#ALL DARK ALL BLOODY MY HEART: character study.

[lususnatura]

so, as an eldritch plant creature, the force that is known as 'the green' in DC is something that blamore is also connected to, but it doesn't have nearly as much influence over it that someone like ivy does and/or doesn't understand it as intricately as she or someone like swamp thing would. because he can't actually communicate to any plants, including his own, directly as of now... but he has come to understand what certain signals mean that its plants sent it. an example of this would be something such as when its plants are stressed or sensory signals such as 'oh, i'm being touched by something' whenever they brush up against an object / person / or what have you.

this is because blamore's plants are actually CONNECTED to things like his circulatory and sympathetic nervous system (which is known for being responsible for sending distress signals, or the ones responsible for getting you into 'fight-or-flight' mode) so they are basically one with him quite literally, not just externally. however, once blamore fully mutates? i think i might've mentioned this before, but burgeon's namesake would probably start to make even more sense BC he does gain the power to also cause flowers to 'bloom' around it so it does have some form of plant powers (but a weak form of it, though it more than makes up for this through its bone manipulation and body size manipulation).

so yeah. also, i thought i should mention that because we are sort of entering into springtime now, that blamore will be pruning some of its plants in order to help induce growth when they died in the winter... and thus, in roleplay's, he may be slightly crabby. but kind of understandably so, because cutting them hurts LOL

[writingmochi]

cast: jay ✗ fem.reader (ft. riize's wonbin, aespa’s ningning, enhypen and &team’s 02 liners, and riize's hyung line)

synopsis: jay has always been a loomer, an introvert, and an outsider in a group of people others presumed were bad. looming in the shadows in the corner of the parties full of drinks, drugs, and sex, can only be seen with the flame of his cigarette in the dark. out of the blue, an orange flame is ignited in the dark corner, creating a silhouette of another person, another loomer, standing beside him

genre: lonely people in neon cities, drama, romance, early 00s au, angst, mature content (consumption of drugs, explicit smut)

inspired by: music my bloody valentine's "loomer" (1991) (genre: dream pop/shoegaze), movie fallen angels (1995) and millennium mambo (2001)

word count: 28896 (28.8k)

warning(s): domestic abuse, sexual assault (groping), toxic relationship (not jay), infidelity (not jay), possessive behaviour, bruises and wounds, drug consumption (cigarette and alcohol, mention of ecstasy and marijuana), mention of suicide attempt, implication of alcohol amnesia (black out), explicit sex, unprotected sex, rough sex but also love making, manhandling, hand job (m & f received), oral job (f receive), creampie (if there is something i forgot, let me know)

message of the moon: remember that this story is fiction and do be careful and read the warnings at the top. all the idols mentioned here are not what they are in real life.

welcome! will be speedrunning the notes: this is set in seoul year 2000-2001 so there’ll be mentions of the 1997 asian financial crisis, BUT since i was born in 2003 and am an asian whose country was affected by the crisis—but not a korean, it’s not gonna be 100% accurate. though, I’ve tried my best with my research, especially regarding the culture of that time. also, this is, more or less, a character study for the main leads so it will be a layer-by-layer discovery from their povs. this is also part of my closed milestone collab "discover: 200" which you can check out! enjoy :D p.s. wear helmets when riding motorcycles!

playlist | visualizer part of the loveless anthology | an entry for equinox: the escapist

even under the closed lids of his eyes, jay could still see the dancing lights contrasting from the darkness.

the sound of the electro music playing shakes his surroundings, joined by the shuffling of people's feet in any open space that they could step in whatever the space's size. a microcosm of the crowds at the night market outside, or even the microcosm of the seoul metropolitan city. his heart beats with the bass thumping from the nearby speaker—transferring the sonic waves of the disc jockey performing on stage across the room. his ears are picking up the grainy scratch of the vinyl disc as the needle reads the printed sound wave, a slightly twangy pitch rising as the bpm gets faster and faster to make the transition to the next track seamless. cheers and exclaims follow from the young people who just a few years ago have just grown into adulthood alongside the new millennium, dancing the night away as they consume any experimental thing they're brave enough to do, even if they might regret it the next day.

jay should also do so. but he is a loomer.

a term coined by himself; an obvious answer to tell if someone asks him what he is doing most of the time. wallflower was a term he defined himself most in his younger years, as it was the only relatable word for him, but he doesn't think he is a flower of some sort. a flower blooms and reacts when the light shines on it. he, on the other hand, takes steps away so as to not be under a small sliver of it. the splash of the club's neon lights is making jay feel farther and farther away from the four walls of the club, mentally and physically. yet he preferred that to the day's sun. he's glad that he can walk around the night as it still acts like the rest of the day; business are doing their best as they recover from the financial crisis that happened before the turn of the century.

the shadow is jay's only haven against the piercing tints of hues that lift the club's atmosphere. just like it, his muted demeanour exudes a mystic aura to anyone around him. no one other than his gang and his family has ever heard him speak. his facial expressions are animated enough to tell what he's thinking—if they can read it under the obscurity of the shadow and the commotion. his black attire from head to toe definitely helps with it too, letting him blend more into the night, even underneath the neon signs of the streets; both from walking on the pavement or reflected on the body of his trusted kawasaki ninja bike.

the moisture produced from his closed eyes makes his vision blurry when he slowly opens them. the sporadically moving spotlights shine their colour-changing beam all around the crowded room. people rubbing against each other—well, grinding for the people who he can predict will end the night together—following the rhythm of the track playing as clouds of white smoke and splashes of alcoholic beverage exude from them. scents of people's sweat combining as they move their heads and bodies along, between them being sober, drunk, or intoxicated by a more dangerous chemical drug like ecstasy. he tried said drug once. and he swore to never try it again after he didn't sleep for the next 24 hours. just like the name "ecstasy" entails; being too high on the substance and it makes him not his usual gloomy self—something he hates to think about after his drug trip. his ribs showed prominently as his sober self felt how sweaty his upper body was all over his skin, never stopping until the chemical was gone from his body from dancing and drinking. even though jay says no after that trip, his friends are still doing so as he's alright with his alcohol and cigarettes—sometimes a joint of weed if nicholas gets a few rolls.

even with the darkness covering most of the club, his eyes have adapted to the dark and can still detect where his friends are: nicholas trading with someone at a pillar beside the bar, jake and euijoo enjoying the girls that their booth's "regulars" every time he and his friends come, while sunghoon is openly making out on the dance floor with a girl he recognized to be the guy's ex-fling. while his friends are doing their usual shenanigans, here he is: in his dark corner, hiding from everyone. each time one of the regular girls comes to sit at his gang's regular booth, his alert self always stands up to walk to his usual spot in the corner—which usually does not take long at all because they could even come before his drink is being served. jay still wonders how his gang still wants him within them, even with his more closed-off demeanour. wealth seems to not be a problem as he recognises his friends are also people with easy access to money—all of them meeting each other when enrolling in an international school throughout their school days—and power is also not it when the balance seems to be fair for all five of the gang. maybe the diversity of personalities is what makes them let him stay; being the only one openly closed off even among the introverts in his gang; which are him, euijoo, and sunghoon.

shaking his head as he lets his thoughts float away, jay pulls out the recognisable thick paper box from one of his pant pockets, flipping the top open as he pulls one small yet long cylinder out. replacing it with a small boxy shape, his calloused fingertip rubs against the lighter wheel before flicking it, seeing the spark fly before the rest of the orange flame lights up as he inhales while placing the flame on the tip. the hot and bitter smoke scratches the back of his mouth when he puts out the fire and pulls the cigarette away from between his lips, slightly opening his mouth as the smoke floats outside of him, even outside of his shadowy corner as the spotlight goes through it. yet, no one seems to notice him at all—a small smile tugging the corner of his lips when he also realised that.

jay's body returns to its original position: leaning against the graffiti-covered wall of the corner as he lets his vision continue on his usual observation night by night, puffing it up and returning it to the side of his body in the usual intervals he often does whenever he smokes. the flying acid-scented haze filters what he sees as his eyes stuck on the booth where his friends are now sitting—both nicholas and sunghoon have returned to join jake and euijoo. all four of them now playing a drinking game along with the girls who seem to snuggle up on the over-capacity semi-circle of the booth's velvet seat. he can see the orange flame crawling inside the cigarette below him as he flicks the burnt ash onto the dirty concrete floor.

then, a small spotlight is suddenly on him, making the boy grimace for a split second from the unexpected shine. anyone might intend to focus on it and find him as a result, but jay didn't detect any signs of that. his friends do just that as he usually sees them looking towards his way once every few minutes, the same drunk-like smiles showing from all of them as they take turns to take a shot from whatever drinking game they're playing. even with it, he can't help the other thoughts from within his mind's vault creeping in. how his friends might let him go someday; how he will be teased again for his quiet demeanor, like what he experienced back in his school years; and many more troubling thoughts that have summed up in his mind since he could remember. he has buried them as best as he can. but a minuscule crack is always enough for it to leak back into his conscious mind.

the flame that illuminates a fraction of his being is enough to let the world know he exists; even with the thoughts clouding his mind. stress and burden seemed to fall away in tiny bits as he could see the flame coming closer and closer to the fingers that he pinched the stick in between. under the layers of booming music from the speaker and his free hand wrapping in front of his torso, he hears a small click and a small orange light coming from the dark side, where it was supposed to be the deepest part of his shadowy blanket.

a trembling breath, a puff, and a hot cloud that flies in front of him later, jay finally turns his head around to follow the trail of smoke and sound.

"fuck! sorry for startling you."

the low-volumed sound waves interact with him first as jay looks to the other orange flame on the blunt end, seeing its source behind the faint light coming from the lit up cig. a tint of green coming from the spotlight beam adds to the visage as it captures one side of the person's face clearer. there is also something glimmering under the light before the beam turns away once again to the heads in the crowd.

"and for smoking…" the person's speaking pace slows, the hand holding the stick suspended in the air. the person's eyes find the boy's more visible side coming from where he is positioned. the dancing crowd becomes a background of his presence as the person, you, are deeper in the corner; resting your head on the other wall that connects the corner together. a few of the light beams that reach behind his head can still help you make out his facial features.

sharp. fierce. cold.

you watch him let out a smirk, one corner of his lips lifted, creating a charming yet smug smile, as he lifts his other hand up and you recognise that burnt tip anywhere, nearly finished as the fire almost meets his skin. he's not flinching even with the warmth inching closer and closer, adding more to his intimidating impression.

"uh huh…" you sounded, tilted your head before nodding as you let yourself take another drag from your own cig. jay continues as he has now realised just how short the burning stick on his hand has become before putting it out by throwing it on the ground and crushing it under his shoe's sole. his hand approaches the box that he pockets and picks up another stick. but when he wants to flick the flame up from his lighter, a brighter orange light comes from beside him. cigarette between his lips, he turns once again to see you and your other hand on your lighter, the flame dancing lightly as no other breeze can affect them inside the room other than people's kinetic movement and their breaths.

pushing the end of his cig to it, jay's eyes observe you who is more visible behind the bright yet small dancing fire: pulling out your own stick from your lips as they open a little bit, letting the hot smoke out before you blow the rest to the air between the two of you. also, he could finally see the glimmering coming from you that he saw a few seconds from when the spotlight hit a tiny piece of you: the silver buckle of your black leather choker.

you quickly put out the lighter as jay discovered how burnt the wrapping paper is from staying on the fire for too long. he clears his throat before returning to inhale and exhale the smoke. from the smell of it, your cig has a hint of menthol that clashes with his woody vanilla-esque smell he loves. you must enjoy sipping a drink along with doing so as the mouth cavity does become "cooler" from the mint-on-cold combination. you were also wearing an all-black ensemble from head to toe, your hair framing your face in a perfect mix of grungy-messy but still shaped enough that it doesn't look as frantic as the other girls he saw wearing too excessive an amount of hairspray to make it puffy. your eyes, however, were moving around to see the view. but it contrasts with how slow you let the smoke out—the way your chest is on a steady, slow pace. jay's eyes return to the view outside of his dark bubble, but he couldn't let go and just ignore the presence of another human being beside him.

the beating bass still fills the room up but jay could still hear you grunt as you pull out your phone from your pocket. it vibrates against your hand as you flip the top open, skim-reading the screen before tucking it back into your pocket once again. your eyes look around in the dark before they met with his, his tongue subtly rubbing against the tar that sticks onto his teeth. your lips formed into a thin line as you threw your burnt cig onto the floor before crushing it in one go with your combat boots. blowing a strand of hair from your forehead, you lean back against the wall to breathe in the club's air—no matter how stinky it is. it all seems natural to you and similar to him. your mannerism, even in the dark, seems to naturally flow; your no-colour outfit makes you try to hide yourself even in a place like this, where someone like you is more approachable than him.

jay now realised that you are also a fellow loomer. though he doesn't know if you know what the word meant.

"sorry for startling you…" he heard mutters to see your lips move along with what you said. your voice is a tad bit raspy from the smoke burning inside. jay lets out a slow nod as your lips settle back into their original structure, a small tug on your lips.

"this is also my favorite corner every time i go here." you continue even with the few seconds of silence between the two of you. "it's dark enough that people can't see you even with one glance and it's not near any of the most populated area of the club." a regular, jay assumed, but he never saw you here before. jay does have a few places he frequents with his friends. clubs aren't his thing even if he visits them often—he prefers to hang out underneath the bridge on the side of the han river—but this is where the gang hangs out the most. a base camp of some sort. though he rests in the shadows, he could still recognise people whom he often views. but with the way your eyes are flicking around the vast chromatic space outside of the corner, you still are confused about the layout of the place. you're not a regular at all.

"though when you like standing idly in the dark, there might be someone that notices you're here…" your voice trails off, realising that you were talking to him, implicitly asking if what you said was also true to him or not. his eyes catch yours as you let your fingers rest beside you, a rhythm created from your fingertips meeting the wall while you exhale and inhale in a slow beat. eyes closing as you lick your lips. the wrinkles between your eyebrows reacting as you were thinking of something, but the way your chest sometimes still staggering in between your calm flow sets an alarm in his mind.

that's when jay heard more shuffling feet than usual around the bar and booths.

his eyes settled on his friends as they all seemed to notice it too. the girls hanging by their sides all cower closer to them as the crowd around the bar stools is still as full, but when it usually moves like the current of the river, now becomes more tense—even he could feel that by looking at their stiff shoulders. his lips pop from tasting the residue of the cigs as his eyes focus on the crowd moving unnaturally. someone must be pushing people around to go past the crowd. squinting his eyes, he could see a group trying to push towards the location where he and you are. and a glimpse of the top of the head is enough for you to grab something the nearest to you: his wrist.

the breathy sound comes back as jay looks at your darkened silhouette, eyes staring at the dispersing crowd. sensing it, you turn to him as you try to compose yourself. but the way your eyes glisten from the spotlight highlights more moisture near your tearducts that send alerts to his consciousness. still frantically looks away at the crowded space, but he sees how your jaw clenches.

"take me out of here." your sight returns to meet him and that's when he fully sees the darkness inside you. not the evil nor the lustful kind. but another intense feeling.

"please…"

fear.

jay reacts as he brushes your hand off his wrist before clasping it with his palm, fingers curling as he drags you outside into the colourful shine. the unexpected movement doesn't hurt his eyes as he sees all the colours blurry. hands locking with yours, he let his feet navigate the outskirts of the dancing crowd, stepping in front of people who were also standing by the wall. some recognise him and some aren't as he gave a small knowing nod with his resting face. his eyebrows furrowed as he saw the doorframe beside the jockey's booth. the lights were flickering on and off, but only people who recognise it can see it—even though it's obscured by the absence of the light.

your body felt light even if he dragged you, quickly adapting to his pace and the path he was taking you. your ears are getting more and more buzzed as the boy drags you closer to the speakers. but even with the bass booming, your eyes still look behind you as you catch the pair of eyes you don't want to see.

"(Y/N)!" though muffled by the music, you can still hear him scream your name as you push the boy forward, making him stagger before you return his icy gaze with your concerned ones.

as they both reach the doorframe, jay quickly wraps your shoulder with his arm as he guides you to the hallway filled with graffiti and a few people making out against each other. his eyes only saw one thing: the door with the neon green exit sign on the top. the back entrance was what the employees used, but he and his friends knew about this after they scouted the nearest exit if a police raid happened—which he had escaped from a few times. the employees doesn't even bat an eye at him as he knows how much he and the gang has spend on this establisment ever since this became their hangout spot, some of the women even give him a sly wink knowing something he subconsciously know after observing his booth so much and the girls hanging out there—thinking you were one of them.

the fresh air was a taste he missed as he stepped onto the alley right beside the dumpster. the exterior lights of some businesses don't reach deep into the alley, so they can let both of you stand and blend into the shadows. but that is still not enough when you recall the person you escaped from was following you. then, the person is definitely gonna know about this back exit.

"do you have any trans-transport?" you're holding onto your chest. "fuck- don't mind it. the subway station is near here-"

"my bike is this way." eyebrows raised, you didn't expect him to reply while jutting his chin to the road where the front door is..

the boy's voice is gravelly–influenced by the cig, but it is definitely his regular voice—but it doesn't seem as cold as his demeanour.

it's warm.

maybe the warmest voice you've heard in a while.

jay didn't see the strap of the black bag across your chest before he heard the familiar rumbling, even with the muffled song inside behind the walls. he took the initial steps when he heard your shuffling feet on the same pace as his as you both walked towards the shining neon lights decorating the street. people walking to and fro as he and you blend in perfectly under the white lights of the streetlamps. his eyes peek towards you as he can now fully see you with the light. beside the hair that covers your cheek, he can see the small strip of bandage on the cheekbone area, a scar across the bridge of your nose, and a faded bruise on the corner of your right lip. he chuckles to himself as he stops his hand before rubbing against his own bruise on his left cheekbone—a result of an altercation he had yesterday, the usual gang thing that seems so simple yet all of the people are stubborn. he also seems to be so when he can still feel the scabs on his knuckles to punch the guy that punched him before sunghoon took care of the rest.

both of you aren't that different after all.

your eyes stare at the rows of motorbikes before the boy sets his eyes on one of them. the black color of its body reflects who he is perfectly as you see him tugging his black outer closer to him, untying the black bandana tied on the handle as if to tell people that this specific bike belongs to him. the adrenaline is still flowing in you as you see him pulls the bike backward and straddles into the leather seat. the way his long legs anchor the bike to the ground as he stabilises himself, tying the bandana behind his head and covering the lower part of his face, leaving his eyes visible. the lights at the parking area shine on him and you now notice streaks of navy blue highlights on his hair. it looks like he dyed it without having to bleach it up, making it so that only people who have a keen eye can detect the two different colours.

"the name's (y/n)," you spoke out. the boy turns his head towards you when you tilt your head.

"guess i should introduce myself before you took me away." your face contorts, the pain on the right side of your lips coming up again as you hold your best to not show him that you are still hurting. the dark is friendly enough to not let people know how battered your face is. even telling people asking about you "i'm fine" is getting sickening as you try to escape people you know, especially those who also know him.

"jay," you pick up as he gazes at you before signalling to the space on the seat behind him. you give a small smile as you pluck a cig out of your own teal-accented box—quickly go into the routine as the spark from the wheel creates the fire that burns the cig before you set it off. jay turns the key to the bike as the rumbling machine turns on and combines with the sound of the vehicles on the street. while you slowly climb up the higher back of the bike, the movement makes you have to adjust your choker and you give him a whisper of "okay" before he pushes his feet off the ground and turns the handle, revving the bike as it lurches down the path and to the road.

the way gravity works makes you have to rest your head against jay's back, feeling his spine even under the layers of clothes as you take another puff of your deadly stick. the smoke flies away quickly by the wind that the speed of the bike makes. it's been a long time since you rode a motorcycle, since the last time you remember was back home when you rode it with your mom behind you, guiding you on how to use it as you tried your best to balance yourself. that was years ago, back in high school, and here you are in the big city. the thrilling rush reminds you of home as you breathe in the clear air, missing the smell of salt in the air that usually accompanies it.

your eyes glance outwards as you see jay driving you both through tunnels that cut through the city, swerving around cars and other slower bikes as you let your other hand grip onto jay's waist. the burning ash flies away from the tip from how fast it is as you continue to smoke—eyes were watering too because of the wisps into them. it's very cool against your skin as the only source of warmth is the body in front of you and the burning stick that is on the verge of dying. in a natural for you, you tug closer to the warmth as your other hand now rests around the front of jay, hoping he doesn't mind it.

signs made of glow decorate the streets as you read the writings on them. bars and restaurants names written in hangul and some in the alphabet make your starving stomach react once again. it didn't take long as the boy stopped the bike on one of the parking lots where many motorcycles park. your head lifts up from the broad back as you see the many plastic roofs of street booths, smelling the tasty aroma flowing through the air. after putting out the cigarette while letting jay finish parking the bike, you rub your palms against your arms to send the friction heat streaming through you. the chilly night's air becomes more and more colder as the moon rises, or maybe it's falling down to the western horizon because of how late it is.

the street has barricades to prevent any vehicles to come in to the perimeter. the bustling sounds of chatters make the block alive as the smell of a familiar fragrance enters your nose, making your stomach rumble once again. jay walks from the parked bike and stands beside you, the bandana now pulled down and hanging by his neck as he also encloses more of his black outer piece. roofs of different colored tents reflect the shine on them as if they exude the colour by themselves. the sound of scraping of aluminium against the wok is harmonising with the sizzling. entering through the small gap between the tents from the parking lot, you were met with the nightly food market. rows of plastic-made tables and chairs stretch through the street to accommodate any customers who are eating. most are definitely adults as you also see a few specks of them bringing their little children—the older children have school for the next day and missed out on the delicious cuisine.

footsteps walking nearly in sync as you and he gaze at the kinds of food being sold here. jay has been to this market before—one of his favourites to buy takeaways so that he can stock up for tomorrow's meal. it's also a go-to place for him to buy food before going to the han river and return back into his shadow; especially if he wants more asian cuisine because the snack bar sells mostly westernised food. hunger still exists even in the blanket of darkness, and with both of them fulfilled at the same time, jay feels like a happier man. while one doesn't expect it, he has a very caring relationship with food. jay could remember the memories of seeing his mom cooking something in the kitchen, like miyeokguk for his birthdays or the occasional kimchi that she's mixing before letting it ferment. he still gets kimchi from her once a month, and even that with white rice is enough for him.

"chinese food sounds delicious," he glances at you as you stare at the blue-tinted booth that is nestled in a building with a protruding tent canopy as chairs and tables fill the area. jay stares at the unrecognisable characters painted on the glass pane—he still can't understand it even after enrolling in a hanja class back in his first year of college.

"if you don't mind, of course," you added and turned to him, eyes meeting as jay naturally reacts with a shake of his head before you proceed towards the cook by the wheeled counter behind the glass. hearing you order what you like, especially with how hungry you seem, earns him an achievement for providing something to you as he stood back. your sight shifts back towards him before sliding diagonally down to the menu as he reads it.

settling down at the empty table overlooking the main street where more food is sold and people are eating, jay finally pulls out his phone to see the sms flowing one by one from his friends. the cut-up words look ridiculous, but definitely helpful when you only have limited buttons and characters on the phone itself. he chuckles as he sees euijoo's message on how piss jake is when he realizes that he was gone without telling him. his fingers press on the button rapidly as he follows the words he's trying to write, pressing the button multiple times to find the right alphabet to use as he types the significantly short message to reply.

1 message received

euijoo - 02.48 am a guy walk into de club n start 2 chase sum1 is dat y u run

jay stares at the blinking line of the text as he exhales before texting a "yes". when he wants to press the send button, his eyes lift up to see you who is putting away your bag on the table. seeing the other side of your face, he could see another bruise there on your right cheekbone, creating a line that connects every wound from one cheek to another with your nose as the bridge. his eyebrows crumpled whilst peeking at how your lips are pursing, but also interrupted with how your teeth bite your lip; almost like a soothing reaction as your arms remain still on the plastic table. your darkened, fearful eyes peer around the area, observing the people who are still eating this late at night while still having that alertness. it's like the person who was chasing you might know where you are going to be in the vastness of the city that is seoul.

scraps of movement on the asphalt road captured his attention as the cook came into his sight with two bowls. a jjajjangmyeon for him and a spicy warm jjamppong for you before he went back to provide you with the water pitcher. your hand reaches for the disposable wooden chopstick, letting him see the scars on your hand under the light of the lamp, but also how frail your hand moves. he couldn't see before under the shadow, but jay can now notice how your hand movement looks stiff—only a little amount of energy is exerted into it. jay can only presume two things: either you are actually tired from escaping the club with him, or you are tired in general. and by the look of your bruises scattered around your body and especially your face, the latter thought seemed to be one that added to the enigma that is you in his mind.

the chopsticks mix the sauce with the noodles as slurps fill the air between the two of you. your breath staggers as you take in the spicy broth, combating the cold that grazes your skin, as he hears how you actually sigh unconsciously. but more of a relaxing sigh, like it is a first in a long time you have had chinese food when it is the most accessible one out there—other than local korean delicacies. your tongue pokes out and licks the spiciness across your lips before biting on the shellfish's meat as he focuses on his noodle and takes a bite. the words forming and places on the end of his tongue as it waits for him to finish this one munch out of the others until he swallows it down and fills his stomach.

"who was chasing you?" the boy's question makes you turn your head to face him, eyes finally finding the bruise on his face; similar to what you have. his sight was looking at the street for a few moments before meeting yours. the coldness seemed to melt, even for just a little bit.

"uhm…" you started, forming the words in your head, "i just had to leave someone. just for the night, though. i think."

your words came out full of hesitation and also thoughtfulness, but it is full of something innocent as well—the little "i think" showing it. yet, his eyes still linger on your bruised lips as he could finally notice the little twitch on your small smile, a spasm from the wound that still looks pretty fresh, with the latest it might be is a day old.

"and, when i left them, i didn't know where to go. i don't know seoul enough to get away from them far. so i just go into the next nightlife establishment that we have also gone to, knowing that they would chase me after."

jay could now definitely pinpoint the innocence in your eyes. eyes that were wandering the night market and observing the many people enjoying their time late in the night, instead of staying in their homes to sleep until morning comes. eyes that were looking around the city as he felt your protruding chin moving around on his back as he could see from the rear-view mirror, turning your head to gaze at the big towering buildings that pierce the night sky.

you are not a seoul citizen—unlike him.

then, your hands are clasped in front of the nearly empty bowl of jjamppong. the warmth of the broth slowly dissipates as only a few more strands of noodles are left behind for you to finish. a whiplash on your neck blooming as you stare at jay, yet you don't mind with the rush of dopamine. the way his bike moves around the streets gracefully tells you that he has knowledge of this city's streets and neighbourhoods more than you know. more than the important subway stops you usually get off at and the apartment you live in. more than the streets full of nightlife establishments you frequent to including the club where you found him.

"maybe, you can help me." your voice echoes as it flows to his ears, a slight pout on your lips, "maybe you can help me get to know more about seoul. i- well, none of the people close to me here have even introduce me to the city properly." there is hint of melancholy in your words right at the end, something that tugs his gut as he listens to your proposition.

your figure left him behind as he gazed at you, pulling out your wallet from your chest bag as you paid for not only your meal, but his as well. the cunning glint in your eyes tells him that he knows why you're doing that—the reason why you are pushing him to the corner as he finally takes in your full body appearance; like you have done things like this before to survive. jay has no choice but to repay you now and as you settle beside him once again, you already have an expectant smile on your face, which he replies with nods. because it would not be a gentlemanly thing for him to say "no".

both of you walk around the streets that are dwindling with humans. all who have their stomach filled with happiness as they return to their homes and take rest. nearing the plot of land full of cars and bikes parked, you found the signs pointing you to the nearest subway station as you turned your figure to face him—taking in his handsome yet stern face for the last time. your saviour for the night as he leaned his hips against his angular motorcycle.

"i was thinking maybe we can meet up here tomorrow night? if you don't have anything to do, of course."

jay's mind reverts to his message from his father—saying that he should actually start thinking of taking a job—involving himself in his family's business that had been paying for his upbringing and that will be his inheritance. yet, he only takes little jobs from here and there instead. maybe delivering invoices from one office to another, picking up stuff to be put in the office and more throughout the day, leaving his night free of hanging out with his gang even in that shrouded corner. but your proposal seemed to hit enough of his free time activity criteria.

he has always been more of a night owl—nocturnal, if he could elaborate more. the nighttime is where he felt the most alive as even the cold air still gets sizzled when the sun's rays hit his skin. and when you say to meet him tomorrow night, he can also add to the list that summarises you in his mind that you are also a night person. it is like you have little jobs here and there in the day to pay for your needs, but can feel free in the night to take in the city and release any pent-up emotion you've acquired in the day.

like what he does.

"i can."

"great!" you say with the corner of your lips lifted, the smile reaching to your eyes before you glance down at your feet, noticing the way your boots nearly touch his. "what time are you available? six? seven?"

"after sunset," jay responds instantly as you nod in understanding. your black outfits match with each other as you nod your head.

"seven it is. okay…" you continue nodding as you lightly bite your bottom lip. as you take a step back, he can feel the hesitation coming from you. it is like you don't want this night to end yet. like you are enjoying his company so much even if he stays quiet most of the time, answering in a succinct manner enough for you to understand.

and he also felt it. like he doesn't want to let go.

"i'll see you tomorrow at seven here." your words create a note to pin his mind as he watches your body stepping away towards the sidewalk to the nearest station. and when his eyes met yours, he could see the darkness all gone—now filled with floating saturated colours that only he could see.

"good night, jay." your smile lingers in his sight as you turn your body around, retracting towards the streetlight on the start of the pavement before you step out of the ray of light and into the shadows of the street against the backdrop of windows on the towers littered around seoul. he didn't realise he had a pout on his face until your silhouette finally blends in with the darkness.

"good night, (y/n)." he finally pushes out underneath his breath, turning to go on his bike and turns the ignition as the rumbling sound fills the air. jay already have a place that he could introduce to you tomorrow night after bringing around: his favourite place ever in seoul and a place that you, a fellow loomer, would also love.

-

the familiar smell of geoje's sea is kilometres away from you now: the place you called home before the metropolitan city swallows you into it. you miss the piercing sun as you step out of your house to find yourself across from the beach. your mom is already standing on the sand when she feels your presence behind her, nagging at you that you woke up late before nudging at the motor scooter that is waiting for you to ride with as she would sit behind you—like always when it comes to saturdays.

yet, the sun now felt more like a past memory. its piercing heat stings deeper than only the surface of your skin, sinking deep into your flesh that you can feel it in your bones. it is now an unfamiliar feeling for you, especially after you moved away from the coast. in the van with the familiar rowdy crowd after your mother had pushed you to take it. take the chance to go to seoul.

"you deserve to also thrive in a big modern city like seoul, (y/n). especially after you got the taste of busan," you remembered her saying after you told her of your new friends' proposition. the ones you met when you were already years in deep to doing your work that you have started ever since graduating high school—just a waitress in a plain eatery that overlooks the coast—when a bunch of boys and a girl came into the empty room. their eyes and thoughts were already pinpointed on you as the girl brought you to sit with them.

"we won't be able to finish it with only the five of us," she said before introducing herself as ningning, then the rounds started. eunseok, sungchan, shotaro, and the most beautiful boy you had ever seen that time with his acoustic guitar on his lap. wonbin: the same boy you were escaping from that night. the same boy that was once so in love with you that you decided to move across the country because you saw a glimpse of a future with him and the other boys that are his bandmates.

even after many ultimatums of breakups that are his fault for the causes—caught him mid-thrusting into a fan that was cheering on him when he was performing at the backstage room after his gig in the pub and music venue you are working in to get your ends meet—he still as adimant to make it up to you. attached; obsessed. time and time again. sometimes with his sweet words but also with his sharp movements, creating the bruises that still sting your face and waiting to repair itself after you helped it with antiseptics. his friends are no different. from sungchan who he is closest with and turns his eyes away and continues playing his guitar even when he could see the frontman flirting on the stage with you who is sitting there across from it, to ningning who allows you to refuge at her place—unofficially moving out from wonbin's unit nearly two weeks ago—and how your story and warnings to her are met with many dismissal.

"i fucking know wonbin longer than you, (y/n). he is the first person that i am friends with when i moved here from china. he is not like that." yet, she is still much more aware now even if it is not at 50% level, espeically seeing your bruised up face and marred skin combine with how you have reiterate to her time and time again: "i don't have anyone to fucking go to in seoul. it is just the five of you. that's why i am telling you this."

and so, your love for the sun is gone as you felt safer in the shadow. it is safer for you to just observe from the crowd as wonbin has a spotlight on him, playing his guitar on the stage, when you go do what you are good at: serving people their drinks, taking in their orders, and maybe get rope in their booth for a drinking game or two. and when it gets too much—as you watched his lazy smile making a bunch of girls swoon like he hasn't got you wrapped around his fingers already—you left for the nearest club from there. a place that he ironically introduced to you after your second night working in the venue. the rock songs are being replaced with hard-hitting techno as you find a corner and light a cigarette. eyes always fleeting towards the front door to see if he notices and chases you or not. because, per his words: "i won't ever let you out of my sight."

but, for the first time in your life, you seemed to gain hope from the darkness that is usually around you.

in that club, the darkness of the corner of you always obscured yourself in has a presence you only notice recently. you thought maybe it is just the void enveloping you, protecting you from the harms you inflict on yourself and other people inflict on you. maybe, that presence has always been jay; steps away with his lit up cigarette and smokes flying out of the corner with yours.

your boots stamp on the stairs as you climb out from the underground subway station, bag slinging around with your movement as your whole outfit lets you blend into the shadows that will be forming more later in the day. the neon symbols that were hollow when you saw them before descending to ride the train are now clearer as the purple takes over from the orange that only has a trace showing at the western horizon. you eyed the familiar hanging signs that you walk past to go to the apartment unit from yesterday night, now heading the opposite way from the station to go to the street that is ingrained in your mind. a hidden gem you will now always cherish when you are searching for a treat.

the smell of cooking food is already sizzling into the air, still enticing even though you had remembered that you had already eaten some food at the convenience store before riding the train. but the expectation of it lets you focus on the street that is approaching. a few steps and you arrive at the opening, watching people eating their food on the tables and chairs placed down between tents of street food delicacies. some of them are in their office outfits—suits, ties, and miniskirts spotted on the tables as they get their fill of dinner before going back home or do something else as the night has only just started. instead of joining them, you head towards another place; towards where people park their private vehicles.

vehicles, from cars to motorbikes and regular bicycles, are all parked there in an orderly manner. some of the cars are parked parallel while the motorbikes are gathered in one place. yet, one stood out. there, with the familiar black and white bandana tightly covering half of his face, stood your saviour from last night.

