#Check out the fancam it’s really really fantastic

[caliphoria17]

“Cruz will always answer to ‘Come here.’” 🥹

Laysla de Oliveira’s IG story

FANCAM link

[yoongihan]

okay okay.

so i know nothing about either the video game or comic book series this series is inspired by. i know a little about cyberpunk (and have read like one other fic set in that genre - subgenre?), though i'm more versed to discuss steampunk.

i say that because i don't know how much of the world-building is from the original inspirations and how much is from that brilliant mind of yours, author-nim; however, it kind of doesn't matter because you do an impeccable job of translating this world into mere words for this humble reader.

first of all, you gave me some jisung (which from my username should clue you into who is my skz bias) who is wonderful. All the skz that you aren't writing actual fics for are still so interesting set in this world that if you ever decide to write something for jisung, changbin, seungmin (weapons? I LOVE THIS) or jeongin, i will eagerly eat it up.

second, this felix. THIS FELIX. So it's kind of easy to characterize him as a bit more soft and shy and cute (which he totally can be), but he's also bold, flirty (i've seen the fancams!), a hella hard worker, and ahem, sexy. Which you really bring out in this. Both the sweetness and the hotness, making him all the more well-rounded.

Number 3. MC is fantastic. Her stubbornness, her inability to see herself as being a good person through her motivations, just interesting and engaging to read about. The childhood friends to lovers trope is one i enjoy so much (any friends to lovers is my JAM), and i like the familiarity with her and felix, but also the unfamiliarity of seeing someone after years apart.

Fourthly, the plot! I write this rambling after reading all three parts of this series and WOW. Like how each story continues the overarching revolution. I love it. Kudos again to your brilliant mind because I'm also a writer and plot/action/suspense is not easy (esp for me, but i digress). You introduce the world, its rules (the cyber enhancements are so cool), the stakes so well in this installment.

Also...Felix just blatantly checking out mc when she's changing will live in my head forever. Love it.

FORCE QUIT // EPISODE I: SCRAPS

you didn't have "anti-capitalist revolution" on this year's bingo card, but you never turn down a good time.

pairing: lee felix x reader | series masterlist (1/4) | next episode series summary: it's 2077, and life's a fucking nightmare. corporate titans ate the state and shat it back out, leaving citizens of the new republic to fall in line, or fall to their knees. a reckoning is coming — where will you fall? au: series — dystopian, cyberpunk; episode — childhood friends to strangers to something ➢insp. by: cyberpunk 2077 + the true lives of the fabulous killjoys genre: smut + angst + some fluff word count: 15.4k rating: 18+— minors do not have my consent to interact. series warnings: violence (hand-to-hand, firearms, explosives), depictions of injuries (blood/bruising/burns), some characters have cybernetic modifications, class conflict + poverty, surprise - corporations are bad!, unethical medical/tech experimentation, self-indulgent references to non-skz idols, reader is afab and uses she/her pronouns. episode warnings: above + trainer!felix, edgerunner!reader, pov switches, time skips, reference to food insecurity + reader living check to check, reader has cybernetic retinal mods + one in her hand, reader experiences temporary vision loss after being knocked out, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected p in v penetration. a/n: each episode features a different member x reader pairing, but the plot is linear, so you'd need to read them (in order) to get the full picture! you can sign up for the taglist to be notified of the next uploads. thank you to my beloved @sailoryooons for beta'ing this and @jihopesjoint for being my emotional support internet wife even though she doesn't stan skz. ily both endlessly!

You don’t deal in absolutes, but you know two things for sure: vending-machine burritos are a crime against humanity; and Han Jisung is a dirty, rotten bastard.

The firm stance you’ve taken on the latter may or may not have something to do with the former, but you can’t draw that conclusion now — not with the abuse your taste buds are currently suffering, anyway.

“Who the fuck —” 

You cut yourself off to spit a mouthful at the ground. Notably, the remnants of that half-chewed abomination look just as awful on the way out as they did on the way in.

 “— Replaced this queso with battery acid?”

Chipmunk cheeks stuffed to bursting, Jisung blinks back at you. He says nothing — suddenly too polite to speak with his mouth full — and shrugs, unbothered. That’s when the realization hits you like a boot to the skull. Drenched in disbelief, your muttering comes out in slow-motion: 

“You spent the last of our cash on these.”

He swallows, though you don’t know how he could bring himself to do it. That act alone makes the rage you’re simmering in bubble over. 

You repeat yourself through gritted teeth, pausing emphatically between every word, “The — last — of — our — cash!”

“My bad?” He eventually offers. Tongue flicking out, he tries to gather the unidentified sauce that clings to the corner of his mouth. He fails. “Not sure what else I was supposed to find with that little money in this part of town, but go off, I guess.”

You bite your lips together to hold back the guttural yell you’re seconds from releasing. At your sides, your empty hands clench tightly. Instead of snapping — with your words or your fists — you close your eyes, inhaling slowly through your nose. Deep breaths won’t do you any fucking good in this smog, but your brain tends to work a little bit better without visual interference.

I can go another twenty-four hours, you think. Maybe.

It’s been a while since you’ve last eaten and even longer since your last job. This isn’t out of the ordinary; gaps are to be expected when you live on the fringe, jumping from thread to thread. Still, it isn’t like Changbin to leave you hanging the way he has been lately. It sure as shit isn’t like him to dodge your calls, either.

So, you figure, if you make an unsolicited visit to his office — the stock room of a bar you know better than to frequent — he won’t have a choice. He’ll have to look you in the eye and explain the dry spell, personally. He owes you at least that much.

With your plan finalized, you hold out your left hand to Jisung. In the few moments you’d taken your eyes off him, he’d apparently gone from sitting on the hood of your car to reclining fully with his own eyes closed. Basking like a little lizard in the sunlight, it’s a miracle the hot metal hasn’t burned a hole in his shirt.

“Come on.” You nudge his bent knee with your knuckles to no avail.

As Jisung is wont to do, he pouts. “But it’s so nice out — and your car still reeks, by the way.”

The absolute, rakish audacity.

If you didn’t love him, you’d probably kill him. 

Strike that. 

Love is irrelevant. You wouldn’t kill him unless and until there was a price on his head. After all, your mother taught you better than to do the things you’re good at for free.

“Do we want to talk about whose fault that is?” You ask with a roll of your eyes. The affection’s still there; you know he sees it. “If I recall correctly — and I think I do, having been the only sober person present — you were the one who got blasted and barfed on everything I love in this world.”

“I got blasted and barfed exclusively on the floor of your car.”

It’s your turn to shrug. “Exactly. End of list.”

Groaning, Jisung rolls his eyes as far back as they’ll go, but he still takes your hand. He always does, always has. With your help, he scoots his ass down the hood and lands with both boots — precisely where your ejected burrito bite did, not five minutes earlier. You can’t stop the satisfied grin from spreading when he whines again, this time louder and with twice as much despair.

After playfully shoving your passenger towards his door, you unlock your own. You don’t dump yourself into the seat, however; not yet. A wall of horrible heat is waiting for you the second the door opens, and you know better than to run into it, headlong.

Jisung is less patient. He’s also more regretful, face twisting in self-imposed anguish when he drops down onto the sun-scorched leather seat. And, to your delight, the hits keep coming. You watch with a smile when the consequences of last weekend’s actions hit his nostrils. The look he gives you falls somewhere between humbled, apologetic, and absolutely dead inside.

“Not one of my finer moments, I’ll admit it.” He acknowledges with a wave of his hand. Resigned, he sighs, “I’ll scrub the shit out of the floor mats the next time we can afford a wash.”

Satisfied, you finally climb behind the wheel. Pushing through the slightly-muted sting of the seat against the backs of your bare thighs, you put your foot on the brake and lift your right hand to press your thumb to the ignition port. The roar of the engine covers the way your breath hitches, but Jisung doesn’t have to hear it to notice the grimace that accompanies it.

“Still sore?” He asks. 

To his credit, he looks genuinely concerned as he reaches across the center console and takes your hand in his. It’s gentle, the way he tilts your palm up, but the movement burns in every single one of your tendons. This time, you know you have a captive audience, so you don’t flinch. 

Despite the trouble it’s giving you, you have to admit that the new enhancement looks beautiful in the sunlight. In the center of your palm, two rectangular, silver brackets refract iridescence. Their shine contrasts sharply with the matte, midnight black cybernetic plating that now covers the majority of your palm, spreading to the first knuckle of your fingers but coating the length of your thumb in its entirety. 

More than beautiful, it’s deadly — and it aches like a motherfucker.

“I read a study about these ballistic co-processors last night while you were knocked out,” he hums. 

Classic Jisung. 

He has no medical or academic background whatsoever but wastes his time reading crank doctors’ research for fun. And, of course, he makes sure to mention it — casually and apropos of mostly nothing — in order to impress.

Gingerly, he runs his finger along the edge of the cyberware, mumbling, “It usually takes five days from installation for the musculoskeletal inflammation to chill.”

Your fingers twitch of their own volition, which prompts him to look up at you curiously. 

“Yeah, well…” You grunt.

Less carefully than you should, you pull your hand from his, tap the gear shift, and throw the car into reverse. Peeling out of the lot, you scoff without even bothering to look his way:

“It’s been ten.”

When the War came and went, it took the old way of life with it on its way out. You might’ve been late to the party by fifty or so years, but you’ve got the gist now. It goes something like this:

Korea, as it was once known, crumpled like a beer can in the face of a corporate uprising and was quickly kicked curbside with the trash. In its place came the New Republic — in all its stolen, neon glory — promising technological revolution, profit in excess. Although the world’s eyes were trained on the peninsula then, not everyone stuck around to watch democracy die in real time. 

Not up close, anyway.

Some people had enough cash to run but not enough to make staying worthwhile. With their tails between their legs and their life savings in hand, they left before the capitalist rot could set in fully; chose willful blindness and headed for countries where corporations rule from the shadows rather than broad daylight.

Most people, however, didn’t leave. People like your grandparents, who hadn’t looked up long enough to notice things going to hell in a hurry. And if they did — well, maybe they saw things for what they were: shitty, same as anywhere else. 

Five decades later, that fact hasn’t changed much.

Regardless of why a person opts to stay in the New Republic, their options for survival are effectively limited to two. Simply put, a person can sell their soul to the very corporations that strangled the state, or they can starve.

Nobody ever chooses the latter.

You can safely assume everything you need to know about a person based on where their next steps take them.

For example, those who crave both chic, penthouse apartments and blood-soaked streets are most likely to fall in line with WraithCo.. The name suggests that it’s a criminal enterprise run by fucking ghouls because that’s essentially what it is. More than that, it’s the arms manufacturer monopoly that out-manned and out-gunned the national military without breaking a sweat. 

The high-powered, highly-paid WraithCo. executives find joy in three things and three things only: designer suits; missiles that explode into clouds of fiberglass upon impact; and testing said missiles out on non-violent nomad encampments outside city limits.

Fucking ghouls.

Despite being the most openly violent of the major players, you find WraithCo. to be the most boring. They lack nuance, don’t bother with a false front or a positive PR spin — it’s all a little too predictable. Thanotech, on the other hand, is subtle; the perfect  cover for those who like to convince themselves they’re doing more good than harm.

In furtherance of that delusion, Thanotech replaced all public hospitals with state-of-the-art, for-profit rejuvenation centers. Worse, their lobbyists ensured that medical licensure was limited to employees of those centers, outlawing the provision and receipt of medical care outside of authorized Thanotech facilities. 

In short, those who can’t afford Thanotech’s astronomical rates — specifically, poor fucks like you — are left to fend for themselves in back alley clinics; to pray that they don’t wind up worse-off than they started, that the police don’t sniff them out, and that their new modifications aren’t just garbage-tier knock-offs.

Of course, some people give more of a shit about these designer mods than the patients who may or may not wind up with them. In that case, the last of the three titans has them covered.

It’s no fucking surprise that the Ulsan Corporation is the crown-jewel of the New Republic — it’s primarily responsible for killing the old one. As the world’s premier technology and cybernetics conglomerate, Ulsan is also primarily responsible for the research, development, and distribution of cybernetic enhancements.

Like the one your body is currently acclimating to.

No such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism, right?

Ulsan may be less obvious with its bastardry than its counterparts, but as far as you can tell, it’s not good guy behavior to eat an established state and shit it back out. Even if you can’t tie any specific, ongoing atrocities back to them, you have no qualms about adding the desperate state of the union to their indictment.

You can blame them for the desperate measures they’ve necessitated, although you won’t give them an ounce of credit for the spark of resistance they so recklessly lit.

Despite it all, there are still people out there who refuse to accept things for what they are. They find an alternative to the comply or die ultimatum — run along the razor’s edge, taking what they can get, whenever they can get it.

Like Changbin, one of Seoul’s best-connected fixers.

Like you, a gun for hire. 

Like Jisung, sitting in your passenger seat as you drive across town, who’s just happy to be included.

Generally speaking, piss and vinegar don’t mix well with club security.

If you were anyone else, rolling up to The Crypt like you own the place would be ill-advised. More than that, it would be asking to get your teeth kicked in faster than you could say, “I’m on the list.”

Thankfully, as it often does, your reputation precedes you. Nobody in the block-long line bats an eye when you cut right to the front, a fact that has Jisung smirking in a way that might otherwise get him killed. Still, the bouncer shoots you a look that says you’re more trouble than you’re worth; and you agree.

Before your friend can change the muscle’s mind, you grab Jisung by the wrist and tug him through the front entrance. You don’t let go when the door shuts behind you, although it’s more for convenience than concern for his safety. He has a tendency to wander, and you don’t have the patience.

“Haven’t been here in a while,” he muses as you drag him towards the main bar, head turning to look in every direction except the one you’re moving in.

You don’t slow down.

Winding your way through the drunks at the counter, you inch closer to the large booths along the far wall. Inside, draped nonchalantly over the plush benches, sit the big guns — mercenaries with far more sway than you, far fatter wallets. They’re living the high life you’ve always dreamed of, and they don’t even notice you staring as you pass.

“Oh, shit!” Jisung waves overhead to one of them, reminding you without trying that he — unlike you — has other friends.“S.Coups, where have the fuck have you been, man?”

You still don’t slow down.

Not when you reach the stairwell at the far side of the main floor. Not when you shuffle down the steps to the employees only section. Not even when the security camera overhead silently demands that you do.

There’s only one locked door amongst the few; you fly to it like a homing pigeon and beat against the metal with your free hand. It isn’t until the burning ache sets in that you realize you chose your right.

“Goddamn it.” You growl down at it, as if your hand will apologize for hurting. Turning your vitriol towards the door, you kick it hard, steel-toed boot forcing out a thud. “Changbin, open this shit up!”

Jisung glares as he scolds you, “Manners, maybe?”

You roll your eyes, but his expectant expression doesn’t budge.

“Fucking — fine, okay? Fine.” Hands thrown up in defeat, you take a deep breath. Your next words come out saccharine, accompanied by fluttering lashes that can’t even be seen. “Changbin, darling, could you please open this shit up?”

The two of you wait in dead silence for several seconds before Jisung’s hands fly up to your hair, unprompted. Your surprised yelp doesn’t faze him. He grabs the bobby-pin from where you’ve stashed it under your ponytail, drops to his knees, and starts to work.

