#(jury's still out on whether i will ever go back to that show. if i do it will be for izzy. but mostly i'm just kinda Over It)

[echthr0s]

oh my god how could I have forgotten the gay angel and demon

[sunshinechay]

15 Day BL Challenge! Part 2!

Day 30: Top 3 shows to introduce people to BL?

Part 1 Part 2

Picking just 3 BLs to use to introduce people to BL is tricky because the more time goes on, the more there is and trickier it becomes to narrow it down to just 3 however I am going to do my best. I will say that my taste heavily skews towards Thai BL and since I’ve only been watching since 2022 there is likely a recency bias as well but I did my best to come up with 3 good ones. Jury is still out on whether or not it is haha

So without further ado, in no particular order:

The New Employee (Korea, 2022)

(GIF by @wanderlust-in-my-soul)

So my first BL on this list is actually Korean but I really liked The New Employee, it’s short, cute and to the point. The relationship between the two mains is good and the friendship with the ML and his lesbian bestie will always be a highlight for me. Overall it’s surprisingly uncomplicated and I think that would be a good starter if one wants a lighter non Thai BL

Love By Chance (Thailand, 2018)

Mame is perhaps not where most would start and I do agree with that a point but I do make an exception for Love By Chance. It’s a more classic old school BL that I think holds up well enough again newer shows that are coming out. It’s a more foundational BL that I think is good to watch if you want to know the roots of the genre (and the roots of Mame :P). Plus baby Saint and baby Perth are adorable and are still recognizable names to this day.

Manner of Death (Thailand, 2020-2021)

Okay hear me out. I followed an oddly specific procedural to BL pipeline (it was the gay firefighters okay?) and if others are anything like me, Manner of Death would be a good introductory BL. The show managed to strike a somewhat good balance between the romance and crime storylines while also never underestimating the audience’s intelligence. The show knows when to put the romance on the back burner in order to move the plot forward and I think that would be good for people who are a little weary of diving headfirst into BLs especially if romance as a genre wasn’t something they spent a lot of time in before. Plus it’s MaxTul at their finest and who wouldn’t watch to watch them ;)

Bonus:

Until We Meet Again (Thailand, 2019-2020)

While I think it’s possiblity (definitely) the best BL ever made, I think it would be one of those shows you have to work up too. Not for a long time but it would likely be good to get a small introduction to the genre before watching as this show is steeped in classic BL tropes that you might need more familiarity with in order to understand exactly how well the show does them and why that matters.

[cowboyemeritus]

Day 14

Prompt: Tender

Pairing: Secondo/Reader

Tags: tender sex, implied rough sex, love confessions

Notes: a thing i've noticed about my writing style is that i'm very action oriented. it's hard for me to describe character's feelings and relationships, especially if they change over a long period of time. you'll see what i mean. not thrilled about how this one came out but i hope you enjoy nonetheless.

Something about tonight is different, but he doesn’t know why.

Normally, when you fuck, that’s just what it is. You go hard and fast, tearing at each other like starving wolves, like the rush is the only thing keeping you alive. Secondo dominates, and you take whatever he has to give without complaint, whether it be bite-marks on your breasts or his hands around your throat. He has to split you open, to rip you apart, or he isn’t satisfied. You’re an exquisite creature, outshining even Lilith Herself; it’s only natural that he wants to possess and claim you.

Tonight, though, you’re drowning him.

His grip on your hips is still bruising, but somehow you’re controlling the pace. The rocking is steady, like ocean waves, the tide of pleasure slowly rising. Your eyes are shut, head tilted back as you ride him, lost in the feeling of your bodies joined as one. Fading marks mottle your neck, chest, and thighs in shades of purple and green, decorating your skin like jewels. Bathed in the orange glow of candlelight, your skin just barely glimmering with sweat, you are resplendent, guiding him like a star towards his inevitable climax.

His guiding light.

Retirement left Secondo directionless. Shamed and emasculated, the resentment he felt — towards the Clergy, Imperator, even his own brother — nearly swallowed him whole. He retreated within himself, and alone with his despair, began to rot. 

Somehow, though, you found him at just the right time, desire lighting a long-dead fire inside him. You were meant to be a distraction, a callback to his glory days. What started as pure, indulgent sex, however, turned into something else. Walks in the garden and quiet afternoons in the library are now as much a part of your routine as the fucking. Slowly, you sank your hooks into him, your companionship a balm to his bitter wounds. 

You showed him that he is not some pathetic old thing, but a man, capable of appreciating the simple joys of living. Without him realizing it, you managed to chip away at the darkness in his heart until his past was but a distant memory. Now, he looks forward; his life is not over. 

It’s remarkable, really, how a gesture as simple as a smile can completely change one’s trajectory.

“Are you okay?” Secondo blinks, realizing you’ve stopped moving. He’s been staring up at you, eyes wide like a prey animal. Before he can stop himself, the truth spills out.

“I love you.”

The words are like a bomb, decimating every shred of self-assurance he has left. He wants to run, to throw you off of him and flee into the night, never to be seen again. He thinks of flipping you over, of pounding you into the mattress until you’re screaming and crying and forget he ever opened his mouth. But he can’t move. He’s paralyzed, fear and shame and anger with himself locking his joints so that he’s stuck, waiting for you to decide his fate. You are his judge, jury, and executioner, and that is a terrifying thought.

You smile gently, eyes a little misty. He could get lost in them forever. One of your hands, so small in comparison to his own, finds his cheek, your thumb brushing away a tear he’s only just now aware of. Leaning down, you press your lips to his. There’s no tongue, no teeth, just the softness of your body against him. You plant kisses on both of his cheeks, then one more on the bridge of his nose. Each one is as light as a butterfly. Then you laugh softly. It makes his heart skip a beat.

“Took you long enough,” you whisper, resting your forehead against his. “I’ve loved you this whole time.”

[storiesofsvu]

Okay I do live reactions for svu so I should do them for evolution too, right? Lol

TO the newcomers: my live watch thoughts are always rather disjointed, unhinged and might not make sense without context, my opinions/thoughts might change on a second glance/second watch through (which i'll do once it's on disney this weekend). anything in my askbox related to this i will wait a few days to reply to to avoid spoilers for others!

Starting off strong with the vic they dressed similar to jj to make us all panic, so that’s out of the way.

Kinda lowkey hate how this is a follow up from last season but starting with shit we have no major connection to HOWEVER, I do like that that’s how the og eps would start so that’s a step in the right direction, right?

“SSA emily prentiss”??!! has she been demoted or was that just an easier way to introduce herself?

OKAY, em not being at garcia’s bday makes a little more sense now if she’s off working a different case, she hasn’t been kidnapped …yet…

“we should eat some cake” tara being the realest here. Where’s my cake? I still haven’t gotten my birthday treat, this is a crime. Someone remind me to pick up cake on Friday before work.

“you’re hot”(screaming cause jj sees what we see) “a hot mess…” yup.. tara is still the realest. Also “mr or mrs right” confirmed pan queen

Jfc Emily looks SO FUCKING GOOD

OH FUCK ME the SMOKING IS IN THE FIRST EPISODE?! Fuck

BOTH OF THEM ARE SMOKING OHHHMY FUCKING GOODDD. It’s a crime that we didn’t get to see either of them actually smoking though, like they were half offscreen, we all know paget knows how to inhale LOL.

It’s voit she’s consulting with, right?

“good book I hope” LOL. Omg luke

And we have our first fuck of the season!

Voit showing off just exactly how good he is and how he would absolutely win over a jury is such a good play and im here for it.

Second fuck of the season.

Also like…yeah.. they’ve got zero concrete proof that voit was/is sicarius. That’s the thing with criminal minds, they NEVER follow past the point of arrest. 90% of their unsubs would end up in mental health facilities or be able to plead not guilty by reason of mental defect. That’s why the show worked so well prior to evolution, we didn’t deal with that much of the political side of it, the team went home and we all just imagined the unsubs went to prison (if they weren’t killed). There would be no way voit would end up charged with this shit unless they had a TON more of evidence.

LOVE rossi & prentiss’ little tiff that’s really just them watching out for each other and making sure they know the other person still has their back.

On the other side, I’m still not sure whether I’m leaning toward Rebecca or tara’s side. I love them both and will forever be made about the killing the gays trope holding up so we’ll see how the season goes..

I am loving how heavy prentiss of an ep this is

JFC. The two with the most heavy trauma lingering from the last season REALLY had to go through THAT???

OKAY THAT WAS JUST LAZY WRITING!!! I KNOW that Emily only said the “didn’t call 911, walked 3 miles…” thing to rossi earlier but to repeat it that quickly in the same episode is…ugh..

“HE” compromised an investigation… uh… that was half Penelope my guy

Ok but now that that whole investigation is no longer a thing and no longer a case whatsoever that was just the easy way of making it not a conflict of interest and now we’re stuck with this awkward love triangle that shouldn’t be a triangle, right? Like, last season it was a little off imo of Garcia, but we’re what? Halfway through episode one and I don’t EVER remember seeing Penelope like this, she keeps saying “I broke up with him” GURL, you WERE NEVER TOGETHER. You kissed twice, you helped him through a public drunk/hangover, you banged and Emily went “dude wtf call it off” and you ended it. She’s acting like a love drunk highschooler who’s been pining after this guy for months…

Rebecca is SO SMOL

Tyler green’s actor reminds me of ryan Reynolds… like… voice and mannerisms? He’s Canadian.. are they like, distantly related?

“he tried to kill me” “but he didn’t” wtf bruh

LOOOL the way rossi stepped in before Emily could end up all “yeah fuck authority, fuck this, fuck you, and fuck your mom. Here’s my badge”

YESSSS EMILY’S FIRST FUCK

Also can we talk about the fact that we’re into like.. day 3? I think and these babes have not slept…. (day 3 for at least em, tara & pen..)

“I’ll post it on youtube myself” dave… there is no way in hell you know how to use youtube…

Okay. Episode one down. Onto episode two.

 Goddammit there’s no subtitles on ep 2 lol

Tbh. I love clark Gregg, I think he’s a great addition to the cast.

I can’t stop thinking about the thirst tweets and Zach being all “you guys think serial killers are cute? Uwu” LOL

Penelope comparing her like, week long hook up with tyler to tara’s entire relationship?? (yeah I know we don’t know exactly how long they were together but if they were talking about moving it we can assume it was a decent amount of time?). I HATE what they’re doing to Penelope… like..i could turn a blind eye last season and say it was a fluke but not anymore.

FUCK Emily is so goddamn hot

I repeat my last statement oh my fucking god.

Rossi hallucinating is not okay, like…I know a lot of it is ptsd or whatever but like.. man needs to retire

I am REALLY liking getting to see this much prentiss and rossi in the first 2 eps, I saw a tweet or something bout how paget really got to shine in the first 2 eps and that’s so true. HOWEVER, that makes me stressed that she’s got a ton of screen time in the first couple of eps cause of whatever happens to her later on and her being kidnapped/going rogue or whatever happens that has her nearly blown up/injured in the promo shots we’ve seen.

Also okay, listen, Paget’s incredible. She’s been doing this same role for… let’s say 12 years, she’s stepped away to other jobs and come back to CM, the show’s been cancelled and then renewed and she’s still managing to play it perfectly, keep the character the same, her line delivery, her body language, she just slips right back into it and her acting never deviates (unlike some other actors in similar situations). Her talking to that kid was PURE Emily from earlier seasons.

Omg this entire ex gf bickering in front of tyler is HILARIOUS and I am tyler…like, get me out of the car PLEASE lol.

Okay wow… tara that was a little deep cut my girl.

A HOTCH REFERENCE?!?! Also yeesss Emily calling rossi out to say he’d never do it to him. It’s gotta be that awkward situation of being his boss when he’s older, he’s a man, he “should have been the UC before her”, maybe there was a time when he outranked her. trust me, as someone who’s had to navigate that kinda shit in a bar world, that’s awkward enough, props to em for calling him out. Please continue to call men on their crap.

  YES ANOTHER FUCK omg.

I wanna say thank you to whatever director had Rebecca behind the drivers seat and tara in the passenger seat and the camera angles filming them diagonally rather then Rebecca sitting in the middle for no reason other than angles.

Emily’s hair is going to get progressively more straight/unstyled as the season goes on cause she’s more unhinged/out of control/losing it, isn’t it?

The fact that they really listened and put Emily in blue and red in her first two eps…thank you .. lol

“it used to be hard to get someone to take a life. But now, it’s easy. All you’ve gotta do is go on the internet.. tell em a lie.. a big lie..” the TRUTH to that statement is actually fucking terrifying…

Hate voit calling jj “Jennifer” BUT I also know in previous seasons she’s been  all “my friends call me jj, you can call me Jennifer” it’s just weird to hear lol.

Okay,,, is em hyper fixating and she fucked up by mentioning gold star or are we meant to believe that rn? Like obvi she’s gonna be focused on that cause of bailey’s death and her denial of working with voit and wanting to solve that case but… still.. yup… no gold star.. not totally surprised. HOWEVER would NOT be surprised that the same trope comes out later in the season, that they’re working something else and Emily is second guessing herself/dave gives her a look and she’s all “yeah you’re right, I was wrong last time.” And doesn’t believe herself and BAM it actually is gold star and maybe that’s what draws her into the field on her own or whatever.

Okay… im assuming we weren’t supposed to hear what voit said to luke? Or am I just deaf without my subtitles LOL.

“who’s infected now?”  oooohh kay…. Way to end an episode.

Alright, there we are. ep 1 was better? I’ll likely rewatch when they drop on Disney plus tomorrow/Friday after work, but those are my thoughts so far.

[horsetailcurlers2]

YET ANOTHER long and obnoxious stream of my thoughts while watching grey’s anatomy for the first time (season 14 because i’m still hanging on by a thread)

-why did megan hunt have a fresh coat of mascara and some lip gloss on when she got flown in with her gaping abdominal wound LMAO

-teddy!!!!!

-i absolutely think they should tell megan about meredith and riggs and let her make an informed decision on whether she wants meredith to be her surgeon. this is greys anatomy, of course there’s gonna be a conflict of interest. they’re making this more complicated than it needs to be.

-somebody tell me when the show stops being worth watching. so far i’m hanging on bc i’m mildly interested in how jo and alex turn out, i want teddy and amelia to interact, and i’ve warmed up to arizona since she broke up with callie. obvi i love meredith i just don’t know how much more they can do with her before i just want her to take a warm bath and retire to somewhere far far away with her children.

-did amelia relapse offscreen???? wtf is going on???

-okay she has a tumor i guess. sure, okay, whatever. !!!!

-she put a gun in her !!!!!!!!! for a man???

-i don’t love the way they’ve introduced the new intern class. they set it up as if we already know them, whereas i feel like with every other class of interns we’ve gotten eased into it a bit more before we’re just tossed into this unfamiliar dynamic

-okay but wait i do like that in this ep w the roller coaster (and the people who are supposed to be baby cristina, george and izzie) they referenced the old intro. i think the writers knew they needed a little nostalgia to hook people back in at this point. jury is still out whether or not it’s working on me.

-maybe i’m stupid but why in the fuck would they have so many important things dependent on one networked computer system. why on earth would cardiac monitors be hackable?????

-idk about maggie/jackson…. seems too incest adjacent

-the casual gaslighting and manipulation with paul stadler is so well written

-“jackson avery, you are such a disappointment, i thought you were woke!!!”

-genuine question: do they just not do chemistry reads on this show when they cast romantic interests???

-*choked up*”right before she died, she told me i should be more slutty. and i just wish i could call her and tell her how slutty i’m being” i really do love maggie

-maybe i missed it but why does carina have an italian accent but andrew doesn’t?

-i like the development of jo and meredith’s relationship

-i think meredith and this firefighter woman should kiss on the mouth

-i like april better now that she’s kind of a mess

-OOH wait does helm have a little crush on meredith bc i’m kind of obsessed with that

-if there’s one thing greys usually kills it with its casting younger versions of characters for flashbacks

-i miss joe the bartender :(

-oh my god he gives them fake cancer so he can charge them for fake chemo?????? what the fuck

-too much of an emphasis on these lesbian cookies…. suspicious

-okay yeah that makes sense. i love this

-nurse olivia!!

-olivia of course has a right to still be upset but it’s a little weird to assume alex didn’t change at all in the past ten years. not to mention it’s weird to act morally superior about it now when she cheated on george with alex

-“if you wanna rebuild you have to tear it down first” bingo

-did i miss amelia getting her own place or is she taking this girl to meredith’s house??

-okay i guess she’s just moved in with owen again. i need to pay better attention lol but so much keeps happening and it’s a lot of mush to sift through

-“meredith grey is straight” “ever hear her talk about cristina yang?” LMAO

-PREGNANT?

[black-arcana]

HALESTORM's LZZY HALE Says 'The Jury's Still Out' On Whether She Will Ever Have Children Of Her Own

During an appearance on the first episode of the second season of "The Allison Hagendorf Show", HALESTORM frontwoman Lzzy Hale was asked if becoming a mother is something she ever thinks about. She responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I feel like I'm a mother in so many ways, so I haven't put a lot of weight in 'I have to be.' And this is a weird time for me because I'm 40, and if I'm going to do it, I have to kind of decide, but I've always had this mentality of, it's going to be — I'm going to wake up one morning and either be, like, 'You know what? I'm good without it,' or, 'You know what? Hey, bro, we're doing it right now.' It's gonna be one of those. I mean, I don't even have a dog right now, and I feel like maybe that's the point…"

She continued: "But I don't know. The jury's kind of still out, because I now am in a position where if I did, it would be a better situation than when I was in my twenties and thirties and trying to like do 250 dates a year on my own and trying to raise a kid. So I don't know. And that's where I'm at with myself. I'm not pressuring myself. And I feel like I would be a good mother, and so I'm not worried about that, but it's, like, I need to kind of have that — in the same way that I'm kind of having another epiphany now, it has to, like, 'Let me take care of me and then I'll figure it out.'"

She added: "But it's a weird conversation because even my parents are, like, 'So…' [pointing at her watch]. And my brother [HALESTORM drummer Arejay Hale] just got engaged, so he's probably gonna beat me to it."

In April 2020, Lzzy was asked by a fan on Twitter when she and her partner and bandmate of 21 years, HALESTORM guitarist Joe Hottinger, were getting married. Lzzy responded: "I truly have never had the desire. Personal preference. Technically I was asked, have a ring passed down that my SO [significant other] was given from my dad. But I'm living a #newmodernlove".

Back in October 2015, HALESTORM bassist Josh Smith confirmed the long-standing rumor that Lzzy and Joe were involved in a romantic relationship. He told the 103.9 The Bear radio station: "They're pretty open about their relationship. They don't talk about it openly, but, you know… At the end of the day, we're all like family, and that's more or less the road we take is… You know… Whatever the case may be relationship-wise, it's not gonna break up our band, and that's the… I guess, the big thing is the band is the marriage here."

That same year, Lzzy was asked in an interview if she found it difficult to maintain a relationship while on the road. Hale replied: "In a relationship, you have to literally have everything out there to this other person, and they have to do the same thing with you, or it's not gonna work. I've never been a jealous person either, and as of right now, I'm dating someone who is the same way. So we have a very amazing trust thing going on."

She added: "I think you have to work hard, no matter what, at a relationship, but, really, the first couple of steps — laying everything out there — has been total saving graces for me and my relationship."

Lzzy and Arejay formed HALESTORM in 1998 while in middle school. Hottinger joined the band in 2003, followed by Smith in 2004.

[heresmyfiddlestick]

i long for the days of shot-by-shot breakdowns of any new trailer, and since im not on twitter (where this has undeniably already happened) im doing it myself here

why is nobody talking about hebe harrison

so the trailer starts with a silly mini trailer. we'll see all of these shots later on and i'll talk about them more then. tenteen looks around bewildered (best guess: special #1 The Star Beast

donna surrenders (best guess: special #2 Wild Blue Yonder)

avengers tower/UNIT flies the tardis around on a helicopter (an anniversary tradition? (best guess: special #3 The Giggle)

explosions in a front hallway (best guess: special #1 The Star Beast)

peekaboo (best guess: special #1 The Star Beast - we'll get to why later)

and then the title card.

we start, in earnest, with a stock footage shot of London at night, which RTD has made reference to in recent DWMs. this is the opening shot of special #1 The Star Beast

then we get Donna, talking to her mum, "Sometimes I think there's something missing. Like I had something lovely..." - this is clearly immediately post-End of Time Donna, no memories of her travels with the Doctor, so special #1 The Star Beast

intercut with the Doctor snooping around a busted up, industrial area. importantly, he's alone. without knowing exactly how Liberation of the Daleks is going to end, i think it's safe to assume the guy is travelling alone at the start of these specials, so this shot (and the ones that follow) is from special #1 The Star Beast

Donna continues, "... and it's gone." over a shot of her with different hair and top. the colours look close enough to the other Star Beast shots to have me think this is the same episode, but it's tough to say. it also seems like the trailer is going chronologically, which would mean this is from special #1. the music, voiceover, and her *emphatic blink* might indicate this is *the moment she remembers* but with that i'll cease putting on my clown makeup.

back to Donna in the kitchen, "I lie in bed thinking... what have I lost?" intercut with this creepazoid, who is definitely investigating Beep the Meep's spaceship construction. this is probably the same sequence as the jumping-through-the-hole shot above. this is where we get our peekaboo shot again. buddy is definitely looking at a nasty Meep warship being constructed. jury is still out on whether he remembers this exact thing happening back when he had curls and a scarf...

switch POV, time for Tenteen's Story. this is all for sure still in special #1 The Star Beast. he lands the tardis (i share RTD's enthusiasm that it's 13's exterior!!!) and jolts out of it (unexpected landing? does he recognize Beep's distress signal? is he thinking about all the melty daleks he just left behind?)

he begins to infodump (to whom?), "I've got this friend, Donna Noble..." and we get these two complementary shots: Dr. Who turns somewhat tentatively toward a stack of boxes, and Donna and Rose are in the same area, carrying boxes (shopping? moving? looks like rolls of tissue paper and bubble wrap in Donna's box) - for consistency's sake, i note this is all still part of special #1 The Star Beast

("I had to wipe her memory to save her life") as if the infodump wasn't enough, we have some shots of ten, the parthenogenesis, DoctorDonna, and one of the worst things to ever happen on this show. in case you forgot... (i wonder if and sincerely hope that we don't get these flashbacks in the episode itself)

and now we get context for where and to whom Tenteen is saying all this: he's sitting, wearing a new version of ten's "brainy specs" (can you hear me rolling my eyes?), saying, "if she remembers me, she will die" to...

HEBE HARRISON!

Hebe is a companion of the Sixth Doctor, whose adventures have hitherto only been on audio with Big Finish, and whose departure from the tardis has not yet been described (as far as i know), since stories with her only began to be published in May 2022. she's a 21st-century lady, though. she is also (according to the Tardis Wiki) the first companion that uses a wheelchair. this is very exciting for me (big finish brain rot) though i have not listened to any of Hebe's stories. Hebe was on the tardis with Mel too, which may be a fun coincidence or very relevant for next series!

what does Hebe think of this Doctor who is so much older and very different to the one she travelled with? how did they even meet up? where the heck are they? idk but im downloading Water Worlds right now

okay moving on

Doctor: "So what happens next? A spaceship crashes right in front of her, it's like she's drawing us in" over shots of that same busy market from before, Rose looking excited, and the Meep's spaceship burning through the atmosphere over a WeWork. I'll also note that the Doctor says "drawing *us* in" - meaning Hebe and him? is there some cosmic stuff happening to throw companions, Doctors, and other aliens in front of Donna's path to revive the DoctorDonna? who would do that? why? what's clear from this dialogue is that the conversation with Hebe takes place after the scene in the market with the spaceship crash landing. if i' m right about the snooping scenes' place in the original comic's narrative, they'll come after the Wrarth Warrior fight below

(Beep: "ah!" Donna: "what the hell?!") Donna discovers Beep the Meep hiding among (Rose's?) stuffed animals in their shed. i have to say i like the decision to make Beep's fur white, though personally the blue fur colour is what i think of when i think of The Most High

Tenteen in a residential neighbourhood with soldiers nearby (this is the first shot in the trailer of the Wrarth Warrior battle). is the Doc with the soldiers? is he following the Wrarth on his own? i'm curious to see how they adapt the comic story, since it seems like Rose follows a bit of a different path than Sharon

namely because her mum seems to find out about the Meep before the Doctor does (Donna: "we've got a bloody martian in the shed!")

cont in a reblog

[kevin-the-bruyne]

The failure to rehabilitate Mew and the ways in which it unravels Ray's ending

I've been trying to reconcile my gripes with the OF finale so I can move on with my life and hopefully once this post is out of me I can be done. What was wrong with Boston's ending? What was wrong with Ray's? Were they happy endings? Were they satisfactory endings? And fandom has been going around in circles around these things. What I want to talk about is the ending of the one person we never seem to question: Mew's. I think we don't question Mew because the narrative has set a tone from the very beginning that Mew should never be questioned - even though Mew does extremely questionable things - and there was a point in which fandom questioned him but I think ultimately gave up (at least I did) because it was infinitely clear that questioning Mew was never going to get us anywhere let alone answers.

So did Mew have a good ending? Mew certainly got the ending he desired: Top entirely beholden to him, Boston out of his life, Cheum back to being his sidekick and Ray no longer inconveniently in love with him or drunk out of his mind all the time.

But is getting everything he desires, actually good for this character? This is such a frustrating character to me because he experiences exactly zero growth. Boston grows a lot, Ray is growing though his honeymoon phase brain does make me question whether it's realistic/sustainable - but Mew? Absolutely nothing. This character has since day one shown a complete inability to compromise or put anyone's needs above his own (except perhaps under the extreme duress of Ray killing himself). Top and Mew's own mother point out how he's very judgemental and yet other than getting his head out of his ass about Boeing nothing really happens with that. He's never able to or even asked to be accountable for the way in which he slutshamed Top and fueled his insecurities that even allowed for the whole BostonTop debacle to happen. And the final time that he's presented with the opportunity to be a human being, to self reflect, to show some goddamn compassion, handed to him on a silver platter by Cheum? He botches it, he fails to recognize Boston's humanity and in one fell swoop rejects his own. Boston is the only person in Mew's friend group - in the entire show - that challenges his viewpoints and Mew chooses to put his head in the sand and cut him out! Boston will be just fine without Mew but I'm not sure that Mew will be without Boston. Mew is barely a person, Mew is the judge, jury and executioner of some fucked up status quo of good queer morals and that's all he stays! People rejoicing at Ray throwing down with Boeing are so confusing to me - this is what Ray has been about since episode one! Was Ray's ability to throw hands and willingness to do so in service of the ones he loves ever in question? Didn't Sand use this exact character trait to manipulate Ray into executing his Top revenge plan? THIS - This is what sets Sand apart from the rest. The benchmark of Ray's love for him

For once in his goddamn life Ray chose to be someone different. He chose to be Sand - someone who puts another person's love, another person's well being first even at great cost to himself.

This mirrors what Sand had done for him earlier in supporting his relationship with Mew:

And they're different people so they have different ways of executing this support (Sand is sad while Ray is angry) but Ray remembers what Sand did for him and he's trying to do the same. We could have let it play out and have Sand choose him like Ray chose Sand (delicious narrative mirroring PLUS Ray still could have bitten Boeing's head off after that! we could have had it all!!!!!!) But instead we get this

and this ????

