#ALSO ALSO had fun drawing Pizza Head because THE GUY’S SO TALL HE HAS TO HAVE HIS LEGS UP- 💀💀

[whereismyhat5678]

I DID IT I DID THE ONE TWITTER THING-

Granted I did some tweaking, like adding Brick in the back with Gus cuz I thought it’d be cute 😅 and having a hard time choosing a third character but I chose Pizza Head! ✨💕

Original photo underneath:

[sugurusdiscordmoderator]

your writing is so goooood wahhh the nanami fic had me on my knees, could you write a pizza delivery boy gojo x reader? maybe he's always picking up reader's orders so he can see her or something hehe (can be fluff or smut) ❤

WOOOO ANOTHER GOJO FIC

another college AU - slightly inspired by a story that actually happened in my life (it was less romantic irl and more creepy lmao)

reader is 20ish gojo is 22ish

cw: masturbation, sex?

-

Your sophomore year of college you absolutely scored when you found your apartment. It was on one of the main streets of the city so you could walk anywhere you want to go, hosted parties, and just had fun! The first floor of your building was a pizza shop which you occasionally stopped in; the owner of the shop owned the whole building so he was also your landlord and was a sweet older Italian man.

There was a tall employee that always caught your eye, but he was always working in the back. Most of the time you were picking up pizza your landlords sweet daughter was working the register so you never talked to the white haired beautiful man. However it seems like l you had caught his eye too? No you were just being delusional, he wasn’t staring at you… but how could you be mistaken with those bright blue eyes that you seem to look away as soon as you make eye contact with?

It’s not that you’re shy. It’s just that this man is so attractive your cheeks immediately blush and you can’t even try to talk to him. (hey Siri queue Gorgeous by Taylor Swift)

That is until one day, when you texted your landlord and asked if the delivery guy or someone could bring your order upstairs because you were “sick” (you were just hungover but you looked the part of being sick so whatever). He responds with a no problem and about 15 minutes later you hear an imposing knock on your door, almost entirely too loud for your tiny apartment building. It makes your head pound and even though it’s 4 pm and your hangover is still lingering around.

You mosey on over to the door, sweatpants, Ugg slippers, an ex boyfriends hoodie you kept, with your hair in a braid that definitely needed washed. You open the door, squinting at the fluorescent overhead lights before realizing just who was at your door.

The white haired man with the beautiful cerulean eyes was looking down at his phone waiting for the door to be answered and when he looks up the two of you lock eyes. Suddenly you become aware of just how bad you look and your eyes grow wide at your downstairs crush at your door.

“Are you…y/n? The boss asked me to bring this up to you.” The mystery delivery man asks with a shy smirk and hands you to box.

“Oh thank you yes I’m y/n,” you say fumbling in your pocket for the $20 bill you put in there earlier. “Um here…keep the change,” you awkwardly stick your hand out with the money in it, realizing how hot the pizza box is in your other hand.

“What if I asked for your number as a tip instead?” He smugly asks, now leaning his lanky frame up against your door frame. You bring your eyes up to meet his, trying to find if he was joking by the features of his face. He stuffs the $20 in his pocket and pulls out his phone and wiggles it in his hand, as if to say ‘see?’. Your lips draw into a slight smile seeing his goofiness, “sure,” you giggle making his smile grow wider.

He hands you his phone for you to type your number and name in with your free hand, your other hand still holding up your pizza you’ve been looking forward to.

“Thank you m’lady,” he winks at you when you hand his phone back and pushes off your doorframe and walks away down the stairs. “Text ya later,” he yells up at you from the bottom and you just smile and close your apartments front door, leaning against it and smiling as you open up the box and take a bite.

-

You anxiously await a text from the pizza boy only after realizing you still don’t know his name or his number but he has both of those pieces of information about you. The half eaten pizza box lays on your coffee table while Netflix drones on with a reality tv show in the background. You scroll through Instagram liking everyone’s pictures from the previous night out and daytime party shenanigans. You’re drawn out of your trance like state when you feel your phone vibrate, a message from an unsaved number popping up.

‘hi pretty lady 😘 - your favorite pizza boy’

He still hasn’t given you his damn name so you can’t look him up anywhere. Suddenly all flirting skills have gone out the window and you have no idea how to text back.

‘You’re such a flirt, do you treat all your customers with such kindness?’ you ultimately respond with.

‘only if their name is y/n and they live in apartment 2b :)’ he responds too fast and you’re immediately apprehensive. Why is this beautiful man flirting with you so brazenly out of no where? This smells like a fuck boy situation, but hey, what’s wrong with a hook up or friend with benefits? Maybe it’s time to up the ante and play with some fire.

‘Funny, I haven’t even gotten your name yet and you’re already laying it on thick. Seems to me you’re quite the flirt.’

*one image attached*

‘Am I still a flirt if I made this while thinking about you?’

‘yes actually, more so than before.’

‘fine :( but i need someone to share this with?’

‘I’m literally still working on the pizza you brought up here earlier, take it to the other girls I’m sure you’re also flirting with rn’

‘ouch shots fired’

You stare at your phone screen smiling like a teenager, kind of wanting to get to know this guy a little better. You smirk to yourself before typing out:

‘fine. I don’t want more pizza but I do want to hang out.’

The pizza boys only response for now is ‘😱😱😱’ so you decide to get off the couch and shower for the evening. Washing your hair, shaving your legs and other areas, exfoliating, and making sure you smell extra nice. At least if you don’t see a guy tonight you can consider this self care? After a relaxing 15 minute shower you wrap your hair in one towel and your body in another. You head into your bedroom and proceed to brush out your hair and put on some sweatpants and a sports bra while you get ready. Sitting down at your vanity, you put on a light amount of makeup before blow drying your hair to look “natural” as if you didn’t just spend an hour getting ready.

You start to get dressed as well, taking off your sweats first, when you hear a knock at your front door. Confused, you walk over and look out your peep hole. Oh god, of course the beautiful white haired man knew how to get into your building and just showed up at your door. You crack the door just a bit to stick your head out, embarrassingly saying, “Hey I’m sorry can you give me two seconds I don’t have pants on.”

Without waiting for his answer you close the door again and run back into your bedroom and put on the sweatpants you just took off as well as a light weight tank top that was laying on the bed next to it.

‘Did he really just show up to my door unannounced?’ You think to yourself reaching for your phone. It turns out he did respond earlier while you were in the shower, you just hadn’t looked until you picked up your phone right this second.

‘sounds good, what do you want to do this fine evening?’

You stared at the text, mouth opened, slightly resembling a fish out of water. At least you had gotten your hair and makeup done but it took you an hour of not texting him back. Rushing back to your front door you reopen it to him leaning against the wall on his phone playing a game.

“I’m sorry,” you sigh, cheeks flushed, swinging the door open for him to come in before stopping him in the doorway, “You’re not like a serial killer right?”

He throws his head back with a boyish laugh, meanwhile you just want an honest answer, you didn’t think your question was all that funny.

“No, I’m not,” he finally answers after noticing the apprehension in your face.

When you move to let the stranger inside your apartment, you throw caution to the wind and think, ‘well if I am going to die, at least it’ll be by this beautiful stranger?’ (damn reader, I think you would have LOVED Ted Bundy back in his day)

The man stands looking around your joint living room kitchen area, one hand in his pocket, one hand lifting his round black sunglasses from the bridge of his nose to on top of his head, resting among the snowy tufts of hair. He must have just got off an afternoon shift, smelling of Italian food wearing old jeans, a tshirt and converse.

Given it’s about 6 o’clock at this point, the sun has begun to set, setting golden hour aflame through your west facing windows of your apartment. The white walls glow orangish-yellow with tiny refractions from your little plants and decorations lining the windowsill, creating rainbows in random areas across the room. Your tv still hums in the background with a garbage show, before this potential murderer finally speaks up, as if he’s fully comprehended and assessed the room.

“The names Gojo, Satoru Gojo.” He smiles, only needing to take one of his large strides before he’s in front of you ready to shake your hand.

“Thank you for finally telling me your name,” you smirk, having to nearly crane your neck to make eye contact with him.

He wiggles his eyebrows and licks his lips before asking, “so no pizza but you wanted to hang out. What did you have in mind?”

“Well, I missed your text when I was in the shower so I haven’t put a lot of thought into it. We can go somewhere to grab a drink or do something or we can chill out here?” You try not to seem too bossy but not too submissive either, and by the looks of it Satoru is as confident as ever.

“Well the boss man gave me some free bottles of wine that I have in my car I can grab and we can watch some of whatever you have on, and maybe re-evaluate in a little if we want to do anything else?” He accentuates ‘anything’ with a wink and you swear your knees could give out.

“That sounds great.”

-

You make some popcorn and grab glasses of wine while Satoru goes to his car and grabs his duffle bag with wine and clean clothes and comes back inside.

“Sorry to ask, but can I take a quick shower? I kinda feel gross after an 8 hour shift.” A slight blush creeps across his cheeks while he pulls out four bottles of wine. He notices the shocked look on your face, “Oh sorry I didn’t know how much you drink so I just brought all 4 bottles he gave me, I figured we could have two each.”

“Two each?!” You laugh as he makes his way towards your bathroom. He smiles back at you before closing the door behind him. You stand up to head to the kitchen counter to uncork one of the wine bottles when you realize that the extra towels aren’t in your bathroom, they’re in the dryer right now! The last thing you need is a naked wet man in your apartment right? You grab and fold one of the towels quickly and hurry over the the bathroom door before knocking politely.

“Satoru?”, you question. “Sorry…I forgot to give you a towel earlier-”

You’re cut off by the door swinging open. The pale man’s almost completely naked save for his boxer briefs which he has no shame showing. You notice a scar across his chest, his perky man nipples, the defined pectoral and ab muscles atop his beautiful v-line, accentuated with a white happy trail running down the middle leading straight to… a bulge.

But like he wasn’t hard no, his soft penis must have been so large but even then he had a pretty big bulge. You wonder what it would look like when it’s -

“Well you answered the door with no pants earlier so I didn’t think it would be a problem here,” he cuts you off, smirking as he watches your embarrassed features. He totally just saw you checking him out, you feel no better than a man!! You hand him the towel before reaching over to close the bathroom door for him, walking wide eyed back over to the couch with a glass of white wine.

You can’t get the shape of his body out of your mind, god you can’t believe he was in there, using your shampoo and soaps and being naked while you’re right here on the couch, not able to witness it. You let the perverted thoughts take over your mind some, thinking about the way his pale skin would look covered in your nail scratches and bite marks. Or how about how perfect his cock must be? Everything else about him was absolutely gorgeous, so his cock has to be the perfect mixture of girth and length with a nice vein or two, and a cute pink tip leaking his precious pre cum right? You think back about his long deft fingers, and much better they’d feel inside you than your own. Being under the spell of your own horniness, you slip your left hand under the waist band of your sweat pants and lace panties thinking about this Satoru guy…slipping your tiny fingers around your swollen clit, giving it a pinch before sliding up and down your folds, collecting your wetness before slipping your middle finger in your tight hole. You close your eyes, slipping the throw blanket from the back of the couch over your lap as another layer of protection in case Satoru is quiet coming out of the bathroom, but he’s not a very quiet person so you’re not toooo concerned.

Although you’ve had intercourse fairly recently, you feel like you’re in the midst of a drought, a withdrawal from being touched. Your skin feels almost itchy, so aroused by this man even though today is the first time you’ve actually talked to him. You alternate playing with your folds and rubbing your clit thinking about how good he must look with the water running down his abs and through his glistening white hair. You think just maybe, you might have time to make yourself cum before he gets out of the shower. After all with how excited you are, it should just take a few minutes. You scurry from the couch to your bedroom gently shutting the door behind you, before throwing your pants off and reaching into your bedside drawer to grab your hot pink little vibrator to help hurry yourself along.

You think you can hear Satoru singing in the showering, making you sigh in relief a little knowing he still probably has another few minutes. Sticking your hand down your lace panties, you press up against your soaking hole area with your middle and ring fingers, while using your other hand to press the vibrator on and turning it up to the medium setting. You rock in and out of yourself at a steady rhythm, thinking about this man being on top of you. God, he just looks like one of those guys that is good at everything he does so you know he must be a great partner.

Letting go of yourself perhaps comes a bit too easy, laying your head back against your decorative pillows, letting out just a tiny whimper. Muffled whistling comes from the bathroom followed by what sounds like something squeaking. You think it’s the water shutting off, and proceed to panicking and switch the vibrator to high to finish while he’s drying off. You feel yourself getting close, reaching extra deep to find your own g-spot. Pushing against it your eyes immediately roll back and you feel yourself getting close to the edge. You do your best to bite down on your lip to keep noises from escaping, with both hands being other wise occupied.

Your thoughts return to the man in your bathroom, drying off, wondering if he’s gotten off to you in the shower right there, before getting a little sad because you wish he would let you take care of him! A particularly loud whimper escapes as your back arches off the bed, your legs threatening to shake violently.

“Y/n…?” Your bedroom door swings open, Satoru Gojo walking in right as you reach your peak. Your jaw drops half out of ecstasy and half embarrassment, closing your eyes and riding out the last few seconds of your orgasm. There’s no point trying to hide or make excuses, you got caught. Not only that, but Gojo’s jaw is also on the floor, the blood rushing to his lower region as he is still slightly moist from the shower but only wearing a new clean pair of boxer briefs.

“I’m - so - sorry -” you pant to him with your eyes still closed, slowly removing your fingers from inside you and turning the vibrating off.

“Fuckkkk, that was so hot!! ,” Satoru wines striding over to join you on your bed. He takes the fingers you were about to your juices off of and pops them in his mouth, staring you in the eyes as he swirls his tongue around your petite digits and groaning in pleasure. “I can’t believe you couldn’t wait for me! Naughty girl, I just - wow- you’re so wet??” Satoru stammers to you, leaning his large frame over your body, blush creeping across his cheeks, but you know your face is even more red.

You sit up and lean back from Gojo, “sorry that was an..accident. You weren’t supposed to see that uh, um, I have a medical condition!! And I have to - you see…,” your embarrassment just digging you deeper into a hole as you reach for your panties and sweatpants on the other side of the bed. It’s not that Satoru seems to mind though, he actually seems kind of impressed.

As you slip your panties on, he sits on the bed giving you space but wraps his arm around your waist, “Hey..y/n… you don’t have to make up a really shitty excuse or anything, I kinda thought it was hot. Like if you want to fuck me you could just say it?” He says almost cockily trying to lighten your mood.

“I’m sorry I just like it’s not lady like? And I didn’t even like go on a date with you or anything yet…not that we have to go on a date first! I just like met you today and I feel like really bad!” You ramble on, both of your heads leaning closer and closer as he strokes your hair to calm you down. He gently guides your head to rest on his shoulder, “don’t be embarrassed babe, it’s not like I haven’t heard you have sex before.”

Your head shoots up, a new wave of embarrassment coursing through you. “Huh - what do you mean?” You stutter out.

“You realize right under your cute little room is the office in the back of the restaurant…right? And the nights when I’m in charge after the old man goes home…let’s just say some of the men you’ve brought home don’t seem to have good rhythm.”

Your jaw drops at this revelation, immediately growing defensive. “And who’s to say your rhythm is better? Besides - I -”

You’re cut off by Satoru taking the lead, his finger up to your bottom lip as to get you to quit nervous mumbling. “Hush hunny, just let me prove it to you.” He gently pushes you back against your bed, his lips finding yours before you can protest. You give in to making out with his cute pink lips, he guides a hand to the back of your neck, taking power over the kiss. You nip at his bottom lip at which he takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss further, pushing his tongue into your mouth. His other hand comes to grab at your chest through your sports bra as you grab the sides of his face with passion. He breaks the kiss just by an inch, enough to breathlessly ask, “you’re okay with this right?”

Satoru smirks, knowing he has you in the palm of his hand. Instead of answering, you kiss back, this time taking initiative to swirl your tongue with his. The heated make out section reaches a tipping point as Satoru leans more of his body weight against yours, now your pelvic regions touching. His harder member through his boxers rubbing against your soaked lace panties. The fabric on fabric contact in the sensitive region has you whimpering into his mouth.

“Oh sweetheart,” he says with fake sympathy, “I already have you whimpering and I’ve barely touched you.” You roll your eyes as he uses his long fingers to brush the hair away from your neck ghosting his lips leaving a fraction of a kiss from your jawline down to collarbone. His breathing against your skin makes goosebumps form, before licking a specific spot halfway down your neck, right next to your jugular. He sucks down, ripping another whimper from you, rolling your hips up to cause more friction against his erection.

He smirks against your skin, “I think I found your sensitive spot-” and you cut him off pushing him back up to attach his lips to your neck again. You moan a little more freely this time.

“Uhnnnn, Satoruuuu…please, I need more!”

You whine removing your hands from his hair and creeping down his muscular back, feeling every single defined muscle. You decide to have a little fun, scratching a little harder as you run your hands down before grabbing the waistband of his boxers. “Off,” you whisper and this time he moans, seeming just as affected by you as you are by him.

He sits up to take off his boxers and you take the opportunity to remove your panties again, and your bra this time. You swear Satoru’s pupils turn into hearts when he sees your chest.

“Oh my god I think I’m in love,” he whispers, before leaning in fast and attaching his mouth to the right nipple. He used a lot of tongue and a little teeth, making your buds feel so much better than you ever thought possible. As he switches to your other nipple your eyes roll back.

You reach down through your legs to start stroking Satoru’s hard member. Although you can’t see it with the way his body is situated you can tell it’s massive. Like barely can wrap your hand around it massive and when you go up and down there’s sooo much!

“Can I fuck you please?” Satoru looks up at you with lust filled eyes, a sheen covering his lips and your nipples. He looks like what you could only imagine as a milk drunk baby looking up at its mother.

“Please, Satoru, fuck me,” you respond, running your thumb over his tip and spreading the precum. He leans back to line himself up, and now you can see the full image. The muscular upper body, now littered with a few scratches from you. The snowy fully hair, his eyes blown out with lust looking like he could devour you whole. Plus that beautiful cock you got yourself off to not even 15 minutes prior. It’s just as amazing as the one you made up in your head thinking about him.

You bite your lip and smile as his tip touches your entrance, him squeezing your hip with one hand as the other grips his base. He pushes in slowly and gently, letting you adjust with gentle shallow thrusts until you’re able to manage. “Oh-ohhh my god,” his breathing hitches in his throat? “Oh my GOD you feel so fucking good!” He is acting like he has just won the lottery, taking his time with his thrusts.

You smile up at him as he holds your leg, calf up against your shoulder. He places a tiny kiss along your leg before grabbing your other leg and placing it on his his other shoulder.

“Baby, can I please show you my rhythm now?” Satoru practically begs.

“Mhmmm, please,” you moan, already feeling full to the brim with his cock but needing more pleasure. He excelerates slowly, snapping his hips with high intensity. You feel his skinny hip bones make contact with the back of your legs every time, along with the feeling of his heavy balls slapping against your lower region. You’re in love with his little babbles, you’ve never met a more vocal man in bed. Every few seconds he’s saying “fuck yeah baby,” or a grunt/moan, throwing his head back, or “shit y/n”

Your toes start to curl and he notices, along with the slight tremble growing in your legs.

“You close baby?” He stammers out lowering one hand to stroke your cheek lovingly.

“Yes -toru,” you stammer out, only able to get half of his name out with how out of breath and white hot you feel. His eyes roll back in pleasure at the nickname, moving the hand that was on your cheek down to your clit, rubbing tiny circles on the puffy mound to help bring you over the edge.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes!” You half moan half chant, barely having possession over your own body at this point.

“C’mon, let go for me y/n, please pretty girl go on and cum,” the combination of Satoru’s words and how he says your name sends you over the edge, pulsing around him, eyes rolled back gripping white knuckled on the sheets.

Seeing how pretty you looked cumming on his cock, Satoru is so close to follow, not even caring that his cum his going inside you (I mean hey you didn’t tell him not to?) he grips your sides as he lets go, a grip that you know will leave 10 little perfect oval bruises tomorrow. All he manages is grunts that border whimpers “so so good, fuck,” he says out of breath, laying down comfortably with you with his cock still in side and giving you both a moment to process what just happened.

“You proved me wrong,” you whisper and he looks at you confused. “That was the best fucking sex I’ve ever had, I don’t fucking care about rhythm or any other man at this point,” you continue, covering your face with your hands and giggling.

He chuckles along with you, “I think that’s the best compliment I’ve ever gotten, I maybe should get an award for ‘sex dick given to y/n’”

You giggle more, both of you in your post orgasm mood, just being silly and romantically pillow talking.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” satoru says after a few more minutes of banter, and before you and even go to sit up, he is too fast and picks you up bridal style to carry to the bathroom. He sits you on the toilet and lets you clean yourself as he gets a washcloth with cold water and washes his face, before washing off his now flaccid penis (which still looked good which is really fucking hard to do). Upon returning to your bedroom, putting on clothes again and regaining your composure, you watch Gojo going through your closet.

You tilt your head at him and he answers before you can say a word. “Listen I know this is like the opposite of gender norms but can I borrow a tshirt?” You giggle and show him where you keep them and let him pick.

You settle out in the living room with your glass of wine, bowl of popcorn, and a blanket, resuming your prior plans. He joins you a few seconds later, wearing an old tshirt from high school that has one of the United States presidents on it in a rocking chair that says “JFK ROCKS”

You bust out laughing, not only at that fact it was almost a little too short on him, but also you had no idea where that shirt was or how he found it. He laughs along with you, opening one of the other bottles of wine.

He sits on the other end of the couch so both of your legs are all tangled and cozy , covered by your blanket. “So,” he then takes a bite of popcorn, creating an awkward pause.

You decide to interject first, “I’m sorry that like you saw me getting myself off and that I had sex with you like right after meeting you… you probably think I’m a slut but I’d actually like to get to know you.” You blush and take a sip of wine as he looks like a crazy person, before repeating himself.

“So,” he starts, “what I was going to say is that we need to get some real food and stop at the store and get a plan b, then come back for round 2,” he sips his wine, “also you’re not a slut and even if you are I’m a slut so oh well,” another tiny sip of wine and popcorn, “so this is me doing things a little backwards. Would you be my date for this evening?”

“You’re asking me on a date?” You gawk at him on accident, just surprised with how this whole day turned out.

“Yes I am sweets, now go get a jacket.”

—

very sorry anon February was a rough month (and so is March) for me this has been in my drafts 4ever

[sugar-petals]

SuperM Fluff & NSFW Notes

↳ 🌹aka some of their romantic antics plus random 18+ imagines 👋

warnings ⚠️ rated (super) m, boyfriends hc, porn mentions, partial fem!reader, sex toys

FLUFF

since baekhyun knows how to make scented candles, he creates one for you as a birthday present with your favorite fragrances.

every entry in mark’s diary involves fond thoughts about you.

taemin kisses you more than his cat kkoongie on a daily basis so let that sink in. his smooch obsession is getting out of hand.

lucas, having giant fingers after all, learns how to knit in order to make you a warm scarf. he’s still a bit clumsy with it and had to call kun for advice, but the result is surprisingly proper and quickly becomes your favorite item. it’s a little huge but well, he thinks in his dimensions. lucas’ next project is a beanie.

ten overwhelms you with pet names. in fact, he seemingly seems to come up with a new one each day.

kai is a candlelight dinner, rose petals and music kinda guy. he does every old-school thing in the book.

taeyong can cuddle endlessly in bed. he just doesn’t wanna leave.

lucas gladly shares his sweaters. they’re ginormous so, perfect cuddle material.

baekhyun is already a fool. so — when he falls in love, he becomes an even bigger fool. or, the contrary happens: he becomes dead silent around his partner because he’s so enthralled. he can take this more seriously than you think.

mark likes to write little cards and many many texts to express his love.

lucas is the type who can help you put on your jeans when they were shrinking a bit too much in the dryer. he’s pretty sexy like that and things can get really touchy.

cheesy fucking kai, and there’s only one guy who would do this, has actually lowered himself over a puddle once so you would have a bridge. brushed it off like a daily workout rep.

not one shower missed without baekhyun joining you. yes, it’s not always sexy time, he likes it when you shampoo his hair and whisper sweet nothings. and obviously: it’ll all devolve to a laughing fit.

taeyong is the type who wants to be proposed to.

taemin will get a motorcycle license and take you for a frequent ride. he loves getting those kind of back hugs.

both ten and lucas are great at making bracelets. wayv’s dorm is fully equipped with charms, strings, and pearls, so expect matching ones for you.

we’ve seen it, that one’s his favorite move. kai wraps his hand around your shoulder when you walk together.

mark will ALWAYS share his melon.

making you swoon on a DVD evening is lucas’ favorite hobby. he will buy you the most sugary-sweet romance movies. he will often browse streaming sites to select the latest sentimental plots. all these dramas seem to have a male lead who is suspiciously tall and lanky.

if you allow him, taeyong customizes your white tees with his cute drawings.

since taemin swims in money thanks to his profession as the god of kpop (yes, this is a registered job name because i say so), he can fulfill you any wish. he’s stingy and pouty when the shinee hyungs can pay, and the motherfucker baekhyun is even richer since his albums have been taking off so he opens his mochi wallet when superm is gathered, but you... are a different case. taemin will humbly empty his entire pockets when he overhears you gushing over something. there’s a voice in his mind going: must splurge!!

mark loves christmas, you establish an annual tradition to stage a whole couple evening.

baekhyun likes to play charades and especially do karaoke with you. he’s always cutely wiggling his butt and dances like a drunk uncle. he hits the high notes anyway and makes sure you score 100 points.

taeyong can make out with you while at the same time making sure that the milk doesn’t get burned on the stove. kiss’n’stirr multitask tyong alert. gotta make sure the cocoa is served in time, you know.

all the members enjoy playing board games. yep, imagine the fun and sheer chaos.

lucas has the funniest laugh ever indeed. he’ll react to all your jokes, no matter how lame they might be. intensely reassuring.

taemin’s hand is basically glued to yours.

taeyong and mark are the kinds of boyfriends that spoil their partner with skincare. fancy a nice face massage with a nice fragrant oil?

baekhyun has been baking heart-shaped pizzas ever since you started dating. he just can’t make them round anymore.

mark will join you on anything you’re currently bingewatching. 

kai sometimes — only half-jokingly — goes down on both knees bowing forward with his hands on the ground just to show how much he wants to thank you. in case you didn’t notice: this guy treats you like a deity.

ten usually gets confused glances from the other members whenever he gets the current date wrong: he simply loses track of time with you.

lucas makes a habit of buying you flowers every other week. but on unpredictable occasions, and he arranges them in places you’d never expect.

taemin will build you a weird-looking snowman to make you laugh, and give it an even stranger name. ten will build one that looks like you. kai doesn’t build snowmen, he just stands there challenging you to throw snow balls at him.

mark will hang out with you at the beach constantly bringing his guitar. he’ll serenade you all the time.

returning from three months of touring, baekhyun has once climbed your balcony when your parents were in the other room. yep, he was that desperate to see you. somebody give this man a rope and helmet.

taeyong writes down heartfelt confessions on 365 folded slips of paper so you can open one every day. your reactions will range from ‘awwh!’ to straight-up tears.

ten does regular couple yoga with you. a mildly challenging form, not the circus acrobat version. he’ll do the difficult parts anyway. you can pretzel this guy up, he’ll do anything to make you laugh.

when it rains you hook your arm around his, and lucas always holds the umbrella. even the wildest gush of wind can’t make it turn inside out. you arrive home entirely dry. xuxi is so cute, he’s also a great source of cooling shadow in the summer without even trying.

taemin’s skinship overdrive doesn’t stop with endless hand-holding, back hugs and kisses. he wants to lay down in your lap whenever he can. he looks damn pretty with his hair splaying there. if you work on your laptop, you can pretty much count to ten and he’s already nestled there.

kai does pushups with you on his back. it’s a staple. each time he does one, he says ‘i love you’. he increases his count every day.