You snort, “Well, damn. Look at you!”

Truly, you’re impressed. Jisung normally leaves the dirty work to you, yet here he is — breaking and entering.

They grow up so fast.

He tries not to look proud of himself, but his cheeks blush a shade of sakura and rat him right out. Though you’re sure he’d love to, he can’t even lift a hand to wave you off before the lock clicks. With a quick twist of the knob, he pushes the door open.

Changbin’s office looks close to normal, with a few notable exceptions. For starters, he’s not in it. The man you’re dealing with never sees the light of day if he can help it.

Jisung pipes up first: “Okay, what the fuck?”

The office chair Changbin normally occupies is spun to the side, as if his ass left it in a hurry. Even odder than that is the small, green light which indicates that he didn’t shut off his computer before leaving it unattended. It’s not a decision someone like Changbin — neurotic and paranoid to a borderline clinical degree — makes on his own.

That, you know outright, is a problem.

Cautiously, you slip past Jisung and walk on eggshells towards Changbin’s desk. You know it’s stupid, that no one would bother rigging the floor tiles to blow under the weight of your boots, but you can’t ignore the way your gut twists with every step. That dread only gets worse, the closer you get.

To the right of his primary screen, there’s a half-eaten vending-machine burrito that’s so covered with ants, you almost mistake them for pepper flakes. That sight makes bile rise in your throat, in and of itself, but it’s the untouched cup of coffee that sends a tingle of panic down your spine. Around the base of the glass, hardly visible on the sheet of paper underneath, is a water ring. 

That coffee — at one point, however long ago — was iced.

Changbin would kill you for it if he were here, but he isn’t, so you drop down into his chair. You pause as soon as your ass settles onto the leather, still not convinced that one wrong move won’t set off some sort of trap. The breath you’ve been holding leaks out slowly when your actions go without consequences.

A quick glance up at Jisung confirms that he looks exactly as spooked as you feel. You watch his Adam’s apple bob when he swallows hard. 

He knows the answer before he asks, but that doesn’t stop him. It comes out scratchy, riddled with hesitation that says he doesn’t really want to hear the response. “He hasn’t been here in days, has he?”

You shake your head, just barely, then turn to the desk. Bottom lip pinched between worried teeth, you scan the surface for anything you missed on your first pass.

Give me a hint, you motherfucker. All I need is a breadcrumb.

It’s the absence of something that grabs your attention. Eyes narrowing, you lean forward in your seat to get as close as possible to his monitors.

“Does that…?” You start to ask but your voice trails off before you finish; thoughts moving too quickly to inventory before the next one arrives.

Though black, the screens in front of you aren’t lifeless. If anything, they’re still backlit, glitching subtly in a way they shouldn’t — not if the system had been locked, powered off, or otherwise put to sleep. You don’t have to be a netrunner to know that someone is running an opp, fucking up the computer’s processing and leaving it brain dead.

It’s so small that you almost miss the minimized window at the bottom left-hand corner of his secondary monitor, screen otherwise barren. Hesitantly, you reach out your hand and press a trembling finger to it.

Jisung is hovering so closely over your shoulder that you can practically taste that burrito on his breath. You elbow him once in the chest, hard.

He coughs, pointing to the screen as he sputters, “What the hell are those?”

“Numbers, Jisung.” You deadpan. “They’re called numbers.”

Ignoring the way he grumbles in response, you grab your mobile from your pocket. It springs to life at your sudden touch and broadcasts a holographic home screen in the air just centimeters above the glass. Just as fast, it tracks the movement of your eyes flicking through the list of applications. With the faintest shudder, the GPS navigation consumes the screen.

You repeat what you hope are coordinates:

35.2029, 128.6001.

As the map loads, you and Jisung exchange glances that are underscored by tense swallows. He knows it, and so do you: 

No matter where that pin ends up dropping, you have no choice but to go.

It takes three hours to drive from Seoul to Changwon. Although it’s not a route you’ve taken in years, or one you ever expected to take again, you still know it like the back of your hand. You can still navigate every turn — every crater and curve — with your eyes closed, even now. 

Despite that fact, your decision to race to the southeast this time has nothing to do with sentimentality for the hometown you left five years ago. 

This is just for Changbin, you repeat like a mantra, pressing harder on the accelerator. 

With every stoplight and thought you race through, the background grows blurrier but the big picture gets clearer. Changbin himself has nothing to do with it; and you’re not as selfless as your inner monologue keeps claiming. You correct yourself:

This is for me and my empty bank account.

Really — who could blame you?

You need steady contracts in order to eat. Without Changbin, those get fewer and farther between. It’s the transitive property, or whatever; basic math. You might starve without him, and that is the one thing in this life that you’re unwilling to do.

In the passenger seat, Jisung stirs. When he speaks, his voice isn’t weighted down with exhaustion in the way it usually is, halfway through a car trip. For some reason, it makes your stomach turn to consider that — for what is probably the first time ever — he isn’t sleeping through a drive.

“He left in a hurry,” he quietly notes.

Out of the corner of your eye, you glance at him and confirm the presence of that worried crease between his eyebrows. It’s not accompanied by the usual, furiously-bouncing knee. That makes your stomach turn, too. Clearly, he’s vaulted over mere anxiety and landed somewhere close to shutting down.

You nod. “He did.”

It spooks him when you take your right hand off the steering wheel and give his elbow a brief squeeze. You’re not the affectionate type; you both know this. It always makes your rare touches more ominous than comforting.

“Do you think he was running to something, or running away from something?”

Leave it to Jisung to say the quiet part out loud. 

Normally, you have an answer for his constant questions; and if you don’t, you resort to lying or guessing. This time, however, you don’t bother with either of those tactics because it doesn’t matter. Whatever the correct answer is, it’ll still feel wrong because Changbin doesn’t run.

Period.

Full stop.

So, the conclusion your brain keeps trying to come to is that he didn’t — he wouldn’t — if it came down to choice. The only reason Changbin would’ve disappeared like this, suddenly and wordlessly, is if he was taken.

Pulse hammering loudly in your ears, you don’t hear Jisung announce that your destination is only a few hundred meters down the road. Without his emphatic pointing out the windshield ahead, you simply would’ve continued racing forward, taking the speed limit as a suggestion to be ignored. Thankfully, your lead foot switches to the brake with enough time to make your turn. Tires hit dirt; your car fishtails as it transitions from the road to the worn-out path to your right.

“The fuck is this place?” You mutter, more to yourself than to Jisung.

It’s obsolete, you know that much. 

Something akin to an industrial park, but one that clearly hasn’t been used since before the War. There are electrical towers dotting a perimeter around the space, none of which are operational; the grid system was replaced by wind power, then by solar energy no fewer than fifty years ago. The driveway below is so cracked that patches of weeds have overtaken most of what remained of the pavement. All the rest is weathered, reduced to broken bits of cement and dirt.

Your car slows to a stop halfway down the parkway, surrounded on both sides by empty storage units with doors either broken or missing entirely. Hair raising on the back of your neck, you park but don’t kill the engine. Slowly, you rest your right hand over top of the holster strapped to your thigh and open your car door with your left.

The sun set a few hours into your drive. Its absence hasn’t done a damn thing to break the thick heat waiting for you outside. Humid air settles on your skin and leaves a sheen of sweat behind like a handprint, sticky.

“These were the coordinates,” Jisung affirms with a sigh. He stays seated inside the vehicle, leaving you to wonder why. He’s either too panicked to move, or correct in assuming you’d tell him to sit his unarmed ass back down before you made him.

You don’t respond. 

Instead, your eyes continue to scan the property for signs of — well, anything. Movement, a heat signature, whatever might register on your optical mods. There’s nothing, save for the stray tumbleweed somersaulting across the empty lot. You narrow your eyes to zoom in, heart pounding with anticipation.

You almost scream when you see it, but you swallow the urge. Fear won’t do you any good, but the semi-automatic strapped to your thigh might. It’s in your palm before you can blink, cocked and aimed at the figure ahead. At the bottom of your field of vision, your ammo count glows in translucent, block letters.

So, the ballistic co-processor is worth the pain.

Their posture is casual, legs dangling from the metal catwalk they sit on. Their elbows rest against the railing in front of them, as if they’re leaning on a counter in a bar and not spying on you from a scaffold four meters overhead. The way they’re watching in silence is unsettling enough; the wooden tal obscuring their face is fucking nightmare fuel, if you’ve ever seen it.

Head tilted curiously to the side, the stranger stares down at you through small eye holes, wooden mouth frozen in a hand-carved smile. Whoever they are, they’re immersed in the bit. They exaggerate every slow movement for their audience of two.

Good for them, you scoff to yourself.

Gloved hands come up to pantomime “don’t shoot” mere seconds before they grab hold of the railing in front of them. Just as quickly, they swing themselves underneath with a kick of their legs until they’re falling, falling, falling towards the ground below. They land easily on their feet without so much as a grunt. All the while, dust swirls in pirouettes around their ankles, spot-lit by your car’s headlamps.

“What — what the fuck?” Jisung squeaks. 

You don’t answer, but that doesn’t stop him from repeating his question, over and over.

Hands still raised, the stranger slowly closes the distance between you. Their fingers wiggle slightly in some demented version of a wave; they’re taunting you. The unhealed part of you wants to shoot those fingers off, one by one. 

You’ve never been fond of clowns.

“If you like having kneecaps without bullets in them, I suggest you stay still, chingu,” you scoff, now more annoyed than alarmed.

To your surprise, they listen. Their feet still, side by side; and their hands stay where you can see them. That is, until they curl all of their fingers into their palm, except for their right index finger. With it, they point silently over your shoulder.

As soon as you can whip your neck around, a gloved fist collides with your temple. The last thing you see before your vision goes black is a second, wooden smile looming over you.

A hushed tone manages to nudge you awake.

“You really can’t keep doing this. Seriously, your people skills are awful.”

The whole world’s blurry, and you can’t make out the source of the sound, but you’re coherent enough to know it when a second voice chimes in. It’s much less gentle than the first, higher in pitch and twice as exasperated. It snaps, “She was armed.”

“I had it under control,” the first voice huffs. 

The two seem to be too lost in their argument to notice your eyelids fluttering or your fingers twitching. Your wrists aren’t bound, you realize, but that fact doesn’t help you much in your current state. Back resting heavily against the thin nylon cloth of a cot, it’d take more energy than you have to spare in order to get to your feet. Worse, your eyes don’t seem interested in cooperating.

They should be by now. 

They’re open, you’re conscious, and —

Motherfucker.

The more awake you become, the more the ache in your temple reverberates down your jaw. You know without looking that the right side of your face is bruised to hell and back. Scraped up, too, if you had to guess; you hit the gravel like a bag of bricks.

They must’ve done it on purpose, hitting you exactly where they needed to in order to scramble your visual input. The most you get is shapes, black and white static. It wasn’t the hardest knock you’d ever taken to the head — not by a long shot — but it was perfectly targeted and timed. 

Clearly, they’re no amateurs.

One such shadow kneels down next to you. Gentle fingers tuck a strand of hair behind your ear while their other hand tilts your drooping head to the side. 

They tut, “Just look at what you did to her face.”

“From what I’ve heard, she’s been through worse,” the second voice scoffs. You watch the shadow’s shoulders as they shrug, wishing you could focus on their face well enough to bash it in.

The retort comes quickly, but it doesn’t come in Korean. 

“That doesn’t mean you can’t do better.”

The hands that gently cradle your face pull away, leaving you cold. The action itself isn’t as jarring as the sudden use of English, though — especially the accent it’s spoken with. You may not be fluent, but you can sense what’s missing: the consonant on the end of that last word.

You sense something else, too, but you’re still too disoriented to follow that thought from start to finish. It’s on the tip of your tongue, just out of reach.

Who — ?

The bastard that broke your brain must notice your face scrunching in confusion because their next words seem to be aimed at you. Clipped and unapologetic, they mutter, “Should be fine within the hour. Already been out for —” 

They suck in a breath through their teeth. You can’t tell if they’re stalling in order to toy with you, or if they’re genuinely doing the math. 

“— Seven hours or so, now.”

Fuck!

One of the two snorts out a laugh; it’s the only reason you piece it together that you spoke out loud. Emboldened by the confirmed functionality of your voice, you speak again without thinking it through first. 

You don’t care where you are or who you’re with. You only have one question:

“Is Changbin still alive? Because if he is, I’ll kill him myself.”

The man kneeling next to your cot chuckles, soft and low, but he doesn’t acknowledge your question beyond that. Instead, he addresses his hamfisted friend. “Can you please get her some water?”

“Am I a waiter now, Yongbok-ah?” The other snips, though his tone is devoid of any real heat. If his face wasn’t blurred out of existence, you’d likely find a sneer on it. “Should I roll some gimbap for her, too?”

“Actually, you should,” counters this Yongbok. His response is buried so deeply under his breath that his back talk may as well be a secret for your ears only. “Punched her clean into the next weekday — so, yeah. It’s the least you could do.”

It grows silent enough that you can hear every incredulous footstep as the waiter storms off.

The remainder says, “Sorry about him,” and for whatever little it’s worth, he sounds like he means it. You say nothing, simply marinating in your resentment. 

Meanwhile, he shifts from his knees in order to sit fully on the ground next to your cot. Elbows extended, he leans back onto his palms and sighs gently, “Minho’s not as bad as the first impressions he makes.”

You scoff so forcefully that you feel it in your sinuses. “This is the second. His first is the reason I can’t see who’s holding me hostage.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” The shape beside you sits up suddenly. He sputters, “You’re not a hostage, and this isn’t a kidnapping —”

“Then what the fuck is it?” You snap, “Huh, Yongbok?”

Blindly, you throw out a half-balled fist in a half-baked attempt to even the score. It misses by a mile, nearly knocking you off balance in the process. Your wrist is encircled by the same warm fingers you felt before, doubling over but exerting no force.

“We were scouting you. You know, like, soccer?” He chuckles sheepishly. “Changbin mentioned that you were a free agent, so to speak, and we thought you might wanna join the team.”

What the fuck?

“And — it wasn’t supposed to wind up like this.” His shadow’s hands gesture vaguely at the room you can’t see. “I did try to warn you. You just didn’t turn around in time.”

There are too many questions swirling around in your skull to choose from. One of them must break free and nudge your retinal chip back into place because something turns the lights back on. Glitching wildly, your vision flickers from low contrast to high definition. It doesn’t hurt, but the surprised gasp you choke out could easily be interpreted that way.

The man next to you is back on his knees in a second, both hands finding your shoulders to either comfort you or immobilize you — and you aren’t sure which. Against your better judgment, you ignore the reflex that tells you to fight or flee. Instead, you reach out and touch his cheekbone to confirm that the faint spots you see are freckles and not lingering sensory damage on your part.

He doesn’t even blink, much less say a word. There’s no jerk to get away, and there’s not a single question asked about what the fuck you’re doing — just tolerance. Far more than you’d be extending if the roles were reversed.

Freckles.

You aren’t embarrassed, but you drop your hand quickly and scowl at him until he does the same. Once again, he raises them as he leans back. Notably, he doesn’t wiggle his fingers like the first time you crossed paths.

That reminds me —

Abruptly, you draw your arm back to deck him in earnest. 