Ray was totally convinced by Boeing's confession that he still loves Sand so WHO even put this idea in his head that Boeing isn't sincere? Boeing isn't in love with Top. His whole DEAL with Mew was to fuck so he could take revenge on Top. So WHO has decided that Boeing isn't sincere?

We have yet another sexually promiscuous gay man whose own words we cannot trust because Mew said so! And Ray being Ray does what he always does: Sand needs his protection so he throws hands in order to protect him.

Sand who has done nothing but love Ray from episode one, doesn't get to choose Ray, doesn't get to claim him. Instead, we get 'But at least my owner loves me' sfsdlkgdlgkf maddening!!!! I think I went into anaphylactic shock!!!! i was frothing at the mouth watching this unfold because wtf????

And let's hope that Boeing really wasn't sincere and that even if he was Sand would have still picked Ray because if there's one thing I know about OF it's this:

Ray and Boston were the scourges of their friend group, the slut that couldn't be trusted and the drunk that couldn't be trusted.

A friend group that has no place for Boston has no place for Ray either.

Because Ray's journey to sobriety might be his own to take but he can't actually take it alone (no one can) and when he slips, Mew (and Cheum) certainly won't be there to catch him.

[fagcrisis]

alright so! im not gonna bother with a very organized post i wouldnt be me if i did but here are my collision thoughts!

i liked the theme song, which sets it apart from dynamite and rampage in that it isnt dogshit. i also liked the set and the presentation, although i wouldve loved if it was more distinct from dynamite (also i miss the tunnels) but overall they made a great job of adhering to the companys aesthetic while making a new distinct looking product. i also was hoping since its live on tnt that they would have different editors, this clearly isnt the case, editing was shit. not a collision issue aew just needs better editors.

i agree with everyone on this, commentary was a little rough. i didnt really know nigel before (i never have time for roh) so i didn't know what to expect and he and kevin obviously need time to figure out how theyre gonna work together, and kevin also clearly struggled with the american format (ad breaks, promos between matches etc). overall it is still better than dynamite commentary and i have high hopes for them! not even Hoarse Corpse Jr at the main could take them down to his level.

i'll admit i didn't fully watch punk's promo at the start, im a notorious promo skipper but i watched most of it, and it seemed alright to me. there was a bit of dissonance between how they seem to be bringing him back as a heel but being in chicago didnt get the response to his speech that he wouldve gotten elsewhere.

super excited about everyone showing up on the show if this is for real a roster split they picked some good fucking people for collision! jurys out on scorpio sky ive only ever seen him with frankie kazarian and i dont like kaz so

all the matches were good, even the tnt match i wasnt at all interested in was kind of like watchable and christian pretending he won the tnt title was really funny so ill let him have this. andrade and buddy were pretty incredible and miro looked fucking huge and awesome so ill forgive tony nese being there. skyewillow vs the outcasts slapped altho i wish they yknow. had more than one womens match. but it was really good skye looked incredible she and willow worked great together and im so happy she got the pin! i really hope skye and willow continue teaming together. also the outcats r much more enjoyable when saraya is not there, i love their over the top heel antics tbh

the main was good! sadly i dont give a shit about ftr and juice so it was kind of a struggle but they are good (well ftr are) i just dont like em. anyway punk looked good he was moving well and i thought it was well paced and everyone got their due time in the spotlight (being in the ring w punk)

overall this was a very solid start to this show, obviously we know aew can put on a good show but its the question of whether they are able to keep this momentum going. good wrestlers and a nice new look doesnt make the show good immediately, so im a little hesitant to say anything more about its impact right now but i had fun

[mya-valentine]

Breaking Points

Synopsis: Itadori's training session with Juri is brutally intense, as her relentless push leaves him battered and exhausted. Juri is determined to test his limits, using her harsh words to provoke him into fighting harder. Despite his exhaustion and internal struggles, Itadori manages to land a hit on Juri, only to be reminded that he still has a long way to go. Juri's taunts reveal that she believes he only fights his best when provoked, challenging him to prove her wrong. After a grueling session, Itadori is left bruised but more determined. Juri, in a rare moment of reflection, discusses Itadori's progress with Gojo, revealing her frustrations and the burden of her own past. Gojo's concern for Itadori's well-being and Juri's harsh methods underscore the high stakes of their training, as the looming threat of Sukuna hangs over them all.

A/N: This one is pretty long😬

The next training session came all too soon for Itadori. His mind was still buzzing from the day before, and he knew he needed to focus, especially after how hard Juri had been pushing him lately. She didn’t tolerate distractions. If she caught even a hint that his head wasn’t in the game, she’d make him regret it.

They met in their usual training spot, a secluded area just outside Jujutsu High where they could spar without worrying about interruptions. Juri was already there when he arrived, her back to him as she stretched, the muscles in her arms and legs tensing with each movement. She was as intimidating as ever.

"You're late," she said without turning around, her voice sharp.

Itadori gulped. He wasn’t late. Not really. But arguing would just make it worse. "Sorry."

She finally turned to face him, her cold, calculating eyes raking over him as if assessing whether or not he was prepared. "Get ready. We’re starting with hand-to-hand today. No cursed energy. Let’s see if you learned anything from that Taekwondo I’ve been drilling into your thick skull."

Itadori nodded, falling into stance, but his mind was still a little preoccupied with the events of yesterday. The way people had kept assuming they were a couple, and how he couldn’t stop thinking about it afterward. He tried to push the thoughts aside, focusing on Juri and the training, but it wasn’t easy.

“Focus,” she snapped, her voice breaking into his thoughts. “If you’re not going to take this seriously, then don’t bother showing up.”

“Right!” He shook his head, trying to get his mind back in the game. He had to focus—this was Juri, after all. There was no room for distractions.

Juri didn’t wait for him to settle. She lunged at him, her movements almost too fast to follow. He barely managed to block the first strike, feeling the impact reverberate through his arms. She was relentless, each strike more brutal than the last, and Itadori was quickly being overwhelmed.

He dodged one of her kicks, only to be caught by another one coming from the opposite direction. He hit the ground hard, gasping for breath as he tried to scramble back to his feet.

“Pathetic,” Juri sneered, circling him like a predator. “You’re distracted. Again. What, did yesterday’s little outing mess with your head? Do I need to knock some sense into you?”

Itadori winced, rubbing the side of his jaw where her last hit had landed. “No! I’m fine, I just—”

“You just what?” she snapped, cutting him off. “You think I care about excuses? Get your head in the game or I’ll break you.”

Her words cut deep, but they also lit a fire in him. He couldn’t afford to be distracted, not with Juri. Not now. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself back up and refocused.

Juri didn’t waste any time. She came at him again, faster than before, but this time, he was ready. He blocked her strikes, countering with quick jabs of his own. Her expression shifted slightly—just a flicker of approval, but it was enough to make him push harder.

They continued sparring, each strike more intense than the last, until Itadori finally saw an opening. He moved in quickly, landing a solid punch to her side.

For a moment, Juri froze, looking down at the spot where he’d hit her. Itadori’s heart raced—he had actually managed to land a hit.

But before he could even process the victory, Juri’s eyes narrowed. “Big mistake.”

The next second, she was on him again, moving even faster than before. She swept his legs out from under him, slamming him into the ground so hard that the breath was knocked from his lungs. He lay there, gasping for air, as Juri loomed over him.

“You landed one hit,” she said coldly, her voice low and dangerous. “Don’t get cocky. You’re still nowhere near my level.”

Itadori winced but didn’t argue. He knew she was right. Still, landing that hit had been a small victory. It meant he was getting better. Even if it meant facing her wrath afterward.

Juri stepped back, giving him a moment to catch his breath. “Get up,” she ordered, folding her arms across her chest. “We’re not done yet.”

Itadori groaned but forced himself to his feet. His body ached, every muscle screaming in protest, but he wasn’t about to give up now. Not after everything. Not when he’d come this far.

“Good,” Juri said, eyeing him as he took his stance again. “You’ve improved. Barely. But I guess that’s something.” She smirked, though it wasn’t exactly friendly. “Let’s see if you can keep up this time.”

Itadori braced himself, knowing she was about to make him regret landing that hit. But deep down, he welcomed it. Because every punch, every kick, every bruise—was proof that he was getting stronger. And with Juri as his trainer, he knew there was no room for anything less.

As they squared off again, Juri’s eyes gleamed with that dangerous glint that Itadori had come to dread. She circled him like a wolf sizing up prey, her movements fluid and confident. He was ready, or at least as ready as he could be after the brutal session they'd already had.

But something about the way she looked at him made his skin crawl, a smirk pulling at her lips. He could sense she had something else in mind.

"You know," Juri started, voice dripping with condescension, "I’ve noticed a pattern with you." 

Itadori swallowed, keeping his stance strong but wary of where she was going with this.

"You only fight at your best when I get under your skin." She flicked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "When I call you weak, pathetic, useless—you suddenly find some hidden strength. It’s cute, really."

Itadori stiffened. "That's not true!"

Juri’s smirk widened. "Isn't it?" She lunged forward, and before Itadori could react, she slammed him against the wall with a swift kick to the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He gasped, pain surging through his abdomen as she leaned in close, her face inches from his.

"Look at you now." Her voice was a low, teasing whisper. "You can barely stand. But the second I tell you you’re pathetic—” she paused, leaning even closer, her eyes narrowing, “—you’ll get all fired up and try to prove me wrong."

Itadori’s heart pounded in his chest, but he forced himself to push back, shoving her off him with a grunt. He staggered to his feet, panting, trying to focus through the pain. 

Juri stepped back, crossing her arms, that infuriating smirk still plastered on her face. “You’re like one of those masochists, huh? You like it when I tear into you. It’s the only time you really try.” She tilted her head, looking him up and down. "Should I call you weak more often? Is that what it takes?"

Itadori flushed, both from frustration and embarrassment. "That's not true! I—"

"Then prove it," she interrupted, cutting him off with a sharp, almost amused edge to her voice. “Because right now, all I see is a guy who only fights with his full strength when someone’s stepping on him. So what is it, Itadori? Do you need me to keep pushing you down just to get you to fight back?”

He gritted his teeth, anger flaring inside him. She was mocking him—taunting him. But the worst part was that she wasn’t entirely wrong. Every time she insulted him, called him out, he pushed himself harder. He had been reacting exactly the way she wanted, and now she was rubbing it in his face.

Juri leaned back, folding her arms across her chest, her expression lazy but sharp. "Maybe I should start calling you my little masochist," she teased, her voice mocking as she watched him struggle to contain his frustration. "At least then, you'd be predictable."

The word sent a shock of embarrassment through Itadori, and he clenched his fists. "I'm not—" 

"Oh, please," she drawled. "You practically beg for it without realizing it. I call you weak, and suddenly you’ve got some fire in you." She stepped forward, getting in his face again. “You like being put down. It’s the only way you know how to get back up.”

Her words stung more than any physical hit she’d thrown his way. And she wasn’t even serious—she was teasing him, but it made his blood boil. He could feel the anger rising in his chest, his heart pounding as he met her gaze head-on.

“You want me to prove you wrong?” Itadori growled, his voice low, his fists clenched. “Fine. I will.”

Juri raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Then show me what you’ve got, brat. No holding back.”

That did it. The way she called him so casually, so mocking, as if she owned him, lit something inside him. Without another word, Itadori rushed her, moving faster than he had all day. He landed a punch square in her shoulder, not enough to do real damage, but enough to make her eyes widen with surprise.

Juri staggered back, but her smirk didn’t fade. “There it is,” she said, almost breathlessly. “Took you long enough.”

Itadori didn’t let up. He charged again, this time dodging her counterattack and landing another hit. The fury that had been simmering in him all day finally boiled over, and with it came a newfound focus, a burning desire to prove her wrong.

"Good," she said through gritted teeth, blocking his next strike with a swift kick. "Now, let’s see how long you can keep this up before you burn out."

Her words only fueled his fire. He wasn’t going to burn out. Not this time. 

Juri was right about one thing: when she taunted him, when she insulted him, something in him snapped. But it wasn’t because he liked it. It was because he hated it. He hated that she saw him as weak. And now, more than ever, he was determined to show her just how wrong she was.

— — —

The aftermath of the training session was brutal. Itadori was sprawled out on the floor, gasping for breath, his limbs aching and every inch of his body screaming in pain. His clothes were drenched with sweat, his knuckles raw from the relentless exchange of blows. He had fought harder than ever before, pushed past his limits, but Juri had still dominated him in the end.

Juri stood over him, barely winded, though there were a few scuffs and marks where he’d managed to land hits. She crossed her arms, staring down at him with a mix of amusement and mild frustration. "You barely lasted," she remarked, her voice casual, as if they hadn’t just gone through a vicious sparring match. "But at least you didn’t completely embarrass yourself today."

Itadori groaned, rolling onto his back and staring up at the sky, the muscles in his body refusing to respond any further. "That was… intense," he muttered, trying to catch his breath.

"You asked for it," Juri replied, her smirk evident in her tone. She walked over to where she had tossed her water bottle, taking a long drink. "Still, you’ve improved. Barely. I’d say you’re about 10% less pathetic than before."

Itadori managed a weak laugh, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Thanks for the compliment, I guess."

Juri chuckled, though there was something sharper behind it. "You think I’m joking? This is me going easy on you." She looked down at him, her expression hardening. "You want to fight stronger opponents, right? You want to stand a chance when it matters? Then stop waiting for me to insult you before you actually give it your all."

Itadori flinched at the bluntness of her words. He knew she was right—he’d let himself get pushed only when she got under his skin, when she called him weak or pathetic. It lit a fire in him, but that fire should’ve been there all the time. Not just when she triggered it.

"I’m working on it," he said, his voice quiet but determined.

"You better be," Juri replied, tossing the water bottle down beside him. "Because if you keep this up, you’re never going to catch up. And believe me, you’re going to want to be stronger when Sukuna takes over again."

Itadori’s expression hardened at the mention of Sukuna, the reminder of the looming threat always in the back of his mind. He sat up slowly, groaning as the aches in his muscles protested the movement.

"You’re not gonna let me take a break, huh?" he asked, forcing a grin despite his exhaustion.

Juri raised an eyebrow. "After that pitiful display? Not a chance." She stepped closer, crouching down in front of him, her eyes narrowing slightly. "You landed some good hits today, but you’re still nowhere near where you need to be."

Itadori nodded, knowing full well she was right. Even after months of training, he still felt like he was leagues behind her.

She stood up again, brushing off her pants and glancing toward the exit. "Take five minutes, then clean yourself up. You’ve earned a break. Barely."

He chuckled weakly, shaking his head as he watched her walk away. It was the closest thing to a compliment he’d ever get from Juri.

As she headed toward the exit, Juri’s mind wandered for a brief moment. Itadori had managed to push her more than usual, landing a few solid hits, and she couldn’t help but feel a small sense of satisfaction. He was improving, even if it was at a slower pace than she’d like. But there was something else nagging at her, something that had been simmering in the background of her thoughts.

The way he looked at her sometimes—especially today—made her wonder if he really understood what it meant to fight someone like her. To be up against someone who had been forged in fire, who thrived on combat not because she wanted to be stronger, but because she needed to be.

She shook her head, brushing the thoughts aside. It wasn’t her problem. She was just here to train him, to help Gojo with his plan. Whatever Itadori thought, whatever was going on in his head, it didn’t concern her.

As Itadori finally managed to get to his feet, he watched Juri leave, feeling a strange mix of exhaustion and determination. He was battered, bruised, but something about the intensity of the session had lit a fire inside him. He wanted to get better—not just to prove Juri wrong, but to prove to himself that he could stand toe-to-toe with someone as strong as her. 

He stretched, wincing at the pain, and muttered to himself, "Guess I better get ready for tomorrow."

— — —

Juri leaned against the wall of the empty training room, arms crossed, her usual smirk replaced with a more neutral expression. She had just finished another brutal session with Itadori, leaving him completely drained, as always. Gojo stood in front of her, hands in his pockets, the ever-present blindfold covering his eyes. He wasn’t smiling, which, for once, indicated he was being serious.

"How's the kid holding up?" Gojo asked, voice light but probing.

Juri exhaled sharply, pushing herself off the wall and standing up straight. "He’s getting better," she admitted begrudgingly. "Stronger. A little faster. Still not anywhere near what I’d call impressive, though."

Gojo’s lips twitched up into a small grin. "Coming from you, that’s practically a glowing review."

"Don’t get carried away," Juri snapped, though there wasn’t as much bite in her tone as usual. She wasn’t in the mood for Gojo’s teasing today. "He’s still soft. He hesitates too much. But he’s got potential… if he can stop being such a damn pushover."

Gojo tilted his head slightly, considering her words. "You’ve been pushing him hard. Maybe too hard. Think you might be overdoing it?"

Juri shot him a glare, her purple-infused eye flickering slightly with cursed energy. "Don’t act like you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, old man. You wanted me to train him because you knew I wouldn’t coddle him."

"I did," Gojo agreed, his tone easy. "But there’s a fine line between tough love and breaking someone. I don’t need him broken."

"He’s not broken," Juri retorted. "He’s just… slow to catch on. He’s still acting like this is some game, like he can afford to hold back." She shook her head, frustration clear in her voice. "If Sukuna takes over again, he won’t stand a chance if he keeps hesitating."

Gojo was quiet for a moment, as if weighing her words carefully. "You think he’s afraid of hurting someone?"

Juri scoffed. "It’s not that. He’s not afraid of hurting people. He’s afraid of failure. He’s too focused on trying to live up to whatever expectations everyone has for him. He hasn’t figured out how to fight for himself yet."

Gojo raised an eyebrow, though it was hidden beneath his blindfold. "And what about you? You still fighting for yourself?"

Juri’s expression darkened, her arms tensing at her sides. "I don’t fight for anyone but myself," she said coldly.

Gojo didn’t push further on that, knowing well enough that Juri wasn’t one to open up, especially not about her past. Instead, he shifted the conversation back to Itadori. "You’ve been spending a lot of time with him. You think he’s starting to figure it out?"

Juri shrugged. "He landed a hit on me the other day. Took him seven months, but he finally did it."

Gojo’s eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise. "Really? Well, that’s something."

"Don’t get too excited," Juri cut in. "It was a fluke. He’s still far from being ready for the real fights. If Sukuna really wanted to take control, Itadori wouldn’t stand a chance. He knows it too."

Gojo nodded, considering her words carefully. "But he’s trying. You can’t deny that."

"Trying doesn’t mean shit if it doesn’t get results," Juri snapped. "You should know that better than anyone."

There was a moment of silence between them, the tension thick in the air. Gojo, as usual, was unreadable behind his blindfold, while Juri’s frustration was simmering just below the surface.

"Look," Gojo finally said, his tone softer, "I didn’t bring you here to break him, but I did bring you here because you’re the best at pushing people past their limits. And let’s face it, he’s going to need that if he’s ever going to deal with Sukuna."

Juri’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t argue.

"You’ve done well with him," Gojo continued. "He’s improving, even if he’s not where you want him to be yet."

Juri’s gaze shifted, her eyes narrowing slightly. "He needs to be better than this. You know what’s coming. Sukuna isn’t going to wait for him to catch up."

Gojo sighed, though there was still a trace of amusement in his tone. "I know. But Itadori’s got heart. He’ll get there. And he’s got you to push him, right?"

Juri crossed her arms again, looking away. "Don’t make it sound like I care. I’m just doing this because of our deal. Nothing more."

Gojo grinned again, this time with that knowing edge. "Sure. Whatever you say, Juri."

Juri shot him a glare, but before she could retort, Gojo’s expression turned more serious. "Just… don’t forget what we’re working toward here. He’s the key to taking down Sukuna. And you’re a big part of making sure he’s ready for that fight."

Juri didn’t respond immediately, her eyes flickering with something unreadable for a brief moment. "He better be worth it," she finally muttered. "Because if he’s not, I’m not sticking around to pick up the pieces."

Gojo’s smile softened, though he said nothing. He trusted Juri, even if she didn’t always trust herself.

As Juri turned to leave, Gojo’s voice stopped her. "And Juri?"

She paused, glancing back at him.

"Try not to push him too hard," Gojo said lightly, but there was an underlying seriousness in his tone. "He’s still human, after all."

Juri rolled her eyes, but there was a flicker of something softer in her gaze. "We’ll see," she muttered before walking out.

Gojo watched her go, a thoughtful expression on his face. Itadori was improving, yes—but he knew there was more at stake than just the boy’s strength. Juri was just as much a part of this puzzle, and getting her to trust someone again… that was the real challenge.

.

.

.

The Burden of Strength Masterlist

[swornoffofeggs]

@ofdropeggsonher

{I was trying my best now not to be selfish. I had literally been selfish my whole life though, so this was huge growth for me now that I was even trying to bite my tongue and not say what I'm thinking... Even more of a mature moment for me was that I wasn't trying to manipulate the circumstances in order to convince Jesse to stay here in New York City with me. Everyone who knew me was well aware of how selfish and arrogant I could be. I put my own agendas and desires before everyone else. I lied, controlled, and manipulated everyone and every situation through the years in order to get what I wanted. I'd like to think I had changed for the better over the years. Yes, I still had my selfish moments, but I was trying to be better. Especially here in this moment when there's nothing I wanted more than for Jesse to stay in New York City, but I was trying to be supportive of his show in London instead. I knew how important it was to him, and what a great opportunity it is for him too, so I didn't want to do or say anything to jeopardize that. Wow, look at the growth and maturity I was demonstrating now. I thought to myself with beaming pride as my hand remained briefly rested across Jesse's hand} Six months to a year... Wow, the selfish Rachel is already thinking about how long that feels and how much it sucks to know I won't see you for a really long time, but the gradually maturing, trying to be a better person me is happy for you. I always knew you were going to be a star, so I'm proud of you for landing this role. Even if it is an entire continent away from where I am now. {I flashed you an amused smile as I continued} You're going to be amazing in this play, and hey, if I can get some time away from my own show, I'll have to fly out to see you in yours. I'll be the one in the very front row beaming with pride for you. My applause will be the loudest one in the whole room. {A smile lingering across my lips. Still, as much as I was trying to be strong now, I couldn't help but to feel sad knowing Jesse was going to be leaving New York City soon. Still, deep down, I knew I had no right to feel that way. Jesse and I hadn't been a couple in a very long time. We had both moved on and I was sure he didn't even look at me that way now... Especially since I'm still not even sure if he ever really liked me like that since back when we were dating, it was all just a means of throwing off my concentration to ruin our chances of winning regionals. Jury was still out on whether or not any of his feelings for me were real. Either way, for all I knew, Jesse still only saw me as a like minded star in the making and nothing more}

Continued

@swornoffofeggs

As teenagers you always believe you have your priorities planned out. You always think the big dreams are going to fall into place. Jesse can admit he was selfish, he was the guy that only looked out for himself. He was the star of vocal adrenaline, he only wanted to be the best. And that meant hurting others he never planned on caring about in the process. He saw it as a game; he knew of Rachel when he not so accidentally ran into her in that music store, it was a plan one Shelbey and him had orchestrated. He needed Rachel to fall for him, be distracted, she was his only real competition. And even to this day he knew it had stopped being a game the more he got to know her; the way he saw her smile when he held her hand. When she laughed at his lame jokes when we watched grease. But he was in too deep; and the only way out was for Rachel to hate him. To believe it was all a game, to believe he never liked her. She was annoying, selfish but the truth was she was the one that he fell hard for. 

Each time he found a way to end up back in Lima; he wanted to see her. She had big ambitious dreams, and he wanted her to achieve everything she wanted. It fell right into her lap, the performing arts school; with his aid of course. But that was a story for another time. And Funny Girl; she was the youngest star in the making; and he felt proud of her. It was rare he’d ever admit someone was just as talented as him but Rachel lit the candle. It was a shame the stars weren’t lining up for the pair. 

His passion, his everyday work was in London; we opened shows in a few weeks, and he never expected to feel this strongly upon seeing her again. Upon hearing her voice, it made goosebumps form on his arms. To hold her in his arms again, he felt the racing of his chest as we swayed to the music. I heard it in her voice, she was happy for me, just as I was for her. But there was a hint of sadness realizing whatever we attempted to start tonight; and in the next few days was pointless. But the ache in my heart formed at the thought of not taking my shot. I was here for her; I wanted to hold her hand; tell her how remarkable talented she was as long as I could. The night was young; once we escaped this party the night was ours. 

A smile hinted at the corners of his lips as he dropped his hand from around her waist, the one he still had wrapped around her smaller palm. “ Well the reviews are out on that one. We open in a few weeks, and I’d hate to bail just because I found a better offer.” A tease written in his voice. As he glanced down to meet her gaze. Brief before he tugged the brunette through the mountains of crowded people. Bodies pushed up against us until we pushed through the swinging doors. The slight breeze hitting my face as we landed outside. Cars lined up against the curbs. The people chatting as they crossed streets; some attempting to march into the after party; not that I cared. I got away from prying eyes, I got away from the judgy looks. Now it was only us; me being the trouble in this situation. 

Hands dropping to my side, I kept my fingers locked in hers; letting Rachel decide if she wanted to let go. Tilting his head down narrowing eyes on her. “ As much as I love you having your own driver on the wait for us, I think walking would be best.” Pausing as he leaned down until lips were inches from her ear. “ Besides I’d rather have you to myself Berry.” A whisper against her ear before he lifted his head up with a smirk landing on bare lips. 

[phantomrose96]

Buds After the Frost

This was supposed to be a short warm-up writing exercise yesterday and then it got... longer. Enjoy!!

...

The doors opened for Maddie Fenton with a pneumatic hiss. Pressurized nitrogen released, splitting open the vacuum seal on the door as its twin halves slid apart, slotting into the wall-mounted sleeves. The nitrogen misted out, cold and dry, air currents catching in swirls around Maddie Fenton’s lab coat. Her feet thocked against hollow metal, amplified by the coldness and the vastness of the containment room beyond.

She paused short of the specimen’s cell, mindful attention drawn to the panel of controls nested rightmost against the wall. The monitor read out stats, tracked metrics of the specimen’s heartrate and blood oxygenation and blood pressure. Dials beneath the screens offered her means of interaction, manipulating the cage’s environment without needing to tamper with it by hand. She ignored these, as she had been ignoring them the entire time, and paid mind only to the single switch which would seal shut the doors behind her.

She pressed it. Another pneumatic hiss followed, locking out the world behind her. Her breath curled, cold. She and the specimen were alone.

“No coffee this morning?” he asked.

Maddie sat down at the control panel, elbow leaning against the dashboard for support. She turned to the cage. “No. One of the interns broke the pot last night. New one should be delivered today.”

Phantom let out a huff of air. “You mean in this whole gigantic mega-hyper-futuristic government lab, there’s nothing that can stand in as a coffee pot?”

“I wouldn’t stay employed long if I tried using equipment to brew coffee.”

“Use one of the big ectoplasm beakers. Ectoplasm washes out with soap and water. Just suds it up and throw it in the coffee maker. I’m an expert about these things.”

“It’s more about protocol.”

Phantom waved her off. “’Protocol.’ Bureaucracy is standing between you and a delicious cup of ectoplasmic coffee, Dr. Fenton.”

Maddie looked forward now, taking him in. He’d hovered to the front of the cell, translucent reinforced glass separating him from the rest of the lab. Green eyes shined above a cheeky smile, a dusting of loose white hairs falling over his eyes, the rest of his bangs swept slightly to the side. His tailed flickered, his aura pulsed, his vital readings blipped out steady, normal, healthy.