"hi!" your words bounce out from you, startling both him and yourself. jay shifts his head to face you and nods before looking down to take your appearance: not much different to the clothes you are wearing from yesterday colour-wise. but you decided to wear a thin long-sleeved black top in place of your crop top t-shirt from last night.

"can i get a smoke break first?" you already put your hand into your bag as you heard him hum, opening the pocket as you pull out your cigarette stick and lighter. the click and sizzle enter his ear as your eyes are focusing on the end of the cigarette that is being burned, inhaling to keep the fire on before exhaling along with the smoke. and you turned yourself around and stepped back to stand beside him, leaning slightly against his motorcycle as you took in the scenery that you had also seen not even 24 hours prior. but it is much more crowded—people know that 7 pm is still too early to end the night full of relaxation after a long day, and it is also too early to start yours.

"we're the same age, right?" you muttered out as jay turns his head to look at you. his twitching lips were obscured under his tied bandana mask.

"i'm 21," he replied as you answered, "same then. are you in university right now or..?"

"graduated early. business major. you?"

"no. i am not…" jay peers down to look at the smile you let out, "i don't have the money. it's one of the reasons why i'm in seoul now..." you take a drag from the cigarette, letting it coat your mouth with the familiar taste before you blow the smoke away, "to find them."

he takes in your words and the assumption he made of you from last night. the little jobs you are probably doing, the innocence you have in the metropolitan city you find yourself in—especially at the start of the new millennium—with everything that this city has been going through. it makes so much sense for someone like you to move to seoul to get a job, knowing the many opportunities it has compared to other towns. you are still wearing the choker you wore last night, like it is part of your identity. like it is a way to make you grounded and not be blown out of the way with the many things that happened in seoul. like it is a reminder for you to stay true to yourself.

jay watches as you throw the cigarette away and stomp them with your sole before pivoting to face him. "let's," you speak out, eyebrows raised as you stare into his eyes. behind the bandana, a smirk rises on his face as he signals towards his bike with a small turn of his head. he catches your smile widening as he gets on the seat, turning on the machine that was already plugged in with the key and revving the engine up.

he felt your chin resting on his shoulder as the motorbike swerved around cars and other vehicles in the streets of seoul. the breeze brushes his hair away as he talks underneath the sound of the engine and other noises, words only reserved for you as he points out the many places you both are cruising by. from the city hall area to the eulji-ro, the palaces then to the ever-crowded and bright myeong-dong with the namsan tower standing like a beacon between the hills that encompasses seoul metropolitan area. from the rearview mirror, he finds you examining around the buildings as their light shines on you. an earnest yet also mesmerised look on your face like a child who has only seen the city lights for the first time.

jay also notices how your chin lifts up from his shoulder when the bike glides on the bridge crossing the han river. the river's surface glimmering under the sky, resembling the stars high up above. he doesn't stop, speaking to you of the many neighbourhoods he is bringing you along. jamsil, samseong, and sinsa encompass the affluent district of gangnam, which even makes the boy feel indifferent as he realises the area he is in, making him ride down the hilly road as quick as possible to get closer to the final place he wants to show you. and so, after the whole introduction to seoul, he brought you to his favourite place in the city.

parking the bike in the empty lot, you already step down as you walk towards the snack bar nearest to his hangout place that overlooks the han river. the park area seems to be full of people riding bicycles for their nightly exercise, but his favourite spot is not exactly by the edge of the river. but a bit further in and right under the bridge. the view looks out beautifully on the city's increasing number of skyscrapers, yet he is still in the comfort of the shadows. the other boys also know about this place—their favourite spot to hang out after school before their parents would call them like crazy to get back home. but with their regular appearance at the club now, this place is solely his to claim as he visits much more often than they do now.

jay raises his hand as you walk back with a paper bowl of french fries before he sits down on the metal bench and the table in its set right underneath the bridge where cars and buses drive above them. your figure approaches and looks up, slowing your steps as you take in the massive structure hanging above you, casting darkness on the spots right underneath them before a clear image on the other side shows across from where you stood. your figure sits beside him on the same bench, placing the fries at the space between the two of you as the darkness encases you from above. the shine from the streetlights only shows one side of both of your faces as you nudge your head from your gaze on the bowl towards him—signalling for him to take one. a smile morphs on your expression when you watch him pinch one cut of the fry and plop it into his mouth. you finally let out a huge exhale and turn your head to gaze at the city that you have called home for one year now. yet, a city that is still so full of the unknown for you.

the skyscrapers' silhouettes are darker than the twilight sky—letting you take in the enormous figures in their entirety when you are so far out from their foundation. gazing at them, it reminds you of the silhouette of the cargo ships across the sea that are going to park by the harbour in busan. its huge shape looks small from where you are standing on the sand, wondering just how many of your bodies should stack with each other to know how tall it is. being in front of the skyscrapers makes you feel like you are facing against giants that roam across the soil, especially with the many development of south korea that you have heard so many times from the radio, talks of the older people in your village, and the glance of the newest newspaper that reaches geoje that can be one day late from the message busan has received.

and here you are, sitting beside the boy who only speaks if necessary��knowing even from your short interaction. his spoken words sear into your mind as you match up the view to the names he had uttered on the ride on his motorbike as you leaned against his shoulder; feeling free for the first time in a long time.

"hmm…" you hummed before chuckling, making him turn his head towards you from your peeking. "do you want to know the real reason why i ask you to introduce seoul to me?"

jay's eyes flicker between your eyes and lips, reading onto your face that is as open as ever for conversation—different to the trembling eyes he had seen yesterday. you were much more relaxed. maybe because it is due to your hidden position that only people who take a moment to wait and search will find the two of you. maybe it's because you are not being chased by someone. maybe it's because the shadow is protecting you, to allow you to speak comfortably.

"i'm… searching for a new job," you finally say, a small pout jutting as you tilt your head to face him. "i work in that pub and music venue near the club where we met, working as a waitress and occasionally hostess. i'll be quitting from there as soon as i find a replacement."

the boy sighed beside you as he continued picking up the fries. his body also relaxed as he already guessed that you are buying it for both of you—like yesterday with how you paid for the jjajangmyeon he ate. but when you mentioned job searching, his eyebrows became slightly creased. yet, your sudden smile calms his heartbeat; taking in just how with the slightest crook of your lips, all the worry in him disappears.

"thank you for that. for all of it. i now have some places that i can consider for my next job. hopefully, they're open to accepting me…" you gulped down before staring back at the snack bar where you bought the fries—one prospect of the jobs you are searching for. the men who serve you your food there seem lovely; the dark night outside of their shining boxes doesn't seem to slow them down with their business, as you read that they're going to be closing at around 11 at night. you recalled how the man by the cashier is looking at the man who cooks, a look of adoration in him as they take their business slow and steady. like it is more of a passion job rather than a profitable one.

"you are a seoul citizen, right? local?" the last word is uttered by you to make the question clearer as you see jay let out a smirk.

"born in the united states, but moved here when i was five years old."

"really? that's cool," your voice pitched got higher by the end of your sentence with your eyes openly marvelling at him, especially now with the bandana off as you could take in his facial profile. from his stern eyebrows to his sharp jawline that actually makes his cheeks warm. "since you lived here most of your life, do you have any thoughts about the city? i'm genuinely curious. especially coming from a local rather than an outsider like me."

"an outsider's perspective is more objective in one way," jay started, his words seemingly speaking like an invitation for you to also join in the conversation with your own opinion. his relaxed body now looks more upright as he leans towards the middle where the bowl rests between the two of you on the bench, "one word to describe seoul: convoluted."

nods coming from your head, agreeing to his one-word description of the city you are now in. "i expected that knowing the many narration of the 'miracle of the han river'"—your hands widens in front of you to emphasize the gradiosity of the era—"from the early 1990s to then it came crashing down because of the financial crisis that even my family back in the village is still recovering from." you let out all the buzzword you have seen from the newspaper and the newly printed textbooks your have to share in the classroom. the rising number of conglomerates and how it has evolved the korean economy back when you were in elementary school. the view of the beach from the fishboats you recognised suddenly gains an increase of bigger steel ships—dominating the shore with more coming to import or export to the countries that have agreed for a trade relation. then, the financial crisis you felt in high school, as your mom was more willing to cook you a doshirak rather than give you allowance money to buy food, with how devalued korean won became.

"but, if i want to describe seoul in one word, like you do," you point towards him using your shoulder, "i would probably say dangerous. i mean, the sampoong department store collapse, the one with the seongsu bridge. it shows how people are willing to be reckless to chase for that 'miracle' and cut corners to gain from them, to upkeep their image as best as they could with cost of being not transparent." your sigh hangs between the two of you as you finally made eye contact with him. "to know that i am scared of seoul in an understatement, seeing the trajectory of it all. and also the divide."

"are you sure you don't go to university?" jay's question makes you giggle as you finish another bite of the fry. you reply by shaking your head, confirming to him about your education status.

"i am just someone who is keen to learn about the world. that's all…" you spoke back towards him before letting out the final words you can't seem to stop, "even if i'm lonely doing it."

jay's eyebrows were raised for a second as you realised he must have caught on to what you said. but rather than pointing him out on it, you stayed quiet, and he seems to follow suit. his hand rummages in his pocket as he pulls out the cigarette package, pushing the box towards you, with you replying with your shaking head as you pull out your own box. pulling one stick out of the box, you heard the click beside you as jay's face is illuminated with the warm orange colour of the fire. his eyes look between the dancing flame and then to you as he is holding on to it.

quickly, you bite the end with your teeth as you let the dried leaves burn—remembering how you were doing the same to him the night before. the smoke flew between the two of you, smelling the different flavours of his cigarette compared to yours that blends in. there are only a few fries left between the two of you. yet jay's posture seemed like he was letting you take in the rest of the food.

"lonely is a good word to describe the people in the city. people like us." jay finally lets out, letting the drag of the cigarette fly between the two of you. the scent of his cigarette is much heavier than your own menthol one—the one that even wonbin doesn't know because you only started smoking when you were separated from him. slowly and surely letting it become your friend that spreads warmth inside you, because alcohol will only make you weep your feelings. you understand that the smell will stick onto your clothes, yet you don't care. even with their cons, the smoke warms your body up like a hug. and with that, you both are sitting beside each other, taking in his expression and implications as he does yours.

"i call myself a loomer. people who loom in the shadow and just observe your surroundings." his eyes met yours as he blew another cloud of smoke out—not bothering you at all as you take in the smoke instead with a small smile on your lips. "you are one."

a thin smile comes out from your lips as you track the verisimilitude in his face. to have a nickname given by a person you can't help but respect in many aspects—education, wealth, and socially—feels like an honour. even with his simple description, you understand what he was saying. that even here underneath the shadow that is a bridge connecting people across the han river throughout the urban area: you both are looming in the shadows and taking in seoul from the little shady corner—another shadowy haven to add to your collection that is the techno club as wonbin destroyed sanctity of the apartment you had shared with him before you moved to ningning's.

"i haven't heard of that word before. but it is fitting. i like observing more as life goes on. knowing that people also live their lives and i can learn more about them by just... taking them in one by one." you uttered back, watching how the one side of his face is more vivid because of the light. and because of it, you can see how his left eye is glimmering—a subtle joy shown from your like-mindedness.

and so, you both are taking in seoul with your own paces. small conversation bouncing here and there, but seoul is also the main character of the night. your eyes follow the headlights of the vehicle on the bridge across from where you are; asking the boy beside about who owns the skyscrapers you both are looking at; talking about his insight on the 1997 financial crisis as someone studying economics. these are many discussions you aren't able to have with the likes of shotaro and eunseok, who are focused on the materialistic side of an argument—the sentence "how much does it worth?" peeling your surface one by one when you talk to the main bandmates outside of wonbin. even ningning is much more open to talking about this, even if it is something she dislikes talking about, because it makes her head hot when she hears how your questions are basically peeling every layer like what an onion has.

the wind wisps against your head once again, feeling his warmth even from his back as he had put your arms to wrapped around his waist. the bike weaves through the emptier streets as he moves towards the direction of your apartment tower. different from the last time you rode the bike before, you lay your head on him with one side turning as you take in the scenery. the many signs of business that added more characeter to the street while the building outlines blends with the darkness when the streetlights doesn't reached the top. as the bike continues on the asphalt road, you catch the familiar sets of buildings zooming past—nearing your destination as you eyed jay who is looking at the buildings to find the right one from the address you told him.

"thank you once again," you finally able to say as you stand beside him, his long legs becoming the anchors of his bike to stand steadily as he gazed at you. your hand rubs the back of your neck, feeling the stickiness of the sweat that perspires from your activities with him tonight. said boy looks at you sheepishly, a curt nod given to you as he finally reaches for his bandana and ties it back onto the back of his head.

"here, let me help." your hands move instantly, reaching to smooth down the upper side of the triangle shape of the bandana that covers the lower half of his face. the boy's eyes peering down at your hands before going to your face, his gaze goes straight to you as you pull back, making a distance between both of your figures as you feel the warmth he exudes scattering from your touch. your hands slowly fall down back to your side as you give him a thin smile.

"good night, jay," you say back to him, the same way you did yesterday.

you walked a few steps back on the pavement as he put his hands on the handles, revving the engine up before turning towards you.

"good night, (y/n)," he replied. and with the way you turn your head to look back from your shoulder, even for just a slight movement, he knows you heard his words—unlike yesterday.

his motorbike scurries off into the shadows as you eyed the red shining glow from the brake lights, getting farther and farther away as it turns at the corner to god knows where he would be going tonight. you exhaled a breath you didn't realise you were holding as you turned to the apartment building. the flights of stairs are sticking onto the side of the building as the fences barricade you alongside its half-wall foundation and the canopy above you from the weather outside. the gap letting in the night wind that grazes your cheek as you keep up your breathing pace and walk up the steps to the apartment you share with ningning.

with the key between your fingers, you insert it into the hole and turn the lock open when you feel that it is so light. eyes now squinting, the door was unlocked as you turned your head around the hallway to the other doors where the other tenants live. ningning had said to you that she is going to get home late tonight—doing something other than her job—and she left after you. it is either that she forgot to lock the front door or someone is inside. bracing yourself, you turn the handle and step inside the apartment.

"ning?" you spoke as loud as the night lets you with the limited volume, pushing your shoes off as you eyed the front door cabinet to see that her regular pair of shoes are missing, but instead you found a pair of rubber slippers scattered from one side of the floor tile to other by the front door. a familiar rubber slippers you can already guess as his voice continues to confirm it.

"there you are, lover." his silhouette sits on the couch across from the stack of blankets and pillows you folded up that are your set of sleeping items. the minimal lighting coming from the night outside the window, the warm orange lamp on the table nearest to ningning's room and the ultraviolet light hanging nearest to the television shine on the white of wonbin's tank top and turn it into periwinkle. his long hair frames his small face as his bangs cover his eyes slightly—a look that made you fall in love with him in the first place. wonbin's head turns towards where you stand as he lets out a smirk, pushing his body to stand up as your hand reaches for the strap of your bag; curling around it.

"you've not been home for five days now. i did assumed that you were staying at ning's." his voice reaches you as you could feel the bruises on your face tingling. you had unofficially moved to ningning's apartment nearly two weeks ago and yet he only remembered the last five days? maybe, he had also forgotten about the time when you were picking up your clothes to move to ningning's where you had met him drunk and with a girl bent on her hands and knees in front of him in the bed he had called "ours" with you. his blanked out drunkness became harsher as the girl actually watched you two until your body landed on the ground with a few punches landed on your face. the girl's eyes were looking between you and then at wonbin as she scurried away, half-clothed, and bring your out of the apartment unit instead. she bought you two a cup of ramyeon as you both talked about boys and all other things inside the 24-hour convenience store: you never got her name and number when you both seperated at sunrise.

that was two days ago. the reason why you got these faded wounds all across your face and hands. and he doesn't seem to remember it at all

yet, even with the bruises and all, wonbin's voice still affects you, making you remain standing as he walks closer and closer. there are so many reasons why you are enamoured with this certain park wonbin, and his voice was one of them. bright like sunlight but can be deeper when serious, especially when he sings on stage as the spotlight makes him shine more. but you know your relationship with the sun now as it becomes murkier and murkier—like your connection with him that is getting much messier with the many times he won't stop his escapades and his friends enable him to not stop as well.

his hands that have held your body many times, have placed their mark on you, caressing down your curves in a way that is catered only towards his pleasure. but even with the many times you had seen him cheat on you and how nonchalant his friends are, you realised that you still can't live in seoul independently, because wonbin is the main reason why you came here, following him around as he also helped you carve seoul into your life, adding that you can also help provide for your mom back in geoje also—a mom that wants to think and live big. and that, without him or his friends who could also support a more ideal person than an outsider like you, you would be homeless.

his hand reaches up and caresses down your sleeve-covered arm, feeling the shivers growing across your nerves as he steps closer to you—letting you feel his breath against your skin. but your eyes remain still and only look at one point, which is his chest in your vision. the touch felt so familiar and soft, not the same touch that hit you down on the ground and blooming splotches of darker colours on your face. in his mind, you know that that version of wonbin and this version of him before you are the same person. but if they are, why does your heart recognise his touches and obscure the version that wounded you? like it is telling you that yes, the wonbin before you is the wonbin that you loved. your wonbin. not the one that was hitting you to the ground. not the one that was chasing you down yesterday night.

and yet, when he lifts your gaze with a hand on your jaw, your eyes meet his and you can't help but compare his eyes with jay's. wonbin's eyes exude something so carefully crafted to impress people, like the deities made him to be an adonis that enamoured the human race. there is a romantic glint in his eyes—a look that shows the person before him that he cares for their being. but his eyes seem so superficial when you look deeper and longer. unlike the way jay looks at you with his stare that is much sharper and darker. more brash and yet, jay's gaze seemed warmer.

then, he moved his head to the crook of your neck, his grip moved to hold around your wrist. you blinked slowly, letting the familiar sniffing session come as he couldn't even bear to smell the scent of another person on you. his possessiveness is showing—something you can only pinpoint as the mask is slipping down more day by day.

"since when did you smoke?" he replied after sniffing the scent on you. the scent that you conceal yourself in—coping with his behaviour by taking as many smoke breaks in the back alley of the place you are working as you can, especially when he is performing on stage and openly flirting with the audience; not knowing the boundaries of his on and off-stage personas. chuckles bubbling from you as you sense him moving around your figure. you peek from the corner of your eyes as you are met with his dark, wide eyes staring at you. his puffs of breath create a pattern as he sniffs you more—now on your hair.

"like you care…" you say, so exasperatedly. wonbin doesn't like it if you are giving him "the attitude", as he usually calls it. but you really, really want to spite him by opening your bag and pulling out a cig for you to light up and smoke in front of him—blowing the steam towards his smug face. but you felt how his heat gets closer and seeps into the fabric of your top from how close he is standing. shivers still running as it forms across your spine involuntarily until he lets go, and then replaces it with the way he lifts your hand that is wrapped in his.

slowly, he moves his head and you feel him sniffing down every patch of your skin, starting from your covered wrist. wonbin's hums signal to you that he could smell the tobacco clearly. your palm begins to sweat as you clench your hand with him holding onto you tightly and unmoving, to set you straight as you gaze the other way from him instead. then, you feel another of his hands touching your waist on the other side—his warm palm resting at its rightful space to hold you still. to hold you so you wouldn't leave like the previous two weeks. and just then, you remembered what you said to him: "like you care."

when you feel the tip of his sharp nose trail up your arms, your thoughts about wonbin start to waver. does he really care for your well-being this whole time, like he does when he asks you to come with him? his presence is your safe haven in the scary and cold atmosphere of seoul when you came here, and how you follow along with his movement—because you trust him so much. wonbin has always been possessive over you, especially when someone has their eyes landing too long on you as he glares at them before bringing you into his proximity. but those rose-tinted glasses were gone. openly sniffing your figure felt too much—like he doesn't trust you when you should be the one not trusting him—yet you are here, wrapped around his fingers once again as his sniffs approach your bicep and his other hand moves to hold your hip.

then, the kisses start. wonbin's trails them up your obscured muscles to your shoulders as your body tenses even more. your senses ignited as he pressed closer to you—letting you feel his growing bulge when his hips brushed against your backside side which made your eyes dilate. his other hand moves to the front as he presses down on your lower tummy, closer to your core that he had claimed. your eyes peeked behind you and trembled in confusion. is he actually serious? is he wanting you again? after many months of him ignoring you while you take care of him, he finally wants you. wonbin's kisses trail your exposed skin on the collarbone like a train track with its clear destination. his destination: approaching the crook of your neck.

you felt the plush of his lips finding the skin of your crook, pressing right underneath your leather collar as you had to blink slowly, taking in the sensation you hadn't had in a while—the one that he usually induces. your tense body starts relaxing in his touch. but then you felt his other hand on the front of your neck, holding onto the clasp of your choker.

everything snaps back into you in the blink of an eye.

power flows through as you finally able to push your limbs away from him, pulling away from his embrace you used to love as you turn around to face him. one hand on your choker as the other on the place where he presses near your nether region—covering yourself away from the intimacy you had shared with him. because now: he is a stranger.

you shake your head, gazing at the man you loved and how you felt the shivers slowly turning to dread. gazing in wonbin's eyes, his eyes that were dark and full of lust, slowly changes. the creases on his face transform as he stares at you—the eyes from two nights before when you openly resist him. the look that you recognised has been lingering beneath the surface every time you caught him in the act and how he doesn't even stop.

"what the fuck?" he said, so menacingly that it made you retreated your steps. you gaze at his empty hands that are now clenched. the veins you had adored when you saw him playing the guitar now look like a characteristic for a side of wonbin that you don't like to see. then, he lifts it up quickly, making you flinch away as you hesitantly look at the front door that is now behind him.

taking quick breaths in succession, you push him with all your might as you run to your shoes, quickly slip into them when your eyes look to wonbin's body, who is rising up from the floor because of your force that knocks him. your figure was already shaking and you didn't even care that you hadn't tied your laces as you opened the unit's door and ran down the hallway.

"you can't get away from me, (y/n)!" he shouted behind you as you continued looking forward. your bag bounces beside you as you swiftly take steps down the flight of stairs—his footsteps still chase after you. your breath is staggering as you try to skip a few spaces of the floor to make your distance farther, nearing the entrance of the apartment tower as you finally push away the door. wonbin's footsteps still pursuing you as you could see his figure from even a tiny glance behind your shoulder. your head turns to the numerous ways you could go as you let your feet bring you away.

your stomps are heavy against pavement in the dead of night, running and running as you still give as much space to how your feet landed on the ground so you couldn't step on your laces and tumbled to the ground to then be captured by him. you don't care if you are jaywalking when the road is empty. you just want to get away from him as much as possible. the darkness quickly surrounds you as you pick the road most obscured, hopefully concealing you from him as you could still hear his steps behind you. you don't want to look back—not like this—as you ran as fast as you could. all of the food you ate last time burns up as you take turns in the dark streets and never look back.

you don't know which road you are taking, but the neon signs become your lodestar as you follow them along. finding a large multilane road that still has vehicles on the road, you press the button to cross to turn it green numerous times. wonbin's footsteps haven't been ringing anymore, but you still felt him so near that you had to push yourself to move again. the lights now radiating on you as you could see your black sleeves having a blue tint on them because of the glow. then, your eyes find the shadows of people across from you: a crowd. a busy street even this late at night. and as the walking man light turns green, you push to jog down the crossing and join the group.

lights then welcomes you as you run up the incline, remembering the road before you, as the road you were driving past when you were with jay. the neighbourhood of myeong dong greets you properly after the brief introduction from the ride on jay's bike. many signboards show advertisements of numerous establishments, such as stores that are still open at this time of the night. your vision lets you observe the many people—more are local than outsiders—but they still create a crowd that you can blend in and lose his presence from behind you. this is the first time in a long time that the nighttime lights save you as you get yourself deeper into the street and the large crowd that gets denser.

your legs are burning after running as fast as possible, pausing your body as you could feel your legs trembling before you brace yourself with your hands on your knees—bending down as you take in deep inhales. finally turning around, the crowd had obscured you from wonbin enough that you could finally stand still and take in the scenery of the bright neighbourhood. you know that you had lost him blocks ago. but when you couldn't see his long hair and white tank top, relief spread across your body as you graze your neck once again, feeling the choker safe and sound. spinning around, you read the signs as you try your best to find the best refuge from the night. that is when the golden arches with the red background and the sign that says 24 hours caught your attention.

dragging your feet against the ground, you approached the entrance way to a mcdonalds. the logo hanging is on top of the exterior above the door as you peer into the glass window to find that it still has a few people eating there. the rumbling in your stomach reacts as you recognise the sign that tells you the menu items. and in resolution, you nodded your head: hoping that this is the refuge that will keep you safe, even just for tonight.

-

the familiar darkness now covers jay in his rightful place once again, taking in the flowing sonic waves from the speakers that are playing songs coming from the uk trance scene as he could feel how his head is droning alongside the elongated melody of born slippy by underground. taking another drag of his third cig of the night, he nods his head to the thumping beat as he gazes back at his friends who are doing their own shenanigans at their regular booth. seeing them already in a trance of alcoholic bottles scattered on the table with the regular girls sliding into their arms. but he couldn't help but be thinking of you.

the next day, after the day you and he rode around seoul and went to his spot under the bridge, he went back to the street food market—buying some food to fill in his fridge and put on the dining table—and he was hoping to find you there again. the bandana he wore the day before is now gone from his face and rested as a scarf, letting his eyes peer to the street where the underground subway station is located—the same sidewalk he saw you go back and come from when you two met up. but, after an hour of idly standing against his bike, he realises you aren't coming with a scoff coming out of him. and so, jay walks through the crowded pathway full of people buying and sending foods to the tables towards the chinese food street vendor that you both ate from, making him eating there alone as his eyes continue to be alert of your presence—still hoping that you would come as he waits for his takeaway orders to be finished.

it has been a week since that day and he has never seen you again throughout that week. jake had been the one noticing how fidgety jay has become. his friend observes how his eyes are looking at the view of nighttime seoul across the river for far too long—ignoring the food scattered on the metal table—when he feels jake's presence sitting beside him. and one by one, the others start to notice. how jay's quietness is different from the quietness they are used to; because jay's usual attention will still remain at present time when he listens to his friends talking about their college drama with the people he had encountered with before in some part of his life while taking in a drag of the joint nicholas had gotten for all five. yet, jay's attention is elsewhere. that is when euijoo was the first one asking the question that has been written at the space in front of the rest: "are you thinking about the girl that you were running away with?"

and for the first time in their friendship, he hesitated to let out a direct reply. thinking for a few moments more, even if he answers with just a few nods.

after taking a breath, jay let the heavy bass drummed into his ears as he could feel the wall shake from the frequency waves. his burning stick is getting shorter and shorter as he inhales more, making the fire spread closer towards his lips. then, he heard it. the sound he had expected to hear from the past week when he was standing in this very corner.

the sound of a click makes him rotate around as the orange flame blazes up and your facial features appear—glowing from the little source of light before it. your eyes dart up from the flame, greeting him with one look as you let the end of your cigarette between your lips get burned whilst also inhaling, taking in the smoke as he glances at your face. the bruises and strip bandage are now gone as he can finally scan your natural and healthy appearance. yet, he could actually see clearly how your under-eye circles were getting deeper into your skull. that was the last sight that he etched in his mind as the flame is gone with one blow with your lips.

jay's eyes adjust back to the darkness as he can still see you—and you to him. he peers down to still see the reflected silver buckle across the width of your neck: your choker necklace is still on as it becomes something that he will pinpoint about your appearance every time. but your outfit is much more casual, a t-shirt that is a perfect size for you, which doesn't press down on your skin. but also a jean pants that blends in with your top with its dark colour. taking another drag from your cigarette, your eyes met his as he noticed how you were letting out such a soft frown from your curving lips.

"where-"

"i'm sorry for not reaching out," you said in only a whisper he could hear. the smoke coming from your burning cigarette decorates his view as he throws the end to the ground and crushes it once again. yet, the slight spotlight grazing the corner where both of you stand lets him gaze at your features once again. the frown slowly morphs into a smile—a reassuring smile.

"i got a new job though." words come from you as another inhale of the poison lacing your stick as you drag it so deep, some come out from your nostrils before you let your mouth agape, letting the smoke out before blowing the rest. in a way, jay had felt calmer than before. that whatever he did days before—ever so minimal but still in the spirit of concern about you—goes away as he watches you become seemingly happier in return. it is like you have let go of some weight, even if he could detect a few hypothetical ones that are still doing a balancing act on your shoulders. nevertheless, the way your eyes twinkle as you told him makes him feel a sense of pride that you are sharing—a thing that repays every time you pay him food and his action of helping you run from the unknown person that was chasing after you.

"this calls for a celebration," your voice rang out as you peer once again at him, his lips pursed; contemplating your simple proposal. jay's eyes go to the booth where his friends are sitting, noticing jake already looking back when he nudges euijoo beside him: the ones who had directly asked him why he hadn't come to the club recently and know about who you are, even from the short sentences jay tells about you. smiles stretched on both of their faces as they moved their heads in sync—communicating with him in nonverbal gestures visible from where he stands.

jay's head turns towards the back exit beside the dj booth. the trance music continues whirring in a basic instrumental as people are still taking a rest from the beat drops and breakdowns. he returns to face you before pointing at the doorframe with his chin. "take the lead," his gestures said, making you put out the cigarette on the wall beside you. with a brush of a hand that he captures so messily, jay follows your movement as you brought him down the back exit once again. your head turns on a path hastily—seemingly remembering the path down the halls to find the door with the green exit sign. the breeze hits both of you when you open the door, eyeing the alleyway as you retrace the steps that you were taking last time—now with jay towing behind you.

his kawasaki ninja is parked perfectly with no other vehicles parked near it. jay's stride becomes wider as he reaches the bike first, as only a few of your curved fingers are connected with each other. rummaging his pocket for the key, he is one step closer to mounting the vehicle when he hears the sound of quick steps—making him pause when you stand between it and his figure. jay tilted his head at you before scanning through your nervous yet determined face. that twinkle in your eyes is still visible as you pivot your head to the side when you catch onto the motorbike's figure.

"can i control your bike?" your request is simple, but when he starts to let his doubt show, you continue your words. "i ride them back home ever since high school. though i am used to riding scooters, i think i should still be able to find my balance with it." your head gives a small nod at the vehicle behind you.

jay could see the wonder in your eyes that was being blended with a tinge of melancholy as you asked your question. he remembered your words about work, about home which you haven't mentioned where exactly. but, it is your celebration when he voluntarily follows you. he also has a role that helps you get a job now, and this is your way of saying thank you. and so, he walks around you and mounts the bike, pushing the key into the hole. but when you turn around to face him and expect to hear the ignition starting, he kicks the foot peg up and scoots a bit back whilst balancing the bike; leaving the front empty space for you.

"come," he says, eyeing you as you let out a smile when you didn't expect it. slowly, you climb in front of him very awkwardly until both of your feet are on each side of the ground and balance the bike perfectly. the engine roars when you turn the ignition key as you hold the handlebars, familiarising once again with the feeling before you push the bike and turn the handle—letting the bike lurch into the night's streets.

as you lean forward near the gas tank, hands holding tight onto the bars, the velocity makes jay have to lean against you. it feels rare for him to be in the backseat of a bike—especially being the only one among his friends who ride them because they prefer sports cars. so, he gently places his chin on your shoulder; not only because he wants to see how you are handling his bike, but he wants to hear your giggles clearly. the wind brushes both of your hairs back as you follow the lines of the road, even though you can also swerve from the left to the right lanes because there are no other vehicles on the road. then, you eyed the tunnel at the front as you twisted the handle more, feeling another kick from the engine as the bike went into the opening. the growling machinery bounces against the long walls as he observes how your eyes are peering out on the street. his hold on your waist is becoming a little tighter and you don't seem to mind it

then he realised by the euphoric look on your face as you take streets after streets of just sightseeing: you don't know your destination. you still don't know seoul's streets like he does, even with the public transport you are using, which only brings you to certain neighbourhoods that have heavy pedestrian traffic. and so, jay leans into your ear and says, "there's this bar i sometimes go to. do you wanna go there?"

"tell me the path to go there," you reply with a higher volume as he knows that you felt his nod beside your own head.

the night embraces both of you as the lights decorate it. from the business signs to billboards—all have their power on under the raven sky to capture people's attention. but jay's attention is on the street before him and you who is driving the bike. he signals with his voice by your ear on the streets to divert to as you follow along, tailing behind a bus before taking a turn on a smaller street. the bike sounds bounce against the buildings around as the lights here are more subdued. the bike is getting farther and farther from the main streets. and he signals you to the side as you see the small parking lot.

he is the one who steps down from the bike first as you push the foot peg down and turn the key for the ignition off. mounting off from the seat, you let out a big whoop as you tidied up your ruffled hair that is blown by the wind, hearing chuckles coming from jay when he watches your joyful exclamation. slowly, you stand close beside him and tuck your arm with his—letting him take the rein once again.

jay brought you towards the door that blends in too well with the grate that covers the closed small businesses around it. a security guard nods at jay—recognising the boy—and you, who is his plus one, as he pushes inside. dim lights outline the path of where you both are going as you both trek into what looks to be a small and dark bar. an orange light shines around the bar area as you both take a seat on the stools there. the lights shine on jay's side profile, the shadow casting on his sharp and angular face perfectly as you take in his jawline while he is talking to the bartender on what he would like to order before he turns to you.

when his eyes are on you, you can feel how your heart is pulsating. his cold gaze to others is warm to you—like a flame being lit up that attracts you like a wanderer in a dark forest walking closer to a burning campfire. it feels like a refuge, a refuge you could trust yourself to be comfortable with after the past days where you had to gather most of your things and move them away to a location that ningning, and especially wonbin, doesn't know. tiring away your days and nights from practising with your bosses on how to work the ice cream machine and how to deep fry stuff—helping them with their businesses until late at night and even until closing time.