NSFW

it’s no secret that taeyong is great at acting or pulling off any outfit and costume. expect roleplay of the finest kind — literally. he looks good in a firefighter uniform. you’ll be burning up pretty much automatically.

taemin can’t keep his tongue in. it’s terrible. he’s always in the mood for head. his sloppy noises are the absolute worst, it turns you on way too fast.

lucas had some major problems finding condoms that fit him.

ten and taemin are so switchy, they have an unresolved power struggle going on. begs for a dominant third party to help them out.

kai owns expensive latex gear.

baekhyun may be the king of vocals and breath technique, but if you push him far enough he does get hoarse.

taemin often jokes how kai will one day break his dick from fucking too hard.

meanwhile, mark’s dick is already falling off – from fucking too often. this guy has some major hormones going for him. no surprise, a guy who can promote in four kpop groups at the same time is a stamina king.

taeyong likes eating pussy with another party involved. three’s a crowd my friend. sometimes it’s taemin who unleashes his spit waterfall power, sometimes it’s baekhyun who preoccupies himself with nibbling at the inner thigh while taeyong digs in.

taemin owns the most underwear.

mark takes valerian drops because he is so nervous in bed. it never really goes away, it’s his nature.

taeyong keeps a lube collection. a different flavor for all occasions. he likes associating certain scents with specific body parts.

kai has a heels kink. he literally goes wild over it.

taemin likes to have sex with favorite glasses on.

taeyong and kai are the most likely to cry during sex. baekhyun as well if you rough him up enough. 

mark gets rock hard the fastest, followed by kai. he’s a grower.

taeyong gets the best inspiration for a song when he gets a casual dick riding.

taemin watches extremely x-rated erotic thrillers and bdsm flicks that are heavy on the plot. he gets more invested in the characters and actors than you think. since his japanese is amazing? of course he also owns a giant 90s hentai collection. 

when he’s jerking off, baekhyun chokes himself. a) because he’d make too much noise otherwise and b) because asphyxiation is his favorite thing.

kai feels pleasure in his every cell. he cums the hardest. and, as you can expect, his body expresses it the most extremely, accurately, passionately. if you’ve seen it even once, you’ll never look at him the same again.

taemin has less experience than his discography claims, but more than you’d think. he researches sexual techniques as well. you can brace yourself.

mark has not just a tiger inside, but a freak inside, waiting to be unleashed.

sex while gaming is a go-to activity for baekhyun.

lucas has the best stamina when it comes to getting head.

taemin throws his head back during sex. and no, he doesn’t T-pose. i’m kidding — of course he does. but only when he’s on his back.

taeyong tends to grip a pillow when he cums.

or he humps one when he’s by himself.

ten has the best taste in sexy time playlists.

baekhyun has the best taste in singing his own playlist along.

oh, the things kai has bought at a gas station at 3AM.

baekhyun sucks strap the best. he can open his mouth the widest, drools a lot, and makes the best noises unsurprisingly.

how to turn on lee taemin? he likes getting slapped.

since he’s the most avid and most diverse eater, lucas’ sperm tastes the best. he’s shove 50 fruits into his system just to give you a sweet experience.

mark is absolutely a starfish. 

kai wears fishnet tops if you fancy it.

curiously, baekhyun out of all people doesn’t announce when he’s cumming. you’ll hear it, though.

taeyong’s dildo collection is one for the books.

taemin has visited a pro dominatrix a couple times. needless to say, he was the #1 favorite client at the dungeon. having fully submerged into a fantasy world, taemin was one whip crack away from falling in love with the mistress. but then covid happened and the venue closed.

mark’s dick looks really pretty.

taemin can grind on the strap at every humanly possible angle. he’s almost always ready to take it. he carries a prep kit.

kai — that fucker — knows how to make you wet the most with his bare hands. prepare for the thigh ride of your life, too.

taeyong, baekhyun, and taemin have the best arches. kai is coming for the top three as well. ten’s arch is so good, it can’t be considered one anymore.

baekhyun knows every adult movie out there. theoretically, nothing can shock him. in reality, he melts in your hands.

taeyong is so sexually active with you, he has quit eating garlic.

kai will exploit your muscle kink in any way he can.

taemin, being a devil, has that one button on his phone that he can press when you go out for dinner. he’s OBSESSED with getting you off. once you head home, it’s basically running down your thighs.

ten has once opened a condom with scissors to scare away a date that grew weird on him by the time it got to the do.

lucas is too tall for doing missionary normally.

this will surprise nobody: mark is great at constantly keeping up the dirty talk.

baekhyun’s car is sort of like a brothel on wheels. he can’t count how many times he got down and dirty in there. he cleans it all up by himself.

kai can technically grip you the hardest but he’s the gentlest and great at caressing the whole body.

taemin has the easiest time saying what precisely he wants. he is also the best people reader — most your wishes he can pretty intuit. taemin observes your interests well.

ten likes his hair pulled and makes angelic noises when you do so.

baekhyun likes camgirls and erotic chats with strangers online. he spends a lot of money for nsfw internet encounters.

[kitkat1003]

Tower Tales

3: Well, they’re not sad all the time, are they?

I posted this on AO3!  Diversify ur platforms kids.  Read the first two chaps Here, it’s kind of integral for ur understanding

@asilcorner sent me some ideas for this fic.  Give them love!  They have a great webcomic @ghostboyscomic that I love, and their art is so friggin cute.  ANYWAY TO THE FIC

(also the Dot section lowkey has a song and im v nervous about so pls b gentle I’m fragile)

They’ve started drawing up plans.  

For the Tower.  Why not put it together better, why not make the space a home now that it has to be?  Yakko refuses to let his siblings live in squalor, not when they have the ability to make it better.

Yakko is surprisingly adept at architecture, though Wakko can’t make heads nor tails of it.

“It’s just art with a little math,” Yakko shrugs off Wakko’s incredulous look with a smile, and Wakko frowns.

“I hate math,” He’s never had to do it in a classroom setting, but at this point he’s certain.  He lets Yakko continue to try and figure that mess out, idly chewing on his mallet as he glances up at the tall expanse of the tower.  

Yakko’s been thinking about expanding the kitchen and bathroom.  Dot says she wants a space for herself, but there doesn’t seem to be room for it between everything else.  Yakko tells her this kindly, though they can tell he’s not at all pleased with having to do so, and while she isn’t mad at him, she is upset at the situation.

“A proper lady is supposed to have a place to beautify herself,” She almost whines, but beneath the simple complaint is something closer to hurt, like this is another reminder that they’re trapped and they don’t have the luxury of comfortable space.

The frown lasts on her face longer than Wakko is comfortable with.  She’s his baby sister, she’s not going to be upset on his watch, unless it’s funny and not from a place of real hurt.  He glances up at the tall, tall ceiling.

Hmm....

Wakko grabs the lightbulb that appears above his head and tosses it into his mouth, crunching on it.  

“Careful, if it isn’t funny you’ll cut your tongue on the glass,” Yakko calls over his shoulder.  Wakko shrugs, and starts rifling through his gag bag.  It looks like he’s got plenty of material, and while Yakko keeps writing up plans Wakko gets to work.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It’s a couple of hours later that Dot looks up from her book and she sees an entire second floor being built-scratch that, being finished.  By Wakko.  Alone.

“Holy Cow!” She can’t help herself from exclaiming, and Yakko jumps out of the intense scene of concentration he was in and looks where Dot’s pointing.

His jaw hits the floor.

The first floor, now.

“Hi guys!” Wakko waves from the entrance to the second floor, nailing down the last spiraling stair to it.  “I got bored so I figured we could use a second floor!”

He skips down the steps and despite his rather hard stomping on them they stand firm.  The craftsmanship is impeccable; Yakko and Dot meet in the middle of the first floor and glance at each other in shock.

“What have you guys been up to?” Wakko asks, completely innocent, as if he hadn’t just made an entire second floor on his own in the span of a few hours.

“How did you do that?” Dot asks, incredulous.  Wakko looks confused, for a moment, and so she gestures wildly to the second floor.  He shrugs.

“Just thought we had a lot of ceiling space, so we could use another floor.  I think we have enough room for a third, but I thought I should take a break,” Wakko looks up at the new ceiling proudly.

“What measurements did you use?” Yakko asks, and Wakko stares at him blankly.

“Uhhhh...I kind of just started making stuff.  I’m not good with numbers,” he responds.

“But how did you even get the materials for this?” Dot rebukes, and Wakko pulls out a burlap sack.

“It’s all in my gag bag, see?” He reaches in and pulls out a long wooden board, showing it off before shoving it back into the bag.  “Easy peasy.  And look, Dot, now we have room for your girly stuff!”

“I protest to the fact that looking good must be described as girly, but regardless-I’m so excited!” She rushes forward and wraps Wakko in a tight hug, spinning him around.  When he’s set down he stumbles a bit, dizzy.

“Glad you...like it,” he mumbles, accent a little stronger, before shaking his head and coming back to himself.  “Do you guys wanna see the upstairs?”

Yakko, who has been previously speechless, jumps into action.

“Heck yeah I do!  C’mon!” He lets Wakko lead them up to the second floor, and they marvel at the open space.  Dot keeps pointing at places where she wants her stuff to be, and Wakko rolls his eyes, but it seems her joy brightens his day more than he though it would.  She was the reason he started building this, after all.  Yakko is already dreaming up new plans, thinking of how to best utilize the space they now have.  The kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom can stay downstairs, but they can make the living room smaller and put extra entertainment space up here.

“But, uh, yeah, that’s all,” Wakko has the audacity to look sheepish, and Yakko won’t stand for it.

“Wakko, this is beyond words,” He kneels down to his level.  “This is a great help.  Now, I think I should make something for us to eat, cause building this had got to have burnt up some calories, but do you think you might want to teach me how to build something later?” He smiles, and Wakko’s eyes go wide.  Teaching his big brother something for a change?  It’s a dream come true.

“Would I!” He tackles Yakko in a hug, and when Yakko catches him, just for a moment, he forgets the situation they’re in, and focuses on Dot’s giggles and the excited pattering of her feet on the new wooden floor, and on Wakko’s prideful expression and smile.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yakko has never had an issue with food before.  He’s learned to make it, because Wakko needs it and Yakko would never not be able to do something for his family’s needs, that’s ridiculous.

But right now he’s certainly regretting ever ingesting anything, because they’d had a sundae party to celebrate the third floor being made-a celebration type picked by Wakko, who had headed the third floor expansion-and now he can’t sleep, because he feels like he’s going to vomit.

His stomach feels like he just ate a bomb, and not for fun like Wakko sometimes does.  He curls in on himself, trying not to make a fuss, but he opens his eyes and both Wakko and Dot are leaning over either side of him, mirrored looks of concern on their faces.

“Yakko, you look terrible,” Dot deadpans, but he can hear the slight tremor in her voice.  She still occasionally hovers over Wakko, though has relaxed as he’s gone from eating like a normal person to his more “typical” unusually voracious appetite.

“It’s just some...,” he winces.  “Some stomach pain.  It’s nothing,” He smiles, even though he feels awfully sweaty and nauseous.

“I thought my problem was just stomach pain too,” Wakko rebukes, and, well, Yakko can’t really argue there.

“But we’ve been eating with you, Wakko, it can’t be that.  And it couldn’t be bad ice cream, or we’d be sick too,” Dot puts a finger to her chin and thinks, but can’t come up with anything.

“Don’t humans have that thing where they can’t drink milk?” Wakko suggests, and, well, doesn’t that make too much sense.

“Thanks for the plot mover, Wakko,” Yakko groans from his place on the bed.

“I’ll go get you some water.  Maybe if we flush it out with other stuff, it’ll go away quicker,” Dot hops off of the bed and off to the kitchen.  Yakko’s stomach groans in displeasure, and Yakko curls up tighter.

“Guess this means no more milk, huh?  Oh well,” Wakko shrugs, and Yakko half glares at him.

“I’m not banning milk from the house just cause I can’t have it,” He says, a growl in his voice.  Wakko shrugs again.

“Who said you were banning it?  I just don’t think we need it anymore,” He smiles, almost Cheshire.  “Don’t have the craving for it anymore, right, Dot?”

“Right!”

Yakko almost jumps when he feels the bed dip down with Dot’s weight, surprised by her return, but he shifts to face her and takes the glass of water offered with a smile.

“Thanks, sis,” he takes a few sips, and while it doesn’t change much, he gives her a thumbs up anyway, so she’ll feel like she helped.

“Wakko, you need calcium in your diet,” he goes back to arguing, and Wakko leans back on his hands.

“Pretty sure toons don’t have certain diet they need.”

“Pretty sure toons don’t need to eat at all, but,” Yakko raises a brow and lets the sentence hang.

“Touche,” Wakko admits.  “And hey, we’re broken body buddies!” He raises his hands up and grins, and Yakko tries for a smile, too, chuckling to himself.

“But I’m pretty sure we can get calcium in other foods.  Just saying,” Wakko finishes, and Yakko gets it, but he isn’t going to deprive his siblings of pizza and ice cream just because his body can’t handle it. 

But it’s an argument for another day, because Yakko’s stomach makes another very unpleasant noise, and he slowly sits up and starts crawling his way to the end of the bed.

“Where are you going?” Dot asks.

“The bathroom,” Yakko says, and his voice sounds weak even to his ears.  “Don’t wait up.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

An hour and a half later, Yakko stumbles out of the bathroom, drained, and he slumps in on himself as he shuffles back to bed, only to stop when he sees the bed itself.

In the middle, where he typically rests, is a fort of sorts.  Rather, it’s a perfectly shaped resting spot for him, lined with the softest pillows and with a blanket his favorite color, all as comfy as can be.

“Take a rest, brother,” Wakko gestures to the bed nirvana, though Yakko can’t help but notice him wince when he looks at Yakko.  Makes sense.

“Yeah, we set it all up nice for you!  See how it feels!” Dot adds, and Yakko smiles and makes his way to the bed, worming into the spot made to perfectly fit him.

He sinks into the softness and sighs.  At the very least, while his stomach is a mess, he doesn’t have to worry about any other part of him being uncomfortable.

“Thanks guys,” He mutters, spent.  He’s never going to even try and eat something with milk in it ever again, if this is the result.

“No prob,” Wakko waves off his thanks.

“You take care of us all the time.  Turnabout’s fair play,” Dot quips, and Yakko chuckles, sighing and closing his eyes.

He’s asleep faster than expected, but he stays awake long enough to feel Wakko and Dot cuddle up on either side of him, like usual.

Despite his intestinal discomfort, he smiles.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dot stares in the mirror.

Her new vanity is rather spectacular, and she’s been living on cloud nine since Yakko and Wakko finished it.  They’d nearly gotten into an argument while making it-evidently, Yakko couldn’t understand how Wakko could see all the pieces and put them together without numbers or instructions, and Wakko couldn’t understand how Yakko couldn’t understand how the pieces fit together when looking at them as a whole.

Boys.  She shakes her head and sighs, looking back at herself in the mirror.

She can see her brothers behind her.  They match, of course, they’re the Warner Brothers.  

The Warner Sister is alone.  

She’s not unaware of why she was made.  A token female character, eye candy, take your pick.  She’s both.  Made to fill in the tiny gap Hollywood makes for female representation while continuing the legacy that women are supposed to look and act pretty, and that’s it.

It makes her blood boil.  And yet, isn’t she falling into it?  She wants to be pretty, she likes being cute, but is that just because she’s supposed to?

She’s not even just cute, anyway!  She can nearly go toe to toe with Yakko when it comes to word play, and Wakko barely has her beat when it comes to strength.  So what if she’s cute?  She was drawn that way!

So why does it still feel so weird?

Her brow furrows.  It’s not like she can even prove to anyone that she’s better, anyway, because Yakko and Wakko likely wouldn’t care or know, and they’re stuck in this tower for forever.

“My name is Dot Warner,” She starts, a soft tune, “And I always get the final word.”

She misses musical numbers.  She misses having fun outside of this place.  She misses messing with people.  Yakko and Wakko seem so similar-their names rhyme, for Pete’s sake-and she feels out of place here.  But they were out of place together out there.

“I though your name was Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the third,” Yakko interjects, leaning a hand on her vanity.  “Surprised you forgot, sis,” It’s all gentle ribbing, but now is not the time.

“Oh, put a sock in it, Yakko,” She responds.

“Which one?” Wakko comes up on her other side, holding out two similarly disgusting socks for her to pick from.  She pushes him away.

“Leave me alone!” It comes out louder and harsher than she wants it to, and as a result Wakko looks bewildered, and Yakko lifts his hand from the vanity to move it to his hip.  “Go be-be gross boys somewhere else,” She tries to cover up the actual frustration with a weak excuse, but Yakko just crosses his arms and raises a brow, and Wakko walks back over, sans socks.

“What’s the matter, Sis?  Something’s bothering you,” She sighs at the question.

“You guys match better than me,” She grumbles.  “I’m the cute one, and that’s it?  You two get to be witty and strong and creative and funny and I’m just...,” She growls out the final word.  “Cute.”

She sees Yakko and Wakko share a look over her head, and rolls her eyes.

“You seriously think that’s all you are?” Yakko sounds...confused.  Bewildered.  Like her worry is so unfounded it’s surprising she even is worrying at all.

“You’re way cooler than that,” Wakko agrees.  “You’re smarter than me.”

“And you’re better at the physical jokes than me,” Yakko adds.

“I know,” She says, almost cheeky, but her mood refuses to lighten.  “But-I don’t know.  Iit’s not just that-I-I guess I miss doing stuff outside. Like songs.”

There’s a beat, and when she looks up, Yakko has a smile on his face that is nothing short of sly.

“Songs, you say?” He rubs in chin in thought.  “Wakko?”

“On it,” She watches as he pulls out instrument after instrument from his gag bag, until they practically have an orchestra.  Wakko also pulls out a conductor’s wand.

“Shall we, m’lady?” Yakko holds out his hand, and when she takes it, he pulls her to the middle of the room.  A spotlight lands on them, and the music starts.

“Her name is Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the third,” He begins with a wink, “and no matter the situation or confrontation, she always gets the final word,” Yakko’s tenor is sugary sweet as he dances her around the room, and he passes her off to Wakko, who leaves the self playing instruments to their own devices.

“If you think you can beat her, just wait till ya meet her, cause you’ll realize that thought is absurd,” Wakko’s voice has a grovel from the accent, and he makes silly faces as they waltz, to make her giggle.

“Sure she’s cute,” Yakko starts.

“Quite the beaut,”

“But she’s got the strength of a brute!” They harmonize, and she pulls out her mallet.  She watches as they cringe away in fake terror, and she does a fake swing before tossing the mallet away.  “So watch out, because if you make yourself a target she’ll shoot!”

She watches them laugh at the end of the line, and they do fit each other, don’t they?  But they’re going out of their way to do this for her, and so what does it matter?  Being different and being special are the same, depending on how you phrase it, and they don’t mind her being different at all.

The music keeps going, the piano leading into verse two.

“Don’t make her mad, don’t make her sad, if you want to keep your limbs intact,” Yakko twirls her, and she imagines being at a fancy Ball or Gala, surrounded by admirers. 

“She’s got all modes of attraction, and kneejerk reactions, it’s all just simple fact,” Wakko takes her for a spin himself, his movements more wild and less controlled than Yakko’s more straightforward dancing, but she loves it anyway, and is almost remiss when he passes her back to Yakko.

“She always tries her best,” Yakko dips her, low enough that her ears nearly touch the floor, and her tail presses close to her back.

“To be better from the rest,” Wakko continues.

“Because we all want to reach for the stars!” Yakko throws her up and she poses mid air before he catches her with his shoulders, letting her sit there.  She can’t help but laugh at the whole thing.

“She’s Dot Warner,” Every time they go into unison, it’s perfect harmony, and she loves it.  Them.

“Our giggling sister,”

“Does she know how much we’d miss her?”

The music pauses, and they look to her patiently, to join the song, and for a moment she hesitates.  Because she’s never had such a ballad before.  What if her voice doesn’t sound right?  What if she messes it up?

But Yakko and Wakko are smiling at her, as if they know she’ll do it right, and you know what.  Screw it.

“I’m Dot Warner!” She shouts, and the belting note rings as she jumps up. “I’m no one’s former!” The music swells, and she stands on Yakko’s shoulders, triumphant.  “I’m sweet and I’m tough!”

“Always more than good enough!” Wakko and Yakko crow as back up.

“And I’m better than why I was drawn!” It’s like a warrior cry, like she’s daring the world to tell her different.

“She’s charming,” Yakko.

“And alarming,” Wakko.

“In every role I’m starring, no longer just the token girl!” She hops down from Yakko’s shoulder, taking center stage.  This is what she is.  The breaking of her own role, just as loud and proud and wild as her siblings, with a touch of cuteness that she loves.  Because hey, what’s wrong with being cute?

“With wit and sass,” Yakko and Wakko start to finish.

“I’m the highest of class,” She interjects, giggling.

“She’s the best of our two worlds!” They all come together, Dot in the middle, the boys kicking out their outside legs and gesturing outwards with one arm as the music plays them out, and when the music number is over all Dot can do is drag her brothers together into a hug.

“Thank you,” because she needed this.  A sense of normalcy, the constant reminder that she’s more.  She knows why she was drawn, but who cares?  She’s better than that.

She’s Dot Warner,  Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the third, and she’s got her brothers behind her.  

And when she has them, nothing can stop her.

[excelsi-or]

16/10/18 - pool date (woozi)

A/N: This is already posted on my AO3 account, but I want to have a place where everything I make can live (writing and art and whatever else I decide to do). You can read all the parts that I have up already on AO3, but I will also be posting the story here every (week?) day.

I’m also ye-hun on this site, and while I don’t write on that account anymore, I am active there, reblogging all sorts of nonsense. :)

to a boy i love right now

w.c. 1.9k

October 16, 2018

“How is this fun?” she demands as Hansol nudges her into the pub. “This seems like the least fun place you could take me to.”

Hansol snorts as Seungkwan follows them inside. “Oh come on. You’ve been studying non-stop, noona. It’s a good idea to relax a little.”

Her eyes swing around the room. There are four pool tables in the center with booths all along the perimeter. A few people are lined up waiting for drinks at the bar. It smells musky and the lighting is dim except for over the pool tables. It feels like a Western-cowboy movie.

“They’re here already,” Seungkwan says over her shoulder.

“Where?” she asks. Her heart rate picks up at the prospect of meeting new people.

Hansol urges her forward.