“Phantom?”

“Yeah?”

Maddie paused.

“Why are you still here?”

The ghost boy let out a small guffaw. He motioned his arms around him, hands waving. “I dunno. Maybe the big ghost-proof box I’m in has something to do with it?”

“The shield is down, Phantom,” Maddie answered quietly. She set her eyes to Phantom, investigating. “…I put it down last night. It’s down now. You knew this.”

Phantom took just a moment too long to react, eyebrows arching up. “Oh, huh! Nope I didn’t notice. I mean it’s not like I’m constantly throwing myself at the barrier to electrocute myself so no I just didn’t try getting past it last night so I didn’t notice.”

“Phantom,” Maddie said again, voice measured, words stern. “You saw me crank down the dial that controls the shield.”

“Well I don’t know what all those buttons and dials do.”

“Yes you do. You’ve been observing me since day 1. You knew.”

Phantom kicked back in the air, floating a fraction back and higher. “Well maybe I thought it was a trap, I dunno. Or maybe I just like to get in your head, you know? What unpredictable thing will Phantom do next! Gotta write another 200 equations about ghost theory to figure that one out, Dr. Fenton.”

“Phantom.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you not want to leave?”

“Oh I wanna leave.”

“Then why aren’t you?”

“We’re having a conversation. That’d be rude.”

“Will you leave as soon as I exit the room?”

“Who knows?”

“Phantom.”

“Yeah?”

Maddie stood. She left her chair and the control panel behind. She walked up to the specimen cage instead. It was cubic, a skeleton of metal bar ribbings with a metal mesh that plastered the glass sides like a membrane. The top anchored to the ceiling, the bottom—raised by about a foot—anchored to a pedestal on the floor. Maddie stared through the mesh into Phantom’s eyes.

“Is there anyone who realizes you’re missing?” she asked.

Phantom chewed on the question. “Nah. Well um, trick question, actually. Probably not. Assuming I do this right, then no one has even realized I’m gone.”

“Do what ‘right’?”

“You know that thing about Clockwork I explained?”

“You said he’s the ghost that controls time and reality.”

“Yeah. SUPER powerful.”

“And you said you …were from one of those other realities.”

Phantom nodded. “Maybe I touched some things in Clockwork’s lair I wasn’t actually allowed to touch. Jury’s still out on whether I’m in trouble for that or not. I’ve been a little too ‘stuck in this reality’ to know if Clockwork is pissed. But yeah, I got um, bopped into your reality instead of mine. So technically my reality is lacking me right now, and yeah there’s people there who’d know I’m missing.”

Phantom flipped upside-down, as though laying on his back. He rested his palms beneath his head, elbows out, suspended in an invisible hammock, head tilted far back so that he still stared at Maddie. “Especially since it’s been, what, a month that I’ve been gone?”

“2 weeks.”

“What? No way. I’ve been here absolutely forever it has to have been at least a month.”

“This is day 14 of your observation, Phantom.”

Phantom blew a strand of hair out of his face. “Anyway. Two weeks is still long enough to have a search party out on my butt. But whether or not that’s happened is up to – it’s kind of a Schrodinger thing. Because here’s my strategy. Assuming Clockwork hasn’t banned me from reality-hopping forever, I can just get him to send me back to my own reality at the precise moment in time I vanished. And then bam, no one ever knows I was gone. And it makes no difference whether I do that today, or next week, or next month. So assuming you eventually let me go, then I’m all set there.”

“You say that almost like you don’t care when it happens.”

“I dunno, more like I’m just not losing sleep over it. It’s not like I have a say in the matter. You do. I don’t.”

“Is the time you spend here just meaningless, to you?”

“I wouldn’t say meaningless. I’m still aging goddammit.”

“You’re a ghost.”

“I’m complex.” Phantom flipped right-side-up again. “If I start growing facial hair, send me back. I’m gonna have some awkward questions to answer if I show up again with a ghost beard suddenly.”

“…And what if I never send you back?” Maddie asked, careful with her words. “How does your plan work if you stay here forever? If I destroy you first?”

“Um. …It doesn’t, I guess.” Phantom set a hand to his chin, thinking. “Yeah um, please don’t do that. I don’t wanna worry my whole family like that.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“What part?”

“That you have a family.”

“I mean. I think that came up in Interrogation Session #3. Consult your notes.”

“I just have a hard time believing you.”

“Because I’m a ghost?”

“Yes.”

“I’m a complex ghost.”

“I know. You keep saying that.”

“It’s true.”

Silence filtered in between them.

“…What is your family like, Phantom?”

Phantom stiffened a fraction, his eyes finding Maddie’s and shifting away. “Oh, you know, family.”

“Do they exist here too?”

“Huh?”

“You’re from another reality, at least you’re claiming you are.”

“I gotta be. The me from this reality died 6 months ago, didn’t he?”

“The you from most realities is dead, Phantom. You’re a ghost.”

“A complex ghost.”

“The you from this reality was destroyed 6 months ago.”

“Which you validated with your own sciencey equipment, right? You said so! So you know I’m not lying. Unless you think I recombobulated myself from being a protoplasmic smear on the sidewalk.” Phantom caught himself, registering the flinch in Maddie’s body. He deflated a bit, eyes averted. “S-sorry. Inconsiderate phrasing.”

“Why?” Maddie asked, tone flat, blunt.

Phantom’s eyes shifted back. “Um. Just. You know. That accident was. There were um, you know—”

“Human causalities.”

Phantom squirmed. “We don’t have to talk about that, you know? No one wants to talk about that. Okay as a ghost I guess ‘talking about how I died’ is sort of a bit more normal, but this is weird yeah, ‘talking about how an alternate-me died permanently’? That’s morbid. No one wants to talk about that.”

“Okay then. You can go back to answering my previous question.”

“Um. I forget.”

“Does your family exist in this reality?”

“Um, well who really knows, you know? I had like a grand total of 20 minutes of freedom in this reality before you captured me, so, don’t ask me like I’m any kind of expert about your reality. What’s it matter?”

“I want to know if there’s anyone in this reality who’s mourning you.”

Phantom’s face schismed with surprise. His front dropped, and the first look of genuine emotion sank into his glowing eyes. “Woah… That’s um, weirdly nice, of you, I guess. Why do you… want to know?”

Maddie said nothing.

“I. Um. I think the answer is no? So don’t um. Worry about that. If you were worried? Which is weird. I’m the enemy, aren’t I? Evil spooky ghost to be studied?”

“I’m not so sure what you are…” Maddie answered. “I heard you got destroyed trying to save them.”

“The um… the human casualties?”

“Yes.”

“I said we don’t have to talk about that.”

“Phantom.”

“What?”

“Do you know who they were?”

“The… casualties?”

“Yes.”

“Come on we’re on a different topic now.”

“Do you know who they were?”

“I don’t—how’m I supposed to know? I don’t know how I died here, you know? You think I’ve got some kind of like… parallel-universe death vision?”

“So you don’t know?”

“N-no.”

“I have a different question, then.”

“Okay, good, because I haven’t been liking these previous ones.”

“Are you staying just to keep me company?”

Phantom faltered. He looked left, then right, hand scratching at his chin. “I’m staying because I’m in a ghost-proof box.”

“It’s not ghost-proof anymore. The shields are down.”

“I feel like you’re circling around some accusation I’m not smart enough to follow. This feels like entrapment.”

“Then I’ll be more direct.”

“Oh no there is an accusation.”

“I think you do know how you were destroyed in this universe, Phantom.” Maddie took a step forward, and she let her left hand touch the glass, eyes focused on her fingers. “I think you know what happened at the Nasty Burger.”

“That’s—um—the human food… consumption… location… that the local human adolescents meet at, yes?”

Maddie looked up, and she locked Phantom with her stare. He squirmed, and he relented.

“I um…” he continued. “I—yeah—yeah, okay? I know about the Nasty Burger accident. It was supposed to happen to me too in my reality but I—Clockwork—stopped it from happening in my reality.” Phantom glanced left, right, as if staring beyond the confines of his cage. “When I first got knocked into this reality, I went to go find the Fenton portal so I could try to refind Clockwork and fix this and… Well it wasn’t there. And I tried to find some people I know and… I checked out the library in case the Fentons just lived somewhere else and. I um. I found the articles.” His eyes focused on hers again. “They all say you were the only survivor, yeah…?”

“I was sick, that day. It was just a cold. My husband Jack went without me.”

“I’m sorry…”

“It took my daughter and my son too.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“And it destroyed you.”

Phantom opened his mouth, but no words followed.

Maddie looked up.

“You knew this. You’ve known this ever since I captured you.” Maddie let her hand slide away from the glass. “Did you let me capture you?”

“Why would I let you capture me?”

“Because you feel sorry for me.”

Phantom’s eyes flickered about, unwilling to meet hers. “…Nah. Nah. I don’t—come on ‘sorry’? I’m a ghost you know? Bane of humanity! We’re enemies. You were just too skilled a hunter and you captured me.”

“And yet you won’t leave.”

Phantom lapsed silent.

“I um… I wasn’t happy to read about—to know the, the thing at the Nasty Burger happened here, okay? That’s something that I kinda didn’t want to believe existed in any reality anymore, but I guess… And if you were still alive. I was… maybe just kind of happy to see you? That you were okay. And still hunting. That was kind of, like a small relief.” Phantom glanced away, back again. “I wasn’t evil, you know. In my reality or this one. I care about what happened to the Fentons…”

“You let me capture you. …And you did it because you thought it would be a nice thing for you to do for me.”

“I Just—I thought maybe, um… I mean when you phrase it like that. I mean what else could cheer up renowned ghost hunter Maddie Fenton quite like a ghost subject to study? Me, especially? The ghost boy or public enemy #1 or whatever. I’m fun, aren’t I?”

Silently, Maddie pushed away from Phantom’s cage. She moved to the control panel, stiff movements and numb fingers. She entered the release code into the console, and unslung the key from her neck to twist into the override, and she threw down each successive lever in the row of four lining the top of the mechanisms.

The scrape of glass sliding away sounded behind her. All four walls of Phantom’s enclosure dropped away, metal mesh sliding away piece-meal. Phantom stared at her, blinking, floating in place.

“You’re free to go, Phantom.”

“I—uh—well hang on, I don’t think the Guys In White would be too happy about that. You can’t just let me—”

“Go, Phantom.”

“They could like, fire you.”

“I don’t care about this job.”

“I—come on, you still wanna study me, don’t you? Chat with me? If you feel bad maybe just get me a couch and some video games for my cage then I’ll be—”

“Phantom.”

“What?”

“Go home to your family.”

The half-hearted smile dropped from Phantom’s face.

“Come on. You can’t just evict me on such short notice. I’m not ready for Clockwork to kick my ass so soon.”

“Go home.”

“I’m not in any rush! I like talking to you. Don’t you—don’t you like talking to me too? In like a scientific way?”

Maddie lowered herself into the chair by the control panel. She leaned forward, arms pooled in her lap, eyes to the floor. “You have a family to get back to, Phantom.”

“It’s—there’s time travel shenanigans! Like I said they don’t even know I’m gone.”

“Every single day, Phantom,” Maddie looked up, eyes stern, “…I wish every single day that my own family would just come back home. I won’t do the same to you. I won’t do the same to your family.”

Phantom said nothing. A somber acceptance sunk into his eyes.

“They’re… alive, you know. In my dimension.”

Maddie dropped her head, and she blinked away the wetness in her eyes.

“I actually… in my dimension I’m kind of closer to the Fentons than I think the, the Phantom in this dimension was. It’s… complex.”

Maddie said nothing. Silence built between them.

“Jazz is um… Jazz is applying for colleges, y-you know. She got in early-acceptance to Yale but um, we all—they all—visited Columbia last month and I think that’s what she wants the most. I can see Jazz in New York City. I think she’d rock it.”

Maddie blinked again. Tears plicked into her lap.

“…Should I stop?”

“Jack… Tell me about Jack.”

“Oh. Yeah he um… big and goofy as ever. He’s got some kind of eight-armed-octogun he’s working on. I know because I was his target practice, involuntarily by the way. He keeps trying to merge “Fenton” and “octopus” together with mixed results. We—Mo-addie—you… are still trying to talk him out of ‘Fentoctopus’.”

Maddie’s ribcage shuddered, a repressed sob, a repressed laugh.

“And Danny?”

“Danny… um… Danny is...” Phantom’s shoulders fell a little bit. He looked away, and then back at Maddie. “He loves you. I know that.”

Maddie blinked, and blinked again, and her eyes wouldn’t clear.

“And are they happy?”

“They’re happy.”

“Am I happy…?”

“You’re…” Phantom’s tail bounced. “You’re happy, I think. I like to think so. I think you’re very happy. You have a great family.”

Maddie nodded.

“Now go.”

“But I still—”

Maddie reached forward, and she grabbed the ecto-gun propped against the control panel. She lifted it into her shoulder, and flicked the safety, and the charge built along the rising whine.

“Go.”

Phantom balked. He blinked. He kicked away from his wall-less cage. “Not forever. I’ll be back. You won’t be alone here forever.”

He was gone.

And Maddie was alone again.

…

Clockwork surveyed the boy in front of him whose head was bowed nearly to the floor, white bangs trailing along cobblestone, hands clasped, apologies repeated, begging case made.

Clockwork ran a hand along his beard, which unfurled, drew back, undid itself with the shifting of his form to a simple child.

“So let’s see. You have the audacity to break my rules andbeg me to meddle on your behalf in the time stream, all in the same breath? Apologies don’t usually come with additional requests for favors.”

“I know,” Danny’s head dipped lower. “You can punish me however you want for touching the restricted timelines but you have to help it, or let me help this one timeline. Please, please just send me back to the Nasty Burger incident so I can save it.”

“It’s already been saved.”

Danny faltered. He looked up.

“You died at the Nasty Burger incident that night,” Clockwork elaborated, form shifting older. “There is no you to ruin that future. That timeline is safe. It’s a very lucky timeline.”

Danny blinked. “N-no. No that’s not what I mean. Save it like you saved my timeline.”

“That did happen. You’re describing your own timeline.”

“I mean do it to THAT one.”

“You are misunderstanding timelines.”

Danny lapsed silent. Worry bled into his eyes, and Clockwork sighed.

“There is no undoing timelines, Danny. There is only forking them by meddling in the stream. All futures and pasts you witness exist, and do exist, and continue to exist,” Clockwork paused, “with the exception of realities I needed to cull, to prevent utter catastrophe.” His gaze fixed on Danny. “The futures that your evil self destroyed, I did have to cull. And culling a reality is not to be done lightly.”

Clockwork motioned with his staff. “There were a handful of surviving realities that I was able to save. That room you meddled in without my permission—they contain the realities off the main track where, for one reason or another, something else succeeded at destroying your future self. …Your own deaths, in fact. In every one of those realities, Danny, you are dead.”

“I don’t…” Danny shook his head. “So then just tell me how to save that one I was in, okay?”

“Oh, that’s easy.”

“How?”

“You don’t.”

Danny said nothing. Clockwork shifted young.

“You can let it live on in that room, or you could ask me to cull it, Danny. You could ask me to cull every reality in that room, so that the main branch, the one you’re from, is the only reality in existence. So you never have to worry about any existence where your family is unhappy. And it will be that way until you, or I, or someone else, meddles with the timestreams again, and more splits occur.”

Still, Danny said nothing. Clockwork continued.

“Sometimes, a mass culling of realities is healthy for the tree of time, like pruning a plant down to its stalk to survive an unforgiving winter, or a terrible disease. But I did that, just recently, to save all of time from the blight of your future self. It would feel cruel to snip off the first buds that have come after the frost.”

Danny lowered himself to the floor.

“Okay…”

“Okay?”

He nodded. “Okay. Just. I have a different question then.” He looked up, a young devastation wet in his eyes. “Can I still go back and visit that reality, sometimes?”

“No. I cannot give you permission to do that.”

“Please!”

Clockwork spun his staff. A portal swirled into being in the space between him and Danny. Washes of color formed patterns, shapes, objects, images. Like a mirror, it reflected Clockwork’s lair beyond its shimmering surface.

“This is a portal back into your own reality. It is set to the location and the time that you vanished. Go there, and leave through the Fenton portal, and nothing will be amiss.”

“No. No no I won’t. Clockwork you have to let me—”

“I am doing you a favor, Danny, getting you home after you caused more trouble. Do not make further demands of me.” Clockwork curled forward, old, sallow skin sagging, and he turned his back to Danny.

“You have to give me permission—”

“I am the only one who has permission to meddle in realities, Danny. This is an absolute.” Clockwork glanced over his shoulder. “And because this is an absolute, I have no reason to have a lock on the room housing those budding other realities.”

Danny blinked.

“I wonder if anyone might break my rules anyway. I wonder if anyone might be nosy, and enter that room anyway, and water the plants in that greenhouse without my permission.” Clockwork stared forward again.

“Clockwork…”

“Luckily I am the master of all time. I would be able to see this coming. And maybe plan for it. If ever such a person would come into my lair, and meddle in my timelines, and try to spread a bit of his own kindness to the realities he couldn’t quite save, I would be fully prepared to stop him.” Clockwork spoke into the green abyss beyond him. “Unless, maybe, I were to accidentally have my back turned.”

Silence trailed after Clockwork’s words. He kept his back to Danny, staring into the abyss of swirling green ether beyond.

“…Thank you,” Danny answered, quietly. “I’ll be back.”

“I imagine you will. Those realities may get lonely without you.”

When Clockwork glanced back over his shoulder, both Danny and the portal were gone.

[lampmanliveblogs]

We finally got the origin of the Belos name! He made it up because people caught on to Philip’s BS. Which makes sense. Still not sure if Belos is supposed to mean anything or if he just picked it because he thought it sounded cool.

”He’s a better version of an old friend.”

Yeah, your brother. That you killed.

And he just says he’ll make another one. It’s not even a big deal, like oh, you dropped the cake I made? It’s no big deal, I’ll just make another one. Hold on, lemme go make another child/clone(?) of my brother to replace the old one. Do you have any Stonesleeper lungs? They’re getting so hard to come by these days.

”I’ll do anything to save humanity from evil.”

Thank you, that really did nothing to explain anything. I suppose it does confirm that whatever it is he’s doing, it is supposed to benefit humanity in some way. How though? Is he really trying to wipe out every living thing in the Demon Realm?  How’s that supposed to protect humanity? The only way to the Human Realm is through your portal, or Titan’s Blood, which is incredibly rare.

Hmm… we saw a painting earlier… of the Wittebane brothers meeting a witch (with Brother Wittebane looking a lot more excited than Philip). According to Jacob Hopkins, the two brothers were lured into the Demon Realm by an evil witch. Jury’s still out on whether that witch they met was really evil, but if they did bring them to the Demon Realm… 

I’m thinking that maybe Brother Wittebane had an outlook more like Luz and that he was excited by this new world, whereas Philip was frightened (his fears spurred on by the news of the witch trials back home, no doubt). Perhaps there was some jealousy over the witches’ powers sprinkled in too, that wouldn’t surprise me. At some point, Philip began experimenting with magic and turned into his monstrous form. His brother still loved him… but something drove Philip over the edge and made him take his brother’s life. The conclusion he drew from all of this was that magic and the Demon Realm were evil and needed to be destroyed. Rather than realizing that maybe he was the asshole.

Hunter’s okay!

Well, I don’t know if he’s okay per se, but he’s at least able to move and act to save Luz. I’m guessing he used the glyphs in Luz’ jacket pocket to free himself.

Hunter’s not okay.

Stars, this is heartbreaking to see.

On top of all the other shit Hunter’s been through in his life, in this episode he has

•Found out his ”uncle” is evil •Almost been killed by said ”uncle.” •And, oh, that’s right, he found out that he’s not even a real boy, but a grimwalker, the latest in a long line of puppets Belos has created and killed.

This is all to say that I do not blame Hunter one bit for freaking out and running off. The poor boy.

And so episode sixteen comes to an end. Appropriately enough, this is the 61:st screenshot. 

I’d do my usual rewatch and look for details I missed, but I think I did a pretty good job at catching most of them already. This episode had me pausing and squinting at the screen like no others before it and hopefully like no other ever will, because that can not have been good for my eyes.

My brain is feeling a bit mushy, so I’ll keep this relatively brief. If there’s anything important I missed I’m sure you guys will let me know.

I loved this episode. The lore… all the lore! This might be the most lore dense episode of the show thus far with a lot of tiny hints on Philip’s backstory, various snippets from his life. I don’t think there were any major hints in the paintings that I missed, I think I caught most of them. I’m still not sure how all the puzzle pieces fit together, but I’m working on it.

Oh, and we got to see the early days of Belos cult, his methods and how long he’s been doing this for, something I’ve wondered about for a long time. So that was neat.

There’s still a lot of unanswered questions and mysteries surrounding Philip that I’m looking forward to finding out about. Like what his brother’s name is, how they ended up in the Demon Realm, and what caused Philip to kill his own brother.

It was at least confirmed that hunter is a grimwalker! Which, ahem… I called it! Remember back after Eclipse Lake when I threw out that theory only to immediately be like ”Nah, that can’t be!”? Well, I was right! I should’ve trusted my gut feeling on that one.

Speaking of Hunter, this episode saw him go through even more trauma and finally arriving at the conclusion I’ve been waiting for him to arrive at since episode six. That being, Belos is evil and he needs to get as far away from that man as possible. He ran away at the end of the episode, so the next one might see the Owl House gang going looking for him, unless he decides to join them himself after he’s had some time to think things through. Either way, he can finally join the gang so we can get some Luz & Hunter sibling energy going, and then some more Hunter/Willow shipping fuel.

We got to see a bit of the elusive Collector and got a taste of his personality. I’m still not sure how he will play into Belos plan and what their deal is. Especially if Luz idea that Belos plans on killing everything in the Demon Realm is true. There’s not gonna be much for The Collector to collect in a dead world, is it? Unless he’s really into taxidermy.

We also got confirmation that Belos knew who Luz was this entire time.

Speaking of Luz, she finally learned of Belos true identity as Philip Wittebane. And this revelation is likely going to haunt her in future episode to come, seeing as she did end up helping him on the way to become the tyrannical dictator with the blood of hundreds upon hundreds on is hands. So that should be fun.

”Relatively brief” I said.

In conclusion, great episode, loved it, feel bad for my babies Luz &Hunter though. The animation and visuals were good too. Oh, and the voice acting, let’s not forget that. Good stuff.

Wait! I nearly forgot! Remember that joke I made about how we have never seen Prim before this episode? As someone pointed out to me, we actually have seen her before! Back in Hooty’s Moving Hassle, she was part of the Demon Hunters! Which means she stood by and did nothing as Luz, Willow & Gus were nearly killed.

I’m not sure when I’m going to get to the next episode. These are busy times, so it might take a while. Until next time though, take care of the planet Earth and remember that anything can happen in space!

<--Previous Episode: Them's the Breaks, Kid

Masterlist

Next Episode: TBD-->

[specialagentartemis]

You Can Grow: Doug Eiffel and Embracing Aromantic Desires as Character Growth

Or, an aromantic reading of Doug Eiffel.

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I wrote this and called it my Aromantic Eiffel Manifesto for Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week last year, but never posted it to tumblr. You can find it on AO3 here!  Meta belongs on AO3 just as much as fanfiction does :)

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Wolf 359 is a sci-fi space opera and my favorite piece of media at the moment.  One of the reasons I love it so much, why it was so easy to get so deeply invested in and feel comfortable in, is that there are no romance plotlines.  There's an even balance of male and female characters, they have strong, well-developed, unique relationships, and there's not a single romantic one in the mix.

This makes it really easy to read some characters as aromantic, and the protagonist, Doug Eiffel, stands out as a character whose emotional and narrative arc takes on really powerful resonances when read in an aromantic light.  Wolf 359’s themes consistently emphasize that your choices make you who you are, that everyone can choose to be better, and that growth and personal fulfillment have to be a conscious choice; and a reading of Eiffel as aromantic suggests an arc wherein choosing to embrace his desires and values as an aromantic person and live his life according to those are part of what led him to be a happier, better, more fulfilled person.

First, Some Background

From the beginnng, the characters in Wolf 359 are set up such that romantic interpretations aren’t obvious or well-supported.  The characters develop closer relationships over the course of the show, but there are no romantic arcs between anyone throughout the entire series.  Gabriel Urbina, the creator and showrunner, has made it clear on several occasions that he didn’t want to write romantic arcs, and the entire cast and crew has consistently shied away from romantic-tinged questions during Q & As.  Possibly this is because the creators are all a group of friends from college and didn’t want to act kissy-noises at each other because that would feel weird (though that’s just speculation).

Specifically, though, because questions about romantic Eiffel/Hera get asked a lot, it stands out to me that Zach Valenti (the voice actor for Eiffel) and Michaela Swee (the voice actor for Hera) have been friends since grade school, and Zach Valenti has made it a point in his Q & A and livestream appearances to steer questions away from the topic of romance between Eiffel and Hera.

This is just some behind-the-scenes setting to suggest that the writing, acting, and direction lead to non-romantic interactions between the characters.  Of course authorial intent isn’t everything, but the relationships it does emphasize, and the themes it builds around them, lead to a reading of Eiffel as not only not interested in a romantic relationship with anyone in the cast, but not interested in romantic relationships at all, ever. And that slides really elegantly into the themes in the show.

Eiffel's History

A lot of this reading draws from the few paragraphs that Eiffel gives us about his past in episode 40, “Limbo,” which, upon looking back, clicks so much if you take an aromantic reading to it.

Crucially, this is the episode where we learn about Eiffel’s ex-girlfriend and daughter.

EIFFEL

One day, while Doug's out playing with his radio, he meets this real special girl. Jury's still out on whether she was his dream girl or his nightmare demon monster from the Black Lagoon, but they start going out because... well, he's had worse ideas.

Here, we have a setup/contrast we’ll see recurring: the juxtaposition between something Eiffel wants and likes (playing with his radio; it’s something he’s shown to have both an aptitude for and a genuine interest in), and something he seems ambivalent-to-apathetic about and gives no real justification for doing (going out with Kate Garcia).

“They start going out because… well, he’s had worse ideas.”  Doesn’t sound like someone who actively wants a romantic relationship to me.

And the relationship doesn’t go well.

EIFFEL

So, for a while things are all happy ever after. Then, for a while, things get real Sid and Nancy.

Sure, plenty of alloromantics have relationships that get toxic and terrible, but this seems like one that Eiffel didn’t particularly want in the first place except as an abstract concept (“jury’s still out on whether she was his dream girl or his nightmare monster from the Black Lagoon”).  No wonder he was unhappy in it, if a romantic relationship is the way he felt he had to relate to her and then felt unhappy and resentful when actually in it.

EIFFEL

But just when the tower of Babel's about to come crashing down, along comes a magical, bouncing, baby girl. […]

For a while, it was okay. Doug was seeing little baby Anne pretty much every other day, talking to her every day, teaching her to play the Jaws theme on her little dinky kid xylophone, all the good stuff. Hilariously... our man's pretty great at it.

MINKOWSKI

At being a dad?