"i'll go with the same," the bartender nods at your impromptu response when you realise that you took too long to answer the question. and with him leaving, you and jay remained there quietly. the place is bustling with mostly the sound of music playing that is nearing the end—but it is a place meant to be used to socialise quietly, unlike the pub you worked at before or the club you and jay meet. there is a shine of uv lights on one side of the room that makes it purple, creating a beautiful contrast with warm orange light. as you heard the song vibrating around the room, you glance around to find a bright jukebox near where you are both sitting—the sound coming out from it.

the bartender set down the glasses of daiquiri before you both as jay's head shook rhythmically whilst listening to the jazz song playing from the jukebox. you pick up the glass and immediately take a drink as you feel the icy liquid freshen you up, looking at the beverage glass you sip from before turning towards jay, who is only onto his.

"ah, sorry," you push the glass to meet his with a little clinking sound as you reply with, "cheers."

jay blinks his eyes, but he grows a smirk on his face before taking a sip of his own daiquiri. you both were sitting there peacefully, even though it seems that you two are in a more casual outfit than the other patrons look like. the bar does seem to be more or less like a speakeasy would look like—hidden with not many people knowing to keep that exclusivity. with the brashness of the pub and music venue you frequented for work or to gaze at the performing band, this is the place that you've been searching for to mix up your nights. a place that lets you drink, but still lets you think alongside it. abling you to think about everything you need to figure out in your life, especially with your relationships and all. to, at least, balance them all as best as you could.

"(y/n)," the deep voice calls for you as you glance at jay—his face already fronting yours as you see his irises flickering up and down, taking in you clearly with the better lighting. "why'd you need a new job?"

the question is so profound for you, as with only a number of people here you personally know in this very city, they never ask you about many of your reasons for decision making. why did you move away? why did you join them? what will you do? your beating heart continues as you think of your answer, a succinct yet understandable one.

"well," you lick your bottom lip. "as you know, i'm not from seoul. i'm from a little island near busan called geoje, and uh…" you let out an exhale, "i moved here to help get money for my mom. my dad passed away when i was still in middle school, so she is the one taking care of me until i graduated, while taking jobs here and there. and when i had the opportunity to go to seoul, she pushed me to do it. and here i am now." nods of your head ended your words as you take another sip of your cocktail, letting the alcohol buzz you. your hand gestures an open palm to him—an offer for him to continue the conversation.

"you know that i'm a business major. it's because my family owns a business here. logistics." you look to his eyes, the way they scrunch alongside his nose. "we're not chaebols, though we do work with them. but honestly," he shakes his head before peering back to you, "i don't really like that side of the social world."

you scoffed as you play with the rim of your glass, tracing around it that you can already guess costs a huge amount of heat temperature to shape them. "funny how different we are economy-wise. yet here we are, in this chaos that is seoul. running around nocturnally because the day stings us."

eyes looking at how his smirk widens and nods his head as he agrees with your words—letting the bar's atmosphere swallow you into its depths. your stool had scooted closer to him, letting your forearm which is resting on the counter brush against his. you noticed how his knuckles have scars on them and the calluses on his fingertips that is so familiar to wonbin's. those fingertips were the ones you noticed on him when you first sat down at the table with the rest of the five during your slow shift at the eatery, brushing your fingers against wonbin's unconsciously as your marred hands join in with each other's. and you do so with jay.

your fingers reach between his, brushing the calluses on his fingertips as you feel the electric spark. none of you are talking about anything as the silence clasps you both—talking isn't really the defining part of your relationship when you can understand his intentions just by gazes and non-verbal gestures. then, you felt it. how his fingers are also moving to brush against yours, slotting themselves between your fingers before curling against them: locking you into a small yet assuring embrace that tells how he is there for you—no matter how unconventional.

senses heightened as you felt his warmth transfer onto you, but you can also feel how your heart is clenching because of the familiarity. your acute hearing now makes you realise that the music had stopped, making you glance towards the jukebox as you let go of his small embrace; startling the boy when you stand up and stride away from him.

with a hand inside your bag, you walk by to see the jukebox's intricate design. a line of vinyl discs waiting to be picked as you pull out the coins and plunge them into the coin slot. the machine whirls on as you see the lights by the number pad. randomly, you pressed down a number as you see the machine pushing out the disc you pick. a metal hand picks it up and places it on the turntable, seeing it spins as the tonearm moves above the vinyl disc and pushes down—letting the needle read the grooves on the disc as you read the spinning album name in the middle while a loud guitar melody plays.

the beatles' rubber soul.

you have heard of the beatles numerous times because of wonbin. many times he had said that the beatles is his favourite band of all time, but he only had three of their albums. rubber soul is not one of them. yet, the sensation of how you are trying to forget about your ex-boyfriend instead is being torn down when you hear the familiar voice of paul mccartney. and combining that with how tipsy you have gotten from the near-finished glass of your daiquiri, you knew that you needed to get out of this place and get out of that space your ex-boyfriend brings you every time an item reminds you of him.

get out to run from ever thinking of everything as wonbin even when you are not near him—physically and emotionally.

and so, you run. the sound of someone's voice calling your name brushes away from the gush of speed as you retreat the steps you have gone through, climbing up the flight of stairs with floor lamps on each side of the path before being met with seoul's cold night atmosphere once again. with your tipsy vision, you are attracted to one side of the road where the lights are shining bright. the nearest subway station should be that way as your feet brought you towards it in auto-pilot—like a moth flying to a flame that is getting brighter and brighter with blue fire—much more attractive but also more dangerous. tears are free-falling down your cheeks as you mentally slap yourself on why you are thinking about wonbin when you are with jay.

you should be fucking ashamed of yourself. jay doesn't deserve someone like you, who can't even separate your ex-boyfriend from yourself.

footsteps are chasing after you—reminding you of when you escape from your apartment tower before wonbin ever catches you—and with a surge of adrenaline kicking in your tired self, you push yourself to run. but the footsteps behind you were quicker and you felt yourself being enveloped in a full-on embrace. the quiet cries you were letting out, turning into wails as you hold onto that memory, the boy that you once loved now hunting you down throughout the city as you feel more and more unsafe. that is when you heard jay's voice coming from your right ear.

"i'm here," he spoke only to you as your head lulls, body trembling whilst he holds you upright. lifting your hands up, you cover your face and let the dark consume you once again. yet, his hands don't let go. every touch on your body that reminds you of wonbin is all being cleared by jay, especially when he scented you that night. you turn around his arms and wrap your own around him, feeling his broad shoulders as you hide your face into the crook of his neck. jay's hand brushes down your spine in a soothing way—the same way your mom gave you when you hugged her for the last time before joining wonbin and his gang in their van on your way to seoul.

even if jay was looming over you like a shadow, his embrace feels like a blanket against the cool temperature. you brought your head beside his ear, whispering, "bring me to the spot under the bridge," and you felt him nod against your shoulder.

riding behind him once again, your blurry eyes take in the seoul streets as you hold onto him tightly. your trembling body becomes unnoticeable in the velocity of the ride as the lights then go out of your vision and are replaced by the streetlights as the road goes downwards from the hilly areas. the glimmering highrises look like stars from far away as the bike arrives at the parking lot of the river. you eyed the snack bar near the pathway beside the river's edge as you stepped down from the bike and rushed past jay towards the bench under the bridge, finding solace in being undetected as your body continues to shake.

jay follows you as your hand leans on the metal table before bringing you to sit on the bench, hands finding your waist as he lets you snuggle into him once again. under the bridge, you both sit there as the void of the night tells you both how alone you are. under the vastness of stars, light, and raven-colored sky, you only have each other.

he felt your hand lift off as jay turns to look at it, moving towards your neck as you tug on the choker that felt more tightening than ever. so, jay reacted; brushing your hair aside as he found the clasp that looked like a belt buckle and gently took it off. you take a huge inhale when you feel the tightness off of your neck as he pulls it into his palm, making you turn your head towards him with his free hand on your jaw. jay looks downward at the neck, checking for any marks on your neck that are a sign of the accessories being worn too tightly. instead, he found a mark that rested in the middle between the two edges of the choker; the colour of the skin is different from your natural tone. the line is small across the middle of the neck, but it's wider nearest the middle. then, with his widened eyes, he realised what the mark meant.

"i haven't been truthful with you," you can now say as you watch his eyes focused on the mark left behind on the column of your neck. the memories—remembering your trembling hand as you hold onto the kitchen knife against the skin, ready to end it all. slowly and slowly, letting out your truth, understanding that you are comfortable to make him know.

"i worked at the pub with the music venue near the club, where my ex-boyfriend performs. he was, is…" you shake your head as jay moves to cup your face, brushing your tears away as you didn't realise more of the fat drops coming out. "i don't love him anymore. yet, he is still stringing me around, giving me hope and breaking it all the time until i had enough. so, i decided to get a new job to leave him behind and i have been going to the club when i had the chance to get away. to your club."

"not my club," he instantly replies.

"you know what i mean," you answered back as he nods—how you refer to the club as the place that you both meet, "but yeah. i'm trying to live my life here and away from him as possible if i could. it also means doing activities at night so that i can't go and find him fucking someone at the venue."

jay takes in your words and arrange them carefully to make all of it makes sense. that you are from geoje who goes to seoul to find a job to help your mom back home, working in a pub where you meet your boyfriend there and he seems to be the cheating type, especially if the mark on your neck means something that he was thinking. his eyes study into yours, dilate with wide pupils as you take in as much of the light as possible from the darkness—the darkness that you deem to be a haven. under his embrace, your presence shakes him so much that he worries about your well-being. he is then being reminded of the scars that bruised your face when he first noticed you, adding that to note when you mentioned this ex-boyfriend of yours. a beautiful face undeserving of being marked that way. and also, to the way you could still understand him even with how minimal he talks, as he only opens his mouth if necessary—information exchange, guidance, greetings, and farewells.

the loomer that jay is now recognises that you are a full loomer like him—to escape whatever life you are living in the comfort of the dark—adding to that is your mindset that he has been piecing together like puzzle pieces, creating an image he can identify. you had lived an interesting he wished he had lived. but there is more to it when all he wants to do is to stay by your side and be with you in the many life-changing decisions you are going through right now.

jay also realises that he has fallen in love with you, that he wants to protect you and become your comfort. it's the reason why he is the one leaning forward first, connecting his lips to yours as he closes his eyes.

the sparks you felt when you brushed your fingers with his now turn into megawatts that could light a huge advertisement billboard when he kisses you. your eyes are still open, staring into his closed lids as you can't believe what is happening. from your mind, even with the encounters you have that can be counted with fingers, you know he isn't someone who expresses his feelings freely. it's the reason why his company—including his ignorance of you when standing in the same corner as he is—still feel as comfortable as ever. because he isn't nosy like other boys who see you as a target. yet, you felt something deeper with him when he wants to help you evade wonbin, when he wants to help you explore seoul and find a job; though you aren't fully open to the circumstances that you are in. something that is so unconditional that you haven't felt in a long time. and here you two are, kissing under the bridge beneath the stars that shine on seoul.

with your heart now beating not out of fear, you close your eyes and move your lips against his, taking in the way he moves as you let him take the lead—eyelashes caressing his and a hand resting on his nape. jay's hands move to cup both of your cheeks so delicately as your lips move to accommodate him. more and more sparks continue to pop and you feel shivers running down your spine. it spreads wider as you sense one of his hands move under your jean-covered thigh, signalling you to move as he pushes you so you could straddle him. the sigh coming out of between your lips makes him push his tongue to greet yours. kisses now opening more as you also try to suck on his tongue. his hands move to splay across your shoulder blades as yours move to brush his hair.

the fresh air skims against your skin when you perceive the coolness of both of your salivas on your lips. jay's head moves downwards, to your jaw and then to your neck. he focuses on there, kissing your scar numerous times from one side to another as you let out a sigh, leaning back to give him more expanse of your skin as you lightly bite on your lip, eyes gazing at the steel bars holding the structure upright above you, before glancing to find the lights on the other side of the path under the bridge. yet, they couldn't distract you from jay who is kissing your scar like crazy. like he is replacing that scar with his kisses instead, and you like it.

pulling him away with a tug of his hair, you push your head downwards as you places your forehead against his. and finally, he opened his eyes. the whites in them are nearly overtaken as he darts up at you, taking breaths to stabilize himself while you gaze into the beautiful darkness of his eyes. you take in jay's scent—the familiar woody cigarette scent now adding to your comfort trigger as you slowly brush his hair with your fingers. your eyes are slowly tearing up as you blink them away, glancing at his temple instead of his face.

"thank you," you state, not knowing what to say with the overwhelming emotions you are experiencing.

"i'm here for you." jay echoes what he said the last time when he embraces you, adding more to the list in your mind that compares him and wonbin. and so, you let out a small smile and hug him fully. his head resting beside yours on your shoulder as his cuddle continues to relax you. yet, the tears in your eyes continue to form and now fall down from the brimming eyelids. jay could definitely hear your sniffers as you felt him squeezing you tighter. but when he realises that the tears that wet his top are because you can now cry cathartically—he was wrong.

from your standpoint, the tears that have been falling from your eyes ever since jay hugs you are definitely full of joy, the first real joy you had felt in this city. but it is also the tears that have a tinge of guilt because you know that this could be the last time you feel his warmth again—you won't be able to when you go home.

-

jay had never been so dependent on his cell phone since the first time he got it back when he was in his freshman year of university the gloomy green hue of the screen stares back at him in the dark as he had always expected your message to come in. in regular intervals like the documents coming in from the fax machine full of reports that he had to scan through. as promise from last week, you had been keeping him up with texts and he to you as well.

(y/n) - 10.55 pm ive dun my shift

words that he could easily decipher, knowing that sms are being counted per character you are sending and the limited keyboard options, such as no apostrophes and periods, unlike the keyboard wired to his computer.

you have always been a part of his life ever since you told him of your job—well, when he discovered your job by himself. his eyes widened as he finds you manning the counter of the snack bar nearest to his regular spot at the han river bank—telling with your eyes that "yes, this is the job i told you about." ever since then, whenever his gang wants to buy food whilst hanging out and smoking joints on their bench underneath the bridge, he is the one that is coming there; letting your presence enter his grace as he points out the orders his friends are wanting from the back of his mind.

yet, you haven't kept up with him anymore today. all constant text you have texted in regular intervals disappears in an instant. the last message sent was from last night, 10.55 pm, when you finished your shift.

he pulls his cell phone out and looks down to find no notification number with your name attached to it, letting the booming techno music enter one of his ears and go out the other. jay blinks slowly, hoping that after his singular blink, he could see your name inside the shaded rectangle and a "1" showing up alongside the word "message received". but none came at all. and so, he leans back against the wall once again. the burning cigarette was nearing the end as he could feel the heat getting hotter and hotter close to his fingers.

as he crushed the cig under his foot, jay thinks back on your words from last week. how he felt something even when you only looked at him in a glance at the snack bar whilst taking care of many orders, to the characters of your message that entered his phone and how it also reflects how you speak in real life. a voice full of curiosity, yet it has a tinge of tiredness as well. his eyes landed on the exit sign above the main entrance. to the establishment you had spoken about near this very club.

for first time in a while, jay voluntarily steps out of his shadowy corner.

the boys also seem to notice it, eyes sticking onto their friend's figure who glides on the floor towards the entrance, moving in tandem with the crowd so he doesn't bump into them, and jay disappears into the other side of the room. the boy's eyes met the bouncer—who looks at him weirdly for going out so early in the night—as he gives a curt nod. he pulls his cigarette box, pushing one of the sticks out as he bites it between his lips. hands expertly moving to grab his lighter as the familiar click rings to him, letting the blunt burn as he peers from side to side—knowing the venue you meant as it is something he had gone past many times. with a step forward and another, he takes off into the shadowy night.

the orange flame on the end of the cigarette tells everyone outside of the vicinity of the shadow of jay's presence. his footsteps clear on the silent asphalt street where most of the people are inside the building; dancing, drinking, and fucking the night away. but his eyes are focused on one side of the road, looking between the entrances of buildings that are closed for the night to scan the ones in between them. from small restaurants to other club entrances.

his eyes landed on one with spotlights shining on the wall, posters of up-and-coming bands plastered there alongside their schedules—seemingly like regular performers as he couldn't see a specific date on the texts. only hours and days. he heard the sound of guitar strums muffled by the layers of walls. jay looks up and down at the entrance's appearance, seeing the name of the pub that you had mentioned before—confirming that this is the place you have talked about numerous times, even if it's not directly named. the security guard at the inside of the entrance stands as jay shows him his ID, before he moves sideways to let him in.

walking through a short hallway, the guitar sounds get louder and louder when he is met with open space. the bar is nearest to him as he looks at the other side of the room to find a performing band standing on stage. a four-person band, two on guitars, one on bass, and one on the drums. one of the guitarists seems to be the frontman with the mic stand erected in front of him as he sings into it—his bright voice constructing a source of light in the otherwise dark room. his hair is long with his bangs floppy near the corner of his lips, making the audience whoon as he swipes it away behind his ear. a smug showing in his face, yet jay's mouth could only taste bitterness.

that guy was exactly like how you mentioned your ex-boyfriend to be.

taking a few steps forward, the stage expands as jay continue to watch the band playing. the frontman playing the guitar so loosely, he couldn't help but compare it to how he plays guitar in his spare time. like it had become such a routine, the frontman doesn't need to exert more of his passion into it. and as the song comes to an end, the band plays a few last notes before ending with a huge ending for a flashy performance. cymbals ringing alongside the guitar chords before it stops, and is replaced by the cheering. audiences' hands raised up from clapping to waving as the frontman flips his guitar behind him, unplugging the amplifier cable before bowing his head to the audience. then he steps away as jay's sight continues to follow his figure. walking to the side of the stage when he finally sees two girls standing side by side. one with a smile on her face and the other has an indifferent expression.

you.

everything that he sees is behind the layer of shadows—ignored by the spotlight that is fixed to beam the stage. the frontman walks to approach you as jay can see your every expression with another step forward. the plain look on your expression is imbued with a little melancholy as you then smile when the boy stands before you. then, he hugs you first, your head appearing by his shoulder as he watches how your arms wrap behind the boy's figure, eyes looking at his head from the corner of your eyes before letting yourself close your eyes. jay's breath hitches as he continues to stare, eyes looking at your face with closed eyes when the frontman pulls back and pushes you again. now: to kiss you.

even from afar, he could see how you reacted. your hands gripping onto his shoulder as the female friend steps aside from the two of you, making him press you against the wall as the boy's body covers most of you. and as the band members collect their money alongside the female who moves away, jay's eyes are still on you as the boy moves you around so he could see the sides of both of the figures. then, he turns you around, pushing his chest to your back as his head moves down to your neck. his hands move to the waist that jay had held before to then as he sees the frontman's hand rising up to your black tank top. the lines on your face creased as jay could see the boy's hands giving a squeeze where your breasts are, making your hands reach up to them.

jay's body is now shaking, watching as you fall into the arms of the frontman—who he now knows is what you claimed to be your ex-boyfriend. yet, an ex should push away whenever they touch you. but you don't?

his eyes become seethingly blurry with how hard he squeezes his hands. nostrils flaring as he watches how you let yourself go in your ex's embrace. he shakes his head. surely not. surely you don't only see him as a rebound? is he a rebound? his heart aches more and more as jay continues to look at your face. the face that has been crying and smiling in his arms is now unfamiliar. that is, until he sees you tilt your head to look straight, opening your eyes to realise the location you are in, before letting them wander and meet with his sight.

the tears start to form instantly in your eyes as you look across to see jay. his nose crunched up as he examined between you and the boy who was groping you. jay nods his head before stepping away to the entrance. a dread made of an imaginary ice-cold water flows down onto your body as you quickly grip and claws wonbin's hand, disgust overwhelming you as you can't believe yourself for falling back once again in his embrace. you were so strong, yet you limp in his arms when you only wanted to be there to say your final farewell—to put this all in closure. to tell him to stop tracking you down again, in the nicest way possible. but it is impossible to do so with him when he still knows that you haven't fully let go of your wrap around his finger.

with a surge of shame and rage, you turned around and pushed wonbin away, staggering him as he was taking more time to balance himself with his guitar on his back. a smirk showing on his face like he knew, he knew what he was doing by taking advantage of you. and, it seems like he knew about the existence of jay, too.

"I FUCKING HATE YOU!" you screamed, catching the attention of every one in your vicinity. you take a few steps as you point to his chest multiple times.

"we're done and i should've said it yesterday," you said succinctly before walking away from—finally—your ex-boyfriend as you chase down jay's figure that must have been where you were minutes before. hurried walks claim you as you jump and skip towards the entrance and find the front where the performers' posters are stuck. eyes wandering around on the street as you picked up your phone, clicking the button open to press the number listed first in your contacts.

the line rings as you press it up against your ear. bottom lip slowly being bitten as you just want to know where he will be going—scrambling your mind and awaiting for him to pick up the call. it rings longer and longer as you realise he is not picking up and you dropped the hand holding the phone. then, you gaze at one side of the road; the path that you have always recognised when you need to escape this very place. and you run.

shadows surround you with streetlights becoming beacons, yet your feet are stepping onto the clear road swiftly, making the light unable to capture you anyway. you eyed the shiny entrance of the club. the familiar bouncer greets you as you step inside.

techno music makes the room vibrate as you have to wrap your arms in front of you. feeling your exposed shoulders brushing against people's bodies as your eyes are stuck to one corner of the room, a corner so dark to see from the outside. yet, you are very much attracted to it and the boy who resides there.

as you step into the barrier of darkness, his name flew out of your mouth.

"jay?" it rings. bouncing on the corners of the wall as your hand reaches out, trying to feel something warm and sturdy. but, you are instead being met with a rough-textured wall on the side where he usually stands. the side where he is so close to the barrier of the corner, the dj booth becomes a background of your view of him. panic began to show up as you turned around to look outside of the shadow, eyes seeing the booth with faces that you had recognised from meeting time to time in the past week. jay's friends.

as you approach, you see two of them making out with girls who are sitting on their laps. another wiping their nose of powder, and the one by the edge of the booth holding onto his glass full of vodka with coke on the melting rocks. his eyes, as well as the girl that snuggling beside him, look towards you when you approach.

"(y/n). right?" the last guy you noticed asks.

"yeah…" you looked around the booth as you scanned the view of it all. the boys all dress like how jay dresses, yet their behaviour is more open, extroverted—especially in contrast to the way jay lives his life. jay is the darkness that supports the neon colours of his friends' presence behaviour—creating the completeness of their friend group.

"do you know where jay is?" the question easily slips out of your lips as the two couples who were making out had stopped. one of the boys, who is letting a girl kiss him down his jawline, nudges the friend who was asking, like he knows some information and for him to say it.

"i don't know. he just went outside. earlier than what we used to see," the boy says, making you nod your head as you gesture back to them with an open palm to your chest. a small "thank you" coming from you as you turned back towards the entrance of the club.

if jay was not in the club, he must be somewhere you know—a place you and he have familiarised with. his favourite place in this hellhole of the city.

the nighttime's darkness permeates across the tunnels connecting the nearest exit to the concourse of the subway train. the usual crowded hallways are now filled only with you. your feet walk you down the path you are used to, standing on the moving escalator that runs between pillars that are holding the building above to not crush at the place you are standing. the whirlling of the machine enters your ears along with the sounds of the footsteps and the air conditioning fan that lets fresh air into the underground.

your eyes continue to look down on your sneakers-covered legs even as the train is moving. your body's buzzing all throughout because you are still, deep down, hoping that jay will be where you guess he will be. his motorcycle can take him anywhere he wants, from myeong-dong to gangnam to the hidden bar you both find yourself in for a different atmosphere take you haven't fully taken note of the location yet. and as the sound of the announcement rings through the near-empty train cars, saying the name of your stop, you push yourself up from the seat and let your body move on autopilot. down the familiar hallways, to the step out to the concrete ground outside, and finally, the path with trees and shrubs around it.

finally looking up, you gaze upon the beautiful view across from your figure; of the buildings with lights on, showing their occupancy even if there is no one in there for the night. you eyed the small shack you have called home for a week now—figuratively and literally—as you peer towards the open space under the bridge full of benches and tables for people to shield themselves from the sun, the rain, and the city. your eyes glance at the spot under the bridge, squinting your eyes ever so slightly to find something that reflects the light in the dark of what looks to be a white takeaway plastic bag. a smile grows instantly on your face before it falls as you take a deep breath and move forward.

"jay?" he could hear your voice calling from beside him, yet his eyes were stuck on the blinking needle on top of the tallest tower across the river. yet, you won't stop even if he doesn't answer.

jay sensed you sitting beside him, your thighs touching his as on his face formed a faint scowl that hurt you more as he continued to—softly—ignore you.

"i'm sorry," your words caught his attention, making him peek at you from the corner of his eyes slightly before returning to the scenery, "for making you see me that way. it's my fault i accepted it. And yeah, who you see with me is my ex-boyfriend, wonbin. the one that i told you about."

your hands grasp each other on your lap and you continued with your eyes closed shut, "i'm sorry for lying to you. i only had broken up with him officially right at that moment when i noticed you were there. i'm sorry for guiding you along like that. for the texts i have been sending to fill with only half-truths. for the many things i have to hide, knowing that everything i talked about will then be spread like what my friend says to him and-"

you felt warmth on top of your hands, looking down to see jay's on top of yours, curling his fingers to clasp onto them. "one by one," his comment so simple as you nodded. and so, you tell him everything. everything that you have been planning for the past week or two since you decided to live separately from wonbin's unit. context that will paint your situation for him completely, with no remorse.

"i am collecting enough money to fulfil my target for my mom and then go back home to geoje. seoul is not for me at all. i miss the slow pace style of living, thinking of trivial things on a daily basis. to be greeted by the sea every time you wake up and look out from your window." you gulped down. one explanation down as you skim at jay to find him looking back at you.

"i met wonbin, his bandmates, and their female friend when they were on a trip to geoje, finding themselves in the eatery i was working in. i was the only one on that shift with the owner as the chef alongside the barista for the drinks." a small smile grows on your face when the memories of the first encounter plays in your mind. "they were all so lovely, asking me to sit with them as we converse when i see that this particular guy—wonbin—is staring at me. so, i know at that moment that he is attracted to me. they asked me about many things and they came to know me well from the information they gathered. how i speak, how i think, how i perceive. especially wonbin, who could read it like it is written with big and thick-styled penmanship. so, they asked me to go to seoul with them when they're going back."

a scoff coming out of your lips as you remember more from that to continue, "i was thinking they were only kidding me. but i realise that they were serious, specifically after they all see this metaphorical glow when wonbin and i converse because we find a lot of things in common. i discuss with my mom about whether i should move away or not and all its many factors. i know that i still also some opportunities if i stay to work in busan, closer to my mom if she needs anything she can't get it herself so i could get the earliest bus and ride it to geoje. but, she convinces me to go to seoul. saying to me about bigger opportunities and such, but also taking risks for my life as well. so i go and as a result, wonbin and his friends are my lifelines here."

peeking back at jay, he had already turned his upper body to face you, his eyes telling you to continue on as you nodded, "wonbin and i established ourselves as officially dating when we arrived in seoul. though i do think the way he is seeing me transforms into a groupie persona towards the last few months. he never treats me seriously and only thinks of me as, like, this doll he owns. placing his hands on me whenever a customer gets to close to me whilst i was working at the pub. as months goes, i realised that he is very unloyal, fucking other girls behind my back even if we are in the same vicinity. it makes me feel so… limited." you rubbed your hands, "that people aren't on my side even when i talk about it. so, i started pushing the limits and went to the club that his friends introduced me to after a gig. during that escapade alone, i stayed in that corner a few times. not realising you were there with me."

you quickly put your hanging back on your lap, feeling your shoulder becoming lighter from the weight. "i realised i was at rock bottom. no other friends to confide in. no known familial connections with. no money for myself because i have to take care of our day-to-day lives. killing myself would probably be the easiest way out because i don't have anyone else here other than wonbin and his friends also enabling that, even the female friend who i wish would understand me more. one night, i decided to pull out a kitchen knife and," your hand forms into a gripping motion, placing it by your neck, "put it right there on my skin. the sharpness pierces through the surface as i felt warm blood flowing down. thinking about the hardships overshadowing the opportunities, about not being able to explore, and being stuck like i am in a cage."

with a hiss, you dropped your fist. "then, my mom's face shows up, she who is alone in geoje only with my extended families, expecting me to have fun and live my life happily here. i realised that i was selfish for wanting to go when i still have someone who is looking forward to my future no matter how it goes. so, i stopped and quickly wrote a letter to be sent to her, saying that i will be going home in a couple of months."

you brush your hair, feeling the cathartic turmoil that itches your skin as you are pouring everything out to jay; letting him know every truth to him. "then, around last month now. i decided to move out of wonbin's place to our shared female friend's unit. sleeping there at night but still getting my clothes and belongings out of his unit one by one when i found him fucking someone on our bed. he was blacked out drunk and pissed and so he beat me down, bruising my face that even his fucking paramour pitied me so much she rescue me from him. the next day, i walked away from the pub as we had an argument and how he doesn't even apologize to the bruises i have on my face. so i went to the club and to the corner when i finally realised you are there. that's where you come in, saving me as wonbin is chasing me down."

a chuckle came out of you, "the day after it, when you brought me home to the apartment tower and i told you about finding a new job, he tried to fuck me and my body is struggling to held on the morals i have set. to stop him. so when he found me living in his friend's place, he pushed himself on me. i realised that whatever plan i try is not going to work anymore and i have to act quick. i refuged somewhere else that night." jay's eyes shook as you told him what happened after he left, his head tilting down to cower himself before you.

"when i got the job at the snack bar, i realised he was tracking me down. so, every single thing i own in his apartment that i have taken out has to also move as i don't feel safe in that apartment tower anymore because he shows up again the next day and hangs out with our shared friend like nothing ever happened between us. i try my best to be hidden from him—sneakily sneak off in my shift until i secured the job and told the manager at the pub i resigned—and many more things. you and your friends are the only ones who know i work in that snack bar." you look at the small building across from you, feeling how his hand is staying still in yours.

jay is sitting there in silence, head tilted back up to glance at you. his hand move to curl more against yours as he collects the words he wants to say, but first and foremost, the word that you deserve to hear after every single puzzle piece is now here and how he solved it fast—seeing the bigger picture.

"i'm sorry for not protecting you enough." his words enter your ears, making your body tense as you peer at him, feeling the walls that are making you so sturdy melt away. jay flips your hand and lets his fingers lock in between yours. "where are you staying?"

"well," you eyed the shack near the river once again before turning to him, "come with me."

the boy lets you guide his movement with the interlocked hands, walking closer and closer towards the building you work at, where only the exterior lights are on—telling its presence there for the night owls like him and you. jay looks down and notices the glint of light in your hand as you both walk toward the door labelled "staff only", putting the key into its hole as you turn it and hear the clicking of the lock. pushing the door open and walking inside, a small luminescnet orange light greets jay as he surveys the room. the shelves nearest to the door have items labelled ranging from flours to oils—the area is where the snack bar stores its inventory. but behind that small lamp is a dark corner of the room. his familiar eyes to the darkness let him find a few bags and a suitcase residing beside a makeshift bed made of cardboard, a pillow, and a towel for the duvet. the space between his eyebrows wrinkled as he turned back to you, making you let out a thin smile.

"i convince my bosses i can open and close the store because i practically have nothing else to do. i've been staying here and they don't know about it." jay walks closer whilst hearing you talk, examining your living conditions now when he sees dried wax from candles gather into one spot, making him turn towards where the light comes from to see it being a candle placed on a small ceramic plate. "i've been using a bunch of candles so that they couldn't detect that i'm staying here by the electricity meter." you spoke out, looking at the corner you've been calling home. even with its less-than-likely situation, you felt safer here than staying at ningning's when wonbin could just barge into the room.

"i wanted to buy some groceries for myself today when i came across wonbin. he's egging me on again about me 'not being confident in him' and all that stuff. we are technically separated, but not once have i verbalised that we are over because i just think that he had already stopped seeing me that way." your expression becomes a faint frown as you sigh.

"for one last time, i trust him, so he brings me back to his friends and to the venue once again. them asking about my whereabouts and i had to stay as quiet as possible so they couldn't track me down for him. love is finicky when you still feel the feelings for the person you love so confidently in front of you. wonbin is better at performing than the first time i saw him and i'm very proud of him for that. but, my body is just…" a huge exhale came out of you, "too familiar with him that whenever he touches me. like a snap," you say while doing a snap!, "i lost control. i realised i have never been in control when i am with him, but then i saw you and start to think about the things i have taken control for myself to get rid of him. the last one is to reclaim that control of mine on him. and so i did and chase down after you."

you turn around and face him, stepping closer as you look at him with remorse, "you've been the most supportive person i have had in a while. i apologise for stringing you along for whatever has happened in this short relationship we had. you're my saviour not only from wonbin, but from the harshness of seoul. you've made me less lonely, though i know you like to be alone even under the neon signs at night. i don't know if you still want to be friends, or whatever this is, with me. but i thank you for that. and when the time comes and i have enough to meet my financial target, i will buy the first ticket back to geoje no matter how expensive-"

his body acts after you say your last words, leaning in to kiss your breath away. your eyes blink into close as your frown fades and are replaced with furrowed eyebrows before he lets go. his breath blows on your skin as he glances you in the eyes. "i don't know if i could let you go that easily."

jay moves his head back to let you see his face as a whole, words are forming on the tip of his tongue, of something he wanted to say to you. "i have fallen for you, (y/n). i have fallen for your enthusiasm to learn, your bravery, and your resilience. as i said the last time, i'm here for you." his hand connected with yours. "you can stay with me. live with me and we will see how this goes for us."

"i don't want to burden you like that-"

"you won't be burdening me," jay replies immediately, a smirk shows on his face as he continues, "you've been making me less lonely as well."

a tear fell down the corner of your eye and when you wanted to wipe it away, jay beats you to it as you felt his thumb pressing down your cheek. "let me help you." he mumbles of for you. and with a long breath, you nodded at his words as you leaned into his hand that was cupping your face.

jay mounted the bike first as he put your travel bag in front of him, the plastic bag of the takeaway from the chinese food street vendor hanging on his left handlebar, and you carefully mounted the vehicle behind the suitcase to create a barrier for him and you as you stood with your heavy backpack—slowly hugging the huge bag and to some of its space on your lap as you gently move on the seat.

"will you be okay?" the engine revving by him at the front, as you're scared the bike will tumble out of balance.