Seungkwan had called him to their apartment when she’d walked out of her bedroom and screamed into a pillow on their couch. When she’d calmed down enough to talk, Hansol had gotten out of her that she was stressed about midterm season. So Hansol had instructed that they get dressed (that included Seungkwan) and he would take them somewhere fun.

As she had left the room, she’d overheard the two boys whispering. And at first, she was compliant, going and actually getting dressed even though a little voice nagged her about all the study time she’d be missing. By the time she went out to find Hansol on the couch, she’d changed her mind.

He smiled up at her, but frowned when he saw her expression. “Ah, ah, ah, noona. You aren’t backing out. I’ve already made plans for us. There are people waiting for us.”

“There are who doing what?” she demanded. “I don’t want to see anyone, Hansol.”

“Your outfit says otherwise.”

As they now walk up to a pool table of Hansol’s music major friends, her outfit still feels out of place. Her large hoodie and skinny jeans don’t exactly feel dressed up when the boys look wonderfully casual.

“I’m so not going to enjoy this,” she mutters to Hansol. Despite herself, a smile grows on her face. The tallest one returns it when he sees her. An arm drapes around her shoulders.

“Noona, didn’t think Hansol would be able to get you out here.”

“Nice to see you too, Mingyu,” she grumbles. She leans into him. He’s the only one she’s met before. The three other boys are familiar, because they tend to be around when she goes to find Hansol on campus. The one currently angling to take a shot is dressed similarly to Mingyu in a silk shirt, though his black contrasts Mingyu’s pale pink shirt.

The familiar crack of two pool balls connecting echoes in her ears. She watches the 6-stripe roll into the right corner pocket. The man straightens and high-fives the man standing next to him. Both have equally impassive expressions, though the one who’d just played is considerably shorter than the other men around the table.

“Oh, noona, I don’t think you’ve ever met my roommate,” Mingyu says. The man looks up at Mingyu’s voice. “That’s Jihoon hyung. He’s majoring in music production.”

Jihoon bows his head and takes the water bottle from his partner’s hand so he can play. Mingyu takes it upon himself to introduce the players she doesn’t recognize. “That tall cool guy is Wonwoo hyung. He’s good at games and Jihoon hyung is really competitive, so it’s not really fair that—”

“Shut up, Gyu,” Wonwoo’s deep voice murmurs. Over the music and all the other people playing pool, she’s surprised that his voice rings clear. She hadn’t even noticed his mouth moving. Carefully, he rounds the table, eyeing all the possibilities.

Meanwhile, Mingyu draws her attention away from Wonwoo to a man with brightly coloured hair and a bright smile on his face ready to greet her. His two front teeth remind her of a bunny and she can’t help but reciprocate the smile. “This is Soonyoung hyung. He’s not very good.” He waves towards the pool table. “That’s why we’re losing and the hyungs are going to beat us.”

“You just suck at the game, Gyu,” Jihoon chuckles.

“Noona’s actually really good,” Hansol quips.

“You take my place,” Mingyu encourages. “I’ll play with Hansol and Seungkwanie.”

She bites her bottom lip as Mingyu hands off his pool cue. Jihoon, across the table, notes that the cue is too long for her. Since Wonwoo is still trying to decide at what angle he wants to hit the cue, Jihoon passes his pool cue across the table. She hands Mingyu’s back towards him and Jihoon heads towards the far wall where there are others. She tosses the pool cue between her hands and finds it’s a little too heavy for her liking. She glances at Wonwoo who still hasn’t taken his shot yet.

Soonyoung is apparently on her train of thought. “Wonwoo, stop taking eons. Let’s go.”

She joins Jihoon at the cue rack. He glances over at her as she walks up. “Still too long?”

“I tend to use a lighter one,” she admits. She hands it back to him. Jihoon studies it and watches her try two others before picking the latter. She inspects the tip and shrugs.

“You play pool often?” Jihoon asks.

She shakes her head as they make their way back to the others. “I honestly haven’t played in a while.”

Hansol, Seungkwan, and Mingyu have bought a beer for everybody. As she’s not into drinking and Jihoon has to be up early for a class the next day, they pass on the alcohol.

“More for us then,” Mingyu sings. They’ve taken to a booth across from their pool table. Wonwoo and Soonyoung with a beer in them are useless players, so she and Jihoon have kicked them out.

To make it more interesting, they’ve started betting. So far, he owes her a pizza and she owes him a coffee. It’s getting late and they’re on their last game.

She bends over to line up the cue ball with the striped 4 at the other end of the table. It’s sitting right next to the far left pocket, courtesy of Jihoon’s last shot. She tucks her hair behind her ear, but it tickles her neck. It also doesn’t help that Jihoon’s eyes are following her every move. He was careful at the beginning, careful not to stare, careful not to brush by her. As they’ve played and she’s won and made a few hard shots (and with Hansol and Seungkwan shouting some drunken facts about her), he’s become increasingly more interested.

Sighing, she pushes her cue stick into Jihoon’s hand, as he’s basically standing right next to her. There’s no elastic on her wrist, so she turns to Hansol. “Do you have one of my elastics?”

Hansol pats his pockets and nods. He stretches across Seungkwan and Soonyoung to give it to her. Since becoming friends, he’s learned to carry a spare on him for when she forgets them for lab or if she has a test. She pulls her hair up into a ponytail and sighs in relief. Rather than lining up herself and the ball again, she trusts her judgement and hits the cue.

The crack is satisfying and she watches, with a smirk, the ball fall right into the pocket. The cue ball bumps into the edge before rolling back to the center of the table. Jihoon has given her a few free shots by knocking the cue ball in after his own solid. She smiles and turns to Jihoon. “I have the 8 ball left, Jihoon. I think you’re gonna have to owe me delivery after all.”

“Hyung, don’t let her smack talk you,” Mingyu calls.

Snorting, she meets the man’s eyes. Mingyu is grinning stupidly, as he has since consuming his second beer.

“If that’s your best smack talk, I think I’ll be fine,” Jihoon snorts.

“I don’t really talk smack. I let my play prove how good I am.”

Jihoon tips his head, unable to argue with her there. She can’t get the 8-ball in one shot, so she rolls it near a pocket out of Jihoon’s way and lets him play. While he’s been checking her out, she’s been doing the same in return. And she has to admit that his butt isn’t bad to look at.

Now, he wiggles it a little, knowing she’s staring.

Maybe it’s that sip of beer from Hansol that has eased her nerves a little. Or she’s already too warm in this room that she can’t feel her embarrassment anymore.

Jihoon knocks three of his solids into various pockets. He sinks his last one and then straightens up, standing across the billiard table from her. “I bet you one date.”

She blinks in surprise at this turn of events. The boys can all hear him and hoot from their spots in the booth. Jihoon ignores them. “If I sink the 8-ball in this next shot, you owe me a date.”

As he was playing, he’d bumped the 8-ball out of alignment. To get it into any pocket from its position right now would be difficult. Jihoon is a mediocre player at best and she knows she’s better than him at the game.

Dating good looking musical types scares her though, so saying yes here would either be bad or worse news for her. Bad if she doesn’t get the date, worse if she does. So she nods. “Okay, deal.”

Jihoon smiles and her heart melts a little. The boys have gotten up, drinks in hand, to stand around the table as Jihoon lines up his shot. Hansol drapes an arm around her shoulders, mostly because he gets clingy when he’s had a bit too much to drink.

They watch as Jihoon stares hard at the table. Throughout the night, she’s watched his eyes switch from focused to unfocused just from a tilt in his head. He almost looks angry when focused.

Finally, Jihoon bends over to take his shot. The ball knocks against one side, rolls to the other before knocking into the 8-ball. The momentum continues through and pushes the ball away from the closer pocket to the one on the other side. It lands perfectly into it. Mingyu and Soonyoung yelp, running to jump onto Jihoon’s back. He grins across the table at her and Hansol squeezes her shoulder.

Outside the pub, their friends separate to give them time to say goodbye.

“I didn’t think you’d manage that last one,” she tells him honestly, burying her hands into the pockets of Hansol’s jacket.

Jihoon scratches the side of his head. “Yeah, I wasn’t expecting it either. But you owe me a coffee and a date now.”

“Coffee date on campus tomorrow then?” she asks. “After my midterm.”

Jihoon nods. He holds his phone out to her. She texts herself and feels her phone buzz in her pocket. After passing the phone back, they awkwardly stand there. He shuffles his feet, unsure of how to say goodbye.

Until Mingyu steps in to save them. He loops an arm around Jihoon’s shoulders. “You have class early tomorrow, hyung. We should go.” He steers Jihoon away. Over his shoulder, Mingyu calls, “He’ll see you in his dreams, noona.”

Jihoon’s ducked head indicates embarrassment and she can’t help but laugh.

Next: October 24, 2018

[softnow]

paracosm [ii/?]

msr | college au | this chapter: gen | words: 2.2k

she resents the idea that some boy who will no doubt be gone in another week’s time can ruffle her so much.

it’s dana’s turn, folks. necessary shoutout to @o6666666, champion of baby dana and all her emotions. also tagging @today-in-fic.

← last chapter. / ao3.

— — —

Dana has always been good with change. It comes with the territory of being a Navy brat. As a kid, she attended four different elementary schools, two middle schools, and she graduated high school with a class she’d only known for less than a year.

But there is a difference between moving with her family—keeping, if nothing else, the familiarity of her siblings, her parents, the old worn quilt on her old twin bed—and moving alone to the other side of the country, starting college (an exciting but daunting task on its own) nearly 3,000 miles away from everything and everyone she’s ever known.

Granted, she’s handling it better than some—better, for instance, than the girl who lives across the hall and cries on the phone to her parents every night, or the boy in her math class who comes only every third day and reeks of alcohol and pot when he does. Dana, at least, is making an effort.

She has gone to a few welcome mixers, to an underwhelming movie night hosted by her RAs, to a panel discussion on monoclonal antibodies with an audience of serious-looking grad students and old men in sweaters. She leaves her door open while she studies, just in case somebody should like to pop in. On two different weekends, she has allowed her roommate to take her out to parties filled with people who, even if they are new like her, seem to have known each other their whole lives. She has even formed a tentative working friendship with her bio lab partner, and she is frequently invited to have dinner in the dining hall with some of the girls on her floor (although, after a few nights of awkward small talk over rubbery pizza, she has stopped accepting).

But still. Despite the built-in camaraderie of the freshman experience, of being one of many sharing the same anxieties, excitements, and first-time hangovers, she feels…foreign. A little out of her depth.

She tells herself it doesn’t matter. College is, after all, simply a means to an end. But when she calls her parents on Sunday afternoons and her mother asks if she’s making friends, having fun, having the all-American college experience—the one she herself, married and pregnant right out of high school, was denied—well. Dana’s never enjoyed lying.

So she’s glad for the library. She may not know the difference between all the fraternities or where to find the best pizza in town or what a Jägerbomb tastes like, but she has the Dewey Decimal System down pat. She knows all the nicest reading nooks—even the ones the other freshman haven’t found yet—and she gets a startlingly large amount of satisfaction out of booting couples who think they’re sly enough to make out in the fifth-floor economics section. (In the three and a half weeks she’s been working here, she’s kicked out four couples. A rush, every time.)

She likes being the one who, at least for a few hours a day, gets to ask how can I help you? She likes that she has the answers. And she likes—perhaps better than anything—that here, it is perfectly fine to be alone. She doesn’t feel self-conscious behind the circulation desk the way she sometimes does sitting alone at a table meant for four in the student union. There’s nothing sad about it. There’s no pressure to socialize.

Or: there didn’t used to be.

Because now there’s a boy. A persistent boy. A persistent, irritating boy who is tall and lanky with a flop of dark hair and a collection of wrinkled t-shirts, who goes by his last name even though (in Dana’s opinion) his first is actually kind of nice, who, for some unknown reason, has set his sights on her and has made it his life’s mission to not give her a moment’s peace, who has decided that any day she is here, he will be too, hanging all over her desk, following her from floor to floor like a lost puppy, forcing her to listen to his questions and his stories and his inappropriate flirtations which, despite her best efforts, turn her pink as a cherry blossom, damn her Irish heritage.

Even when she tells him to get out—Mulder, I need to work—he will only grin and lean closer like he was never taught about personal space and say something completely disarming like, Dana, has anyone ever told you that you have Cassiopeia right…here? And then he will touch her little constellation of freckles so gently with the tip of his finger, like he’s really not touching her at all, and she will lose track of her filing or her faxing or whatever it was she was doing before he sauntered up, so cool and composed, to lean across her desk in the first place.

It would be easier, she thinks, if he wasn’t so nice. And clever. And handsome. If he was a dumb, ugly jerk, she would have no problem throwing him out (and she’d probably take an even greater amount of satisfaction in it than with the horny couples).

Because she’s not stupid. She knows that pretty, older boys with low, rumbly voices and plush, pink lips don’t seek out girls like her. Not with good intentions, at least. Boys—men, she corrects, because, god, he’s twenty-one—like him go for a different sort of girl. Taller. Older. Louder, funnier, sexier.

So there has to be some ulterior motive, has to, and it’s only a matter of time before his sweet exterior cracks to reveal whatever is really lurking beneath those puppy dog eyes and big smile and soft, gentle hands.

She hopes he just leaves her alone before then. It will be easier, really, for everyone involved.

—

It is a quarter past ten, and Dana lies curled on her lumpy twin bed, her phone cradled in both hands, her back to the wall. The cinderblocks are cool through her thin pajama top.

“He came in again today,” she says, low, like a secret.

“And?” Her sister’s voice is tinny and amused, two thousand-odd miles and a phone line away.

“He said I was beautiful,” she says. “He said I was going to win the Nobel Prize.”

Missy hmms. “For being beautiful?”

Dana shakes her head even though there’s nobody here to see it. Her roommate has been gone for three nights in a row.

“For curing cancer.”

Melissa snorts. “And what’d you say?”

Dana bites the inside of her cheek, the sore patch she’s nibbled raw.

“Nothing.” She draws the blankets tighter around herself. “I told him to leave.”

A pause. Dana thinks her sister might laugh at her, but Missy only sighs.

“Dana.”

“Yeah?”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Don’t do that. This guy likes you. Why are you—”

“No, he doesn’t,” Dana says. She scrunches the phone cord between her fingers and releases it. Scrunches. Releases.

Melissa does laugh now. “Excuse me, what?”

“He doesn’t like me, Missy. He’s just…playing.”

“Just playing.” Melissa doesn’t sound convinced.

“The way guys do. You know. When they don’t mean it.”

“Oh, my god, Dane.” Melissa laughs again. “‘Just playing’ is calling you after midnight to ask what you’re wearing. It’s…it’s buying you a few drinks, taking you home, and not calling you the next day. This boy is not ‘just playing.’”

When Dana doesn’t say anything, Melissa continues: “Babe,” she says. “Do you honestly believe this guy would be spending that much time in the library if he was ‘just playing?’ Last week, you told me he was there until eleven o’clock on a Friday. Trust me. No guy is spending his Friday night in a library for a girl if he’s just playing.”

Dana bites her cheek again, licks her bottom lip. She thinks about last Friday. He’d shown up a little after eight, fresh from a shower, his hair still damp. She’d been in the fourth floor biology section, pulling books on tree frogs to fill a hold request, and he’d materialized behind her, smiling, with a cup of coffee and a packet of peanut M&Ms. The flip in her stomach had almost knocked her over.

“Hey,” he said. “I was looking for you. Here. Sustenance.”

And he’d thrust the coffee and the candy out at her with a dip of his chin, almost shy. She’d had a lab at eight that morning, and she’d been exhausted. The coffee smelled heavenly—rich and creamy. Exactly what she hadn’t even known she’d needed.

But instead of taking it, she’d folded the books about tree frogs to her chest, lifted her brow, and said, “Mulder, no. You can’t be doing this.”

“Why not?” He seemed genuinely curious. Concerned, maybe, that he was breaking some food-and-drink policy.

She tightened her grip on the books and said, “I don’t need it. I’m working. I need to focus.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Caffeine. Sugar. I only have your best interests at heart.”

Her cheeks flamed and she turned away, trying to seem like she was looking for the next book on her list even though all the titles blurred together.

“C’mon, Dana,” he said. “I come in peace.”

“I’m busy.” She didn’t turn around even as he came up behind her, so close she could feel the heat of him, could smell his foresty, manly soap.

“What are you looking for?”

And she’d relented. Something about his closeness, about the way he leaned over her just a little bit, made her weak. She’d shown him the list, and she’d accepted his help.

But she hadn’t accepted the coffee or the candy. Not even when he’d followed her back to the circulation desk and spent the next two hours shifting his weight from one foot to the other, asking her about class, her day, the best book she read that week, her last name, her phone number, and would she like to have dinner one night—any night—he was free any time?

“Good night, Mulder,” she said about ten times before he finally left—not without a few glances over his shoulder—so she could close up.

He’d left the coffee (cold) and the candy (unopened) on the desk. The coffee she poured out in the women’s room. The M&Ms… The M&Ms she ate later, one by one, while she called Melissa, sucking the candy coating off to make them last.

“Dana,” Melissa says now, breaking the silence. “You know he’s not going to wait forever, right?”

Dana frowns against the receiver. “What do you mean?”

“I mean this guy is clearly crazy about you. But if you keep playing hard to get—”

“I’m not!”

“—then he’s going to get bored, okay? It’s fun for a little while, but then it’s like…like running your head into a brick wall, over and over and over again. Eventually, if you keep telling him to get out, he will. And he won’t come back.”

“Good,” Dana says, even though the unexpected ache in her chest doesn’t necessarily agree. “That’s what I want.”

“Hmm.” On the other end of the line, Dana hears the flick of a lighter. “Well. If you really don’t want him, tell him you’ve got a sister in California who would be more than happy to entertain him.”

An image—brief, but not brief enough—flashes through her mind and her stomach clenches.

“I have to go, Missy,” she says. “Good night.”

She recradles the phone on her bedside table and turns out the light. She imagines walking into the library tomorrow, no Mulder. And the day after that, no Mulder. And next week, no Mulder.

She imagines that today was the last day. She imagines him never coming back to lean over the circulation desk and waggle his eyebrows at her, or stand too close to her in the stacks, or surprise her with a little treat ever again.

Maybe she’d spot him on the green one day and he’d point her out to his buddies and laugh. Hey, that’s the girl I messed with last semester. You know, the dumb one who really thought I liked her? Maybe he’d be too busy making puppy dog eyes at some other girl—some tall, willowy, interesting girl—to even notice her.

It would be for the best. This past week has just been a sort of…temporary universal insanity. A paracosm. A Dickensian glimpse into what her life could be if, perhaps, she lived in some alternate reality (which, let the record show, she does not believe in—but hypothetically).

Here, Missy’s voice interrupts, echoing in her head. This guy is clearly crazy about you. She frowns into the darkness. It sounds so simple when her sister says it, so reasonable.

And then there’s Mulder’s voice, too, low and intimate, asking her to coffee, to dinner, to a movie, to anything, really, anything at all. And not just one day. Every day. Several times a day, again and again and again, no matter how many times she says no, says Mulder, please, says I have work to do.

Dana tosses and turns and draws the covers up over her head, curling herself tight against the seductive pull of fantasy. She has always been the level-headed one, never a daydreamer, never impractical. She resents the idea that some boy who will no doubt be gone in another week’s time can ruffle her so much.

Huffing, she hugs a pillow tight to her chest and resolves to put Fox Mulder from her mind. It works, like most nights, only until she begins to dream.

[96enox-blog]

pool date (woozi)

to a boy i love right now; October 16

A/N: Yeah. I fell in love with Lee Jihoon over the last couple months. Every story in this series will probably show that. Man, I adore him. The dates are important lol. I like chronology. Here we go. Happy 2019! Here’s to a start to my own personal project.

PS: Promise the stories shorten after the first few :D

word count: 1.8k | fluff fluff fluff | also clearly I like pool | and I never name her. | Part 2: October 24

“How is this fun?” she demands as Hansol nudges her into the pub. “This seems like the least fun place you could take me to.”

Hansol snorts as Seungkwan follows them inside. “Oh come on. You’ve been studying non-stop, noona. It’s a good idea to relax a little.”

Her eyes swing around the room. There are four pool tables in the center with booths all along the perimeter. A few people are lined up waiting for drinks at the bar. It smells musky and the lighting is dim except for over the pool tables. It feels like a Western-cowboy movie.

“They’re here already,” Seungkwan says over her shoulder.

“Where?” she asks. Her heart rate picks up at the prospect of meeting new people.

Hansol urges her forward.

Seungkwan had called him to their apartment when she’d walked out of her bedroom and screamed into a pillow on their couch. When she’d calmed down enough to talk, Hansol had gotten out of her that she was stressed about midterm season. So Hansol had instructed that they get dressed (that included Seungkwan) and he would take them somewhere fun.

As she had left the room, she’d overheard the two boys whispering. And at first, she was compliant, going and actually getting dressed even though a little voice nagged her about all the study time she’d be missing. By the time she went out to find Hansol on the couch, she’d changed her mind.

He smiled up at her, but frowned when he saw her expression. “Ah, ah, ah, noona. You aren’t backing out. I’ve already made plans for us. There are people waiting for us.”

“There are who doing what?” she demanded. “I don’t want to see anyone, Hansol.”

“Your outfit says otherwise.”

As they now walk up to a pool table of Hansol’s music major friends, her outfit still feels out of place. Her large hoodie and skinny jeans don’t exactly feel dressed up when the boys look wonderfully casual.

“I’m so not going to enjoy this,” she mutters to Hansol. Despite herself, a smile grows on her face. The tallest one returns it when he sees her. An arm drapes around her shoulders.

“Noona, didn’t think Hansol would be able to get you out here.”

“Nice to see you too, Mingyu,” she grumbles. She leans into him. He’s the only one she’s met before. The three other boys are familiar, because they tend to be around when she goes to find Hansol on campus. The one currently angling to take a shot is dressed similarly to Mingyu in a silk shirt, though his black contrasts Mingyu’s pale pink shirt.

The familiar crack of two pool balls connecting echoes in her ears. She watches the 6-stripe roll into the right corner pocket. The man straightens and high-fives the man standing next to him. Both have equally impassive expressions, though the one who’d just played is considerably shorter than the other men around the table.

“Oh, noona, I don’t think you’ve ever met my roommate,” Mingyu says. The man looks up at Mingyu’s voice. “That’s Jihoon hyung. He’s majoring in music production.”

Jihoon bows his head and takes the water bottle from his partner’s hand so he can play. Mingyu takes it upon himself to introduce the players she doesn’t recognize. “That tall cool guy is Wonwoo hyung. He’s good at games and Jihoon hyung is really competitive, so it’s not really fair that—”

“Shut up, Gyu,” Wonwoo’s deep voice murmurs. Over the music and all the other people playing pool, she’s surprised that his voice rings clear. She hadn’t even noticed his mouth moving. Carefully, he rounds the table, eyeing all the possibilities.

Meanwhile, Mingyu draws her attention away from Wonwoo to a man with brightly coloured hair and a bright smile on his face ready to greet her. His two front teeth remind her of a bunny and she can’t help but reciprocate the smile. “This is Soonyoung hyung. He’s not very good.” He waves towards the pool table. “That’s why we’re losing and the hyungs are going to beat us.”

“You just suck at the game, Gyu,” Jihoon chuckles.

“Noona’s actually really good,” Hansol quips.

“You take my place,” Mingyu encourages. “I’ll play with Hansol and Seungkwanie.”

She bites her bottom lip as Mingyu hands off his pool cue. Jihoon, across the table, notes that the cue is too long for her. Since Wonwoo is still trying to decide at what angle he wants to hit the cue, Jihoon passes his pool cue across the table. She hands Mingyu’s back towards him and Jihoon heads towards the far wall where there are others. She tosses the pool cue between her hands and finds it’s a little too heavy for her liking. She glances at Wonwoo who still hasn’t taken his shot yet.

Soonyoung is apparently on her train of thought. “Wonwoo, stop taking eons. Let’s go.”

She joins Jihoon at the cue rack. He glances over at her as she walks up. “Still too long?”

“I tend to use a lighter one,” she admits. She hands it back to him. Jihoon studies it and watches her try two others before picking the latter. She inspects the tip and shrugs.

“You play pool often?” Jihoon asks.

She shakes her head as they make their way back to the others. “I honestly haven’t played in a while.”

Hansol, Seungkwan, and Mingyu have bought a beer for everybody. As she’s not into drinking and Jihoon has to be up early for a class the next day, they pass on the alcohol.

“More for us then,” Mingyu sings. They’ve taken to a booth across from their pool table. Wonwoo and Soonyoung with a beer in them are useless players, so she and Jihoon have kicked them out.

To make it more interesting, they’ve started betting. So far, he owes her a pizza and she owes him a coffee. It’s getting late and they’re on their last game.

She bends over to line up the cue ball with the striped 4 at the other end of the table. It’s sitting right next to the far left pocket, courtesy of Jihoon’s last shot. She tucks her hair behind her ear, but it tickles her neck. It also doesn’t help that Jihoon’s eyes are following her every move. He was careful at the beginning, careful not to stare, careful not to brush by her. As they’ve played and she’s won and made a few hard shots (and with Hansol and Seungkwan shouting some drunken facts about her), he’s become increasingly more interested.