Just like the last time, he catches you before you can strike him; however, instead of capturing your wrist, it’s the entirety of your fist. His palm absorbs the shock, fingers closing around your hand. It’s the gentlest trap you’ve ever been ensnared in, which you hate.

Smart of you to prevent another attempt.

“Can I finish explaining myself?” He asks, voice soft. 

Bright doe eyes scan over your face cautiously as he contemplates letting your hand go. It’s disarming, sure, but you’d rather die than admit it. 

You give him absolutely nothing to work with, so he adds, “You can hit me when I’m done, if you still want to.”

All you give him in return is a glare, which he somehow correctly interprets as permission to keep going. The grip on your fist loosens, although it wasn’t constricting to begin with. Like nothing happened, you pull it away and cross your arms.

As if nonchalance has ever been your strong suit.

He stares at you, deep in thought, for longer than you know what to do with. Eyes sweeping over your features like he’ll be quizzed later, taking in every detail. It’s unsettling — what about you is even worth gawking at?

When he frowns, that spark of light in his eyes stays put. “You don’t remember me.” 

It’s not a question because he isn’t asking; he’s telling. And you have no goddamn clue what he means, no matter how loudly the voice in your head screams that you should. The familiarity buzzing through your brain can’t place him — not the button of his nose, not even those fucking freckles.

“I don’t know anyone named Yongbok,” you counter, frustration evident.

You wouldn’t be this harsh if you know how not to be. Part of you feels guilty when you see the hurt flicker across his face, but both emotions — his and yours — are gone as quickly as they appear. Consequently, the walls stay up, refusing to give. Despite you, the corner of his mouth hitches up in a lopsided version of a smile. 

That’s familiar, too.

“Never really went by it,” he chuckles. As he does, he tilts his head quizzically. 

Another bell rings, yet you can’t name the note.

Shyly, he takes his half-smile with him and looks anywhere else. The anticipation is spinning cartwheels in your stomach, tingling down the back of your neck, and you’re seconds away from trying to smack the trapped words right out of him. 

Who are you to me?

After a deep breath in and out, he glances back at you from the corner of his eye. His hesitation does nothing to prepare you for his response, which isn’t his name at all. It’s yours — a nickname, more specifically. One no one has used in damn near a decade.

“Been a while, Scraps. Hasn’t it?”

Felix has never seen anyone freeze the way you do when the realization finally hits. For a minute, he worries that Minho did more damage to your poor brain than either of them initially diagnosed; it wouldn’t be the first time. Minho’s never been known to be careful or tactful.

Your silence — and your total lack of physical response — doesn’t last, though. He nudges your kneecap with his knuckles just to make sure you can feel it. You blink rapidly, as if you’re just now remembering how.

He starts to ask, “Are you ok—?”, but your fist flies out, pops him right in the jaw, and he chokes on the rest of that question. Hands flying up to cover his face, he collapses back onto the floor with a groan. When the initial shock wears off, it dissolves into laughter that shakes his shoulders.

Honestly, what did he expect?

In a flash, you shove yourself off your cot. You’re on top of him before he can blink, pinning him down. You grip his shirt in one fist and raise the other. He braces himself for impact but doesn’t flinch, too taken aback by the fury you’re capable of communicating without a single word.

“You’re fucking with me,” you spit, breaking the silence.

Your glare is borderline feral — burning — and that makes him laugh even harder. 

“You haven’t changed a bit, you know that?”

To both of your surprise, you don’t hit him again; you don’t even try. You freeze, but unlike the last time, your eyes are shaking. Your raised arm is, too, like it’s taking all you have to keep whatever you’re feeling to yourself.

Classic Scraps.

You mutter, “You’re dead,” and it’s not a threat. 

Not even close, really. It’s a declaration, one accompanied by an expression that’s as close to vulnerable as he’s ever seen from you. All at once, you lower your arm; the rest of you slumps, too. Whispering, you repeat, “You’re dead.”

Something about your tone hurts worse than the burgeoning bruise near his mouth. It aches, even more so when he frowns. You deserve an explanation — an apology, too — but Felix doesn’t know where the fuck to start.

Maybe he should cash that reality check first.

“Is that what people are saying?” He asks.

He’s not sure what about that trips him up. It makes perfect sense that this is the conclusion people wound up jumping to. After all, he left without a word and never came back — didn’t leave a trace, either. 

Felix wasn’t the first teenager to slip through the cracks, so he’d figured that his would be another run-of-the-mill disappearance. Sure, people tend to notice when kids go missing; but that doesn’t stop the world from turning. Sooner or later, people stop looking, either too busy or too hopeless to keep holding a torch.

Eventually, they forget.

At least, that was the reality Felix had subscribed to — that, after a while, he’d slipped through the cracks of collective consciousness. It was easier to tell himself that he wasn’t missed. His guilt couldn’t keep him up at night if nobody remembered that he existed in the first place; especially when a decade slipped past in his absence.

But you did remember. 

You missed him.

You lift your knee so that you’re no longer straddling him and drop onto your back at his side.

It’s funny, he thinks as he stares up at the ceiling. The two of you spent years just like this, albeit on the hood of some junkyard sedan. Two pairs of wide eyes were always fixed on constellations, dreaming of something bigger than both of you. Of some future where you weren’t still stuck in the gutter.

“There was no trace of you anywhere.” You speak so softly that Felix is left to wonder whether you’re talking to him or yourself. “No records that you fled, no word from you, no hits on CCTV — nothing. The cops said there’d be a trail if…”

Your voice fades out before you can finish that thought, so Felix picks up where you left off: “If I was alive to leave one.”

There’s a long pause before you speak again. 

“This is where you disappeared to?”

He feels a shift beside him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the way you’ve tilted your head to gaze at him. By the time he does the same, the moment is gone, and you’re taking in the room around you. 

It’s not much, but it’s all he has: A small room in a decommissioned factory, smelling faintly of sawdust despite not containing any. The cot you just sprang from is where he’s spent most nights since he was fifteen. 

The floor underneath it — underneath you — is more dirt than concrete now, no matter how many times he’s scrubbed it; and the few iron shelves that hang along each wall are just as gross. So are the knickknacks he’s set on them, but he doesn’t mind.

The site itself is long forgotten. It’d be an eyesore if anyone ever looked, but no one bothers.

Even satellites have stopped paying it any attention, leaving it to fade into dirt and obscurity, not even a shadow of what it used to be. Once plush and inviting, the surrounding forest was leveled in a firefight that ended with ninety-percent of the nearby buildings getting blown to shit. 

The New Republic could’ve easily organized a relief team to dig through the shattered city. At any point in the last fifty years, they could’ve rebuilt what burned in that failed uprising, but they didn’t; and Felix knows they never will because that rubble has a function. Apart from burying one of the country’s most impoverished districts, it serves as a cautionary tale. A threat left behind to the masses: this is what happens when people pose risk to profits.

Still, flowers can grow within cracks in concrete. After all, his life with you started just a few kilometers away.

“Are we still in Changwon, or did you and that asshole drag me out of the province?” 

That edge of yours is ever present, and Felix is glad. It’s one of the million things he’s missed about you; a feature on the long list of reasons he wishes he could’ve called — messaged, sent a smoke signal, anything — to keep you around in whatever capacity he could.

But he didn’t. 

He couldn’t.

Felix feels the weight of a lost decade sitting heavy on his chest, so he does what he always does: he chooses light. Smiling brightly, he asks, “D’you remember that junkyard we used to run away to after curfew?”

You roll your eyes. You don’t have to say it out loud; he knows you do. The two of you spent more time there than you did in your own homes, lining glass bottles along the wooden fence posts and firing stones at them with a homemade slingshot.

“We’re a few kilometers up the road, actually.”

At this, you sit up so that no part of your body stays pressed against his. Dead silence settles in the space between you like a brick wall. You bristle, then you snap, “All that time you were dead, you were still within spitting distance?”

Felix opens his mouth to respond, but your rigid posture makes it clear that you have no desire to listen. He closes it again without saying a word. It’s what he deserves, isn’t it?

“Traded in your family, your home, your — Me.” You clear your throat to hide the fact that your voice breaks. It’s too late. “And for what, Felix? To haunt some abandoned building like a ghost?”

You clench your fists, like a grip tight enough might keep you together. That part of you hasn’t changed either, it seems. Neither has the extremely unsettling way you get quieter, the more upset you are. Just like that, he’s reminded of what you used to say: the more it hurts, the less it shows.

“I couldn’t pick you out of a fucking lineup despite all of that history,” you whisper, deflated. “And you were here the whole time.”

Talking won’t do him much good, so Felix opts to show you. Palms pressed to the ground, he pushes himself to his feet, and he doesn’t bother dusting off the back of his pants once he stands. It won’t make a difference, anyway, when the whole damn city is covered in it.

Once he steadies himself, he extends his hand to you, half-expecting you to slap it away. You don’t budge. You never do, he recalls fondly.

“One chance?” His eyes are pleading, even though you don’t look up to meet them. “It’s hard to explain, but it’ll make more sense if you see it.”

Without looking, you lift your arm and slap your hand into his. A small concession, but it’s enough to make his smile reappear. He’s practically beaming when he hauls you to your feet, and you grip his forearms to keep steady.

“Fine,” you concede with a huff. 

Then, you round on him with one pointed finger, jabbing him in the center of his chest with force. It’ll bruise, but he supposes that’s the whole point. 

“This better be worth all the fucking theatrics, or I swear to god —”

“You’ll make me swallow my own teeth?” He rolls his eyes with a low chuckle and tugs you along after him on his way to the door. “Yeah, yeah, yeah — Heard that threat a thousand times, Scraps, and you’ve never once made good on it.”

Just to emphasize his point, he looks over his shoulder at you and grins with all thirty-two of them.

All things considered, you take everything in stride. You don’t react much at all when you discover that the abandoned building is anything but; refuse to bat an eye when the two people you woke up to are revealed to be a tiny fraction of the whole.

You even keep your hand in his as he ushers you from room to room — through the clinic, the makeshift and woefully under-equipped armory, the Hub — and introduces you to whoever you come across. He might even go so far as to call you friendly, which is a first. Receiving any kind of warmth from you typically requires high-level security clearance. 

Or, at least, it used to. Felix has to remind himself more than once that, small echoes aside, there are parts of you he doesn’t know anymore. This could very well be one of them.

Halfway through the tour, you finally offer up more than a lukewarm greeting and your name. It’s just the two of you now; you don’t have to make yourself palatable anymore. Blunt as ever, you throw out, “This is a cult, right? You ran away from home to join a cult?”

There she is, he thinks.

Felix pulls a face in disapproval, which you either don’t catch or don’t care about. Instead, you turn your head in the opposite direction and let your gaze sweep over the loading dock you currently stand upon.

It’s the closest thing they’ve got to a sitting room, filled with the only comfortable furniture they could get their hands on — half-busted arm chairs, ratty old couches, tables held together with duct tape and a prayer. You drop suddenly onto one such couch, jerking him back until his ass winds up next to yours on a tattered cushion. 

Felix can’t tell if you pulled him down on purpose, or if you simply forgot that you were holding onto him. Either way, he doesn’t mind, but part of him hopes it was the former.

“It’s a collective,” he corrects you, lips flattening into a firm, straight line.

“You don’t have to sugarcoat it. If it’s a sex cult, just say so.”

He tries not to laugh — really, he does — because the last thing you need is an enabler, but your deadpan delivery has always hit him where he’s weakest. He tries again while swallowing a chuckle: “It’s the Black Screen, home to the most talented and ungovernable motherfuckers on the peninsula.”

You don’t look impressed. Felix doesn’t take it to heart.

“We’ve got a reconnaissance team, netrunners —” 

As if he’s doing a roll call, he points to nearby stragglers with every position he names. 

“— corporate defectors, combat vets, medics, ex-fixers —”

He nudges you with his elbow, wiggles his eyebrows and murmurs, “— Edge runners —” 

If that look in your eye is any indication, you still hate it when he does that.

“And a couple of wayward drunks who — well…” Felix pauses for a moment to think. It doesn’t help, so he shrugs, snickering, “I dunno how they got here, and they don’t contribute much, but they’re fun to have around!”

The corner of your mouth twitches, ever so slightly. He grins down at you, as if to say gotcha. 

“So, it is a sex cult,” you repeat flatly after a beat.

Felix can’t beat your bit, so he may as well join you in it. Bested, he sighs, “Yeah, pretty much.”

You hum in acceptance of his defeat, clearly amused by how easily he still gives in to you. 

With pursed lips, you continue to take in your surroundings. Your brow furrows while you process the information you’ve been bombarded with so far, but you don’t offer up any further questions or snide comments. Thankfully, the silence that falls over you both feels a lot less like lead than the previous one.

Felix’s gaze stays fixed on you, though you’re too busy looking elsewhere to notice. Maybe you couldn’t recognize him, but shit — he’d know you anywhere, anytime. You’ve gotten older, of course, finally grew into those features of yours. Still, there are hints of the kid he used to know hidden all over your face.

Original traits aside, the new additions — the tattoos, for starters — all read like you. In fact, Felix is fairly confident that he’d know who they belonged to, even if the other context was removed. After all, the cyberware installed into your hand can’t undermine the familiarity of it resting against his palm. 

And it sure as shit still hits like it used to.

He considers it a blessing, really, that so much of you survived the years that flew by without him. That the scrawny girl next door — ready and willing to fight God over a single slight — still rolls her eyes the same way, still speaks in that satoori his non-native tongue could never mimic.

“Maybe I’m missing something,” you announce suddenly. The unexpected sound of your voice startles Felix so much that he jumps, knocking his shoulder into yours in the process. You ignore his reaction and continue, “This just looks like someone is collecting people as a hobby. What are you all doing here?”

Oh.

Yeah, that’s a fair question.

“We’re… starting a fire,” Felix muses. 

You arch an eyebrow expectantly, although the rest of your face remains impassive. It’s less of a demand for him to continue than it is permission for him not to stop.

“And we’re going to burn it all down.” He hits you with a devilish grin, drops his voice low in a way that makes you shiver involuntarily. “The corpo-rats, the lies they sell — all of it.”

“Sounds like anarchy,” you say, tilting your head to the side. There’s a beat, then you grin to match his. “Sign me up.”

Felix stands at the far side of the dining area with his arms crossed and his head leaning back against the cinder blocks behind him. His legs are crossed at the ankles, knees aching from the sheer amount of time he’s been holding the wall up. 

As much as his body wants to sit, the rest of him is out of options. The only table that isn’t full is the one you’re occupying with Changbin and Jisung. After the day you’ve had, you deserve time alone with something familiar. He recognizes that he isn’t that. 

Not anymore — and not yet, either. 

He finds it hard to stray too far, though. You’ve always been able to fend for yourself — that black-and-blue jaw of his is proof enough — but it’s a role he can’t help falling into, looking out for you. Muscle memory.

Although Felix can’t quite make out anything that the three of you are saying, it’s clear as a damn bell when you slam your palms down on the table. Just as obvious is the split second in which your anger gives way — when the pain in your right hand finally registers in your brain.

“That one going to be a problem?”

Hyunjin, as usual, seems to appear out of thin air. He sidles up to Felix and takes up the spot next to him along the wall. All it takes is one quick glance to confirm it — he’s exhausted. Dark half-moons sit in the wells beneath his eyes like ink, silently informing Felix of yet another all-nighter; still keeping secrets as to where he goes at night when everyone else is sleeping.

