuke scooted back in his chair and got up from the table, intending to retreat to his room for a couple of hours.

“The same things you do, probably.”

.::.

“Ow! Gyro, what the hell was that for?!”

“Because, idiota, you need to confess already.” He hovers over Johnny like a judgmental parent.

Josuke had left the house to get some groceries, and in that time, the jockey called Gyro over. Not for advice specifically, but that's what it had eventually turned into. Sitting on the floor of Johnny’s room (where it was painfully easy to find porn magazines, Gyro won’t let that go as long as the two of them live).

“Like seriously, this is getting embarrassing to watch, just do it already.” The Italian pointed a finger at his friend. “Sooner or later you’re gonna do the thing where you get the girl drunk and then sleep with her regardless of feelings.”

“Ugh, I’m not like that anymore Gyro!” Johnny folds his arms with a pout his friend knows all too well at this point. “I’ve never committed to anyone before, so of course this is a little more awkward for me than it is for anyone else, you know this!” 

Indeed he did know. It was somehow one of the things they always ended up talking about.

“Listen, I know how this is gonna end. Its gonna end with you in this same room, bunched up in several blankets, listening to Fleetwood Mac on repeat with 3 pizza boxes to make yourself feel better.”

The American scoffs.

Gyro sits upright on his bed. “I’m right. Look, this gal means a lot to you, I know. I’ve seen it. You’ve never stared at someone with such a…not hateful look in your eye.” It was half a joke, half truth. “And I don't wanna see you sad, so you’re just gonna have to pull yourself up, grow some steel balls, and ask them out. For real. For both of our sakes at this point.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Wow, Gyro wants me to be with a girl? Pigs must be flying.”

“You are so not funny.” The Italian’s teeth flashes for a moment as he scowls.

“Alright, since you’re such a casanova, why don’t you tell me what to say to them?” At this rate, there was really no other choice for Joestar to take. He could ask Hot Pants, but knew she would give him similar advice.

“Nyo-ho! I’ll show ya! All you gotta do is gimme your phone.”

As soon as the word ‘gimme’ was uttered, the jockey clutched his phone as if it was a baby. The last few times he lended his friend his phone, it didn’t go so well.

Gyro would’ve snorted if he wasn’t serious about this.

“Come onnn! It--”

“Won’t go like the last three times, right? Fat chance.”

“Just hurry and hand it over before I tackle you!”

The larger man did that far too much already, much to Johnny’s dismay. Once Gyro had him in a headlock, there was no getting out of it. He defeatedly raised his phone up to the man for him to take.

“If you ruin anything, I’m doing the same thing to you, AND taking your damn horse.” The Italian waved him off as if he was merely an angry toddler. As he typed, Johnny tried to peer over and see, but his friend was too adamant on turning side to side so he couldn’t. The expressions Gyro was making wasn’t a good sign either. First confused, then mischievous, then looking a little too proud of himself. The jockey’s hands could start sweating at any moment from the sheer anxiety this was giving him.

“Aaaaaand done! There we go, all set!”

Johnny reached for his phone as soon as the words left his mouth, unapologetically in a snatching manner to immediately read the text sent.

::‘Hey This is Johnny darling. Hope your day has been as beautiful as your smile. I was wondering if you’re free tomorrow by 12pm. I have something very important to tell you. See you soon xoxo.’::

Alright, so it wasn’t as bad as he thought itd be (not nearly as bad as the time Gyro dared him to send a ‘send nudes’ text to you) but god, it would look suspiciously out of character for you to see. He can’t even remember the last time he typed ‘darling’ instead of ‘darlin’ and actually bothered to punctuate his texts. And who even used ‘xoxo’ anymore?

His friend looked at him with a big grin, waiting for his reaction. A slightly more pure smile than if he were waiting for Johnny to get a joke.

“Soooo what do you think? You gotta pick some nice clothes out for your date.”

The shorter man sighs.

“Its...passable.”

.::.

 Josuke got home a little later than he expected. He was surprised to see there was still Prince CDs in stock at the store. Thats one of the perks of coming to America, he guessed. He was more than ready to put them into one of Johnny’s old CD players he had found. It was already hard for him to listen to pretty much anything without thinking of you. At least if it was Prince specifically, it would help him feel better and he could jam out to it.

Finally finding the track he wanted, he grinned, letting the music play out loud and hopping on his bed. It was a good few minutes before he had started getting that feeling in his gut again.

..Crap, this wasn’t helping either.

The teen felt that he couldn’t endure this much longer. Love was something he took very seriously and to be so unsure about your relationship just made him feel funny. He had to at least know for sure if the both of you were on the same page. Josuke was sick of being so anxious about it.

Josuke laid down flat on his back, pulling his phone out.

“You know what? I’m gonna ask them out.”