Sighing, she pushes her cue stick into Jihoon’s hand, as he’s basically standing right next to her. There’s no elastic on her wrist, so she turns to Hansol. “Do you have one of my elastics?”

Hansol pats his pockets and nods. He stretches across Seungkwan and Soonyoung to give it to her. Since becoming friends, he’s learned to carry a spare on him for when she forgets them for lab or if she has a test. She pulls her hair up into a ponytail and sighs in relief. Rather than lining up herself and the ball again, she trusts her judgement and hits the cue.

The crack is satisfying and she watches, with a smirk, the ball fall right into the pocket. The cue ball bumps into the edge before rolling back to the center of the table. Jihoon has given her a few free shots by knocking the cue ball in after his own solid. She smiles and turns to Jihoon. “I have the 8 ball left, Jihoon. I think you’re gonna have to owe me delivery after all.”

“Hyung, don’t let her smack talk you,” Mingyu calls.

Snorting, she meets the man’s eyes. Mingyu is grinning stupidly, as he has since consuming his second beer.

“If that’s your best smack talk, I think I’ll be fine,” Jihoon snorts.

“I don’t really talk smack. I let my play prove how good I am.”

Jihoon tips his head, unable to argue with her there. She can’t get the 8-ball in one shot, so she rolls it near a pocket out of Jihoon’s way and lets him play. While he’s been checking her out, she’s been doing the same in return. And she has to admit that his butt isn’t bad to look at.

Now, he wiggles it a little, knowing she’s staring.

Maybe it’s that sip of beer from Hansol that has eased her nerves a little. Or she’s already too warm in this room that she can’t feel her embarrassment anymore.

Jihoon knocks three of his solids into various pockets. He sinks his last one and then straightens up, standing across the billiard table from her. “I bet you one date.”

She blinks in surprise at this turn of events. The boys can all hear him and hoot from their spots in the booth. Jihoon ignores them. “If I sink the 8-ball in this next shot, you owe me a date.”

As he was playing, he’d bumped the 8-ball out of alignment. To get it into any pocket from its position right now would be difficult. Jihoon is a mediocre player at best and she knows she’s better than him at the game.

Dating good looking musical types scares her though, so saying yes here would either be bad or worse news for her. Bad if she doesn’t get the date, worse if she does. So she nods. “Okay, deal.”

Jihoon smiles and her heart melts a little. The boys have gotten up, drinks in hand, to stand around the table as Jihoon lines up his shot. Hansol drapes an arm around her shoulders, mostly because he gets clingy when he’s had a bit too much to drink.

They watch as Jihoon stares hard at the table. Throughout the night, she’s watched his eyes switch from focused to unfocused just from a tilt in his head. He almost looks angry when focused.

Finally, Jihoon bends over to take his shot. The ball knocks against one side, rolls to the other before knocking into the 8-ball. The momentum continues through and pushes the ball away from the closer pocket to the one on the other side. It lands perfectly into it. Mingyu and Soonyoung yelp, running to jump onto Jihoon’s back. He grins across the table at her and Hansol squeezes her shoulder.

Outside the pub, their friends separate to give them time to say goodbye.

“I didn’t think you’d manage that last one,” she tells him honestly, burying her hands into the pockets of Hansol’s jacket.

Jihoon scratches the side of his head. “Yeah, I wasn’t expecting it either. But you owe me a coffee and a date now.”

“Coffee date on campus tomorrow then?” she asks. “After my midterm.”

Jihoon nods. He holds his phone out to her. She texts herself and feels her phone buzz in her pocket. After passing the phone back, they awkwardly stand there. He shuffles his feet, unsure of how to say goodbye.

Until Mingyu steps in to save them. He loops an arm around Jihoon’s shoulders. “You have class early tomorrow, hyung. We should go.” He steers Jihoon away. Over his shoulder, Mingyu calls, “He’ll see you in his dreams, noona.”

Jihoon’s ducked head indicates embarrassment and she can’t help but laugh.

[joohoneyhoe]

The Cat.

info: min yoongi x oc genre: fluff, cheesy movie references, humor, smut, unprotected sex, oral, fingering, anal play, anal word count: 5.2k a/n: this fic was inspired by my cat, not gonna lie.

“Goddammit, Dexter! Why, why do you do this every morning? You know you can’t go outside!” 

My head shot up to see my new neighbor darting out of his condo door. A gray, long haired tabby cat with pale green eyes ran in my direction, making me quickly set my box down I had been carrying to help catch his defiant pet. His eyes caught mine and he began shaking his head as I reached out to grab his runaway cat. I cocked mine in confusion as I crouched down, eyes shifting between him and the cat called Dexter.

“No, no, no!” he exclaimed, waving his arms wildly. 

I ignored his protest, knowing that just past me was the stairs leading down to the open world. I swooped up the cat with ease, swiftly holding it in a comfortable position and scratching behind it’s ears. I felt the feline stop struggling and begin to purr loudly, pressing into my caress. 

I looked up to find the mint colored haired man before me, his eyebrows raised in what appeared to be surprise. His pouty lips were parted slightly, just glancing between me and his pet cat. I gave him a smile, closing the gap between us and handing his companion back to him.

“I hope I didn’t freak you out by grabbing your cat, I just was afraid it would make it down the stairs and run off.” I explained as he took his cat back, who looked entirely bored with the situation at hand.

“No, um, that’s not it. It’s just--Dexter doesn’t like anyone but me. Normally she would have bitten you or scratched the shit out of you for picking her up. But, she’s still purring. I’m just a little speechless is all.” he confessed, walking backwards to his door, opening it slightly and placing his cat back inside before returning.

“I’m Aloy, by the way. I just started moving in today, obviously.” I held my hand out to him in greeting, still having yet to see any form of smile on the handsome man’s face. He took my greeting, his handshake firm, but gentle all at once.

“I’m Yoongi. I should warn you now, I’m a pianist and I tend to do most of my work late at night. So, if I ever wake you up at all, just come knock and let me know and I can move to my keyboard and put headphones in or something. No one has lived next door in the three years I’ve been here, so I’ve never had to worry about it until now.” 

Yoongi shoved his hands into the pockets of his tight ripped black jeans, pushing his bangs aside with a jerk of his head. I took the opportunity to take in all of him, his thin tall frame, that brightly colored hair and those piercing dark brown eyes. He was a beautiful man, it was hard not to stare at him. I think I would very much enjoy living next to him, especially considering we were surrounded by uppity old people and I wasn’t exactly planning on making friends with them.

“Well, I’m a bit of a night owl myself. If anything, it’ll help me sleep and I can always appreciate that.” I reassured him, and for the first time, he gave me a smile. It was gummy and beautiful. 

“Good to know. Well, I have to go now. I stupidly promised some friends I would meet them for breakfast. I’ll see you around, Aloy.” I picked my box back up, giving him one last smile before I watched him walk past me. I went back to my task, pushing the door open further with my foot, struggling a little.

“Wait, wait. Let me help you.” Yoongi’s voice reverberated behind me, his footsteps quickly approaching. He carefully took the large box from my grasp, giving me another smile, essentially making my insides melt.

“You don’t have to do that. Plus, your friends are expecting you.” I reasoned, offering to take it back, but he stubbornly shook his head no.

“My friends can wait.”

“Good morning, Dexter my dear.” 

I greeted the gray feline as she trotted over to me. I crouched down, holding my palm face up with a treat ready for her. Ever since I moved in a few months back, Dexter escaped every morning and Yoongi chased after her. So, I proactively bought a bag of cat treats and when I would hear Yoongi's doorknob turn, I would go out and head off his cat. Now, after weeks of this, he lets her just waltz out of his condo and come get her treat and pets from me before I take her back to him.

It was a nice little routine for all three of us and it gave me an excuse to see him every day.

I picked her up, holding her against my chest as I pet her languidly. Yoongi gave me a wide smile as he came up to me, his large hand reaching out to pet the cat as well. I took in his appearance, still in a pair of joggers, a white shirt and no shoes or socks. He had nowhere to be, so why was he out here?

“Where are you going to so casually dressed, Min Yoongi?” I teased him with a chuckle. His cheeks dusted a light shade of pink, eyes focused on his cat, seemingly avoiding my gaze.

“Um, actually, I wanted to ask if you wanted to come hang out tonight. Maybe get a pizza, eat too much and watch documentaries or some shit.” he asked lowly as he brought his chocolate eyes up to mine.

“Really?”

“I mean, you don’t have to, I just thought maybe it would be fun and neither of us ever seem to have plans on weekends. But, like I said, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Yoongi pointed out, sticking his hands in his pockets, something I had noticed he did anytime he was even the slightest bit uncomfortable.

“I’d really like that actually, Yoongi. It would be fun to not watch documentaries by myself for once.” I admitted as I handed Dexter over to him. “Okay, well, I can order pizza for us around six, after I’ve finished my piece. You can come over anytime after that.” I smiled, drawing one out of him in he process. 

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Min Yoongi.”

Yoongi and I had spent until two in the morning watching documentaries and vegging out on his couch, eating far too much pizza. Conversation came easy and silence was comfortable with him, something I rarely experienced and I assumed it was the same with him. He wasn’t exactly the most social individual.

Now I found myself laying in my bed, thinking about all of our encounters over the last few months. I could hear the sound of him plucking away on his piano, it soothing to my ears. I had never had an issue falling asleep when he was composing, in fact, it was quite the opposite. It helped me fall into a deep slumber easily.

But, not tonight.

My mind kept wandering back to his lips and the way they always looked pouted, even when he was speaking. I thought about the way his nose would scrunch up when he was explaining a story or discussing a documentary. I also thought about the deepness of his voice, the way it would send a chill up my spine when it would dip below it’s usual tone.

Everything about Min Yoongi was driving me crazy and tonight only seemed to spur it on further. I wanted to know what it would feel like to be held by him. To feel his long fingers against my body, dancing along my skin like they did on the keys of his piano. I wanted to hear his deep voice, whispering to me with those pouted lips brushing against my ear. 

All of those thoughts caused a heat in my lower belly, making me rub my thighs together trying to soothe the ache I was feeling between my legs now. I quickly tried to push all of those things out of my head, concentrating on the music coming from the other side of the wall.

I continued to listen to him play, trying my hardest to fall asleep, only to find I could not. He wouldn’t leave my thoughts, his face appearing every time I closed my eyes or his voice sounding in my ear. It was driving me mad.

Could he not sleep because he may have been feeling the same, or was it just simply his creativity keeping him up. It was nearly four in the morning now, much later than I had ever heard him stay up. Maybe he was trying to distract himself, like I was. Though I was not succeeding nearly as well as he was at it.

I suppose there was only one way to find out.

I threw the covers back from my bare legs, quickly throwing on the oversized hoodie Yoongi had let me borrow tonight and heading towards my front door. It nearly covered my shorts entirely, making it appear as if I wasn’t wearing any, but it really didn’t matter at this point to me. I didn’t even bother to slip on my sandals, I was trying not to think about what I was about to do. I quickly shut the door behind me, heading down he breezeway to his door. 

Once I was in front of it, I just stood there, unsure of myself. 

What if I'm completely wrong and he was just a lonely guy looking for a friend? What if I’m reading too much into it? What if I make everything awkward between us after this?

I shook those thoughts away and just knocked on his door without thinking about it further. I heard the piano stop, my heartbeat speeding up as I heard his footsteps approaching his door. I put my hands into the pockets of the sweatshirt, trying to become as small as I could. The door flew open, Dexter shooting out, realizing it was me and winding herself around my legs, her fur tickling my skin.

“Aloy, am I keeping you up? I can stop. I was just having trouble sleeping.” he apologized, his face showing his sincerity. 

“No, you aren’t keeping me up, Yoongi. I just--I couldn’t sleep either. I kept thinking about tonight, actually. As strange as that sounds.” I replied bluntly, feeling my cheeks flush intensely. His eyes suddenly dropped to his cat, watching as she moved in and out of my legs.

“It’s not strange. I’ve been thinking about it too.” his response surprised me, my head tilting slightly. “Really?” he finally looked up, giving me a small smile. 

“Yes. All I keep thinking about is how many times I had the opportunity to kiss you and I didn’t take it. I wanted to so many times and I had a really hard time not doing it. A really hard time. I didn’t though, because I obviously didn’t know if you would be okay with it and I was too big of a pussy to actually ask you if I could.” he revealed, pushing his door open a little wider. 

“I would have said yes.” I informed him, giving him smile. I watched him pull his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes downward as it looked as if he was deep in thought. They finally came back up to meet mine, releasing his lip with a pop as he did.

“Do you wanna come back inside?” he questioned, his eyes looking as if they were growing darker. “Yes. I do.” he snapped his fingers at his feline, signally her to go back inside. “Dexy, in.” she listened, lazily walking past him, myself behind her. Yoongi shut and locked the door, then turned around to face me. 

He didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable anymore.

My eyes were locked to his as he approached me, stopping just inches away. I could feel his warm breath on my face, making me briefly bite my bottom lip. He leaned in closer and closer, his mouth hovering above mine, my chest rising at a more rapid pace.

“Can I?” he asked, his deep voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes.” 

He leaned in slowly, his lips finally meeting mine, the kiss cautious, careful. Once he pulled back, his eyes roamed my face, analyzing my response to his actions. I brought my hands up to his waist, placing them there gently as I met his stare. He licked his lips, eyes flicking down to mine and back up again as if asking me silently if he could do it again. I nodded yes, getting a smirk from him in response.

He dove back in, this time his kiss was confident and aggressive. I let him push me towards the nearest wall, pressing me against it as his body pinned me there for good. I kept my arms locked around his waist as his hands landed on both sides of my head against the wall. His tongue ran along the seam of my lips, asking for entrance and I instantly opened up to him. 

Yoongi then moved his body flush against my own, his tongue dominating mine as one of his hands came over to cup my neck and tilt my head slightly. I could feel his length hardening against my thigh, making me groan into his mouth in which he responded by reaching down and cupping my throbbing pussy. I let out a gasp at his action, pulling my lips away.

He gave me a mischievous smirk, keeping his hand on my heat as he eyed me hungrily. I let my fingers travel down to the hem of his black long sleeved shirt, dipping under it to touch the soft skin of his stomach. I let the pads of my fingers skim across his navel, feeling goosebumps raise along his torso as I did. I moved lower, my index and middle finger running along the inside of the band of his underwear that was peeking out over top of his basketball shorts. He growled at me, grabbing my wrist and yanking them away.

“Come with me, I have something I want to show you.” 

He gripped my wrist and pulled me down the hall to a door at the end of it. I realized this was the room closest to my own based on the layout. He pushed the door open, bringing me in behind him before shutting it. In the very middle of the room was a large black grand piano and the floor around it littered with papers. I noticed his bed was on the same wall as mine at the other end of the room, nearly in the exact same spot, headboard to headboard. 

He dragged me over to his most prized possession, slamming the piano cover closed and then the fallboard to cover the keys. One of his arms wound around my my waist and the other under my legs, successfully picking me up bridal style and setting me on top of the large instrument. His hands parted my legs so he could step between them, his fingers gripping the tops of my thighs as he gazed up at me.

“Are you really going to Pretty Woman me right now?” I questioned him, taking my hand through that mint green hair carefully. His head tilted, eyebrow quirked like he didn’t know what I was referencing.

“I’ve never actually seen that movie. So what, he eats her out on top of a piano like I’m going to do to you?” my cheeks immediately flushed at his unbridled statement, making him lick his lips and smirk.

“Yes. That’s exactly what happens.” I responded, taking my hand through my own hair nervously.

“Well then, I’ll have to do it better than the movie I suppose.” 

He hooked his thumbs into the band of my shorts, pulling them off in one swift motion, leaving me naked from the waist down. I wanted to shut my legs, but he was between them, palms on my knees keeping them wide open so I could not. He pressed himself against the piano fully, reaching up to grab onto the bottom of his sweatshirt I had on.

“I like this on you. Seeing you in it for the first time was another one of those moments I really wanted to kiss you.” he confessed as he carefully removed the sweatshirt from my torso, leaving me in only a oversized white shirt.

“Oh, was it?” laying his hands flat on the surface next to my thighs, he tilted his chin and connected our lips, making me sigh in response. 

“Yes. Now, hush and take that shit off.” he demanded, fingers moving back to massage the tops of my thighs as I yanked the shirt off. I was now entirely bare before his dark eyes, my face flushing a little in embarrassment.

“You’re cute when you blush.” he commented, his soft hands running from my legs all the way to my hips, up my waist and then winding around until he reached the middle of my back. He then tugged me all the way to the edge of the piano. 

I took both hands through his hair, giving it a light tug as he began to kiss along my neck and shoulders. He gripped my waist again, his lips moving lower and lower until he reached the valley of my breast. As he continued gracing my skin with the petals of his soft lips, he took my hands and removed them from his locks, placing them at my sides.

Yoongi let out a heavy breath before taking off his shirt and tossing it behind him carelessly. He then brought both hands up to my breast, immediately making a whimper fall from my lips. Kneading them gently he began kissing them again, worshiping them with his mouth in a sense.

“You have the rosiest nipples I have ever seen. They’re beautiful.” he remarked before taking one between his lips, making my stomach erupt in butterflies. 

He pressed my breast together, running his mouth from bud to bud, sucking each into his mouth for a moment before moving back to the other. My back arched towards him, enjoying the feeling of his slow ministrations along my chest. It had been a long time since someone had paid my breast this much attention and I was loving every bit of it.

“Yoongi-” I whined at him as he swirled his tongue around one of the stiff peaks, his thumb rubbing back and forth along the other. 

He finally pulled away, taking the back of my neck and bringing my lips down to his. The kiss was brief and before I knew it, he was placing his hand on my chest and pressing me to lay back against the top of the piano. He pried my legs open further, bringing his mouth down to kiss along my navel and hips, those eyes looking up at me hungrily.

“How are you this wet already?” he inquired as he ran a finger through my folds, making my back arch once again. “I’ve been wet since I left you the first time.” I admitted to him, covering my face with my forearm. He chuckled, lips traveling down to the top of my mound.

“Hm. Well then, I guess I had better take care of that then.”

He slowly ran his tongue up my slit, collecting all of my wetness and humming in satisfaction. One of his hands moved to the back of my thigh, pushing it towards my chest, placing my foot flat on the surface of the piano and giving him better access to my heat.

His fingers parted my folds further, mouth coming back in to lave his tongue along my clit in a back and forth motion. I began to wriggle beneath him, finding it hard to stay still as he continued to lap at me in what felt like slow motion. I placed my other foot up on the piano, encouraging him to delve in further. He reached up and smacked my inner thigh harshly, making me yelp.

“Impatient girl, calm yourself. I won’t leave you hanging.” he reassured me, knocking the foot I had propped out from under me, making me squeak in surprise.

He moved back to my pussy, returning to his relaxed pace, but pulling my clit between his lips and sucking slowly. I let out another whine as his hand reached up to play with one of my nipples, feeling him grin into my core. He sped up slightly, the tip of his tongue circling my bud.

I took one of my hands into his hair, scratching my nails along his scalp gently. I continued doing so as he continued to speed up ever so slightly every few minutes. I involuntarily yanked on his hair when he teeth nipped at my clit, making him growl, the vibration rolling through me nicely.

“Do you make a habit of growling into people’s pussies when you eat them out?” I asked, tugging on his hair playfully. 

“Only when they taste as good as you do.” the back of his hand smacked my inner thigh once again, making me jump and let out a laugh.

I wasn’t laughing for long though, because his skilled tongue went back to work almost immediately. He grabbed the leg that was hanging off the edge of the piano and moved it to join the other that was propped up, giving him all the access he could possibly want. I felt his finger began wiggling at my entrance, slowly making it’s way inward, stretching my walls. A second followed after the first withdrew, and he began making a almost twisting like motion.

“Oh, God!” I called out, bringing my arms up behind my head as I arched forward.

“You can just call me Yoongi.” he joked, those piercing eyes gazing up at me with a devilish grin as I looked down at him with a scowl. His eyebrows raised at me, then suddenly, he curled his fingers and hit my sweet spot.

I instantly let out a cry of pleasure, fingers moving to grip the edge of the piano to try and ground myself. He repeated the motion, but returned his tongue to the mix, making my entire lower half feel as if it was on fire. I knew it would only take a few more curls of his long nimble fingers and I’d be done for. I felt both of his digits beginning to move separately, like he was dancing them like he would on the keys of his piano. 

That did it, I constricted around him, my body tensing up entirely as I screamed out his name on top of his grand piano. He stopped the tap dancing movements and just pumped in and out of me as I rode out my intense climax. Once it had finished hitting me like a ton of bricks, I let out a deep breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding in. 

I felt Yoongi’s lips kissing along my inner thighs as he withdrew his fingers at an agonizingly slow pace. But, once they were out, he took hold of my wrist and quickly yanked me off the top of the piano and connected our lips. The kiss was fierce, his hands groping my ass as I raked my nails down his back, surely leaving a red trail in their wake.

He pulled away suddenly, snarling at me before spinning me around and shoving me against the piano again with my ass facing him. I heard him rip down his shorts and kick them away before he stepped up behind me, his hard length pressing against me. His large hand landed against my ass, stinging and making me let out a hiss as the sound rang out in the wildly acoustic room.

“Now tell me, is anal involved in that notorious piano scene? Because if it isn’t, that’s a damn shame.” he commented into my ear, an involuntary moan passing through my parted lips. He laughed lowly at my reaction to his sinful words, obviously pleased by it.

“I take it as you’re into that then? Because I would most certainly be happy to indulge you.” he whispered as he kissed along the back of my neck, his fingers moving inwards towards my rim.

“Please do.” I consented, leaning on my elbows as I glanced over my shoulder at him.

“Well, I hit the fucking jackpot with you, didn’t I?” he remarked, leaving me momentarily to grab something from his bedside drawer. When he returned, I heard the click of a cap and the sound of something being squirted onto his fingers.

He pressed half of his body against mine, finger immediately finding my rim and circling it. I let out a gasp at the contact. It had been a long time since anyone had been back there, but that didn’t make me any less excited about it. One of his fingers slid in, a whimper leaving my lips as my head dropped, my hair splaying out all over the top of the black piano.

“Relax, I know what I’m doing.” Yoongi reassured me, kissing my temple tenderly as he added another finger to the party. This time I let out a loud moan, head flinging back as he began to wiggle them back and forth slightly. 

“Man, finding a girl whose into anything anal related is a pain in the dick. Who would have guessed the beautiful, funny and smart girl next door would be so damn naughty?” he commented before biting down on my shoulder roughly as his fingers continued their work.

“Fuck!” 

My voice cracked as my body still shook from my earlier release, my arousal dripping down my thighs as Yoongi kept going. It had been years since I had been with a man anything like Yoongi, and that man had been completely incompetent when it came to anything anal. But this, I could get used to this level of precision and enthusiasm. 

“I think that’s good enough.” he declared, removing his digits, a whine of protest coming from me in return. He positioned himself behind me, kissing my neck softly as his hands held my hips.

“Hush, I didn’t say I was done.” the bottle top clicked again and I heard him squeeze out a healthy amount. A almost slick sound could be heard as he spread it along his cock, something I had yet to even see. I moved to turn and look, but he slammed me back against the piano, pressing my chest down against the cold surface.

“No peeking, baby. Just take what you’re given.” 

“Yes, sir.” I said in compliance, my cheek pressed flat against the piano now as I waited for him to continue. 

He seemed satisfied with that reply and then slowly started inserting the tip of his cock into my tight hole. That was always the worst part. As he pushed in, it began to sting slightly, making me squeeze my eyes shut in response. He was huge, no wonder he kept me from turning around. His hand smoothed up my spine soothingly and then back down again, repeating this action a few times until my body untensed and began to relax.

“I told you I knew what I was doing.” he reminded me with confidence as the rest of his length now slid in with ease. I let out a deep sigh as he filled me, the pain now subsiding as he stayed still for a few moments longer, hand still running up and down my back.

“You can move now.” I informed him, hand reaching behind me rest on his hip, wanting to feel him under my fingers since I couldn’t see him. 

His hands moved back to my hips, holding me firmly as he withdrew slowly and then pushed back in. He did that a few more times before his pace began to increase, fingernails beginning to leave marks in my skin as he tried to control his urges.

“Harder.” I ordered, making him stop in surprise, tilting his head to look down at me as I smirked and side eyed him. He gave me that gummy smile, clearly excited by my demand.

“Oh, baby, I fucking like you.”

He barreled into me, a cry leaving both of us as he did. He wrapped one arm around my waist, the other moving down to my clit and beginning to rub it. His hips snapped into me, the sound of flesh hitting fleshing echoing throughout the room. I could feel the burning in my abdomen again as he pounded into me, my orgasm coming on fast and hard once more.

He sped up his movements on my clit, no doubt getting close himself. I moved my arm behind me, reaching back to tangle my fingers into those soft mint locks as he was fully pressed against my back. He went even harder, low grunts and growls rumbling in his chest as I whined underneath him.

“Fuck!” I literally screamed, my pussy clenching around nothing as I was hit by a second hard climax. My body trembled, legs shaking and knees wanting to give out as it pummeled through me like hurricane. 

Yoongi kept going, pushing off of me to move back to holding onto my hips. His pace was brutal and rough, something I had not expected out of someone so frail looking. But, Min Yoongi was anything but frail. I heard a deep moan leave his chest and next thing I knew, he was releasing inside of me, hips sputtering and pace decreasing as he did so.