"i'll keep it slow," jay replied, and with a push, the bike lurches. the way jay rides the bike is very clean; gone are the swerves between cars as he stays in one lane the entire time, even if the streets are mostly empty. but the wind still blows against both of your hairs as you look around the cityscape of seoul. the buildings that were were getting denser and denser as jay brought you to his neighbourhood, further away from the main streets.

parking at the residential parking lot, he helps you with the suitcase as you carry the travel bag and backpack full of your important belongings. you both enter the apartment tower and realise how clean it looks. no cracking walls and chipping paint, the tiles are placed so smoothly that you couldn't see the edges of each individual tile. the flight of stairs from your last apartment tower is replaced by a lift replaced as he presses the button open for you. silence spreading against the surfaces as you stood beside each other, sensing the floor beneath you ascending to the destination.

jay walks before you, dragging the suitcase by the handle as he stands in front of a door, pushing in the key before unlocking it. stepping inside, the first room you see is dimly lit with a tint of blue from the luminescent light—similar to the ambience of your space in the storage room of the snack bar. but, as you push your shoes off by the front door and step onto the floor made by wooden panels, you can see the room expanding. a kitchen area by the door that houses a little aquarium with a bunch of colourful small fishes. a personal computer sits on a desk near a window overlooking the view of the streets down below and the skyline visible from this floor.

the boy steps aside as he lets you look around the space. your eyes studied the surface of the coffee table to see documents, numerous documents of black ink on white paper scattered around. many of them are pristine printing, but some have some handwriting on them—like a study case for someone who is learning. you then move towards the window of the living area, finding a desk full of CDs in their cases and two guitar cases beside it—both electric and acoustic—making a pout form on your face.

"water?" you heard him say beside you as he hands you a glass of water. picking it up, you drink it down and don't stop—not realising how dehydrated you have been. you gulp all of it down until there is nothing left before placing it down on the coffee table. turning back towards his figure, he had pulled off his leather jacket and placed it on the couch, letting you see his build in the black t-shirt. how sturdy his shoulders look as you have leaned on them time to time on the bike that he rides.

your hand reaches out to him—fingers moving from curling to stretching—as he turns and meets yours with his. that is when he pulls you in and makes you stand before him. his free hand spread on your back, pushing you against him as he looks into your eyes with his own that is full of something that you have never felt in this way. wanting to see them closer, you lean your forehead against his, taking into consideration his confession as you give multiple nods.

"yeah," you started, "i like you, jay. i was thinking we were just friends, but that kiss last time changed that. and this time too. i know that i'm not going to be a perfect companion for you, but i wish you would be here with me on my healing journey."

you look downwards at his face to see his smile that has lifted up his lips, a smile with beautiful dimples on both cheeks. your hand moves to his nape, playing with the ends of his hair as you lean in closer, lips against his ear.

"i'm yours, jay. i'm yours to protect. yours to care. and i will do it back for you, if you let me," you mumbled, every breath you push out gracing his skin as you felt him nodding his head. that is when you felt his hand cupping your face and guiding your face back in front of his before pushing forward to let both of your pairs of lips kiss. your breath is taken away instantly as you feel the sparks between you explode your heart in a blooming fashion—unwrapping the rope that was holding you to that ex-boyfriend of yours and replacing it with a beautiful string to connect it with the boy in front of you.

the emotion that jay exuded whilst he was looking at you is lust with a hint of something emotional. something you replicate with your action as he guides you, licking your lips to make you open your mouth wider. he pushes his tongue to meet yours and to dance with each other. your other hand is grasping onto his shoulder blade so tight that you don't want to let him go right now—after everything clicks into your mind that you do have someone supporting you unconditionally. pulling himself back, you felt the coolness around your lips that was smeared with each other's saliva. jay's hand that is on your back guides you towards the open doorframe as he wraps himself around you from behind.

he guides you to sit on the bed as the light of the outside enters through the window covered by the sheer curtain. the view from the bedroom overlooks a huge street that looks so high up as you pivot back to face him. your palms are pushing yourself to sit upright as you bite your lip, staring up and down at how jay is pulling off his t-shirt, letting you see his tan golden skin even under minimal lighting. his arms are muscular and flex when they move, as your eyes are trailing from them to his torso and find the faint lines of his abdominal muscles

he's beautiful.

with a surge of confidence, you pull the hem of your tank top as you take it off upwards, feeling how free you are as jay looks at your exposed torso area. standing up, you step before him as you reach to the front of your neck, feeling the clasp of your choker as you pull it off like a belt. the skin breathes when it becomes loose before you pull one end with your movement. jay look as you show him the scar—the fear of exposing it is gone when it comes to him—as you drop the choker on the floor with his t-shirt and your top.

with another step closer, you felt how his chest grazed against your covered breasts. looking deep into his eyes, you speak, "i'm yours-"

he cuts you off with a kiss and you can feel the push of the skin-to-skin contact: goosebumps growing on your arms because of it. when you felt him moving his kisses down to your neck, your hands reach behind your back to unhook your bra as the cup falls from going lax—letting him pull them down as he kisses down the valley between your boobs. your hand reaches for his—the rightful person to touch you like this, as jay's touch replaces everything that was before it. his breath against your nipple makes it getting perky, a chuckle coming out from him as licks it before giving a suck whilst his hand reaches and plays with the other. your head leans back as your breathless moans come out, curling your fingers in his locks of hair before tilting down to watch and focus on his movement that is pleasuring you more and more.

jay takes the lead when he pushes you back onto the bed, making you move until your head finds his pillows when he climbs on top and kneels between your spread legs. his hand smooths down from below your boobs before meeting your navel and then the button and zipper of your jean pants. nodding your head, he pushes the button open and zips down the zipper before dragging them down your legs alongside your underwear. pushing them to the ground, he stands up by the front of the bed. you bit your bottom lip harder when you watch as he peels off all of his lower clothing pieces—letting you see just how big he is as he wraps his hand around his member—seeing how it grows bigger with just a few strokes. in return, you lick to of your fingertips and open your legs for him, feeling the coolness of your pre-cum as you slide your fingers against your slit while the other brushes against your boob—making you more aroused as you can't help to roll your eyes when you felt how sensitive your clitoris is.

he lets out a growl before lying down by your core, littering your thighs with kisses as you squirm underneath him. you put your forearms beside you as you push up, viewing how his eyes are looking at you as he finds your lower lips and licks around them. your hand moves back to your core, letting a finger dragged up from the top of your opening towards where your clit is—pushing it down as you let out a gasp, telling him where it is located as he replaces it with his thumb. jay presses down on it hard, making your body quiver as your jaw drops and gasps coming out of you.

when you felt his tongue dragging against your opening, you let out a moan that made you cover your mouth up—having never felt this as your ex-boyfriend only ever cared about himself when you both were having sex. your fingers found his hair once again, holding onto them as you look at how he is enjoying pleasuring you.

"jay…" you moaned out in a sigh, letting your head fall onto the pillow with your legs moving to lie on his upper back, making him grip onto your calf as he pushes you wider for him. then, you felt his finger prodding the hole and caressing the rim before pushing in, making your walls clamp on him as he groans at the tightness.

"please…" another moan left you as you look down to meet his gaze, making him pushing another finger in as he widens them and pushes against your walls.

"preparing you for me," he finally spoke, making you wetter than ever as you can feel him opening you up and even motioning as you hear the moisture sound coming from his fingers penetrating you. jay's tongue returns as he licks and give a slight suck on your clitoris, using every might of his to be patient—but also a revenge for making him worry and even mad at you.

"i'm ready- c- cum-" you voiced out as your legs tremble and a white flash goes over your vision, feeling another gush of arousal coating his fingers as he licks the lips up, letting him taste your cum and making him hum. then, his fingers are gone as you whine out with creased eyebrows. then, he climbs fully onto the bed and kneels between your legs. his fingers are shining from your release as he lets the same hand wrapped around his shaft—now hard and veiny—before stroking it to let the blood flow more.

as your hand finds his back, you reach up to give a single kiss on his lips. then, you wet your palm with your saliva and help stroking him, feeling the bluntness of his glans as you felt his pre-cum coming out—making you spread them down his hard cock. the width of your palm is only able to wrap around half the sixe of his penis length as he helps with stroking the other half. with his hand wrapped around the base as you let go to lie fully down on the bed, you hiss as he playfully drags the head across your opening. playing around by tapping it against your clit as your breath becomes more unstable. and when he claims you by pushing his cock in, your heartbeat's pace becomes quicker.

his hips move slowly as he looks down on you, watching as you nod your head and mouth "yes" on repeat. your eyes flicking back into your skull as he pushes in deeper and deeper—more than half of him now inside you. your walls continue to clamp down around him, making him catch his breath as he finally fully enters you. your hand teasingly lifts up to press down on the hardness beneath your belly button, making both of you moan as you can feel him within you and he can sense the pressure of your hand.

"fuck!" he retorted as you nodded at him.

"move, please. make me yours," you let out, putting your trust in him. you felt him pull out halfway before plunging back inside, again and again, until he felt your arousal coating him and making it smoother to slide in you. it continues until he sees the pain fading from your face and he starts adjusting the pace. the moans that are getting louder and louder make you cover it with your palm before jay removes it and muffles it with his lips. continuing as the pace gets faster and faster and how you wrapped your legs behind him.

sweats start to form around your and his bodies as your forehead sticks against his, feeling how his face scrunches as the pleasure kicks him too. your hands clawing on his back muscles as he swallows your moans that are getting more frequent. your walls forming to accommodate his shape as the moist sound continues on. then, he starts to change his pace—focusing on thrusting slowly and deep as his tip even slips out of your hole, making you grab his now wet hard cock and guide him as he thrust deep until it reaches your cervix, brushing your g-spot.

lust dissipates in his eyes as you cup jay's face with your hand. now, all the love that is hiding beneath it shows up as he leans into your touch. his hand that is resting beside you on the pillow moves to the back of your head and pushes it up, making your body fold as you see him sinking himself deep inside you. the pleasure spreading across your body as you see how he dissapears when you become full, eyes looking up at his face that as he also watches the way his cock enters you.

"i'm not letting you go easily," he whispers to himself, but with such a small distance, you can hear it as you continue to nod, eyes staring up to meet his as you reply with the way your eyes gaze at him. groans and moans decorate the space between the two of you as he reads your body language, taking your physique into his mind so he could remember every aspect of it.

with every push, you are getting closer and closer to reaching the peak that he is taking you to, making you relax on the bed as he brushes his body against you. chest to chest. hips to hips. you give him a lasting kiss as you mouthed "cum" against his lips before your jaw drops. white flashes show up again as he holds your back as you arch into him. a moan coming out loud as he slams his lips onto yours, his pace is getting faster as you enter overstimulation when you feel his groan against your lips and his few thrusts become so deep yet erratic. then, you felt warm liquid spurting against your walls.

you both breathe out heavily against each other. his hands massaging your hips as you felt his release, making you feel so full inside as it flows out to the opening of your hole. your face furrowed with many emotions swirling around as you hug him, feeling his kisses stained across your scarred neck as you can't help but to sob. jay doesn't need to ask you anything about it and he lets you have this release, making you anchored against him as you echoed what he whispered before towards him.

"i won't let go of you either."

-

as he opened the closed lids of his eyes, jay blinked as the sun glistened on him and a small smile formed on his face.

he looks outside the window beside him, your head resting against his shoulder with both of your hands linked as the trees and plain greenery greet him along the train track. a rare scenery to admire when he found himself growing up in a concrete jungle. the view slowly morphs from an overall green-colored view to specks of houses adding in. lone houses stand between fields of what looks to be rice and root vegetables before the tunnel consumes them in the darkness. the chugging of the train continues as it navigates the shadow-covered tracks, when he sees the light seeping into it from the side and expands as the view before him makes gasps coming out.

hills full of buildings on one side as the more the train goes on the track, the more he finds numerous towers showing—not as high as what seoul has to offered, but still enough to instill in him the urban area you have mentioned to him numerous times about this city. as the track continues to run into neighborhoods of people on both side, jay watches them living their lives as he hear loud giggles when he sees children waving towards the moving train—greeting the people into their hometown. then the sign tells him he has arrived at his destination.

busan.

the morning after you decided to stay with him, jay had called his dad about the busan office he knows his family's company have—as it is one of korea's main hubs for trading, especially with ships to and from japan and other countries reached by sea. his life, which was full of darkness and uncertainty, has obscured much of what he wants in his future. but now with you by his side, the misty path becomes clearer as he could sense his dad's surprised joy as his son wants to take his job seriously. but on one condition.

"can i work at the busan office?" he had asked, eyes on the living room as he heard the sound of the shower water running with you inside, cleaning yourself up.

his dad's agreement continues with a few more questions as he finally tells him about you and also his tiredness of living in a swift-paced seoul. and so, after two months from that night when you lived with him, he decided to move away with you. other than his seriousness in this relationship with you, he also wants to explore more of korea because seoul is not everything. jay was too young when he lived in seattle and that made him only have vivid memories when he remembered living there. and because of the unreclaimed memory, he now pushes himself outside of his comfort zone. to create new ones that could elevate him and let him explore more.

when he drags his suitcase and carries his travel bags as you do your own, you both walk towards the arrival area. then he sees you speedwalking in front of him, swerving around the sea of people as you rush forward and let go of your bags you are holding with your hands. arms opened wide to hug an older woman who is much shorter than he and you. jay approaches as you turn around, wiping your tears as the older woman stares up at him.

"this is my mother. and mom, this is my boyfriend," you say with your arms wrapping her in your embrace. jay could see your features in her face as a shocked expression shows up when she gazes at the boy before him.

"you didn't tell me he is so handsome!" she says before grasping for his hand, making him let out a small smile.

"my name is jongseong, ma'am," he replies as your mother steps forward, eyes glimmering with joy before looking back at her child, who is just looking at her sheepishly.

"oh yes, i do know your name. believe me when i was surprised to see a beautifully aggressive motorcycle arriving in front of my house with the name of park jongseong attached to it." her giggles come out as he pinpoints another similairty your mom has with you before glancing towards you who has widen eyes. "no worries about it, jay. (y/n) did mention it in the letter she sent to me a month ago. nice to finally meet you, son," her voice calls to him before she helps with your and his travel bags. the motherly instinct kicking in. "well, we don't want mr. jeon to wait for too long. he still has a job to do," she states as you three walk toward the departure.

your voice clashes with your mom, how she says that she is preparing your favourite food of hers back at your childhood home—which he couldn't wait to taste. jay had heard many stories about geoje from you, from how you and your friends are riding around the scooter all around the island and visiting the towns on one side and the other side of the island. he wants to do it too, riding around in nature with his bike and you behind him showing the road.

"and how about the house?" she asks.

"we still have to go meet the realtor in two days to get the key and documents. jjongie here has to also adapt to his job at his new office because he will be working there next monday. and after we moved into that house, i had to find my own job. but at least, i am closer to you, mom." you said so eloquently, using the nickname you made for him after he had told you of his birth name.

turning your head, you find him smiling at you as he puts his arm around the back of your shoulders whilst you follow your mom, who is guiding you towards the sedan car with your neighbour waiting to drive the two of you back to your childhood home. in his mind, he can already imagine the trees covering the house and the roads. replacing the neon lights with streaking sunlight as he and you ride along the roads with his bike.

finally, for the first time in a long time, he lets the sun shine on him once again. the light embraces your looming selves—knowing that both of you aren't so lonely anymore before when you have each other.

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[justagirlwholikesadam]

The American: Welcome to Hogwarts

Remus Lupin x Fem! American! Reader

Prequel of The American: Welcome Back! -click to read

Summary: Entering their 5th year, Remus and his friends are told of a new student coming to Hogwarts. While dealing with problems of his own, Remus can't help but notice the new transfer student from America.

Warning: slow burn, bullying, issues of self esteem, suicidal thoughts, xenophobia against reader, name calling, the word mud blood is used a lot, very dark content.

A/N:I haven't read the books but I have seen the movies and read a shit ton of fanfic. I'm making stuff up as we go so my plot can work. There are some characters that I thought were real but where made up for fanfics. I hope people don't mind if i add them because i already wrote the chapter. I later found out while googling stuff abt The Marauders. I will be added them and other characters to my story with my own twist. With that being said, don't come for me if this character is doing this and that. Not sure how many chapters I'll be doing, really depends on the feedback. please read the tags before reading. Enjoy -L

Remus found himself staring at the tracks in front of him. His eyes studied the nails and the iron bars of the train tracks. He can hear the horns of the Hogwarts Express blasting indicating it’s near. It drowns out the sounds of the students and their families around him. He looks at the red and black train coming and Remus takes a step forward. 

Remus has thought of this a lot before, stepping in front of a train. Trains, buses and cars. Just one leap and it will be over. His fingers tighten over the straps of his bag over his shoulder as he thinks about it more. 

A quick death, what a wonderful relief. 

He hates having a full moon in the summer when he is away from Hogwarts. He didn’t have any of his friends during that time. They were off on vacation or doing activities with their families and Remus doesn’t have the heart to ask them to come over. His friends have done so much for him. He’s afraid of asking for too much and they will leave him for it. He doesn’t want to be alone. 

Remus takes another step forward getting a bit closer to the edge and as he looks ahead. His mouth slightly dropped open when he saw a man standing on the other side of the tracks staring back at him. The man stood there bloody, throat ripped open, slashes across his face and chest. Blood was gushing out from the man’s wound. He wore dark blue trousers and a white ripped collar shirt. The man lifted his hand towards Remus, reaching for him. With his finger, he pointed at Remus as blood dripped down from it. Remus feels the bile coming up his throat when the man try to open his mouth to speak. Blood came pouring out from his mouth and Remus stands there frozen in fear. Remus doesn't see a flash of red running towards him. 

“Remus!” He feels a force come at him making him take a step back from the edge of the platform. The train approaches, hiding him away from the bloody man. He felt Lily hug him and Remus shut his eyes as he wrapped his arms around her pulling her into a tight hug. He missed her so much this summer. He didn’t visited her like usual. He couldn’t. He was ashamed of himself. He tries to get rid of the sight of the man he just saw, he continues to hug her. Lily rubbed his back when Remus didn't pull right away. 

Lily Evans, was the first friend he made when he came to Hogwarts. She was the first to realize what he was and she was the first to not make him feel bad for being a werewolf. As times passed he was welcome into a group of three boys. They didn’t make him feel bad as well, they had even helped him by becoming animagus and stayed with him through his transformations.

“You haven’t written back to me all summer.” Lily said when they pulled away. The students around them started boarding into the train. 

“Forgive me, Lils. Rough summer is all.” Remus said as he grabbed his luggage by his feet along with Lily’s. She gave him a thanks and he just nodded. He wasn’t going to allow her to carry the heavy thing. 

Lily and Remus greeted the other students in their year as they walked to their usual compartment. Remus with ease placed the luggage on the top shelf as Lily sat down. Remus sat down with a huff beside her, next to the window, his favorite spot. Lily opened her beige shoulder bag and took out a brown lunch paper bag with the letter R written on it. 

“Mom, send you a snack.” Remus smiles as he grabs it from Lily. 

“She’s a saint.” Remus said as he opened it, taking a look inside. In separate plastic bags, he saw there were slices of green apples and a jam sandwich cut diagonally. There was even a small juice box. 

“Green apple, my favorite.” He comments. 

“Ugh, she likes you more than me.” Lily pulled out a bag of baby carrots instead of apples like him. Lily’s mom knew of Remus, he would visit Lily sometimes during break and the summer. Lily’s mom was always happy to see him and even called him a son at one point when he always offered to take out the trash or wash the dishes. Remus thought it was the least he could do since they had him over for dinners. Petunia wasn’t really fond of him, but he didn’t mind her. He ignored the names being aimed at him when he sat across from her during dinner. 

Remus chuckles at Lily then he takes the bag of apples out. “I’ll trade.” 

“You would really do that for me?” She asked him with a pout. 

“Hurry, before I change my mind!” Lily laughs and gives him the bag of baby carrots as she gets the bag of apples. 

Remus drops the baby carrots into his brown paper bag, saving them for later. He looked over at Lily when he noticed what she was holding out. He gives her a smile and grabs the slice of apple from her hand. 

Quickly putting it in his mouth,  he hummed at the sweetness of the apple as he chewed. Lily frowned and stopped mid-bite when she noticed Remus looking out the window. His eyes roaming quickly on the other side of the platform. 

“Looking for someone?” Lily asked and Remus looked over at her. He shook his head, telling her nobody. 

Lily is eating when Sirius and James come walking in. Remus rises up from his seat to greet his friends. Lily does the same. Remus helps Sirius with his luggage as James sits next to Lily by the door. Sirius sits across from Remus. 

He’s listening to Sirius ramble on about his summer, it was another horrid one. His mother had gone mad about tradition with the family. He was a disgrace for being a Gryffindor, but he was even more of a disgrace to his family when they found out Sirius doesn’t agree with the pureblood ideas. James and Lily are talking amongst themselves. Remus and Sirius just gave each a look, James was finally getting on Lily’s good side. 

Sirius hits Remus' shoes with his elbow that rested next to him. Remus had quite a growth spurt last year. He had his leg resting on the seat across from him.

“How was your summer, mate?! I sent you a letter, you know?” Sirius' cheeks grow pink and Remus notices it. 

“I’m sorry. I did receive it. I had a hard time answering back. Last moon was draining.” Sirius nods at him, understandingly. 

“Are you okay now?” He asks Remus. Sirius notices something odd with Remus when he doesn't answer right away. He didn’t like it one bit. Remus was usually cheerful whenever they came back to school. 

“Yes, Padfoot.” Remus answers as he leans his head against the window. Sirius decides to not push it and asks Remus about a book he was reading before summer break. He smiles when he sees Remus' whole demeanor change, Remus sat up and excitedly told him about it. The train lets out another sound and a few seconds later. The train began to move then after a few more conversations about Lily and James’ summer. One by one they started to doze off. 

Remus was sleeping with his head against the window. His body jiggled softly as the train kept on moving. He scratches his nose when he feels an itch in his sleep. Inhaling deeply, Remus’ eyes shot open when a scent hit him. The scent is new, it didn’t come from his friends. Remus felt a chill down his back, it was a strange feeling. He doesn’t know why he’s smelling it, the full moon has passed already. Why is the lycanthropy still residing in him?  Sitting up straight, he looks over at his friends. They are still sleeping, he wonders why Peter isn’t here. They have been taking the same spot in the train for five years now, so Peter couldn’t be lost in finding them. 

Remus felt his throat close up when the smell hit him again. He rose up from his seat, taking another sniff in the air.  He noticed the door was a bit open. He figured it was Sirius who usually forgets to latch the lock whenever coming back from the restroom. 

Remus decides to go to the bathroom and wash his face. He figured he was smelling things because he had a rough summer. He was barely sleeping at home. The nap on the train was the best sleep he had all summer. He shuts the door behind him then looks up and down the hall, it’s empty. The lights of the hallway were lit up, he saw most of the other people had pulled down the curtains for privacy as he walked to the restroom. Remus yawns as he walks inside the restroom and turns on the light. Rubbing his eyes he steps in front of the toilet to relieve himself. Letting out a small moan when finished urinating, he turns his head to the door. That fucking smell is there, he quickly walks to the door. He presses his forehead against it. Remus inhales the scent, it's on the wooden door. 

The scent of copper, the scent of a girl. 

Remus doesn’t realize at first but he breathes heavily, his forehead is pressed against the door as his right hand touches his chest and drops down to his lower stomach. He fist the sweater he wore on top of his uniform in his hand as he sniffs harder. When his fingers hits the zipper of his trouser, the urge to touch himself came over him. His eyes shot open and he quickly stepped away from the door. He stared at it, scared. This has never happened to him before. A scent that was making him horny, it was new to him. 

Remus knows this isn’t him, this has to be Moony. The wolf that resides in him. Moony should be gone by now but he isn’t. He leans against the wall of the bathroom and let's out a sigh. He shook his head as he looked down at his hands, he shut his eyes when he remembered how his hands looked with all that blood. He looks ahead at the mirror and whines when the background changes. He saw himself back again in the woods behind his house. 

“Stop it.” He hissed to himself as he looked away and started to push the button of the soap dispenser on the wall. 

Turning the hot water all the way up. He ignored the heat of the water as he washed his hands until it was pink and raw.  He kept telling himself, he had to scrub it away, wash the blood away. He looks ahead at the mirror and stares at himself. His eyes are staring at the new scar on his face. He hates his appearance, despises it. It’s just a constant reminder of what he is, a monster. His friends tell him differently but Remus knows he’s one. He truly is especially after what he did. 

Running his fingers through his hair, damping his sandy brown curls before turning off the light, he walks out of the bathroom. The hallway is still empty, he shuts the door and starts to walk back when he smells it again. His chest started to feel tight and he bit his bottom lip as he turned to face the other side of the hallway. 

He’s staring down the hall and he can smell it again. 

“Fuck.” He murmured when he saw that part of the train, usually students of House Slytherin, sits in. He steps forward carefully as he looks to the left. Most of the train compartments had the curtains drawn down, he stopped when one of the doors was slightly open. He guessed whoever was in there forgot to use the lock. 

‘Another Sirius.’ Remus tells himself as he looks inside. He sees a figure sleeping on the cushion seats, a leg hanging out. He frowns when he notices they wore jeans and sneakers. The person wasn't in uniform like them. Remus hears laughter further down the hall and quickly goes back. Last thing he wants to do is come face to face with a Slytherin. Making it back to his seat, he gently sat back down to not disturbed Lily who was leaning against James. He grabs the brown lunch bag Lily’s mom made for him. 

Remus quietly eats his sandwich as he stares out the window, watching the scenery. He never gets tired looking at the mountains and lakes as the train makes its way to Hogwarts. 

Shelley Mumps was the one who woke everyone the following morning. Remus had dozed off after eating his sandwich. He jumped out of his sleep when Shelley slid the door open with such force. 

“What happened?” James said in a sleepy voice as she shut the door and sat beside Sirius waking him up. 

“There's a transfer student. She's in our year.” Shelley said, looking at them. 

“Cool, can we go back to sleep?” Sirius said getting himself comfortable again against the wall. 

"She's American.” She added. Remus frowns. “They allow Americans in Hogwarts?” He questioned. 

“ Apparently because she’s here. Some of us saw her walking down the hallway. She was staring out the window. You should have seen the clothes she was wearing.” Shelley laughs and Remus looks away from her.

Lily just sighs at her friend. “What do you mean by that, Shelley?” 

“She had ripped holes in her jeans and her shoes looked dirty. She had this shirt with this ugly green army jacket. She looks homeless.”  Sirius was awake now and looked at Remus who kept quiet and stared out the window. 

“I'm sure, it wasn't that bad.” James said, clearing his throat as he sat up straight in his seat. 

“Oh please. The train is stopping soon. You’ll see her.” Shelley said before waving bye at them. 

“Tell me why you are still friends with her?” Remus asks softly, looking over at Lily.

“I have too, I share a dormitory with her.” Lily said, grabbing her bag as they felt the train stopped. 

They quickly got up and started to get their belongings. The students lined up and walked out the train. “Let's see if we can catch a glimpse of this girl.” Sirius tells Remus and James as Lily waved bye at them to find her other friends. 

Remus walked behind them as they walked to the waiting carriages. Leaving their trunks and luggage behind, they sat down. Remus looks around but has no luck in finding this ‘homeless girl.’ The carriages make it to the gates and they step down to walk towards the school, it was a five minute walk. 

“Peter!” James exclaimed and Remus looked over to see his friend walking towards them. 

“I missed the bloody train! My parents were furious. They had to drop me off.” Peter said with a sigh. Sirius and Remus shook their heads, Peter had a tendency of being late. They welcomed Peter with a hug.

“Did you hear the news?” Sirius asked. 

Peter rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Shelley gave me the full details on the new girl.” 

They walked together to the castle when they noticed a group of students standing by. 

“Oi!” James yells and a Ravenclaw boy, named Hems in their year, turns around. “What's going on?” 

“The American is with Hagrid.” Hems tells them as they get closer. Remus looked ahead to see. 

“Is she daft? What's she petting?” Remus hears another student ask. 

“Her name is-.” Someone said your name and Remus thinks it’s a nice name. He continues to look at you, trying to get a good look at your face. 

He can see Hagrid talking to you with a smile as you kept petting at the air but Remus can see the thestral you were petting. He could see its leathery wings flap for a second before circling around you making you giggle. Shelley was blowing your appearance out of proportion but it was exactly what he expected from a pureblood. He looks at you and he thinks your smile is pretty, that's what he noticed first about you. He looks at your clothes. You look casual. You look like a regular muggle, it reminded him of the outfit Sirius usually wears whenever going out to a muggle place. The green army jacket is a bit big on you. You wore a black shirt and blue ripped jeans. 

The thestral rubbed its head against your bookbag, you wore and Hagrid shooed the thestral away from you when it started to nibble on your bag making you laugh loudly. 

“What is she laughing at?” A student asked loudly. 

“You idiot, it's thestral.” Remus looks over and notices Severus with a group of Slytherins standing by. He was glaring at you as he answered. Remus noticed Hagrid leaning down to tell you something. You turn to face them and Remus sees your face for a second. Your eyes widened by the sight of them and quickly looked away before he could get a good look at you. 

“Two galleons, I’ll have her in bed by the end of the week.” Remus noticed an older student from House Ravenclaw speak out. Remus rolls his eyes when the group of students around him starts to snicker and begin to place their bets on you. He watches you walk away with Hagrid towards the school. 

“James? Sirius?” The guy said, looking over at them. 

“No, mate. I’m good.” James said before signaling his friends to keep walking. Remus doesn't want any part of it either. 

Sirius stops in mid step when one of them starts to laugh and yells out, “The American probably has diseases. You know they are sluts.” 

“15 galleons says she doesn't sleep with you.” Sirius said, making them stop laughing and look at him in disbelief at the amount of money he was placing. 

“You're on, Black.” 

Remus, James and Peter waited for Sirius to finish when he saw Severus and his friends walking away. James just glared at Severus and the long, dark haired boy did the same to James. 

“You really think she won't sleep with him?” Peter asked as they continued to make their way to the castle. 

“You have to be Shelley to sleep with them. I doubt she's like her.” Sirius said, shaking his head. 

Settling back down in Hogwarts was easy for Remus. He missed his bed and being around his friends. The atmosphere was different from back home. He wasn't alone, in Hogwarts he was surrounded by students, professors, and even ghosts. 

Getting ready for dinner, he spoke to Sirius about another book he got. Remus was fond of Sirius and even though they both came from completely different backgrounds. They were best friends. Sirius was the second person to figure out what he was. Remus had cried in front of him when he figured it out. Sirius didn't speak while Remus told him that he would understand if he didn't want to be friends anymore. Sirius just hugged him tightly. Hugged him until he calmed down. 

“You’re ridiculous. If you think, I'm going to stop being your best friend, mate.” Sirius spoke out after a few minutes. 

‘We’ll figure something out to help you. I promise.” 

Remus didn't believe it at first but when James and Peter figured it out he told them the truth. The three managed to become animagi behind his back and showed Remus when they accomplished it. He never felt so accepted before. They supported Remus during his transformations and mood swings when the full moon was near. They accompanied him in their animagi form to the Shrieking Shack then later carried him to Poppy Pomfrey. 

He was forever grateful for them. He really was so when he got too deep in his head and started thinking about dying and ending himself. He thinks of them. He thinks of Sirius, Peter, James and Lily. He thinks of his mom as well. 

He thinks about the time his mom would bath him when he was too hurt. She would feed him, dress him when he couldn’t move. His mother changed completely during the recent summer. She couldn’t look him in the eye and it broke him. His father who treated him differently already barely said a word. 

‘Oi!” Remus was deep in thought when James caught his attention. 

“You okay, Moony?” James said, walking towards him. They were in their dorm room, putting their stuff away when James saw Remus laying on the bed with his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. 

“Yeah, Prongs.” James nods and sits beside him on the bed. Remus pushes himself up and holds himself by the elbows. 

“You know I wrote to you this summer. Like four times.” James said softly as Peter and Sirius were in the bathroom freshening up to go to dinner. 

“I know. I just-.” Remus feels James' eyes on him. “I don't know.” Remus lied. 

“Everything okay at home?” James whispered in a concerned tone, he knew about his life at home. Remus nods as Peter and Sirius come out of the bathroom laughing about something. 

“Ready to eat?” Peter asked as they put on their robes. 

“Yes!” Remus said getting out of bed, he looked over his shoulder to meet James' gaze who was still sitting down and staring at him. He did not believe Remus for a second. James drops it because he knows Remus hates being the center of attention so he drops it for now and says yes to Peter. 

Remus finds himself looking for you at the great hall but he can’t. He keeps his head down and listens to James and Lily talking in front of them as Sirius is talking with Marlene. Peter is next to him, trying to ignore Shelly who was talking about her summer. He was more interested in what's for dinner. 

“Welcome Students! Back for another year with us. I do hope everyone had a good summer.” Remus sighs as he looks down at the empty plate in front of him. The headmaster Dumbledore makes a few announcements about classes and a new teacher who will be teaching D.A.D.A. 

“Lastly, it gives me great pleasure to introduce a new student that will be joining us,-.” Dumbledore announces your full name and Remus repeats it in his head. He remembers your smile. It was so genuine, no one smiled like that to thestrals. 

“She’s from America, boys and girls. She will be studying with us. I want everyone to give her a warm welcome.” Remus looked up from his plate and looked over at the doors of the hall when it opened. He saw you wearing their uniform on. You stood next to Hagrid who urged you to walk inside. 

Remus claps along with his friends as you walk to Dumbledore and McGonagall, who had the sorting hat ready for you. 

“She looks like she's going to throw up.” Remus hears a Slytherin ahead of him joke. While you walked up the steps and sat down on the stool, facing everyone. Your eyes were looking down when McGonagall placed the hat on your head. 

The sorting hat hums as it rests on top of your head. 

“I feel it, young one. Don't you?” Remus saw you looking over at Dumbledore with a frightened look. McGonagall nods at you, easing your worries. You look down at the ground once more and your hands clasped on top of your lap. 

“Difficult choice, indeed.” The hat says. 

“A fighter!” The sorting hat yells, making everyone whisper. 

 “A protector!” Remus noticed the look on Dumbledore's face. 

“Oh- my, that is-.”  The hall quieted down when the hat stopped in mid sentence. 

“I know now! I see it!” The sorting hat crackled loudly. 

 “Slytherin!” Remus saw you lift your face to look ahead and Remus thought you were the most beautiful person he had ever seen. He took notes of your nose and lips. Your eyes and the way you looked so nervous made him feel bad. 

He looked away from you when the hall started to applause. McGonagall was kind enough to show you where the table was. You looked down at your uniform when you noticed the color had changed.  

He peeks between Lily and James and sees you picked the farthest empty seat from the table. He can see you take a deep breath as you look at the silverware in front of you when you sit down. 