But Hyunjin isn’t a mystery Felix will ever be able to solve, so he looks back in your direction and asks, “Who, Scraps?” Then, with a shake of his head, he sighs, “No. She’s a cherry bomb, but she’s reliable. Far more than most, actually.”

It’s odd, Felix thinks, that Hyunjin didn’t already know the answer to that question. As the reconnaissance leader of the Black Screen, there isn’t much Hyunjin isn’t aware of. Felix doesn’t comment on that piece, however. Instead, he does his best to interpret your reaction.

“If I had to guess, Changbin just told her about the fake kidnapping.”

And Hyunjin doesn’t do a damn thing to conceal his smirk. That was his plan, after all. 

Two weeks ago, Seo Changbin stumbled upon a lead by accident. While Felix isn’t privy to the details of what Changbin dug up, he knows it must’ve been significant. That’s the only explanation Felix can come up with as to how Changbin wound up at the rendezvous point. Nobody — not the corporate ghouls, their war dogs, or any other sorry soul  — finds the Black Screen unless they want to be found. 

Felix is privy to what happened next because it’s the only reason he wound up involved in this at all:

Whatever intel Changbin had was groundbreaking enough to score an invitation to the revolution, but he had more to offer the higher-ups than that. He dropped the name of someone who could be an asset, under the right circumstances. Someone who wouldn’t follow a breadcrumb trail for free but would tear the peninsula apart to find whoever owed them.

For what it’s worth, Felix disagreed with that characterization the second he heard it. Despite the mask you like to wear, you’re incapable of being self-centered. You’ve never been profit-driven, heartless, or attachment-avoidant. Just hellbent on survival for you and the people you feel responsible for, even as a kid. 

The only reason Felix hasn’t asked you about your motive outright is because he knows you’d lie. The truth is simple: Unless it was for someone you care deeply about, you wouldn’t waste gasoline on speeding back to a place you hate.

Hyunjin clears his throat, pulling Felix out of the daze he’d fallen into. Given the pointed look on his face, Hyunjin must be repeating himself when he says, “She got you bad, huh?”

Confusion forces Felix’s brow to furrow. 

“This?” He takes a wild guess and gestures to the bruise on his jaw before waving dismissively. “Nah, her form is terrible. Truly garbage-tier follow-through. I can teach her, though.”

Hyunjin pushes himself off the wall and moves to exit the dining area. As he passes by, he gives Felix a patronizing pat on his shoulder. “Not what I meant, Yongbokie.”

Felix frowns, unsure how to take what he’s being given. 

The fuck?

“Not even close,” Hyunjin calls over his shoulder. 

He shoots Felix a wink, and then he’s gone, disappearing out the door the same way he entered it — like a goddamn apparition.

“Wow. Recruited? That’s — wow.”

Jisung is doing a terrible job of pretending he isn’t blushing. He clears his throat to keep his voice even, but it’s useless. He’s not fooling anyone. 

“I didn’t realize we were so sought after.”

“You’re not,” Changbin responds bluntly. He gestures across the table to you but maintains his eyes on Jisung. “She is. You just happened to be present, and they couldn’t leave a witness behind.”

Jisung doesn’t bother to hide the way his face falls. When he opens his mouth to whine, you raise your hand and silently demand that he spare you the earache. It seems to work; he slumps dejectedly and leans with his elbows against the tabletop. You proceed to ignore him.

Affect flat, you stare straight ahead at the source of all your fucking problems. The half of you that wants to hug Changbin for being alive and well is significantly quieter than the half of you that wants to grab him by the nape of his neck and shove his face into his yukgaejang.

Bastard.

“I no longer give a shit how I ended up here,” you state coolly. Liar. “That ship has sailed, and to keep it a buck with you, Binnie —” 

He cringes at the nickname, which is exactly the reaction you sought. 

“— I’m not interested in stroking your ego for getting one over on me. It won’t happen again. What I’m still waiting on —” 

The only reason you leave that clause hanging in mid-air is to see the anticipation stir in his eyes. From where you’re sitting, it’s what he deserves: a little bit of unnecessary suspense. Really, it’s a form of reparations for the giant fucking inconvenience he’s been lately. His balance is way past due. 

Jisung, perpetually along for the ride, shovels shrimp chips into his mouth while his eyes dart back and forth between your face and Changbin’s.

You shoot Changbin a sly smile and grab his beer, tilting the can his way in lieu of a bow. His eyes narrow, visibly annoyed with your stalling, but he doesn’t audibly complain when you down the rest of his drink. Resigned, he accepts the empty can that you hand it back to him

At long last, you clear your throat.

“— is an explanation for why you’re here,” you finally sigh.

Changbin rolls his eyes so hard that they go all-white for a moment. Then, to your surprise, he glares across the table at Jisung. 

“You know, my life was way more pleasant before you dragged this one,” he huffs, gesturing to you with his chopsticks, “Into my bar.”

Just for a moment, Changbin sits with his annoyance. He’s entitled to some of it, you’ll concede. You’re not easy to love — you never have been — and you’re occasionally even harder to like. Despite that, he’s been known to look out for you in his own, mostly useless way; even in moments like this, when you’re being a fucking gash simply because you can. 

But the fact remains that you dragged your ass across a peninsula for him. He knows damn well that you accept payment in the form of secrets when cash is too hard to come by, so…. 

“Spill,” you demand.

That tough exterior of his collapses like wet cardboard, just like you knew it would. He glances around the room quickly to confirm that no one is listening in, then he pushes his empty bowl out of the way. With the threat of staining his white t-shirt neutralized, Changbin leans in and asks, “Do either of you know Jung Wooyoung?” 

Simultaneously, you and Jisung respond:

“The boxer?”

“The biter.”

Just the same, your friends turn to you with identical looks of bewilderment. You shrug, declining to elaborate because Changbin asked if you knew him, not how or how intimately. Truth be told, you’re not sure that he’s prepared for that answer.

“Anyways,” Changbin segues after clearing his throat. “He’s not up to either of those tasks these days.”

Genuinely curious, Jisung asks with a frown, “Did someone finally kill him?”

Fair question, you think.

With the way Wooyoung runs his mouth, it’s a wonder he’s lived as long as he has — assuming, of course, that he’s still alive. Beyond picking fights with people three times’ his size, his specialties include fixing matches and swiping other fighters’ significant others. If he’s not dead yet, you figure, it’s only a matter of time until the consequences of his antics come calling.

Changbin shakes his head, and the look on his face seems weirdly solemn, like the answer is even worse than that. It’s sobering; it knocks the smirk right off your face.

“He was short on cash, so he signed up for some clinical trial promising a million won for participants.”

Jisung, the resident non-doctor, sits up at this development. “Thanotech?”

You’re in the middle of rolling your eyes when Changbin intercepts, grimacing: “No, that’s the fucked up part. Well, one of the fucked up parts.”

Two pairs of expectant eyes lock on him.

“It’s Ulsan running the trial.”

You don’t pretend to be well-versed in any of the biomedical, cybernetic shit going on around you, but you do know that this particular corporation never leaks details of its research and development — not ever. Doing so would run the risk of a lesser titan swooping in to try and to dupe it. 

But that’s not the only revelation that smacks you upside the head.

“Ulsan pays for lab rats now?” You scoff, surprised by your own interest. “Here I was, thinking they used ex-employees for that shit.”

It sounds callous when you say it out loud, but it’s a universal assumption. Part of the New Republic’s mythology, so to speak.

In your lifetime, you’ve never come across a single person who used to work for the Ulsan Corporation — not one. Just the same, you’ve never heard about anyone leaving; no one you’ve ever met has. It’s beyond the realm of possibility that a corporation like that has no turnover, so where do people go when their turn is over?

The dumpster out back, some say. According to others, they wind up in a secret mass grave in the oil fields.

“When he came back, I didn’t know where he’d been or why; I just saw him wandering around like a fucking zombie.” Changbin shivers. “He’s empty now, all sucked dry.”

Jisung looks pointedly at you, shit-eatin grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Is that what happened when you —?”

An elbow to the center of his chest stops his question before he can finish asking it. He yelps instead, scooting his chair further down the table to get away from you, your sharp edges, and your even sharper glare.

“It freaked me the fuck out, and I didn’t have any answers, so I started poking around for something — anything — that might make sense of it.”

“So, that’s how you got pulled into the web.”

The voice from nowhere makes all three of you jump. You whip around to find yet another stranger. 

How many fucking people do I have to meet today? 

This particular wild card sits on top of the table directly behind yours with arms gently crossed over her chest; not closed off but cold, judging by the goosebumps making themselves known across her bare arms. Her boots rest on the chair in front of her, one chrome leg shining next to flesh-and-blood.

Whoever she is, she’s beaming. That fact confuses the shit out of you because you’re not often met with friendliness, especially from unknowns. Or maybe, you think, it’s a well-concealed effort to disarm you. Whatever it is, it’s working; the urge to snap at her for intruding is dead on arrival. 

You open your mouth to ask what she means, but you can’t get the words out before someone else interjects. 

Minho, that bastard, shouts from across the room, “Spider! Got a minute?”

Her eyes light up in a way that says she has several, so long as he’s the one asking. Without another word, she hops to her feet and pushes the chair that held them back under the table. As she heads his way, she sends you an apologetic smile, like she somehow owes you anything.

“I don’t know what they unraveled by pulling that thread,” Changbin sighs, nodding towards the pair exiting the room. “But this place has been buzzing since I got here.”

You need something to chew on that isn’t this, so you reach over and grab the bag of shrimp chips from Jisung’s unsuspecting hands. The frown he gives you is cartoonish, but as usual, he doesn’t put up a fight. Your version of an apology is holding a spare chip out to him, which he happily accepts.

After shoveling a handful into your mouth, you mumble, “So now what?”

“I don’t know about you, but if these guys —” Changbin gestures vaguely around the room with his index finger pointed. “— Give me a target to point at, I’ll pull the trigger.”

You snort, “That’s a lot of trust.” 

It doesn’t mean much, coming from you. Your metric is beyond fucked, and you know it. That word is foreign, though; so far out of your grasp that you can’t wrap your brain around it.

“Maybe it is,” Changbin mutters while he looks down at the empty can in his grip. 

For a moment, that’s all he says. All he does is stare into the black hole of its opening, as if there’s some answer lurking in the emptiness below it. He must not find it, though, because he crumples the aluminum like a piece of scrap paper. 

When he glances back up at you, you see the uncertainty in his eyes. It reads like fear, which manages to unsettle you.

“I just — I can’t see what I saw and do nothing.”

Your second month in the compound starts with a bang — no, a thud. 

With your body being forcibly ejected from your cot, crashing onto the ground, and your jaw clenching shut quickly with a click of gritted teeth.

“How many fucking times are we doing this?” You growl, less than half-awake. 

Already past today’s quota for rage, you form a fist and swing your arm back violently against the capsized cot; it scrapes along the cement floor and skitters further away from you. The sudden burst of movement doesn’t do anything to make you feel better, but it was worth a shot, you suppose.

Felix, whose sunshine smile is too goddamn bright for this hour, crouches down in front of you. He at least has the decency to look apologetic when he lilts, “Until you learn to wake up to an alarm, I fear.”

He pauses, eyes scanning for any genuine distress beyond your shitty mood.

“Does that hurt?” He frowns.

Bleary eyes follow his pointed finger to your elbow, now prickling with blood where you skinned it against the floor. It doesn’t; and you’re not even remotely concerned about it, so you swat his hand away without answering his question and shove yourself to your feet. Once standing, you wander over to your steamer trunk to grab something clean enough to wear. 

The shadowy one, Hyunjin, brought your shit to you a week ago —  thank god. He provided no explanation whatsoever for how he knew where you lived or how he managed to get inside your building, but you’re a beggar, not a chooser. You’d rather enable his burglary than keep wearing the same, re-washed clothes you came here with or borrowing from people you still don’t know well.

As you peel yesterday’s tank-top up and over your head, your gravelly voice flies out to Felix, who stands and moves to lean against the wall. “You at least going to feed me breakfast before you bore me with more target practice?”

That’s most of what your time together has been so far, anyway. The chain of command is sorting out details above your pay grade; and you condition yourself to jump as high as they may eventually ask you to.

Felix doesn’t answer you, which isn’t like him. You look at him out of the corner of your eye and find him staring up at the ceiling, like his life depends on it.

“What are you —?” 

Oh.

You glance down, cutting your question off midway through. He’s giving you and your semi-exposed body privacy, that’s what. 

Sensing blood in the water, you swim in to scoff, “You have no problem flipping my bed when I’m in it, but bras are where you draw the line? What kind of gentleman are you?”

Still averting his eyes, he rolls them. You do him the favor of tugging on a different, slightly wrinkled tank-top; but you don’t give him the courtesy of letting up.

“Where do you stand on ass, Felix?”

“Are you always this annoying, first thing in the morning?” 

Amusement slips through the cracks despite his efforts to conceal it. You slip out of the cotton shorts you slept in, dip your toes under the fabric pooled around your ankles, and flick them at him. He concedes his staring contest to the panels overhead in order to catch them.

Impressive reflexes.

“I’m this annoying at all hours of the day.” You grin impishly for just a second, then shrug. “You’re just less able to handle it, first thing in the morning.”

Bending back over your trunk, you dig through for something denim. You land on black, high-waisted shorts with a triumphant, “Aha!”, and make a big show of raising your trophy overhead. Once again, you glance at Felix to see if your attempt to get a rise out of him was successful. In a way, yes, it was — just not in the way you expected.

Based on the way his gaze lingers on your thighs and the curve of your ass, you don’t think Felix even noticed your theatrics. You don’t think he means to stare, either. As far as you can see, it’s the perfect opportunity to fuck with him further.

“Admiring the tattoos?” You arch an eyebrow and wait for him to blush out of panic at being caught. “I can recommend the artist, if you want to hit them up.”

To your surprise, you don’t rattle him. Dark eyes flick up from your body to your face, and they don’t seem ashamed of where they’ve been. Your plan backfires. More than that, it blows up right in your face, which is starting to heat up.

“The cantine closes in five minutes. Training starts in ten,” he states matter-of-factly, holding your gaze. “So, you can either eat, or you can keep pretending you’re not trying to flirt with me.”

Your mouth drops open, but you can’t even snap back at him before he chirps, “The choice is yours, Scraps,” with a playful smile.

With nothing more to say, Felix leans away from the wall. On his way out the door, he gives you a lazy, two-finger salute. Dumbstruck, you stand there, watching him leave; wondering where the hell your bumbling, sweetly shy friend from back home managed to disappear to. 

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” Felix waggles his finger at you. A smug smile toys at his lips when you let out a frustrated grunt. “That’s the problem.”

He takes a step away from you, raises his fists to mimic your posture, and throws a right jab out into the air ahead of him. When he draws it back, he pauses with his shoulders even.

“D’you see the issue with this?” He asks, loosening one fist so that he can gesture from shoulder to shoulder.

You roll your eyes. “Is it that nobody’s currently hitting you?”

Felix, to his credit, is completely unbothered by the attitude you keep giving him. He’s far more patient than he should be with you. You, however, do not take criticism well.