EIFFEL

Oh yeah. Until he slips up. See, fun fact about Officer Eiffel: Dougie Boy doesn't like to have a drink. Dougie Boy doesn't like to have two drinks, or four drinks, or six drinks. Doug likes to have twelve drinks. Fifteen drinks. But when Doug has a kid, he thinks it's time to go the full Robert Downey Jr. He goes to meetings, gets cleaned up. And then one day - one bad day - he has one drink. One. Then it's showtime folks! The Doug Eiffel Limbo: How Low Will He Go? […]

Kate, our story's angel-slash-demon-slash-ex-girlfriend, freaks out, because... well, because she has a brain. Custody was never gonna go Doug's way because duh. And after that... well, Dougie-Doug goes to a bad place. He turns into a bit of a... a good old fashioned monster. And one night, about two months later, he pulls up to Kate's house, jimmys open the back door, gets his daughter in the car, and rides off into the sunset. Happy ever after, right?

And then we get to hear everything else: the drunk driving, the crash, the arrest, the lowest moment in Doug Eiffel’s life.

It’s not a lot of airtime, but it does have a lot of implications.

From this, it’s possible to construct a distinctly aromantic narrative.   Doug Eiffel is rootless and unfulfilled and doesn’t have a lot going for him, at this point in his life.  He joined the military young, which lasted “until [his] disciplinary record caught up with [him]” (mini-episode 12, “Pagliacci”).  He worked private security for a while, and then pizza delivery.  This is not the picture of a man who knows what he wants, or how to achieve it even if he did.  Some of his choices actively seem to go against his obvious desires—how could someone like him, with his well-established dislike for orders and defiant opposition to authority think that the military would work out for him?   (It didn’t.)  But as someone kind of rootless, without the ability to articulate what he wants, and with a strong streak of what could be laziness but also reads a lot like ADHD… I can imagine the military would be one of the few places that might accept him, that could offer him certain things (a goal, a chance to work with technical equipment) that he wanted, and be the kind of respectable establishment that would show that he was growing up, being something respectable and productive now.  It’s not that it was a life he wanted; but it’s a life that’s normal, respectable, and available to him.  And it absolutely did not work out, because Eiffel by his nature is not cut out for military and life and is demonstrably unhappy and resentful in even the slightest facsimile of one.

I see him doing something really similar regarding romantic relationships, and dating Kate Garcia in particular: it’s something close enough to what he wants (he does like her) and so entering a romantic relationship is a respectable, responsible, grown-up thing to do, and he doesn’t even know how to articulate what he does and doesn’t want out of the relationship—until he gets it.

Eiffel is unhappy being a boyfriend, but genuinely loves being a father—again, the juxtaposition between what he wants (his parental relationship with his daughter Anne) and what he doesn’t (his partnered relationship with Kate).  “Doug was seeing little baby Anne pretty much every other day, talking to her every day” suggests that he was happiest when he had already separated from Kate but was still in regular contact with Anne.  He expresses, throughout, no regret for the loss of the romantic relationship, and was in fact happier when he wasn’t in it; it was the formal loss of custody and being cut off from his daughter that led him to spiral and hit bottom.

It’s also important that throughout he doesn’t really blame Kate for this at all; he doesn’t express particular anger at her, and he respects her, even if resentfully.  He acknowledges that her reactions to his alcoholism were justified.  (He really, really hates himself for this; the whole story puts the blame squarely on Eiffel for the alcohol-fueled destructive decisions he makes.)

So: even when trying to make a romantic relationship work out, it didn’t, and it made him miserable; it was after separating, and after discovering what he actually wanted (to be a parent, to have this relationship with his daughter) that he became happier and more fulfilled and wanting to do better; and it was after losing custody of his daughter that he really began to get both abjectly miserable and selfishly vindictive.

Overall, this presents a picture of a man who is drifting, trying to fit into "respectable" life trajectories and never fitting or making them work, and then ending up crashing and burning from being such a poor fit in something he never really wanted anyway (military, romantic relationship).  And, while very dramatized, this resonates strongly as a “before you knew you were aromantic” feeling, the pressure to try to fit into expectations because, well, that’s what people do, right?  That’s how you prove you’re a real and responsible adult, right?  Why is trying to do so making me so unhappy, then?

This is all the “before,” the backstory Eiffel tells Minkowski as he anxiously waits to hear if another four-year-old girl with a traumatic brain injury imparted by her parent will be okay.   The part that makes his arc feel like growth and fulfillment into an aromantic life is Eiffel’s arc as we see it progress through the “present” of the show.

Eiffel's Arc

Doug Eiffel’s character development throughout the show is some really impressive character writing, taking him from a snarky rude jerk who is very performative about how much he doesn’t care and isn’t trying, to one of the most emotionally perceptive, morally centered, and empathetic characters on the show.  It’s an arc, and a broader theme throughout the podcast, about how our choices make us who we are—and it’s a theme and an arc that takes on an additional resonance when reading Eiffel through an aromantic lens.

We meet Eiffel as a selfish, emotional, irritable slacker.  He doesn't care about the people around him, because he's jaded—this is his punishment for his rock-bottom worst decision of his life, a reflection of his failure at being a human being (no stable job, failed relationship—but, again, most prominently, his failure as a father and the harm he caused to his daughter).  His tension with the rest of the crew is exacerbated by the way Minkowski is constantly frustrated with his lack of work ethic or any enthusiasm to be here—which, at that point, neither she nor we the viewers realize is a deliberate punishment, is a literal prison.  Eiffel has proven to himself that he's a failure, and has given up on himself and is embracing not caring.  His whole bit in “Am I Alone Now?” and “Are the Spacesuits Itchy?” plays up that flippantness and callousness.  (This is something I actually see as very much rooted in an ADHD reading, too—and ADHD and aromanticism both have a very strong penchant for producing feelings of “why is something that seems so effortless for everyone else so impossible for me?”)

But the same traits that made him the butt of the narrative early in season develop into the things that make him the heart and moral center of the show later on.   Eiffel begins to grow as a person and become a better person when he starts caring about the people around him—Hera, then Minkowski, even Hilbert.  His impulsive emotional responses—even his cowardice and selfishness—end up making him cautious, perceptive, empathetic, and adamantly pacifistic, trying to solve problems peacefully by making friends and convincing people to get along (ex. “The Sound and the Fury,” “Fire and Brimstone.")  He’s the first to try to make friends with Lovelace, and comes close to actually succeeding.  He keeps reaching out to Hilbert, trying to get Hilbert to come to the “light side” and choose to be a better person.  Eiffel recognizes how his choices hurt the person he loved most (Anne), and begins making conscious choices to care so as to not hurt anyone else.

Over the course of the show, Eiffel not only becomes a better, self-fulfilled, healed person, but a happier person, deeply devoted to the people around him.  He becomes his best and happiest self in this space station removed from the social pressures on Earth, embedded in a network of deep and important platonic relationships.  These different relationships are in fact the structure through which Eiffel becomes a better person.

Of course, all the relationships depicted on the show are very strong and non-romantic, but other characters do express their romantic interests in other ways—Minkowski has a husband back on Earth who she loves and wants to see again, Fisher has a boyfriend back on Earth he talks about glowingly, and even Jacobi talks regretfully about a separation from Klein that seems probable to read as a breakup.  Unlike these, and unlike his wish to see his daughter again, Eiffel never expresses interest in trying to rekindle a romantic relationship with Kate, or to seek a new one.  Removed from amatonormative pressures, he found the life he wants and the people important to him, and they’re these people, these non-romantic relationships, right here.

You Can Grow

Personal growth through your choices, and specifically your choices about who you want to be and what you need to do to make becoming that person happen, are a recurring theme throughout the show.  In space, all of the characters are physically separated from their pasts and the things that made them—and now they get to decide who they want to be.

This is exemplified directly in the conclusion of the special episode “Change of Mind.”  “You're not just what you were made,” Lovelace says.  “You can grow.”

In this instance, what you were made doesn’t refer to any innate qualities.  This quote grew out of a conversation between Lovelace and the AI Eris, and were made refers specifically to the idea that they were both literally created by another entity with their own goals—Eris by Goddard Futuristics, Lovelace as an alien duplicate by the Dear Listeners.  This kicks off a season-long arc about Lovelace trying to decide who she is going forward, whether she’s still the same Isabel Lovelace.  It’s important that it also comes directly after a look into Lovelace’s past—or, as noted, how Lovelace remembers her past.  Lovelace is haunted by her mission and what happened to her, and it has turned her into a different person than she was back then.  So, social pressures, social forces, and personal history are also all set up as the things that make you, in Wolf 359—and all things that don’t have to define you, if you don’t let them.  And, again, space is an excellent place to escape those social forces and explore becoming something new.

This is a fundamental part of both Minkowski’s and Eiffel’s arcs.  Both of them have pressures, both socially- and personally-applied, that they’re chafing under and making them unhappy.  Minkowski felt an alienation that came from being an immigrant as a child and striving to be a perfect, precise, assimilated American and officer.  In her backstory episode (“Once in a Lifetime”), that gets used against her to manipulate her into taking this job.  Her self-consciousness about this comes out in her extreme strictness about following the rules because she wants to run a successful mission and prove it was all worth it.  By the end of the show, a lot of this by-the-book strictness has fallen away, and Minkowski embraces both more chaotic and lateral-thinking problem-solving, and loyalty to the people around her rather than to the abstract idea of rules and hierarchy—and in the process, finally comes into her own as a leader.  She acknowledges the idea of choices directly in “Dirty Work”—there may not be any “correct” or even good answers; what matters is that you made the choices.

If space allowed Minkowski the, well, space to not be what she was made, and to grow, the same is true of Eiffel.  He’s not defined solely by his past; he’s not defined solely by his failures.  They’re part of him, but he doesn’t have to just be what his past made him.  He can choose to grow.  And he does.

In this sense, we come back to the thematic thread.  If Eiffel is aromantic, a significant part of his past was being torn between what he actually wanted, and what seemed like the available option that made sense just because it was there.  In space, removed from that, he was no longer in a place where amatonormativity had any hold to present an obvious available option.  So he was able to actually look at what he wanted, what mattered, and make those choices… and grow.

On Earth, Doug Eiffel, aromantic, was trying to force himself to fit into expected social structures—a respectable job, and a respectable relationship.  He was bad at both, and both were making him miserable, but he had no image of how it could be different, or what he wanted, or what would make him happy.  So he kept trying at what he felt he was supposed to do and bitterly embraced his perception of himself as a stupid failure of a person.

But, in space, freed from Earth expectations, he was able to find not only what he was good at doing (radio mediation between humans and aliens, moral mediation between high-strung humans and other humans) but also the types of relationships he wanted (not only a chance to try again as a parent with Hera, but his friendships with Minkowski, Hera, and Lovelace, and even his attempts to reach out to Hilbert).  He found a non-traditional job and family structure that work well for him and give him what he wants, discovering a social setup that makes him feel worthwhile, important, and loved.

This reads really strongly to me as an aro narrative: leaving Earth to escape amatonormativity and discovering your preferred found family of strong, diverse platonic relationships (in SPACE).   You're not just what you were made (shaped by amatonormativity, miserable).  You can grow.  You can choose what it means to be you.

A Brief Conclusion

Also, Doug Eiffel is living my personal aro dream of living in a big house with all of his best friends.  (He in fact one-ups that because the house is his best friend.)

[bkdotblog]

"White Lies and Black Eyes," S3E12

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Season 3 Episode 12 Recap

My Title: "The Heather Black Eye Discussion Episode"

My rating: 4 out of 5 black eye reveals

Support for Lisa Barlow: Unassailable

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Absolutely demented start to this episode.

Remember last week, when the lead up to Heather Gay Black Eye Reveal was edited like a murder mystery? The recap of the previous 48 hours that opens Episode 12 is edited like a nightmare trauma flashback. In case you forgot about Jen Shah going ballistic at every single San Diego-based gathering, a montage with intentionally distorted audio reminds you that you never did, and you never will <3 So: Whodunnit?

Too early for a BK's take but here I am going: My hunch last week was that Jen decked Heather in the night—Deck me classy mama!—but that possibility seemed too entertaining to be true. However, the edit here heavily implies that Jen, after a long day of exhibiting several different forms of toxic social behavior, did do something to Heather that resulted in a black eye. What do U think? I am dying to talk about this—please leave a comment if you are, too!

Heather summons Jen to her room first thing in the morning. Jen, feeling at least a little silly, dons Heather's wig from last night. When the black eye is revealed, Jen seems shocked. She asks what happened, and Heather says this:

"That's why I need you to help me figure out if someone really wants to talk about what happened last night."

!!!

Because Heather doesn't "want any of the ladies to get in trouble," she needs a cover story for the eye. Watching Jen try to be funny about this is very uncomfortable. Her first suggestion is that a spider laid eggs in Heather's eyes, and her third is that Heather invited a Tinder date back to her casita who "got rough." I took this opportunity to Google whether or not Jen has been fired from the show and the jury is apparently still out. Let's trade her in for Mary Cosby!

Heather calls an adult (Meredith) who arrives wearing under-eye patches. When Heather reveals the eye, Meredith is shocked. Watching her react next to Jen is like watching Meryl Streep act against an orange wearing a wig.

"We were with you until 4 in the morning!"

Cue found footage: 4:50 AM, outside Heather's room. We only saw the doorknob turn in the preview, but now the full clip plays. The door opens. Jen saunters in. Knew it!! But wait... then Meredith walks in. And Angie K. And everybody is laughing!

Everything looks good.

And then everybody leaves! End footage.

Meredith's shock is beginning to simmer into confusion. What happened? She keeps asking. Heather says, I don't want to talk about it. Meredith is like, So you know what happened. And then Heather finally says: I don't know what happened.

San Diego: Day Three dawns. This is the worst trip I have ever been on!

Lisa stops by Whitney's room when she's getting ready. Their budding friendship continues to grow. Whitney is still cross with Heather, but she's also sowing seeds of conflict against Meredith. She basically tells Lisa: I thought you were the bitch all along, but Meredith is the real bitch, and she's trying to take you down. Which incenses Lisa and suggests a confrontation is not far off.

[BK's Take: I am still hoping for a Lisa-Meredith reconciliation this season, but this does not bode well.]

[BK's Take, fashawn: Love Whit's jammies!]

The ladies gather and go over the day's itinerary: Roller-blading, go-karts, see the San Diego sights, and SLAY all day rosé! Lisa amusedly recalls when Jen came into her room the prior night topless and gave her a midnight hug.* This prompts Whitney to ask about what went on after she went to sleep. Heather, wearing sunglasses, says things "got a little rough."

Everybody asks: What do you mean?

Heather says: I think we all know what I mean. And she reveals her black eye for the third time in one episode.

While my heart goes out to all victims of Jen Shah (both physical and fiscal!), Heather's wild oscillation on the "I don't want to talk at all about this" and "I need to do a dramatic eye reveal three times" x-axis coupled with her OTHER wild oscillations on the "I don't know what happened" and "Everybody knows all of the details about this already, so I needn't even say them" y-axis is exasperating. Almost as exasperating as that graph metaphor I just tried to pull on u... Sorry! Just trying new things!

Whitney feels nauseous. Everybody is shocked. But Heather insists that she doesn't want to "make the trip about [her] black eye." Everybody decides to drop it for now, though we need to keep a black eye on Whitney, who, you may remember, is on a hilling journey...

To the Go Kart track!

Sorry they're called "GoCars" and they're just little cars for riding around San Diego in!

Most of the pairs are talking about the eye --

-- except for Heather, who is listening to Lisa soliloquy about her closet.

That was fun! For the second activity of the day, the group splits. Meredith, Jen, Heather, and Angie go to a winery. Danna, Lisa, and Whitney go roller skate.

During both activities, conversation inexorably drifts to the Black Eye. The roller skaters discuss theories of how it could have happened over waffle cones. Whitney says: Either she did it to herself (i.e. fell) or someone did it to her (i.e. Jen punched Heather).

Meanwhile, at the winery, Meredith expresses her concerns, and makes it clear that "whatever happened" with the eye "was not ok." Just as I understand the want to not discuss it, I also see Meredith's point: Obviously, if somebody on this group trip physically harmed another person, it is kind of the group's business to know... right?

In her confessional, Heather issues a meandering and bizarre statement about how she won't say anything about the incident until someone else says something. She won't show her cards because "nobody is showing their cards", she won't "spew her theories." In other, less insane words: The next step is the puncher admitting to the punch.

Jen remains silent. The conversation moves through Heather's fractured relationship w Whitney to Whitney's friendship with Lisa to Lisa before Jen speaks up to offer some tea on an SEC filing against one of the Barlow's companies. Also, the Barlows were seen crowdfunding $25,000 for their tequila business — isn't that a little tacky, coming from "the richest bitch" of them all?

On the boardwalk, the ice cream cones have long melted when Danna serves up some complementary tea: Meredith has been talking about an SEC document and a crowdfunding thing relating to Vida Tequila? Lisa goes ballistic. In a confessional, she hypothesizes that Meredith is reacting to her (frankly iconic) "hot mic moment" from last season. It looks like their conflict is about to breach new heights!

Lisa says: "I don't pop pills, bitch. You do."**

(In the sprinter van, Meredith essentially confirms that, yes, this is because she called talked about her dumb fucking family that poses on the hot mic.)

Meredith is suggesting and Heather is dramatizing the idea that Lisa could be a broke hypocrite. Angie is uncomfortable. Jen keeps her mouth shut, wisely.

It's 9PM, and almost time for the Greek Goddess-themed dinner!

Angie goes to visit Lisa, who is not dressed according to the theme by any stretch.

Lisa is upset about Danna's revelations. Angie is like, thank goddess you brought it up because Meredith was talking shit! Set phasers to Meredith!

Unfortunately for Mare, it seems like her closest allies at the moment are Jen and Heather, making them a little bit less than a united front.

Greek Goddess Dinner outfit awards: Whitney is best greek goddess (fashion), Jen is best greek goddess (halloween costume), Heather is best greek goddess ("Ask Me About My Evil Eye!"). Lisa is in good spirits until Meredith arrives to the table—then her nerves start to fray. "Who pissed in Lisa Barlow's Diet Coke?" Heather wonders.

Angie is brought in by male escorts. A little grand, for somebody outside the main cast! But then she gives everybody a gift: An evil eye necklace. Lisa has a very canned response for her confessional: "I'm going to need this to ward off these evil bitches."

Then somebody asks how the day was, and things begin to begin. Whitney, shit-stirring for a brand new team, asks:

Nobody really speaks up, so Lisa doubles down. Meredith and Lisa get into it. Meredith is trying to downplay her part in having two on-camera conversations that put Lisa's business in a bad light, but she still feels that Lisa has done more to malign her. Lisa calls on Angie for backup.

Heather catches on that Angie and Lisa had a pre-dinner conversation, and she offers some condescending advice toward the head of the table:

"It's in poor taste to host a dinner where you stir up trouble right before it starts."

Meredith brings it back to Lisa's hot-mic rant, saying that when Lisa made comments about Mr. Meredith's business, she "endangered the livelihood of his 4,000 employees. That is reckless." This comment confused me.

[BK's Take: Meredith does not strike me as a particularly gracious person, at least to these women. I don't know what her principles are. She has a track record of assuming the absolute worst intentions of those around her and then reacting to those assumptions--see the above paragraph for a recent example. Having successful friendships does not seem as important as occupying a high ground of some sort and looking down from it. I don't love it. Would still like to see Lisa and Meredith come back together at some point, before Mare's bff Jen goes to prison and she's left with just Heather!]

At one point, when Lisa refers to her hot mic "rant", Meredith calls it a "tirade." Lisa: It was a rant! Meredith: It was a tirade. For the official record, these words are synonyms and are nearly interchangeable. I don't understand the nuance Meredith is suggesting. I think she's just a little bit dumber than she wants to appear in the moment.

Whit: "How do we move forward, knowing everybody remembers it differently, fills differently, knowing that we all love each other?"

Heather: "Maybe my eye is a metaphor for our friendships," she offers, because we don't know where it came from or how, but we roll with it, and sometimes we put a patch on it (?) and sometimes we don't. But I think these women are like Heather's black eye in other ways: You understand it's all being played up for drama, but when you look closely, you can see something wild, and violent; a retribution in waiting.

That's all! Thank you for reading. Episode 14 drops in two weeks. Until then, have a wonderful holiday, and Happy New Year. 🌌 BK

<><><>

Gay Imagery

Adding insignia to injury

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*Crystal Kung Minkoff would have filed charges!

**Cute delivery and all, but Lisa, there's nothing wrong with taking pills for our mental health. As Mother, you should know this!

[peaches-writes]

heart attack!

description: han jisung can charm any heart if he wants to but he just wants one, whether he admits it to your face or not. 

member: jisung / han

genre: fluff, fantasy, rivals to lovers au, childhood friends to lovers au, witch / wizard au (sugar sugar rune-inspired), royal au, college au, roommates / housemates au, slice of life format, a side of hwang siblings, sunshine twins, cousin chan, and minchan (!!)

word count: 25.1k i’m so sorry

warnings: explicit language, alcohol, some mentions of injuries, a brief episode of someone getting abducted, mentions of a creep being,,,well a creep at public transportation, self-indulgent tooth-rotting cheesiness, idk if i should put a warning for unconscious emotional manipulation but im gonna write that in here anw

note: idk if i want to write little drabbles w this same pairing again since it ended up being so long but i kinda lost the plot halfway lmao lmk if u guys want additional lil drabbles for this hehe + again happy 1k yay!

You don’t always get along with Han Jisung, crown prince of the Eastern Kingdom, for reasons you simply can't limit to the number of fingers and toes that you have. He loves annoying you for the sake of getting a reaction, bratty as far as a wizard prince goes, and prideful among many traits that you were forced to grow up alongside with.

These days, however, you hate the way that he is the only other candidate alongside yourself for the High Crown of the magical world. As if fate didn't just want the two of you to butt heads in school and at royal social functions all the time, suddenly you're pushed to compete with him for something much greater.

For the record, though, it's tradition that all firstborn heirs of the 4 major kingdoms are considered eligible for the highest throne that unites all of your domains. You were going to compete with him either way, just with other people initially involved. However, with prince Hyunjin of the Southern kingdom mysteriously disappearing over a month ago and princess Lia of the Western kingdom subsequently refusing the candidacy, suddenly there was only you and the Eastern prince for the high jury to challenge in their Crown Candidacy exam. Fate and circumstance clearly love you with the way Jisung is always in your line of sight when all you want for yourself is to not be on the receiving end of his teasings and competititve streak all the time.

Though you yourself didn't desire the High Crown at first, the elders continuously pressuring you eventually pushed you into accepting the task. Plus, knowing that it's Jisung—the brat who pulled on your hair during those silly etiquette lessons the high jury made you and the other royals take as kids and embarrassed you when you once confessed your past crush to him in middle school—who would be automatically crowned without a test if Hyunjin isn't found in time and you also refuse made you go forward with it. After all, as much as you personally don't want to answer to Jisung as the next High King, you also think that entrusting the entire magical realm to him is simply not right. You would know, you had to grow up with him.

So, here you are on the night that the Crown Candidacy exam begins, receiving the final blessing from your mother and the high jury with Jisung who has been sneakily trying to poke on your side and get a reaction out of you since the ceremony began. If 15 elders and your mentors aren't surrounding the two of you with their scrutinizing eyes right this very moment, you would've easily snapped on the first poke and blasted the blue-haired boy.

"Stop that," You instead gritted your teeth next to him with the 17th poke to your waist, lowering your voice that only he can hear. "Ji, I swear to the gods—"

Among the circle of witches and wizards chanting ritual protection spells over the two of you, your mentor Younghyun glares at you and Jisung as if in a non-verbal scolding that the two of you should stop "playing around" as he would usually word it. You simply roll your eyes at this in response, earning you more quizzical looks from the other elders.

You also hate the way that Han Jisung keeps stringing you into his antics as his favourite person to mess with. If anything, you're most often in trouble with the elders because of him.

"This part of the ceremony is so unnecessary. I'm bored" He murmurs tiredly under his breath, bringing his hands back inside his black cape and pushing his shoulders back as he stands up straighter once more. "It's not like humans can hurt us. We're the magical ones, hello? Besides, the jury’s already cut the one-year exam by half. What could even happen in that time?”

"Stray monsters can still hunt you there if you don’t stand still." You correct immediately, earning you a look from your own mother this time as she finishes leading the last of the spells. At this point in your unwanted association with him, you don't even care much anymore that you get in trouble because you entertain his antics. You just want him to shut up. "Whatever. It's done."

The prince then giddily springs up in place once all of the spells are casted, suddenly looking more awake than the past 5 minutes of ceremony. "Finally! Okay, thanks for that! We'll be going now!"

"Wait." Your mother calmly interrupts him, perfectly hiding her slight annoyance over you and Jisung as she whips out her blue wand from the pockets of her ceremonial robes. "For the high jury to properly tally the ecure that you'll collect in the human world after this task, we'll be providing you with vessels to keep them."

As she mentions the vessels, a sapphire locket and an emerald ring materialize in front of you and Jisung respectively before settling at the palms of your hands. You're then quick to notice the way that the diamond-cut sapphire encrusted at the center of your locket emits warmth as you place it around your neck, indicating its magical properties.

"These vessels have been modified further to record everything that you collect and any spell or potion that you might use them on while undertaking in this task." Your mother then continues. Simultaneously, Younghyun gestures for you and Jisung to mount your brooms and prepare to fly off into the yellow crescent moon where the portal to the human world lies on its other side. "Though the ecure that you lose is not counted in the final tally, knowing how you used or lost them also contributes to the jury's examination of your magical skills and knowledge."

Jisung chuckles, bumping the bristle end of his broom with yours playfully. "And to see what kind of trouble we'll get ourselves into, right?"

In response, you simply roll your eyes. Your mother, on the other hand, purposely tunes out Jisung's usual antics and continues, "Remember, this exam will determine the next monarch that unites all of the 4 major domains. Collect as much ecure as you can from the humans in the 6 months that you're given with them and you will be rewarded greatly. Until then, have a safe journey to the human world, candidates."

With that, you and Jisung push yourselves off from the castle balcony, heading straight to the crescent moon.

"Last to the other side is a lousy flyer!" Jisung yells playfully into the quiet night, speeding ahead before you could even process his words. “And has to pay for a meal sometime!”

"Ya! Han Jisung!" You increase your speed yourself anyway despite knowing that his words don’t have any ill meaning, catching up to him with ease just as the two of you pass into the portal. “I paid for the meals last time!” 

-

Han Jisung isn't always fond of you, the heir to the Northern Kingdom, for reasons he simply can't limit to the number of fingers and toes that he has. He thinks you're too uptight (especially in the presence of the high jury and the other elders of the bigger royal circle), easily irritable, and surprisingly a bit of a pushover to your kingdom's advisors ever since your cousin, Chan, renounced his royal title and settled in the human world.

These days, however, he hates the way that you've suddenly taken up an interest in competing for the high crown of the magical world alongside him even when you've made it clear countless times before that you only wanted to rule your own kingdom. You only started showing interest after Lia formally refused her candidacy and the elders pushed you more into changing your mind, clearly hinting that you don't want Jisung to automatically be crowned High King.

Do they really think that terribly of me? Jisung has resorted to thinking a lot about these days, even now as the two of you arrive at Chan’s place where you would be staying for the duration of the test. I make a good high king as much as I do the king of my own people! Hmp!

It shouldn't bother him this much, it's just you anyway. But at the same time, it bothers him for this very same reason: because it's you, the know-it-all who always busted his antics to the teachers back in school and embarrassed him to his friends when you confessed your past crush to him back in middle school. Jisung hates the way you challenge and compel him to be petty and competitive all the time, especially in the little things. Like right now, as the two of you argue on who gets the bigger bedroom in Chan's house right after you arrived.