He finally stopped his movements, slowly and carefully pulling himself out of me. I just continued to lay against the top of the piano, two intense orgasms having wiped me out completely. I felt Yoongi take my upper arm, bringing me away from it before scooping me back up bridal style, carrying me to his bed and laying me down with the utmost care.

I instantly grabbed the fluffy black comforter and pulled it up over my shoulders, laying on my side and getting comfortable. He gave me a sweet smile as he crawled over and gave me a gentle kiss before getting back up. I watched him walk towards the door, confused as to where he was going without his clothes. But all he did was crack the door a little, letting Dexter shoot past him and run to the bed.

She jumped up, doing circles at the end of the bed while Yoongi sat at the edge, opening his laptop and fiddling with it for a few minutes as I lay back down and waited. Dexter finally got comfortable and laid down just as Yoongi was finishing whatever he was doing on his computer. He held it in his hand as he got under the covers beside me, stretching his arm out for me to curl up next to him. He set the laptop down on his hips turning it slightly so I could see, then pressed play.

“Are you serious right now?” I proclaimed with a laugh as the opening credits to Pretty Woman started up. Another gummy smile appeared on his lips, his eyes glued to the screen.

“I figured after that whole piano thing, I should see how I did in comparison.” he replied, his tone slightly arrogant and rightfully so.

“Oh, believe me, there’s no comparison needed, Min Yoongi.”

[aboysbestfriendishismum]

Chapter 50 - Xanadu, Donna Summer and Dave Gahan in leather pants (Part One)

The chapter is finally here and it wouldn’t if it wasn’t for my lovely friend and fellow writer and probably future wife in Rome @stars-open-among-the-lilies

THANK YOU BABY, I OWE YOU FROM HERE TO ETERNITY <3

***

In the previous chapter: as Meg suggested, Angie calls Susan and explains her problem, asking about the San Diego gig. Angie finds out Mookie Blaylock are now called Pearl Jam. Susan assures her she’s gonna call someone from Alice in Chains to come and pick her up and of all of them she calls Jerry Cantrell. Jerry goes where Angie is and doesn’t recognize her immediately since she has a new hairstyle, which by the way he doesn’t like. He takes her to the hotel where all the guys are staying, the whole gang is happy and surprised, the winners of the infamous bet are particularly happy. Angie asks about Eddie because he’s not with the others, Jerry walks her to the nearby beach where he’s surfing with his friend Craig. Angie and Eddie finally meet and from their behaviour towards each other Jerry has a sort of epiphany and figures out they’re more than friends. He leaves, hurt, while Ed and Angie can’t take their eyes off each other. Craig finally meets Angie and makes fun of Eddie in front of her, suggesting his friend should have the girl crash at his place since the whole mistake was his fault. Eddie accepts, of course, and the two of them leave for Eddie’s house, while Craig goes home by himself giving them some alone time.

***

“Don’t stare, don’t stare, don’t stare…” the good half of my conscience repeats as I sit in the car and Eddie works on fixing the board to the baggage rack.

“Nipples, nipples, nipples…” retorts the sick part as I bring  myself to take another quick look through the car window to enjoy the view of the surfer, who’s rolled down his wetsuit down to his waist, thus wearing only the bottom part of it.

Needless to say which of the two parts of me is taking over right now. If I don’t chill right now, I’ll end up answering his next question by yelling Nipples! at his face. It’s not like those were the only things to look at, I mean, there’s absolutely no lack of interesting details here, from his abs to the other muscles that… well, you know, look very well distributed, with small droplets of water trickling down from his wet hair, from the small moles on his chest to that narrow almost invisible path of hair that starts from the belly button and goes down down… Maybe I should have taken a refreshening dip in the ocean too.

“We’ll leave in a minute, ok? I’m almost done. Sorry again for all the troubles I caused” Eddie draws my attention and as I turn around I instantly thank god for my shades that are strategically hiding my most likely googly eyes, as I watch him leaning back against the car hood to take his wetsuit off completely. What did I do so wrong, or so right, to deserve this?

“Nip… No problem, I mean, where the fuck is the problem? Two extra days in San Diego, room and board and concert included, I’m the unluckiest person in the world!” I half shout across the window.

“No doubts about room and concert, don’t know about the board, it’ll probably disappoint you, I’ve got basically nothing at home” he chuckles embarrassed for his empty fridge, whereas he doesn’t show any trace of shyness as he pulls down the wetsuit, partially dragging down the shorts he’s wearing underneath within too, then slowly pulling them back up.

“Well, at least you’ve got a phone to order a pizza for delivery, right?” and to call for the ambulance I’ll soon need if he goes on like that.

Eddie nods as he takes off one leg of the wetsuit and awkwardly jumps on one foot, just like any other person would do, like I’d do, totally unconcerned or unaware, or both, of his overwhelming beauty and the effects it’s having on me.

“After we make things right with tickets and everything I’m gonna take you on a turistic tour, how would you like that?” he suggests, finally free from the wetsuit that is now in his hands and is promptly thrown in the trunk. From here I can see him grabbing a towel and dabbing his body and his hair with it and in a second I find myself with conclusive evidence to refute all theories about karma, reincarnation and past lives, bullshit I never believed in anyway. Because if it’s true that the soul migrates from one body do another to ascend on a higher plane of consciousness, how can it be that the lowest level is occupied by rocks and other so called inanimate objects? There are people out there living lives that are much more insignificant than Eddie’s towel’s right now. Eddie’s towel looks like the perfect end point once we’re free from our karmic debt, the best way to transcend existence. My spiritual thoughts, that are actually very earthly, stop when Eddie joins me in the car taking the driver’s seat, unlaced Chuck Taylors at his feet and towel temporarily resting on his knees as he’s putting on a grey Dead Kennedys t-shirt. “You don’t want to?”

“Huh? No, yes! Yeah, sure, I want to. I just, I don’t want you to change your plans anyway…”

“No plans to change really, I didn’t make plans for today” he reassures me as he towels off his hair some more.

“Are you sure?”

“Sure. But thank god you’re here and now I’ve got one: you are my plan” he half pinches my cheek and throws the towel on the backseat, right before starting the car and leaving.

“Whose car is this?”

“It’s my friend Jamie’s car, he’s lent it to me as long as I’m here, since I left my truck in Seattle”

“You left your surfboard in Seattle too, didn’t you? This doesn’t look like yours” I ask and he turns around and looks at me surprised, as if it sounded strange to him that I could remember such a thing.

“Yep, that’s Jamie’s too” he answers as he flicks down the visor to shield himself from the sun, that’s not in his eyes anymore, but is now shining on his curls revealing the lighter and slightly drier tips. I’ve never seen him so beautiful and that’s got nothing to do with the fact he was almost naked five minutes ago. He’s beautiful, of a glowing and delicate beauty, but lively, warm and somewhat wild and fiery. Maybe it’s because I’ve never seen him under California sun before.

“If you borrowed the wetsuit from him as well you got the whole Jamie set haha” the fuck am I laughing for?

“No, that’s mine, I had left it here. Also because Jamie’s 6'2’’, I’d lose his wetsuit at the first wave” he explains giggling but I honestly think there’s nothing to laugh about that image, I mean… C'MON, ANGIE, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!

“I ni… ehm, I see hehe” what have I just said?! You’re acting like you never saw a good looking guy before. Like you never saw Eddie. I mean, you’ve been friends for a while now, you even slept together, you’ve known for a while he’s hot for fuck’s sake!

“Didn’t you notice anything?” he inquires minutes later and I look at him like some husbands look at their wives who’ve just come back from the hairdresser’s and can’t see any difference. But I’m the one who changed hairstyle and I can’t see anything different in him now, except for being even hotter than usual but I seriously doubt this is what Eddie’s trying to tell me.

“Uhm… no. What?” Eddie takes his hands off the wheel and flails them around as if he was pointing at something really evident, but I still can’t understand. I try to guess: “Is it something in the car?”

Eddie shakes his head and turns up the stereo volume.

As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset, I am in paradise…

“AH! The song! Is it my tape?”

“Did you think they were casually playing Kinks on the radio?”

“It could be… You like it then!”

“Sure I do, I think I already told you”

“Yes, I mean you really like it”

“And what would the difference be?”

“That you like it so much you keep it in the car. And you didn’t even know we’d meet”

“Hehe no, it wasn’t a planned out move to impress you” he admits as we stop at traffic lights, keeping his eyes on the coast on his right. Impress me? For what?

Eddie parks his car along the coastal avenue, takes his surf board first then his wetsuit from the trunk and leads the way towards the beach. We follow a trail that dissolves in the sand and as I look down to observe once again how unsuitable my shoes are and considering taking them off, I’m almost run over by a couple of girls jogging on the beach, who immediately apologize, still running on without missing a beat. The trail starts again right behind a line of benches placed around to form an L shape under a short sycomore tree with a very wide crown. Eddie’s house is very close along the way, hidden behind other trees, some variety of pines I don’t know, a few steps from the ocean and from the coast, which I picture crawling with surfers and beachgoers during the summer, but at the same time is partially isolated, almost disguised, hidden behind this tipical sea vegetation. His house is really just like I expected it to be, maybe a little smaller, a one storey sea green house, surrounded by an unvarnished wooden fence, a not very tall hedge on the front, five steps leading to the porch and the entrance.

“Please, after you, my princess” Eddie invites me in and I focus back and see his hands are busy with wetsuit, board and keys and he’s keeping the gate open for me with his foot and I realize I should have helped him maybe? It’s too late now though… I quickly get in and walk up the stairs, while Eddie places his board down on the ground in the yard and hangs the wetsuit on the porch. His house may be hidden out but you can see the beach and the ocean very clearly from here.

“Nice view!” I exclaim as I place my hands on the porch railing and take a deep breath of the salty air of the Pacific, which is dry and light though.

“Yeah. And it’s even nicer now.” I turn around and see Eddie leaning against the door frame, hands in the pockets of his shorts, staring at the ground with a half smile on his face. He looks up soon after “Come on, get in”

“Hello…” I say as if there was someone else beside the two of us and I immediately feel stupid for that.

“We’re alone, Angie, no one else’s here.” Eddie smiles and tosses his keys on a round metal table beside the couch. As he does, he notices two pairs of boxers towering over a pile of apparently dirty laundry stacked right on the sofa and grabs them, leaving to another room. He comes back with an empty basket, quickly filling it up as he awkwardly apologizes “Fuck. Sorry for the mess, I wasn’t expecting any guests”

I don’t care that much, I’m more focused on examining the inside of the house. Blue is the dominant color, on the two sofas, the pillows, the living room forniture, the fridge, a couple of abstract paintings hanging on the walls, even the kettle on the small stove and the cover of the sports magazine on the other square small table between the couch and the tv set. Ok, Eddie having a tv seems quite strange, but sure he needs something to watch baseball and basketball, right? Not to mention infomercials. Maybe he should move the tv into his bedroom.

“No problem, really. And I can’t see any mess. It’s a really nice house”

“Thank you. It’ll be mine until the end of the month, since I’m here I thought I could make use of it a little longer, after all I already paid for it” he remarks, walking out of the room once again with the laundry basket in his hands.

“Good idea” I walk into the kitchenette and notice the chairs around the big table are not all the same, two are made of wood painted in black, the other two are folding chairs, still black, like camping chairs.

“Wanna take a shower?” he innocently asks turning back up in the living room, once again shirtless and with another towel around his neck.

“Mmh?”

“I should take one too”

“Huh” it looks like I lost my ability to speak and started expressing myself through guttural and vowel-like sounds only.

“You can go first if you want, I’ll take one after you” he points out fiving me a perplexed look.

Sure, after.

“Oh no, don’t worry, you can go first, I don’t need a shower”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, go and take your shower, I’ll just freshen up a little after you’re done”

“Look, I can wait”

“I can wait too! And well, actually I have another favor to ask you”

“Sure, what is it?”

“I should make a phone call, actually two. First call to Meg to tell her I’m fine and second call to my friend Dina”

“The girl who studies in L.A.?”

“Yep! I told her I’d have come here to California to see some friends play one of these days and we agreed to arrange a meeting on the phone”

“Ok, no problem. The phone must be somewhere behind the couch pillows”

“I’ll be quick, I promise”

“Take your time, Angie. Oh give it to me, I’m gonna go put it in my bedroom,” he’s about to go but then walks back to me and gestures for me to give him my backpack “and of course just make yourself at home: watch tv, drink something, read a book, rest a little… You can do whatever you want, ok?”

“Ok, thank you. But I’m gonna sleep on the couch tonight, it’s quite big and looks comfortable” I suggest as I point at the corner sofa against the wall.

“Yeah, yeah, sure. I’m going now” Eddie leans down right over that sofa, slips his hand between the pillows and takes out the phone, placing it on the coffee table before leaving the room.

By the way, I’m doing better and better, I didn’t even risked to say nipples this time.

****************************************************************************************************************************

As I thought, finding a parking spot at the airport has proven to be an impossible mission. After I’ve let Angie get out of the car, I tried to stop in front of the terminal’s entrance, but soon after I’ve been invited to move from there. I’ve found a parking space on a side road near the Coast Guard – it takes twenty minutes on foot from there to the airport, and I’ve been walking for the past ten minutes. Or, better to say, I’ve been running. What’s twenty fuckin’ minutes when I still have two days ahead of me to spend with her? Two fuckin’ days. I laugh by myself like the perfect moron I am. On the one hand I knew that she would have come here, well, let’s just say that I hoped so, but on the other hand I didn’t want to have such high expectations in case she wouldn’t have. And yet she did and, thanks to me telling her the wrong dates, we have one more day to spend together. Well played, Eddie! Had I done it on purpose, it wouldn’t have come out in such a brilliant way. While I’m walking down North Harbor I look right and left to see if by any chance Angie’s among the people that are heading on the opposite direction, even though I have told her to wait for me at the entrance, if once she had finished she wouldn’t have seen me outside. And probably she’s following my instructions, because I don’t see her, and with her new hair color it couldn’t be that difficult to recognize her even in the middle of a crowd. I like her hair – it’s like she has finally let something out that, until now, she had kept hidden… her most intimate and truest colors. And then it’s known that changing hairstyle more or less drastically often mirrors also a general change, the will to pull the plug on a past situation and start anew and, considering the unpleasant events of recent times, I think it’s an excellent sign. And, besides all that, this hairstyle really suits her. She’s gorgeous, free, on holiday, far from the duties and constrictions of everyday. The whole concept of seeing her outside the usual surroundings really intrigues me. I wait my turn to cross the street while thinking that this seems like too good an opportunity to pass up – I must do something about it, I’ve already lost too much time. I have to tell her how I really feel about her once and for all, no matter what happens after. If she rejected me I’d feel bad, but then she would go back to Seattle and after twenty days or so I’d come back too, and once back to our everyday lives maybe it would be easier to go on as if nothing has happened. Maybe.

I get to the airport and I see her sort of right where I left her but sitting on the sidewalk, her shades pulled up on her head, her chin resting on the backpack she's holding and an irresistible pouty face. She must be mad because I kept her waiting. I know how to make up for that...

“Hey, I'm here! Sorry, parking is so fucking expensive here and I'm broke, I parked like at the fuckin' end of the world.” I jog towards her and she just stares at me without talking, still that sweet little pout on her face. God, this is a big one, I'll have to use all my weapons “Have you been waiting for long?”

“No, I was inside with the girl at the desk until five minutes ago, trying to find a solution but... nothing doing” she sighs and I understand she's not mad at me.

“What do you mean?” I ask as I sit next to her.

“I can't change the return ticket”

“What does it mean you can't? Why not? I did so many times from Chicago, when my boss kept changing my shift at the last minute”

“Chicago?” she asks, her face still sad but also puzzled after my statement.

“That's where I was born, most of my family on my mom's side and friends live there. I lived there for years too”

“I thought you came from San Diego”

“I moved here when I was a baby with my parents... well, yeah, you know, with my mom and that guy, together with my little brothers. I lived here until my senior year in high school, then went back to Chicago. And then came back here once again, something like sid... seven years ago, more or less”

“So who do you root for more, Cubs or Padres?” a quick smile and worries go away from her face for a moment.

“What do you think?”

“Well you're a loser in both cases but I think it's the Cubs. You look like you've got a flair for tragedy” she twists the knife but I gladly let her.

“At least we won something”

“Not in the last 82 years” she retorts with some nerve and I want to punish her so badly. With an unexpected kiss maybe.

“We'll go back to win one day... we just have to wait for 2015, don't we? Against Miami, right?” my movie reference melts her sneering grin into sweet laughter.

“Hahaha yeah, when Miami will actually have a team”

“Anyway I can't see why you can't change the date of your flight”

“'Cause I bought the flight with a special ultra-cheap offer and I didn't pay attention to all the conditions and terms. Basically I could have changed date and destination until seven days before, only the date three days before. And it's not even refundable”

“Aw come on, fuck, just for one day! Couldn't the employee at the desk just turn a blind eye this time?” I angrily reply .

“Actually I had to change the destination too...” she explains taking off her shades from her head.

“Why?”

“Well because... you know, since I was leaving I thought I could take a few more days off and... well, I thought I could go and visit my mother... and my father” Angie fumbles with her sunglasses, opening and closing the temples repeatedly.

“Destination Boise then?”

“Yes, exactly!” she answers before I finish talking.

“And you bought another ticket from Boise to Seattle I guess”

“Non refundable as well” she adds dejected, bringing one end of her glasses to her mouth and chewing on it. And this is the umpteenth image of her I'd love to take a picture of, so I can freeze it in time and carry it with me always and not forget it. Anyway forgetting about anything about her would appear quite unlikely.

“Quite a mess”

“Basically I wanted to spare some money but I actually ended up spending a fucking lot”

“So you had to book another flight”

“No”

“Huh so you did find a solution in the end?” I ask confused.

“No, I didn't, but I didn't buy another ticket either, I can't afford it” she shakes her head, the end of her sunglasses still between her lips.

“I can lend you something”

“You?” she gives me a skeptical look and I insinctively look down at myself without a reason.

“Yes, why?”

“The same person who parked two miles away from here not to pay for a parking place?”

“Oh well, 'cause that'd have been an unnecessary expense. But you have to go back to Seattle” but do you really have to go back? You could as well stay.

“Yes, I have to”

“So? What will you do?” you can stay here with me and then follow us for what's left of the tour until we'll go back home to Seattle together. Together in all senses maybe, as a couple, why not.

“There's only one way to go back to Seattle”

**

“You're crazy”

“What else could I do?” although she's wearing sunglasses, I know she's rolling her eyes now as we leave the bus station.

“It's a one day long drive, even more. I know because I did. Well, by car and not by bus but it's basically the same. Except I was kinda angry and pushed a lot on the gas so it probably took me a few hours less”

“In return, you got lost afterwards in Seattle”

“Hehe yeah... anyway, don't try and change the subject, San Diego-Seattle by bus is like a hammer blow. You even have to change”

“Well, only in L.A., from there on it's all straight through”

“All straight through, on a bus, an uncomfortable and confined space. And you're even claustrophobic!” I go on as I walk beside her along sunny North Harbor Drive.

“Thank you, Ed, you really know how to be comforting. An airplane is a confined space too but the bus costs one third of the flight so...”

“But the flight lasts one third than the bus drive”

“I'm used to long journeys, it's not a problem” she shrugs and starts pulling her still long hair back into a ponytail with a scrunchie.

“I can't forget it's all my fault. To make up for that I'm gonna take you out for lunch, then we can tour San Diego”

“Didn't we tour already? You basically had to drive all through the town because of me”

“But that was a necessity, you didn't see anything nice”

“That's not true! I saw... well, first of all I saw your house”

“Ha!”

“Well, I saw the coast, the beach, the ocean, I took a lot of pictures. Oh and the Simon&Simon bridge!”

“The what of who?!”

“The bridge! As we went back to the car from the airport...” she points at the place where the bridge is supposed to be from here as the crow flies, behind the buildings “I took pictures of that too”

“Coronado Bridge”

“Yes! The one you see during the opening credits of Simon&Simon, the tv series”

“Hehe yeah. But I didn't take you to Coronado. Actually there's not that much to see there apart from luxury hotels and naval stations” I think out loud as I open the car door for her and let her in.

“Where are you taking me then?” she asks as I get in the car too and her enthusiasm is so genuine I'd take her to the moon and back. We go get something to eat instead.

**

“Subway?” she asks with an amused smirk as we park in front of it “A true symbol of San Diego”

“Jack in the box is kinda far from here, I'm gonna take you there tomorrow” I reply as she snaps a picture of the restaurant's facade.

“Admit it, you actually wanted to show me the Padres stadium” she jokes pointing at the entrance of Petco Park at the end of the road.

“No, I really wanted to take you to a luxury fish restaurant in Little Italy but, you know, I'm a broke slacker musician who can't afford a parking place, so...” I joke as we get in.

“I didn't offend you, did I? I was just kid-”

“No no, I was kidding too” I slip my arm around her shoulders as we walk up towards the counter to order our food.

As we devour our burgers, a veggie one for me and fish for her, she tells me about college, about the new Soundgarden songs Chris played to her and that seem to be great, about Hannigan who drives everyone crazy at work changing his mind about the mini mart  set up once every ten minutes, about the croissants she bought at the French bakery in Pike Place where she went back and ate on the observation deck, without me. I'm in San Diego, at home, but I can't help having a fit of nostalgia for what has by now become my new home and for Angie herself. She's right here, sitting in front of me, closer than she's ever been, but I miss her, still, terribly.

“So... Pearl Jam, huh?”

“Yeah”

“Where does that come from? How did you come out with that name?” she inquires as she steals from my tray one of the French fries she swore she didn't want to when we ordered.

“Well, there's not only one reason and it was a gradual thing, I mean, we slowly got there”

“How?”

“We liked Pearl, Stone really liked it and sounded good to me too, also for some coincidences, but not just for that”

“What coincidences?”

“It's my great-grandmother's name”

“Really?”

“Yep”

“And she made jam?” she adds laughing and taking a sip of her coke.

“Hehehe no, at least, I don't think so”

“It's also a very cool album by Janis Joplin”

“True. And in surfing slang it's when you bury the nose of your board in the wave and either fall down or get sucked up by the motion of the wave, over and back down, spinning like you're in a washing machine””

“Hahahaha really? I was thinking it was because Earl The Pearl Monroe”

“Also”

“From a Nets player to a Knicks player, such imagination”

“And then there's the literal meaning, that I find quite interesting. Do you know where pearls come from?”

“A foreign substance like sand enters enters the oyster and to protect itself from irritation the oyster produces mineral layers to isolate it. More or less”

“Exactly. It's basically turning pain into something beautiful, an emotional/creative conflict turning a grain of sand into a precious gem”

“That's a really powerful image. And delicate at the same time”

“Something precious and delicate, born from grief”

“That's a good metaphor for art”

“Yes, that's so true” I love talking to her, I love the fact she totally gets me and what I mean every time and being able to talk about anything with her, from stupid falls when surfing to art, from the manic arrangement of gum packets at the mini mart to Cubs' bad luck, and none of these conversations sounds more corny and banal than the others. Every single subject is particular and interesting with her, every word sounds more charming and true if she says it. Food tastes better when I share it with Angie and Subway too looks nicer, the chairs are more comfy, the lamps are brighter and the peppers drawn on the counter look greener. Even Mr Big on the radio sound less boring than usual.

“Eric Martin, what a voice” she remarks as if she could read my mind.

“Yeah, uhm, not bad, not really my thing, but he's good”

“And what about Jam?”

“What?”

“I know the reasons behind Pearl now but where does Jam come from?”

“From a show by Neil Young with Crazy Horse”

“When? Where?!”

“At Los Angeles Sports Arena, last week, we all went”

“And why didn't you tell me before?? That's cool but why Jam?”

“'Cause every fuckin' single song ended up in an endless jam. And we didn't mind, I mean, it was great. As we were driving back from the concert, while we were discussing it, Jeff came out with 'what do you think about Pearl Jam' and everybody liked the idea.

“You mean Stone liked it and he gave you the permission to like it too”

“That's right, I see you know how it goes”

**

After lunch we get back in the car, even though this time the trip is short. “Are you takin’ me to a park so I can jog and digest Subway’s sandwich?” she asks me when she reads the sign that indicates Balboa Park. 

“No, I’m takin’ ya to a park because it’s one of the most beautiful places of the city and you’ll have somethin’ decent to take pictures of” 

Basically, we visit all the museums, from the anthropological one to the Timken Museum of Art: I love seeing her eyes literally shine both when she admires a painting by Guercino and while we’re visiting the exhibition about mythological creatures. I also take her to the botanical garden, where she gives me further evidence of her deep knowledge of plants, and we both agree about avoiding the zoo, because animals in captivity make both of us feel sad. After the exhausting tour I finally convince her to buy some ice cream that we end up eating sitting on a bench in front of the California Bell Tower. Angie asks me to keep her cone while she takes a picture of the building. 

“Thanks” she quickly puts away her camera and takes back her ice cream. 

“No problem. So, what do you think of everything you’ve seen?” I ask her in the exact moment the park’s streetlamps light up one after the other. 