“You square yourself off instead of retriggering an attack,” he gently corrects you. “By not turning and leading with your shoulder —” He twists slightly backwards, so that his body is angled similarly to the way it was when he struck in the first place. “— you leave all this surface area open.”

Okay, fine. 

You’ll concede that this makes sense, but you will not admit to poor blocking. In fact, deflecting is what you’re best at, so that’s precisely what you do. 

“And how exactly am I supposed to block hits that aren’t coming?”

Felix relaxes his stance with confusion scribbled all over his face. You don’t wait for him to ask what you mean, plunging right into your notes for him:

“This sparring shit doesn’t feel real because you refuse to hit me. It’s been weeks, and there still aren’t any stakes. If you’re going to insist that I learn this — which, by the way, feels pointless when I’m already armed —”

You gesture down to your thigh, where your pistol is normally strapped. 

“— then you have to make me care.”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, opting instead to quietly chew on the challenge you’ve raised. For a split second, you think you’ve finally grasped the straw that’ll break his back. He turns towards the door and walks away, seemingly giving up on trying to teach a rabid dog new tricks.

But Felix defies your expectations yet again, grabs your gear off the counter at the far side of the room, and heads back to you. As he walks, he pulls back the slide to fish out the round that waits in its chamber. Bullet still in hand, his focus shifts to the magazine, which he easily removes from the base of your pistol’s grip. After tucking your ammunition into the back pocket of his jeans for safekeeping, he holds your now-empty firearm and thigh strap out to you. 

“Gear up.”

Now, it’s your turn to be confused. You accept the items he pushes into your hands with both eyebrows raised.

“Are we giving up on hand-to-hand, then?”

“Absolutely not,” Felix snorts with a shake of his head. “I’m just going to prove the necessity.” When you don’t budge, he waves his hand to hurry you along. “C’mon, Scraps. Strap in.”

Eyeing him suspiciously, you slip the vertical strap over your belt loop and fasten it before doing the same to the horizontal piece around your thigh. Once it’s nestled snugly against your skin, you slide your weapon into its resting place. 

Holding your hands up, you fire off a saccharine smile like the brat you are. “All done,” you chirp.

The smirk that appears on his face makes your stomach flip for two reasons, the least of which is the anticipation of his next move.

“You want it to feel real, right?” His voice drops so low that you feel it deep in your abdomen. “Fine by me.”

Like before, Felix steps slightly backwards. With a nod of his head towards your firearm, he challenges you, “Draw.”

It’s unfamiliar, seeing him counter you like this. Growing up, he was content to go in whichever direction you nudged him in. The version of Felix you knew back then was passive, agreeable to fault. You may not know what the fuck he’s planning now, but he radiates newfound authority that you almost want to respect, so you listen.

“Fine,” you demur while your fingertips trail over the cool, metal grip. “Make your point and move onto something useful.”

The next sequence of events flashes by so quickly that your brain can hardly keep up. 

Just as soon as you pull the gun from its holster, Felix turns in his spot, channeling the momentum into a strong push off the ground. He’s in the air before you can even level the barrel; and in the blink of an eye, the side of his boot collides with your hand, forcefully ejecting the gun from your grip. The power behind his kick sends the weapon flying several meters away, where it clatters to the floor with a smack amidst the quiet.

Gasping more so out of surprise than pain, you recoil your stinging fist and clutch it to your chest. He reads your expression incorrectly, if his widened eyes are any indication. Immediately, Felix breaks his stance to step across the distance in between you.

Worried hands come to rest on your biceps, squeezing gently. He urgently asks, “You alright?”

You blink back at him, throughly stunned by how fucking fast his reflexes are, and he misinterprets that, too. 

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he sputters. His next words come out so frantically that they bleed together over the course of one breath. “I really didn’t want to hurt you; I just needed you to understand that your gun can’t always save you. Sometimes, you have to —”

“That was insane,” you blurt out.

Felix’s eyes widen, caught completely off-guard by your interruption. It’s understandable, you think. After all, it’s the closest thing to a compliment you’ve given him over the past few weeks. 

He peeps, “Oh?”

You nod vigorously — and there’s that sweetly shy boy from down the block, blushing slightly under the weight of your attention. 

Somehow, seeing him this way feels like home; the one you knew before he disappeared, that you might actually admit to missing. Acting solely on instinct, you unfurl your right hand and seek out the warmth of his cheek, like it’ll flip a switch and turn the clock back.

It doesn’t. Of course, it doesn’t — but you can’t help feeling like this is fine, too.

Until you realize what the fuck you’re doing, and you see the starry-eyed look he’s giving you. Then, you do what you always do.

You dodge.

Patting his cheek patronizingly, you breeze, “I guess I’ll let you train me, then,” before turning to retrieve your gun.

“Oh, really now?” He laughs, like he’s already forgotten the way your mask just cracked. You can’t tell if you’re grateful for this, or disappointed. “Is violence all it takes to win you over?”

Disappointed. 

You wish he’d called your bluff again, like he did so long ago in that closet you’re currently calling a bedroom. Once wasn’t enough; you want to be caught out, to have someone refuse to let you get away with the bullshit you’re always trying to pull. For some proof that you’re not the bulldozer you pretend to be.

Felix raises an eyebrow as he tilts his head teasingly to the side. “Are you actually going to shut up and take instruction this time?”

Like that.

“Maybe.” You crouch down to grab your discarded pistol off the ground, lips pursed to keep the satisfied smile off your face. “Are you going to stop pulling punches?”

Three weeks of sparring tick by before you manage to clean his fucking clock.

It came as a surprise to both of you; not just that Felix slipped up in the first place, but that you were fast enough to capitalize on an opening he’s otherwise never created. You might’ve gasped even louder than he did when you managed to seize the opportunity — but that memory is fuzzy already. It doesn’t matter, anyway, not to him. Either way, the point stands: 

You actually learned from the shit he’s been trying to instill in you.

Having hobbled from the training room to his bedroom, Felix now sits on top of the old, metal counter that once served as a workbench. It’s not comfortable by any means, but he’d rather die than move from his current position. Between his knees, you stand close to him, holding a frozen sponge to his left eye with your right hand. 

Funnily enough, that particular hand is the reason he needs an ice pack in the first place.

For a while, the pair of you exist in comfortable quiet. It’s nice, he thinks, just being present. He would’ve been happy to carry on that way for as long as possible, but the shitty voice in the back of his brain keeps yelling that he’s letting more moments slip by than he has to spare. Wasting time that he should be making up.

He clears his throat to shake off the rust, prompting you to glance down from his forehead to his eyes. Your expression is hard to read, but there’s anxiety in there, somewhere. Felix worries that you’re worried; you’re searching for a sign that you’ve somehow injured him further.

“You’re a quick study — if and when you want to be.” His teasing sounds pathetic because his voice is barely more than a groan. Still, he smirks, “Those corporate mercenaries won’t stand a chance.”

With his good eye, Felix watches as your mask cracks a little further in the shape of a smile. 

For once, you simply nod in acknowledgement and let the compliment slip through your defenses without trying to deflect it. He wants to compliment you for that progress, too, but he’s hesitant to push his luck when he’s already flying half-blind by the seat of his pants. 

Then again, it might be worth the risk to push the envelope — even if you succeed in punching his goddamn lights out for good. He doubts that he’d complain, if that were the case. You’d be an incredible last sight to ever see, wouldn’t you?

His internal monologue pipes up again, demanding that he gamble.

Every single muscle he has aches after spending hours sparring with you, but that’s not at all what he’s talking about when he says, “You’re a knockout, Scraps.”

It’s a cop out, but it’s something. 

Just for a second, Felix wonders if you heard what he meant, and not just what he said. All his doubt disappears when that shy smile tugs even harder at the corners of your mouth.

“Shut up.” You roll your eyes, chuckling quietly. “If you want to get technical, you didn’t even lose consciousness —” 

Carefully, you bring your free hand up to his forehead and brush flyaway strands of hair out of the way of the makeshift ice pack. By contrast, your fingertips are warm enough to simmer on his skin.

“— so you’ll have to try that joke again when you actually do.”

Although you could, you don’t take your hand back after unsticking his hair from the condensation on his skin. You lower it gently, let it rest on his shoulder, and leave Felix to wonder if it’s a choice, a convenience, or a reflex. 

This eats at him.

A long time ago, this little gesture wouldn’t be something he’d have to guess at. He used to just understand, never once needed to be told. So far out of practice, he’s no longer fluent in your body language — and he hates it.

Unwilling to leave anything else up to interpretation, Felix looks up at you with one, unobstructed eye. “Wasn’t joking,” he murmurs.

You freeze without meeting his eyes. 

If he didn’t know better, he might think your retinal mods had been knocked loose again. You don’t seem to see him, and that’s all he wants. All he gets is quiet, so he tries again: “And I’m not bullshitting you, either.”

It’s his low voice speaking your real name that finally draws you out of hiding. Surprised for just a moment, your expression softens when you notice the way he’s studying your reactions. You don’t speak at first, but your bottom lip is pinched between your teeth; a telltale sign that you’re trying to.

“Since this is apparently honesty hour,” you start with an exhale.

Felix braces himself for whatever evasive maneuver you’re going to throw next. 

Shockingly, you don’t throw out a joke to change the subject. You take the ice pack off his eye so he can see you properly, set it down next to his thigh on the counter, and scrub your hands sheepishly over your face.

“You freak me the fuck out.”

You laugh despite yourself, and then you pause just like that; like you’re waiting on him to laugh at you, too. When he doesn’t, you take it as your cue to keep going: “Am I insane, or does this feel easy?

“I think both things can be true.” You shoot him a look that could — and might — kill him. He holds his hands up in surrender, but he keeps his eyes locked on you. “And I know you’re not used to easy.”

Felix doesn’t know what he expects you to do next, but your next move isn’t one he would’ve guessed. In the end, it’s your still-chilled palms reaching up to meet him, and your fingers filling the empty spaces between his. Brow furrowed, you study the way you fit together, like the words you’re searching for are hidden somewhere in the gaps of your chain-linked knuckles.

“I’m not used to it because I avoid it,” you correct him, frowning. “Easy scares the shit out of me. It just feels like a trap, you know? Like, the second you stop looking out for it, the other shoe will drop and knock your unsuspecting ass to the dirt.”

Keeping his fingers interlaced with yours, he lowers your joined hands until they rest against the tops of his thighs. You watch them go; he watches you, and he can’t help thinking that he’s the reason you armored up in the first place. That him leaving was the blow to the head that taught you to wear a helmet.

“I’ve got good reflexes,” Felix whispers, squeezing your hand.

At this, your eyes flick upwards. A microscopic crease forms between your eyebrows, and he knows exactly what’s coming next, so he says it first: “Excluding today, obviously.”

When you smile, it hits him even harder than your right hook did.

“What are you saying, exactly?” You ask, head tilting to the side as you narrow your eyes.

“Fuck the shoe.”

The look on your face suggests that he can’t possibly be serious, but he’s never been more so. Maybe he can’t promise you easy in a world like this one; and he can’t keep that fucking shoe from dropping, but he swears he’ll catch it when it does.

Felix has to let go of your hands to hold you properly. You lean into his touch when he snakes his arms around your waist; and you rest your forehead against his, careful not to press into the bruise that borders his eyebrow.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he whispers. You hum in reply, confirming your willingness to trade. “Kiss me now, and we’ll batten down the hatches later.”

Felix may have called you a quick learner, but you have to wonder what his basis for comparison is. From your vantage point, it’s him that catches on in a heartbeat, like nothing unexperienced is truly new to him. 

Coincidentally, it’s also him that’s kneeling between your thighs, bearing the weight of your hinged knees over his shoulders and making you shake with his tongue alone.

“Fuck, fuck — nngh — fuck!” 

It’s all you can say because it’s the best you can do. 

Over and over, too drunk on the sensation of his mouth, you let profanity spill out of yours. He has you dripping in more ways than one, pooling on that godforsaken counter, and you can’t spare a single thought about the mess you’re making.

Every neuron fixates on him, the cotton-candy blue strands gripped tight between your fingers, and the way he devours you, like he’s making up for skipped meals.

“F-Felix,” you beg, breathless.

Looking up at you from under his lashes, he feigns innocence. It’s bullshit — he knows you’re on the brink of death, knows your whole damn body is buzzing — and his sweet smile doesn’t match his actions. You jolt, wailing, when another kitten lick trails over your clit.

“Hmm?” That low timbre of his vibrates through you when he pulls back, panting.

God, you’re spent already, but you can’t collapse until you know what he feels like, buried to the hilt in you. Something about that need makes you shiver; has your bottom lip quivering when you manage to squeak, “Please.”

Absolutely boneless, you slump against the wall behind you. With far more grace than you, Felix maneuvers his way out from under the tangle of your legs. He ensures that they fall gently back into place on the countertop.

“Gotta work on that stamina if you’re gonna help wage a war,” he teases.

The half-powered glare you shoot at him doesn’t stop him from leaning in and pressing a kiss to your forehead. It doesn’t keep his fingertips from tracing languid lines down the lengths of your bare thighs, either.

Your voice is fucked out and weightless, far softer than you’ve ever heard yourself sound. “Is that what this is? Conditioning?”

The hand not caressing your thigh comes up to cradle your jaw, like it’s something fragile. It’s the first time anyone’s touched you as if you’re breakable, worth protecting — and motherfucker, you’re one soft smile away from crying.

“No.” 

He states it much more firmly than he kisses you. So gentle that you can’t believe it’s real until you taste yourself on him, so warm that you dissolve like a sugar cube on his tongue. 

Fuck any other person that’s ever pressed their lips to yours and called it a kiss. They’re liars, all of them. One by one, their names disappear with every passing second in which you know better.

“Need you,” you moan into his mouth. 

Fistfuls of his shirt can’t bring him close enough. Even when his head dips down and his lips are at your throat, the ache wins out. You crave him anywhere — everywhere — all over you. 

“Going crazy —” You gasp when his teeth nip at your collarbone. “— waiting on you.”

Greedy hands drop to the button of his jeans, fumbling to no avail. Apparently, your dexterity flew out the window two orgasms ago. A frustrated whine jumps out after it, pushing your head back as it goes.

Felix’s low chuckle soothes you, but it’s nothing compared to the relief you feel when his hands nudge yours out of the way. That, too, is a drop in the bucket; bliss crashes in waves when there’s no denim left to separate you. His hands land on your hips, fingertips pressing into your flesh as he guides you further down his length. 

Never — not fucking ever — have you made a sound quite as pathetic as the one you bury into the crook of his neck. You can’t classify it, not as a moan or a whimper. It’s desperate — loud. It’s an air raid siren; every fucking barricade you’ve built over the years being blown to smithereens.

This is it, you think.

Fuck your bank account. 

Fuck staring at the sky and waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Fuck your contracts, your shithole apartment, and the million different ways you were set up to lose in this life.

This isn’t about you at all. It’s about you and him; all the space and time you’re dead set on reclaiming.