"You know, I was just holding back a while ago because we were in front of the elders but I swear, I won't hesitate to blast you now that we're away." You warn as you try your best to stare him down while he blocks the bedroom door you both want. You have your hands raised to the side, sparks of a spell encircling our fingers and the space between your hands. "Move, Jisung!"

Still, Jisung stubbornly refuses. You two have bickered enough to last you all of your lifetimes and for him to know that you won't really do it. "I was here first! You go to the other room!"

The blue ball of energy in your hands begins to shape itself into a more tangible shape as your brows furrow even deeper in frustration. "But I called dibs on this room to Chan firs—!"

Before you could finish your words, however, Chan peeks his head out from the opposite end of the hallway with a pile of blankets in his hands. "You two still going at it? It's almost 2 AM." He teases in feigned disapproval, approaching the two of you to throw a blanket each of your way. "Come on, give it up, Sung. Y/N gets the big room."

Jisung's initial smug expression contorts into disbelief in an instant while you celebrate with a wide grin and a teasing tongue stuck out at him. "What?!"

"Ha! Thanks, Channie!" You clasp your hands together in satisfaction, the red sparks in your hands disappearing into thin air as you do so, before pushing the paralyzed Jisung out of the way and locking yourself in the bedroom. Once Jisung's pulled himself together at the betrayal, you then briefly peek your head out of the door, sticking your tongue out for the last time before greeting the two boys with a quick, "Goodnight!"

Jisung glares and purses his lips in front of Chan who chuckles at this. "Hyung!" He whines, grabbing the older boy by his biceps and shaking him wildly like how a child would throw a tantrum. "I don't see you for three years and when I do, I get treated like this?!"

"Exactly." Chan nods with an amused smile, tugging Jisung to his side and leading him to his room across from yours. "Y/N was kind enough to visit me here while you didn't even send a letter. I think that's enough to give them the big room."

"Aah, but you already know why I couldn't! I was busy with all the prince stuff!"

"Y/N was too, though? And they’re doing twice the work than you."

"But Y/N's more organized than me!"

"So you agree? My cousin earned the bigger room?"

"No, it’s not th—aish! Bang Chan!" When the older boy in question tries pushing Jisung back to the smaller bedroom, the latter childishly protests by gripping onto the doorframe. "I'm making it up to you now! I'm literally staying here for 6 months!"

"Yeah and I'll definitely treat you to lots of other things for that later. Seriously, Ji, give it a rest. It's just your temporary room for the exam." Chan sighs with a tired laugh, prying the younger wizard's hands off of the doorframe and shoving him inside the room. "Unpack your things and get some sleep. We're having a welcoming party for you two on the weekend."

"You're supposed to side with me here."

"Don't pull that face, you're not kids anymore." Chan chuckles, ruffling the younger boy's hair. "And I'm not siding with anyone. It’s just a room! Night, Sungie."

Jisung opens his mouth to protest, only for Chan to close the door on him and walk back to his own room. With a sigh, the boy defeatedly trudges to his new bed and, after taking out his expandable pouch from his pockets, jumps to the mattress with a muffled groan to the plush pillows.

Jisung also hates how one of his best friends favors you better just because you're cousins first. He's had enough of Chan coddling you before from when you were kids, always taking your side when the two of you bicker and offering you his extra food when the three of you are together, and he would much prefer it if he doesn't see it now that the two of you are undergoing an important exam.

"At least the view's nice." He pouts to himself once he's seated up once more, facing the window that overlooks the city. After just spending ten minutes flying over Seoul and exploring Chan's vast mansion, Jisung gets it a little now. Chan definitely didn't choose this realm over their home for no reason.

If I'm not in line to be king, Jisung thinks to himself, this life also seems nice.

Hovering his hands over the enchanted green pouch, its neatly packed contents of clothes and other personal belongings then emerge from its seemingly tiny space before levitating to their respective places. "Aish, that Y/N!" Jisung yells loudly on purpose, leaning on his side closer to the door to hear your reaction.

Across the hall, while you make a fuss out of unpacking and changing the appearance of some furniture, you yell back, "Shut up, Ji!"

Jisung has many reasons for disliking you at times but, if anything, he lives for your reactions when he purposely annoys you. Even when he knows you’re always a spell away from actually snapping at him, you never actually do and it never fails to amuse him. Scoffing, he lets it slide for now and quietly unpacks.

-

If attending social functions as a royal has taught you anything over the years, it's to avoid being within reach of Jisung at a party before, during, and after he makes a huge mess of things. You've had your own fair share of spilled drinks to your dress robes, purposely getting embarrassed in front of the elders and other important public officials, and even a huge fight over not wanting to be his dance partner to remind you of this at all times.

Of the places that you and Jisung have to be standing next to each other, it's the parties that you hate having to see him at the most because they bring you nothing but trouble. Chan's welcoming party for the two of you, with witches and wizards living in the human world as well as Chan's own human friends in attendance, is no exception.

"What do you think he's going to do this time?" Yeji snickers next to you on the makeshift dance floor of the house's backyard. Ever since her brother disappeared, she's been staying in the human world combing through every inch of Seoul and trying to retrace what is little known of the steps he took. Naturally, you've stuck to each other like glue since she arrived. "It's been two hours since this party started and all he's doing is—"

"Flirt with every human on the dance floor. I know, that's why I'm not looking over my shoulder. I think that's all he's planning to do in this party, given that we've started with the test." You frown, taking a sip of your beer as the song changes to a more lively one. "This guy's never taken any exam back in school seriously but now he suddenly wants to win this one exam. Weird, right?"

"Hm, maybe he really wants to win this exam and become high king. You can never really tell what goes on in that head of his." Yeji shrugs, blinking twice in quick succession to make her eyes turn red, an indication that she's scanning the venue for the humans' ecures. "Anyway, he's definitely working hard. I see a lot of orange hearts for him as much as there are for you."

Only then do you also turn your head around the place, your own eyes turning blue as you collect the orange hearts of infatuation and green hearts of friendship that people you've met tonight have for you with a non-verbal spell. As you catch these little crystal hearts into your locket, you briefly catch a glimpse of Jisung at one of the foldable tables chatting with three human girls. It somehow irritates you.

"He never lost that cringey fuckboy persona, huh?" Yeji points out once you're done with your collecting, shaking her now empty bottle and frowning once she realizes that it's already empty. "I guess I didn't miss out on much even after being away for a few weeks."

"You talk like you were gone for a year, not 3 weeks." You laugh. When she then asks you if you want to get new beer bottles, you follow her back to the coolers behind Chan's DJ set. "I hate how we'll be seeing more of those again when we start attending uni to collect more hearts."

"Oh, right! You're attending mine, right? You'll be with me, Seungmin, and Ryujin?" When you nod once more, she links her arms with yours and adds, “Gosh, I can just see it now, girls from the different departments flocking the two of you on the first day but especially Sung. A lot of girls I know from uni really dig that e-boy thing he has going on."

You pretend to gag, making her throw her head back in a cackle of laughs. "Humans and their weird tastes in men." You scrunch up your nose, the two of you briefly pausing to politely wave at Chan as you pass by his booth.

Your cousin doesn't hesitate to wave back at you both before going back to his spinning. You and Yeji then head to the back of his area where the coolers of different beverages have been placed.

"Oh shush, didn't you too also have a crush on him way back then?" Yeji teases the moment the two of you are alone again, opening the cooler with a simple flick of her hand. You follow along despite the glare you send her way, your empty beer bottles getting replaced by new ones. "Sometimes, Ryujin and I like to think that you still have a little bit of that."

"No way." You shake your head in denial, picking up a bottle opener from one of the closed coolers and using it over yours and Yeji's. "Middle school was a long time ago. Jisung just irritates the hell out of me now."

"Who irritates who now?" A voice behind you perks up almost immediately, causing you to jump and spill a little of your beer on the grass. When you glance over your shoulder, Jisung's white bucket hat comes into your vision, eventually uncovering his mischievous smile. "Ah, so clumsy. Look, you spilled a little beer on the grass.” 

Next to you, Yeji giggles behind her hand while greeting Jisung. You glare at her in response.

"You're annoying." You point out with a pout, thrusting the bottle opener to his chest before linking arms with Yeji. "We're going."

Jisung only shrugs with a smirk, waving goodbye to Yeji as the two of you pass by him to go back to the dance floor. "It makes you look, doesn't it?"

"Uh-huh, keep telling yourself that." You roll your eyes before disappearing back into the crowd with Yeji.

Once Jisung is out of earshot, Yeji then nudges your side with your linked arms. "I'm telling you, there's still a little something. Deep, deep down there." She teases in a singsong. “That’s probably why the banter just won’t die out.”

"Nope, definitely not." You shake your head. "Have you been watching too much of those human dramas while you’re here? It’s playing with your judgement."

-

It comes even as a surprise to Jisung himself that he hasn't caused a major mishap in this welcoming party so far. Since the majority of the guests started arriving two hours ago, he hasn't done anything troubling besides losing to Ryujin at beer pong and finishing a whole red cup of Chan's jungle juice concoction as punishment almost an hour ago.

It doesn't bother his "instincts for mischief" that much—his mentor's words not his. It means that he's more focused on collecting ecures at the moment with the amount of humans he's mingled with at this party, especially the girls who have taken it upon themselves to flirt with him.

What does bother him slightly, however, is the way you occasionally glance over to him knowingly from across the lawn, as if you're expecting him to do something. You always seem to do that after years of getting roped into his troubles, much like a lot of your childhood friends who'd frequently end up in similar predicaments. Somehow, however, it's always intimidating when it's you looking at him. He personally hates that, the look in your eyes when you're trying to catch him in his mischievous acts.

"Who are you and what have you done to my twin brother?" Felix has been teasing the entire night every time he encounters Jisung. When Jisung pouts this time, while the two share a drink on a couch that was brought out for this party, Felix laughs over his drink and adds, "Oh, so you're really focused on this test, huh? No trouble until this party's over?"

"Why do you guys think I'm not?" Jisung frowns, elbowing his brother by his side. "Geez, Lix, you're supposed to root for me here. If I win, you get to be king too."

In response, Felix waves his solo cup dismissively. "No, no, I think you're doing great! You've caught how much already? Twenty hearts in this party? That's a great start, bro." He comments with a proud smile. "It's just a little new, seeing you all so serious and focused. It's not because you're up against Y/N, right?"

"Ha? Nope, definitely not. It's barely a competition when I'm clearly winning." Jisung shakes his head a little too defensively as he sinks into the soft velvet couch. "I just think it's natural that another kingdom should get the high crown this time and since it's only me and Y/N competing, unless we also find Hyunjin while we're here I should work hard and make it happen."

Just then, Seungmin sits down on his other side with a cup of punch and a small paper plate of sweets from the chocolate fountain. "If Hyunjin was here, he would've whipped your asses in this party by getting all of the human guys and girls with one smile." He points out matter-of-factly. "Plus, if Lia accepted the candidacy, all three of you would've lost even before you left home."

"You never really rooted for me, huh, Minnie?" Jisung feigns sad eyes as he rests his head on Seungmin's shoulder. "And here I thought we're best friends."

"Oh no, I'm totally rooting for you now." Seungmin replies with a dry chuckle, passing his paper plate over to Felix when he holds his hands out in a motion asking for food. "But if the gang was complete, I would've changed to team Hyunjin."

Jisung scoffs at this, swiping a marshmallow covered in chocolate from Seungmin's plate. "Fine, I won’t hold it against you. I miss Hyunjin too."

"Yeji and Chae are doing everything they can to look for him. He'll turn up somewhere, he just has to. Until then, you should just focus more on your exam. Hyunnie would want that." Felix quips in before turning his attention over to you and Yeji at the nearby karaoke mini bar. "Look, that's what Y/N and Yeji are doing right now."

When Jisung looks through the crowd that has gathered around you, his eyes turning a deep green, he sees a lot of orange hearts gravitate over to you, mostly from the uni boys and girls that Yeji, Seungmin, and Ryujin have invited to this party.

"You guys are seeing it too, right?" Felix asks, his own eyes a matching shade of green when he tilts his head over to Seungmin and Jisung. "At least twenty new hearts in a span of 10 minutes, right after they just gave Y/N a bunch of green hearts."

Seungmin nods, his head movements making Jisung's head shake a little on his shoulder. "Yeah. Y/N's really working extra on this." He notes in complete awe. "The competition's really close, don't you think so Lix?"

"Definitely. What do you think, Ji?"

"Nope, definitely not." Jisung crosses his arms and shakes his head in disagreement. "It's impressive but not enough to catch up to me."

But the smallest hint of a frown gracing his features is enough to give his feelings away to his friends. Only now does it fully sink in that it’s definitely a tight competition between the two of you.

one out of six months

At one point, you understood why people would foolishly fall for Jisung. On a really good day, when he's not causing you or anyone too much trouble, you could see his playful side as charming, maybe even too cute for you to admit it out loud. A long time ago, back when you were still so naïve, you had a small playground crush on him too, after all; a crush that ended so badly you're convinced it's where your bickering naturally escalated.

But now, as your days in the human world turn into a month spent fulfilling your Crown Candidacy exam at university with your friends, you just wish that not a lot of humans are so insanely attracted to Jisung. It's nothing personal, of course, you're not jealous at all in that way. Whenever you sit in the library to study, attend classes from late in the morning to early afternoons, or even just sit in the quad with your shared friend group discussing updates on Yeji's search for Hyunjin, however, your competitor is just always being followed by flocks of smitten girls with their orange and pink ecures of crushes on their sleeves, ready to be collected by Jisung's emerald ring.

And you're not going to get started on the rainbow-colored hearts that send him little gifts and love letters at least once a week before classes, sometimes even directly to Chan's house where the third kitchen fridge is now filled with bakery goods stashed along with Chan's fan gifts. Not wanting to admit it to him or any of your friends, you're admittedly quite jealous because he attracts the ecures from the humans so easily while you have to work extra harder in socializing with your human peers to garner even just pink hearts. You hate having to work extra, extra harder just to be on par with him all the time, especially when he seems to be effortless in his ways.

"Before Lix went back to the magical realm, he relayed that Changbin from back home suggested that we start expanding our search for Hyunjin to—" For the sixth time since your group met up at the quad after classes this particular afternoon, another group of girls pass by and greet Jisung, interrupting Yeji in her explanations. Pouting slightly, she then turns to Jisung and pokes him with her pen, snapping the smirk off of his face. "Sung, focus."

Jisung nods quickly, waving Yeji's pen away from his side. "Yeah, let me just collect their hearts real quick."

You roll your eyes in response, nudging Yeji to resume her updates. "Just go on, Yeji." You encourage her, Seungmin and Ryujin nodding along in agreement. For emphasis, you make sure to tap Jisung's hand on the grass with your own pen harshly, making him wince dramatically in pain. "You're extending the search to Incheon, right?"

"Oh, uh yeah. Like I said, Lix said that Changbin suggested Incheon since Hyunjin briefly mentioned it in one of his letters. We'll start looking into it ourselves before this semester is over." Yeji continues on, ignoring the next group of passing girls that Jisung gets distracted over again this time around. "Chaeryoung is going there in the following months, though, to scout the places first. Then, we'll try and follow up with a search of our own. I'll have to ask Chan and the jury back at home if you and Jisung are allowed to go, though, since you're taking your exam."

"Among those places, Hyunjin often went to this stretch of the beach because he was investigating a monster from home who escaped here and took an artifact from our kingdom." Seungmin added, pointing to a location on Yeji's map sprawled over your laptops at the very center of your circle. "It was one of his last assignments here before he suddenly disappeared. We'll probably stay here the longest."

You try your best to listen, adding your own inputs to how your search operations would go while also noticing a couple of people who recognize you and wave your way, but Jisung somehow keeps grabbing your attention by the way he entertains his admirers who greet him shyly as they pass by you group. The playful smirks he sends their way, the polite waves, and the way his hand keeps twitching in between the two of you as he collects the ecures with his own spell keep eating away at your attention span, pressuring you that he's taking the lead in your race.

You also try discreetly collecting your own share of hearts under your breath whenever someone you know passes by but you eventually find it hard finding people while trying to listen to your friends. "Ji, focus." You mumble under your breath after a while, breaking his focus as he collects two more orange hearts.

"Y/N, keep up with me here." He smirks, just as the orange hearts disappear into his ring. "Why are you so distracted by me, anyway? Jealous?"

"I’m not jealous!” 

"Guys focus." Ryujin snaps at the two of you this time, chuckling in amusement when you and Jisung both glare at her. "Hey, easy on the stink eyes. I'm just telling you two to listen over here."

"Do as I do, Ryujin, and just tune them out." Seungmin jabs nonchalantly as he and Yeji take down notes of their discussion, not even once looking up at you nor Jisung. "It works out splendidly once you've mastered it."

"Hearing them bicker over random things before was one thing. Hearing them bicker over ecures now is a whole new playing field." Ryujin smirks, particularly to you. "Ah, you guys sound even more like a married couple now that you're competing. Tsk, tsk..."

"No, we're not!" You and Jisung answer in chorus, looking incredulously at each other after. "Ya!"

"Seungmin's right. Just tune them out, Ryujin." Yeji points out without missing a beat, a small smile taking out the initial annoyance from her face. "Anyway, what's important is we settle our plans first. Let the married couple race for the crown."

"Ya! Hwang Yeji!" You scold, flinging your notebook towards her which she dodges swiftly. "I'm listening, I swear."

Yeji gives you a look of mock disbelief in response before chuckling and going back to her work. "Whatever you say."

-

Jisung won’t admit it to any of you nor his friends’ faces but he may be just a little jealous that you’re catching onto him at a great speed and looking surprisingly nonchalant about it on the outside. You work extremely hard, that’s a given and Jisung respects that as much as the two of you annoy each other. But he doesn’t even have to sneak over to your room at night and check your locket for your ecure count; the boys and girls from uni, the market where Chan forces the two of you to run errands on weekends, and even at Ryujin’s favorite skate park who always take two glances your way wherever you go are enough giveaway to the amount you’re collecting everyday. And it’s a whole lot of hearts. He won’t even be surprised if you’ve managed to collect 300 hearts by now.

And he’s not even going to get started on how fast you manage to take ecures from the same people twice in less than a week, managing to charm same-age neighbors and classmates from good friends to secret admirers in a span of a few days and getting you at least twice the amount for your tally. You have enough hearts on your locket to keep up with Jisung’s count and use your magic leisurely at home. You definitely keep your competitor up on his toes all the time with how you’re giving your all in this competition and it’s gnawing at him to do even better. 

What annoys him on top of this, however, are certain kinds of people that look your way, or even Yeji’s and Ryujin’s for that matter. When the three of you aren’t looking and a bunch of passing jocks would eye you weirdly on the quad or at the library, especially since you’re new to the school, his natural instinct is to glare them down until they’re looking away. He sees their purple ecures from where he would sit across from you as you study, a sign of a lusting kind of feeling, and it does nothing but to tick him off into intimidating them until the color fades out. 

Seungmin thinks that, in a way, this is cheating and that you’d probably think the same way if you find out since purple ecures are ranked quite high in the tally, just above pink hearts (”Y/N’s gotten mad at you before for going too far or breaking the rules. You, of all people, should know not to get on their bad side.”). When Jisung writes to Felix back home after, however, his twin naturally defends him and says that he’s just looking out for you. 

“You guys don’t always see eye to eye, even now that you’re competing against each other,” Felix recorded over the enchanted mail that arrived after your meeting at the quad, Jisung and Seungmin separating from your group to do some more studying at the library. “but you’re just looking out for Y/N and protecting them from any weirdos, like for Ryujin and Yeji. Just tone it down a bit and let them handle it sometimes.” 

“See? Lix thinks I’m doing something right.” Jisung sticks his tongue out at Seungmin who simply shakes his head in stubborn disagreement before returning back to his class notes. “I’m telling you, I’m not sabotaging Y/N on purpose.” 

“Still, whether they want to collect those purple ecures or not is not your choice to make.” Seungmin points out. Though he agrees with Jisung’s intentions, as he’s been doing the same and looking out for you and your friends in his own ways as well, he also trusts that you can take care of yourself. “Just let them handle it next time, unless they actually do need your help.”

“But—“

“Consider the guys that passed by at the quad the last time you’ll mess with Y/N’s ecures.” “You saw that?!”

Still, it gnaws on Jisung’s conscience when he takes the train home with you later that day, when another purple heart springs up for you as he checks your surroundings and finds it to be from a stranger. What a creep, Jisung cringes internally with disgust before strategically blocking the man out from your sight and standing closer to you, Y/N’s competition but I’m a decent being! Be the bigger person or whatever bullshit.

“Ya, what are you doing?” You push him away with your index finger to his stomach, leaving a bigger gap between the two of you as you stand on the moving train. “Ji, personal space.” 

“We’re literally cramped in this train like canned sardines, Y/N. I’m just trying to make space for the people coming in.” Jisung fibs in retort, unknowingly timing his words perfectly with the train making a stop and justifying his next action of taking a step closer to you. This time, he makes sure that he’s towering over you and blocking the creep behind him completely by moving his hand over to the train handle right next to where your hand is. “Don’t make it weird!”

Your expression is surprisingly unwavering now, clearly unamused by his boyish quips. “You’re the one making it weird! You keep hovering over me.” 

“Sure, sure, whatever you say.” He rolls his eyes, instinctively steadying you with one hand when the abrupt movements of the train pushes you slightly forwards. “Oops, careful there.” 

When Jisung takes one last glance at the creep and finds him still looking over your general direction, the boy finally snaps and sends a little spell over the man’s way, one that makes him itch all over and ties his shoelaces together. This is the last time, Jisung swears to himself with a chuckle under his breath, oh what the hell? Punishing creeps is kinda funny.

two out of six months

The first time Han Jisung spots a red heart that he can collect, it’s 2 months into your candidacy exam and he makes the surprising decision to prolong collecting it by several days. It’s not that Soonyoung from your Math class is aware of this. As far as she knows, Jisung is simply stringing her along much like he does with every other girl he’s flirting with and she doesn’t seem to mind this fact. 

But you mind, you and your other friends do a lot. “It’s a powerful heart and costs 5000 points on the point system.” Seungmin even noted himself once on another day that Jisung left your class without Soonyoung’s crystal red heart. You mostly agree on this, coupled with the fact that you can’t steal the heart for yourself to gain more points in the race since it’s not for you. “Just take it, it’s not going to get any higher than that.”

No matter how much you or any of your friends nag, however, Jisung simply lets the days pass doing nothing much about it besides entertain Soonyoung whenever the girl approaches. As his sole competitor in your candidacy exam, you visibly feel the most frustrated out of everyone else by each passing day, especially at the thought that you yourself haven’t managed any red hearts yet. 

“It is weird, very not like him but also a bit like him if that makes sense?” Ryujin notes by the 10th day, after you recounted Math class to her as you take a short break together. Today, Jisung agreed to go to lunch with Soonyoung, only to tell you and Seungmin that even then he’s not going to take her heart today. “I mean knowing what happened between you two in middle sch—” 

You immediately shake your head before she could even finish her thought, “No, I don’t think that has anything to do with now. Definitely not.” 

“It’s not like that! I meant to say that this is even worse than when you had a crush on Jisung. The girl’s ecure is as red as red could go!” Ryujin exclaims, forcing you to cover her mouth with your hand just as Soonyoung and Jisung comically pass by your table at the kiosk to eat lunch together. Slowly prying your hands off once the pair in question are out of earshot, Ryujin then leans over the table and continues, “But even then, he’s not taking it to gain momentum in your exam. Aren’t you a little bit curious why?” 

You hesitantly shrug, “I mean, a little...but honestly I think he’s just being stupid. If I were him, I won’t string the girl along, not for this long anyway. It’s a waste of time and effort when he can just pick up the heart and reject her carefully.” 

“Then, maybe he has his reasons. If you know about it, you might get an advantage!” Yeji speaks up this time, joining your table late with a huge pile of library books on top of her laptop bag in her hands. As much as this girl has been busy looking for her brother, she also keeps up with her human world cover surprisingly well even when she doesn’t have to with all the studying that she does on the side. “One way to find out, right? I heard Felix’s not that busy these days back home.”

You feign a frown at the two girls agreeing in unison, especially at Yeji as she takes out her phone from the magical realm. “You know, you’re really good at sticking your head into a lot of things even when you’re busy looking for your brother.” You note dryly, making Yeji laugh while dialling Felix’s phone on the other side. “That was sarcastic, Yeji.” 

“I’m a great multitasker.” She winks before placing her phone at the center of your table then scooting her chair closer to you and Ryujin, effectively hiding the odd-looking device that projects Felix’s face almost immediately. “Hey Lix!”

“Hi Lix!” You politely greet along with Ryujin anyway, waving to the small projection of the prince on Yeji’s phone. By the faint greenery that surrounds him, you immediately assume that he’s back at home and tending to his personal garden. 

“I’m not in trouble, am I?” The younger Eastern prince jokes, greeting the three of you individually after. “What’s up? Seungmo and Sungie not with you three today?” 

“Seungmin got held back in class today for a TA offering and your brother’s on a date! Can you believe it? A lunch date with a human girl!” Yeji explains a little too excitedly, you and Ryujin immediately shushing her up. Giggling, the princess continues anyway, “Which is why we called! We just thought it’s a little weird that Jisung’s not trying to catch this red heart when it’s a clear advantage to his tally and maybe you’d know why.” 

All the while Yeji explains your purpose for calling, you slowly observe how Felix’s own expression morphs into that of genuine surprise. “What? He hasn’t taken it?!” He exclaims in response after Yeji finishes speaking. “Are you sure? That’s not very like him.” 

“Well, why do you think he hasn’t taken it, then?” You suddenly find yourself asking this time, earning you incredulous looks from your peers. Brushing them off, you simply glance over at Felix as he tries thinking of a reason himself. 

“Maybe he still can’t reject admirers for shit.” Ryujin snickers under her breath, making you elbow the girl harshly on her side. 

But surprisingly, Felix nods absentmindedly to this. “Maybe…”

“Are you seriously agreeing with that, Lix?” You frown. “I think he’s just up to no good.” 

“Hey, Ji can act weird and not be up to trouble too, you know.” Felix pouts back. “But honestly, I don’t know why he’s not thinking of taking it either, especially knowing how he’s so proud of getting to receive it alone. Maybe he likes this person, who knows?” 

The thought feels so foreign to you, Jisung genuinely liking someone, especially knowing what he did when you were much younger. But when you glance over to your friends, you also notice the same confused looks on their faces. 

“Han Jisung...liking someone? Enough to respect their feelings?” Ryujin muses out loud before eventually shaking her head. “Nope, sounds weird. Dangerous! Alien! Y/N, have you been noticing any other weird things from your housemate lately? Maybe he’s been secretly abducted by aliens!” 

“Oh stop it, Ryujin! Whatever it is my brother’s planning, I trust that he at least has an idea what he’s doing.” Felix sighs, running a hand through his blonde locks. In the background of his end, the faint voice of Changbin beckoning him over momentarily catches his attention. “If he’s being stupid again, then just let him be. If he does like this person, though, I just hope that he treads carefully while he’s at it. You know how precious witch ecures are.” 