“It was so cool! And full of really unique buildings, each one of a different style: Baroque, Romanesque, Gothic… there’s basically everything. And the vegetation is incredible” 

“… Buildings that, by the way, you already knew” I mention in a casual way, already looking forward to her reaction when she’ll finally understand where I’m going with this. 

“No, I told ya that’s the first time I come here” she goes on, biting a piece of waffle. 

“I know, but you knew them all the same, trust me” 

“What do you mean?” 

“That you already saw them, although not in person” 

“And where?” 

“Probably in the same place you’ve seen the Coronado Bridge” 

“Huh?” 

“Upon a screen” I explain, drawing a square with my fingers in mid-air. 

“Wait a minute… are you really sayin’ that this park has been the set for something?” 

“More or less” 

“What do you mean ‘more or less’?? It’s simple, yes or no!” Angie becomes more and more curious and I love to keep her on pins and needles. 

“Yes – well, let’s just say that they shot here some scenes for a movie. A really important movie” 

“A movie” 

“… that you’ve watched, I know it for sure” 

“Oh, fuck! Which movie?” 

“Guess it” 

“C’mon, just spit it out!” she begs me, shifting closer and closer to me on the bench. 

“To tell the truth, I’m quite surprised that you haven’t already guessed it yourself”

 “Black-and-white or Technicolor?” 

“Black and white” 

“Hmm… It’s difficult to guess, right away… gimme a hint” Angie finally realizes she has ignored her ice cream for too long and tries to save the little drops of cream that are running down her hand. Obviously with her tongue. So now it’s her who’s having me on pins and needles. 

“Xanadu” I give up and give her her precious hint. 

“Like Olivia Newton John’s song?” she asks, not understanding the connection- 

“Eheh no, like someone’s estate” 

“FUCK, NO” she jumps on her feet and stares again at the California Tower. 

“Sure it is” 

“KANE’S ESTATE!” 

“Well done, the answer’s correct” I finish to eat my ice cream and give her a warm applause. 

“CITIZEN KANE! They shot it here?” she finally calms herself and sits down again. 

“Not all of it, just the newscast scene, you remember it? There are some exterior shootings of Xanadu. Well, they did ‘em here” 

“News on the march…” 

“The tower, the equestrian statue of El Cid, the art museum and the anthropological one, the Prado theater and the botanical garden with the pond too” I list all the places, counting them on my fingers. 

“You took me here on purpose” 

“I was thinking about doing it ever since you mentioned Citizen Kane the evening of our RKCNDY’s gig. In San Diego everybody knows that they shot here some of its scenes. I remember that, when you talked to me about it, I immediately thought that, well, if someday you had come in San Diego, I absolutely would have taken you t-” I try to explain her how the idea came to me without coming out as a psycho that gets fixated on stupid details, when suddenly I get swept away by a hug, unexpected yet pleasant. Angie’s not someone who gives many hugs, she’s not physical with her displays of affection – let’s just say that I saw her displaying her affection with something that wasn’t a pat or a slap for only a couple of times, and that has never happened with me. 

“You gave me a fantastic present” she mumbles in the crook of my neck, while her camera’s zoom is drilling my sternum, but I absolutely don’t intend to push her away. 

“Eheh, no problem, it’s just a silly little thing” 

“It’s not a silly little thing” 

“San Diego’s no Hollywood, but we defend ourselves. If you had stayed here a couple of days more, I would have taken you to the Universal Studios” 

“Do you wanna see me dead?” she slightly moves away from me to look me in the eyes, but still keeping me in her arms, and this moment would be perfect for a kiss. If only I weren’t a wanker. 

“Nope – at least, not before tomorrow’s gig. But especially not before tonight” 

“Well, am I allowed to know what’s going to happen tonight?” Angie finally lets me go and studies my face, trying to elicit some information. 

“Hmmm, I can give you some hints” I answer, standing up – the bench has made my ass like a waffle. 

“Ok, I’m listening” 

“We’re goin’ to a club” 

“A club, ok. Which one?” 

“A really ugly club, I must say”   

“Ok, so the bet consists in going to a shitty place?” 

“Exactly, but it’s a shitty place that requires appropriate clothing. That’s why we should swing by Value Village before dinner” I extend a hand to her, as an invitation to stand up. 

“Value Village? We have to wear something vintage? Oh my God, is it a themed club??” 

“In a way…”

*************************************************************************************************************************

“What’s going on, Stone? Already tired?” says our Dancing Queen, no longer seventeen, when I signal her that I’m about to leave her alone on the dancefloor, preferring the bar to her.

“Nope, you should know that for me Saturday Night Fever’s soundtrack is the lowest point in the entire career of the Bee Gees guys!” I retort, referring to the song that the DJ has just put on after basically butchering Boogie Wonderland.

Eddie wasn’t kidding at all when he proposed us to come here: the Yates club is seriously the worst San Diego disco, or better still, it’s probably the ugliest club in the U.S. and I’m saying this just because I haven’t visited the rest of the world yet; starting with the entrance in a dark and chilling alley, where you’re forced to stay in line on a creaky spiral staircase for what seems like an eternity and where your expectations grow like crazy because outside there are lots of people waiting to get in, but then the inside sucks even more than the outside: it’s a hole where only one strobe light out of three actually works and the most lit area is the one surrounding the bar. The disco ball in the middle of the so-called dancefloor lacks a few mirrors, the ceiling is so low that if you jump on a table to dance and you’re not as short as Angie you risk to head-butt every spotlight in sight, the go-go dancers dance way worse than me (and I could easily be their son), the DJ puts the music on using CDs that constantly skip and, when they don’t it’s his mission in life to create infinite pauses in between tracks. Buuut I must admit that there’s also a positive thing: the bar is supercheap – as it should be, Jesus. On the other hand Angie’s having a lot of fun, with her giant earrings, the glasses with their red, heart-shaped lenses and an optical shirt with the most flared sleeves I’ve ever seen. And, after all, I’m having fun too, but I truly believe that I’m gonna enjoy myself even more when all the Macho Men who have lost the bet finally show up. The first of them – G.I. Dave – has come with me and Angie, and now I find him again at the bar, in the company of Jerry the Cowboy.

“Hey Stone, what are you dressed as? No, wait, you’re just like any other day” Jerry jokes, tipping his hat in the exact moment he sees me.

“Shut up, I know you’ve been having your eyes on this leopard-print vest for years, just forget it!”

It all ends up with us buying each other drinks and I can’t ignore the furtive glances that Cantrell throws in Angie’s direction, now that she’s dancing with a guy dressed in leather with a motorcycle helmet on his head. I know he’s one of the gang, but only when he spins for the second time I realize it’s McCready. Anyway, I find it unbelievable that Angie could be embarrassed for a fake slow-dance she had with Cornell in front of a couple of friends during her birthday party, but at the same time not showing the tiniest hint of shyness when she has to dance in a disco full of people. I have to admit she dances really well, but I think the vodka shots she had with us in Krusen’s room have largely contributed to this dissolution of her inhibitions. Dave and I go to have a seat on the puke-colored booths at the edge of the dancefloor, leaving Jerry intent on moping about Angie, and we meet Layne – dressed like any other day, who has decided not to yield himself to the rules of this ‘70s evening offered by this awful place – and Sean, who’s basically dressed in his usual way, with jeans and a checkered shirt opened on his chest, that however has a helmet on his head that signals his will to be the construction worker. But we didn’t know that the best had yet to come, and it has been gently provided after a couple of minutes by the trio that has appeared at the entrance of the club: on the left Eddie flaunts a light-blue suit consisting of a vest and flared trousers, with a flowered shirt underneath it and light ankle boots that unfortunately lack platforms, seeing as he seems at his usual height; on the right we have Mike Starr, with suede trousers, boots, a naked chest slightly covered by an imprecise quantity of necklaces, black eyeliner around his eyes and a colorful hairband – I can’t grasp its color because these fuckin’ disco lights make it seem like it’s rainbow-patterned; but the real treat is him, my soulmate, my Jeffrey that, besides having picked up a pair of leather trousers – maybe from the same questionable store where Starr did his shopping – has also dusted off a precious relic… his historic pink tank-top with San Francisco written in purple letters that almost got us killed that time we opened for Sahmain, when we were still playing in Green River. Is it possible to show up at a punk rock gig dressed like that? Yes, if your name’s Jeff Ament and you have massive balls.

He was also wearing dance shoes and, if my sight doesn’t trick me, I think he’s wearing them even now.

“Oh my God, Jeff! I didn’t think this tank-top still existed! I believed Danzig’s fans shredded it” I welcome him doubled over laughing when the magical trio finally approaches me and the others.

“You thought I had lost it for good, but no, it has come out untouched… unlike my face. But you wouldn’t know it, you and Bruce cut and ran!” the bass player retorts, still with a chip on his shoulder for that old story.

“Jeff, I know you love me, but take a look at me. What else could I have done? Protect you with my sarcasm?”

“What are you two talkin’ about?” asks Eddie, looking around himself in a less disgusted way than all of us, because he already knows this place but, most of all, because he’s looking for someone.

“We’re talkin’ about a nice, little story of our Green River times – there are a lot of ‘em that deserve to be passed down through the generations” I explain him while making room for Jeff on the most uncomfortable booth of the entire California.

“Neither Mark Arm is a body builder, but he took my defense anyway”

“… and he got beat up as much as you, I was just provident”

“But why did you dress up? Didn’t you bet she would have come actually?” Dave asks a fair question to Starr, who answers with a raised eyebrow.

“Dressed up? What do you mean?” he adds in a confused way and we all burst out laughing in his face “Well? Anybody cares to explain?”

“He thought – well, we all thought – you were the Native American of the Village People” Jeff shreds some light on the little mystery.

“The Native guy? Don’t think so! And it would be cultural appropriation, I’d never do it” Mike adds, making all of us immediately stop laughing because, from a guy like him that is 95% half-drunk or stoned, you don’t expect a criticism about oppression and pillaging by members of the dominant culture.

“You’re right, Mike, I didn’t think you-” Layne’s about to start a conversation, but he gets interrupted by the Pimp-err!, by the impatient Prince Charming.

“But talkin’ about the bet… where’s Angie?”

“She’s over there, near the bar, where there’s all those green and blue lights that seem floating seaweed”

“Wait… you mean over there, where there’s that girl who’s dancing on the table?” he asks me, and I’m already looking forward to the thud his jaw’s about to do on this cheap floor.

“No, Angie is the girl who’s dancing on the table”

[shirlleycoyle]

I’m a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

Hundreds of Frito-Lay workers are on day nine of a strike at a production plant in Topeka, Kansas that makes Fritos, Tostitos, Doritos, Cheetos, and Funyuns.

In recent days, the appalling working conditions at Frito-Lay have gone viral on Twitter—fueling a national conversation about the leverage low-wage workers have at this particular moment to demand more from large corporations after years of stagnant wages, few opportunities, and a deadly pandemic.

Many of the 850 workers at the facility say they work 84 hours a week with no days off. Workers are nominally supposed to work eight-hour shifts, but because of shortages, workers are often forced to add on an extra four hours before or after their shifts. Workers call these extended shifts "suicides," because they say the schedule kills you over time. Some workers haven't had a single day off in five months, including Saturdays and Sundays.

The grassy lawn outside the factory has transformed into a picket line, drawing crowds of hundreds of workers and union members from around Kansas. The struggle at Frito-Lay is a reminder that the eight hour workday–"eight hours for work, eight hours for rest and eight hours for what you will"—that workers won in bloody labor battles of the late 19th century can no longer be taken for granted.

In its latest contract offer, Frito-Lay has said it would raise wages by four percent over the next two years and put a cap at 60 hours a week. Frito-Lay workers who are unionized with Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 218 say that's not enough, and are demanding an end to forced overtime.

Motherboard spoke to Mark McCarter, a 59-year-old palletizer and union steward at Frito-Lay, who has worked at the Topeka facility for 37 years, about his job and why he's striking. – Lauren Kaori Gurley

I've worked at the Frito-Lay factory in Topeka, Kansas since I was 19, straight out of high school. I'm a palletizer. I run huge robots that are probably 15 or 20 feet tall and they transport product that comes from the production floor that's already been packaged—Fritos, Doritos, Tostitos, all the Cheetos.

After 37 years, I still get forced to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Seven years ago, my wife passed away and I spent a lot of time in grief counseling, and I told the company, I don't want to work 12 hours a day seven days a week. I ended up getting FMLA [Family Medical Leave Act unpaid leave], but they're still having me do it sometimes. You come in at 7 a.m. and not only do you work eight hours, but when you get off at 3 p.m., they suicide (force you to work a double shift) you and have you come back at 3am. There's 850 employees and it's true for half or three quarters of them.

Mark McCarter

This job wears you down, it tires you, and makes you mentally exhausted. It plays with your mind. Some of these guys who work 12 hours a day everyday are destroying their marriages. They're destroying their families. My wife passed away and I don't have a wife to go home to to say, 'Hey babe I'm only working eight hours tomorrow," but a lot of these guys come in with the understanding that they'll be here for eight hours but then they got to call their wives and kids and say, "Guess what? It's not eight hours. It's 12 hours and then I have to go back to work at 3am."

Frito-Lay has been told they need to fix this but unfortunately, when they bring in new people, they force the same schedule on them and they quit.  Frito-Lay has waited so long to replace workers, and now Frito Lay has a horrible reputation in town so a lot of people won't work here.

“I think people are pushed to the edge. COVID created some of this. During COVID, managers got to work from home. People see that and realize they have other options.”

This is not a good job. At 7am, our warehouse is 100 degrees. We don't have air conditioning. We have cooks in the kitchen on the fryers that are 130 or 140 degrees making chips and sweating like pigs. Meanwhile, the managers have A/C.

I make $20.50 [an hour] after 37 years here. Most people make between $16.50 and $20 an hour. I haven't gotten a raise in a decade. Three years ago, I got a $600 bonus that was taxed, and three years before that I got another $600 bonus. That was my only "raise" for the past 10 years. This is from a Fortune 500 company that is making billions.

I can tell you that many people have had heart attacks in the heat at Frito-Lay since I've been here. One guy died a few years ago and the company had people pick him up, move him over to the side, and put another person in his spot without shutting the business down for two seconds.

It seems like I go to one funeral a year for someone who's had a heart attack at work or someone who went home to their barn and shot themselves in the head or hung themselves.

This used to be a bomb place to work. We had picnics together. We'd go to Worlds of Fun [an amusement park] together. We had community, lunch served, Christmas ham, Thanksgiving turkey. We'd do all that. These days we do absolutely nothing for employees. We work them; we send them home. It's demoralizing and it's truly nuts how a Fortune 500 company can get away with this kind of foolishness.

I stay here because in two years, I'll be 62 and I have a union pension acquired over 37 years. I've spent so much time here that I might as well take that pension and social security and call it quits.

We've had the right to strike for many decades, but we've never done it here in Topeka until now. This year, so many people have been working 12 hour days for five, six months at a time, they voted to strike in huge numbers.

I think people are pushed to the edge. COVID created some of this. During COVID, managers got to work from home. People see that and realize they have other options. Everyone's hiring and raising their pay because no one wants to work for $8 an hour anymore.

We would rather nobody buy any Frito-Lay products, Fritos, Doritos, Tostitos, Funyuns, Cheetos, all those, while we're on strike. We make all of those in Topeka, Kansas. We also would rather nobody buys PepsiCo products while we're on the line. PepsiCo is the owner of Frito-Lay. It owns KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, so we don't want anyone to buy any of that either.

We're hoping we can get these people back to work with a decent wage and some kind of alternative to all this forced overtime. Honestly, I don't know how what they're doing is legal.

A spokesperson for Frito-Lay told Motherboard, “Frito-Lay is committed to providing a safe and fair workplace for all of our employees, and we provide resources for any employee struggling with depression or other mental health issues. We have no knowledge of any associate taking their own life as a result of work conditions, and there have been no confirmed job-related deaths at the Topeka plant.

“Further, we wholly reject the recent allegation that an employee ‘collapsed and died’ and the company ‘moved the body and put in another co-worker to keep the line going.’ We are aware of only two instances in the last five years in which an individual has experienced a medical emergency at the plant that unfortunately resulted in that individual passing away. In both cases, medical attention was initially provided at the plant and work ceased until the associates were safely on the way to the hospital.” – Frito-Lay

I’m a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[tsundere-model]

-whispers- chiaizu too but if you don't want to, it's okay fam~

Meme: If they had a kid (( ARE YOU KIDDIN’ FAM, that’s like one of my top 3. But also FUCK Chiaizu for have so many kids this drawing took me HOURS))

Name: Takeshi, Masayoshi, Ryusei, Akagi and Haruka Morisawa.

Gender: 4 boys and 1 girl. Age gap of 3-2-2-5 years

General Appearance: Takeshi has slightly curly brown hair and bright blue eyes. A bit tanned because of sports practice, rather tall and with a very athletic build. He is probably popular with girls. Has a casual/sporty style and wears glasses. Could definitely be a model.Masayoshi has very curly lighter brown hair usually long enough to cover his whole forehead and get almost to his eyes. He is SHORT TM, rip him. Has clear brown eyes, soft white skin and a lean complexion. Another sporty style when it comes to clothes, likes to wear short pants bc #comfortable.Ryusei, a soft boy with fluffy silver hair and dark brown eyes. Will grow very tall I’m sure. Has broad shoulders, but doesn’t have much muscle. White skin. Likes vests and scarves like mom. What a good boy, dressing well, mama loves him.Akagi has straight and very dark black hair, long and usually on a ponytail. Has dark blue eyes and a more tanned tone of skin. Loves color pink but cannot stand wearing dresses and will fight mom over it.Haruka, everyoe’s baby, and the one that is more like mom. Has blue eyes, straight silver hair and white skin. He is still in age to get dressed by mom. Has the cutest baby cheeks and just lots of adorable baby fat.

Personality: Takeshi is everyone’s senpai. Super popular, cheerful, sporty, attentive and intelligent boy. He got the best from his parents, what a good, all girls are in love, I’m in love. Believes in the power of friendship and is actually a bit of an otaku, but the dorky only makes him cuter. Also has good sense bc of Izumi? Would probably be a great boyfriend if he wasn’t blunt and oblivious af. He probably doesn’t realize all the school is in love with him and thinks everyone is just very kind and friendly.Masayoshi, super high energy boy. He’ll kick everyone’s ass, god, he’ll even kick his own ass if you let him. Is snarky without noticing. Like just, natural sarcasm and sassyness. Probably super hard to keep him controlled. Made his parents suffer a lot when he was a baby. No one knew what sleep was when he was a baby. Actually has some fashion sense and is good posing but kudos if you can keep him focused in one thing for more than 5 min. He is an idiot like his father. He is eternally 5yo in the sense that he’ll lick the fridge if you take your eyes of his for 5 seconds. Eats a lot probably.Ryusei is a soft boy. He is the kindest ever and loves to take care of others. He is quiet and even shy and was actually sickish when he was a kid, which makes Izumi get constantly worried about him. Has a strong sense of justice and will fight you even if he is weak af. He never cries, and always shows a smile that could melt even the coldest heart. He is very studious and diligent too.Akagi is STRONG. She is just constantly on fire. Has a bit of a temper and will get in discussions or fights rather constantly. Had a lot of energy so her parents got her into some martial arts thing, maybe taekwondo or japanese kenpo, something that allows kicks and punches. She’ll punch whoever tries to get with his brothers. She is very self-important and will get very angry if anyone is looking down on her or her family. Can be rude af and very vengeful. She’ll wrestle her brothers for the last piece of pizza don’t try her.Haruka is a silent and quiet boy, an observer. It actually took him a very long time to start talking, but when he did he could already say full sentences. Very intelligent and kind of spoiled since all his siblings baby him a lot. Lots of introspection for being such a smol. Is bratty and sassy to be honest. But he wants to be more cheerful like his siblings.

Special Talents: Takeshi is probably good in memorization. Also has very good control of his body so he is the COOL CAPTAIN of the baseball team. He is 4th batter and either catcher or short-stop. Photogenic af, guys at his class hate him bc you can never get a bad picture of him. He even cooks. This guy is too perfect jfc.Masayoshi is actually? A very good singer? Like super good. Amazingly good. He is also good posing. if someone is able to keep him under control he might be a very good idol who knows. For now he just enjoys playing basketball at his school.Ryusei is very good understanding the logic of things. Also likes arts crafts like knitting and painting. Probably does little things for his siblings on regular basis, from little wristbands and necklaces to scarves and other pieces of clothing for birthdays/Christmas.Akagi is the martial artist of the house. She is very good at it and enjoys it. Besides that she is very good learning things from memory (aka all the episodes of Kamen Rider and all the poses and things). She is actually good with school work too and has a thing for acting. She has been interested in the job of stunt double but Izumi says its too dangerous.Haruka is good finding patterns and understanding what others are thinking or doing. He likes to deal with puzzles and reading, but he is still smol.

Who they like better: Takeshi can’t pick favorites. he is too much of a good son. Masayoshi likes Chiaki better because FUN. Ryusei like Izumi better because they can cook together and do stuff like knitting. Akagi likes Chiaki better. She fights a lot with her mom about clothes and stuff but she still loves him. Haruka finds it easier to get along with Izumi since his dad is a bit… too high tension for him sometimes. He still loves him.

Who they take after more: Takeshi and Masayoshi take more after Chiaki. Ryusei and Haruka more after Izumi. Akagi uuh, maybe izumi?

Personal Head canon: Every time they were having a kid Chiaki would pester Izumi for days until they agreed to a name.Akagi also needs glasses but she doesn’t like wearing them.Takeshi is very mature since he has felt the responsibility of being everyone’s big brother.Takeshi likes to cook with mom and will often help doing lunchboxes for everyone.Never let Akagi or Masayoshi in the kitchen unless you WANT TO DIE.The whole family goes cheer Takeshi in his important games. Izumi has taken it to assist to all his games and Takeshi appreciates it a lot.Ryusei always gets in fights he can’t win. Akagi is the one to jump in and save him.They have all watched a lot of Kamen Rider for obvious reasons.Masayoshi has a thing for always getting sick in family trips. Mostly because he eats weird shit everywhere.Akagi and Masayoshi are super messy and their rooms would be a mess if it wasn’t because Takeshi and Ryusei are kind and will clean things up for them.They all give a goodbye kiss to Izumi before going to school.Akagi is actually a history nerd. Probably got it from her name. She knows a lot about war ships and the sort.

Face Claim: In drawing they are 17-14-12-10-5

[lalorrunningclub]

Maroondah Dam Race Recap by Matthew Coughlin

While being well aware that I am a very inexperienced trail runner, after completing the much lauded Two Bays trail run inside the cut off time I thought that it might be time to up the ante a little so I decided to enter the TrailsPlus event out at Maroondah Dam. I picked the 30K distance as it was only an extra 2km and certainly didn't seem to garner perilous reputation that Two Bays does so how hard could it possibly be?

With the help of a friend and mentor we created a training plan that took me up to and past this event and I was also able to rely on another great friend to help me with training, which at times when doing it on your own just doesn't seem to get the results and can also seem much more of a chore when you don't share the pain with someone else.

I was up nice and early and left with plenty of time up my sleeve to negotiate all the wildlife that I was likely to encounter on the way and wasn't more than 3 minutes into the trip when I had the first kangaroo cross the road in front of me. Once I got out to Healesville conditions were perfect for the event, it was about 10' with a light mist in the air and not a breath of wind. 

I was there early enough to see some friends, the real crazies, set off on their 42k and 50k events. Then I picked up my bib and headed back to the car to get ready. Getting ready consisted of spending 10 minutes attaching my bib with my swanky LRC bib clips. You'd think that after a year of using them I'd be somewhat more adept at getting them to work but I got there in the end.

I headed back to the marshalling area for the pre-race briefing and was mildly alarmed to hear the race organiser telling us that while we might expect the climbing to be the hardest part of this event he however found that the descents were tougher. Wait! What? That's not what I signed up for! I was happy enough to train to get up the hills based on the proviso that I could then run down them like a madman. Well surely it couldn't be that bad coming down the hills, I bet he is just exaggerating, it will be fine coming down the hills.

2 minutes until race time and my body decides that is the perfect time to go to the toilet. So my warm up consisted of a short sprint to the toilet and then rushing back over the start finish line past the crew lining up at the front of the pack and having just enough time to turn around, hit the button on my borrowed Garmin, that's another story, and commence my run.

In order to get to the 30k distance you do a few short loops at the start of the event and cross the start finish line a few times, on my last time through before setting off up the hill I heard of a few "Go Matt's" and looked across to see the smiling faces of Paul and Chloe Radovic and then to my left I saw Claire McGregor lining me up for a photo. 

I would like to say that it was at this point as I headed off and got into some sort of groove that my plan kicked into action but, there was no real plan. As far as I had considered everything the plan was, get to the top of the hill then get back down. Maybe because of, or in spite of this I was feeling great. The first 5k-7k was predominately runnable and the trail was relatively smooth and surrounded by a towering forest of gum trees so that probably helped to lull me into a false sense of security. It was from about 7k onwards that the real climb began. 

There were 4 of us within about a 60 metre stretch of trail and while you are trying to do your own thing you are also acutely aware that you always want to be able to see the person in front of you getting closer and you don't want the breathing of the person behind you to be getting any louder. As we hit steeper inclines and we were all hiking I felt good and the legs felt strong and it seemed as though I was gaining ground on those ahead of me, ever so slightly and old mate behind me seemed to be dropping off a little. This pattern continued for the next 7 or 8k. 