This is for us.

a/n: thank you so much for reading! i’ve been working on this since JUNE, and it’s a much bigger undertaking (creatively and….. mentally) than anything else i’ve done before, so i’m scared and also excited to start sharing it with y’all.

while likes are appreciated, comments/tags/reblogs with your thoughts are really what make my brain go brrrtt.

tagging: @saintriots, @mal-lunar-28, @dabiscrustyfeet

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[teumefromthesea]

love yourself a little

one-shot sukhoon fic. slash M/M. rated M (Mature)

tags: hurt/comfort, fluff, established relationship, secret relationship

based on/heavily referenced: hyunsuk’s earpiece accident on treasure’s inkigayo debut stage captured on his fancam & T.M.I episode 12 (pls watch both videos first before reading)

summary:

“choi hyunsuk said his debut stage is both exciting and regrettable. well, park jihoon is here to prove him wrong.

or

my sukhoon take on that earpiece shenanigan and what happened after it.”

read below or on Ao3

 Blinding lights, ragged breaths. Choi Hyunsuk stares at the unblinking eye of the camera. Their pre-recorded debut performance has finally come to an end.

 Empty cheers, parched throat. Choi Hyunsuk stares at the fallen earpiece in his hand. He thought of crushing it into pieces before remembering where he is now, who he is now. Not another YG trainee or survival shows contestant anymore, but a real, freshly-debuted idol.

 Huh. An idol who needs to get his head together because apparently, not even five years of blood, sweat, and tears could prepare one not to lose his earpiece on stage.

  Did he ruin their debut?

 The green-haired leader walks with the other Treasure members, following a line back to the make-up room. While others cry loudly in relief, Hyunsuk silently cries in disappointment-- at no one but himself.

  -

  Nothing gets past Park Jihoon's eyes; not the awkward hand gesture Junkyu often does when dancing, not the small red dot of the stage cameras that Jeongwoo had a hard time following, not even a flicker of disappointment that reflects on Hyunsuk's eyes after their debut stage. It may have gone for a moment when they're on an interview, but as soon as the camera stops rolling, it flickers back across the eldest's face.

 So Jihoon plays his part. Fantastically, if he so may add.

 He becomes the Park 'happy virus' Jihoon that everybody and their mothers love and leads the vlogging. Well, to be fair, it's fairly easy for him to do this. Look pretty (which is given), talk a lot, tease other members, give some smiles, tease another member, and end it with either a wink or a kiss to the camera. Both if he's feeling generous.

 Of course, the cheerful atmosphere is not something Jihoon creates on his own. It helps how all the members are still feeling the 'adrenaline rush' after performing and watching themselves on National television. All the members, except one, who's by the end of the vlog, is talking quietly with Mashiho on the other end of the sofa. Mashiho looks concerned as the main dancer probably senses something wrong with their eldest hyung. But Jihoon can bet everything on his bank account that Hyunsuk probably shrugs it off as nothing.

 Choi Hyunsuk is not the type of person that burden people with his problems, which is a blessing and a pain in the ass at the same time.

  -

  Treasure has no time to spare; such is the idol life. It's back to practice again after Inkigayo. It's tiring, but for Hyunsuk, training is his safe haven from bad thoughts. His brain can finally focus on something else than replaying moment after moment when--

  Stop it.

 So, Hyunsuk trains, hard. Hard enough that each of his choreographed moves has a little more edge than usual. Hard enough that he knows his body going to regret it tomorrow morning. He trains hard but also still making sure to keep his emotions in check.

 Because Hyunsuk believes the members deserve the strong side of him now than ever. A strict, calm leader that can lead and prepare them for countless stages and chaos ahead.

 The members don't deserve a weak Choi Hyunsuk, much less a man that manages to fail his group on their debut stage.

  -

  It's another six hours of training before Treasure can finally go back to the dorm. Some of the members don't waste any time to pack and leave. Understandable, since it has been a long day. Jihoon too can't wait to reunite with his bed.

 "See you tomorrow, everyone!"

 The door closes, leaving only Jihoon, Yedam, and Doyoung in the training room.

 "You're not leaving with the others?" Yedam asks Jihoon after a while, seeing the older is still lying down on the couch.

 "Nah, still tired. You two go on ahead."

 Doyoung gives him a slight nod, before asking the million-dollar question, "Hyunsuk-hyung looks kinda sad today, you know why, hyung?"

  Here we go. Jihoon is so ready to feign sleep.

 Thankfully, Yedam is an active listener. "Oh, really? I didn't notice it. Is he going back already?"

 "Hm, I think he's still talking to our manager." Doyoung looks back to Jihoon. "Hyung, do you know something?"

  Sigh. Jihoon pulls down his cap further to cover his eyes. "Nothing's going on, I think he's fine. You're just tired, Doyoung-ah. Go home, take a hot shower, get some sleep. Tomorrow we have three interviews and we need to be ready by 9 AM."

 "Ah! Right, we have a morning schedule... " It seems even Yedam is exhausted enough to forget their agenda. That rarely happens, by the way. The main vocalist is already halfway across the room, pulling Doyoung's hand while the other just meekly follow. "We'll be going now, see you tomorrow, hyung!"

 "Bye-bye, be careful."

 If Jihoon feels bad by pretending not to see the suspecting glances Doyoung throws at him before the door closes, well, he can always blames it on Hyunsuk.

  -

  "Jihoonie?"

 Jihoon opens his eyes to see the man of the hour finally shows himself. The eldest hovering above him, smelling like sweat and fatigue and anguish. Everything about Choi Hyunsuk is so clear to Jihoon, he kinda wonders how does anyone not get it.

 "Hyung."

 "I thought you already went back with others."

 "Nope, still here. What about you?"

 "Uh, just had one last rundown for tomorrow with the manager."

 "Oh. Any changes?"

 "No, still the same, 9 AM sharp."

 "Okay."

 Hyunsuk hums back before settling on the floor and leans back to the couch. The eldest looks worn out than usual, with eyes empty looking back at themselves in the mirror across the room.

 From where Hyunsuk sits, Jihoon's hand could easily reach and play with Hyunsuk's windswept grass of a hair if he wants. The thought is tempting. But he doesn't. 

 Instead--

 "Still caught up about the earpiece?"

 The eldest keeps his quiet, but can't hide his frown.

 "Come on, hyung. It's just one small thing."

 Hyunsuk lets out a long sigh, like he's done with the conversation already, but Park Jihoon takes it as an opportunity to sharpen his people skill.

 "You still performed great. Everyone performed great. I bet nobody notices it."

 "There's a fancam, Jihoonie."

 Jihoon scoffs. "You haven't read the comments, have you? People don't care, hyung. They care more about you being sad and depressed about it than the stupid earpiece."

 "But I care!"

 Silence fills the air. It's not every day the eldest raises his voice outside practice hours. It took Jihoon a couple of years to learned that it's a Choi Hyunsuk thing to bottle everything up until it got full and everything comes out in an abrupt rush. So, yes, Jihoon understands. Of course, he does, he loves the man. He'd do anything for him even if it meant proving him wrong.

 Jihoon finally sits up and turns to Hyunsuk. The eldest buries his face in one hand, looking dejected than before. Probably already regretting his sudden outburst.

  Typical nice guy Hyunsuk-hyung. Jihoon rolls his eyes before taking a hold of Hyunsuk's hand, forcing the eldest to face him.

 "Hey. You know what's my role in the group, right?"

 The eldest frowns deeper. "Of course I know, why would you even ask-"

 "Then listen to me when I said you are wrong if you thought your tiny, little accident will somehow-- I don't know, damage our debut or the group reputation or whatever else you're thinking right now."

 Jihoon makes sure to steadily hold both Hyunsuk's hand and gaze while he's spitting the truth but goddammit it's tough, especially when Hyunsuk has that kicked puppy dog look that appears whenever he's upset with himself.

 Jihoon sighs before muttering, "Honestly, you're thinking like that, doesn’t make any sense to me, but because I love you, hyung, I'm gonna humor you, okay? So believe me when I said it will not damage anything-- anything except your beauty sleep because you think too much. Next, you're gonna get panda eyes like me. And then you're gonna have to apologize to Jaehyuk, our genius content creator, because you're gonna have to change your emoji from pig to panda. And now Treasure will have two pandas. Male and female, maybe. You can be the female since you're the 'eomma' and I'm the 'appa'. Maybe you can add purple ribbon to your emoji and--"

 "I get it, I get it! Stop talking, what the hell..." Hyunsuk giggles while slightly pulls Jihoon's hand to put a brake to his rambles. 

 The man himself doesn't even realize he's been rambling. "You ask for it!"

 The room is suddenly rich with small, quiet laughs. One hand still holds another, before Hyunsuk decides to tangled their fingers together. Hyunsuk's hand always feels so small compared to Jihoon's. It's nice, the younger leader thought. They've been so busy preparing their debut, Jihoon forgets when was the last time they held hands. He misses this.

 But their debut comes first, they both know that. They've been preparing their whole life for today, after all.

 "Hyung--" Jihoon starts again, "--there are still tons of things to do tomorrow. And the day after. And the day, day after that. We're gonna be so fucking busy, you're gonna forget about today, I promise."

 Hyunsuk chuckles. "Yeah, I know." The eldest let out another long sigh, "I'm stupid, aren't I? To be sad just because of this."

 "Yup."

 "Geez, you don't have to be so honest, Jihoonie."

 "You kinda are though." Jihoon just shrugs off the glare Hyunsuk sends him. "You know I can't lie."

 "Yeah, yeah." And here comes the pouting Choi Hyunsuk.

 "Don't do that."

 "Do what?"

 Jihoon tries to imitate Hyunsuk's pout, of course, since it's his special ability and annoys the leader more. "This. Makes you look like an angry baby."

 "Ya!"

 "Makes me want to kiss you, too, Hyunsukkie." Jihoon leans slowly toward Hyunsuk with that playful smirk that makes the man both frustrating and attractive at the same time.

 "What... we're in the goddammn training room! Ya! I can't with you sometimes."

 Hyunsuk playfully shoves him away but without untangling their hands. Like Jihoon, Hyunsuk also misses the secret intimacy between them.

 Hyunsuk takes another glance at their tangled hands before bringing it to his cheek. 

 "But thank you, Jihoonie. For everything."

 No words can describe how soft Jihoon feels right now. Hyunsuk's smile is so sweet and bright, Jihoon swears even the stars got nothing on his dear hyung.  

 Jihoon holds him just a little bit tighter, whispering promises they definitely can keep.

 "Don't worry, hyung. We're gonna be spectacular."

 "Yes. Yes, we will."

  -

  The elevator door opens on the floor of Hyunsuk's dorm. Jihoon walks the eldest up to the front door before pulling the other for a goodnight kiss. This is nothing new; a ritual they've always done whenever they come home together. Usually, it's just a peck on the lips since they're out in the open and anybody could run into them, but tonight-- tonight is different. Maybe because of today's incident, maybe because it's the day their dream finally come true, or maybe because they just secretly missed each other so much.

 Tonight's their kiss lasts a little longer. Jihoon gently tugs the other lips, while Hyunsuk caresses his soft, pink hair. Strong arms wrap Hyunsuk tight, mouth asking the eldest permission to dip deeper. Hyunsuk is breathless but can't help but indulge him. He wants Park Jihoon too, he always does, for as long as he remembers.

 Cold lips devour him; slow and passionate. For once, not caring about anything but each other. Like the world is theirs to begin with.

 Maybe it will be theirs, today's their first step, after all.

[iu-jjang]

[FANACCOUNT] 140531~140601 IU Small Theatre Concert

To be honest, I'm not sure where to start lol... but srsly so many people knew there would be reencore on the last day so they just ignored the security guards telling everyone to leave keke.. Instead of a song-by-song recount, I'm going to jump all over the place again and tell you why IU deserves so much love. I only reached Seoul in time to watch the last two days of the concert. Ticketing was a nightmare anyway. Some people camped overnight to queue for leftover tickets. Initially, oppa only managed to get two tickets for the last day. Luckily, someone else sold me a ticket for 31st! I'm glad we got to sit together though.

I think the IU DJ section where she read out letters with song reqs sent by fans was really awesome. It's amazing really.. People becoming a couple through knowing one another on Uaena fancafe, and sort of like asking for IU's "blessings" keke IU was amused that the couples on both days were sitting so far apart from one another. But you know, it's really when we tell IU how much strength and support we get from her songs that she feels she needs to work even harder to live up to that. You know how she's always saying she might not always be a singer. Perhaps one day, she might feel like cooking or something, but she said with this small theatre concert, she started to entertain the possibility of becoming a singer forever~ I wonder whether the people reading this are actually yonghwa fans keke. I've already translated most of the stuff they said on my Twitter anyway. I saw an audio recording of his singing being shared anyway. Go check it out, he's got talent. You know, you'd think a solo singer like IU would get really lonely and bored, compared to girl/boy groups, but she's got all these close friends willing to offer her assistance on her song composition, even giving her a song they wrote (like "gloomy clock") and guesting at one another's concerts. She's got her close girl friends too for all the personal stuff. Yoo Inna even came to watch yesterday's concert. So sweet of her~ Overall, I just find the cooperation between different singers, different companies, absolutely amazing. Music truly does connect us all~

(Photo by xyz/야자) Over these two days, I've met some amazing people as well heh. Some people go for IU events to watch IU, for me it's a bit of both? It's really nice to meet people I havent seen in like a year but have only talked to on Twitter ㅠㅠㅠ Most of the people I know (and can remember their names) are the fancamers keke. This time, IUmushimushi and I made flower bookmarks for everyone, so I went around introducing them to IUmushimushi as well! A number of them were quite surprised that IUmushimushi is also from Singapore ^^ I think everyone's much more powerful than me olloll I can't even take photos or videos properly. They manage to take while passing IU presents LOL. We made a special flower bookmark with the flowers arranged in an "IU" pattern. I didn't really think we would get to give it to IU, but IUmushimushi is so amajjang she succeeded ㅠㅠ so grateful towards suzuki-san for kneeling down to take a photo of her passing our little gift to IU as well!

(check out her expression keke she's like gimme thatt) Seriously it was soo hot waiting out there for hours for IU to arrive, but she was so sweet, buying us Tou Les Jours ice-cream until the last day. I was whining that I didn't manage to take photos or grab any of the ice-cream and luckyguy gave me his ice-cream. So sweet right? ㅠㅠㅠ Haha it's good to be a girl at times like this.