“Oh, I know…” You murmur under your breath as you scrunch up your nose, unconsciously glancing over to Jisung and Soonyoung’s table where the two are laughing over something you can’t hear from across the room. When Changbin’s voice grows louder on Felix’s end, you then smoothly steer the topic to a close, “Anyway, sorry for bothering you at this time. Bin’s calling for you.” 

Next to you, Ryujin and Yeji agree with nods and smiles as Felix waves his free hand dismissively at this. “No, it’s okay! Just look out for my brother, yeah? I gotta go, Queen Lia just arrived for tea with me and my mom!” 

“Oh, then we’ll see you!” “Have fun at tea!” “Say hi to Lia for us!” 

Felix waves one last goodbye before ending the call. As his image disappears from Yeji’s phone, the princess is quick to pocket her phone back and turn to you with a raised brow, “So, what do you think? Even Lix finds it weird.” 

Personally, you think it’s odd. The thought that Jisung could easily be developing feelings for someone while taking your exam, to someone human no less.  You’ll probably never admit it to him but he’s been working hard in collecting hearts up to this point and you know him enough to know that he won’t let himself get distracted with something like this. “What is he planning exactly?” 

-

You’re giving Jisung that look again, through the boy’s reflection on the bus mirror no less as the two of you head to Chan’s studio where he has promised the two of you dinner. The same look you kept giving him during your welcome party just last month, probably without you knowing, rests on your tired features as you listen to music on your phone and rest your cheek against your propped up hand on the window seat you almost threw him out of the bus for. What did I do now? The boy can’t help but whine pitifully to himself as he steals another glance at your direction while scrolling through his phone. 

Jisung helplessly rakes his brain for anything that he’s done today that could’ve possibly pissed you off while pretending to look down on his phone, missing the way you shift uncomfortably in your seat as if you were going to ask a question. 

“So—” “I meant to ask—”

Jisung’s immediately closes his mouth shut when the two of you speak at the same time, eyes widening when he looks up and sees you already looking over at him directly. Simultaneously, you’re quick to look away from him and cough awkwardly, quietly mumbling out that Jisung speaks first. “Go ahead.” 

“What did I do this time?” Jisung immediately goes for it, pouting and sinking into his seat for extra emphasis. This visibly surprises you by the way your eyes widen slightly and you visibly freeze in front of him. “You’ve been glaring at me from the window since it started getting dark outside and it’s starting to get annoying but I’m too tired from today to think of everything that I did today to pinpoint where I ticked you off again.” 

Your lips curl down to a frown and you bring your propped up arm back to your side, sinking down your own seat to his level. “I wasn’t glaring at you!” 

“Yes you were—” “—No, I wasn’t!” “Yes you—”

“Okay, then, if I was glaring at you like you said, it’s because I meant to ask you something.” You huff before shyly looking away, gazing out of the window again. “W-Why haven’t you...whyhaventyoutakenthatgirlsheart?”

Now, Jisung is even more confused than ever from not understanding a word you just said. Raising a curious brow, the prince nudges you by your shoulder with his own until you look back at him again, uttering a slow, “What?!” 

You inhale slowly, as if holding your embarrassment in, before repeating, “Why haven’t you taken Soonyoung’s heart?” 

“I—really? That’s what you wanted to ask?” That’s it? So I didn’t do shit? Whew...

You nod, crossing your arms and looking away. “Well, don’t act so smug now! I’m just curious, it’s powerful and worth a lot of points, after all.”

Caught off-guard, it takes Jisung a worryingly long time to answer your question. He looks down on his phone first, with his emerald ring right next to it, before glancing over to the distant LED screen at the very front of the bus, announcing the next stop. “Just because…” He trails off with a reluctant shrug, avoiding the feeling of your curious gaze. If it were any other situation, maybe involving a lower-ranking heart like a yellow, green, or even an orange one, he would be laughing at you and teasing that you’re obsessed with his count or trying to compare it with your own. “You, of all people should know…” 

But it’s a red heart, one that’s made him a bit too flustered for him to admit to anyone, even to his own brother. “I don’t know what I’ll do with it.” He answers vaguely because of this, hearing a little ‘oh’ from your side. “I already told Soonyoung over lunch that I don’t see her like that but it’s still red. Her feelings are too sincere for me and I feel like I can’t take advantage of that, not for a competition.” 

Jisung doesn’t hear any verbal response from your side after this, not even when the LED screen ahead announces that you’re nearing your stop. When he glances over to you through the window, however, he catches a glimpse of the smallest hint of a content smile on your features. 

Only when the two of you arrive at your stop, while you’re following him down the stairs down from the bus, do you nudge him on his side once more and say, “I guess that’s sweet of you. Plus, you’re actually using your head for once.” 

Your soft smile momentarily catches him off-guard, freezing him on the sidewalk, until a passerby brushes him by his shoulder and snaps him back to reality. “Y-Ya! What’s that supposed to mean?!” 

You wave your hand dismissively at him with a laugh, running off ahead to Chan’s studio. “Last one to the studio is a lousy runner and won’t get dessert!” 

“Hey! Y/N! What’s that supposed to mean? Did you just call me stupid?!” 

-

The next day, a ‘secret admirer’ leaves a red apple, a milk box, and an unsigned heart-shaped note on your usual table as you enter Math class. Though the note has your name and its message typed and printed, a simple nonverbal spell that you cast over the gifts reveal a familiar fingerprint. 

“So, who’s it from?” Jisung asks, swiftly swiping the apple from your table and taking a huge bite. “How many points are we looking at here?” 

You scoff at his action, taking the apple for yourself and biting on the opposite side. “It’s from Soonyoung.” You answer with a mischievous smile, causing your competitor to choke. When you glance over at the girl’s table, your eyes briefly turn blue to see a pinkish heart for you. “I guess you don’t want her red heart, huh? Mind if I make a pink one from her into a red for me?” 

Jisung coughs violently, thumping his fist against his chest as he recovers. “Y-Ya! Don’t you dare!” 

three out of six months 

One thing you’ve been most looking forward to in this Crown Candidacy exam, besides seeing your cousin and friends currently staying in the human world and helping with Hyunjin’s search, is getting to see your cousin’s boyfriend again. Though the rest of your family doesn’t really approve of Minho, mostly since he’s the reason why Chan renounced his duke title in the first place and why your cousin might be permanently tied to the human world in the future, you’ve taken a liking to the guy since you first met him on a short visit 2 years ago and have been looking forward to hanging out in person once more after a long while. 

Minho makes Chan the happiest you’ve ever seen him since you were kids, cooks really well, travels the world as a performing artist, and is totally cool with the idea that his boyfriend is a wizard from another realm. Plus, he catches onto magical items really quick, having adapted quickly to using your realm’s inter-world mailing system hence how you’ve been keeping in touch up until this point. You honestly don’t see any reason to hate him, even before meeting him in person. If anything, knowing that it’s Minho that’s keeping Chan from fulfilling his royal duties makes you support your cousin’s decision even more than before. 

However, you’re already halfway done with your exam and Minho is still nowhere to be seen. He initially promised you that he’ll cook you and Jisung a meal as soon as you arrived but last-minute plans in his touring schedule with a ballet company held him back abroad, postponing this plan indefinitely and making you focus more on school and helping look for Hyunjin. 

That is until you and Jisung came home from your usual Saturday grocery errands to inhale the smell of meat and mushroom soup coming from the kitchen. 

“Is Chan cooking?” Jisung raised a brow at this, closing the door behind you and walking further inside the house. “It smells nice, though. So it’s not him?” 

You roll your eyes, biting down a laugh at this surprisingly funny quip. “That’s definitely not Chan.” You affirm anyways, excitedly walking past him to the kitchen where you find the familiar back of a person stirring a big pot of soup next to Chan who’s chopping up side dishes. “Minho!” 

Jisung follows you to the kitchen and watches from the doorframe as this said Minho turns around, opening his arms out to hug you as you quickly drop your groceries on the dining table and run towards him. Next to you two, Chan stops his own work and laughs at the sight, prying you away after a moment and reminding you, “Hey, hey, Minho’s tired from his flight!”

“Tired? Then you make him cook dinner? I don’t think so!” You giggle, clutching onto Minho like a koala while the said boy pretends to shrug you off. “I was wondering when you’re coming home! You haven’t even written since I came here, you jerk!” 

“My schedule was jam-packed until the other day but I promised some magic freaks that I’ll cook them dinner so I came home as soon as I can.” Minho laughs, hugging you back and only then catching sight of a confused Jisung. “Oh, hi there! You must be Han Jisung?” 

“Y-Yeah?” Jisung nods slowly in confusion, raising one hand holding multiple eco-bags up in a wave. He hates it when he’s not in the loop of things but more importantly, he hates it when it’s you keeping him out of the loop in particular. Who’s this guy?! “Sorry, and you are?” 

“Lee Minho! I’m keeping Chan hostage here on Earth.” Minho formally introduces himself, earning him a nudge from both you and Chan. “What? Should I curtsy? I know your family and Hyunjin’s doesn’t really require it but I don’t know about the others so—” 

Oh. At this, Jisung visibly relaxes with a chuckle and finally approaches your little group, settling his own share of the groceries down on the dining table before sitting down himself. Chan then takes this as his cue to reluctantly drag you over next to Jisung while he and Minho finish cooking. “No, no, it’s cool! We’re not at home, anyway.” 

“Okay, then, cool. You guys are okay with waiting for a little bit, right? The lamb’s not fully cooked yet.” Minho explains. “I was going to make you two a meal when your exam started but I got caught up in work so—”

“Yeah it’s fine!” You agree eagerly, taking out your groceries and organizing them on the table. “We’ll just fix up the groceries.” 

Jisung side-eyes you with an incredulous look in his eyes, something Chan definitely notices as his lips quirk up into a knowing grin before whispering something to Minho. “Why are you so chirpy all of a sudden?” He asks you, helping you take out the groceries and arrange them into their respective shelves. 

“What do you mean? I’ve been chirpy since this morning.” You scoff. “Why do you even keep track? I told you not to stare at me, weirdo.”

“Um no, you weren’t. You were complaining about me breathing next to you on the bus a while ago. ‘You’re not helping me get any hearts’ or whatever it was you were rambling about a while back.” Jisung points out with a huff. “And I don’t stare, that’s you! If anything, you’re the weirdo, always up my business!”

“Well, why wouldn’t I complain? I was at the market with you all day! You don’t know how to pick good vegetables and you kept flirting with the store clerks to try and up their orange hearts to pink ones! Then, you wore that stupid perfume again when I told you already that it smells bad! Now we’re at home and you can stay the fuck away from me.” 

“Ya, you little sh—” 

Across the kitchen, Minho giggles in amusement at hearing you and Jisung bicker live for the first time. You’ve always complained about this Jisung fellow in your correspondence and he’s never had a clear grasp as to why you’re always at this boy’s neck but now that he’s meet Jisung in the flesh and is starting to hear what you two are exactly fighting about, Minho can’t help but laugh into the mushroom soup. “So this is the troublemaker who’s been bugging our Y/N.” He ends up musing out loud. “I see why you need me home now.”

“Believe me, you should’ve seen them grow up together with the other kids. Always fighting over the smallest of things, competing on who’s better, and all that.” Chan rolls his eyes in disinterest, glancing over to you and Jisung as the latter starts chasing you around the dining area with a bundle of scallions. “What you’re seeing right now is barely the tip of the iceberg, Min.”

“Reminds you a little bit of us back then, don’t you think?” 

“Ya, and which one am I supposed to be?” 

The couple glances over their shoulders to see that you’ve now successfully snatched the scallions from Jisung with your magic and have started to hit him over the head with it. This then makes Chan squint his eyes suspiciously at Minho who only chuckles. “Babe, you and Y/N are definitely related, don’t you think?” 

“Do you also want to get hit with scallions?” 

-

Though Jisung was initially wary of Minho at the start of the evening, having only heard of him vaguely from gossip among the other royal kids prior, your cousin’s boyfriend slowly and naturally transitioned over the prince’s good graces as soon as the lamb chops and mushroom soup were served along with stories of Minho’s own adventures and questions about the magical realm. Now that he’s put a name and a face to the person that people back home simply referred to as the reason why Chan left (and who he’s admittedly been blaming as well for the sudden shift in your attitude at the royal courts), Jisung now genuinely believes that the people back at home jumped to their conclusions quickly about Minho. 

Minho’s really nice, Chan is really fond of him and you clearly support the two. In return, Minho looks out for you and Chan, you in particular as the older guy proceeds to drill Jisung shamelessly with questions on whatever it is that you’ve mentioned about him in your letters. 

Jisung didn’t even know a lot of the things Minho kept rambling on about while you tried so hard to keep his mouth shut next to him by helplessly trying to cover his mouth.

“Y/N talks about you a whoooooooole lot. Like, a minor inconvenience during their royal duties then they’re quick to talk to me about it.” Minho grins playfully, dodging your attempts at shutting him up while he eats his share of the pastry dessert. “When we first met and this candidate exam thing was first brought up, they talked about the other royals briefly but they talked about you in super great detail! Oh, and Y/N was rambling a lot about how you reacted to when they confessed to you in middle school and everything, it was so funn—” 

“Minho shut up!” 

“It was really funny!” Minho pins your wrists to the table after a while, gesturing towards Chan, sitting next to Jisung across the table, who then uses his magic to switch your places. This then effectively shuts you up as your flustered expression overcomes your face upon accidentally locking eyes with Jisung right after. “But I want to know what actually happened when you rejected Y/N at your magic school? I want the full scope of what happened just so I get both sides!”

“Y-Ya!” You protest, only to be silenced by Jisung this time who laughs as he swallows a mouthful of food. “Ugh, you’re enjoying this aren’t you?”

“Why do you still talk about that, anyway? It was a long time ago.” Jisung chuckles, propping an elbow up on the table and resting his cheek on his palm as he glances over to you with a smirk. “God, you’re in love with me, aren’t you?” 

“No, I’m no—” “So, Minho hyung, what did Y/N tell you about that?” 

-

It was in the 7th grade, on Valentine’s Day of all days even, when you confessed your crush to Han Jisung. You actually didn’t plan any of it to happen because you just thought of it as stupid, especially at the thought that almost everything Jisung used to do back then annoyed you and made you think of him as childish. 

But Hyunjin somehow slipped you an enchanted cookie on that day as a prank after you confessed at Ryujin’s party the previous weekend that you thought that Jisung was cute sometimes (”I specifically said sometimes and it was one time. Clearly, it wasn’t me who had a problem, right?” “That still doesn’t change the fact that 12-year-old you had a crush on me, Y/N.”). He told you that it was from a batch Felix made for their baking class, bluffing about its distinct strong vanilla scent as a mistake on the younger Eastern prince’s end. 

As it then turned out, however, the cookie was laced with a potion that forcefully exposed the true color that your heart reflected towards Jisung in front of the entire cafeteria while the two of you bickered over some mishap that happened in one of your shared potion classes. Being young as he was as well and feeling embarrassed of all the passersby that looked at you both, Jisung’s fight or flight response made him visibly cringe at seeing the surprisingly pink, bordering red, heart and childishly berated you for it until the potion wore off and your ecure disappeared back into the sleeves of your robes. You ran away crying while Jisung didn’t go to school for the few days that followed in embarrassment.

“You were like 12 back then, it happens.” Minho shrugs after yours and Jisung’s messy storytelling. “And for the record, Y/N, if Chan did that to me as Jisung, I would’ve been annoyed at him too. Your rants are totally valid.” 

“I’m eating my croissants in peace.” Chan complains, slapping the younger man’s arm. “Don’t drag me into this.” 

Simultaneously, Jisung glances over to you and sees a small pout rest on your features. “Well, I don’t know, it’s not really an ‘it happens’ kind of situation if you come from our world.” You point out, glaring at Jisung when you feel him staring at you. “Especially back then. My heart was looking pink and a little reddish for Jisung at the time—ew—which gave him the power to take it if he wanted to.”

Now, this is apparently new information to Minho as he then asks, “You can do that? I thought witches only have one heart so it can’t be taken away?”

“Yeah, exactly.” You nod. “Since we don’t produce the crystal hearts as infinitely as you humans do, it could only be taken if it’s pink or a higher color. It’s the natural law in our world.”

“And if that happens, the witch could become weak, controlled by the other witch who takes their heart, or killed.” Chan quips in this time. “That’s why marriage is sort of a permanent commitment back at home and witches are more encouraged to use human ecure when performing higher-level magic.” 

“That’s a bit of a stretch in our case, though! It’s not like 12-year-old me would think of killing Y/N back then.” Jisung purses his lips into a thin line at you, unamused. “You really are a bit dramatic sometimes, you know? What would I even do with your heart?”

“You were 12, Jisung. Who knows what you were thinking back then...if you were thinking at all.” You retort immediately, turning to Minho again after. “That’s why my family’s a bit wary about you, Min, no offense. With you and Chan in a relationship, he can give up his heart to you but if you don’t reciprocate it by exchanging with one of your own, he might get weak or die.” 

This then makes Jisung turn to Minho as well, curious as to what his response would be. 

Unfazed, Minho smiles and turns lovingly to his boyfriend. “Then, aren’t you lucky I’m obsessed with you, huh?” 

“Really now?” Chan chuckles, slinging his arm over Minho’s shoulder and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Then I guess I can stay here permanently, right?” 

You pretend to gag as you sip on your water, reminding the older guys that there are “children” in front of them. Jisung rolls his eyes and leans back in his chair at this scene, looking away at the tender display of affection across the table. The two of you don’t even have to check how the pair’s ecures reflect towards each other with your magic to know that they’re a matching bright red. 

When he looks over to you, he catches the briefest and fondest smile gracing your expression as you mumble about how “stupidly cute” Chan and Minho are being. Jisung knows he shouldn’t look, not in this moment when he sees you at a vulnerable state and you would slap him over the head if he teases you about it, but his eyes unconsciously turn green and peeks over at your ecure as it watches over your favourite cousin and his boyfriend. 

It’s a bright blue, a sign of deep respect and familial love for Chan and Minho. Jisung looks away immediately when you glance up at him curiously, forcing his eyes back to their natural color before he could accidentally see how your heart reflects to him. “What?” 

He gets it now. Why you’ve been so uptight in fulfilling your royal duties, snapping just a little more easily these days whenever he annoys you, and acting like a pushover to the elders who keep ordering you around back at home. You’ve been shouldering a lot of the responsibilities back home, both yours and the ones that Chan has left behind, all because you want your cousin to be happy in this world without worries. 

“Why were you looking at me?” You pout. “You didn’t check my—ya, Han Jisung!”

“I wasn’t looking at you like that! I was gonna ask you to pass me the cream puffs!”

You begrudgingly pass him the bowl of cream puffs, rolling your eyes before smiling at Minho and Chan again and changing the conversation to something else. “Anyway, Minho, you’re staying longer now, right?”  

- 

“I saw what you did at dinner, by the way. Y/N would beat you to a pulp if they knew you were looking into their heart, especially since we were just talking about it.” Chan speaks up after a moment of walking around Jisung’s room, tidying up the fallen music sheets on the ground and closing the curtains for the night. You’ve long stolen Minho from your cousin right after dinner hours ago to binge his tour videos and so he’s resorted to hanging out with Jisung, playing video games until the clock struck midnight.  

Jisung pouts as he tucks himself away in bed, turning to his side to face Chan as the older boy continues arranging his ��messy” work table. “I looked at how it reflects for you and Minho, not at how it looks at me. Just that, swear.” He clarifies in between protesting over Chan’s actions (“It’s an organized mess!” “It’s a mess, Jisung.”) “It’s almost like your family’s sapphire when it looks at the two of you, bluer than how it looks when Y/N’s with the King and the High Queen. You’re more family to them than their own parents.”

This effectively freezes Chan in place for a moment, a small smile gracing the former duke’s features. “Of course I know that.” He replies, almost as an inaudible mumble from across the room. “That’s why it was so hard to leave at first.”

“Then why did you—?” 

“Because Y/N told me to.” Moving to the door and preparing to leave, Chan sees Jisung’s face and continues, “Believe me, I was even more conflicted than you’re being right now back then. We both know that my own siblings are too young to shoulder the job I’ll leave behind but Y/N told me that they’ll gladly handle it if it meant that I can be happy here. We argued about it a lot, I kept telling them that I can just juggle moving between the two realms, but you know how persuasive and stubborn Y/N can be.” 

The last comment makes Jisung chuckle. Of all people, he should know of it the best. “It’s just hard to argue with them.” He nods in agreement. “I heard they’re the one who got you this house and everything.” 

Chan nods, slowly putting one foot out of the door. “Y/N cares a lot, sometimes a little too much, that they end up sacrificing a lot and putting their own feelings last because of it. Since I went away, I’ve only ever been worried that they’ll just explode one day, actually, but I know you and the other kids keep them in check.” 

“I’d hardly call Y/N relaxed with me.” Jisung pouts, fiddling with his fingers nervously as he confesses this shyly. “I think they just find me annoying…” 

“Oh you definitely annoy each other but that’s just how you two are together. It’s all in good fun and that’s good, especially now that you’re going to take much more responsibilities once you go back home.” Chan notes with a shrug, briefly glancing over his shoulder as you and Minho arrive on the second floor. “Just be a little gentler with them. Night, Sung.” 

four out of six months

You know better than to expect nothing less from Lee Chaeryoung, one of the best investigators from your realm, as she helped Yeji lead Hyunjin’s search party. When you initially expected that she would finish scouting Incheon before the end of the semester, she came back with the most solid lead that anyone’s picked up since the start of the search party around Seoul with 2 months left on your time in the human world. 

Apparently, from the scouring she’s done beyond the initial parameters of the search, a few magic and non-magic folk living around the beach area have seen the Southern kingdom’s prince at a party on the night he disappeared, interacting with a strange group of people they only described by their unusually white hairs, matching snake tattoos, and icy blue eyes. What was even more interesting is that these people were still around the area when Chaeryoung visited but without any sign of Hyunjin. With this, she could only confirm that they’re also from the magical realm.

“They could only be Northwestern ogre witches, I’m sure of it.” Chan commented after hearing Chaeryoung’s report over dinner with everyone present. When Minho then asked about it, your cousin didn’t hesitate to explain, “A group of witches back home who were initially banished to the wastelands because they practiced darker arts and only collected black ecures. Lately, a lot of them have been turning up here and doing gods-know-what.” 

“But if they only want the artifact that Hyunjin recovered, why would they still keep him?” You ask, crossing your arms over the dining table as Chaeryoung showed you photos of the location she ascouted on her phone. “Hyunjin’s high-profile too, yes, but unless they want him to collect colored ecures for them, there’s no other reason to keep him captive when there are other magic folk there. Why him?” 

“Unless they have something bigger up their sleeves.” Seungmin notes with a frown, closing Chaeryoung’s phone as he grows more and more upset from across the table. When you and Jisung glance over to him curiously, he then meets your eyes and adds, “Maybe we shouldn’t let you two go with us on this.” 

“What?! Why?” Jisung is the first to instinctively speak up against this, sitting up taller in his seat. You echo the same question, albeit a little quieter when you see Chan nodding worriedly on your side. 

“I have a feeling that they might be after the two of you too from this.” Seungmin explains once Jisung calmed down a bit from his sudden outburst. “Like Y/N said, keeping Hyunjin to collect colored ecures against his will doesn’t seem like a good enough reason, at least not this long.”

“It’s timed perfectly, too, that they caught Hyunjin right before the candidacy exam.” Yeji quips in, belatedly nodding in agreement to Seungmin’s suggestion. “They might be luring you two specifically by using my brother.” 

“But that’s just a hunch for now! We don’t know th—” 

Chan’s entire disposition in a flash, slamming his hand down on the table a little too loudly and effectively shutting everyone up around the table including Minho. “That’s exactly why we can’t risk it.” He counters firmly and you know, just by the tone of your cousin’s voice, that he already has the final word. “Remember, you and Y/N are here first and foremost because you’re taking your exam. Keeping you on wraps with this search is formalities, at most. Anyway, there’s enough of us here who can look for Hyunjin. You two just stay put until we can sort this out and ensure that this problem stops interfering with the exam any further.”

When you peek over to your right to glance at Jisung’s reaction two seats away, you see him glancing back at you from the corner of his eyes before sighing in defeat. “And if they want our group separated?” 

“The house’s enchanted with protective spells. Minho and Ryujin will also stay and watch over you two while we extract Hyunjin over the weekend.” Chan notes, continuing before Jisung could complain further. “That’s final, Ji. We’ll take over from here.” 

“Don’t fret too much, Sung.” Seungmin adds comfortingly. “Anyway, if we find Hyunjin, we’ll all stay here for a few days before going back home.” 

In response, you hear Jisung slam his back on his seat hard before huffing childishly, glancing over to you as he opens his mouth. Knowing that he’ll throw a fit, you immediately shake your head, forbidding him from doing so. “Fine...” He murmurs under his breath with a sigh, knowing better than to start an argument with one of his best friends at this time. “Just—just bring Hyunjin back quickly.” 

Somehow, even when you understand where Chan’s coming from, you also feel somewhat bad for Jisung. You want to see Hyunjin too but your circumstances aren’t exactly favourable to let you be of much help. 

- 

As much as Jisung used to hate how Chan coddled you, he hates it even more now that the same behavior is directed towards him, especially in situations like this when he wants to actively help in Hyunjin’s search. The circumstances couldn’t have been more unfavorable to him now: the group finding a lead but at a time when he’s participating in an exam that has him more at risk of being targeted by creatures from the magical realm that have strayed to this world. 

On top of this, he hates how he can clearly see that you want to see Hyunjin just as much as he and everyone else does but you’re quicker to comply the moment Chan, and eventually even Yeji, put the two of you on house arrest for the weekend while the rest of the group goes to Incheon. It frustrates him to no end that you keep quietly complying to everyone else when you clearly want to do something else. And, as a result, you end up channeling your energy aggressively elsewhere much like today as you spend most of your Sunday cleaning and redecorating around the expansive house with Minho. 

“Can’t you two like, tone it down a bit?” Jisung complains for the third time this afternoon as he plays with the music software on Chan’s laptop, lifting his feet off of the coffee table in the living room when Minho passes by with a vacuum before pushing a levitating plant that hovers too close for comfort to his face. Somewhere, Ryujin has retreated outside to the garden in order to tend to more plants. “The house’s going to get thrashed after a while anyway.” 

“And why can’t you help clean?” You ask back in retort, fluffing up the pillows next to him as you occasionally glance over your shoulder to make sure that the levitating objects around the room aren’t falling over. “If you’re just going to complain while we’re cleaning here, you can just go up to your room since we’re done upstairs, anyway.” 

Jisung pouts, crawling over to the other side of the sofa anyway when you gesture for him to move. “The sunlight’s better here at this time.” He points to the glass windows. “Just finish up quickly already.” 

“If you want to get some sun, you can help Ryujin outside.” You poke back, moving over to the sofa across the coffee table. As you move, the hovering plant pots slowly move to where you want to relocate them to, one moving next to the sofa almost hitting Jisung in the face once more with its leaves. “Make yourself useful, Jisung.” 

The witch in question scoffs, closing Chan’s laptop and finally planting his feet back on the floor to a stand. Jisung also hates that tone you use when you order him around because it always makes him do whatever you ask without fail. “Fine, I’m going outside.” He grumbles, trudging to the direction of the back door leading outside and making sure to close the door with a loud thud. 

Out in the gardens, Ryujin is busy reviving dried up leaves and flowers while a few watering cans go around to water the trees and bushes. Upon seeing Jisung walking down the mini stairs with a pout and furrowed brows, the younger witch can’t help but laugh, “Y/N banished you outside?” 