Shelley is sniggering with an older student from Gryffindor who is sitting beside her. 

“What's so funny?” James asked. “She probably doesn't know what a fork is? Don't Americans eat with their hands?” The boy asked James. 

“That’s fucked up, lad.” Sirius says, eyeing him. 

“Look ahead, she's using them just fine.” Lily snaps before looking down to eat her food. Remus looks over and notices you have begun to eat as well. It was quiet after that, Remus ate and only looked over when he took a sip of his juice. They ignore the others who keep making jokes are your expense. They spoke about your hair and how you looked. Some thought you were hot while others thought you were ugly.

Sirius noticed how Remus was quiet. It was pretty normal for Remus to be quiet. Quiet Remus, who only speaks when spoken too but right now it was different. Sirius felt his best friend’s vibe completely off right then and there. 

Remus had different sides of him. He can be so quiet then be very cheerful and make jokes. Until the full moon comes, he becomes cranky and snappy. Sirius stabs his chicken with his fork as he looks at Remus. There’s a new scar on his face and Sirius doesn’t have the courage to ask him about it. Especially since he saw how Remus acted when asked why he hadn't responded to his letter. Something must have happened during the summer, Sirius thinks to himself. 

He noticed Remus looking over when he took a drink. He followed his gaze and landed on you. Sirius does a double take when he sees his younger brother Regulus walking towards you with his plate in his hands along with his cup. 

Regulus flashes you a smile. “Oh fuck!” A Gryffindor from the table whispered.

Regulus sits down across from you. “You ok?” Remus whispers when he sees it. 

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be? He’s with his kind.” Sirius says to Remus but he doesn’t believe that Sirius can just be okay. Remus knows the complicated relationship that Sirius had with his younger brother. 

It was a few minutes later when Regulus and you stood up. Plates are empty and Remus watches as you pick up the empty plate. 

“What is she doing?” A boy from the Hufflepuff table behind them says catching their attention and the voices in the hall become quiet. 

“Do we have to wash it?” It was a simple question that you asked. Remus gets annoyed at the fact that you get laughed out by the Slytherin table when you ask Regulus. 

Regulus shoots them a glare and shakes his head at you before telling you that there was no need. You can leave your plate there and the elves will get it and clean it. 

“Elves?” You frowned, and your eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“Like a Santa's elf?” Remus hasn’t heard the word Santa since he was a kid. 

Regulus tilts his head at you, he’s confused now. 

“She’s half blood then?” Remus hears the table start throwing ideas of what your blood is. 

“What the fuck is a Santa?” Sirius whispered to James then looked at Remus when James shrugged his shoulders. 

“Are  you sure that she’s in the right grade if she thinks Santa is real?” Someone asked loudly and people began to laugh. 

It had gotten to the point that the laughter behind Remus started to get to him. He didn’t find it funny at all that they were making fun of you. He wondered what did you know about magic, perhaps you didn’t know anything at all. His guess had to be that you were muggle born but he keeps it to himself because if he was right about you being a muggle born then you will have a difficult time, especially in house Slytherin.  

He knows what it feels like to be made fun of and he hates it. He gets bullied for his scar face. He gets bullied because he’s quiet. He gets bullied because he’s poor. 

He sees Regulus walking out with you from the great hall. He leaves a few minutes after saying he had a headache but he just didn’t want to hear the comments they were making. He decided to go to sleep early that night. 

He was glad he had a dreamless sleep. He didn’t dream about the man. It was morning and he saw you again walking with a younger student from your house to the great hall. Remus walks in with Peter and he sighs when he sees Shelly and Marlene there already, eating. He didn’t mind Marlene at all, she was kind and reminded him of the female version of Sirius. She was spunky and played quidditch with James and Sirius. 

“Morning, guys.” Remus greets them and sits down. While a Ravenclaw girl ahead of them rises up from her seat and runs to Shelley. 

“You won’t believe what I just heard!” The girl said to Shelley. 

“The American slept in the bathroom on her first night here. Her roommates are telling everyone. They heard her crying.” Shelley and the girl began to laugh. 

Marlene looks at the girls. “I don’t find that funny. She probably misses her home.” 

“Oh come on, Marlene.” Shelley said, waving her hand dismissing Marlene’s words. 

Before she can say anything James and Lily along with Sirius came in. “Morning.” They greeted their friends. 

“I’m not ready for classes.” James sighs as he sits down. 

“Guys, Penelope just told me that -.” Remus finally cracks and cuts her off when he slams his hand on the table loudly and looks over at her. 

“Would you shut up already? Enough making fun of the new girl.” He said and Shelley grows red from embarrassment of his sudden outburst. 

“You feel bad for nasty foreigners?” The Ravenclaw girl, Penelope asked, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“I feel bad for anyone that has to deal with tossers like the both of you!” Remus said, looking at her and Shelley. He stood up from his seat ignoring James and Sirius calling out for him. He walks out the doors and goes back to his room. He paces around the room, coming to terms on what he just said to Shelly and the other girl. He felt bad for calling them that name but he just got so angry. 

How can people make fun of other people suffering, he asks himself. He had lost count on how many times he’s cried himself to sleep during his first year coming to Hogwarts. Being alone and afraid that someone will find out his wolf secret. He checks the clock on the nightstand and notices it's almost time for his first class. He grabs his books from his trunk and hopes he doesn’t see Shelley or the other girl.

He started to grow worried as he walked to class that Lily would be angry at him for calling her friend a wanker. He was surprised when Lily hugged him when they saw each other for the third class of the day. 

“I can’t believe her!” Lily told him when she unwrapped her arms from him. 

“Don’t tell anymore but sometimes I get homesick. I’m in tears in the tub.” She admits to him. 

“You know how I feel about bullies.” Remus tells her and she nods at him knowing all too well about bullies. She was a victim like him, she was bullied heavily in her first year for being a muggle-born and sometimes even now. 

When lunch began he was walking with Peter who didn’t say much about the incident and Remus was grateful for it. They talked about their class they had last period. As he walks in he sees you sitting with the same younger student. You were smiling and so was the kid. 

The kid had a book open in front of you and Remus smiles at your choice of writing utensil. You were using a pen instead of a quill and you were writing down on a regular notebook instead of parchment paper. 

The kid kept talking while you nodded and wrote frantically. 

Everything seems to be going well, Shelley had decided to eat with her friend, Penelope at the other table. James and Sirius came soon into the hall talking enthusiastically about quidditch. 

“Guys! Guys!” Remus flinched when a group of Hufflepuff students came beside him and stared ahead at the Slytherin table. 

Remus looks ahead as well to see what all the fuss is about. Lance, from house Ravenclaw is in his last year and everyone knows him for being a bully. He was pure-blooded so he thought everyone who wasn’t was beneath him. He usually picks on the muggle born and the half bloods from any house. Of course no one interfered because they didn’t want to get bullied as well. Lance’s blue eyes widen as he walks into the great hall and makes his way to the kid sitting across from you. 

“He’s such a twat for always picking on Ruben.” The Hufflepuff next to him tells the group. 

“Ruben is the kid?” Sirius asks and they all nod as Lance gets behind Ruben and pulls on his hair making him yelp. Remus has never seen someone's eyes grow hard so quickly. The smile you had on disappeared. The hall grows quiet when you stand up from your seat. 

“Get the fuck away from him.” It was not usual for Lance to have someone stand up to him. He was caught by surprise from your words. 

“What did you say?” Lance said with a disbelief chuckle. 

“Get. The. Fuck. Away. From. Him.” The great hall is quiet and Remus noticed a few teachers had risen up from their seats when they noticed what was going on. 

“What’s going on here?” McGonagall had walked towards the table and stared at Lance then at you. 

“Nothing, Professor McGonagall. Just having a chat with my friend Ruben.” Lance said, taking a step back while still staring at you. 

Ruben was almost in tears by the whole thing. Professor McGonagall walks Lance back to his table. 

“She just placed a death mark on herself.” One of the Hufflepuff near Remus said, shaking his head. Lance was staring daggers at you and you kept your eyes on him showing no fear, just hate. You didn’t take your eyes away from him until he sat down and spoke with his friends. 

“You might just win your bet. She got balls.” James says, turning back around to Sirius who turned as well to continue on with his meal. 

“What bet?” Lily asked the boys and they got quiet real fast. James being whipped for Lily ratted them out and she shook her head, telling Sirius how horrible that is. 

“I betted that she won't sleep with anyone, Lily!” The redhead girl shook her head as Marlene copied her. Remus kept silent as he glanced over the table and saw you grabbing Ruben’s bag. You and the kid started to walk out of the great hall after collecting your things.  

He was surprised when he saw you walking inside the classroom. You were a few minutes late for charms class. The professor grabbed the slip from your hands and pointed at an empty seat in the back. Remus almost drops the quill in his hand as you pass him to sit on his row. Remus usually stayed in the back because he was tall. A Hufflepuff girl, Nancy sat in the middle between you and him.

In the corner of his eyes he noticed you had taken out the same book as before and a pen. 

The Charm professor called out your name as he walked towards you. The student laughed when he told you that there is no pen and notebooks allowed only quill and parchment paper. 

“I’m sorry. Mr. Robinson. I‘m still learning how to use the feather thing.” You told him, looking up at him. 

“First, it’s called a quill and you're a witch now so you better start learning fast how to use it. Second of all, it’s Professor Robinson. Things are different here, Miss.” 

“Yes, Professor Robinson.” Remus looks away by the tone of your voice. You sounded so defeated. Professor Robinson walks away and continues with his lesson. Nancy leans over to you when you grab the quill from your bag and the ink. 

“Hold it like this.” She whispered to you showing you how to handle your quill properly. 

Remus goes back to write his notes, he hoped you realize not everyone in this school were mean. There were some students who were kind. Throughout the class, his eyes would glance over Nancy to you. 

After class Remus walks to the Gryffindor common room. Making it inside, he heard chattering and looked over to see Lily and Mary Macdonald. 

“Hey, Remus!” Lily said, waving him to come over towards them. They were sitting on the couch by the fireplace. Remus sits on the other side as Mary hands him a box of chocolates they were eating. His eyes widened and they giggled at his expression. 

Lily chuckles when Remus is wiggling his fingers trying to decide which one to take. James and Sirius came with their Quidditch uniforms on. Lily frowned when she saw them walking towards them. 

“I thought you guys had practice?” Lily asked and Remus looked over at them with a frown when they didn’t say anything. The guys just looked at each other for a brief moment. 

“Oh fuck, Sirius have nothing to say. It must be bad.” Mary said, trying to lighten up the mood but James and Sirius didn’t say anything. They sat on the couch across from them instead. 

“They canceled practice.” James said and Lily glanced over at Remus. It had to be more, James would be in tears if practice was canceled. He took quidditch very seriously. 

“Why?” Remus asked, grabbing another chocolate from the box. Sirius takes a deep breath. 

“The word is going around that the new girl is muggle born.” 

‘Shit.’ Remus says to himself. He was right. 

“She didn't know what it meant, they asked her about her parents and she told them they weren’t wizards. Those snakes dragged her by the feet to the quidditch field and slimed her while chanting mud blood.” Sirius said. Lily and Mary dropped their mouths open in shock. Sirius and James glance at each other. They were famous for their pranks. Being slimed in the field was a good idea but they didn’t like how you began to cry and how confused you looked about the whole thing.

“Never seen Professor McGonagall look so mad before. She started yelling.” James said, leaning back on the couch crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Did you see the new girl?” Lily asked and James nodded. “Yeah, the other professors had to help her off the field.” 

“Blimey.” Remus mumbled as the door of the common room burst open and Shelly walked in laughing with a group of students. Remus rolls his eyes when he hears your name being whispered. This year was going to be rough, he tells himself while popping the piece of chocolate in his mouth.

[wheneverfeasible]

WIP Word Game!

Rules: You will be given a word. Share one sentence/excerpt from your wip(s) that start with each letter of that word.

So I was tagged by @scoops-aboy86 for this game looooooooong ago right when I started drifting away into a dark cloud for a while, but it was saved in my drafts so I found it again! Anyways, I was tagged with the word SWEATY PALMS so let’s do it!

disclaimer: all steddie adjacent but not all steddie focused

✋🤚✋🤚✋🤚✋🤚✋🤚✋🤚

S - Slowly, as he took in the familiar-unfamiliar surroundings and the scent of the person behind him, around him, the events of the previous night began trickling back into his memories.

Oh.

Right.

Eddie.

“Redeem Me” (ch. 1?) - omegaverse (“Ruin Me” sequel)

✋🤚✋🤚

W - Which was…fine. Better than fine, actually, because there was less of a chance for him to piss the man off if he wasn’t in his immediate presence. Except.

Except Isabel got summoned.

“Bloody Hands, Broken Hearts” ch. 5 - mafia au

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E - “Ew, gross!” she exclaimed when she saw his face at her comment.

“What?” Steve laughed, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I didn’t even say anything,” he teased.

“You didn’t have to, you sicko. See a therapist about your sex addiction,” she groused, finally sitting up properly in their little cubicle space, giving him a scant few more inches to actually type up whatever document he was supposed to be working on at the moment.

“What’s in a Name” ch. 1 - modern au

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A - And he would try. Even with Robin he would try. But sometimes, sometimes in the dark of the night, sometimes when he was alone with his thoughts, he would wonder what it would have been like had his best friends not abandoned him for something shiny and new.

untitled platonic Steve & Carol/Tommy breakup character study

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T - The thing was that, sure, Steve would love a romantic partner. Someone to raise all his little nuggets with, their nuggets, someone to answer his romantic needs as well as, sure, his sexual ones too. He knew Robin felt the same way.

But he already found his soulmate. Hell, he’d bond bite her right now if they both decided they didn’t want that other stuff. They both did, however. Robin craved those intimacies he couldn’t provide just as much as he did. But that didn’t lessen the fact that this thing between them went far beyond that of normal friendship, or even simple pseudo-siblinghood.

“Hellcheer Ink” ch. 1 - omegaverse

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Y - You see, Doug knew what every freak and geek knew in Hawkins; The Hair was not to be trusted.

Tigers don’t change their stripes, and all that, and every jock wore that tiger emblazoned on their jock gear. Harrington was a jerk. A douchebag. An asshole. Every self-respecting freak knew this. And yet he had Eddie by the fucking balls. Eddie, their fearsome King Freak, turned into a docile pussycat whenever Harrington wiggled his fingers at him. Like a well trained dog.

Sit. Speak. Roll over. Play dead.

untitled platonic Unnamed Freak Doug & Steve fic

✋🤚✋🤚

P - “Perhaps, but maybe let’s put a pin in it until you can stand up on your own, all right, sweetness?”

Steve wanted to smack Eddie in his smarmy face. Except it wasn’t really all that smarmy, actually. It was more…fondly exasperated. Even the alpha’s scent still had that softness from sleep, that almost honeyed molasses of quiet contentment, not like he was impatient for Steve to get out of his bed and his home.

“Redeem Me”

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A - And eventually Hopper cleared a pointed throat about sitting properly on furniture so Steve had rolled his eyes but given Robin the seat to settle on the ground in front of it, bracketed by Robin’s legs. He had, admittedly, grabbed her legs and hooked them lightly over his shoulder to keep in place because she kept kicking him, but still.

She really wished a boy and a girl could just be close friends without anyone assuming anything about it. Meanwhile, she could pull that same move with a girl and, despite it meaning something entirely different for her, no one would have even batted an eye.

Heterosexuals were so fucking weird.

untitled Ronance fic

✋🤚✋🤚

L - “Look, I get the whole bad boy approach, but Indy has a whip,” Eddie had scoffed when Steve had once more proclaimed Han as the superior Harrison Ford. “Shit’s hot as fuck. Way hotter than having the Shaggy Dog as your copilot. Indy could use that whip on me any day.”

untitled steddie summer fic

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M - Mr. Hagan, of course, got off with a slap on his wrist, despite the fact that it had been his foot kicking a curled up Eddie in the back, but that was just the way things go when you’re the King Freak. So of course the stars would align for him to have to tutor the actual king, King Steve “the Hair” Harrington himself.

untitled tutor fic - omegaverse

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S - Steve didn’t even want to know what complicated expression he was making at that, rearing back slightly in shock and, to be quite honest, hurt. What the hell about him made Wayne think he’d hurt Eddie in any way? He frowned deeply, honestly quite offended.

“I would never hurt Eddie,” Steve replied, just as low but with a lot more bite.

untitled Steve & Wayne miscommunication fic

✋🤚✋🤚✋🤚✋🤚✋🤚✋🤚

Damn, I didn’t necessarily forget about some of these, but they had definitely been pushed to the back of my mind. I need to work on these, though some need to percolate a bit and will probably be rewritten some.

And ya know what, fuck it, I’m just gonna tag my Hostage Hotties and those relevant to certain stories mentioned. (Sorry to the people not fans of omegaverse but you can just ignore those ones.)

Your word is…

CORDYCEPS

(currently watching the finale of The Last of Us 😭)

No pressure tho on tagging for writers!

@derythcorvinus @katyawriteswhump @scoops-aboy86 @dotdot-weirdlife @everywherenothere @bumblebeecuttlefishes @hiei-harringtonmunson @estrellami-1 @nebulaoz @renfrisol @tinyplanet95 @hairspraywhore

@amerikanskaya-krassavitsa @queenie-ofthe-void @mugloversonly

And open tag for anyone else who wishes to participate!

[bijouxcarys]

𝑻𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑩𝒊𝒏𝒅 (𝑹𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝑹𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒔 𝒙 𝑶𝑪) - 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑻𝒘𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒚-𝑶𝒏𝒆

Masterlist

Character Profiles/Face Claims

Playlist

A/N: I cannot begin to apologise enough for how long it's taken to get this fucking chapter out. I'm in the process of moving house (which keeps being pushed back), and I'm still going through some medical/health stuff, so my priorities have shifted a little. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter for what it is, and I'm enjoying laying down these building blocks for what will happen in future chapters! Got a couple of things lined up, some collaborations I'm working on, both in and out of the WWE fandom. :) Hope everyone's okay and taking care of themselves <3

CW/TW: mentions of violence, implications of misogyny, trafficiking, all-around creepy behaviour, definitely a lil discrimination

Tags: @empressdede @thetribalqueen @heauxvibez @bigsimperika

@cyberdejos2 @keyaho @headoftheetable @jstarr86 @southerngirl41

@tshepisho @cry1nwhileimcumm1n @maeb99 @thedesireds @dzdndcnfsd

@expert-texpert @niknakbucks92 @sillyteecup @trentybenty @pittieprincess22

@electronicwitchsandwich @thefairywithboots @fearlesschimera @teamchasezwrites

(If you want to be tagged in any future Roman fics, just let me know!)

This had become Nate’s routine. Laid on her back on the bench, earbuds firmly in place as she drowned out the world with the heavy pulse of some random industrial rock playlist she found on Spotify. The weight bar hovering above her, muscles straining as she pushed through another set. Sweat dripping down her temple, soaking into the fabric of her shirt.

A desperate attempt to channel the whirlwind of emotions that came with uncovering Alexei’s depravity. She couldn’t stomach being at the house anymore, not with Boris prowling around. Not with Alexei lingering like a dark cloud. Tribeca was her sanctuary now, and the gym was where she could think.

Or not think.

She exhaled, her eyes shutting as she powered through her final rep. The bright fluorescent lights above glowed harshly against her closed lids. But as she pushed the bar back onto its rack, the light seemed to dim.

Her eyes snapped open, and her heart jolted in her chest.

“Jesus Christ!” she gasped, nearly dropping the bar in her shock.

Rhea moved in an instant, her hands gripping the bar to steady it before it could crash down onto Nate’s chest—or worse, her face. “Careful,” she said, almost teasingly. “Don’t go ruining that pretty face of yours.”

Nate sat up quickly, yanking the earbuds out of her ears. Her heart was thumping, though she wasn’t sure if it was from the weights or the sudden appearance of Rhea. “Bloody hell, Rhea! What are you doing?”

Rhea straightened, that infuriating smirk plastered on her face. “Nice to see you too,” she said. “Been a while, ‘ey?”

Grabbing a towel from the bench beside her, Nate dabbed at her face. “A while? Try ages. I haven’t heard from you since Pries–”

“I could say the same thing to you,” Rhea shrugged. “You’ve been ghosting me just as much.”

“I’ve been… around,” Nate muttered, avoiding eye contact as she reached for her water bottle.

“Right,” Rhea said sceptically. “Around.” She let the word echo, folding her arms as she studied Nate.

Nate sighed, knowing she wasn’t going to win this one. “What do you want, Ripley?”

Stepping closer, Rhea lowered her voice, speaking with a rare seriousness. “I want to talk. And here’s not exactly the best place for it.” She glanced around the gym, where a few other patrons were scattered.

Nate hesitated, instincts kicking her in the back of the head. “Talk? About…?”

“Not here,” Rhea insisted, narrowing her eyes. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“A fucking walk…” Nate mumbled, wiping her hands on the towel. “Alright,” she finally agreed, slinging the towel over her shoulder. “Let me get my stuff.”

“Good.” Rhea gave her a curt nod, moving to the side to allow Nate to get up properly and head over to where she’d put her gym bag.

“The things I do for you…” Nate continued to mutter under her breath, not caring that Rhea had heard her and only influenced the smug smile on her face.

For how cold it was outside, Rhea sure kept an unbothered air about her as she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket. Meanwhile, Nate shivered beneath her hoodie, her eyes flicking around as though she were mentally sifting through the myriad of problems that weighed her down and what the fuck Rhea wanted to talk to her about.

“So,” the Aussie began casually, glancing sideways at Nate. “How’ve you been? Besides the obvious stress workout back there.”

Nate gave a half-hearted shrug. “Fine. Busy.”

“Fine?” Rhea snorted. “Busy? Those words mean jack shit coming from you.”

“It’s true though,” Nate smirked. “I’ve just had a lot going on.”

“How’s Katya?”

Nate’s jaw tightened. “She’s… managing.”

Rhea nodded, watching Nate’s profile closely as they crossed the street. “You’re not gonna tell me everything, are you?”

Shooting her a sidelong leer, Nate just huffed. “Not much to tell.”

“Bullshit.” Rhea grinned. “You forget, Volkov, I know you better than most. Something’s up.”

Nate’s hand brushed over her gym bag strap, a nervous habit. “It’s just the shipment,” she said, aiming for nonchalance. “Trying to figure out who killed Priest and stole our stuff.”

“You’re still working on that?” Rhea asked as the grin faded.

Nate stopped walking, turning to face her. “And you’re not? He was your best friend, Rhea. Someone killed him and took our shipment. Whoever did it could be coming for all of us next.”

Rhea sighed, glancing down the street before locking eyes with Nate again. “We’ve been looking, alright? Judgement Day’s first thought was Bunny. You know how things were between him and Priest.”

Nate didn’t react, but her chest jolted a little.

“We went to Bunny’s compound,” Rhea continued. “Place was deserted. Shell casings everywhere, signs of a shootout. Whoever hit it didn’t leave much behind.”

All Nate could do was nod along, pretend like she wasn’t in the middle of that very shootout, right beside Roman as the chaos unfolded. Like she didn’t already know that Bunny wasn’t in any way, shape, or form involved in any of this. Admitting so was not an option.

But Rhea was vigilant. Too vigilant for her own good at times.

“You’re quiet.”

“Just thinking,” Nate muttered nonchalantly.

Rhea gave her a long, assessing once over, before continuing as though she hadn’t even asked. “Obviously we’ve considered your family.”

Nate shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I told you already—it wasn’t us. Dad has his vices, but he isn’t that stupid, you know that.”

They walked in silence for a bit further before Rhea gestured toward Duane Park. It wasn’t far, a small green space nestled among the buildings, quiet enough for a private conversation. They found a bench beneath a tree, and Nate regretted sitting as soon as the cold metal hit her legs; she knew she should have changed into jeans or something before she left the gym…

“There’s only one option left who could have orchestrated the whole thing,” Rhea leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

“And who’s that?” Nate asked.

“The Bloodline… It’s gotta be, dude, they’re the only ones with that kind of power around here.”

And without even thinking about it, Nate was on her feet, as if the icy surface of the bench had burned her. “No. It wasn’t them.”

Blinking, Rhea lifted her head to meet Nate’s suddenly elevated gaze. “And you’re sure about that?”

“Yes,” Nate firmly insisted, though she felt the cracks in her composure. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would they target Priest? Why would they steal a shipment like that when they have all the weapons in the world?”

Rhea leaned back, folding her arms as she looked her friend up and down. “Funny,” she said with a hint of humour. “You’re awfully quick to defend them.”

Nate’s throat tightened and she attempted to, tried to backtrack, to mask her mistake. “It’s not a defence. It’s logic. Roman doesn’t operate like that—if he wanted something, he’d take it head-on, not orchestrate some elaborate scheme. If he wanted that shipment, he’d just pay extra, he’d just pay more than what my dad paid for our half!”

Tilting her head, a suspicious, curious, mischievous little smile crept onto Rhea’s face, unpainted lips stretching into a dimple on her cheek. “Uh-huh…” They stared at each other, a silence tightening between them like a taut wire. Then, Rhea stood up and took a small step closer, her ocean eyes piercing through Nate’s.

“Wait… you haven’t… spent time with Roman Reigns, have you?”

Nate’s eyes flickered with alarm. “Bloody he—what? What are you talking about?” She didn’t even register just how high her voice became in her defence.

Rhea grinned. Wide. “Oh, come on, Volkov… You’re involved with Roman Reigns?”

“Alright, Ripley, keep your voice down,” Nate warned, glancing to the side to ensure no one was within earshot. “And no, I’m not, so drop it, will ya?” she mumbled with clenched teeth.

A genuine, full-bodied laugh fell from the Aussie’s lips, echoing in the small park. “Wow… Of all people you? The queen of ‘I don’t trust anyone,’ ‘family is everything’ cozying up to The Tribal Chief himself.”

“It’s not like that. Seriously, Rhea, shut it.”

Rhea smirked but lowered her voice. “You’re a terrible liar, Nate. Always have been. At least to people like me, people who know you. Or thought they knew yo–”

Nate cut her off with a groan, running both her hands over her face. “This isn’t a joke.”

“No, it’s not,” Rhea agreed. “But damn, dude, this is ironic. I bet he’s got you all twisted up.”

“Rhea,” Nate repeated, her voice sharp, but the edge softened by the fainted tremor of weariness. She was unravelling, and they both knew it. “Just… stop. Please.”

Rhea’s smirk faded at the genuine plea laced in Nate’s tone. Whatever amusement she’d found in the situation dissipated, leaving only the shock of her realisation and the growing awareness that her teasing was doing more harm than good. Nate wasn’t in the mood for games, and Rhea, for all her bluntness, wasn’t cruel.

“Alright,” Rhea relented, leaning back against the bench. “I’ll back off. For now.”

The unspoken “but” hung in the air between them like a faint electric charge. Rhea crossed her arms again, narrowing her eyes, as though dissecting every ounce of Nate’s body language. After a moment, she shifted gears, her tone low and speculative. “So… If it wasn’t your father. And it wasn’t Reigns… who do you think took out Priest?”

Nate didn’t answer immediately. She stared past Rhea at the park’s edge, where a jogger trotted by with their dog in tow. The leash’s rhythmic sway felt hypnotic, a momentary reprieve from the cyclone of thoughts spinning in her mind. But the silence stretched, and Rhea, ever impatient, tapped her boot against the pavement.

“Well?”

“I’ve been looking at some stuff,” Nate finally said, carefully. “But haven’t got any names. Not yet.”

Rhea arched her brow. “Mysterious. I don’t remember you being so tight-lipped before.”

“It’s not tight-lipped,” Nate replied, shooting her a warning glance. “It’s cautious. You, of all people, should understand that.”

The comment landed, but Rhea let it slide. Nate’s gaze lingered on her a moment longer before she shifted the conversation, her tone tinged with something between disbelief and annoyance. “You know what pisses me off?”

“Oh, this should be good,” Rhea breathed, raising her eyebrows. “What’s that?”

Nate wrung her hands together, gnawing at her lips as the irritation bubbled back to the surface. “The fact that you thought for a second that it could have been my family. After… After everything,” she paused, turning her head to look back at Rhea. “You still went ahead, cut the goddamn chain on my door to barge in and accuse us anyway. And then just to make sure I was well and truly pissed off, you still reconsidered u–”

“Wait a minute,” Rhea interrupted, lifting a hand as her face contorted in perplexion. “Cut the chain?” she repeated with a wry smile. “Are you kidding me?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

“And do I look like the type to carry big ass bolt cutters around in my back pocket for fun?”

“Uh, you showed up in my kitchen uninvited, and the door was busted open,” Nate pointed out. “How else was I supposed to think you got in?”

“Okay,” Rhea sat up straight, holding her hands out in mock surrender. “Let’s clear this up right now, Volkov. I didn’t cut anything. Your door was already fucked when I got there.”

Nate’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“You heard me,” Rhea said, her voice losing its teasing edge. “The lock was jacked, the chain was barely hanging on. I would’ve just stood outside your door if it was locked, Nate, you know I wouldn’t do that.”

“That…what?” Nate’s lips dried up as she tried to rationalise what Rhea was insinuating. Even though it made little to no sense to her. It… had to have been Rhea, right?

“Is chain-cutting really something you’ve ever seen me do? Nah, dude, that’s Dom Dom. Did you see Dom anywhere?”

“No, because I’d kill h–”

“Careful, Volkov, that’s my Latino Heat you’re talking about.”

“No, Latino Heat is his so-called uncle that he preferred over his own father, is he not?” Nate raised an eyebrow, giving Rhea a pointed look. Pushing it. Pushing it… “Sorry, just…” she huffed. “I could have sworn you cut the chain to wait for me…”

The lock had been giving her trouble for weeks, but eventually chalked it up to wear and tear, not some deliberate act. The possibility that someone else might have been in her apartment before Rhea was unsettling in a way she didn’t want to unpack right now.

“Fine,” she conceded, not waiting for Rhea to respond. “Maybe I… jumped to conclusions.”

“Maybe?” Rhea teased, though her expression softened as she studied Nate. “Look, I get why you’re mad. But don’t think for a second I’m not going to push back when you start acting… like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re carrying the weight of the world but refuse to let anyone help you,” Rhea said plainly.

Nate opened her mouth to argue but stopped herself. The truth in Rhea’s words hit way too close to home, and the last thing she wanted was to give her more ammunition. Besides, it wasn’t like she could outwardly give Rhea the proof of her letting go of that stubborn streak as of late; only The Bloodline could answer to that.

“You really think someone else was in my apartment?” Nate asked quietly, steering the conversation back to safer ground. 

Rhea shrugged, sharpening her gaze. “I don’t know. Maybe. But if they were, they were long gone by the time I got there. And that’s not what’s important.”

“Then what is?”

“You,” Rhea said simply, yet softly—so softly that it tightened a knot in Nate’s stomach and she had to look away. “Just don’t shut me out, alright?” she added.

Nate didn’t answer, but she knew the shield she’d put up was starting to disintegrate and dissipate, bit by bit.

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

Gleaming crystal chandeliers hung overhead, their refracted light scattering across the long mahogany table polished to a mirror-like sheen. A sea of silverware was arranged with militant precision, and the room smelled faintly of aged wood and a decadent feast in progress—roasted meats, truffle-infused sauces, and freshly baked bread. The table was laden with dishes too rich for comfort, the kind meant more for flaunting wealth than indulging taste.

Nate sat quietly, her back straight, her impeccable mask of calm. She was dressed in a sleek black gown, the fabric shimmering faintly under the light. Her dark hair was swept into an elegant updo, a few tendrils artfully loose, softening her otherwise sharp presence. A diamond necklace rested at her collarbone, its cold weight a reminder of her role tonight. She was the Volkov princess, the perfect fiancé, the dutiful daughter.

Except for the fact that she was texting Roman Reigns under the table.

Her phone was tucked discreetly beneath her napkin, her thumb scrolling as Alexei launched into yet another tirade from his seat near the middle of the table. Nate’s seat—further down the line than usual—felt like a quiet demotion, a confirmation of what Ivan had already warned her: Dimitri no longer trusted her the way he once had.

Closer to Dimitri now sat Katya, a vision in soft lavender silk, her hair cascading in carefully styled waves. Katya played her part well, engaging in soft laughter at Dimitri’s jokes and leaning in when he spoke to her directly. To anyone watching, it looked natural, like a passing of the torch. But to Nate, it was a strategic move. Her father was grooming Katya, subtly shifting the weight of expectation away from Nate.

And Katya didn’t even know.

Nate’s phone buzzed faintly in her palm, and she glanced down at the screen, shielding it with her napkin.

Roman: I don’t know how you’re sitting at that table with him.

Nate’s lips twitched as she typed a quick response, her face remaining impassive.

Nate: You’re welcome to snipe him. But he might bore you to death first.

Across the table, Alexei raised his glass in a toast to his own brilliance, spewing something about “traditional values” and the “corruption of Western ideology.” Boris and Ivan nodded along like puppets, though even Ivan’s patience seemed thin. Katya clinked her glass against Alexei’s, her smile as flawless as it was false.

“Alexei,” Sergei interrupted dryly. “Do you ever tire of hearing yourself speak?”

A ripple of laughter spread around the table, and Alexei scowled playfully, his cheeks flushing a deep crimson. “I am only speaking the truth, Sergei. Not my fault you lack the zheludok for it.”

Nate didn’t look up, though she could practically feel the heat of masculine libation; fully knowing how toxically arrogant each of them were, but seeing nothing wrong with the fact, so they continued with further intensity.

Nate: Alexei’s face matches the borscht. Coincidence?

A moment later, her phone buzzed.

Roman: Careful Roman: Your sense of humor is starting to sound suspiciously like mine Roman: ;)

Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she quickly set the phone face down on her lap, suppressing the grin threatening to break through her mask.

“Something amusing, Natalka?” Dimitri’s voice cut through the din, sharp and probing.

Nate’s head snapped up, smoothing her facade with a practiced ease. “Nyet, Papa,” she said evenly, shaking her head. “Just enjoying Alexei’s commentary.”

Her father’s eyes lingered on her for a moment longer than necessary before he nodded and turned his attention back to Boris, launching into a conversation about trade routes. Boris, seated at Dimitri’s right, looked as smug as ever, the man practically oozing self-satisfaction.

Nate’s phone vibrated again, and she dared a glance.

Roman: What’s he saying now? Roman: Let me guess… something racist?

She bit back a laugh.