As we got higher the forest changed and so did the weather. The understory was dominated by both small ferns as well as 4 metre tall tree ferns and was a sea of green compared to the lower part of the course and the drizzle had really set in. As I looked up the hill/mountain to see how I was tracking in relation to my comrades I noticed that a thick mist had either descended or we had climbed into it. There was an aid station at about the 13k mark where I grabbed a couple of snakes and kept moving. I caught up to the guy who had been in front of me the past hour and said, "Well it's only 2k to the turn around." To which he replied, "It's more like 4 because of those little loops we did at the beginning." That and the fact that when I looked up, due to the steepness of the slope I couldn't see the top of the hill anymore was my, "What have I done!" moment.  37 minutes and 2k later I finally got to the top of Mt St Leonard.   You go over the top after climbing all that way and have a steep downhill plus 1k to the turn around point. Halfway down the hill I saw a friend Kat who told me that it wasn't far to the turnaround, which was a great relief because during an event peoples ideas of "Not very far" can mean wildly different things so it was good to hear it from someone I trusted.

I got to the aid station, they asked me what I wanted, I said a taxi, we all laughed like that was the first time they had heard that today, I got some water and left. On my way back to the bottom of the hill I'd just come down a few people were heading towards the aid station and I let them know that it wasn't far, which they probably didn't believe. While my legs were aching going back up this hill my mind was thinking, this is it, last one, then it's all down hill, sort of, but yeah, mostly all down hill. I caught up to a guy who didn't look like he was loving the hill, as I went past he looked at me and just said, "This is awful!" He was right. It was hard, relentless and almost an insult to injury type of thing after getting the brief reprieve of the short downhill but as I kept telling myself, this is the last uphill. It also helped a little that I had prepared mentally for it to be awful. I'd scribbled on my forearm at the start of the day "I W H" for "It Will Hurt" and it did but it wasn't unexpected which helped me every time I looked up and saw how far I had to go. I also had Miss 6 draw a heart on my wrist the night before to remind me of all the love and support I was lucky to receive from everyone who makes these types of follies possible.

And then I'd done it. I had no more hills to climb and had the joy of about 14k of downhill ahead of me. I took the opportunity to take my shoes off and empty out all the pebbles, had something to eat quickly and then began heading downhill. While there is a very good chance that I would have struggled anyway the constant drizzle for the whole morning had made the downhills somewhat treacherous so my thoughts of 14k of fun quickly dissipated and I just started concentrating on getting down in one piece. If it wasn't the mud it was the leaf litter and if it wasn't that it was the loose stones and if it wasn't them it was branches across the trail. Between the top and the next aid station there were a few short stretches where you could let gravity do the work and let the legs go but for the most part of that 3k leg it was pretty much trying not to fall down and keep the brakes on. Thankfully after that it opened up a little and despite the fact that after 20k of up and now down my legs were still not complaining too much. 

The last 10k were relatively uneventful, it was a case of just keep moving forward because if you stop you might struggle to get going again. With not long to go I passed a very kind gentleman who was obviously late for his appointment at Specsavers because he said "Looking good!" I got to the finish, remembered to stop the watch, got my medal saw that there was a food truck selling pizza, went straight to my car and got my wallet and ordered a pizza stretched a little while I waited for the pizza and then sat and ate and contemplated my morning, early afternoon.

Trail events are very different to "road events". They are generally cheaper, smaller, more convivial, extremely well run, much more focused on the experience than the amount of time it takes you to complete it and they are held in amazing, natural venues usually less than 90 minutes drive from the centre of Melbourne. Definitely worth having a look if you are even only slightly interested.

 Oh and just for comparison the 28k at Two Bays has an overall elevation about 680m and 30k Maroondah Dam is a tick over 1200m.

[withlovekth]

Don’t Say a Word (Part Two)

Part One - Part Two - Part Three

Pairing: Yoongi/Yoonji (Suga) x Reader Featuring: Jungkook and Namjoon (Rapmon) Genre: Fluff, Smut Contains: crossdressing, alcohol mention, a little sexual content Word Count: 3.7k

Author’s Note: I’m so glad to be home right now to post this. Work was so shitty and I actually cried because a customer started yelling at me (and instead of talking back I held it in and cried out of anger after they left). Please enjoy this because I couldn’t enjoy my day.

A little over a week has gone by since Yoongi had returned into your life. Every night since his first visit, he would text or call you to tell you about his day as Yoonji. He made college sound fun, but he was only experiencing the fun parts of it: the partying. Since he went into the police academy right after high school, he never had the chance to experience the true college kid life dealing with the stress that stemmed from deadlines and exams. He wasn’t required to attend classes, but he was given a schedule just in case any of the staff or students got suspicious of him hanging around campus all day long. He had to carry around his student ID with him, but had to leave his real ID behind at home, so he wouldn’t risk losing it or having someone find it.

It was almost dinner time when you got a text from Yoongi.

YOONGI (MESSAGE): I’m so tired, but they’re making me stay at the station longer to fill out a bunch of paper works on past cases. I’m so hungry. ㅜㅜ

You were about to go out to get some Chinese takeout anyway, so you decided to make your way to get some food by the station so you can make a little dinner delivery to Yoongi. You entered the station carrying a plastic bag filled with to-go cartons of fried rice, chow fun, and honey walnut prawns.

You walked into a large room full of a bunch of desks, papers stacked up on all of them. A lot of busy looking people walking in and out of the area, the sound of multiple phones constantly ringing was probably white noise to them.

You were approached by a tall, slender boy. “Hi, are you looking for someone? I’m Detective Jeon Jungkook of the Special Victims Unit,” he greeted you warmly with a nod.

You nodded back at him without actually really making direct eye contact. You continued to scan the room, trying to find Yoongi. “I’m here for Lee Yoonji.” You weren’t sure if you were supposed to refer to Yoongi by his real name or his alias.

“Sorry, we don’t have anyone here by that name,” he apologized with a stern look. He was probably suspicious of you for knowing Yoongi’s undercover identity. Jungkook suddenly jumped at the hand that suddenly grabbed him on his shoulder.

“It’s fine, she’s here for me,” Yoongi stepped into the conversation. “Y/N, I had no idea you were coming here.”

“Y/N? You mean your best friend that you keep talking about?” Jungkook smirked. “I thought she was just a person you made up to make it seem like you had friends,” he teased. “Anyway, nice to meet you Y/N.” He gave you a charming smile while sticking his hand out to give you a handshake.

“Nice to meet you too.” You reached out to grab his hand, but Yoongi placed his hands on your shoulders to turn you around and push you off into different direction away from Jungkook.

“Don’t mind that guy. He’s just my asshole of a partner.” He said sarcastically and purposely loud enough for Jungkook to hear and make a side comment, as he guided you to a private interview room. Yoongi seemed to be super close to Jungkook even if he had only been in this unit for about a year. You were glad Yoongi has someone else he could trust besides you.

You placed the food on the table, passing a pair of chopsticks to Yoongi. He gratefully accepted the food you bought for the two of you.

“I didn’t know you were in the Special Victims Unit,” you said before shoving a bunch of noodles into your mouth. “I thought with what you told me about your current case, you’d be in Narcotics or something.”

Yoongi finished chewing and swallowing the food in his mouth before he responded to you. “I felt that telling you about the gruesome, messed up things I’ve encountered in my time here, wouldn’t make a proper catching-up story.” He shrugged his shoulders. You watched as he popped a prawn into his mouth.

You didn’t realise it, but this is the first time you’ve seen Yoongi out of his disguise— no makeup, no wig, no baggy tops to hide his non-feminine features. Surprisingly, they let him keep his hair long and messy, his bangs drooping down, almost covering his eyes. His ears exposed with one hoop on each lobe. He was wearing a pair of black, fitted slacks and a fitted button up with the sleeves rolled up below his elbows. There was no trace of Yoonji anywhere on Yoongi, but you liked how he was able to pull off both looks so effortlessly.

“You know, by just looking at you, I wouldn’t think you’re a detective,” you commented on his appearance.

“Good. I don’t want people thinking that they can’t be themselves around me because I give off a cop vibe or something.” He brought up the container of fried rice and began shoveling some into his mouth.

“You sure don’t act like one either,” you teased him for his behaviors.

He swallowed his food hard. “No comment.”

The two of you finished up your dinner while sharing some laughs. After, Yoongi walked you out of the station. Jungkook said goodbye on your way out, making a remark about trading contact information, but Yoongi kept pushing you away from him. Somehow he was able to slip his business card into your coat’s pocket, but you didn’t mention it to Yoongi. The two of you said your goodbyes and you made your way back home where you instantly fell asleep. It was probably a food coma.

You woke up for a moment, around three in the morning. Out of habit, you checked your phone to see if you had any notifications from anyone. You received a bunch of texts from Yoongi around midnight. Somehow you didn’t wake up to the spam.

YOONGI (MESSAGE): Thank you so much for the food! I thought I was going to die of starvation. ^^

YOONGI (MESSAGE): You’re probably asleep right now… I got super sleepy after eating all that food, but I fought through it!

YOONGI (MESSAGE): I really appreciate you Y/N. Thank you so much. Sweet dreams.

YOONGI (MESSAGE): By the way, I got invited to another college party. I was wondering if you wanted to come with me? I wasn’t planning on doing any undercover work… Just going for fun.

YOONGI (MESSAGE): I probably won’t go if you don’t go… I really want to go with you though… So let me know when you see this! Good night!

You giggle to yourself at how cute Yoongi is. It’s like his missing emotions in real life came to life through text. You suddenly stop in the midst of your fawning over Yoongi to wonder if there is something more to your platonic love for him. When did this happen? Did this feeling start recently or did you always carry this with you throughout all these years? You decide to ignore this feeling, trying to convince yourself that this pounding in your chest is from all the excitement from finally being able to rekindle your relationship with your best friend. You continued to reply to Yoongi.

Y/N (MESSAGE): Sorry for the late reply Yoongi! I’d love to go to the party with you. When is it?

You put your phone down and closed your eyes to try to go back to sleep. Your phone’s vibration startled you, you weren’t expecting an instant reply.

YOONGI (MESSAGE): Oh Y/N! It’s tonight at 10. I’ll go to your place to get you later so we can walk to the party together. I hope it’s fine if I park my car on your street. I know there won’t be parking at the party. I’ll come by around 9/9:30. I’ll see you tonight!

Too tired to reply, you shoved your phone under your pillow to attempt to muffle any possible notifications from the lively Yoongi. He’s probably wired from all the cups of coffee he downs throughout the day, or maybe he was able to fit in one of his daily naps. Either way, he always ended up awake at ungodly hours of the day.

You fought against the vibrations under your head and fell asleep. You woke up around ten in the morning without anything to do until the party. You just lounged around your apartment in your pajamas. There wasn’t anything to do on this peaceful Saturday. When you were hungry, you went through that routine of opening up the refrigerator, closing it, and reopening it as if you’d suddenly would find something to eat. You ended up toasting a mini frozen pizza to satisfy your hunger, although at this point you were super sick and tired of eating these frozen pizzas and regretted buying them because of the ten for ten dollars deal.

Hours have passed and you felt like your brain has melted from doing nothing all day besides attempting to draw and playing some old video games you’ve never finished. It was now eight o’clock and you decided to start getting ready for the party. After showering and drying you hair, you put on a cute, simple outfit— a dark grey, short sleeve skater dress with a navy blue bomber jacket on top, white below the knee socks, and a pair of black hi-top Converse. You don’t normally put on makeup since you were lazy to attempt to look good on a daily basis, but you always made exceptions for performances and parties. You had just finished putting on some eyeliner when you heard a knock on your door. You exited the bathroom and opened up the door to find Yoongi… Or should you say Yoonji?

He was wearing an unbuttoned dark green, plaid flannel with a black, flowy boxy tee underneath. He also had on a black pleated skirt that sat on his waist, black thigh highs, black Authentic Vans with white laces, a black velvet choker around his neck, and a pair of fake pair of horned-rimmed glasses. His makeup, once again, was flawless. He had applied some fake freckles that tied his entire look together.

He used his hand to flip his wig hair back. “How do I look?” He smirked.

You looked at him up and down with your lips parted. “Amazing,” you said almost sounding breathless.

“Oh,” his demeanor changed and a blushed creeped along his face. “Uh, thank you.” He quickly looked at the watch on his wrist and brushed the hair at the back of his head. “It’s already nine, do you wanna head over to the party? I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of people there anyway even if the party starts at ten.”

You agreed to leave early. You quickly grabbed your phone, wallet, and keys and the two of you headed off to the party. As you came up to the block of the house, you could already tell where the party was. Muffled bass could be heard from the outside of the house. A couple of people were chilling out on the porch drinking, smoking, and having a good time. You and Yoongi walked up the steps onto the porch and entered the house. Luckily, the house wasn’t as crowded as you thought it would be, but that could be because you were early. Yoongi grabbed your hand and walked you through the house. The two of you were stopped in the hall by a familiar looking girl.

“Yoonji! Hi!” She enthusiastically kissed him on the cheek. “I’m glad you could make it.” She looked over to you. “Oh, Y/N! I didn’t know you two know each other.”

You laughed nervously, still trying to figure out who this girl was.

“Yeah, Y/N is my new girlfriend,” Yoongi said with the best feminine voice he could fake. You were thrown off at how convincing he was.

“What? You never told me this,” she seemed genuinely surprised. “Did you know we’re in the same band together?”

It suddenly hit you that this girl was Yuna, the flutist that Yoongi was investigating. You didn’t recognize her in her party attire and a face full of makeup. During rehearsals, you never really paid much attention to the people in other sections since you never needed to talk to any of them anyway. You probably had only one other interaction with her before today. You were playing some rudiments on the snare during break and she approached you, impressed with your skills when you were actually just messing around. Your first impression of her was that she seemed like a nice, quiet girl. After hearing about Yuna through Yoongi, you had become cautious of her. You were here to have fun, so you tried not to let that bother you. Hopefully this would be your last encounter with her for the rest of the night.

“Anyway, have fun you two,” she winked at Yoongi. “There are some drinks and snacks in the kitchen so help yourselves. I gotta go and greet the others, so bye!” Yuna was a total ray of sunshine and it was hard to believe she was mixing herself up in some shady business.

“Wait,” you quickly turned your head to Yoongi, “did you just tell her that I’m your girlfriend?”

He pinched your cheek. “Play along with it.” He leaned in close to your ear, “I don’t want her to know anything about you or about the truth of our relationship.” He grabbed your hand and began to drag you into the kitchen. “Come on, have some fun,” he smiled at you, putting you at ease. He poured the two of you some shots of vodka.

You hesitantly downed it. You can’t remember the last time you drank, but you had long forgotten how the burn felt. You sharply exhaled through your nose. Your eyes watered a bit at the fact you felt like you were going to puke for practically drinking something close enough to being rubbing alcohol. You pursed your lips while pouring yourself some soda as a chaser, regretting not doing that before taking the shot.

Yoongi chuckled at you then took his shot. His cheeks became red. He poured another round of shots.

“Whoa, hold on there,” you stopped him from pouring you another. “Aren’t we drinking a little too fast?”

“Nonsense,” he flashed you a cute smile, convincing you to let him pour you your drink.

You were always weak to Yoongi, but somehow in his current feminine state you were even weaker. “Okay fine,” you caved in and smiled back at him. You trusted Yoongi and always felt safe around him.

He passed you your red solo cup. You cheered your cups before taking your shots together. This time it went down easier, since you already knew what to expect. You took a few sips of your soda, already feeling the effects of the alcohol. You made a little mental note to yourself to remind yourself to not drink on an empty stomach.

You felt a tap on your shoulder. You turned around to see a tall boy with a drunken smile on his face.

“Hey cutie, how come I’ve never seen you here before?” His breath reeked of alcohol.

Yoongi stepped in between you two. “Hey Namjoon, don’t you have some studying to do?” Yoongi got really defensive.

“Don’t you have some classes to be attending, Yoonji? I haven’t seen you at math in a while, did you drop the class?” Namjoon jokingly sassed him back. “Just kidding... So who’s the cute girl behind you?”

“My girlfriend,” Yoongi crossed his arms and smirked at him.

“Oh? So are you only into girls?” He directly asked you, brushing off Yoongi. “Because I think you and me can have a little fun if you give me a chance.” He tried to grab your hand but you quickly stepped back a little out of his reach.

“Alright Namjoon, you’re drunk,” Yoongi patted him on the back. Hard. “Let’s go buddy, it’s time to find your own girl.” Yoongi turned him around and pushed him off to another direction.

Namjoon didn’t fight back. It seemed like he was too drunk to care, so he just went with the flow. In the distance you can hear him laugh as he tried to flirt with another girl and it seemed like they were actually hitting it off.

“He isn’t that bad of a guy when he isn’t drunk. He’s actually pretty nerdy and sweet,” Yoongi laughed.

The alcohol finally started to take its full effect. You felt super giggly and free. When you’d turn your head, you felt like you suddenly went from zero to sixty. You liked this feeling of not being able to control your body’s movements, not being able to focus your eyes. Your body’s movement was disorderly, but your mind was pretty aware of everything around you.

In your loose state, you dragged Yoongi into the middle of the room and danced around with him and all the other party go-ers without any hesitation. In actuality without any of that liquid courage, you probably wouldn’t be doing any of this. You were too shy to ever dance at parties, let alone dance so closely to Yoongi. You grinded against him as he held onto your hips, letting you guide him with your fluid movement. It felt so great to be carefree.

“Y/N, hold on,” he growled into your ear, sending shivers down your spine. The music was loud enough to cover up his deep voice, dropping the Yoonji act.

You turned around in surprise. His face was inches away from you. He gave you an intoxicated grin and rested his forehead against yours. The alcohol might have been hitting him hard, but by the look he was giving you, it seemed like he was also getting drunk off you.

“Follow me,” he grabbed your hand and brought you to a bathroom upstairs. He turned on the lights with the dimmest setting.

“Yoongi what are we doing here?” You awkwardly stood in front of him, honestly pretty confused.

“I just… Needed to stop dancing for a bit…” He did the thing where he covered his mouth with the back of his hand while gripping onto the end of his skirt to hold it down.

“Are you feeling okay?” You took a step closer to him, but he took a step back away from you. He tried to avoid looking at your directly in the eyes. You took another step towards him again, cornering him so he couldn’t get away. He backed into the skin’s counter.

“Do you need something?” You got in his face. “Hey Yoongi, look at me.”

The bathroom rug had slid under your feet, causing you to fall against Yoongi. You felt something hard poke against your body. Your eyes widened for a second as you looked up at him.

He looked back down at you, biting his bottom lip. “Y/N, I’m sorry I… I’m…” His face and ears were completely red.

You gently ran your fingers on the exposed skin of his thighs. He let out a small whimper.

“Is something bothering you under here?” You suggestively grinned at him while pushing up his skirt. Seeing him squirm made your heart skip a beat. You loved that embarrassed look on his face. Lust had began to flood your heart and at that moment, you wanted him right then and there. Standing between his legs as he leaned against the counter, you gripped onto his thigh and began to leave traces of your lipstick all over his neck.

He let out a soft groan while sliding his hands down your back to grab onto your ass through your clothes.

You made your way up to kiss him on his jaw line and stopping before you reached his lips. You hesitated, unsure if he’d allow you to. You’ve already gotten this far, so what’s stopping you? You readjusted your position. You were now standing level to him, your arms wrapped around his neck, staring at him.

“Why’d you stop?” He rested his hands on your waist.

“Did you want me to…”

“Kiss me,” he whispered, almost begging.

You closed your eyes and began to lean in but stopped when you heard a knock on the door. You looked into the mirror and in the reflection you saw Namjoon standing in the doorway behind you. He had some girl wrapped around his arm.

He had a weird smile on his face. “So you guys weren’t kidding about being girlfriends. Congrats.” He laughed loudly. “You forgot to lock the door by the way.”

You and Yoongi laughed while continuing to hold onto each other.

“I hope we weren’t interrupting anything,” Namjoon raised an eyebrow. The girl with him let out a little giggle.

You grabbed Yoongi’s hand and lead him out of the bathroom. With your other hand you pulled out your phone and opened up your transportation app to request a ride back to your apartment. As the two of you waited, you both took one last shot before going outside to wait on the curb for your ride, which was already on its way.

You enjoyed the cool breeze against your warm face and the sound of the orange leaves crunching under your feet. Everything felt unreal. The music blaring from the house in the background and the sound of the other party go-ers blended into one sound. You glanced down at your best friend’s hand that was locked in yours. You took note of all the little details about him— the way he tucked his hair behind his ear as the wind blew against him, the way he sighed as he looked at you, the way his fingers tapped against the back of your hand as if he was playing a song on invisible piano keys. This whole scene that seemed like it was out of a movie left a warm feeling in your heart. If this were a movie, you’d press the rewind button to replay this scene over and over again.

Side Note: The Namjoon featured in this story is the same Namjoon from the super short drabble I made a couple weeks back. On another note I was trying to decide on which member to use as Yoongi’s partner and I was considering Taehyung but since I’m already working on a story about him, I decided to go with Jungkook because how good he looked in the police uniform from the Dope MV.

[orihime-maychan]

I Attended the Goo Goo Dolls Live Concert and Experienced Weird Stuff

I just found out last week on posters and billboards near the Trinoma area that the Goo Goo Dolls would be having their first ever concert in the PH on February 11, 2017. If you wanna read about this whole account, just click the Keep Reading break. It’s gonna be long, I warn you,so if you suddenly think TL;DR it’s all on you. =P And if you know where Trinoma is, Hi there ^-^

Yes, I live under a rock and I have no shame about that, but seeing that concert poster kinda made me think that I would very much rather go to that concert than accompany a work colleague to the International Hot Air Balloon Festival, which was something that she asked me to go with for the past month. After she backed out on the day before we were supposed to go, I was quite happy that I could now go to the Goo Goo Dolls concert, and not have to spend the day somewhere else. Yes, I do appreciate work colleague’s enthusiasm on going but to be honest, I pretty much have a gauge on whether or not I would enjoy having her as company on anything and, well, it’s a no. I’m not being mean, but it’s just that I prefer not to talk about work, or politics, or showbiz (unless it’s about the latest or best K-drama or movie or song out there), or even about other people that I personally know, and this person just likes to talk about such things. You’d probably have that kind of friend, the one who only mopes or brags or just plainly zaps your energy down and you just try to get away from such a friend as much as you can, and that’s how I feel about this friend so I just made up my mind that in the event that the original outing plan was to be abandoned, I’m gonna go to a concert. By myself. Because I can. And so I did. But it felt quite weird, especially with the events leading to the actual day and even after the concert has ended. I landed in places I didn’t even know existed, or even thought of going to in the soonest possible time. Therefore, after what happened to be the weirdest yet fun adventure I had with two total strangers (yes, I spent a lotta time with two people I have never met before, and lived to tell the tale), I shall write my account before I forget it altogether.

The Days (that lead to, and the Night) before the Concert

Since finding out about the concert, even if I was thinking that I had to go to the Hot Air Balloon Fest, at the back of my mind I really wanted to be somewhere else, so instead of trying hard to think about the original event, I just stopped resisting the concert urge and started imagining the kind of fun I was going to have while watching the concert by myself without distractions or negative tag-alongs with me. I was intending to ask my concert buddy and very good college friend to go along with me but turns out that she got tagged to the Hot Air Balloon event even if she didn’t really felt like going there at all. Apparently she also wanted to attend the Goo Goo Dolls concert as well but because of peer pressure (lol) she had to get up early and go someplace else. Seriously I think she had been one of the designated drivers so it’s not like she had a choice too, but her own travel got weird as well and she seemed to have enjoyed the weirdness that ensued so good for her, and bless her soul. =D

So, going back to my own experience, on the days leading to the concert, I was pretty much stuck and unhappy for some reason, mainly I was starting to dread going to the Hot Air Balloon Fest. I have nothing against it, it seems to be a lot of fun and there were drones and fighter planes and stuff but seriously, not really my thing, but I still tried my best to prep up like finding directions on how to go there, thinking of eating in the eateries before going to the actual place because I expect that everything would be super pricey and stuff. I could not, for the love of pizza fries find a decent post on the internet on how to get there from where I am, and it was super-frustrating AF because even the person who asked me to go to the event has no idea how to get there either, and it kinda sucked. Also, I had a strong and nagging feeling of ditching her once I find out if she would be bringing other people with her, so I won’t have to. Yes, I may sound like I’m a bad friend but seriously I’m the kind of person that actually avoids certain kinds of people like the plague because I wanna and because I have to. Introverts can relate to that statement, or at least some of them do (hugs you all yay). On the day before the concert I was asking everyone at home if they know of a way to go to the Hot Air Balloon event, and as expected, they didn’t know any other shortcuts except when using a private car. I have no license yet so going there via the expressways and other main roads is already a no-go. (I’m planning to get my license this year but for now, I just do my best not to get one while I’m still emotionally and psychologically unstable.) Just when I was about to give up, I found a blogger’s account on how she got to Baler, Aurora using the route that I was supposed to use to get to the site, and then back here in our house again. Seriously, that pushed me to text my friend if she still wanted to go. But she texted back that she can’t go, and would just meet up with me next time. LOL, all that worry went for nothing. But I was still happy because I learned a new way of going somewhere else (I might need that in the future) and now I can, by all means go to the concert and have fun and stuff. Yay ^-^ But as the day was starting to end, and I had already listened to nearly all of the songs online, my drive to attend was waning, and fast, like the speed of light. At around 9pm, I have already resigned to not leaving the house altogether and just spend the day stretching and flexing my hands so I could make my template drawing for my father’s souvenir program and finish it as well. I didn’t even try putting on extra-nice creams on my face to freshen up, I just washed and toned and moisturized and just fell asleep, thanking the universe for my uneventful day. But of course, knowing the universe, it throws curve balls when you’re not looking.