“I’m supposed to help you but you don’t even look like you need help at all.” The prince continues to grumble, setting himself down on a foldable chair and crossing his bare arms over his chest. “If I do help, I might actually kill the plants. You already know how I’m terrible I am at healing magic.” 

Ryujin acknowledges with a hum, turning her attention back to Chan’s mini garden of camellias. “Just sunbathe, look around or whatever, I can handle this.” She assures with a smile. “I won’t tell Y/N too, don’t worry.” 

“I think I’ll take you up on that looking around thing later.” Jisung sighs, sinking into his seat and closing his eyes. “I’ll nap for now.” 

- 

“He just does whatever you say, huh?” Minho points out to you as soon as you finish cleaning the living room, tiredly taking up the empty space next to you on the couch with two pillows hugged close to his chest. When you open your mouth to protest, “I know I said it’s amusing when you two bicker over stupid things but it’s actually really nice and quiet when you two reach compromise like this. So peaceful.” 

“He just knows when to not mess with me. Don’t exaggerate it.” You scoff at this, pushing Minho away from you as you lift your legs up to the coffee table. “He knows that I feel the need to be busy when I’m on edge like this but he was in the way. The least he could do is either be useful around the house too or just stay out of my sight for a while.” 

“Don’t be too worried, I’m sure they’re all being careful and getting to Hyunjin soon.” Minho assures you with a small smile, waving his human world phone in front of you as it displays a flurry of messages from Chan. “If it makes you feel better, your cousin’s been asking me about you and Jisung as much as he’s been updating me of what’s happening.”

You frown at this, making Minho chuckle. “He’s been talking to you but not to me? I’m his cousin!” 

“He knows you’re redecorating his house in 50 different styles while you wait for him so he just asks about you through me. Don’t get it twisted, Y/N.” The older boy continues laughing, carefully shoving a pillow away from his face when you levitate it closer to him. “Anyway, they said that they’ve confirmed that the ogres are still staying at the beach resort so they’re planning to get to them tonight and confirm if they really took Hyunjin.”

Your expression visibly shifts more positively, eyes widening and mouth hanging agape. “Really?” 

“If things go smoothly, everyone, including Hyunjin, would be home really soon. Until then, Chan has asked me to make sure that you and Jisung don’t kill each other or go outside without permission.” 

You shove Minho once more at the last statement, mustering up a laugh this time. “Hey, we’re not that childish.” You point out with a pout before another thought crosses your mind. “Oh, right, I can tell Jisung, right? I mean, it’s just an update anyway.” 

“Yeah, go ahead.” Minho nods, poking you on your side to get you to stand up. “It’s also getting dark out, call Ryujin in too so we can reheat some leftovers for dinner.” 

You scoff at the thought of leftovers for dinner, standing up anyway and heading outside where the sun has indeed set on the horizon. As you walk down the steps leading down to the backyard, you easily spot Ryujin by the back gate as she flirts with one of your neighbors who holds an orange heart up her sleeve but it takes you a moment to see Jisung fast asleep under one of the outdoor umbrellas. 

“Ryujin!” You call for your friend, biting down your lip when the girl she’s been flirting with awkwardly looks away and your friend in question consequently glares at you for interrupting her. “Where’s Jisung?” 

“There.” Ryujin quickly points towards the outdoor umbrellas on the far corner of the backyard before turning her gaze back on your neighbor whose heart immediately turns a shy pink at this. 

You roll your eyes at this with a chuckle before heading over to Jisung, finding him snoring lightly and snuggling into a pillow despite the cold evening breeze. He doesn’t budge an inch when you call his name or poke his side, stirring only when you slap his cheek gently awake by instinctively swatting your hand away and mumbling a string of curses for you to go away. “What?!” 

“It’s starting to get cold out here. Come on, we’re eating dinner in a while.” You respond, taking the pillow from him and grabbing him by the arm to help him stand up. When he doesn’t budge, you resort to adjusting his hoodie at least so he doesn’t freeze himself to death. “Minho also said that Chan’s been texting him. Everyone’s okay so far and they’ll interrogate the ogres tonight, maybe even get Hyunjin if they really took him.” 

Jisung finally springs awake at this, jumping to a stand in surprise. “What? Really? Is there—well, is there anything else?” He asks quickly, stumbling over his words in shock while you drag him back inside. 

Ryujin follows along after a while, running to the kitchen to check what you’re having for dinner. You and Jisung walk a little slower as he rubs his eyes from his surprisingly long nap next to you, somehow not making a fuss this time about your linked arms. 

“Sadly, that’s only what I got from Minho a while back so I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning for anything new.” You answer his previous question as you head to the kitchen where Ryujin and Minho reheat leftovers and make some new side dishes. When you see Jisung’s ears perk up slightly at your words, you quickly add, “Don’t try staying up late just for an update. You should get some more sleep after dinner so you don’t look like a ghost when we see Hyunjin again.” 

He scoffs at this, sitting down on the dining table and dragging you along with him on the adjacent seat. “How can I sleep if I know that we’re so close to seeing Hyunjin again after months? I’ll stay up late if I want to!”

“And I’ll kill you two if you stay up all night then get all cranky tomorrow when you have to get to class.” Minho cuts you off before you could even speak, setting the dishes down on the table. “Okay, eat up!” 

“That was him, not me.” You shrug at Jisung’s semi-permanent pout with a chuckle, receiving a plate and utensils before thanking Minho for the food. “Eat up, Ji.” 

You don’t even have to glance back over to his direction to know that he has his usual determined look plastered over his face again. Because of the new update on Hyunjin’s situation, he’s suddenly more alert now that he might actually take you up on staying awake the entire night. 

-

“Jisung, are you awake?” 

Jisung doesn’t really expect you to hold true to your word and check up on him at 3 AM when Ryujin and Minho have both gone to sleep. You suddenly knock on his door while he’s in the middle of a song he’s been trying to write on his guitar lately, startling the poor boy who almost falls off of the window and causes a big fuss about it. 

“Are you okay in there?” You ask worriedly from outside after knocking for the 4th time, the doorknob clicking gently after. When only shuffles reach your ear on the other side, you immediately add, “Hey, I’m coming in!” 

Jisung doesn’t even have time to protest, catching a glimpse of you going in and closing the door as a tray of mugs trails behind you. Quickly hiding the guitar by the curtains, he clumsily scrambles up to a stand and retrieves the tray from the air, “H-Hi! You made...tea?” 

“Those two mugs are for me.” You pretend to swat his hand away jokingly, joining him on the small balcony on the other side of his window. Spotting his guitar hidden haphazardly on the side, you’re quick to pick it up and slide it over your lap while Jisung’s occupied with the tea, strumming a few chords. Only then, do you also notice his music sheets strewn across the balcony, all labelled with the word ‘sunshine.’ “I didn’t know you brought this along. It still plays good, I suppose, but do you still play badly?” 

Jisung scowls at you as he sets the tray down next to his notebook, sitting down criss cross once more before swiftly snatching the guitar from your hands. “I play better than you, at least.” Ignoring your protests, he then strums a few chords of his own and continues, “Why are you still awake, anyway? Don’t you have a 9 AM later?” 

When he turns to you, he sees you taking a sip of your tea first before answering, “I feel like ditching,” a statement he’s definitely never heard from you before by the way his eyes widen in surprise. “Don’t act so surprised! Uni’s just a cover and a way to get hearts while we’re here in the human world, anyway. Since everyone could be here later and there’s a possibility that we’ll see Hyunjin again with them, I wouldn’t want to miss a second of him back.” 

“Don’t tell me, am I rubbing off on you?” Jisung snickers playfully. Deep inside, however, he’s undoubtedly a little impressed. After all, it’s been a while since he’s seen you so carefree outside of royal duties. “This is bad. We’re still competing, you know!”

“Tch, don’t push it. My current count’s quite high so I’m not that worried.” You shake your head in disbelief, leaning back against the windowsill and gazing ahead to the brightly-lit city. “It’s just that it’s been 5 months since Hyunjin’s gone missing and Yeji started combing every inch of Seoul, only to find a lead out in Incheon. I want to see him as much as you do.” 

Jisung nods slowly in agreement, picking up the second mug of tea and taking a sip. It’s chocolate matcha, the flavour you always craved on elementary school field trips back in the magical realm whenever you missed home or so Felix once said. “It’s been that long, huh? And we’ve been here taking our exam for 4 months now.” He muses out loud between sips of tea, warming him up in an instant against the unusually cold night. “Time flies a little weirder when you’re on the other side of the moon, don’t you think?” 

“I think you’ve just been having too much fun flirting with humans.” You point out, gesturing over to his emerald ring. Over the months, you’ve noticed that the vessels grow warmer every time you reach a thousand points which is roughly every 100 hearts or so. In the rare moments these days that Jisung’s ring has accidentally brushed against your skin, usually at the bus or when passing dishes along, the stone feels intimidatingly hot and almost burning. “How much do you have already?” 

“Enough to win against you.” He teases playfully as he hums along to his song, making you scoff. “I mean, it’s been fun. Gaining a lot of ecure here has made my magic feel more powerful but, still, I can’t help but think sometimes that this whole exam would’ve been fun if the 4 of us were complete.” 

You take another sip of your tea, listening along to Jisung’s humming. “If Hyunjin didn’t disappear beforehand and scared off Lia and her parents from letting her compete...yeah, I guess it would’ve been much more fun if we’re all competing together and the exam duration was 1 year like normal.” Thinking about it more, you end up chuckling at imagining how this whole exam could’ve gone differently. “But, at the same time, it’s been fun competing with you so far.” 

“Going soft on me?” He raises a brow with a smirk. “I know we’ve been stuck to each other like glue for the past months but you should look out for that heart of yours, it might turn pink for me again.”

“I mean you’ve put up a fight so far. It’s a professional compliment, don’t exaggerate it.” You roll your eyes with a slight snicker, making him laugh. You purposely ignore his last comment, though, knowing that he wouldn’t really look into your feelings for him, anything but that. “Maybe you’re the one who’s going soft on me. Seungmin told me about the purple hearts.” 

“He what?!” Jisung exclaims, his smug expression instantly morphing into panic as he almost throws his guitar off of the balcony. “Wait, I can explain!” 

You shake your head and wave your hand dismissively. “No, you don’t have to! I understand.” You assure with a laugh, placing your hand on his nearest shoulder and making him sit back down when he wobbles over the messy and narrow space. “Though, yeah, I probably would’ve yelled at you if Seungmin told me any earlier but it’s all said and done now, anyway. I appreciate it, actually.” 

“A lot of guys were being creeps to you so I thought...I got protective, okay? Ryujin and Yeji were getting stares too so even Seungmin would do the same thing to protect them.” Jisung pouts. “I know we’re in a competition and we’re supposed to rake up a bunch of hearts but your dignity’s much more important than some stupid crown...” 

“I know, and I also know that you would’ve done it for Lia if she were here.” You nod understandingly, mustering up a small appreciative smile. Jisung can be sweet if he wants to, you conclude internally. “Ah, seriously, just imagine if there was 4 of us competing. This would’ve been much more fun and less stressful. You would’ve gotten your ass handed to you when you wanted to race to the moon.” 

“Tch, Hyunjin would’ve taken all of the red ecures for himself.” Jisung adds, sharing in your quiet laughs now that the conversation’s shifted once more. “Much like how he charms everyone back home. He might even win, like he always does in every challenge the elders give us. He’s just the favourite!” 

“I can’t wait for him to come home safely. He’s been gone for too long.” You sigh against your tea, tiredly adjusting to the uncomfortable space of the window. Seeing this from the corner of his eyes, Jisung doesn’t hesitate to pass you a pillow and nearby blankets this time which you’re more than grateful for. “I can’t wait for all of this to be over and go home, just visit again when I feel like it.” 

“Me too. I can’t wait to see him.” Jisung sighs, peering down onto the balcony as he adjusts his guitar on his lap. “And I can’t wait to go home, too.” 

And just then, the car that Chan used to drive everyone over to Incheon materializes at the front porch, spewing out Chan, your friends, and Hyunjin who’s supported by Seungmin and Yeji.

five out of six months 

Hyunjin sports distinctly black cuts and gashes across his arms and legs when you greet the group in front of the house, similar to the ones Chan and Changbin also sported one time when the two also had an encounter with dark magic. Limping on his right leg and supported by his arms, Yeji and Seungmin used their magic to lift him over to the nearest sofa once they’ve reached the other side of Chan’s protective spell from the front door while the rest of the group crash into the vast expanse of the living room. 

“I tried healing him as much as I can so it’s easier for you and Ryujin.” Seungmin huffs, tiredly sitting down on the ground by the coffee table. “He’s mostly fine, just exposed to a lot of dark magic.” 

“And you guys? Are you okay? Is anyone else hurt?” You ask worriedly, darting your eyes over to Chan, Yeji, and Chaeryoung who all individually affirm to you that they’re not nursing any big injuries. “What happened?” 

At that moment, Jisung arrives in the living room with a half-sleepy Minho and a frantically running Ryujin who immediately makes a beeline to Hyunjin and Yeji. Standing next to you, he echoes the exact same question to Seungmin. “What happened? Is Hyunjin going to be okay?” 

You kneel down in front of Hyunjin, right next to Ryujin, and examine the cuts and gashes. Meanwhile, Jisung sits next to Seungmin while Minho runs over to Chan. “Turns out, they’ve been keeping Hyunjin to try and get him to activate the artifact.” Seungmin answers Jisung’s question after a moment, taking out the stolen compass that Hyunjin was supposed to retrieve from this world. “Then they heard that you and Jisung were going to proceed with the exam. So they tried using him as bait as well but the protective spells the elders casted on you two made it hard for them to find you even when they planned to separate our group.” 

“We got there before they could manipulate my brother into it with dark magic.” Yeji continues tiredly in between casting her own spells, making her smaller wounds and a sprained ankle disappear. “They were quite hostile but we managed. It’s just that Hyunjin still hasn’t woken up since we took him.” 

“Then aren’t you glad we stayed at home, Ji?” You mumbled under your breath as you and Ryujin casted spells to identify the magic needed to heal the half-conscious Hyunjin’s injuries. “Hyunjin’s probably not waking up because of exposure. We’ll have to determine just how much dark magic those witches used.” 

Behind you, Jisung grumbles stubbornly at your comment. “So, is Hyunjin okay? What’s the diagnosis?”

Hovering your hand over Hyunjin’s chest, his heart suddenly reflects a horrifying black over your magic and making yours and Ryujin’s eyes widen. “Oh no…” 

“What?” Suddenly, Jisung’s next to you and peering over Hyunjin’s ecure. “What the hell? Why is his heart black?” 

Ryujin then places her hands over Hyunjin’s forehead, going through his fresher memories as her eyes turn a bright blue. “He’s...it’s an ancient spell, a really powerful one.” She eventually concludes, turning to Chan after. “Chan, do you think you can take a look at this?” 

Across the room, Chan stands up with Minho’s help, having just treated a healing cut on his leg, and sits on Ryujin’s other side to briefly access the same memories. “The three of us can do it,” He gestures to you and Ryujin with pursed lips. “But it’ll take hours and a whole lot of ecure. We’ll need to purify his heart with an equally powerful spell.” 

From the corner of your eye, you see Jisung immediately turn to you in worry, as if he already knows what you’re going to say. “Y/N, don’t—”

But you’re already reaching for your locket, forcing the stone to reveal its contents. “I can give up mine. It’ll save you both your energies and time.” You assure, tuning out Jisung’s protests.

“A-Are you sure?” Ryujin asks worriedly, echoing Jisung’s concerns. Next to her, Chan shakes his head at you in equal concern. “Y/N, these are your ecures for the candidacy exam, you can’t just—not right now when you’re almost do—”

“That’s not important right now. What’s important is that we save Hyunjin.” You nod without any hesitation. “Anyway, I have enough for both purifying Hyunjin’s heart and healing his wounds. It’s fine.” 

You then take out more hearts from your locket, the clumped crystals of oranges, greens, pinks, and reds hovering above Hyunjin as he continues lulling in and out of consciousness and his body tries rejecting the prior spells Yeji casted to help him heal. Before you could fully empty out the vessel, however, Jisung’s hand with his emerald ring flies over yours to stop you. “Wait!” He exclaims, startling you, Ryujin, and Chan. “I’ll give up some of mine too. Don’t empty yours out.”

“Ji—” 

“—Y/N.” He snaps frustratingly, raising his voice and confusing you further. “Please, let me help! I don’t want you to empty your count, I’m not letting you.” 

This seems to effectively catch you off-guard. Jisung then takes this as an opportunity to stop you, not letting your hand go while he summons his own collected hearts out from his ring and firmly making sure that you don’t argue with him further until Chan has reluctantly made sure that you have enough ecures to convert into magic. Even then, he doesn’t let you go by your hand and instead moves his over to your free hand while Chan instructs you and Ryujin on how to purify a black heart. 

“J-Jisung.” You call for him once your initial annoyance of him stopping you has died down, eyes widening when he glances back at you with worry. “I need my two hands.” 

“Oh, shit. Sorry.” He lets go of your hand immediately, keeping his hands down on his lap before leaving the three of you to check on Seungmin, Yeji, and Chaeryoung. “Sorry…”

You cough out awkwardly as he leaves, glaring at Ryujin when she musters up a teasing smile despite your current predicament. 

“He’s right, you know.” Chan comments after a while, instructing you the following spells while the dark color of Hyunjin’s ecure fades to a glowing white. 

“Don’t start.” When you send a glare over your own cousin’s way, however, he quickly drops the subject with a shrug. 

Purifying a darkened heart, as it turns out, lasts until the very break of dawn as the three of you exhaust the ecures you and Jisung have put out to heal Hyunjin. As time ticks by agonizingly slow for Hyunjin who could only lay back on the sofa and absorb all of your energies to heal himself, Minho eventually gets everyone to clear the living room and sleep in the much more comfortable guest rooms after making sure that no one is greatly injured before hurling himself to the kitchen and make breakfast. 

But you see Jisung stay from the corner of your eye, taking up space on your opposite side to steal glances at you or comfort Hyunjin. From the way his eyebrows furrow over his sleepy eyes and how he refuses to leave even when you awkwardly tell him off, you could tell that he too can’t make out your previous exchange. 

“—Y/N. Please, let me help! I don’t want you to empty your count, I’m not letting you.” You know that he acted the way he did because it was Hyunjin that you were trying to save, one of his best friends. But the way he sounded so angry, the way he snapped at you in the spur of the moment, a small part of your thoughts wants to make you think that he had other reasons for doing what he did. 

“Hyunjin? How are you feeling?” Chan asks after 2 hours of nonstop spellcasting, halting you and Ryujin in your steps after. “Can you sit up?” 

Your eyes turn blue at the same time you see Jisung’s turn green, surveying Hyunjin’s heart for any hints of leftover dark magic. Meanwhile, Hyunjin struggles to sit up with Jisung’s help, tiredly groaning under his breath. “Much b-better.” He manages to stumble out after a moment, mustering up a small smile despite the dizzying and overwhelming fel. “Thanks, you guys.” 

You sigh in relief, resting your back against the coffee table behind you before nodding. “Finally…” 

“Come on, Hyunnie, I’ll move you upstairs.” Chan volunteers, standing up from his position on the floor and briefly stretching his arms out. Turning to you, Ryujin, and Jisung, he then adds, “You guys get some rest too. Just skip for today and tomorrow. I’ll write to everyone back home.” 

You don’t even argue against your cousin this time, finding yourself nodding when he gives you the same look he always does whenever you intend on shouldering some work for him. Standing up from the floor, you, Ryujin, and Jisung then head upstairs in silence. 

The entire walk, you feel Jisung stealing glances over to you but you decide to not act on it, shaking your head when he suddenly opens his mouth to speak before the two of you could go on your separate ways. 

“Y/N, wait—” “Goodnight, Jisung.” 

-

Growing up, Jisung has always relied on two people in helping him through the crisis of accidentally going too far with you: Chan and Felix. Chan, obviously, because he’s your cousin and the only other friend he has who harbors an inkling of a braincell and Felix because he’s everyone’s favourite and he knows the kinds of snacks that get on your good graces. These moments when he’s actually pushed your buttons too far are rare (as much as the two of you like to express your annoyance over each other, you’ve actually come to understand that this is just your dynamic growing up), but Jisung personally keeps a list of steps to do in situations like this anyway. Now more than ever, it seems, because suddenly, it feels weird and awkward being around each other—and not the usual kind. 

But as fate would have it, Chan is busy working out how to safely get Hyunjin home and explaining to the elders what happened. If normally Jisung would be asking Chan first about you and what he could say when he confronts you, this time he’s asking all of them to his twin brother who’s more than willing to listen (after listening to Yeji, Ryujin, and Chaeryoung gossip everything to him prior, of course).

“Why did you do that anyway?” Felix points out on the other side of the call, snuggling into a pillow as night falls on both realms. It’s been 3 days since Hyunjin returned and both the house and the officials back at home have been busy arranging his return with Yeji, Seungmin, Ryujin, and Chaeryoung; only allowing for the twins to talk in the late hours of the night. “And you said it angrily too from what Ryujin told me. No offense, bro, I’d feel a little weird if you raised your voice at me, too, then offered up half of your collection on their behalf.” 

Jisung groans in frustration, running his hand through his hair as he shuffles uncomfortably around his bed sheets. “I don’t know, it’s just...I was thinking of a lot of things.” 

“Like what?” 

“This candidacy exam, what Chan told me beforehand, Hyunjin, Y/N…” The older twin purses his lips, taking his eyes away from Felix to gaze down at his hands. The emerald ring is much cooler now after losing ecure but somehow, it feels heavy on Jisung’s ring finger. “I thought that it’d be unfair if they lose all of their ecure at this point in the race, trying to save Hyunjin, then the elders might not be too pleased about it when we return. But most importantly, I thought about what Chan told me when Minho first arrived, about how Y/N’s always jumping at every opportunity to help other people without thinking too much of themself. I was right there with my own vessel of hearts for them to use and if I just let them empty out theirs, then I’d be letting them get the short end of the stick in the long run again.” 

Felix nods along understandingly at his brother’s words, all the while trying to hide a smile behind his hand. So Yeji was right! “So why did you call me, then? You seem to have your reasons sorted out, just tell Y/N what you told me.” He shrugs after Jisung’s extensive speech, giggling at the dramatic reaction that he receives from his brother after. “I know you guys aren’t those emotional kinds of people to each other but you said so yourself that Y/N’s been quieter these days and that it’s been eating at your conscience. I say you just go for it and tell them how you feel.” 

“I’m not you, Lix. Y/N’s going to laugh at me.” Jisung pouts helplessly. “I can’t just tell them that.” 

“You’re so dramatic! It just implies that you care about Y/N like a decent human being. Anyone in your situation who knows what you know about them would’ve been considerate enough to do the same thing.” Felix argues back, rubbing his temples at how the older boy’s acting. “Don’t get it twisted, brother...unless you want it to, of course.” 

“Ya, and what’s that supposed to mean?!” 

“Figure it out yourself.” Felix sticks his tongue out teasingly before laughing and waving a dismissive hand. “Anyway, Yeji told me that Y/N’s been craving blueberry pancakes lately. You can just make them right now and give it tomorrow so you don’t have to go out.” 

“If anything, I want to leave the house right now and never come back.” Jisung grumbles back in frustration before sighing in defeat. “For the first time, I can’t believe you’re no help at all, Lix. I’m hanging up.” 

“Tch, you just can’t handle the truth, Sung. Anyway, I have to go too, mom and dad are asking me to come to this thing. I’ll update you on it later! Love you! Bye!” Felix then waves to the call one last time before hanging up, leaving Jisung in the uncomfortable silence of his room. 

Jisung sighs against the heavy blankets, throwing his phone to the other side of the mattress before ultimately deciding on standing up and heading to your room across the hall. Fuck it, he thinks to himself, it’s not like I like them or anything like that! Nothing to worry about! Let’s not get it twisted. 

When he opens the door, however, the first person he unexpectedly sees outside the hallways is you just as you close the door behind your own room. “Y/N!” He ends up blurting out loud in the moment, catching your attention with wide eyes. Not knowing what else to say, the first thought that comes to mind is, “Are you going to Hyunjin’s room?” 

You furrow your brows in confusion, shaking your head slowly. “No, I’m going to the kitchen?” 

“O-Oh.” He runs his hand through his hair once more in nervousness, nodding along and hiding the heat rising up his neck in embarrassment. “Well, I’m going there too. Mind if I join you?” 

You simply nod in response, walking down the end of the hallway with him in relative silence. He hasn’t seen you much since Hyunjin’s arrived either since you spent most of your time checking your mutual friend for his condition and brewing tea. The dramatic gears in Jisung’s head would like to think that it’s just pure convenience. 

“So, what did you and Felix talk about?” “How’s Hyunjin?” 

Jisung glances over to you on his right just as you mirror his actions, the gesture somehow making him flustered this time around as he’s quick to look away. “S-Sorry. Um, we just—talked about how things are back home.” He shrugs in his best feigned nonchalance, mentally cringing at how visibly awkward he looks as the two of you go down the stairs anyway. Not that it’s a lie, anyway, he and Felix did talk about other topics besides you. “Everything’s pretty busy back home since the elders are talking about how Hyunjin coming back is going to affect the exam now.” 

“Oh.” You nod along almost absentmindedly. “That’s...yeah, I’ve heard about it too. It’s pretty hectic on my mom’s end right now.” 

“So...how’s Hyunjin?” Jisung chimes in almost a little too quickly, feeling even more awkward that he accidentally brought up your candidacy exam again. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

You purposely pretend to not notice anyway, answering his questions carefully as you approach a curve into the spiral staircase. “He’s regaining his strength at least. Still on bedrest but he should be okay by the weekend when Changbin fetches him and the others.” The two of you then pass through the living room to get to the kitchen, finding Minho and Chan cuddled up on one of the sofas as they watch a movie on the television. 

The kitchen, on the other hand, is deserted when you turn on the lights which Jisung internally thanks every guest in the house for before taking a deep breath. “About what I said back then, by the way…” He starts carefully, catching your attention before you could even detach yourself from him to open the nearby fridge. You freeze a few steps ahead of him, making the poor boy gulp nervously. “Um, I’m sorry that I raised my voice at you. I shouldn’t have done that, even when I was stressing out.” 

Much like when he actually did raise his voice, you momentarily freeze in your spot before eventually shaking your head reassuringly and moving over to the fridge. “It’s alright, you don’t need to apologize for that.” You add with a small smile, taking out the fruit bowl from the fridge. “Is that why you’ve been quiet these past days? It’s okay, really.” 

“I haven’t been—it’s you who’s—” Jisung stops himself halfway before he could even start another argument, biting down his lip before shaking his head. Walking over to the stove area, he then opens a few cabinets in search of the pancake mix while you shuffle around the area behind him. “A little, yeah. It’s just that it looked like it bothered you so it bothered me too.”

When Jisung then glances over his shoulder, he sees you approaching with the fruit bowl hugged close to your chest. “I thought about it a few times. After that, I just thought that you were bothered so I couldn’t talk to you after.” You explain slowly, voice growing louder as you set the bowl next to him. In the dim lights of the kitchen, he suddenly can’t tell if you’re lying or not. “But it’s all good now. Are you making pancakes?” 