Nate: And homophobic Nate: …and misogynistic Nate: Hitting the trifecta tonight lol

“Katerina,” Alexei boomed suddenly. “You must let me take you hunting when the season opens. You are a soft little one, it’s time to toughen up a bit.”

“Perhaps,” Katya’s polite smile didn’t falter, “Though I’m not sure I’d enjoy hunting as much as you do.”

Alexei grinned, leaning forward as if imparting a great secret. “That is because you have never had the thrill of tracking something real. There’s no greater satisfaction.”

Nate’s grip on her phone tightened. The predatory gleam in Alexei’s eyes made her skin prickle uncomfortably.

Nate: I’m half-convinced Alexei’s “hunting trips” are just excuses to bury bodies in the woods. Roman: Half? Sweetheart, I'd put money on that shit.

Across the table, Alexei’s voice thundered on, a grotesque mix of slurs and self-aggrandising nonsense. He spoke of purity and his favourite targets, droning on with the enthusiasm of someone who believed his words carried divine weight.

“You know,” Boris interjected from further down the table. “Some might say you sound like a broken record, Alexei. But blin, you are correct.”

Nate barely registered the exchange, her focus still on her phone as she typed.

Nate: Does he ever stop talking? Roman: Maybe if someone shoved a fork in his mouth. Roman: You’re closer. Do the honors.

A dastardly sip of wine hid her amusement as talk of unspoken animosity and alliances carried layers around her. It was all background noise to her… until the conversation at the table turned darker. An undercurrent of malice threading through the progressively tipsy bravado.

Dimitri swirled his vodka with the precision of a conductor, his cold eyes locking on each of his men in turn. “It’s the Bloodline,” he began. “They’re the rot beneath this city. Reigns, especially. He thinks himself untouchable.”

A murmur of agreement rippled around the table. Boris leaned forward, his perpetually flushed face creased in a snee. “Untouchable? Please. He’s a brute. Nothing but a thug with a shiny suit and a handful of lackeys who think loyalty makes them men.”

Nate’s stomach twisted, though her expression remained as neutral as stone. She sipped her wine, suppressing the grimace brought by the taste and the men around her, disguising her growing tension as she felt the sting of their words, the truth interwoven with fiction.

Ivan chimed in with a tone heavy with disdain. “He’s unpredictable. That’s his only weapon. He thrives on chaos, tearing down anyone who gets in his way because he cannot build anything for himself.”

“Gryaznyy samoanets…” he added with a tssk from his teeth, pouring himself a happy dose of Beluga Epicure.

The stem of Nate’s glass may have just shattered had she tightened her hold on it a fraction more. Not true. She knew firsthand that Roman built everything with calculated precision, every move a step in his long game. The chaos was a mere smokescreen, a tool he wielded with terrifying control. Sure, she didn’t know that at first, but now… she did now.

“Unpredictable?” Sergei huffed, lip curling in contempt. “He is reckless. Stupid, even. Doesn’t think things through. That is why he will not last.”

Wrong again. Nate suppressed the urge to scoff. Roman’s reputation as impulsive was a clever facade, plain and simple.

“Roman Reigns,” Dimitri drawled sharply, “Is a parasite. He uses people. Discards them when they are no longer of value to him. And that, lyudi, is why he has no real allies. Only pawns.”

Thank God for the glass settled between her lips at that moment, otherwise she would have lacked the ability to keep a bitter cackle locked in her chest. No allies? No. Not only did her thoughts drift to Roman’s inner circle, a tightly knit group bound not by fear, but by familial loyalty she could only describe as earned, but also the irony in Dimitri’s words; his own daughter, sat feet from him, was in fact one of these allies he claimed Roman to lack.

Poetic, isn’t it?

Boris slammed his own glass down, laughing harshly. “He is nothing without his muscle. His family props him up because he cannot stand alone. Take them away, and he is just another arrogant svoloch in a city full of them.”

The others chuckled, the air thick with self-satisfaction. Nate’s jaw twitched and clenched painfully, the bitterness in their words grating against the memory of Roman’s unyielding confidence, his alluring ability to command a room with nothing but a glance. Things she’s come to respect him for more than anything.

Quietly, she slipped her phone from her lap, once again hiding it beneath the tablecloth this time. Her fingers moved ridiculously as she typed.

Nate: They’re talking about you…

A reply came immediately.

Roman: Oh yeah? What’s the verdict?

She hesitated, unsure how much to say.

Nate: According to them, you’re impulsive, arrogant, and a parasite bastard who’s nothing without your family :)

Three dots danced on her screen for a long moment, but his response, when it came, was dry.

Roman: Sounds like a bunch of charmers

Three dots again. Two minutes. Another simple message.

Roman: Do you agree with them?

Her thumb hovered, the question cutting straight through the noise around her. She glanced up, meeting Alexei’s gaze briefly before looking away. When she replied, it was honest.

Nate: Not anymore.

And his swift response.

Roman: Good.

Nate observed Alexei’s infuriatingly smug smirk as he leaned into his best friend, whispering something all whilst glancing over at Katya. What followed was a boyish round of snickers and the clanging of their glasses against each other in some kind of intimate toast.

Nate: I just want this fucker dead. Nate: wanna cut his fucking dick off and shove it down his throat Nate: nasty little cunt

She was just ranting at this point. At least it was someone who could somewhat relate to the feeling, actually show some kind of empathy.

Roman: Damn Roman: I like this side of you, Volkov.

A faint smile almost escaped her, and she had to use her glass to hide it yet again.

Nate: Do you? Roman: More than you know. Roman: but we’ll get him Roman: I promise

The conversation at the table took yet another turn. Alexei, flushed with vodka and pride, leaned back in his chair and grinned, his voice taking on an oily edge.

“Before I forget, Mitya,” he drawled, “This weekend I’ll be at Madame X. Need to get acquainted with a new shipment.”

Dimitri smirked knowingly, pouring himself another drink. “Ah, typical Alexei,” she said, shaking his head in mock amusement. “Always with the extracurriculars. I swear, boy, one day you will bite off more than you can chew.”

Alexei chuckled, an indulgent, auto-gratifying sound. “I can handle myself, Dimitri. This one’s promising—fresh, exotic… You know how it is.”

The men at the table shared a round of laughter, the kind that made Nate shift uncomfortably in her seat. She forced herself to keep that neutral expression, but she knew her hands would not keep as calm.

Boris leaned in, grinning at his best friend. “And you’ll keep her at the old place? Break her in there?”

Alexei nodded, eyes alight with pure cruelty, pure evil. “Of course. Slowly, though. Cannot rush these things. Have to teach her how to behave first.”

Katya looked up from her plate, her brow furrowed in mild confusion. “What’s this shipment you’re talking about?” she asked, her voice almost detached. Innocent.

Alexei waved a dismissive hand. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with, milyy. Just business.”

“Leave the logistics to Alexei, Katerina,” Dimitri chuckled, clearly entertained by the exchange. “He has… a unique skill set.”

The youngest Volkov shrugged, her curiosity fading as she returned to her food. Nate, however, felt the anger rise in her throat like bile. They didn’t know that she knew exactly what they were alluding to—that she’d figured it out already with the help of their sworn enemy. Alexei’s “shipments” weren’t goods or contraband; they were girls. Girls he treated as commodities, as playthings to be sold, broken, and discarded.

Her mind raced as the men continued their banter, their voices blurring into the background. This was it. Alexei had just handed her the key. He would be at X. Isolated. Preoccupied.

Vulnerable.

Beneath the table, she unlocked her phone and sent another message to Roman.

Nate: He’ll be at X this weekend. Familiarising himself with a ‘shipment’...  Nate: And yes, it’s exactly what you think

His response was slower this time, but she could only imagine the… itch, the fury, the need to carry out justice that ran through that tall Samoan at the confirmation of such a heretic’s whereabouts.

Roman: We move now.

Heart hammering in her chest, she glanced up, her face carefully impassive as Alexei leaned over to clink glasses with Boris, laughing at some crude joke she didn’t catch.

Nate’s fingers flew over the screen again.

Nate: Yeah this is it Nate: We can’t wait. He won’t stop. Nate: Needs to be done soon Roman: It will be. Roman: We got him Princess, don’t you worry.

Nate set the phone down, her resolve hardening as she looked back at the men around her one last time. She would make sure of it. If Roman needed her to set the stage, to bait the trap, to even lure him to a secluded location, she would do it.

Not only because it would be Roman asking her, but to make sure this monster was eliminated, taken out, removed permanently from the face of the Earth.

She was ready.

[ghostwolfboy]

Scars of Steel (1/?)

Hi! I’d like to share a short story about Aetherion and the Hex! I hope you enjoy it. English isn’t my first language, so I apologize if you notice any mistakes I did my best to keep the characters close to canon. Comments are very welcome, and I’m planning to continue the story soon!l

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No one could blame him for feeling immortal, in some ways, he truly was. Not everyone could walk away alive after being run through with a sword, decapitated, or from any of the long list of reasons he had died before. Besides, how could anyone not feel indestructible when your body was protected by tons of metallic armor, armor that was not only incredibly tough but also built for killing. He had different warframes to choose from, but none compared to his favorite: Sevagoth. Nothing felt quite like crashing against the ground only to rise again, diving straight back into the bloody frenzy.

Usually, he watched from the rooftops, striking from a distance and clearing the perimeter for the Hex. But there were times when his mind seemed to race faster than reason, his heart pounding as he hurled himself like a starving beast into the enemy army, moving as light as a feather in the air, sharp claws shredding opponents effortlessly. It wasn’t easy to show expression through a warframe, but it was clear in a dark, twisted way how much he relished standing at the front of the battle. No matter how heavy that metal beast was, it moved like his own skin.

“Aetherion” A voice snapped him from his frenzy, stopping him cold. He looked around, noticing the torn bodies scattered across the ground. “You’re getting too far ahead” It wasn’t an observation, it was a reproach.

“Ain’t gettin’ ahead, you lot are just slow” His chest rose and fell, lungs drawing air back in as he steadied himself. He stretched slightly, wiping his hands on the warframe’s metal, hoping the blood wouldn’t stain it forever.

He lingered where he had stopped, allowing himself the grim luxury of stepping among the bodies one by one, draining them, even studying them closely to see where his claws had cut. He wouldn’t deny the morbid fascination in seeing what his weapons could do. Sometimes he wondered if this was what Tenno felt inside their warframes too, unstoppable, or perhaps, more like beasts. Aetherion still couldn’t quite name what he felt, but at least he knew it wasn’t something negative.

The electric hiss warned him before Amir arrived at his side, letting out a groan that was obviously put on for dramatic effect.

“Not all of us are slow”  Aetherion let out a dry chuckle, shaking his head to show how amused he was.

He checked his map, the others were definitely a bit further back, maybe no more than five minutes away, at least he wouldn’t be waiting long. Resting for a moment wouldn’t hurt; sitting on one of the benches in that infested metropolis seemed fitting. Amir seemed hesitant, not because it was dangerous, but because standing still seemed harder for him than fighting.

“Suit yourself. It’s not like anyone else is going to take the seat” the drifter muttered, crossing one leg over the other, leaning back against the machine. The bench creaked quietly, as if complaining the warframe was too heavy for the old wood.

He let himself close his eyes. He couldn’t feel the snow on his real skin, but he could sense it through the borrowed shell . Snowflakes melting on metal, the freezing air burning his nose, that strange feeling of his own body heat melting the snow even though it remained cold, so cold it burned. Silence truly was a luxury in this world, in all worlds. 

Yet Amir interrupted it gently, humming a tune. He opened his eyes, even if the warframe didn’t show it, and looked at Amir, posture betraying a faint annoyance. But it all happened too quickly. 

Part 2

[adaptacy]

A little Johnny character study.

Warnings: Stalking, romanticized cannibalism, graphic gore, corpses, extremely fucked up mentality, unsettling stream of consciousness, a LOT of red flags, all around just a sickening version of Johnny as I attempt to solve the gaps in my understanding of him.

Seriously, if you're the kind of person who doesn't usually care about tags, this is one of the ones where you maybe wanna give them a glance.

He'd met her at a bar. Well- 'Met' was a loose term. She'd caught his eyes at a bar. She was pretty, but not special. He'd seen pretty before. She was talkative, but not interesting. He'd heard talkative before. And yet she'd still caught his attention.

But she hadn't heard his voice. He never did take a seat next to her, never did buy her a drink, never did take her home. But he watched. Watched as she finished her last drink, just sober enough to manage her drive back home, but too tipsy to notice the truck trailing behind her the entire way back. Too tipsy to notice it parked on the side of the road when she entered her home.

He'd stopped at the kitchen window, knowing it was far too dark out for her to possibly notice him. He watched as she flicked on the kitchen light, sorting through her fridge for something to eat. And then he left.

He found himself at her window often. When he needed to cool off. When she'd been on his mind. When he'd kidnapped a girl with the same eyes as her, with a similar shape as her. When he'd ripped into yet another meal, imagining it was her between his teeth. Imagining the sweet, metallic stench of her blood, the soft cries she'd release as he cut into her.

But all he did was watch. Watch as she twirled the cord of her phone between her fingers, chatting away with her mother. Watched as she ate another frozen dinner too late at night, all by her lonesome. Watched as she sat in front of a tv, curled up in her blankets as bloody images of fictional murders played on screen.

She didn't know fear. She didn't smell like fear. She didn't look like fear. But he wanted to introduce them. He wanted to see her lips tremble in terror as her face ran pale, he wanted to see her force her last breaths out in sobs, he wanted to see her shake beneath him, unable to beg for her life with anything more than gurgles, her words washed away by the blood filling her mouth.

But all he did was watch. He learned her schedule. Learned how she folded her laundry. Learned her favorite meal. Learned her nervous ticks. He could've had her.

He could've killed her.

He stood over her bed as she slept, silent and dangerous. She always put her spare key in the plant on her porch. Was she stupid? Oblivious to the dangers in the world? Unaware that she'd given him such easy access. And she slept, defenseless, helpless, inches beside him as he just watched. Watched the way her eyelids twitched, the way her shoulders shifted, noted every minute change in her breathing. He wanted to see it stop.

He wanted to see her lungs freeze. He wanted to feel her heart in his hand, wanted to taste her blood on his tongue, wanted to claw his way into her skin and hear her scream at the violation. He wanted her to run. He wanted to taunt her, he wanted to hold her as she desperately tried to squirm away from him. He wanted to watch her innocence disappear from her eyes, he wanted to watch as she gave in to the death he wrought upon her.

And he watched, but there was no fear. Nothing but peace. It made him angry. He could suffocate her where she lay. He could press his body against her as she tried to kick him off, he wanted to wrap his hands around her throat and feel her pulse weaken-

But he just watched.

And then he went home.

He'd pretend the woman in his basement was her. He'd drive his knife deep into the corpse, ignoring the stench of rotted blood as he added to the frenzied stabs. He'd pant, and heave as he jammed the metal in again, and again, and again. And he'd imagine her choking, coughing up pleas and apologies. And kicking at him, and suffering. He didn't know her name. He didn't need to.

He knew her character, because he'd watched. He knew her outside, and one day he'd know her inside, too. But for now, he sliced until he could see the grayed edges of her torn intestines, the flies around the corpse diving between the folds of the decrepit flesh at the chance for a new taste.

The skin of her face had already been peeled, and flies sat on the edges of the sockets where frayed edges of flesh had been left by Junior's shoddy sawing. That was fine. She didn't have a face. But she had the facial structure he'd dreamt of. And his imagination was good enough.

When he deemed himself satisfied, he removed his knife from where it was lodged in her softened liver and stood up, finding his hand wet with a strange, slick ooze. There wasn't any blood- not anymore. Just a strange, thin, diluted version of what once kept this woman alive. He shook his hand off and stood, wiping the blade of his knife off in the fabric of his shirt.

He used his foot to kick the body back into the position it had been, but he knew he'd ruined it far past being able to harvest anything off of the brittle bones. She was nothing more than a meal for the flies. And a terrible stench.

He hadn't fixed anything. No, he'd made it worse. He wanted to see her again. He wanted to see her expression when he revealed himself, lurking inside of the very place she deemed her safety. He wanted to hear her stammer as he crept towards her, asking who he was, begging for her life.

But he took a seat at the dinner table, once more being ignored even if he could feel the prying eyes on him. They knew he'd had another one of his fits, but they knew better than to ask.

Mashed potatoes for dinner. It left him thirsty. Left him lonely.

He didn't say anything when he headed into town, returning to the bar he'd met her at.

This time was different.

This time, he didn't watch. This time, he didn't wait. This time, he didn't fantasize.

This time...

"You look lonely, Darlin'. How about we fix that?"

"Oh? That's awfully forward. And who might you be?"

"The name's Johnny."

===

for clarification, no, he did not fuck the dead body. he just attacked it. pls dont get the wrong idea LMAO

[inazumaeleven-fanfiction]

I'm sorry for posting these 3-4 days late. I have no excuses for that. I'm reusing the same background as last year if you don't mind.

Good for fanfiction, fanart, and any other fanwork!!

Inatober 2024 Prompts

The prompts in text form:

Food in the hospital / stranger danger...?

Lunch buddy / within the closet

Mountain / in another life...

Dystopian / favorite scary/horror-themed character

Blank / Role Reversal AU

Wonderland / favorite trio

Hauls / Hanahaki Disease

Gore / sentient avatar/keshin

Beast / Who run the world?!

Study table / Addams Family AU

Weremonsters / episode redraw/rewrite

Shield / proud soldiers

Bug/s / military experiment

Vulture / life in line

Resentment / stolen time

Despite these inflicted wounds I chased your cowering hand; you pulled me down with your weight over the cliff that spelled the end to your life and met my eyes with desperation and unsettling relief. // In that empty smile that at one time held my tomorrow, I saw my mistake... // My love... you are here no longer. // I loosened my palm; with knives in my constricting chest, hoped for the blood in your hands to take you... // And take you it did. // It was as if the skin of my bestfriend was peeled off and a smiling beast appeared in their stead. // You savagely yanked at my treasured bracelets. Given to me by my beloved whose eyes are now but a darkness with no end that taunted our precious memories. // You tugged down my arm with the force that severed all the good in you that I held onto. With the pieces of our treasure, and the imagined relief in your face; you let the abyss below swallow you.

Extracted / Poor groomed soul

Pressured / No man's treasure

Polycule / To love is to conquer

Dragons / opposite elements

Doomed yuri / villain female character

Found Family / someone's possession

Abandoned / Other sports AU

Golden hair / Doomed Siblings

Beers / bloody statue

Better half / Not even human

Robots / Friendship bracelet

Flowers / Glass heart

Graves / torn and scavenged

Sun Garden / favorite hissatsu

Bestfriends / limb from limb

[storyscribeforthesentiment]

the detective & the dark knight | chapter 7

Summary: Detective Marie Manning, investigating a series of brutal murders in Gotham, crosses paths with the mysterious Batman. As they work together, their mutual respect turns into a deep, passionate bond. Amidst danger and corruption, their unlikely partnership evolves into a profound love, forever changing their lives in Gotham’s dark corners.

Pairing: Batman/Bruce Wayne x f!main character

Author’s note: Buckle in for a rollercoaster of emo. We’ve got Bruce, the king of brooding, drowning in guilt because, surprise—deception isn’t a great foundation for a relationship. And then there’s Marie, who’s understandably hurt about the lies... but she’s also battling the very real urge to kiss his ridiculously handsome face. Enjoy!

Word count: 6k

Warnings/tags: mentions of gun violence, police bribes, fighting, murder

Chapter List

Marie stepped into the dimly lit study of Wayne Manor, her heart racing as the heavy silence of the mansion pressed down on her. The aftermath of the fight at the docks was still fresh in her mind—gunfire, screams, Maroni—and the terrifying sight of Bruce, beaten and bleeding, lingered.

She hadn’t been able to stay away. Not until she knew for sure that he was still breathing.

Bruce is Batman. Bruce is Batman. Bruce is Batman.

The thought played over in her head.

Her boots squeaked against the ground, covered in mud and blood—Bruce's blood. Her entire body shook as her sweaty curls clung to the side of her face.

She had stayed at the docks long enough for Gordon to get taken away by the ambulance, and for Bullock and the other detectives to arrive and take her story.

She gave them a brief account of what had happened, but she didn't mention a word about Bruce's secret.

Alfred looked up as she entered, his hands steady, though his expression was tight with worry. He was standing beside Bruce, who laid unconscious on a long, oak table.

Alfred’s gloved hands were soaked with blood, carefully stitching up a deep gash on Bruce’s abdomen. Bloodied bandages were scattered around, and Bruce’s face was pale, bruised, the life nearly drained from him.

"Miss Marie," Alfred greeted quietly, his voice a calm but somber presence in the room. "He’ll be alright. The worst is over."

She didn’t reply right away, her eyes locked on Bruce, deeply injured and so vulnerable.

It wasn’t the man she was used to seeing, not the stoic and invincible Batman, or the sweet and affectionate Bruce. This was a hurt man, flesh and blood, raw and wounded. It felt too real—too human.

Alfred noticed her hesitation. “I was a medic in the army,” he said, as if offering some comfort through the explanation. “This isn’t my first time doing fieldwork.”

Marie stepped closer, her voice barely above a whisper. “Have you had to stitch him up before?”

Her question hung in the air, heavy with implication. Alfred paused, his needle poised midair, before he looked up at her, understanding in his eyes. There was no need to say it outright. She already knew. He nodded slowly.

“Yes,” Alfred admitted softly, a silent acknowledgment of the unspoken truth.

Marie swallowed hard, her throat tight, but she didn’t press further. Instead, she stood beside Bruce, close enough to feel the warmth of his skin, despite how cold and weak he looked.

She gently touched his battered, sweat-soaked face, a whirlwind of emotions surging through her—gratitude for saving her life, betrayal for the lies he’d kept, and a deep respect for his work as the Dark Knight.

Hours passed, but she didn’t leave his side. She watched his chest rise and fall, counting every breath as if each one was a fragile reassurance that he’d survive this.

The anger she’d felt earlier—the hurt over his lies, the unresolved tension between them—it could all wait. Right now, none of that mattered. All that mattered was that he was alive.

As long as he was alive, there was still time.

—-------------------------------

Days had passed, and Marie had spent most of them holed up in her apartment. The silence was comforting at first, but now it felt stifling. Her precinct had granted her a brief leave from work, an opportunity to recover and process everything that had happened.

But there was only so much time she could spend staring at the same four walls, replaying the events over and over in her head.

With no word from Alfred that Bruce had regained consciousness, Marie knew it was time to visit again.

Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the steering wheel, Gotham's city lights blurring past in a haze. Rain drummed against the windshield, each drop echoing the turmoil raging inside her.

Every part of her wanted to scream, to let out the anger and confusion tearing her apart. If Bruce was awake, she wasn’t even sure what she would say to him.

She couldn’t stop thinking about all the moments that suddenly made sense—the little things she had overlooked, the times Batman had been just a little too familiar, too protective, too... Bruce.

Had he started dating her for a reason that had nothing to do with love? Maybe he’d seen it as a way to have a cop in his corner—an inside track on cases and information, someone to clean up his messes when the vigilante work crossed lines.

Was she just an asset, a useful tool to him?

Marie hit the steering wheel, a curse escaping her lips. “Goddamnit, Bruce.”

She felt stupid for not seeing it sooner, but more than that, she felt betrayed. All those moments when she thought they were connecting, when Bruce had opened up to her—how much of it had been real? 

The rain picked up as she drove, her wipers barely keeping up with the downpour. She replayed conversations in her head. There had been moments—many moments—where Bruce had asked about her work, about cases, even if it was in passing. What if those moments weren’t casual? What if they were calculated?

 Her stomach twisted with each memory. It was as if the pieces of the puzzle had been in front of her all along, but she hadn’t been ready to see the full picture.

And now, she couldn’t unsee it.

Bruce. Batman.

Was their whole relationship built on lies?

Marie pulled into the long, winding driveway of Wayne Manor, her heart racing as she approached the mansion’s towering silhouette. As much as she wanted answers, part of her wasn’t ready for them.

“Fuck.” She muttered under her breath. 

Marie killed the engine, sitting in the dark silence of the car for a long moment. The mansion loomed ahead, cold and imposing.

Taking a deep breath, Marie stepped out of the car, her boots sinking into the gravel as she approached the front door. Alfred was the one who greeted her, as always, his expression calm and measured. But tonight, there was something different in his eyes—a heaviness she hadn’t seen before.

“Detective Manning,” Alfred said softly, opening the door wider to let her in. “I assume you’ve come to check on Master Wayne again?”

She nodded, stepping into the grand foyer. “Is he okay?”

Alfred’s face gave away nothing. “He is.”

Marie swallowed, unsure how to approach what was really on her mind. She paused, glancing around the mansion before turning back to Alfred. “How long have you known?” she asked, her voice low, almost accusatory. “That Bruce is... that he’s Batman?”

Alfred’s expression didn’t falter. “I’ve known for quite some time.”

Marie nodded slowly. “How is he doing, really? Physically, I mean.”

“He’s sleeping, hasn’t woken up since he got back. His injuries were severe, but not life-threatening, thanks to... well, you and Commissioner Gordon.” Alfred paused, his eyes softening as he looked at her, assessing the concern on Marie’s face. “He’s come back from far worse injuries than this. I know he’ll pull through.”

Marie exhaled, her shoulders dropping slightly. “I’m glad to hear that.” She took a step toward the door, her mind still buzzing with too many questions.

Alfred straightened his posture, his gaze steady and thoughtful. “Detective Manning,” he called softly. His voice was calm but deliberate, like a man who’d seen more than his fair share of heartbreak. “I don’t mean to overstep, but if I may?”

Marie stopped, turning back to face him. Her demeanor softened at the familiar warmth in Alfred’s tone. “Go ahead, Alfred.”

He cleared his throat, taking a careful step closer. “Master Wayne may live behind a mask, but his feelings for you are genuine, Miss Marie. He doesn’t let many people in. You’re one of the very few he’s ever truly cared about.”

Marie shook her head, the knot of confusion in her chest tightening. “Then why lie? Why keep everything from me?” Her voice cracked slightly as she spoke, the sting of betrayal sharp and fresh

 “Was he just using me? Did he see dating me as some sort of way to get information? For the last few days, that’s all I’ve been able to think about.” Her eyes flashed with the anger she’d been holding in.

Alfred’s face softened, and he let out a quiet sigh. “No, Miss Marie. It wasn’t like that. I think Master Wayne appreciates how you can understand him well beyond others can. You both lost parents too young, and that pain—that drive—it shaped who you are, just as it shaped him. You both fight for justice, though in different ways. And believe me, he respects you, deeply.”

Marie’s eyes flickered, caught off guard by the vulnerability in Alfred’s words. She bit her lip, fighting back the mixture of frustration and doubt swirling inside her. “But he still lied. He could’ve told me. I thought we were...” She paused, searching for the right words. “I thought we were partners. More than that.”

Alfred nodded, stepping closer, his gaze unwavering. "Bruce fell for you, unexpectedly. He’s never cared for someone the way he cares for you."

Marie crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looked away. “How do I know that’s true? How do I know I wasn’t just another part of his... plan?”

Alfred shook his head gently. “Because I’ve seen him with you. The way he is when you’re around. He’s... different. Less burdened, even if just for a moment.

You give him something he’s never had—a reason to believe in more than just vengeance.” He paused, then added, “It’s not easy for him, being with someone. Not when he spends every night risking his life. But he does have deep feelings for you, Miss Marie. That, I’m certain of.”

The room fell silent for a moment as Alfred’s words lingered in the air. Marie wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that Bruce’s feelings were real, that their connection hadn’t been built on lies.

But the hurt was still there.

“I just... I don’t know,” she murmured, her voice quieter now. “I don't know if I’ll ever be able to trust him again.” Her tone was harsher than she’d expected.

Alfred stepped closer, his expression compassionate. “Trust is earned, Miss Marie. And I can’t promise you that it’ll be easy. But I know Bruce—better than anyone. And if there’s one thing I can tell you, it’s that he will do everything in his power to earn back that trust. He won’t give up on you.”

Marie’s heart clenched at the words, the weight of everything finally crashing down on her. She let out a slow breath, feeling a mixture of exhaustion and heartache. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.

Alfred nodded, his eyes kind. “And that’s okay. Take your time, Miss Marie. But please, don’t doubt for a moment that you mean the world to him.”

Marie stood there for a long moment, absorbing Alfred’s words. Part of her wanted to run—run from the confusion, from the hurt, from the overwhelming realization that Bruce had been living a double life this entire time. But another part of her couldn’t deny the truth in Alfred’s voice.

She approached the door, her hand hovering over the doorknob. In a quiet voice, she murmured, “Thank you,” her words lingering in the air before she paused, adding softly, “For everything.”

Alfred gave her a small, understanding nod. “Of course, Miss Marie. I’m always here, should you need anything.”

With a final glance back toward the door leading to Bruce’s room, Marie turned and left, her heart heavy but her mind racing with questions she wasn’t sure she could answer yet.

—-------------------------------

The first thing Bruce felt when he regained consciousness was the sharp, deep throb in his side. It wasn’t the usual dull ache of a bruise or the fleeting sting of a cut; this pain was sharper, more insistent, gnawing at him with every shallow breath.

His body resisted movement, as if it was demanding he stay still. Every ache was a heavy reminder of the damage he’d taken.

His eyes fluttered open, and the world around him slowly came into focus. The dim light filtered through the thick curtains of his bedroom in Wayne Manor, casting long shadows that danced across the room.

He groaned softly, the mere act of turning his head sending a bolt of pain through his ribs and down to his side. He lifted his hand, feeling the thick bandages wrapped around his torso.

As he tried to shift and sit up, his body betrayed him. A burning sensation flared in his side, the fresh stitches tugging at the skin, forcing him to freeze. He barely stifled another groan when a figure moved into his peripheral vision—Alfred.

“You’re awake,” Alfred said, his voice a rare mixture of relief and caution. His usual calmness was tinged with concern as he approached the bedside. He placed a firm but gentle hand on Bruce’s shoulder, urging him to stay down. “Easy now, Master Wayne. Let’s not undo the work those stitches are holding together.”

“How long was I out?” Bruce’s voice was hoarse, more from the exhaustion than any real injury to his throat.

Alfred paused, his lips pressing into a thin line. “Three  days,” he said softly. “You’ve been out for three days, and quite frankly, you needed every hour of it.”

Bruce’s brow furrowed. Three days? He tried to sit up again, but the stitches in his side screamed in protest. His body still felt sluggish, as if it hadn’t quite caught up to his mind.

“I’ve been asleep for three days?” Bruce echoed, his disbelief mingled with the irritation of feeling helpless. His mind raced to the events before—he remembered the fight, the blade slicing through the gap in his armor, the blood that followed.

“How bad is it?” Bruce asked, gritting his teeth against the pain. He’d dealt with wounds before, but this... this felt worse.

Alfred’s expression grew more serious as he stood beside the bed. “You took a deep cut to your side, Master Wayne. It missed your kidney by mere inches. Several stitches were required, not to mention the blood loss. You’ll recover, but not without giving your body the proper time to heal.”

Bruce exhaled slowly, trying to process the severity of his injuries. His instinct was to push through the pain, to get up and continue his work. But his body felt like lead, weighed down by the reality of how close he’d come to serious, possibly fatal damage.

Alfred adjusted the blanket over Bruce, his voice softening. “You’ve faced worse, of course. But this time, you were fortunate.”

His thoughts wandered to the fight. To Marie. He had left her there. Did she make it out? Was she safe? The thought of her, of leaving her behind, gnawed at him. He forced his eyes open again, looking at Alfred with a question forming on his lips, but before he could speak, Alfred seemed to read his mind.

“She’s fine,” Alfred said softly. “Detective Manning came to check on you, in fact. Twice.”

Bruce’s eyes widened slightly. “She... she came here?”

Alfred nodded. “Yes, sir. She arrived shortly after the fight, anxious to hear about your condition. I told her the truth, that you’d be fine in time. She stayed for several hours the first night, and she visited briefly again yesterday.” He paused, his expression softening. “You were out both times, of course.”

Bruce’s chest tightened, and without thinking, he tried to sit up again. The sudden motion sent a wave of fiery pain through his side, but he pushed through it, gritting his teeth. “I need to see her.”

Alfred’s hand was immediately on his shoulder again, this time more forceful. “Sir, please. You’re in no condition to—”

“I need to talk to her, Alfred.” Bruce’s voice was raw, his tone almost desperate.

Alfred sighed, his grip on Bruce firm as he gently pressed him back down onto the bed. “She left hours ago, Master Wayne. There’s no point in pushing yourself to go after her right now. You’ll only make things worse.”

Bruce exhaled sharply, the tension in his body momentarily giving way to frustration. He closed his eyes again, forcing himself to breathe through the pain, through the regret.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” he asked, his voice quieter now, the exhaustion creeping back into his tone.

“You needed the rest, sir. More than you realize.” Alfred stepped back slightly, giving Bruce space to process. “You’ve been pushing yourself harder than ever, and it’s taken a toll on you, whether you want to admit it or not.”

Bruce didn’t respond immediately. His mind was too clouded with thoughts of Marie, of the last conversation they had before everything went wrong. He could still see the look in her eyes—the hurt, the confusion.

“Did she... say anything?” Bruce asked quietly.

Alfred hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “She asked about you. About... why you didn’t tell her the truth.” He paused, his gaze softening. “She’s hurt, Master Wayne. But she’s not beyond understanding.”

Bruce’s chest ached, but not from the physical pain. It was the thought of Marie, of what he’d put her through, that weighed on him now.

“She cares for you, sir,” Alfred added, his voice soft. “But you’ll have to decide what to do with that.”

Bruce didn’t respond, but Alfred’s words settled heavily in the room. He knew he couldn’t keep running from this. He couldn’t keep pushing Marie away.

But for now, all he could do was lie there, staring up at the ceiling, wondering how he was going to make things right.

—-------------------------------

It had been over a week since the night at the docks, and back at the Gotham City Police Department, Marie sat at her desk, staring at the chaotic spread of papers in front of her. Frustration knotted in her chest as she sifted through lead after lead, all of them dead ends.

She’d been hunting for any trace of Maroni since the docks, but nothing panned out. Even her most reliable informants had come up empty, leaving her with the suffocating sense that the walls were closing in.

The more she tried to pull at the threads of the case, the more it seemed to unravel in her hands. And with Gordon still in the hospital, she didn’t have her usual ally to turn to for guidance.

She leaned back in her chair, her mind spinning. What now? How was she supposed to get ahead of Maroni’s operation when everything was a dead end?