Anyway, after listening to Friday, Not Spring Love or Cherry Blossoms (twice! once with HIGH4) and Drama live in concert, I think my life is complete seriously. Replaying the audio recordings over and over again keke. Ahh yesterday's 3hr 30mins concert was fantastic. That's a whole extra 1hr of song requests after the encore keke people requested all kinds of stuff. Like what "Let it Go", "Ice Flower", etc. which she sang snippets of. Ah she was like, "I'd rather sing than eat, but right now I think the staff would rather eat" and hunter manager was like -nodnod- at the side of the stage keke. So she let her band rest and played "Bad Day" for us on acoustic guitar~ omgg real fantasy encore concert feels! I still think this song is much better on acoustic guitar. But after the first song of reencore, IU wanted us to watch with our eyes and not annoy others with our camera clicking sounds, so most people kept their cameras like the good fans we are. HIGH4 was just so adorbs though. My favourite is still Myunghan! I RT-ed Suzuki's photo on twitter going Myunghani~~ and he came over to show me all his photos from his dslr ^^ Speaking of which, they were so sweet to order a food van for IU's concert staff. Some of the fans know the staff anyway so they got some patbingsoo for us which we shared! The tteok was really yummy~ Oh I forgot I was writing a fanaccount.. ah I really like going for IU concerts cos she really listens to the fans. They shouted "2nd floor" during phototime and she really came up close like 2m away from me and people were frantically adjusting their zoom and focus cos she was too close LOL. She took one of those hand banners from the fans too and read the instructions clipped to the back on when to take out the banner and stuff, so she like "ahh.. so it's written here" keke she must have been wondering how we were all so united and knew what to do :P

I think the cutest part was during reencore when she went all floppy after singing a song and was like "I feel like I'm drunk" cos she's just so happy, so high from the small theatre concert keke. She kept saying they had to go eat and celebrate cos she lost 2kg while preparing for the concert as she was too nervous and excited to eat anything ㅠㅠ someone actually went "eat and come back again (to sing some more)" which she was amused by. Anyway, she had soooo much difficulty saying farewell to us as usual. Eventually she stood up, then the curtains started closing on her, so I think she was thinking like oh! ok they're helping me with this... But at the last moment, she stopped and parted the curtains, then came out to tell us again that she loves us ㅠㅠㅠ That was soo adorbs peole started taking lots of photos of that keke

(Photo by Padawan) Well ok that's about it~ I need to figure out how to edit videos lol.. She kept walking around among the audience during phototime so when I zoomed in, I filmed all the fans' faces as well LOL There will definitely be more IU concerts in future :) As always, will be looking forward to her growth in musicality. (Random: HIGH4's leader Sunggyu and IU look good together.)

(Photo by skipjack)

[peonybane]

My main groups

Oh boy. Thanks for the ask, I’ll try to go as in-depth as possible. Get ready for me to just fucking gush.

So I have two main groups: VIXX and BTS.

Please read below the break because this is long as hell. This is also a repost as Tumblr is a dumb dumb.

VIXX:

Voice, Visuals, Values in Excelsis (I know doesn’t make sense but that’s what the boys names themselves). They are the Concept Kings for a reason: Space Vampires, Voodoo Dolls, Cyborgs/Androids, Time, the Greek God trilogy, Perfumes, Duality (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and so many others.

I consider myself to be a STARLIGHT in terms of kpop first before anything else other than just enjoying all of it. VIXX will always be my number one group because they helped me out of a really dark place in my life and because of that, I can’t really replace them with anyone else. With that being said, I look at them as if they are my older brothers, which makes looking at them in a sexual way almost impossible for me (despite one of the fancams later, I just think that fancam is so interesting). So I am very, very soft towards them. I almost cried at a concert for Ravi because I was so moved at being able to meet someone I very much look up to.

So even though I was technically introduced to kpop via either BigBang (with Fantastic Baby) or BTS (with DNA), it wasn’t until VIXX that I really got into them.

My first song with VIXX was Error. I had never seen anything like Error before and it fascinated me, I was really hooked by that video. My sister and I watched that video about… 20 times in a row. And I never looked back.

My bias is Ravi. For those who don’t: he is the Rapper of the group as well as one of the main dancers. He has a deep ass voice, he looks rather scary, but he is probably one of the purest human beings on the planet. He’s a workaholic, he’s the best dog dad, he’s a shy, sweet mess (he’s best friends with Jimin of BTS and Kai of EXO, if that don’t explain much, nothing will). I saw him in concert this past May and it was just… I was in awe. He’s very down to earth and tall as fuuuuuuuuck (all of them are, the shortest is 5′11). He recently left Jellyfish Entertainment (Jelpi) to start his own production agency, GROOVL1N. The most fascinating thing about this for me is that he left on good terms with Jelpi and is still part of VIXX. No entertainment company is perfect, but I think is pretty damn close. They give their artists artistic freedom, they protect their privacy fiercely (STARLIGHTS not particularly invasive, but no one really knows anything about their private lives), and they don’t force their artists to do things that would be bad for them (I can’t find the footage, but there have been instances where instead of telling Leo not to eat, they try to make him eat, I’ll talk about that more later). What Jelpi lacks is promoting and caring about international fans. I’m pretty sure that’s why Ravi left because even though they are on good terms, that is what Jelpi lacks and Ravi really makes the international STARLIGHTS (I mean they all do, but Ravi especially) feel like they are loved.

Favorite song is kinda hard. For Title Tracks, G.R.8.U., On and On, and Fantasy are definitely tied for first place. For non-title tracks, Trigger and Light Me Up (little bit of a cheat, this is one of my favorite performances and this the Rock version) fuck me up and get me hyped. My favorite Japanese Track is Depend on Me which is basically the exact opposite of Chained Up. Because they love their STARLIGHTS so much, they have a song dedicated to us on each album, so my favorite STARLIGHT song is Milky Way.

My bias wrecker (lord help me) is Hyuk. Hyuk is the maknae of the group. He started out of the pipsqueak of the group and now dominates his hyung. He clocks in at about 6′4 and is a fucking wall. He looks like a Samoyed. He’s got a lovely voice. He sounds like Onew of SHINee. He’s incredibly manly and is weird AF. He recently made his solo debut this last winter with the ballad, Boy with a Star.

So my favorite Era was… the Conception Era. This is sort of a cheat as it encompasses a concept trilogy. It’s based on three greek gods of masculine traits which tell a love story conceptually: Zelos (god of rivalry, zeal, and jealousy) with Dynamite, Hades (god of wealth, the afterlife, and desire) Fantasy, which I think is a retelling of the Orpheus myth, and finally Kratos (god of strength and rule) with the Closer. It’s just a beautiful interconnected era.

My favorite fancams…

This Chained Up Ravi Focus (gird your loins)

This “Manager Kim” Concert video

This “(Im)perfect Boyfriends to Order” Concert video

Hyukspatch

Toy Story Fantasy Performance (if you watch nothing else, watch this)

There’s certainly more but this is what came to mind immediately.

Little tidbits otherwise, I’ll never get to BTS:

Hongbin is my icon. He’s the visual of the group, the sub rapper, he’s a gamer (has his own twitch, don’t know how to get to it since I don’t have twitch), and he’s probably the most under appreciated. Enjoy his Cool Love collab with Hyungwon of Monsta X.

N, Mr. Cha Hakyeon, is the leader of the group and he’s your favorite whether or not you believe it to be. He is currently doing his military service. We all though we would not see or hear from while he’s doing his service… I see his face everyday on my dash and I love his egg head. He was in the Children of Nobody and he’s an amazing dancer.

Ken is the would be maknae of the group and I would say that’s he’s got not only the best voice in the group, but also the best eyebrows. He’s all about acting cutesy. He is a stage actor and is absolutely amazing. I want to see one of his plays one of these days.

Now, before you come for me with your pitchforks, I love all of them, just some of them piss me off more than others, but I wouldn’t get this mad if I didn’t care. Leo pisses me the hell off. He needs someone to take care of him because he’s sacrificing his mental and physical health to satisfy people who don’t actually care about him. At roughly 6 feet tall, he weighs between 130 to 145 pounds. He’s talked about some behavior that is incredibly unhealthy and it breaks my heart (he talked about how he once binge ate then worked out until he practically passed out). He’s talked about how he’s absolutely drained after a practice for his solo and… his choreography is incredibly simple. I hate that he feels like he has to be impossibly skinny for people to love him.

Moving on from the angry stuff, VIXX is one of the nation’s prides. The president of Korea is a known fan of VIXX and the last time I checked, N is STILL one of the promotional images on the president’s website.

If you have any questions for me about VIXX, please let me know and I’d love to talk about it.

BTS:

I’m going to be a little more brief with BTS, since the majority of people know them.

So as mentioned before my first song with BTS is DNA. It didn’t leave a big impression on me. It was simply something I’d play in the background while I was finishing up work for the evening at my old job. Dope is the song that really pulled me in. I don’t know what it is about it, but it just really pulled me in.

I am *sigh* double biased, something that @ropeseok​ has made me come to terms with. My ideal is Namjoon. I really like his voice, I think he’s adorable with his hard exterior and ooeygooey center. It also helps that he’s, well, kinda like me in that he’s a brain. My other bias is Taehyung. He is probably the more realistic type of person to me. I like the idea of Namjoon. But Tae… Tae is more of the person that I need. He’s very touchy, he’s emotional, he’s true, he’s sweet, a bit child like, he’s very intelligent, but keeps it on the down low. If that makes sense.

My favorite title track is Boy in Luv. I can listen to it forever. For non-title tracks it would be First Love, Magic Shop, and Persona. My favorite Japanese Track is Crystal Snow.

Since Tae had been my bias wrecker for a while, I don’t really think I have one BUT because of someone’s influence… probably Jin. Fine, I’ll admit it, I’m a Kim line heaux.

My favorite era…. it really depends on each boy. Like for Namjoon, I love the Danger and Not Today eras. For Jin, it would have to be, ironically enough, anytime of the early eras cuz he looks lovely as hell with eyeliner and I just think he’s got this hidden bad boy energy that was able to come out during this time. For Yoongi is would be MIC DROP. He was in his fucking element. Plain and simple. For Hoseok, it was Blood, Sweat, and Tears, BST was probably one of their best eras overall, but Hoseok just fucking made it his bitch. For Jimin it was BST as well but also any of the early eras. Like Jin, he’s got this hidden ferocity that I feel like is being kept hidden behind a closely guarded wall. I also just like his hair black and when he wasn’t necessarily starving himself. For Tae… Fake Love. I think he really found his element with the ballads like Singularity and darker themes, especially now that he’s all grown up and doesn’t look like a child. For Jungkook… Dope. There was something about the uniform and the energy that really just fit him.

I’m not going to do favorite famcams as the moment I start collecting videos, I’m going to be overwhelmed with different versions and this is already ridiculously long.

Tidbits:

I really like their darker works. I really wish they’d go back to those.

I don’t want anymore collaborations with Western artists. I think it would be really cool if they collabed with another Korean group or artist. I would like to see Jimin and Ravi work together. I think their different voices would work amazingly together.

I am probably the most similar to Jimin. Everyone’s who’s ever known me and knows Kpop often compares me to Jimin.

Yeontan, along with Ravi’s dog, Butt, are my fashion icons.

Once again, I love them all, but if I had to name my least favorites, it would have to be Jimin and Jungkook. Jimin because, he’s incredibly hard for me to write. I get extremely frustrated writing about him. I work best when there’s a certain amount of emotional/psychological distance between me and the person I’m writing about because then I can comfortably extrapolate. He and I are way too close, which makes it hard for me to really describe him as someone else if that makes sense. As for Jungkook, I have a very hard time understanding him. I know that a lot of people love mysterious people, but I find them to be incredibly frustrating. I think he’s incredibly talented and nice, but I’m frustrated by the fact that’s impossible for me to get an idea of what he’s like beyond that surface layer.

So that is that.

I hope you got your answer sweet Anon. I am so sorry that is was so freaking long.

-UwU~

250 followers ask game

[trashforleo]

6 Years With B.A.P!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rewatching all B.A.P MVs from Going Crazy to Hands Up to celebrate 6 Years and I. am. DYING!

I didn’t get into Kpop until March 2012, after seeing MyChonnys reaction video to BB Fantastic Baby and I was like ‘Okay, that was good, I’mma check out more of this’. And then I fell into this pit we call a fandom?!?!?!More like HELL ON MY HEART! A few weeks of just jamming to BB I found Warrior sitting in the suggestions and then BAM! MY ASS WAS OWNED!!~!~! Being a stupid, naive 15 year old at the time, I was just all up on that shit! I NEEDED TO KNOW WHO THEY WERE~ AND HOW I COULD DOWNLOAD THE SONG THEY HAD SO I COULD LISTEN TO IT AT SCHOOL TO DROWN OUT THE TEACHERS! I wasn’t really a hardcore stan like I had been for BB, at that time I was a bitch for BB but B.A.P was crawling up my legs to steal my heart!  

At the start of my fangirling, I fully believed Zelo was my bais, he was cute, a rapper, only a year older then me and just really fucking adorable!?!?!?! But then I saw the Crash MV and I was done for! Yongguk spoke at the start of that video and my poor teenager heart was like!!!!!!!!!!!!!!YOU HAVE MY HEART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!No reason at all but I just knew?that?he?owned?the?title?as?bias?!?!??!?!?!!!!!!! (Also, that fucking blue and green hairdo Zelo had in the Crash MV WAS GODDAMN AWFUL! HOW DID ANYONE FORGET THAT? THAT WAS HIS WORST HAIR ERA! NEXT TO GRANNY PERM HURRICANE HAIR! OMG!)

THEN CAME STOP IT! AND I WAS SUNK IN SO FAR! I still wasn’t hardcore stanning yet, but I was nearing, I waited for comebacks and knew their names and could tell the members apart by voices, but I only really listened to title tracks for now. Rain Sound was what claimed my ass COMPLETELY! I WAS OWNED! THEY HAD ME BY MY NERVES AND ARTERIES! I listened to all their songs and watched any interviews translated I could get my grubby hands on! I needed to know these boys because I just LOVED THEM SO MUCH! They were talented, beautiful, amazing, dedicated, just brilliant, being their fan made everything that was shitty in my life then, just fad into the background with simply putting headphones in, I was attached emotionally.

Coffee Shop and Hurricane was what made Daehyun take second place on my bias list, his voice was goddamn f*cking!AMAZING!  BADMAN HAD ME BY MY F*CKING ANKLES! THAT WAS MY JAM FOR WEEKS! THEN 1004! I WAS SINKING IN A HOLE I COULDN’T LEAVE!

In 2014 they came to AUSTRALIA! I WAS SO F*CKING EXICITED! At first, I couldn’t go, my friend, who is a very soft kpop fan, like only really listens to it when we hang out, managed to convince her mother to take us! Now, I live in QLD, which meant the closest and cheapest option was Sydney, so we went and it. was. amAZING! It would’ve been better if I wasn’t such a short ass and hadn’t gone off by mainly ear, we got standing behind VIP standing and this bloke was infront of us who for some reason! WAS LIKE 6′10! I’M ONLY 5′2! HE WAS BLOCKING MY VIEW AND HIM GOING ON HIS TIPTOES AND JUMPING UP AND DOWN DIDN’T HELP! I enjoyed my first concert ever, despite not having actually seen much of it, it was a memory and I was grateful, I learnt the Check On dance, there was moment where one of the members gave a girl in the crowd a coffee during the Coffee Shop stage???? If I remember correctly? I unfortunately couldn’t get any fancams, because at the time I was broke as fuck and had a shitty phone brought from Woolworths and I don’t think my friend has any of the ones she managed to get either anymore, the only thing I really regret is no fan cams.

But then came the Lawsuit and I was devastated, a couple months beforehand articles were being posted about this boygroup rumouring to be filing a lawsuit together, thought nothing of it until it read ‘Debuted in 2012 and had recent world tour and first concert held in Australia for them’ and I just felt so…….. hurt? That be the best way to describe it? My heart just burnt and I was struck with this overwhelming pain, I didn’t understand, it couldn’t be them, I didn’t understand, maybe just teenager naivety or denial but I didn’t believe it until I woke up one day and the first thing on my FB timeline ‘B.A.P files lawsuit against TS as six’ and I kinda just broke in tears. I felt slightly pathetic crying over a group of men I didn’t even know.