The Concert Day Itself…

I woke up around 2am and couldn’t sleep properly till 5am. Initially, I was quite frustrated because I wanted more sleep so I could draw and stuff, but weirdly after having lucid and non-lucid dreams till 5am I suddenly had a strong urge to go to Manila (yeah, obviously I don’t live there >_<) and watch Goo Goo Dolls as planned. I washed up, took leaks as much as I can, ate a bit of stuff, and went off. My father was in the driveway and asked me if I was still going to the concert, for which I just blurted out a “yes” and the next thing I knew he took me to the hi-way in his truck to catch the bus, which I did eventually after he circumvented the usual route and took me to another bus stop before the one I was gonna board on came.  I was almost left behind but the universe wanted me to watch the concert so I took it as a sign to shut the heck up and just go with it. I got on the bus and met a colleague, which is more of a sempai-kouhai relationship because I was the sempai and the kid is the kouhai who also works in the area where I live, bless his soul. I might have ruined his time because he seemed to be talking with another dude across the bus aisle and I just told him to move to the window seat and he actually obliged (but then again, they should’ve just sat together so I wouldn’t have ruin anything, but that’s just my thoughts so….). Anyways, after chatting for a bit and dozing off and waking up at the bus stop-over, then exchanging seats with the colleague so he could talk to the other guy again, dozing off due to traffic jams and finally saying goodbyes to the colleague, I finally reached the bus terminal full of anticipation, excitement, as well as plans on what I would do during the concert (like standing and jumping while screaming at the top of my lungs, singing along to whatever song I can, and waving my hands without any care in the world) as well as planning how I’m gonna get home later and the expected time I would go to bed. I bought the tickets at the site because I didn’t want to use my plastic to buy a General Admission ticket online, cause that’s reserved for the more posh concert boxes. =P After buying the tickets, I sat beside a grampa on the rim of a large exhaust thing which is probably where the AC of the concert venue releases the heat. But I got bored so I left the grampa and went somewhere to eat some grub so I won’t have to later, before entering the nearby mall to stare at the cute Koi in the pond, for the next 5 hours or so. But just after 3 hours I got bored so I went out again and sat somewhere near some food kiosks, but that didn’t last very long because just 5 minutes of sitting down and we were told to leave because they were gonna open in a bit. I went back to the exhaust thing and sat down…

Is when the Weird Things started Happening

After a few minutes sitting down, a chibi-sized girl (and I mean REALLY chibi because compared to my 1.54m height, she was like at least 30cm shorter, like srsly I suddenly felt tall like a model LOL) walked towards me and sat on the exhaust rim. She might have been sitting on the same food kiosk area where I had been before getting pushed off (sad face), and she started asking me if I was there for the Goo Goo Dolls concert. Had I said NO, I might have enjoyed the rest of my concert day and did the stuff that I was planning to do, but being quite open to meeting fellow concert goers at the venue, I said YES. Well, it went weirdly OK after that. We started chatting about the band’s songs, where we lived, our work, then exchanging names (because we just clicked without going through the usual pleasantries that other people do), then moving on to other stuff like how many kids today are so spoiled rotten and annoying and shaking our heads too much because srsly, we both found out that couldn’t stand ungrateful idiots and that if the parents didn’t stop spoiling their kids the future would be unbearably bleak (no pun intended, but srsly MAIKO FTW! LOL). We had so much to talk about, even when a mom suddenly appeared twice to find people to chat with while she was waiting for her son and his GF. No, he didn’t attend the concert, and when we saw the kid my brain was like “you’re still a baby lololol” even if he was taller and looked like a skater boy. Anyways, the mom and the kids left and Chibi-girl and I started chatting again.

After exchanging some life experiences, our ages, ideas, as well as being excited to see older people who would be watching the concert with us, an Oneesan who sat on my left (Chibi was sitting on my right) and was being a lot fidgety stood up to ask us if we were going to the concert. We both could have said no but we were already in the zone so we just said yes. This Oneesan asked our ages and when we told her we were both already 30 she jumped up shocked and said “Why are you kids going to this concert?” Major LOLs here because Chibi and I were both hoping to see older people and watch them get excited over seeing the Goo Goo Dolls as well as waiting to see if any teens would even bother to watch as well, and then here is this 40-something Oneesan who suddenly started fangirling out loud over John and saying over and over again that she had been waiting for 20 years to see them live. The even more amazing thing about this is that Oneesan VIP (because the bought a VIP ticket) rode a plane all the way from Davao City in Mindanao just to watch the concert in Manila, and would be going back straight home afterwards. Chibi and I were super-amazed, like, that kind of dedication was soooooooo daebak. I don’t know about you guys but srsly, if I could be THAT Oneesan ten, maybe 20 years from now, then I’d be super happy. =) Oneesan asked if Chibi and I both knew each other because we were chatting so much, like two friends who were catching up and stuff. I just told her that we just met two hours ago LOL. We three ended up bonding so much so we started to chat about our lives, likes, and loves, and our expectations for the concert, what we would be doing, and what could possibly happen to us (she wanted to watch more concerts in the future both here and abroad, and Chibi seems to oblige because she seems up-to-date with the concert scene. I was of no use, unless they wanted to know how to go to the various places in Manila then I could tell them that). When it was time to assemble, Oneesan gave us a hug, we promised each other to have a good time, and she left off to the VIP admission gate while Chibi and I lined up at the general admissions gate. So, to sum that up, I met two total strangers and after a few minutes of chatting we were now officially super-duper friends. And in today’s society where stranger-danger is an actual thing, I was quite happy to meet such nice people, and felt grateful to live to tell the tale.

During the Concert

It took another two hours of standing in line before Chibi and I got inside the gen ad area, and we stared at how spacious and somewhat vacant the venue was. She seemed to be photo-crazy as she kept taking pix like every 20-seconds. I just sat there and stared at all of the people, and took just a few shots of the place. We chatted for a bit, and we tried finding where Oneesan was in the VIP section, but the area was weirdly vacant.

But it didn’t take long before we got a text from Oneesan that she got to be in the meet-and-greet by accident. Chibi and I were so happy for her, I mean, she finally got a chance to meet and probably hug her idols after waiting for 20 years. She must be all giddy and breathless and stuff but srsly, good for her. =) We just replied that she now has to treat us with food after the concert because she got a stroke of luck she didn’t happen to expect. That got us all fired-up to enjoy the concert a lot more, even if we still had to wait till around 8:40pm for the concert to start. But once it did, I just couldn’t care any less. Aside from standing up and jumping, I pretty much did what I planned to do, even if most of the people around me were super-uptight and just took videos of the entire thing. After watching a lot of concerts, I have scratched that habit off and just try to enjoy the concert as much as I can, and also because I feel that by doing such things I am giving a disservice to the artists who are up on stage and giving it their all. Besides, I’d bet they’d want the audience to interact with them like how people actually did in the past. So I just let everything flow, screamed before a song started, screamed during the start of the interludes, and screamed after every song. The older women on my left side seemed to be enjoying themselves because they were screaming just as loud as I was, maybe even louder, and it feels like they’re just so happy to be there, so I felt that everything was well and good despite some people who uhm, seem to not feel the same vibe. I couldn’t care any less so I just enjoyed till the balloons dropped and the entire thing ended. 

Because the next concert would be in Thailand the next day and the whole band has to depart early (sad face). Well, at least I had a great time and I felt super happy. I wish my concert friend was there to see it with me, but she ended up in Baguio City through a series of weird events and was now feeling super-cold but I think she survived the night because she replied the next day, so all’s well and good. ^-^

After the Concert Ended (the Weirdness still continued)

The concert had finished, and we had to find Oneesan so she could tell us how the meet and greet went, but we couldn’t find where she was, and we kept thinking “Oh no, she got lost”, but she texted that she was at Starbucks but we didn’t know WHICH one so we just tried taking pics with the posters, but the only one available was the one with EXO’s EXO’rDIUM announcement (because remember, the major age demographic of the viewers was from 35 years of age and above) so I took a selca with Chanyeol (srsly let me have my moment since this may be the only selca I could ever take with my son. SRSLY.).

It sucks now but I like it, like a mom who takes a selca with her annoyed kid lol.  Also, I think SM might have finally accepted the fact that SuChen is a thing based on the layout: 

SuChen FTW! Lol so anyway after trying to find Oneesan we started pestering her on how the whole meet-and-greet thing went. Aside from being prohibited to take selcas with John and Robby, I think it went great because she was all smiles and she even got to hug them both like, twice or something. All in all, she had a blast of seeing her idols and even telling them upfront that she waited for them for 20 years. Talk about dedication =P We tried finding some grub but most of the places were starting to close up, which was weird despite it being just 11pm (the concert ended around 10:30 and it felt so bitin, like we were left hanging and we just couldn’t get enough. Like the entire coliseum felt that same way. But it still was great and we only talked about the nice stuff and Oneesan kept spazzing, it was so nice. =) Because we didn’t get to take a pic with the poster, we just made do with this tarpaulin across the road LOL now you’re gonna see my eww face T^T and I wasn’t kidding with Chibi lol

I just told Oneesan to hold on to that feeling because she still has a flight to catch and she would need all her strength to get there. Chibi and I decided to go to the airport with her because she doesn’t know her way in Manila, and I offered to find the hotel she was staying at because she forgot where it was. Not that I know where it was, but judging from how she described getting to the venue from the hotel I surmised that it was just nearby. So we walked for a while, got our bearings straight thanks to a security guard, and after walking on an overpass we finally got to her hotel. She just packed up quickly, took a leak, and after everyone got their heads together we searched for taxis to take us to the airport.

I did not expect to end up in the Airport, of all Places

Since the beginning of the year, I wrote in my bucket list to ride an airplane at least twice, because I don’t do that often. But I fear entering the airports due to my fondness for watching Border Security Canada and Border Security (Australia) and that the last time I had to walk through airport security I had to take a lot of stuff off. T^T But I never expected to even be NEAR an airport anytime soon, so once we got an honest taxi driver to get us to the airport (there were some unscrupulous ones about) thanks to Chibi who apparently goes to the national airport a lot and knows the tricks of the trade, my mind was already spinning so much with all the synchronicities that already happened to me within the last 20 hours. Or my mind was just starting to melt because my body was asking for sleep by that time.

During the taxi ride, we got to know more about each other’s true lives. Oneesan was studying to become a lawyer, and Chibi was suffering from severe insomnia due to an excess consumption of energy drinks, because she had to take care of her bed-ridden father in the hospital for two years before the Lord took his soul (may he rest in peace). As we were talking about the weird effects of Red Bull, the taxi driver suddenly quipped up about his own experience in drinking excessive energy drinks, how his kidneys got inflamed, and how he finally got well, kicked the habit, and even the use of cigarette and alcoholic drinks. He seemed better now, thank goodness and he even shared some of his habits like drinking tea with lemon juice and honey, or just drinking plain water to maintain his health. He dropped us safely to the airport and we said goodbyes, as Chibi started to tell us where we could enter the airport without having to show boarding passes, and we did, but not after I had been subjected to a somewhat intense scrutiny because I kept setting off the metal detectors, only to be frisked by the lady guard with a Hijab. Turns out my favorite denim moto-jacket’s stud buttons were 100% metal like wth that idea never occurred to me before. T^T But we still got inside and we took a tour, and Oneesan even got to print her boarding pass because she has no luggage. Then we walked along some more, because apparently Chibi knows the ins and outs of the entire area.

The last time I was inside Terminal 3 was 2010, and that was a heck of a long time ago. I was mostly on the outside waiting for relatives to arrive, but that’s about it. I simply did not think that I would be going there, much less standing inside and seeing all the queues of people checking in and stuff. It just felt so real that I promised myself there and then that I will write this account no matter what, even if I slept so much after the entire encounter. I’m gonna add some dumb pics to freeze the moment, and also so you guys could see my metal-buttoned jacket that caused me so much alarm, literally. =P

Lol turns out I didn’t get to take a selca that shows my jacket, but it’s there. >_<

Ok, so back to the sight-seeing, since there was still 3 hours before Oneesan has to board the plane. I saw so much renovations which were still on-going but alas, no couches O_o srsly please put more seating areas there, if not for the locals, for the foreign tourists at least. So, on to the chats, we talked about so much stuff about life, like how Oneesan appreciates not having kids despite being married since 29 because if that happened she wouldn’t be able to pursue law school and get decent jobs and stuff, since she believes that having your own source of income is a modern thing that gives independence to everyone, not just women. I couldn’t agree more because srsly, if my mother didn’t have her job we would be bankrupt now just to support her lifestyle, so it’s a good thing that she held own job (at the expense of not getting to take care of the kids. But then again, we had dad for that so I think it still turned out pretty well). Just when things were getting too serious, Chibi’s dead phone kinda lightened things up a bit (I kept telling her not to drain her battery but she just kept on taking pix and updating her FB status until her phone died on her), so we tried finding a charging station for her. The topic ended up with marriage and all that shit, and frankly both Chibi and I agree that we’d think about that once we gain financial stability in our lives. Weirdly, Oneesan told me twice that with my way of speaking and thinking I might end up marrying a foreign guy, and I was all like, NOOOOOOOOO but then I remembered that the guy I’m having a super-major crush on is TECHNICALLY and LEGALLY by all intents and purposes, basically in all such aspects a foreigner so I just shut up and LOL-ed in my head. We started chatting some more, but things got emotional when Chibi fully-disclosed her experiences with taking care of her father for two years, and really it was just so sad, but I tried to keep it all together even if I was thinking on what-ifs should my own dad (Heaven forbid) end up in that situation. I think she pretty much covered all the necessary things to do like going to a geriatric specialist and being 100% honest about medical histories, but then again I think honesty is always the best policy so why not. When the clock struck 3:10 and Oneesan has to board the plane we started to act like teenagers who were making eternal promises of meeting soon and doing fun stuff together and we were all having group hugs and beso-beso (the kiss where your lips don’t touch anything LOL) while thanking each other for the crazy day and the wonderful ride.

Evidence that we three were together that day. ^-^ I placed the watermark on mine. =P

Chibi and I stayed in the airport for a bit more, we chatted about the kinds of people we meet based on what province in the country they came from. I got a strong feeling that she is quite a judgmental person who likes to stereotype anyone, but then again I used to be one so I just held my tongue for most of the conversation. I just told her my own personal experiences with different kinds of people, and eventually summed it up in a small nugget: Some people will suck no matter where they come from, so we just have to be prepared either way. After assuring her that it’s worthwhile to think about the best in people you meet, we both finally left the terminal area when Oneesan’s departure time came. We walked around the airport some more until we decided to ask for directions on how to get on a bus to EDSA. We got to walk a lot, while I was reassuring Chibi that it’s safe to walk around (even if I was unsure myself). We tried finding the jeepneys and after seeing the U-turn slot where they appear, we rode one and got to EDSA. She then tried finding another konbini-charging station because apparently the one on the airport just sucked out her remaining battery life. >_< After charging, my head was starting to get really swirly and I actually tried finding some energy drinks but weirdly there weren’t any so I just walked around the food area till I woke up a bit. Meanwhile Chibi realized that she had been wasting a great deal of cash riding a taxi to and from the airport, surmising that if I didn’t push her to ride public transportation she’d still be paying a lotta cash. She told me that she’d still take the taxi whenever she takes someone to the airport, but would be going home via jeepney and bus. Speaking of bus, after finding the proper bus stop we rode a bus, chatted for a bit, and she got off to her stop, but not without the beso and the tight hugs. I bid her good night and be safe. Now I’m really alone this time, till I get home.

I got home safely after spending a lot of my time with two previously-unknown people (and I’m OK)

I finally felt reality after climbing the bus, and the first person that I texted was my freezing friend in Baguio, who seemed fine, thank goodness. Then I texted my two new friends, and during that time Oneesan’s plane just made a touch-down in Davao City, so she seems fine. Chibi texted that she was still lingering around the place she got off since she was trying to wait for the chapel to open, and I just texted them both that I might be too-dead sleepy to reply so I just thanked them and I slept like a baby in the bus, except during the time that I had to get my ticket and pay up. Oh, and also because the sun shone on my face at some point during the ride, I just stayed the heck up till I reached my bus stop. Then I walked home, like a zombie, but I had to greet the roaming security guard so I wouldn’t be too obvious. The parents were already wide awake and preparing lunch but I was sooo hungry that while I was chatting with them about how I got into the airport by chance I already snarfed half the bowl of boiled peanuts on the table. I suddenly remembered that I only had a Subway sandwich 12 hours ago and we spent a lot of time walking after that. But seriously, I was still on a high so I just continued inhaling the peanuts as I removed them from the shells. After cleaning my face with some makeup remover, I texted my new friends that I got home safely and thanked them with all my heart because why not, before sleeping like a rock. But because Chibi can function with just three hours of sleep I think she may have forgotten that some people can sleep for more than eight hours to catch a lot of lost sleep, and she rang me up to find my social media account. Of course we chatted a bit and she ended the call to find Oneesan and upload the vids and pics. And so, this ends more or less my adventure with two complete strangers during my quest to watch the Goo Goo Dolls live in Manila.

Epilogue (and the Tally of the Weird Synchronicities that Happened)

So many things happened to me in the past 72 hours, a whole lot more than I can count just staying here in the house or in the office/lab. And most of what happened, I didn’t even think could possibly happen, and I find that the universe works in weird yet mysterious ways. Like seriously. Because to be honest, if I didn’t say YES I’M ALSO GONNA WATCH GOO GOO DOLLS this whole adventure thing never have happened. If Chibi didn’t tell Oneesan OK I’LL TAKE YOU TO NAIA TERMINAL 3 then goodness knows how Oneesan could even navigate the streets of Manila at night. And if Oneesan didn’t even approach us I wouldn’t be able to enter NAIA terminal 3 in the wee hours of the morning. You guys might think I’m weird, but in a place where you have no idea what to expect or even how to do things, finding nice and true people who could help you with the navigation is the best gift that the universe can offer you. Just the fact that I got into an airport without doing anything was already a miracle to me. But shhhhhh don’t tell airport authorities, OK? >_< It’s not like I plan to do bad things, I’m just glad I got to experience what it feels like to board a plane, even without trying to, and for me that’s a super-big deal considering the fact that I wanted to ask someone to tell me what I needed to do if I go to the airport and, and not only did I have that but I actually GOT INSIDE and have the actual experience. It’s freaking crazy, I tell you.

I’ll Side-track a Bit because Something Weird also happened to me during the Concert

After everything that has happened, just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, I also realized that something weird happened to me during the concert, but only processed what makes it weird this morning. Chibi told me that during the concert while I was screaming as loud as I can, there was a pair of guys behind us who kept complaining how noisy I was, like a lot. Normally I could hear such things even when I’m in a crowd, and considering the fact that I was sitting quite close to Chibi, I don’t get why I wouldn’t be able to hear a bunch of guys complaining directly behind us. But during the concert it was different, like something or someone blocked out negativity all around me so I could fully enjoy the concert experience, even the complaints of other people. Once I realized that something like this happened I immediately thought of just one person, a former group mate in one of my college subjects who used to be a bassist in a band, and he unfortunately passed away in an asthma attack around the end of the summer term after the semester we had a class together. I don’t think I’m at liberty to discuss how that happened so I’ll just pay respects to the dead by saying that he was an OK person when he was alive. But then again...

I was never really particularly fond of this group mate, in fact we always had an argument on which form of art is better: visual or performance arts. Of course, being a visual artist I always believed that visual art is the best because you don’t have to have ears to appreciate it. But this guy kept telling me that performance art, particularly music is better because idek I completely forgot his reasoning, and also because he was shouting at me as he explained his point. It was quite unbearable for me, and maybe even for the rest of our group. But srsly tho, we wouldn’t have gotten a fairly decent grade in our culminating activity if it weren’t for the combination of both the visual and performance aspects of our presentation. I designed a painted cardboard ark and he had to cut the whole thing so our other group mates could color it in, with my supervision of course. He then had to choose the songs we would be singing in our presentation and make the necessary adjustments so everyone could do it. Everyone else pitched in to prepare the script for our act, so all in all it was a great group experience for me. But I really just can’t handle him having at it with the need to debate about visual arts and music because I personally just couldn’t give a fudge about it. I can fairly sing, and I can draw shit so I just couldn’t care, but I dunno, maybe he is just the kind of person that picks fights with people he thinks he can elicit any reaction from. I was that dumbass. >_< After our semester ended, I felt relief that I won’t have to meet up with him anymore, but the universe can be a bitch at times and during the summer semester that followed, I practically saw him every day. But I think he mellowed down a bit because he just smiles a bit and waves whenever we met on campus. Or maybe because he was with his lady friend and wouldn’t wanna show his annoying side whenever he greets the devil’s advocate LOL =P Of course, I had no idea that would be the last semester I would be seeing him, but I still treated him quite OK by waving and saying hello each time I saw him, of course keeping it to a minimum because the lady friend might get angry at the both of us, or me judging by how her side-eyes look. Scary. T^T Then the summer semester ended, and I went home to my province.

While waiting for the enrollment period, and before I heard about his passing from another group mate via text, a brown butterfly had been hanging around our living room area and didn’t leave the room until I received my other group mate’s text. It felt creepy then because seriously, I always took light about the guy’s asthmatic condition but never really thought that he would pass because of that. I just prayed for the repose of his soul so he could move on, and from then on, weirdly around the time of his death anniversary I get a visit from a small, brown butterfly. As far as I know he’s the only non-relative guy I know who died a bit after my birthday, the other one is my father’s eldest brother but since he’s with my aunt now, it should be fine. In any case, I pray that may all of their souls rest in peace.

A year after this group mate passed, I met another former group mate from that same subject (the one I share my birthday and birth year with, basically my birthday twin) and we chatted for a while. Then we chatted about our other group mate who moved on, and I heard from my birthday twin that according to our group mate who passed, apparently I was a very difficult person to talk with, or at least that’s what my birthday twin was told. Srsly, I would have never guessed no j/k of course I know since I was the only one who had that much guts to slam my ideas against him, so I won’t disagree on that idea. Birthday twin was about to say something else about group mate’s opinion on me but he suddenly stopped and kept it from me, and because I wasn’t really much of a pushy person to pester, I never asked him to continue what he was going to say. I have been regretting that one, polite move because who knows what that information could have been. There are too many possibilities for what-if’s, and I can’t handle that much information. Well, too late now because right now I don’t think I’ll be able to interrogate birthday twin about it anytime soon because now I have no contact with any one of my group mates or other friends for that matter because I deactivated my FB and quite frankly I just tried living without so much FB drama. Of course I could still text those who actually cared to send me their nos., otherwise I’m just a peaceful island over here. (Hence, my tumblr account you have just stumbled upon. J/k I stayed here more than in FB so when I decided to deactivate FB I lived on tumblr full-time, or at least till I found some odd jobs.) But despite what happened to me for the past decade or more since the group mate crossed the other side, even if some of my memories of him were not as fond, I still try to pray for the repose of his soul, I occasionally tell his soul or whatever that is right now that visual art is better than music because visual art can last for eternity like the cave paintings in France, long after the artists have died, and that you need people to re-play music over and over again, or at least a device like a recorder to make it happen. I regret not telling him this when he was alive so I tell this to him if and when I remember to. At the very least, I ask him to protect me from harm in the event that I ran out of angels to ask help for. Yes I am a logical person but I don’t dismiss the possibility of things beyond normal because for some weird reason I have a strong belief on such things. Don’t judge me, OK? >_< Ok, that’s pretty much a long-ass explanation on why I had so much fun in the Goo Goo Dolls concert, and why my usually-sharp ears didn’t hear the complaining people at the back, who by the way I think are too prude to enjoy themselves in the concert, or maybe it’s their first time to attend one? Idek, and right now I just don’t care. I had fun, my new friends had fun, we all got home safely, and it was well worth it.

This is the end, for real

Well, I guess that’s about it. I hope I didn’t frighten you guys with my ugly pics, I had lack of sleep so I looked like that in the pics, and I had no touch-ups too. Also, I’m not exactly photogenic, I think I look better in person so… Yeah. X_x Thanks for reading my super-duper long raving and reminiscing and weirdly-formatted word-vomit, but please trust me when I say that this shit is real (despite changing the names of the people involved to protect their identities). I hope I made your day a bit better, somehow, in some way. =)

Hoping for you to have the best in life,

Orihime M.

PS. Here is a proper(?) selca before the concert. I tell you the truth when I say that I‘m usually prettier than this. >_< Lol ok gtg now baiiiii