The thought struck her before she could stop it—Batman.

He’d know what to do. He always did.

She glanced at the clock, biting her lip as the weight of her decision settled in. Part of her didn’t want to admit it, but she needed him now more than ever.

He was the only one who might offer a fresh perspective, some angle she hadn’t yet considered. The case was closing in fast, and without his insight, she feared she might miss something crucial.

Alfred had left her a voicemail a few days ago, letting her know Bruce was awake. Bruce had even tried to reach out, calling several times, though she’d ignored each call, still grappling with how to even begin a conversation after everything that had been revealed. His lies, the deceit—it all still stung.

Yet despite that, their connection remained. She hated how much she still relied on his judgment, and how he was the only person in the world right now that she wanted to see.

She stood abruptly, grabbing her jacket as she left the station, the night air biting against her skin as she made her way to the rooftop where the Bat-Signal waited.

Her breath fogged up in the cold night air as she flipped the switch and watched the familiar beam shoot into the dark sky. She crossed her arms, waiting, trying not to let her nerves get the better of her.

But after half an hour, the rooftop remained empty.

A sick feeling twisted in her stomach as she glanced at the sky again, the signal casting an eerie glow over the rooftops of Gotham. He should’ve been here by now.

Where was he?

Marie’s heart hammered in her chest, her breaths coming in shallow gasps as panic clawed at her. What if his condition had worsened? The image of Bruce slumped on the docks, bleeding out, barely able to stand, flashed through her mind in vivid detail.

She remembered the way his body collapsed to the ground at the docks, the blood pooling faster than she could stop it. Alfred had reassured her that he was healing, but doubt gnawed at her. What if something had gone wrong? What if he was worse off than anyone realized?

The thought sent a fresh wave of fear crashing through her. She couldn’t stay here, waiting. Without a second thought, she bolted for her car, fumbling with her keys as she slid behind the wheel.

Her hands shook as she gripped the steering wheel, the engine roaring to life beneath her. She floored the gas, tearing through the streets of Gotham, her pulse racing faster than the car. She had to see him—now.

Wayne Manor loomed ahead, but she barely registered the sprawling estate as she slammed the car into park and practically sprinted up the stone steps.

Her lungs burned and her heart still thudding in her ears. She only focused on the grand door in front of her. Her breath came in ragged bursts, her hand trembling as she raised her fist to knock—but before her knuckles made contact, the door swung open.

And there was Bruce.

She froze. She had expected Alfred to answer, his calm, reassuring demeanor ready to greet her.

Instead, Bruce stood there, leaning against the doorframe, dressed in a dark t-shirt that clung to his frame, with white bandages peeking out from underneath, wrapping tightly around his torso. He wore black sweatpants, a far cry from his usual composed appearance, but still standing—alive.

His face was pale, deep shadows carved under his eyes, and though he looked like he had been through hell, the steady rise and fall of his chest was proof that he’d made it through.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The weight of everything unsaid hung heavy between them, suffocating in its intensity. Marie’s heart pounded in her chest, a mix of emotions swirling within her—relief, anger, confusion.

"Marie," Bruce finally said, his voice somehow soft yet rough, like the echo of a storm that hadn’t yet cleared.

She took a shaky breath, struggling to keep her composure. “I... I didn’t know what to do,” she admitted, her words rushing out before she could stop them. “I called for you. I used the Bat-Signal. I thought something happened when you didn’t show up. I—”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce interrupted, his voice carrying a heavy weight of guilt as he leaned more heavily against the doorframe. “I wasn’t... in any condition to respond.”

Her eyes flickered to the bandages wrapped around his torso, noticing how his posture stiffened with every shallow breath he took. He was clearly still in pain, the strain of standing there was written all over him, but he was alive. She wanted to feel relief. But instead, frustration and anger bubbled up inside her.

"I thought something had happened to you. I thought your condition got worse or... or you..."

Bruce’s gaze dropped for a moment, his jaw tightening as the guilt flickered across his face. “I didn’t want you to worry. Alfred said you’d checked on me.”

Marie swallowed hard, emotions colliding inside her as she stepped closer, her chest tight with conflicting feelings. “I needed to make sure you were okay,” she said, her voice softening as her fingers unconsciously reached up to graze his chest, fingertips lightly brushing the fabric of his t-shirt. She could feel the warmth of his skin through the bandages, feel his heartbeat, steady and strong beneath her touch.

Silence enveloped them before she whispered, “I thought you were going to die at the docks.” The memory of him slumped on the ground, blood soaking through his armor, flashed vividly in her mind.

Bruce didn’t move, letting her touch linger, his own hand slowly coming up to cover hers. His movements were slow, deliberate, as if even the act of lifting his hand took effort. “I know,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’m sorry.”

Marie’s jaw clenched again, her pulse quickening. He was right here, right in front of her, but it wasn’t enough to dull the sharp edge of her frustration. The relief that he was alive was being overtaken by the anger she’d tried to suppress.

“What are you sorry for?” she asked, her voice cutting through the silence.

Bruce’s lips twitched, a hollow chuckle escaping him despite the pain it caused. His breath was shallow, uneven. “For not saving you and Gordon. I failed you.”

Marie shook her head, her grip tightening on his shirt. “You didn’t fail me. I’d be dead right now if it weren’t for you. Gordon would be dead. I would’ve ended up just like my dad.”

Her voice cracked on the last word, and the air between them shifted. Bruce’s hand tightened over hers, his expression hardening, but his voice was soft when he spoke. “I’ll never let that happen to you.”

The conviction in his voice sent a shiver down her spine, and for a moment, she faltered, her breath catching. She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face. She wanted to forgive him, to wrap her arms around him and tell him everything was okay. But she couldn’t.

“You were supposed to be honest with me,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “You should’ve been honest about everything. You decieved me, Bruce. I feel like a fucking idiot for not realizing you two were the same person.”

Bruce’s expression tightened, and he looked away, unsure of how to respond. The silence stretched on, the weight of her words pressing down on both of them.

When he finally looked back at her, his eyes were filled with regret, but there was something else there too—something that made her heart skip a beat.

“I didn’t want to put you in danger,” he said quietly, his voice raw. “But I understand why you’re angry. I should’ve told you.”

They stood there, staring at each other in the doorway, the tension between them thick enough to choke on. Marie exhaled sharply, her chest rising and falling with the intensity of the moment.

“I shouldn’t have rushed over here like this,” she muttered, more to herself than him. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Bruce took a slow step toward her, wincing with every movement. “You were worried,” he said softly. “It’s okay.” He moved his hand from hers, gently placing it on the side of her head in a soft caress. It took everything in her not to lean into his touch.

Marie’s lips pressed into a thin line, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Well, now that I see you’re okay, I should go.”

But neither of them moved. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, the tension still simmering between them. Her hand lingered on his chest, and for a brief moment, she considered stepping closer, closing the distance between them. But she pulled her hand back.

Bruce’s tired smile barely touched his eyes, but he nodded. “Thanks for coming.”

She hesitated. Just as she turned to leave, Bruce’s voice, hoarse and quieter now, stopped her.

“Marie… I’m sorry. For not telling you sooner.”

Her body stiffened, the reality of the words crashing over her again. She could see the vulnerability in his eyes, the fear that he had lost her trust. He started to say more, to explain, but she stopped him.

“Bruce,” she said softly, lifting her hand and gently placing it on his cheek this time. His skin was warm beneath her touch.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she whispered, her thumb brushing lightly across his cheekbone. “You need to rest. We’re not doing this now.”

Bruce’s eyes flickered with both relief and frustration, but he nodded slowly. He didn’t push, didn’t fight. He just stood there, watching her, letting her hand linger for a moment longer.

—-------------------------------

It had been five days since Marie had seen Bruce, and she was now back at work, trying to keep herself busy. With no new leads on Maroni, she was stuck in the limbo of desk work, tapping her fingers against cold files and waiting for something, anything, to break.

The empty hours began to blur together until she found herself in front of Gotham General Hospital, ready to visit Gordon. She hadn’t visited him since that awful night at the docks, and the guilt twisted inside her. She needed to see him, to make sure he was okay.

As she walked down the sterile hallways, the smell of disinfectant and the low hum of machines filled the air. The hospital’s lighting was harsh, almost as though the world inside these walls was separate from the one outside.

Marie paused at the doorway to Gordon’s room, hesitating for a moment before gently knocking.

“Come in,” came a voice, hoarse but familiar.

She pushed open the door to see Gordon propped up in bed, looking worse for wear but alive. Bandages were wrapped around his chest, and though he looked tired, he managed a small smile when he saw her.

“Detective,” Gordon greeted, his voice gruff but warm. “It’s good to see you.”

“Likewise, Commissioner,” she replied, stepping into the room and standing at the foot of his bed. She gave him a quick once-over, relief flooding through her. He was going to make it.

Gordon’s eyes softened, and he chuckled weakly. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Figured you’d still be chasing down leads.”

Marie shook her head, sighing. “Not much to chase right now. Maroni’s gone quiet, and without any new information, I’m stuck at a desk.” She shifted uncomfortably. “I should’ve come sooner.”

Gordon waved her off. “I don’t want you worrying about me.” His voice dropped slightly. “I’ve been meaning to apologize, by the way. For tricking you into going to the docks.”

Marie’s stomach twisted at the memory. The image of Gordon's battered body at the docks flashed in her mind, just before Batman—Bruce—had jumped in.

“Maroni made you do it.” she said, though the words didn’t feel as strong as she wanted them to. “It’s not your fault. You did what you had to.”

Gordon nodded, his face marked by guilt. “Still, I should’ve found another way. You didn’t deserve that.”

Marie looked away, swallowing the familiar lump that rose in her throat. “What matters is that you’re still here, and we’ve got another shot at taking Maroni down.”

Gordon’s gaze softened. “You know, Batman came by earlier.”

Her heart skipped at the mention of his name. She fought to keep her expression neutral, though the mention of Batman’s visit brought all the emotions she’d been trying to suppress rushing to the surface.

“He visited you?” she asked, keeping her voice steady.

“Yeah,” Gordon said, his eyes narrowing slightly, as if gauging her reaction. “He came to apologize... for not saving me. For not getting there in time.”

Marie clenched her jaw, her hands tightening into fists at her sides. Of course he had. Batman—the man who carried the weight of Gotham on his shoulders, even when it was crushing him. Even when it almost killed him.

“It wasn’t his fault,” she muttered, more to herself than to Gordon. “We both know that.”

Gordon sighed, shifting slightly in his bed, wincing at the movement. “He didn’t see it that way.”

Marie let out a dry chuckle, shaking her head. “Yeah, sounds about right.”

For a moment, silence hung between them. Gordon studied her carefully before speaking again. “He asked about you, you know.”

Her heart lurched. She couldn’t stop the brief flicker of surprise that crossed her face. “He did?”

“Yeah,” Gordon nodded. “Wanted to know how you were holding up. He seemed... concerned.”

He had asked about her. The thought shouldn’t have meant as much as it did, but it did anyway. She hated that part of herself—the part that still craved his presence, even when her trust in him had been shaken.

Marie’s breath caught, and she quickly looked away, swallowing the sudden rush of emotion. She didn’t know why it hit her so hard, hearing that Bruce—no, Batman—had asked about her. Maybe because it had been days of radio silence. Maybe because she hadn’t stopped thinking about him.

Or maybe it was because part of her was still trying to figure out how to feel about everything—the lies, the betrayal, the fact that Bruce Wayne, the man she had begun to fall for, and Batman, the man she relied on as her partner in the shadows, were one and the same.

“I’m fine,” she said stiffly, too quickly. “There’s a lot to work through, but... I’m fine.”

Gordon raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “You sure about that?”

Marie forced a tight smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’ll be fine. I have to be.”

Gordon didn’t press, but the weight of his gaze stayed on her, as if he saw more than she was willing to admit. He let out a slow breath before speaking again. “He asked if you still wanted to work with him.”

Marie stiffened, her heartbeat quickening. She forced herself to meet Gordon’s eyes. “What did you say?”

“I told him that was between you two,” Gordon said with a knowing look. “But I could tell it was eating him up.”

She didn’t respond right away, her thoughts racing. She had no idea how to respond to that.

Days had passed since she’d left Bruce standing in the doorway at Wayne Manor, and every minute that ticked by had been a tug-of-war between anger and understanding.

She was furious at Bruce for keeping his identity from her, but there was another part of her—a part she hated to admit—that still cared deeply for him, and respected him for his work as the Bat.

“I don’t know,” she finally admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t know if I’m ready to.”

“No one’s asking you to make any decisions right now.”

Marie nodded, though her mind was far from clear. She had no idea how to fix the tangled mess she was caught in with Bruce. At some point, she would have to confront him.

Whether she was ready or not.

[illarian-rambling]

Character introduction: Twenari Undetasib, the Blessing of House Tunnel Wasp

With a feeling like jumping from a great tower, Twenari reached forth into the great corpse of magic. For an instant, her body went into shock. Trying to cast without energy nearly always resulted in, if not always death, then at least some severe brain damage. However, she had no choice but to plunge ahead.

A moment later, Twenari latched onto power. The girl gave a ragged scream as the ancient magic poured into her, lighting her very bones with bloody fire. It was too much! It was beauty incarnate!

There was a second where Twenari could have been the most powerful mortal mage on the planet. Ten thousand years of runoff magic from what could have only been the work of something tantamount to the gods themselves flowed through her, around her. It became her.

Magic is as central to Twenari as air or food might be to another person. It's her purpose, her true love, and her greatest ally, even when it sometimes burns her from the inside out.

Twenari’s path began with the unique circumstances of her birth. She is the only daughter of Undeta Idansib, smuggler queen of the infamous House Tunnel Wasp, as well as a prodigy sorcerer. Though she only learns of this later, it is heavily implied that Undeta sought out a powerful sorcerer for the sole purpose of having such a gifted heir. Life with the Tunnel Wasps, spent mostly on her mother’s flagship, was one of brutality and subservience. Twenari was expected to be a perfect smuggler princess; educated and polite, ruthless and cunning. Her duties, which she began at the age of eight, included warding priority shipments, acting as an intimidation tactic, and reading the minds of any enemies her mother might torture for information. All while keeping up with her rigorous studies.

Obviously, this wore on the kindhearted girl. After delving into the mind of an innocent pawn in a game between crime syndicates whom her mother killed regardless, Twenari fled the Tunnel Wasp flagship. She ended up on the shores of a rural, out-of-the-way island called Saaz, and running right into a certain pair of seafolk in hiding. However, Twenari’s mother is not one to easily let go of anything valuable, especially not her main source of magic.

That is where the story of Honor's Outcasts picks up. As Twenari soon learns, her mother’s pursuit may be the least of her worries in the wide, wild world.

As a person, Twenari carries a pragmatism and maturity well beyond her years. She is insatiably curious about everything from cooking to divine magic, yet she approaches all of these interests with methodical precision. Some would be quick to call her cold. However, a righteous heart hides beneath the shield of aloof severity. She cares deeply for the family she's come to choose and will help them with their own problems in any way she can. Acts of service is very much Twenari’s love language.

As for what she looks like, there's a four year gap between books one and two, so that changes a bit. In book one, she's a messy-haired twelve-year-old with absolutely zero meat on her bones. In the later books, she's a tall girl of sixteen with many piercings in her ears. She has dark skin, short locs she keeps under a kerchief, bright tawny eyes, and prefers skirts to pants. There is a tattoo of a stylized tunnel wasp on her wrist.

Now for some fun facts!

Twenari loves to cook. She cooks most meals for the quartet.

She's unimaginably terrible with kids her own age.

She has resting crazy eyes.

Despite her natural sorcerous gifts, she wants to go to school to study runic magic and alchemy. Every sort of magic will bend to her will one day, or so she hopes.

She's an amateur arborist.

Being 12/16, she swears the least out of my main cast, however, she's picked up a lot of Halawema’ishi curses from Izjik. Most of these are eel-related.

And that's a wrap! I hope you all enjoy this absolute freak of a prodigy middle schooler raised by the fantasy cartel. Lmk which outcast I should do next!

Have a bitchin day <3

(Tag list @amandacanwrite @elsie-writes @riveriafalll @kosmic-kore @kaylinalexanderbooks @bard-coded @carrotsinnovember @patternwelded-quill @somethingclevermahogony @whatwewrotepodcast @goldxdarkness @the-angriest-author)

[lususnatura]

alright, but i am honestly surprised i haven't talked about this more before considering it plays a significant role in blamore's story, but i shall give myself grace on this one BC well... we all have lives outside of tumblr and that's likely at least part of the reason i haven't gotten to it (,,: LOL but i just wanted to say that blamore was indeed a psychologist before his transformation and more specifically, a forensic psychologist. so he was treating offenders before as well as serving as an expert witness in court on all kinds of cases and wrote daily reports to provide expert opinions and insights into the psychological aspect of legal cases; thus, suffice it to say, blamore is definitely knowledgeable whenever it comes to the psychology behind criminality and the law itself.

so i could imagine blamore being able to use this knowledge and/or skill he gained from his job as a forensic psychologist to help people in arkham with their cases not only as a side-hustle, but to be honest: also because whenever he IS in general population... (which is, unfortunately, rarely) blamore does tend to try to make friends quickly and efficiently that'll possibly help it break out of arkham. because if you do a favor for one person, then who knows — although he still has a vastly negative outlook on humanity, he does acknowledge the whole concept of 'you scratch your back and i'll scratch yours' and/or that people who feel indebted to you will often want to do something back for you. (that way, they don't have to feel that way anymore).

so yeah. needless to say, if/when the arkham orderlies catch onto this, they'd probably shut it down. but for now... this might have actually helped to get blamore out of arkham a few amount of times.

[horriblengrossstories]

Entering the fandom like a bird flies into a window at full speed

in my humble and chronically sleep-deprived opinion, this fandom operates less like a community and more like a symposium held in a collapsing cathedral where everyone’s arguing about moral philosophy while knee-deep in viscera. i’ve written twelve pages on whether or not ren’s actions constitute premeditated guilt-dissociation,and somehow the takeaway was that i’m a menace to society for enjoying a sprite edit.

you reblogged a dark-haired derek sprite and suddenly you’re holding the bloodied scissors, the dismembered canon in your lap, and a crowd of pearl-clutchers at your door chanting “accountability.” they said, “how dare you enjoy it.” they said, “you’re enabling edits.” they said, “we don’t do that here.” as if you tagged it #makeovermonday and not #derekbutworse.

you didn’t make the sprite. you just had the audacity to say he looked hot, of course they did.

[courtroom sketch of birdie side-eyeing the jury while clutching a derek sprite. twelve ren cosplayers in various emotional stages of collapse. judge bangs the gavel with a fox plush. sentence: one thousand years in the tags, no parole.]

i joined this fandom thinking i could be chill. i came in with my hands up. i said “hi i like horror and morally bankrupt men, can i sit with you?” and the fandom said no but in seventeen callout posts, a google doc, and a carrd formatted like a cia dossier.

i said “he’s hot because he’s a bad person,” and they acted like i’d bitten a baby. i said “this dynamic is deliciously unhealthy,” and three accounts blocked me before i could finish spelling ‘codependency.’ i tried to tag responsibly. i tried to stay in my clown corner. but the minute i breathed in the direction of character analysis, some user named “YKMETTruthers4Christ” threw a bible at my head and screamed “REPENT.”

i was trying to be normal. but now i’m in a trenchcoat made of red flags, sipping blood-flavored capri sun, and posting charts titled “who’s most likely to gut you and call it love.”

this is not a fandom. this is a haunted library with all the exits bricked shut and a fox-boy shrine in the back that bleeds if you touch it.

i asked what strade’s favorite cereal is, not for a moral dissertation on fictional cannibalism, jessica.

Ahem... Unhinged Rant Over: Professor Birdie Time 🐦

welcome to the lecture hall. the lights are flickering. the chairs are bleeding. someone’s weeping in the back but we don’t have time for that because today’s syllabus covers:

why every single character in BTD is a walking psychological sinkhole

why moral panic is fandom’s favorite enrichment toy

and why derek’s untextured jacket is somehow more controversial than murder

i’ll be your host, professor birdie. credentials? none. vibes? unholy. tone? condescending but educational. please turn to page 666 of your required reading: “The Erotic Horrors of Men Who Should Be in Jail.”

“Concrete Hearts and Clickable Landmines: A Sociocultural Analysis of the Boyfriend to Death/TPOF/YKMET Fandom Through the Lens of Emotional Cold War Brutalism” A keynote lecture by Professor Birdie, Department of Unstable Dynamics and Fandom Warfare Studies

Good evening, peeps. I ask that you silence your phones, your doubts, and your shame—this is a sacred space, and we are about to embark on a journey through the jagged terrain of a fandom that defies taxonomy, tact, and sometimes even taste.

Let us begin with a premise: the Boyfriend to Death/TPOF/YKMET fandom is not a fandom in the traditional sense. It is a sovereign microstate. A fractalized nation built not on shared admiration, but on weaponized emotional resonance and heavily-guarded interpretation. To enter it is not to observe, it is to be conscripted. You will be handed your first discourse weapon, likely a sprite edit or an undercooked opinion about Ren’s canonical sexuality, and shoved into a battlefield that already started three years before you arrived.

The governing architectural style of this fandom is best described as Emotional Cold War Brutalism. This is not a metaphor. This is a lived, psychological geography.

Let us examine its three foundational tenets:

1. Concrete Silences Communication within this fandom is conducted through absence. Posts trail off into ominous ellipses. Tags are redacted like classified war documents. Responses are frequently replaced by reblogs with nothing but a blank emoji or a single, passive-aggressive "huh." These silences are not empty. They are fortified. Every lack of response is a smoke signal of implied condemnation, or worse, dismissal. You will hear nothing, you will feel everything.

2. Fortified Headcanons The average headcanon here is not a soft hypothesis. It is a sovereign belief system. It has borders. It has teeth. It has historical trauma. Attempting to engage with one is like knocking on the door of a bunker and asking if they’d consider repainting. Inside, a lonely user stares at their eighth reblog war and whispers, “I just thought Strade might be left-handed.”

And in that moment, their fate is sealed.

The rebuttal will not be a conversation—it will be a 34-part essay with footnotes, a four-slide presentation on trauma realism, and a gif of Ren blinking, captioned: “You wouldn’t understand.”

3. Interpersonal Landmines Discourse is not initiated. It is triggered. You may walk innocently into a thread wondering whether Lawrence wears cologne. You will leave the thread implicated in three fan-court trials, canceled on a private Discord server, and accidentally resurrecting a 2017 argument about kink dynamics and poststructuralism. Every word is suspect. Every reblog is a potential declaration of war. There is no Geneva Convention here—only vague terms of engagement, passed down through cursed tags and emotional inheritance.

Worse yet: the mines are movable. What was safe to say last week is now treason. What was treason yesterday is now canon. You are always behind. You are always wrong. And yet you keep posting. Because you are possessed. Because the game hurt you. Because Ren blinked and it meant something and you need everyone to feel it too.

In conclusion: The Boyfriend to Death fandom is not a place. It is a condition. A psychological architecture built of shame, horniness, intellectualism, and grief, polished into something so disturbingly earnest it loops back into absurdity. We do not participate in it. We survive it. We study it the way geologists study tectonic shifts—squinting at the cracks, praying they don’t open beneath our feet.

Example A:“Shrimp, Strade, and the Semiotics of the Discourse Minefield: A Case Study in Unintentional Theoretical Escalation” A guest lecture delivered from inside a crawlspace by Professor Birdie, still holding a debate club bat from 2008 out of spite

Let us consider the innocent: the passerby. The naïve observer. The user who, fueled by whimsy and perhaps one (1) too many energy drinks, opens their keyboard and types the cursed phrase: “what if Strade is allergic to shrimp.”

What follows is not dialogue. It is detonation.

Within seven minutes, the post accrues responses in fourteen dialects of irony. One anonymous user posts a photoshopped allergy test from a German hospital dated 1994. Another tags it #tw shellfish because someone somewhere once had a moment. Someone else—gender unknown, species questionable—responds with an image of Judith Butler, eyes photoshopped red, with the caption “a masculinity that rejects crustaceans is still masculinity.” You do not know what this means. You do not ask. The walls are already closing in.

Then comes the essay. You did not write it. No one you follow wrote it. It appears fully formed, like a divine punishment, 9 paragraphs long, formatted in Chicago style, with footnotes linking to a 2017 Discord screenshot in which someone named “Beefslasher94” allegedly called shrimp-eaters “complicit in genre collapse.” The original user has long vanished. The essay remains.

The reblogs mutate. Tags fold in on themselves. Someone writes a limerick. Someone else insists you are racist for implying a white-coded serial killer can’t digest seafood. A callout list is posted. Names are named. All of them are yours.

At this point, all semblance of intent is gone. The discourse has grown legs. Crustacean legs. It now walks without you. It has become its own poststructural being, a simulation of discourse without subject or object. This is not just fandom. This is a haunting.

To participate here is to graduate with honors in Navigating Passive-Aggressive Labyrinths, your diploma printed on the back of a 3-year-old callout post annotated in Comic Sans. Your thesis: “Shrimp as Semiotic Resistance: Queering the Digestive Tract of the Slasher Archetype.” Your minor: Muttering “I just thought it was funny” in a locked room while the walls bleed discourse.

Thank you for your time. Please see me after class if you'd like extra credit in “Fanon Interpretation as Non-Euclidean Warfare,” or need help with your thesis on “The Erotic Implications of Strade’s Toolbox: A Case Study in Weaponized Laughter.”

🐦 Professor Birdie, PhD, MFA, PTSD Office hours: 2am–4am, in the vents. Bring offerings. And tea.

Now Then I'm Glad We Could Have a Civil Discussion... Back to Screaming

A Post-Lecture Reflection by Birdie, Who Did Not Pass the Vibe Check

It started with one question. A simple, innocent question. “Do you think Strade has favorite knives?” And before I could even hit ‘send,’ twelve people were typing. Someone posted a spreadsheet. Someone else summoned the ghost of Baudrillard. I lost feeling in my legs and gained tenure at the University of Being Too Online.

Halfway through, a PowerPoint slide titled “Ren and the Crisis of Hand-Kissing: A Semiotic Bloodbath” was projected onto my soul. I nodded, took notes, and cried. I raised a trembling hand to ask and woke up in a digital courtroom where my lawyer was a badly drawn icon of Strade with googly eyes.

They passed around a copy of Discipline and Punish and told me to read it in the original French. I said “bonjour” and they booed.

Someone in the back was sobbing over a .gif of Ren blinking. Someone else was reading from a Zizek quote taped to a plastic meat cleaver. I think someone got married?

you ask a question—“hey what if ren wore mittens?”—and suddenly you’re on trial for war crimes.

there are powerpoint slides. someone’s sharing screen. the background music is Disturbia nightcore.

someone cries. someone quotes Foucault. someone else is livestreaming your cancellation from a minecraft server while crafting a thesis on “fetishization, fragmentation, and the ethics of simping for a fictional taxidermy boy.”

i black out. i wake up enrolled in a graduate course called Ethics in Erotic Violence Simulacra, taught by a PNG of Darqx stapled to a crow.

the crow hisses when i enter. the syllabus is just a jpeg that says “NO FUN. ONLY PENANCE.” i fail my first assignment because i said Strade was funny once and now i’m on a watchlist.

and still still i keep asking questions. what if lawrence had an etsy? what if derek cried into the fridge at 3am like a Victorian ghost? what if the whole fandom was a cursed terrarium and we’re just the bugs who learned to dance in the glass?

someone please throw a rock through a stained glass window before i write a 4,000-word analysis of ren’s breathing patterns again.

— with love, Birdie who nests in your discourse and eats your citations 💌📚🔪

i will make it real. i will write shrimp-based philosophy. i will footnote a discord fight from 2017. i will cite foucault over a jpeg of strade holding a corn dog. you think i’m joking. i’m not. watch me get this peer-reviewed by god.

co-signed by: 🕊️ a pigeon with a postdoc and three unpaid internships in fandom epistemology 🦜 an ex-professor cockatoo who was fired for citing AO3 in a thesis on moral relativism

🐓 the ghost of a chicken who died confused in 2015 while trying to understand Ren's canon height 🪶 a magpie that hoards dead discourse like shiny objects and eats callout posts for breakfast

[eikopilled]

I'm confused by Sunspot (review)

Contains mild spoilers for Sunspot.

The year is 2025, and the month is a few weeks ago

I scroll through the Worth the Candle unofficial "After Dark" splinter server, checking #general-fiction in a haze, looking for my next story to read when I finish Almost Nowhere. I see it! Lines upon lines of conversation on one new fic, linked a few weeks ago.

The fic in question: Sunspot, a slice of life-ish superhero-ish fic by the author yootie.

Thanks to relentless shilling from one of my best online friends, Sunspot devoured my reading schedule for weeks. I put on hold my reads of:

Almost Nowhere

Misericorde Ch. 1

Danganronpa

And pushed through 125k words of Sunspot and Sunspot alone. That's roughly the entire first arc and a little bit more, and… I think that that's probably enough to give a review in good faith.

But what about Sunspot itself, you ask, what were your thoughts on it, dear eiko?

To put it in the most mean way possible, the way that expresses all of my thoughts best, Sunspot is not the story it says it is. It is not about magical theory, or war, or even ideology (one of its most central motifs throughout, but one that doesn't really… go anywhere). It's a meandering, introspective slice-of-life character study that pretends really hard to be about bigger things. It consistently overpromises, and then underdelivers.

Expectations and Reality 

Change hurts. Hurt changes. Seven years ago, the Frozen Flame brought magic to Earth—but not to Dalton, who gained only scars. Now a lonely shut-in, “Ezzen” has resigned himself to an online life of secondhand magic, dabbling in magical theory and fanboying over the Spire and its superhuman Vaetna, the paragons of this new era. So when fate splinters and magic finds him, it’s the best day of his life—and the worst, as he suddenly becomes a resource in the cold war over control of magical power. From paramilitary organizations to Flame-worshipping cults to incandescent magical girls, the forces of the world sense the ripples and close in. Worse, his escape exposes the awful secret of the Flame, the thing quietly omitted from all the theory: that instead of the apotheosis he’s dreamt of, the reality of being a flamebearer is cruel and twisted, the bloody path of monsters. And some of those monsters are so very similar to the Vaetna he idolizes. […] Sunspot is a webserial about transformation, identity, and pain. It features a mix of slice-of-life drama with lifelike characters, political maneuvering in a rich alt-Earth setting, and covert magical warfare using a fleshed-out magic system.

Sunspot's blurb.

If you go in with an open heart and ignore the mild pretentiousness of its tone, instantly you (or at least I) will think, 'this idea seems kind of cool!' It's not an immediately hooking premise, but it's good enough. I've loved books with far worse (Tchaikovsky's Children of Time has an awful blurb).

Continuing, you can go down a bit further to find the RoyalRoad reviews. They don't necessarily need to be read in full—they're long—but it's safe to say that they're generally super ridiculously positive (which is reflected in its ratings: Sunspot sits at almost 5 stars in every category!):

"Sunspot is astonishing. It is a strikingly original work, a compelling, beautifully written story about an intelligent, sympathetic protagonist set in a world of immersive detail and nuance. It is emotionally honest and meticulously structured, full of insights and phrases that have haunted me for months now." "Sunspot has, at the time of writing, completely grabbed us." "This story truly stands out as deserving all its praise and more."

You're primed with these to expect something really unique! With so many reviews all praising it to this degree, it won't just be another piece of RR genrefic to read for popcorn's sake, you think.

But there is a problem.

There is, in fact, a broad mismatch between the hype and the payoff for this fic. Sunspot is not the fic its reviews or blurb describe. 

editor's note: everything beyond this until the very end is almost certainly going to sound very critical. it is not my intent to discourage the author, i genuinely do want this fic to keep going and get better. however, i think it is best that my thoughts are phrased with as little punch-pulling as possible.

Entropy

I think that this is a good time to bring up the idea of entropy in storytelling. Entropy, in this context, is simply the rate at which new information is introduced to the story. Entropy isn't always a good thing; very high entropy works are unparseable and unreadable because they're just aiming for the maximum amount of unique information per word, but in general high-entropy fiction is better than low-entropy fiction, for the simple reason that it has more to it(1).

The most immediately noticeable trait of Sunspot is that it is extremely low-entropy. On top of the information throughput being low at a baseline due to the lengthy writing style, Sunspot has two more entropy-related problems: first, it refuses to infodump and directly exposit its worldbuilding to the reader, and second, its worldbuilding (and most everything about it, honestly) is not in and of itself high-entropy worldbuilding. It's all a lot of the stuff you've seen before.

The things that suffer most from this low-entropy style of writing are the worldbuilding and the magic system. Let's look at the magic system first, because it's pretty distinct from the other parts of the work and easy to get through.

Magic

Quite simply, Sunspot pays lip service to the idea of a magic system, but what's there really is meaningless fluff that disappears when it actually matters. It's like the author doesn't even trust themselves to write one of the biggest selling points of the fic in an entertaining way.

Consistently, my interest in learning more about the magic system decreased the more I learned about it. In the first chapter, something that is highly praised among Sunspot fans is how the characters demonstrate their knowledge about the magic system by actually talking about it, without exposition dumps or reminding each other of facts they already know. This definitely sounds like a good thing, but… at a certain point, it’s throwing the fantasy equivalent of sci-fi technobabble in your face  and calling it good writing.

I think genuinely the reason why people do exposition dumping is that this is just as bad. It's really unengaging (like reading a novel without a hook); hearing yootie throw random words with no context and with no intention of explaining the context feels like reading someone's edgy sonic OC in an original roleplay server, smiling, nodding, going "uh huh!" 

The magic system in Sunspot is largely conceptual. It's based around glyphs (which act as verbs) affecting concepts, which you indicate when you create the glyphs (acting as nouns). In the fic, characters use, onscreen, for instance, glyphs which separate things from other things.

One of the problems is that it introduces only a few relevant glyphs and does nothing unique with them—just the most boring, rote things—which drove my enjoyment into the ground. But the far bigger issue is that it fundamentally doesn't matter. It barely interacts with the story. It's not used in clever ways, it doesn't affect the plot meaningfully, and it doesn't even help define the characters. The system exists mostly to sound cool—something abstract and cerebral to be impressed by in theory—but the second it's supposed to actually do something, it gets waved away (and do note that this is in the only concrete plot beat after what is basically the prologue in the first 100k of the fic! Nothing else happens!).