Jisung nods sheepishly, finally finding the pancake mix in the deeper crevices of the cabinet and taking it out with a pan and spatula from the adjacent cabinet. “No, but you have to know that—that—”

“Hm? What?” You raise your brows curiously, taking the pan and spatula for him before proceeding to the stove and twisting the knobs to preheat. 

“You’re not letting me finish.” Jisung points out with a feigned disapproving situation while quickly preparing the pancake mix, one which you somehow find amusing enough to laugh at. “Come on, don’t laugh, my twin made me say a bunch of things then coerced me into telling you so I’d—”

“Yeah, I know.” 

“—So, I appreciate it if you’d lis—wait, you know?!” His feigned expression then turns into one of surprise once more as you nod and break into giggles. “W-What?!” 

“You were being really loud, Hyunjin was even complaining to me from the next room by phone that he can’t sleep because of you.” You chuckle in amusement, nudging him by the arm when you notice that he’s slowed down his mixing. “He said something about you complaining to Felix about something or whatever. I don’t know, I was on a call with Lia.” 

“Then why did you—? So, you just came out here for pancakes?!” 

“No! I wanted to hear what you were going to say! I didn’t hear any word besides the pancakes, I swear...well, not clearly at least.” 

By now, all of the awkwardness has immediately dissipated as Jisung stops mixing the pancake mix altogether to turn to you and cross his arms. “You’re unbelievable.” He pretends to roll his eyes and scoff at you, earning him a glare.  You then swipe the pancake mix from his hands, pouring them into the pan in big circles. “And you still have the audacity to make me do this pancake mix.” 

“Well, you’re already mixing it so might as well.” You shrug with a knowing smile before nudging him again by the handle of the spatula. “Now, go on, what were you going to say?” 

Jisung shoots you one last incredulous look but you effectively counter it by encouraging him, promising that you “won’t laugh.” “Ah, well...I just wanted to say that you shouldn’t go all out wasting all of your collected hearts at this point, not when we’re almost done with the exam.” He blurts out, gazing down and fiddling with the fruit bowl while you take spoonfuls of blueberries from it to mix with the pancakes. “I want to win but it won’t be fun if your tally suddenly drops, right?” 

When he looks up, you’re raising your brow at his last comment as you make more pancakes. “I mean, I know you want to do what’s best for everyone but you have to look out for yourself too. Geez.” With a sigh, he then corrects which makes you nod in agreement. “A-And I guess lean on us too. We’re your family and friends, don’t shoulder all of the work for us all the time.” 

“I doubt I can lean on you.” You tease, flipping through your second batch of pancakes to cook. When Jisung sends a glare your way, you simply stick your tongue out at him. “Kidding.”  

“I get all emotional and all you say is that you doubt you can lean on me. Unbelievable…” Jisung scoffs, stuffing his mouth with more blueberries in feigned annoyance. 

The blueberry-filled pancakes are all eventually set on a plate you find on your opposite side, stacked up as a tall tower leaning on one side. Carefully passing Jisung the plate, you then twist the stove’s knobs off and reply, “You also made me cook the pancakes you wanted to make for me so I think that makes us even.” 

“Y/N!” He whines between mouthfuls of blueberries as you move around him to transfer the pan and spatula to the sink. 

You sigh in defeat, chuckling when you meet gazes once more and see him sulking with his cheeks full. “Right, right, I’m sorry!” You then beckon him over to the dining table, taking the fruit bowl on his side. “A-And...you know, thank you for that. We’re all good now, right?” 

“If you are.” 

“Definitely. Want to eat with me? I still owe you that meal from our first day.” 

six out of six months

Your mother as well as the high jury of elders from back home eventually proposed that you and Jisung finish your Crown Candidacy exam while Hyunjin, should he eventually announce that he wants to participate as well in the incoming 6 months, do his under stricter supervision in the following year. This ensures fairness in your situations, that yours and Jisung’s efforts aren’t wasted in the past 5 months while also thinking of Hyunjin who wasn’t around in time for the traditional schedule of the exam. When Hyunjin was escorted home by Changbin and Felix, however, he briefly hinted towards a plan on refusing the candidacy and the exam. He left with the others before you or Jisung could even ask him about it. 

Regardless, you and your sole competitor easily fall back into the race as soon as Hyunjin, Yeji, Seungmin, and Chaeryoung have settled their business in the human world and went home, returning to university over a week later to regain the ecures that you lost. Not that it’s suddenly harder, anyway. Timely as it is, an announcement for a school festival at the end of the month has Jisung signing up to perform while you join the organizing committee to spend more time with your human friends. 

In the time that you’ve spent in the human world, you’ve made many genuine friends beyond collecting their ecure for your exam, especially in your classmates Yuna and Jeongin. Though they don’t know about your true nature, the two have unknowingly aided you a lot in your mission by accompanying you through the different activities around university. 

Yuna, in particular, was even the one who first mentioned the school festival to you, encouraging you to join the events committee with her and invite Jisung to perform. “It’s free backstage passes and we can see all of the artists up close!” She sighed dreamily on the day she showed you the gold and red poster that she picked up from the department bulletin board. “And come on, you’re really good at organizing stuff! We should do it together!”

And more hearts to collect, you thought to yourself when you accepted and attended the orientation.

And more hearts it was, indeed, as you spend the next 3 weeks meeting people from different colleges as you and Yuna are assigned to helping organize the music performance for the end of the festival. With your previous experience fulfilling your duties back at home, it’s unsurprisingly easier for you to juggle the work assigned to you—contacting students to perform, arranging the program flow, and turning the university football field into a makeshift mini concert stadium—with socializing and fulfilling your original mission of collecting hearts. 

Across from your room at home, on the other hand, Jisung has been busy spending the same time making his own music to perform at the music festival. You invited him to perform some time after starting your work with the festival committee—well, your friends insisted that you invite him and Chan after finding out that the famous DJ, CB97, is your cousin and that you and the “College of Psychology Cutie” commute home together (“Don’t tell me...are you guys secretly dating?!” Yuna had shamelessly asked during one of your meetings, to which you had to smack your hand over her mouth and improvise a cover story for you and Jisung that you live in the same neighbourhood). 

Jisung accepted at the thought that he could garner a huge crowd of hearts from this opportunity, cooping himself up in his room right after the following days that followed to complete his 15-minute set. Ever since, all you’ve heard coming from his room in the middle of the night would be guitar strums, drum loops, and the faintest hints of Jisung’s voice singing along to freestyle raps and lines. 

He mostly sang about love, of all things; something you, Minho, and Chan immediately noticed in the next 3 Friday nights that the three of you would be huddled in the living room to watch a movie, only to hear Jisung repeating lines as if he was talking to someone in Chan’s home studio. You wanted to ask about it out of pure curiosity, and just the general worry that he might not be looking after his heart while finishing your exam after all, but decided against it in favor of waiting for the final product at the music festival.

Fortunately, the month somehow went by in almost a flash as you and Jisung both got busy preparing and collecting more hearts on the side. Before you know it, it was the afternoon of the music festival and Felix is suddenly back in the human realm to accompany you and Minho to the school festival. 

“So, did he tell you what he prepared for tonight?” Felix asks you as the three of you walk around the festival grounds. Over the course of 3 weeks, you and a large team of student volunteers have managed to haul in food stalls, arcade booths, and rides from the quad all the way to the football field for this festival, amenities which you yourself haven’t tried yet because of your busy schedule but Felix and Minho have both been so overwhelmingly excited to check out even on the bus trip to your university. 

In response to the prince’s answer, you shake your head with a small pout. “I just hear him all over the house and I didn’t really want to pry if he didn't want to tell me anything.” You point out, the two of you suddenly changing the course of your mindless walk as Minho points to a crossbow shoot booth. “Why? Doesn’t he tell you what he’s been working on?” 

“No! He stops whatever he’s doing whenever we call, even when I ask him to play just a little bit of his work.” Felix is quick to mirror your pout, only for it to disappear when Minho jokes that the two of you help him cheat in the booth as he picks up a crossbow. “I thought since you guys are living together, you’d know better than me.” 

“Ah, you kids just wait until Jisung and Chan perform later.” Minho dismisses your concerns, holding the fake crossbow up properly while the staff manning the booth prepares the targets on the other side. “Now, help me win Chan a giant wolf.” 

You roll your eyes at Minho, shrugging at Felix. “I guess he’s right. Let’s just help Minho get a giant wolf first.” 

-

Chan and Jisung arrive at university 10 minutes before the music festival from Chan’s studio halfway across the city, initially unable to find you in the crowd of organizers as they set up backstage with Yuna and Jeongin’s help until you call Chan late that you’re “babysitting” Minho and Felix. 

“They’ve somehow teamed up and have been competing with the rigged booths since we arrived.” You explained over the voice call, the distant sounds of Minho and Felix yelling while tossing metal rings around almost muffling your own. “I’ll be on my way in a while as soon as Minho leaves the ring toss alone but Yuna and Jeongin are there. Just ask them if you guys need anyth—oh my gods, Felix, you won another plushie? That’s so cool! Wait, I’m on a call with Chan!—uh, yeah. I’ll be there in a second!” 

The commotion on your end makes the two boys laugh, even as you bid your goodbyes and end the call, but especially Jisung who’s been looking nervous since he arrived. Throwing his head back in a laugh as he tunes his guitar, he comments, “That’s a bit unexpected. I didn’t know my brother and your boyfriend would get along like that, and this quickly!” 

“Beating out rigged games sounds about right.” Chan chuckles along, seated on a plastic chair and running a quick check on his equipment. Turning to the younger boy, he then asks, “Are you still nervous?” 

“Me? Nah, I wasn’t even nervous to begin with!” At this, Jisung’s laughs naturally die down to an uncertain shake of his head. He dismisses with a scrunch up nose which Chan immediately raises a brow at. 

“Come on, Sung, I practically raised you with the other kids.” Chan proceeds to roll his eyes as Jisung’s brief confident facade crumbles down slowly. “What’s up?” 

The boy in question eventually sighs in defeat, shoulders slumping against the plastic chair he occupies. “Fine, maybe I’m a bit nervous! Just a little bit, though, I can still get on stage later! I mean, it’s not like performing here is gonna be different from back home like you said on the way here but…”

“But what?” Chan asks patiently, glancing up to see Jisung’s gaze fixed down on his yellow acoustic guitar. When the younger boy doesn’t respond immediately, he then continues, “I’ve heard bits and pieces of what you’ve been working on this month and all of the songs sound great. You’ll catch a lot of hearts tonight with them, I’m sure. What are you worried about?”

Jisung looks up from his guitar and opens his mouth to speak, only to get cut off when you come in the performer’s tent running and balancing different kinds of microphones in your hands. “Sorry I’m late!” You announce in between tired pants, catching both his and Chan’s attention as you pass the microphones around the artists with Jeongin who instinctively comes to your aid. “I was with my friends and they wouldn’t budge from the ring toss!” 

“I think I’m going to faint.” Jisung mumbles under his breath with furrowed brows, loud enough for only Chan to hear, until you approach them last with their microphones. 

“Mics?” You offer obliviously, holding up the last 2 hand mics in your possession. Passing one to Chan quickly, you then sit down next to Jisung and pass him his hand mic. “Hey, you’re up fourth, right?” 

Jisung glances over to Chan with a panicked look but the older boy simply shakes his head with a chuckle and focuses on his keyboard. Turning to you, Jisung then nods quickly with a hum before gazing down at his guitar and the laptop he’s set up on the table in front of you two. 

Immediately sensing his odd behavior, you then hover your hands in the space between the two of you in a quick spell, eventually verifying his nervous feelings. “Yeah, totally not nervous.” You chuckle in amusement, laughing even more when he turns to you and whines in complaint. 

“Ya! Don’t do that!” 

“Well, it’s not like you’re that good at hiding your nervousness!” You point out in defense, holding your hands up in front of you in between uncontrollable fits of giggles. When the glare he sends your way doesn’t relax one bit, you then fish out a small quokka plush from your backpack. “Anyway, Felix was kinda expecting that you’d be a little nervous so wanted me to give you this plushie he won at the milk bottle game with Minho for good luck. He would’ve given it himself but LUCY was already performing when we came here so he dragged Minho to the audience area before I could even bring him here.” 

You then place the plush toy on the table right next to his laptop, looking around once to make sure that no one is looking your way before mouthing a quick spell to shrink the quokka into something smaller that he can hang on his guitar strap. As you do so, Chan notices how Jisung’s ears are quick to turn red as he follows your every movement. “You can stick it to your guitar strap and bring it with you to the stage.” You point out once you’re done, only then noticing his stares. “What?” 

“Huh?” Jisung shakes his head absentmindedly, mentally slapping himself back to reality before scrambling to pick up the plush toy by the chain you added on top of its head and tying it to the small hole along the edge of his guitar strap. “O-Oh, yeah, thanks!”

You chuckle, just as Yuna suddenly calls for you to help in getting the next act’s microphone stands on stage. Standing up, you then pat Jisung’s shoulder reassuringly, saying one last, “Don’t be nervous!” before running off again to where most of your committee members are. 

Once you’re out of earshot, only then does Chan look up from his equipment once more but this time with a knowing grin and squinted eyes. “Yeah, Sung, don’t be nervous!” 

Jisung rolls his eyes in front of the older boy at this, securing the quokka plushie on his guitar strap one last time. “Shut up.” 

-

Your committee heads lay you off of work just as Jisung heads to the stage for his set, the small quokka plush you gave him dangling behind his fretboard with a toothy grin while he sets up his laptop and greets the energetic crowd. When you discreetly scan the people’s ecures while standing behind the curtains, you quickly spot a growing number of pinks and oranges. “Such a charmer.” Chan notes, eyes also blue when you look up at him. 

You nod in agreement, reverting back to your original color as more of your peers gather around the curtains to listen to Jisung’s introduction. “Um, hi, I’m Han Jisung from the Psych department.” You hear him greet with a shy chuckle over the microphone, earning him another wave of cheers. Behind you, even Yuna and Jeongin cheer despite Jisung having his back partially facing you. “This is my first time performing here at uni and the songs that I’ve prepared so please go easy on me.” 

You then turn to Chan again, taking a sideways step closer to him as a thought crosses your mind. “Hey, Chan,” You call for him in a lower voice, craning your head up when he leans towards you. “Have you heard of the songs he’s going to perform tonight? You were together before coming here, right?” 

“Only a little bit. We mostly talked while we were at the studio.” Chan shrugs in response. “I think he wanted it to be a surprise to everyone.” 

On stage, Jisung then checks his guitar one last time before announcing the name of the first song. “So, this first song is something that I’ve been thinking about since I moved here. It’s called ‘Close.’” He says, pressing play on his loops and singing the first lines of the song. “Can you tell me about you? You, seen from afar. I just don't want to watch. Yeah Just tell me about you.”

Jisung is a great performer, there’s no doubt about it. Though you’ve grown up hearing him sing and rap at your more casual events back at home, he always manages to surprise you every time he performs just with the way he enjoys himself on stage. You can see him smile widely from the side of the stage, his nervousness long gone as he interacts with the crowd and collects the pink crystal hearts that float above your heads. 

“He’s really good…” You murmur, more to yourself than to Chan, as you find yourself gently swaying to the song. “What was he even worried about? It’s a great song…” 

Chan glances knowingly at you, a small smile playing on his lips as you sing along to the next round of the chorus. “I don’t think he has nothing to worry about too, not right now at least.” 

“Hm?” “Nothing.” 

-

In truth, even with the positive response from the crowd and the amount of ecures he’s collected from this set alone, Jisung is still nervous for his last song. “Sunshine” was supposed to be just another warm-up song with barely a cohesive topic, a compilation of sketches about his experiences in the human world that he spent his free time on when he wasn’t collecting hearts these past 6 months. As more time passed by, however, and the time of your exam was suddenly coming to a close, they eventually took a different direction without him even realizing it until you were inviting him to perform at this music festival. 

The times that the two of you would bicker just to laugh at each other in the end, the competition that brought the bests and worsts in you, and your chocolate matcha tea and musings on the one time you sat down with him on his balcony. Eventually, you were all he was writing about. On top of the nervousness that comes with finishing the competition you’ve found yourselves in for half a year and finding out who will be declared the winner, Jisung was more nervous about the thought that you’re just behind the stage curtains with Chan, anticipating his next song. 

“For my last song, I picked this one for someone I know whom I’ve spent a lot of time with these past few months.” He confesses shyly in front of the crowds. Among the hundreds of people that came tonight, he easily spots his twin brother in front of the barriers with Minho, sporting the most exaggerated surprised face ever. “I was hoping that when all of this is said and over, we’d get well-deserved breaks...maybe music and tea at night again or something.” 

Jisung doesn’t have to turn around to gauge your initial reaction as he begins the song, Felix’s expression turning into that of giddiness as he looks over at the stage curtains is enough to set every gear in his head to pump out more nervousness. Instead, he pushes through until halfway to the song before he could steal his first glance over to you since beginning his set. 

With his eyes still an emerald green from scanning the crowd’s ecures, your eyes meet under the harsh stage lights as he sings the bridge. “This place is quiet without a sound ye ye ye. Quiet except for the sound of our breaths ye ye ye.” He doesn’t intend to look again, not in that split second before he’s turning his gaze back to the crowd of cellphone lights and LED signs, but he sees your heart’s reflection once more. 

Reminiscent of when you first confessed in middle school, a pinkish heart floats by the sleeves of your sweater, almost looking red if he just looked longer. You didn’t even turn away this time and simply just stood there, heat visibly rising up your neck. 

Reminiscent of when you first confessed in middle school, a pinkish heart floats by the sleeves of your sweater, almost looking red if he just looked longer. This time around, however, you don’t turn away to try and hide it. 

And this time around, Jisung doesn’t childishly call you out for it or ignores it. This time, it makes his own heart swell at the thought. 

-

The car ride home, with Chan on the wheel and three extra boxes of equipment most of the backseats in his SUV, is a comfortable and awkward mix of quiet between you and Jisung as the two of you are forced to sit next to each other in the cramped space. You sit by the window, using it as an excuse to peer outside and avoid any kind of small talk from the boys, while Jisung has hisi eyes glued to his phone while a sleeping Felix snuggles into his shoulder. The only human noise in the car, as it seems, is coming from Minho and Chan as the two recall the songs the latter and Jisung performed at the program. 

It’s even quieter at the thought that you, Jisung, and Felix will fly back to the magical realm tomorrow, something that Minho reminds you when he suddenly asks, “Right, what do you kids want me to cook for lunch later, by the way?” 

The question comes right as the car suddenly comes to an abrupt stop at Chan’s garage, masking the way you and Jisung simultaneously jump in surprise. You instinctively glance over to him after with wide eyes, before gazing over at Minho who has a poorly-hidden snicker on his expression from the front passenger seat. “Um,” You stutter out awkwardly, glaring at Minho when he smirks teasingly over your way. “Anything’s fine for me.” 

Jisung nods over to your direction in agreement. “Yeah, anything’s fine.” 

Minho nods with pursed lips, as if he was biting down a laugh. “Does crispy pork belly sound good?” He asks, earning him nods from you. “Okay. You guys have been quiet back here this entire time, you guys good?” 

“Yeah?” “Totally.” 

Clearly unconvinced, Minho shakes his head and scoffs before twisting his upper body to face front once more, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening the car door next to him. “Oh, kids…” 

You roll your eyes at the comment before stealing a glance over at Jisung again, only to find the boy already staring at you. “W-What?” You manage to ask this time despite your initial surprise. In front of you, Chan has already turned the engine off and left the driver’s seat to open the back of the car. “You okay, Ji?” 

He hums almost absentmindedly, phone now set down on his lap as he fiddles with his hands nervously. “Yeah, um—” He stutters out, biting his lips down once. Briefly glancing at his side, he then gestures towards his twin and adds, “Wait, sorry, um, let me wake Lix first.” 

“Okay.” You nod awkwardly, deciding to unbuckle your own seatbelt and open the car door next to you. Jisung then gently shakes Felix awake, leading his brother out through the same car door since the opposite one’s blocked by more of his and Chan’s equipment. 

“You go on ahead, Lix, I’ll just talk to Y/N.” You hear Jisung say as the three of you now stand outside in the cold, levitating boxes of instruments and computers flying over your head and heading inside the house. 

Felix nods at this immediately, sleepily bidding you and Jisung with loose hugs before trudging back inside the house with Chan and Minho. 

Once the doors leading back to the house fully close on the two of you, only then are you engulfed in the same awkward silence again and the two of you, for the third time in the past 6 months, speak up at the same time. 

“So um—” “—Yeah, a while ago—” 

This time, the two of you chuckle awkwardly over speaking at the same time again. You then gesture for him to go ahead and speak first as you adjust your sweater’s placement on your shoulder. 

Instinctively, Jisung fixes your sweater for you before speaking, causing him to stutter a little. “S-Sorry, um…” He licks his lip awkwardly, retracting his hand as fast as he can and moving a step back. “Yeah, I meant to say that I didn’t...I didn’t mean to look at your heart.” 

Suddenly, at such an important moment, you’re speechless and frozen in front of Jisung. Your hands find their way down the hem of your sweater, absentmindedly playing with the loose threads as you shift your weight on the balls of your feet and stutter out your response. “I-I um…” 

Simultaneously, Jisung takes in a huge intake of breath and continues, “I looked at you because I actually made the song for you—well, about you but not in a weird way! It can be for you too, that is if you want it!—”

“Jisung?” 

“Ah, anyway, I’m losing track! Just, I looked at you because I wanted to know what you thought of it the most in the moment, you know—”

“Jisung…”

“And I didn’t realize that my eyes were still green and I saw so I looked away as fast as I could, I swear—!” 

“Ji.” 

“I know you don’t want me looking into your heart and stuff because of before. I promise I won’t do it again—” 

Realizing that he’s not going to stop in his ramblings, you then impulsively take a step towards him and grab him by his arms. “Ji, it’s fine.” You shake him gently, effectively stopping the endless flow of thought. “I mean, you already saw it and everything.” 

“But I—” 

“Just don’t lash out or stop talking to me again while I sort it out.” You shrug reassuringly with a sigh, reluctantly sliding your hands off of him and taking a step back again as you see him listen intently to your words. “It’s just pink, anyway, it can still go away like before. Just don’t avoid me again this time.” 

Though he’s clearly been listening intently, you see his brows furrow and his expression suddenly becomes confused towards the end of your words. “What?” He echoes helplessly after you. “No, I...why would I stop talking to you? That was a long time ago. I won’t do that now, I...” 

“Then just don’t take my heart or something.” You point out, almost like a question as his reaction confuses you similarly. “Anyway, that’s not the point, like I said, I’ll sort it ou—”

“Don’t.” He cuts you off immediately this time with more conviction, shaking his head and suddenly taking your hand. “Don’t sort it out. Don’t make it go away or anything.”  

“What? Why?” 

You’re pulled closer again, Jisung mumbling an incantation to show his ecure under his breath. “Look at mine.” He points out, a pink crystal heart floating over to your upturned palm as he holds onto you by your wrist. “If anything, I should be the one telling you to not take mine on the spot or something.” 

“It’s pink.” You muse out loud in surprise, the warmth of his ecure feeling overwhelming as it floats above your hand. “And it’s for me…?” 

Jisung rolls his eyes at this in disbelief, nodding patiently anyway. “Who else would it be for?” He scoffs gently, making the heart disappear before it could burn your palm. “I don’t know since when it’s been like that, maybe it’s been like that for a long time even I don’t know I’ve only looked at it while Chan and I were at the studio. All I’m sure is that suddenly I was writing a song for you and sacrificing half of my ecure count so you don’t lose easily in the exam and looking out for you and—just, this time it’s me who’s afraid that you’ll run away or disappear for a while if you knew.”

“So don’t...sort it out.” He concludes after unknowingly speaking at such a fast rate, heaving belatedly from this. “I like you now, I like you a lot, and I’m not going to lash out like when we were kids. Take my heart if you want just don’t change your feelings for me, please.” 

There’s a brief pause that follows, the only noise ringing in your ears being the unusually loud beating of your own heart as the two of you freeze in place. Jisung tries waiting as patiently as he visibly can in this silence, puffing air in and out of his lips as he fails at trying to conceal his recurring nervous feelings, while you gaze at anywhere but him because of the heat rising up your neck. 

“Listen…” He speaks up after a while. “I’m sorry, I—”

Fuck it, you think to yourself before stepping forward, shakily cupping his cheeks, and pressing a kiss to his lips. “Don’t say sorry.” You muster up a shy smile in between brief kisses. “You already know that I like you too.” 

bonus epilogue

When you return to the magical realm to the news that Hyunjin won’t be taking his own candidacy exam next year in favor of his own kingdom’s crown, the elders are quick to take your locket and Jisung’s ring to proceed with the final results. Since the decision takes at least 3 days, coupled with the fact that a major complication arose in the 6 months that you were given, Jisung was asked to stay at your castle until the jury could come to a conclusion and crown either one of you. 

The others would also occasionally come and visit (especially Lia who’s mostly kept up with your trip through Yeji and Ryujin) but since confessing to Jisung, the boy has been doing the most trying to sneak you away from everyone and your regular royal duties just to spend more time with you. 

“So this is what you meant with Sunshine?” You ask in the afternoon before the elders would summon you back to the throne room, the two of you hidden away in your favourite greenhouse garden. Today, Jisung has somehow convinced you to ditch a visit to Chan’s family in favor of just sitting on your greenhouse’s cushioned sofas and listening to him hum his songs until your mentors would eventually come looking for you. “Chocolate matcha and your guitar?” 

“Yeah, just a relaxing rest date with your crush.” Jisung points out next to you, his head snuggled into the crook of your neck as much as the guitar in between the two of you could allow him. On your opposite side, his cuddle rival, the quokka plush toy you’ve somehow managed to turn into a life-size pillow today, sits on your lap and occasionally pokes on the end of his guitar. “Why? Do you want to refill your tea? I’ve been getting Felix to teach me this spell to refill tea, you know. I’m getting it but chocolate matcha’s kinda hard to replicate.” 

You shake your head in disbelief with a chuckle, a stark contrast to how you’re internally flustered over the small comment on your favourite tea flavor. “Who said you’re my crush? Bold of you to even assume, Ji…” You pretend to roll your eyes, sinking deeper into the soft cushions behind you. 

“Baby, you’ll be taking those words back when I get crowned tonight.” He pouts, elbowing you gently before shifting to place his guitar on the side. With his hands now free, the prince then resorts to linking his arms with your free one and intertwining your hands together on top of the plush quokka. “If I win, I’ll make sure to banish this quokka first so you’ll be forced to cuddle with only me.” 

“Tch, Felix won you this quokka. You’ll have to duel with him first if you want this gone.” You argue, sliding the quokka closer to him so its face is adjacent to Jisung. “Plus, it kinda looks like you. If I get crowned and you’ll be away doing your own duties back East, I have something of yours.” 

“I think you meant that if I win and you’ll be staying here doing your own duties, you’ll have something of mine.” Jisung huffs pettily. “Maybe we should keep the quokka, after all. You might get lonely if I get busy.” 

You shake your head immediately with a chuckle, leaning more of your weight on his side. “Oh, no, no, no.” You correct teasingly, making him giggle along against your shoulder. “Who said you’re going to win later?” 

“Wanna bet?” He raises a brow and smirks, lifting his head briefly to glance over to you.

You roll your eyes at this, leaning forward to meet his lips. “You’re so competitive, babe. Give it a rest, you know I’ll win anyway.”