The main characters need to solve a problem in the climax of the first arc by committing the perfect crime: creating a precisely striking weapon of mass destruction that can shoot invisibly from anywhere on the world. But for some reason rather than use any of the glyphs we're introduced to (or introduce more), Sunspot opts to offscreen the process of creating the actual weapon!

Here's how yootie introduces the magic in 1.01:

“That’s a backflow modulator—redundant, actually—that’s piping which jumps to here, and then comes up through some of these projectors and this {RHYTHM} chunk, these are the primary and secondary {MANIFEST} branes, and we go back and back to,” her finger stopped tracing at a black orb so dark it was like a void in reality, “the spool interface. I’m going to thread into it now.”  I watched, rapt, as her entire arm jerked and blurred before igniting with blinding white sparks, which flickered chaotically for a moment before aligning in spiky patterns like ferrofluid clinging to a magnet. The glob of magic twisted and twisted and twisted, growing thinner and denser, until it was a single thread of magic coming off a spool on her arm. The thread lashed for a moment before launching itself into the black orb. I clipped the last 20 seconds of footage and dropped it in the chatroom.  ezzen: Putting this here for later.  moth30: hm  moth30: 0:11 thats a type 1 display. no wonder theyre renovating  moth30: 0:14 oh and that’s why she called the modulator redundant lol  moth30: no way for it to go back upstream with this flow  ezzen: Redundant but not useless I think  ezzen: Sudden tug on the lattice from spool overdraw could definitely get enough upstream ripple for it to hit the mod  ezzen: Given how first-gen that display is. Orange third lol

And conversely here's how the magic system is used in 1.13 (spoilers, obviously):

She nodded, and I obligingly added the constraint to the GWalk diagram. As of yet, it wasn’t anything resembling a functional lattice, just a toolbox of options. The mantles were joined by a collection of several hundred other prebuilt glyph chains that I’d accumulated over the years, various useful presets and common collocations to speed up ideation. And time was indeed of the essence here, with the rig ablaze and the flamebearer apparently now fighting for his freedom. The Ezzence, even. Moth hated that joke.  As I’d been setting up my workspace and considering those first three constraints, my thoughts had inevitably wandered back toward my encounter with the magical stalker. You’re not supposed to be able to see me, she’d said. And while I still didn’t understand why that was, it did suggest that the technique was stealthy enough for what we needed here. I dragged and dropped a scrying lattice onto the grid, a beautiful and intricate second-order weave abstracted to a few rectangles connected by colored lines, and consulted the predicted ripple readout. Red-white.  Hina saw where I was going with it.  “Hey, yeah, that looks more or less like how it felt.”  For her part, Hina was pacing, and it was getting distracting—because it was impossible. She’d walk the length of the whiteboard on the opposite wall from the projector, but somehow, she never reached the other end or turned around. I resisted the urge to boggle—had she casually constructed a closed spatial loop just for the luxury of pacing without having to change direction? What would happen if I stuck my hand in her path? Not the time, Ez.  “Yeah, that’s the idea, seems as good a place to start as any,” I replied on autopilot, scrolling through the list of glyphs to see what could be done about the red. “If it was this sort of spine, then extending it all the way to…sixteen thousand kilometers, or however far, shouldn’t be a problem. Depends on what exactly we’re going to be doing with it, though.”

This ontological collapse of information density, this is the closest thing the author gets to actually describing how they use the magic system to create a crazy murder cannon; it is all filler(2) to have the hype moment at the end. The only thing that Ezzen does in this chapter is scroll through a list of glyphs (none of which are described and none of which matter), comment on the level of ordnance one of his friends' guns have, and then sort of brainstorm a power combination trick to finalize the gun (though the impact of this is greatly reduced because we are never told what the bounds of these characters' powers are). "If it was this sort of spine" what does this actually mean?

It is low-entropy: its descriptions are superficial when the details aren’t skipped over entirely, and what it does have to say isn’t new. Even describing how the characters use the magic system would be new information, and Sunspot fails at conveying even this.

I think it is a narrative betrayal of system expectations. There's no payoff. It doesn't feel like a tool or a weapon, it feels like set dressing, it's mostly used ideologically as a motivation point to give the main cast internal strife. You could replace it with sci-fi jargon or psychic powers or literally anything else and nothing would change. 

It's very disappointing for a fic that bills itself as half about magic!

Worldbuilding

The worldbuilding is the other thing most affected by Sunspot's by-design lack of entropy.

Sunspot says it'll have interesting and lively and real-feeling worldbuilding, but none of it grabs your attention, none of it seems dynamic, and none of it has any sense of weight or meaning in the context of the fic. (one of my friends who is caught up to Sunspot and enjoys it agrees that the world feels hazy and kind of ephemeral, and not in a good way.)

In short, the worldbuilding is kind of just background noise. This is a really big problem, because Sunspot really wants you to believe the world matters. It wants to position itself as a story about systems and ideologies and cold wars fought in the shadows. But how are you supposed to care about the political worldbuilding stakes when the factions involved are kind of just worse versions of stuff from Worm, and I mean genuinely worse than Worm's second half. The only way Worm works is the fact that it infodumps a ton of interesting factions on you with their own beliefs and leaders and role in Brockton Bay, it is therefore high-entropy, Sunspot has none of that! There are, like, four factions introduced, 125k in, and they're all so boring and one-dimensional!(3)

(I didn't even include half of the Worm factions. Nearly all of these are introduced within 125k words.) (this graph is meant to be humorous)

Furthermore, there's no grounding. No sense of how Real Normal People live with magic, how it changed their daily lives, what it feels like to be in this new world. 

The worldbuilding just feels completely pointless; and where it does matter it's so extremely rote, so simplistic. It feels like it's being made up as it goes, almost.

Plot and Pacing

Another big problem with Sunspot is the complete and total lack of escalation throughout all of the first arc. the characters are basically lighthoused—they sit inside of their building, watch what's happening, comment, have slice of life character interactions, and do absolutely nothing else. 

The characters are mostly observers in their own story, to the point where I'm completely unsure what it's actually about. Almost everything that could be described as "plot movement" rather than "character interaction" happens in the very beginning of the fic, and after that, it flatlines, it's like some twisted psychopathic reverse Cradle where its problem is it instead spends all of its time having mundane slice of life character interactions! 

(To yootie's credit, they generally can be pretty good! Particularly the ones with Hina (a character who I have a lot of problems with overall, but none in terms of how entertaining she is or how much she actually brings to scenes) and (to a lesser degree after the first 50k) Ebi)

You expect things to ramp up—tensions rising, dangers closing in, revelations complicating things—but that just… never really happens. Every new development is either brushed off or pushed aside in favor of more dialogue scenes where people vaguely allude to bigger things happening offscreen. And that'd be fine if this was purely a character-focused slice of life, but Sunspot keeps implying it’s not—that there is a bigger game being played in the background, that Ezzen is at the center of something huge.

If he is, you wouldn't know it by how the story plays out. There's no sense of pressure, no increasing stakes, no urgency. And of course you can say it’s totally fine for a story to be like this–but in that case, it needs to drop the pretense that it is something else. A story that's trying to do The Things Sunspot Says It Wants To Do requires escalation and stakes, this is storycrafting 101. 

I actually think this is why the worldbuilding falls so flat for me, because in other stories like it the characters are actively engaging in the world itself!

The first arc's climax is the only moment of escalation in the whole of the fic, and the nature of how perfect their crime is means that it can't actually keep going, the status quo gets fully reset after it's over. The main characters, while a geopolitical meltdown happens on the other side of the world, are told to stay put and stay quiet. This is a daring story decision, and I was on board with it, expecting it to screw up in some way, further the plot somehow, but it didn't, it just resolved.

(I went through after this, paragraph by paragraph, to see what actually happens in the first chapter, a short and rather dense one by Sunspot standards, and count the paragraphs in which something happens. This is my graph: 1449 words contain plot movement of 8946.)

(Note that "Exposition" refers to the magibabble or internal character monologue rather than proper exposition. Compare this to the 7470 word chapter Of Raven of The Apocalypse of Herschel Schoen, a similarly long-winded, lengthy work. "Other" in this applies to the natural ballooning of the prose from the style; the fic is extremely verbose.)

Characters

Tragically, the characters are mostly unengaging and pointless (big offenders are Alice, Ai, Amane). For a fic that spends so much time sitting in rooms talking, you'd expect the cast to be vibrant, distinct, dynamic, but they really aren't. Very few of them have a voice of their own (only three, those being Hina, Yuuka, and Ezzen himself), and even fewer have anything resembling depth. They're just kind of floaty and boring and—again—OC-ish, in that they feel like blorbos thrown in because yootie had the idea for a character and thought they were cool.

They're also incredibly predictable. Not just in how they act, but in how they're constructed. It's like they were built from templates, or archetypes (with one little twist thrown in to try to keep them fresh!), you know them already, and Sunspot doesn't quite do anything new with them. The fic clearly wants to be character-driven, but the characters just don't drive anything. They do not grow meaningfully over the course of the first arc nor do they ever clash in interesting ways.

(Note: I found the chatroom conversations about infinity more entertaining than a good portion of the slice of life interactions between Ezzen and the Boring Magical Girls, those are honestly a highlight. If yootie reads this I think your fic would be improved by being only those actually. Joke.)

And it sucks, because you can tell the fic wants you to care about them. It gives you pages of dialogue and slow scenes meant to be tender or fraught or Real™. But only Ezzen approaches three-dimensionality.

I think that at their core the problem is the lighthousing. By putting characters into danger, you show them in places where they aren't at their element, places where their action can bleed through and show you the character inside. I genuinely do think that Sunspot should have more action and more grimness to compensate for how half of its cast seem kind of dead in normal interactions, and I say this as a person who adores slice of life as a genre. This Used To Be About Dungeons is one of my favorite things ever. It's just that book grabs me in the same way Sunspot doesn't. 

Themes

Thematically, Sunspot acts like it'll talk about performativity, unspoken rules and cold wars, but in reality it doesn't really have anything new or interesting to say—scratch that, Sunspot doesn't really have anything to say.

(Note: There's another theme of transgenderism. I'm not transgender, so I don't know how well this is executed, but judging by the amount of trans people I know who read this fic, it's probably executed pretty well in comparison to the other stuff. If that seems like it's your thing, do try it.)

For the performativity aspect, there's this recurring idea that magical girls in this setting are kind of like celebrities, or propaganda tools, or wartime icons—like we're supposed to question the image of them as perfect, righteous, glittering idols. but at the same time, the fic completely idolizes them. In The End, They're Good People! They're always right in the end (the only time this is ever questioned is just a pointless ideological conflict about hurting your magic, which I don't recall actually being relevant), and even when they do something questionable, it's framed as either necessary or tragic or above reproach. 

Sunspot wants you to think it's deconstructing them, but it never actually follows through. The dissonance is really weird—it reads like it's trying to be Worm, with messy heroes who do bad things and still get called heroes, but it lacks the spine to commit to that critique. It gestures at performativity, at image and power and how people curate who they are to survive in a system; then it backs away and gives up and says "but they're cool!" and sure, maybe they are cool—but you literally can't have a meaningful conversation about performativity if you're not willing to actually interrogate the performances.

It gestures at meaning without truly landing on one. It drops the primary theme—tikkun olam—in an author's note, but this isn't shown in the fic, not really. The idea of healing the world, of repairing broken systems or confronting the damage magic has done, doesn't appear in the story except in an abstract and altogether greatly reaching way—if it appears at all. there's no real moral element: the story never grapples with anything meaningful.

It never makes a point to reinforce to you its themes in the same way that, for instance, Worm's entire plotline reinforces its three central themes (escalation, escalation, escalation, and doing the wrong things for the right reasons, and never resetting the status quo or letting its heroes escape consequences). 

Sunspot characterizes itself about transformation, identity, pain, yes, all of these motifs are present, but that's all they are. They're just… motifs, depthless. Few characters seem to even be relevant to these motifs (mostly, the big leitmotif is how the magic changed each of them, which is kind of interesting, but it's never used to its real potential). They're all kind of (and I hate to say it for another time) OC-coded, like they're there to be there?

Thematically the world doesn't do much better. In a fic that was actually interested in its themes, you'd expect the world to reinforce or contrast them—to bring them out in sharp relief, or act as a foil to the protagonist's arc. See, for instance, The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere. In this you can see how the world itself is shaped by the story’s ideas about identity and death, these two concepts are brought up in the beginning by the characters, reinforced by the world and the magic, basically bashed over your head (in a good way)! But in Sunspot, the world doesn't do anything except act as a background to the events of the plot. There's no sense of intentionality within the world of Sunspot at all.

I wouldn't be so upset with Sunspot's lack of true message or meaning in themes (if you let the text speak for itself) if it actually managed to execute their evocation right.

Comparison Points

Here's some fics that are cool comparison points to Sunspot. Stuff that I thought of while reading.

Worm: Worm is really interesting to compare to Sunspot, namely because the author characterizes Sunspot as 'Worm spitefic.' Sunspot isn't trying to be Worm, and that's OK! I'm a Worm fan, I like it a lot, but not every story has to be like Worm. The big difference between the two is that Worm does more; it's excessive in a good way.

Worm relentlessly escalates. Sunspot does not.

Worm consistently introduces and uses in the plot factions at a high rate. Sunspot does not.

Worm insists on its themes (in the text of the story itself), and each arc serves a thematic purpose chronicling Taylor's downfall. Sunspot does not.

Worm's premise is clear from the beginning. Sunspot's isn't.

Godclads and Malazan feature a similar style of execution in their exposition. Godclads keeps it entertaining because it's fast-paced, action-filled, and the worldbuilding is extremely weird. Malazan has very solid prose, the worldbuilding is extremely dense, and, again, stuff happens decently quickly (it just takes brainpower to parse).

The Wandering Inn is similar (and directly listed as an inspiration by the author) to Sunspot because of its slow style; however, TWI only becomes as slow as Sunspot is many books into the series! Stuff still happens for a long while in.

Katalepsis is similar. I kind of hated it, but the author also lists it as an inspiration, and if they're patterning it off Katalepsis I can kind of see why I don't like a lot of things in Sunspot.

Worth the Candle is a good comparison point worldbuilding-wise. It has the opposite of Sunspot's own worldbuilding: it's infodumpy, monologuey, filled with thoughts where the main character isn't afraid to explain to the reader. But the worldbuilding is so fucking good that it doesn't matter; Alexander Wales has extreme confidence that he Wrote Good Shit and he did.

Apocalypse of Herschel Schoen has a similar level of belaboring to Sunspot; its prose is decidedly more literary and honestly gorgeous at times to read.

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere reflects its laser-honed themes of identity and death in the worldbuilding and characters and plot.

Axiom of Infinity is both a good story and good trans-themed fiction.

Some Things Sunspot Gets Right

I want to make it clear here that I do not think Sunspot is bad and I do not dislike Sunspot.

I do, as stated, think it's really weird, and takes odd creative directions. But there's something about it that's kept me reading up until now (and likely into Arc 2, as my friend keeps telling me It Gets Better)

I'm crashing so in short here's some stuff I liked about Sunspot.

I like the prose and think it's generally pretty solid (though sometimes try-hardy).

I like the shopping scene with Hina, and I liked the stuff afterward and was willing to forgive it until it became clear no ramifications would come to the main group.

I like/d the early interactions with Ebi.

I like when Ezzen uses the magic system and tells us how it works; eg when he builds his new PC

I like all of the chatroom interactions pretty universally. They feel mostly authentic and nice.

I like/d the initial plot moving scene where Ezzen traps himself underground and eats half his foot.

I like that Yuuka creates group conflict, I don't like how juvenile she feels.

A Note on Author's Notes

In the author's note, the postscript, afterward, whatever you want to call it, of An Infinite Recursion of Time, the most SINCERE piece of webfiction ever written, Mr_17 declares what themes the story is trying to expose to the reader.

Mr_17 says that the story was never trying to have themes in the first place. That he follows Hemingway, believing a story shouldn't have symbols unless and until they arise naturally. He goes on to talk about what themes he thinks arose by the end, but the themes themselves are unimportant compared to the nature of what he's saying; subject before object.

AIROT not trying to have themes, and having them anyway, with the story being—at least in retrospect—wholly readable as about those themes, is a beautiful thing. It lacks pretense, it's sincere. It grew!

I think, if you choose to do an author's note, it should be after everything is said and done; if you want to talk about the themes of your story, you should talk about the themes which grew naturally over the course of it, the themes which are there and present in the work itself.

Sunspot's first author's note comes at the end of the first arc, rather than at the very end of the story. Sunspot attempts to tell you that the themes of the fic were Always Going This Way. I've criticized that enough, yes, but…

I think that an author telling you outright what something is getting at thematically is in fact inherently damaging to the quality of the story itself. The words of the story should stand on their own; comparison to a different ideal than what you really wrote simply weakens the story.

People should be able to read into your story themselves. If they don't do it correctly, that's fine. That's art. By controlling its interpretation you flatten your own art.

Be more like Mr_17.

Conclusion I guess

Sunspot's first arc is not the worst thing I've ever read, not by a long shot. I hesitate to even call Sunspot bad. I focus so hard on the negatives, because Sunspot genuinely does have potential, it's just that every positive is marred by these negatives. Its first arc just kind of crumbles under the weight of what it wants to do, falls apart under scrutiny textually and subtextually both. I think if you like the things I've listed as similar (or if you're trans) and you don't care about reading into text (i.e. if you just want popcorn) you could have a good time with Sunspot.

I hope that the author keeps writing and makes a really good story; for my part I'll likely continue reading and make another review if my thoughts change after I finish Arc 2.

(1) For further reading: https://ascrub.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/information-theory-and-writing/

(2) The main Sunspot shill in the servers I'm in said this about the magic system:

"The magic in Sunspot is meaningless filler when the author starts going on about the shapes of the spells being cast. The different colors are totally fine but will there be a moment where a normal reader will go "ah of course if Ezzen weaves [ASH] with two loops instead of one he'll be able to get out of this pickle"? Probably not! It's just tedious fluff to get through."

(3) There's the cult, the basically-PRT (but eviller), the basically-Protectorate (but gooder), and the group of magical girls the main character is saddled with.

[groovydazestudent-stuff]

Taming ofthe Shrew

Snippet of something I tried to write years ago that never went anywhere. Remus Lupin X OC, Sirius Black scheming, nerdy flirting. kink if you squint

1.2k words

"Juuuniiiii" I could hear Sirius whine from the row behind, stage whispering to get my attention. Merlin, I just want to get this question done, can't he let me be for one goddamn moment. " I know you can hear me" Sirius shifts in his seat to lean closer "I need help with the muggle studies essay meet me in the Gryffindor common room?"

"Aye no, I need to run through new plays with my team" trying to focus on the work in front of me.

"tomorrow?" He looks at me with those stupid puppy dog eyes. Sirius doesn't ask for help, he's up to something.

I hesitate "Fine." What is that boy up to? I didnae think he studied, on a Friday night no less!

--

If I get one more look from one of these bloody Gryffindors I'm leaving, he's fecking late, I guess I'll help him some other time. I turn back to my book, try and ignore the gits walking by and gaggle of Third years giggling coming up with reasons I'm sat in their common room.

The amount of people in the common room dwindles, it's getting dark out where the bloody hell is he?

"Juniper!" merlins beard gimme a heart attack why don't you! Remus was stood at the bottom of the stairs looking equally surprised by my presence.

"Hullo, Remus" I swear this boy is getting taller.

"hi...sorry um not to sound rude but what are you doing here?" he stumbles over his words, how precious "I-just mean, 'cause you're a Hufflepuff ya'know?

"oh aye thank you for noticing, no I'm meant to be helping Sirius with Muggle Studies" meant to be.

"Oh, well he actually asked me to help him with the potions essay hence" Lifting the books and parchment in his hands.

"Funny. He's not in your dorm I take it?" Remus shakes his head, merlin those curls are bouncy. "well I'll just have to wait here to tell 'im off then" turning back to my book.

"Do you like him?" What? He quickly clarifies "Shakespeare I mean, well his work," he says clearing his throat.

"oh aye this one's my favourite 'taming of the shrew', bit problematic but it has some good scenes ." I wonder if he's read it. "I have to admit it's always better performed," I turn back to the page I was on and murmur "s'not meant to be read."

"What part are you on?"

"where Kate and Petruchio meet for the first time." I smile, hoping he knows why. It can be a hilarious scene if it's done right. He nods and I go back to my book, play? script, no um-.

"Good morrow, Kate for that's your name, I hear." Hmm, he knows the first line, okay let's see how much boy wonder remembers.

"Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing. They call me Katherine that do talk of me." I attempt to put on the character, probably a good thing I didn't decide to be an actor as a bairn.

"Liar." I feel myself getting warm as he looks at me, eyes boring into me" for you are called plain Kate, and bonnie Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst, but Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom, Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate, For dainties are all Kate and therefore," he pauses slowing himself "Kate. Take this of me, Kate of my consolation: Hearing thy mildness praised in every town, thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded, yet not so deeply as to thee belongs. I am moved to woo thee for my wife."

Shite okay, pretty boy. I get up from my seat to stand in front of him just to be sure he cannae read my book.

"'Moved,' in good time. Let him that moved you hither, remove you hence." I feel myself smile a little as I watch him think over his next lines, "I knew at first you were a moveable."

"Why, what's a moveable?" He asks already knowing the answer.

"A joint stool."

"You're right, actually." his confidence falters as he hesitates on the rest o' the line "Come, sit on me."

I didnae think he was actually going to continue, well, I'm gonna have some fun with this one. I decide to do it and sit in his lap. Good lord, does he always smell like this? what is that, chocolate? line, what's the line. "Asses are made to bear, and so are you." I read attempting to regain my stubborn kate-like demeanour.

"Women are made to bear, and so are you," he says lightly patting my stomach. that smug mother fecker.

"Not by the likes of you!" I get up in an attempt to seem angry and not at all flustered.

Mockingly "Oh heavens, Kate, I wouldn't think of burdening you. I know how light and carefree you are." my he's really gotten into character, who knew.

"Too light for such a swain as you to catch, and yet as heavy as my weight should be." ooh we're getting to the fun bit, I wonder if he'll-

"' Should be'—should buzz!" he gets up off the lounge.

"Well like a buzzard, Buzz off!" he continues to move closer.

"If I'm a buzzard, you're a turtledove." He winks! what's this boy trying to do to me."Come, my little wasp, you're too angry."

Hmph well " If I be waspish, best beware my sting." I step toward him in an attempt to regain my composure. bad Idea.

"My remedy is then to pluck it out." he says, has his teeth always been this nice? Gods I wish I could wipe that stupid, smug look off his stupid face.

"Oh aye, if the fool could find it" I wonder how far he's going to take it, he clearly knows the play well.

"Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail." he's bloody close, merlin's beard.

"In his tongue." keep it cool, it is just a boy, wow he has so many little scars you wouldnae see until you get this close, they're faded, old.

"Whose tongue?" oh um-.

"Yours, if you talk of tales. And so farewell." I move back toward my things picking them up off the couch.

"What, with my tongue in your tail?"He's stood directly behind Merlin oh mighty "Nay, come again, Good Kate. I am a gentleman." oh my lord his hand slides down my waist, I smack it away before he moves any lower trying to stay in character.

"A gentleman? that I'll try!" whipping around to face him. Bloody hell he's staring into my soul I swear, he grabs my wrist and pulls me closer.

"I swear I'll cuff you if you strike again." Holy shit who are you and what have you done with boy wonder. No stop we're friends, but that cuffing thing dinnae sound so bad. oh crap, he's looking at me. you know kissing him wouldnae be a bad idea right now. If I just leaned forward a bit-

"Nice one James!" oh shite,

Remus and I quickly sort ourselves. Like nothing happened, hm."Oi, what happened to muggle studies hmm? what happened to 'oh please I'm failing I need your help' 'it has to be Friday night'?" I turn my attention to Sirius.

"I forgot?" of fucking course, I collect my stuff and proceed to walk toward the portrait hole.

"wait!" Remus stumbles over pulling on his robes "I'll walk you back if we get caught this late I can say I caught you out during rounds and am escorting you back."

"oh yeah, Mr prefect" I forgot about that." you hoping for head boy next year?"

"Nah."

[marianettes]

TUNING OUT OF THE POISON ﹒✦ ⊹﹒

⊹ STARRING : the angel, ft. the divine.

❝ A reflection on devotion, dog-like loyalty, and bloody grins. A cycle of love, destruction, and abandonment. ❞

→ angel is the oc of @cnnbilsm! written for the mqskedfools oc ebg. TW: heavy religious themes, blood and mild gore, murder / death. weird rambly character study. atlys i did my best, but i apologize if this isn't very good. wc: 1k

The worth of humanity, a figure whose existence itself is already dubious, is a value that the Angel cannot begin to comprehend. But their Divine seem quite taken with the lot, frustratingly so. It was an unsettling feeling to remain so in the dark, especially when it concerned Them, but that was where they stood.

Aside. Waiting. Watching. 

Devotion among humans is a constant shift, in flux with the phases of the moon. It’s an ever-changing waxing and waning—faithful and singing Their praises one evening, and cursing Their name by the time the sun rises. It disgusts them. And He disgusts them even further, a monument to all that is human, and all that is cracked and flawed. 

He would not lay at Their feet like they so eagerly do; blood spilled and staining their robes like the loyal dog they are. Every hue of red is another shade of their love, their faithfulness, a sacrifice that no mortal would ever dream of offering. But His gaze is warm—too warm. There isn’t enough ruthlessness in His eyes to hold the blade steady, not like them. In their hands, a blade isn’t even needed; claws tear through skin like paper.

Torn. Shredded. Ruined. 

It’s a beautiful mess of blood and viscera, laid out all for Them. Though Their voice grows tight when They speak to them, they can still dig deep into the sound to find the trace of satisfaction they’ve been looking for, hidden below thinly veiled revulsion. Distaste is lost on them; they know their violence and brutality is a gift, and They must see it as such. There is no other way to see it: the pools of scarlet under their kneeled form, matching the dried specks of blood buried beneath their nails. For Them, there are no bounds they would not cross.

It has always been that way; devotion might not be natural amongst humanity, but it is their mother tongue, and they speak it with the reverence that They so deserve. For every believer that has turned their back on Them, they will make up tenfold. 

And the look in Their eyes may not be ‘love’, by any mortal standards, but the standards of morality never concerned them anyway. It is a look just as heavy, and wrapped with just as many unspoken words, making them light-headed with the sheer ecstasy of it all. It is not love, not admiration they seek, but there is a need to the feeling they chase. Love fades. Love does not linger. Need lingers.

Their need translates differently to theirs. For them, it is inherent, an innate necessity. Needing Them is as natural as breathing. But They are not entangled in the feeling, not like them. It isn’t contempt, it’s simply… indifference. No, not indifference. It couldn’t be. Not when they’re so intertwined; not when it’s Their hand pressed around their throat. With a ‘love’ this overpowering, need was bound to form. Like mould. Like rot.

Rot lingers. Love does not linger.  

In the quiet, sickly spaces between, the thought inspires something akin to vindication. They had to know by now; they were a patient being, a pious being. A being with a grin full of teeth and speckled with blood, and dripping with adoration that spilled forth. Crack open their ribs and you would find no heart, but something dull still beats, throbbing and pulsing like an open wound. It’s infection, hot and feverish, that fills the cavity of their chest. Rot, rotting, there was something rotting, and it screamed for Them. That was obvious enough to anyone who had the sense to look just a bit closer, and They were someone with nothing but sense.

Sense to keep them close, attached with a loosely-held leash pulled taunt around their neck whenever They saw the need. And they relished the pain that followed, any and all attention that was so sweetly tossed their way. It was just like them, wasn’t it? To cherish it all, as if their Divine’s every action was worth their weight in gold. 

It was. They were.

And yet, what had their efforts earned them, truly?

In every sense of the word, they are loyal. A loyal dog, a loyal servant, a loyal angel. Wherever They went, they would follow, even be it descended to the Earth. Without question they would follow, every time. Every time, and every place, and every action; a choice, their choice, one that they would repeat over, and over, and over again. For however long they live (for forever) it would be Them—their sun, moon, and stars—and them close behind, following like a shadow. Eclipsed by their light, and basking in it nonetheless.

So why then, pray tell, isn’t it enough? They’d kill—have killed for Them, but it never had quite the effect it should have. It left an impact, of course, but never swayed Their favour. For Them, they did everything, were everything, but Their gaze never stalled on their wretched form for too long.

Yet it was fixed. Not on them, on Him.

How they loathed it; a mere human standing in between Them and them. Their mouth was clamped shut as they watched, their Divine’s absent murmurs filling their ears like a prayer. Silent, a voiceless witness. All they could do was observe, feeling a wave of discontentment rise through their chest.

Without Them, what are they? An holy creature with no god to worship; an angel with clipped wings?

But they do not dwell on it. No, they do not let it take hold of their mind. The thought sparks nothing in their mind, except the smallest, inconsequential dredges of doubt bubbling up, and even those are quickly shoved down. It does not linger. They do not let it linger. 

The Divine is a benevolent being after all, and they will always trust in Them; no matter what. They are patient, They are kind. To the Angel, They hiss, a fistful of golden curls clamped tightly in their hand: “Why are you this way?”

And they smile with a flash of teeth, the falsities melting away like snow. “I am this, for you.”

[suzannahnatters]

2023 In Books!

Due to mild fatigue, 2023 was a bad reading year for me - I did not reach my yearly 2-books-a-week goal for the first time since I began logging them, and many of the books I did read did not agree with me. But I still found ten fiction and 7 (!) non-fiction books I had to shout out for the end of the year.

Top 10 Fiction THE RED PALACE by June Hur A historical murder mystery set in Joseon Korea, featuring crystalline prose, a painstakingly evoked historical setting, and an understated romance in a dark atmosphere of terror, secrets, and palace intrigue. Despite being written for a young adult audience, this book impressed me with its complex picture of a deeply flawed real historical context.

TOOTH AND CLAW by Jo Walton A Victorian style comedy of manners in which every single character is a dragon, from the dragon parsons and spirited young lady dragons to the crotchety old dragon dowagers and feckless young dragons-about-town. All of them wear little hats. Sheer cosy perfection.

DRAKE HALL by Christina Baehr My bestie surprised me this year by spontaneously producing four whole novels pitched as "cosy Victorian gothic, with dragons". I haven't read the final edition of DRAKE HALL yet but it's sunshiney, summery, cosy goodness. With dragons.

CRIMSON BOUND by Rosamund Hodge (re-read) A dark and bloody fantasy full of lifegiving female friendship, ride or die siblings, theology, guilt, and stabbings. This one also contains gratuitous St Augustine quotes, a one-page retelling of the VOLUNDARKVIDA, and a love triangle that exists to present the heroine not so much with drama as a proper ethical dilemma.

EMILY WILDE'S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES by Heather Fawcett The story of a mildly autistic lady academic researching faeries with her flamboyant rival professor, who is probably secretly an exiled fae king…but the annoying part is his habit of making his students do all his field work. Cosy, thrilling, hilarious.

THE LAST TALE OF THE FLOWER BRIDE by Roshani Chokshi This gothic-infused psychological thriller was dark, creepy, and sometimes heavy, but it's also a tale that flips the roles of innocent maiden and Bluebeard, engages in valid Susan Pevensie Discourse, and ends on what I found to be a genuine note of hope and healing.

THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN by Holly Black This book tackles vampirism as a metaphor for the evil hidden in the human heart, and it's epic, bloody, twisty, and monstrous. I couldn't put it down. Not sure I'd recommend it for the target audience, but it's mature and well-crafted enough to be enjoyed by grown-ups as well.

THE WITCHWOOD KNOT by Olivia Atwater I've read a number of Olivia Atwater books, and this one is head and shoulders above the rest. The best blend of gothic and fae, like a grown-up LABYRINTH, with one of the great fae butlers and so many subtle yet walloping feels. It felt like an old fairytale in the best possible way.

BEHIND THE CURTAIN by WR Gingell The WORLDS BEHIND series is about trauma and healing and repentance, and in this, the fourth book, everything comes decisively to the boil as our favourite twisty knife uncle pits his wits against an enemy who very uncomfortably mirrors himself.

Top 7 Non-Fiction (because I couldn't get it down to just five)

TWO VIEWS ON WOMEN IN MINISTRY by Beck & Gundry (eds.) Four New Testament scholars from a range of complementarian and egalitarian perspectives debate the question of women in ministry, with a lot of detailed scholarship. If nothing else, this book proved that this is something orthodox Christians can honestly disagree about, because there are significant exegetical strengths and difficulties with each position - it's time to stop seeing women holding ministry positions in the church as tantamount to heresy.

REFLECTIONS: ON THE MAGIC OF WRITING by Dianna Wynne Jones This collection was magical - funny and sad tales of her life, many good and passionate thoughts on books and writing, and one absolutely marvellous study of narrative structure in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Absolutely delightful and highly recommended.

PATERNAL TYRANNY by Arcangela Tarabotti A 17th-century nun takes aim at the misogyny of early modern Europe, wielding razor-sharp logic to argue boldly for the equality of women. But it's Tarabotti's passionate faith, which somehow managed to survive moral injury and spiritual abuse, and even came to see hope and encouragement in scriptures which must so often have been used against her, that will stay with me.

THE GOLDEN RHINOCEROS: HISTORIES OF THE AFRICAN MIDDLE AGES by Francois-Xavier Fauvelle A series of bite-sized essays on the medieval history of Africa from approximately the Islamic conquests of the 7th century to the arrival of Portugese colonists in the fifteenth. Each essay offers the most fleeting glimpse of a long-vanished, half-imaginary world of often breathtaking sophistication and splendour. I loved them.

ONE HOLY LOCAL CHURCH? by Bojidar Marinov This short book, which draws very solidly on past luminaries like Rutherford, Gillespie, Spurgeon, and Hodge, helped me think through some of the questions I've been asking myself about ecclesiology and the role and authority of elders, particularly as I've been rethinking women in ministry. Terrific.

TEN DAYS IN A MAD-HOUSE by Nellie Bly "People on charity should not expect anything and should not complain." In 1887, the American "girl reporter" Nellie Bly got herself locked up in a New York lunatic asylum, and this shocking expose was the result. Sometimes, nineteenth century attitudes towards women and the poor were beyond parody.

A PEOPLE'S TRAGEDY: THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes Some aspects of this book have aged poorly - the unthinking acceptance of Russian imperial aspirations, for instance - but apart from that, this is a sweeping, epic picture of the Russian Revolution, covering three decades and every level of society, from daily life in the village commune to the political rivalries of Lenin's declining years, without ever becoming dull or bogged down in detail.