I have to admit, I had the selfish thoughts of ‘They can’t disband’ ‘They can’t, they’re the only good thing I have in life right now,’ but I’m not a generally selfish person, so that passed quick, I was worried, incredibly worried! I didn’t know these men personally but hearing the circumstances of the lawsuit fueled me with rage, they were being denied basic human rights! From seeing family, treatment for illness, disrespect as artist, payment neglect! Then I heard of fans leaving the fandom for petty reasons and I knew that I couldn’t leave their side, I did, guiltily, distance myself as Baby, if they were to disband for their own personal reasons and this doesn’t go well, I wouldn’t be as hurt by the decision, I checked any news when I could, listened to their songs to feed my desire to see them again, I checked Instagram and Twitter, every time I heard about one of the members being seen somewhere, Daehyuns random appearances, I was happy, they looked sad but also happy, but I was still worried, what did this mean for them?

When it was over, I just hoped that they were given what they deserved and wanted, respect and to not be looked down at, to be treated like a human beings, to be given the money they work fucking hard for! And to not be taken advantage of, because all they wanted to do was to sing, rap and dance, to follow a simple dream but some money hungry, shitty cooperation took advantage of that.

But because I had distance myself during the lawsuit, although still a Baby, I wasn’t on the level before it, while every other Baby was hyping up their comeback for Young, Wild and Free, I was skeptic, was this what they wanted? Are they okay? I don’t care for a comeback! I just want to know if they’re happy and healthy! Why TS? Surely any other label could sign them?

The teasers dropped and I was in love again, it was them, they looked healthy, they looked happy, they looked like them, the six goofy, talented, amazing, individual men that I loved. It had been over a year since they’re last comeback, Zelo had gotten taller, he looked more mature and more adult, Youngjae’s face had lost any trace of his chubbyness from Debut,, Daehyunn looked alot better, Himchan was defiantly happier, Jongup was now a man too out of nowhere? Yongguk seemed better.

I Feel So Good and That’s My Jam had me forgetting the lawsuit, they were happy, doing what they wanted and releasing music they wanted to. Happy. I just wanted them happy. Skydive came around and I was SHOOK! SO FUCKING GOOD! But that was a slop when Yongguk had to take a break for Anxiety issues and I was mad at TS, was this their fault? Were they neglecting him again? Why wasn’t his Anxiety issues addressed sooner! Why let him get to that point!? Mad, was an understatement, I know how horrible and nightmarish Anxiety is, so I was happy he was getting treated, I was furious that the company he practically has signed years of his life to, neglect him to the point where he had to put his dreams on hold?! He shouldn’t of had to put a ‘hiatus’ on his career when his company shouldn’t of let him get so bad, it wasn’t Yongguks fault and I could blame the company all I wanted, but I just wanted him happy, healthy and doing what he wants with his life without these barriers.

Wake Me Up came and you could say that my ass was owned, yet again. Words can’t really explain how I felt when watching the MV, besides Pride, I was proud, they looked so good, the song sounded just like them and I was glad for having them back. Honeymoon and Hands Up, two comebacks in a short time frame? Ah yes! I did feel a little worried that maybe T$ was going to try and churn out comebacks like they did originally, but I felt reassured, the boys looked happy and healthy, if T$ was going to do that, I doubt the members would leave it unheard of, Himchan would probably dragged them over social media and Daehyun would probably discreetly shit on them anyway he could. Honeymoon was a refreshing concept, I loved it! Hands Up! Felt like I was watching them for the first time all over again!

This was B.A.P, this was Bang Yongguk, Kim Himchan, Jung Daehyun, Yoo Youngjae, Moon Jongup and this was Choi Junhong, this was my boys, OUR boys, 6 men that for years had been my greatest escape from my life, I could put headphones on and blare out the world outside, watch silly videos and feel better about my circumstances, they made me smile, they made me happy, they made me want to live, even if it was just to see their new Instagram post tomorrow and here they are, happy, healthy, doing what they wanted, being loved, being amazing, being  Best. Absolute. Perfection.

So to B.A.P, to our brilliant leader, Bang Yongguk, with your deep ass, chocolaty smooth voice, our shy man, the father of the group, who is always thinking of others before yourself, that protected and loved your members through what was probably the hardest years in your lives, never let anyone try to make you do any less then what you want, what you wish, what you believe in and what you deserve, because baby, you deserve the fucking world, keep smiling that beautiful gummy smile that makes our hearts shine. Because like you said I will hold your two hands and hold you so you don’t fall.

To Kim Himchan, our glorious Visual King, mother of the group, with your trucker, smooth, honey vocals, you serve as glue in the group in a way, always tenderly loving of the members, as Yongguks best friend, supporting, shitting on T$ because you won’t put up with shit, always love yourself just like you are, wearing your name on everything! Never doubt yourself, you are beautiful, you are amazing and we love you so god damn much, forever smile that smile, forever be our dancing machine and forever be the amazing man you are.

To Jung Daehyun, our extra loud Lead Vocal, I know we tease you for how loud you can be, but I’d be damned if you were any different then what you are, you bring energy, happiness, cheers and brightness to the group, I can always look forward to a new interview or Vlive with you in it, knowing that I’ll probably have to turn down my volume a few times but I will forever adore listening to you scream over nonsense. I hope that one day you can find someone that you love, more then you love us, because you deserve to be in love and love, to be loved, you are our soul, our love and a blessing.

To Yoo Youngjae, our brilliant vocal, our little squishy marshmallow, who bring sunshine with a colourful rainbow to the group, always supportive of your brothers, loving your fans, always be the way you want, never question that you are talented, that you’re loved, laugh that beautiful laugh, prank your brothers, be as loud as you can with Daehyun and tease your Maknae, and do what you want with your future, sing with that beautiful voice and adore your Babyz with that huge heart of yours, you are beautiful, you are talented, you are amazing, you are our love.

To Moon Jongup, our beautiful, rude, main dancer, with your beautiful voice and smooth dancing, forever amazing us with your continuous growing talent and passion, with your ability to put up with your brothers antics, your growth as an artist and as a person, as you slowly exist your shell and become more open, always smile like you do, always be happy, never settle for anything less then what you deserve, never expect anything less then what you want and always remember that we will forever watch and love you.

To Choi Junghong, our maknae, our brilliant dancer, our amazing rapper, you may be young, but you have suffered a lot just to achieve your dreams, with your continuous growing self in everyway, we are always amazed to see you happy, another genius piece that you release is another step to being the artist you want to be, there are evil people in the world, but don’t worry, we will protect and love you in any way we can, always smile, always cheer on your brothers, always love your fans and forever be the beautiful, amazing man you are growing up to be.

With you, my baby. Forever with you.

If we could, us Babyz would steal every ounce of happiness in the world just to see you boys be happy, to see those smiles, to hear that laughter, another song released, another album charting, another hit, another post on social media, is a step to us just loving you even more then we already do. I will never let your hand go, no one can ever deny me the innocent, pure love I have for you six men, you have made me feel something, even if I never meet you, even if you don’t know I exist, I love you, because you’re talented, amazing, beautiful and deserve to be given the world.

Bang Yongguk - ❝Life is like a piano. The white keys represent happiness and the black keys represent sadness, but as you go through life, remember that the black keys make music too.❞

Kim Himchan - ❝Role model? I don’t have one. I want to be one.❞

Jung Daehyun - ❝We are still here, because we experienced both good and bad as 6.❞

Yoo Youngjae - ❝Now, B.A.P is more like a family rather than just members or friends, so as time goes by, we are going to be more banded.❞

Moon Jongup - ❝I want to be a moon, bring the light to the people who are in the dark.❞

Choi Junghong - ❝I want to work hard without forgetting our original intention and our modesty, for us to become artists that will grow.❞

Congratulations, to six years as six, B.A.P.

[hanwooz]

170819 KCON LA Fanacc

hi hello the whole experience is still so surreal to me but i'm going to document as much as i can in this post while it's still fresh in my memory :^) note: i didn’t reread this since i’m literally just rambling everything and trying to recollect what happened HAHA read... with discretion?  - FAN ENGAGEMENT - so this was my first time at kcon and i was super confused with everything, but luckily i went with a friend who already had experience from going previous years (@ftwonwoo HI TRACEY). we were lucky enough to get three seventeen audience passes from the vouchers that came with our concert tickets (( WHICH ARE COMPLETELY RANDOMIZED I MIGHT ADD )). i reaaallly wanted hitouch and was willing to pay up to maybe $50 for it but seventeen was in high demand so every offer i found was $100+ OTL. i mean i was able to afford it, but i didn't think it was worth buying for, maybe, 40 seconds of interaction ;_;. waiting in line was like a blur to me i just remember thinking it was hot because we were told to stand in line outside with no shade at all. i was straight up sweating buckets and also screaming internally because i was going to look like a mess in front of seventeen AHAHAHAHA. i kept admiring some of the fans in line who made the effort to have really nice rose quartz serenity outfits while i was wearing like......black lmfao good job kellz what the heck were you thiNKING. the only rose quartz i had on me was my phone case and this headband i made that said 최한솔 (chwe hansol) on it which i’m 120% sure vernon didn’t see it Bye

okay so all hell broke loose while seventeen were coming onto stage one by one, and unfortunately i missed them walking onstage since there was this girl in front of me―who i thought was a fansite bc she had a camera with detachable lens―holding up an ANNOYING AS FUCK POSTER THAT BLOCKED MY ENTIRE VIEW. i told her to put it down (several times actually) and when she did, i immediately counted the members and noticed hoshi wasn't there?? i was a little disappointed for a sec but i understood he needed his rest so it was for the best, so props at pledis for not letting him attend for the sake of his health ;_;. they first introduced themselves and oh my god Y'ALL hearing "SAY THE NAME, SEVENTEEN!! hi, we are seventeen!" is so goosebump inducing lol i've heard them say their signature greeting so many times through my laptop screen but it's a whole different level hearing it in person. okay fast forward my memory kind of gets broken here but they basically answered a few questions (i remember them naming s.coups as the dad and jeonghan the mom of the group) and they also had a mission every time they rolled a dice. dino - random dance to dnce's 'cake by the ocean', seungkwan - favorite pop song (he sang adeles's 'when we were young' OMG THIS BOY'S VOICE IS HEAVENLY I NEED A FULL VER ASAP), seokmin - random dance to big bang's fantastic baby (before he danced, he threw the dice into the crowd which was sO funny and unexpected, i didn't see where it went but he had his hands together afterwards and looked like he was apologizing LOL also s.coups was literally on the floor dying of laughter), joshua + jeonghan - aegyo, mingyu - sexy dance to justin timberlake's 'sexy back' (he was really into it at first doing body waves and then he got shy, it was so cute LOL), wonwoo - i think he also got favorite song? he sang 'see you again' and it was nice hearing everyone in the room singing along with him!! i was worried that they'd be tired from flying in from chicago hours before the event started, but they were all really energetic and lively and cute. after this segment ended, it was time for the hitouch and it was so interesting seeing how each member interacted with fans since it... really reflects their personality if that makes sense?? i think s.coups, mingyu, and vernon probably had the best fan interaction. they never wiped off the huge smile they had on their faces and s.coups was legit CLASPING each fan's hand instead of giving high-fives alfkjalskfjaljsk. the hitouch went by really fast and on the screen, it showed their faces one by one and i remember fans screaming the loudest for jun omfg he is sooooo handsome;; well all of them looked really handsome tbh and i really liked jeonghan and woozi's chokers :^). minghao had a really cute smile the whole time too!! after they left i went outside and really just sat there letting it all sink in that i saw them.... me.... with my own two eyes.... seeing their adorable faces and laughs and interactions with each other and then suddenly realizing i probably won't be able to experience this again LOLLLLLLLL okay no need to be dramatic onto the next part - SATURDAY CONCERT - it was unannounced that vernon, joshua, and s.coups would be the MCs in the beginning so it was the biggest surprise of my LIFE i think i went a little overboard with the screaming at times rip but vernon was such a natural at emceeing!! his english was flawless omg and joshua, s.coups, and mingyu did a really good job too! the concert stage was set up as.... i guess you can call it a 360 stage? so sometimes the artists entered in from the sections where audience was sitting. i knew they were coming from between section 110 and 111. 110 was the section i bought for combo saturday and sunday tickets, but i sold it for saturday's concert because i found better seats, but it was still the section i had for sunday's concert, which seventeen didn't attend AHAHAHA wow is this what i get for being greedy and purchasing closer tickets just for saturday??? ehhh it's okay, the seats that i had were far on the right and they entered in the aisle on my far left so i wouldn't be able to see them anyway LOL. seventeen's first performance had unit stages, which went in this order: performance unit - swimming fool > vocal unit - 입버릇 > hip hop unit - check in. and then there were other artist stages afterwards, but they came back to perform other tracks (don't wanna cry, rock remix, and aju nice). the vcr kcon played before seventeen’s second performance was amazing, it was quite similar to the kcon japan vcr, except for LA they had a different logo which i'm sure a lot of you have already seen lol. i think some fans were calling it a hearbeat logo which is genius imo it's an actual representation of what my heartbeat looks like when i see or hear anything seventeen related!!!!!!! throughout their performance i remember seeing jeonghan, seokmin, and s.coups coming to my side of the stage the most. they were so cute always waving to fans are i practically walked out of the venue a jeonghan stan. ((( i’m joking vernon’s forever my number 1 but JEONGHAN GAVE SUCH GOOD FANSERVICE ))) s.coups was also a really eye-catching performer. the way he vibed during check in was out of this world I FELT SO BLESSED TO BE ABLE TO SEE IT PERFORMED LIVE INSTEAD OF WATCHING 394839 FANCAMS OF CHECK IN PERFORMANCES AND ALSO during tock remix, there was this part in the choreo where they look up after vernon / seokmin’s part and the lighting in the venue shined down on the stage floor, coups looked completely like an anGEL and don’t even get me started on vernon because i felt like losin’ my goddamn mind whenever he appeared on the big screen    i know i might sound biased but i think seventeen were the best performers out of attending artists;; they really engaged the whole audience, from having everyone chant 'seventeen' in unison before they even performed to having everyone do the mansae move with them during their random play dance / pinata time;; it was an amazing experience and it honestly felt like a mini seventeen concert LOL. i had to hop on a flight four or five hours after sunday's concert with barely any sleep;; my flight consisted of nothing but listening to the Al1 album OTL post-concert depression is already hitting me hard HAHA i really hope in the future i can see them at one of their tour stops one day ugh i love seventeen so much;;;;

[star-hoya]

170304 – INFINITE Rally III Fanaccount

So those who follow me on Tumblr would know I flew to Seoul to attend the rally on the 4th of March. The atmosphere outside Jamsil Stadium was awesome as usual. Fans were mostly decked out in their cutest outfits, many braving the cold to go through with short skirts and no leggings whatsoever, there was even one fan that went wearing only the pyjamas Woohyun wore on his Lie Down V App #cute. Orderly lines formed with different fansites giving out freebies at different points in time. It was very important to check Twitter by the minute or just run wherever the crowd went to see a new line formed. Fansites were mostly sitting around in cliques, so you’ve got the Hogam/Laile/Turning Point/Honeytree/Yeolna (I think) at one area, Springrain/Monodrama/MadeinL and Royal (I think) at another end and many others scattered around. There was also a photo taking area with the boys’ standees and also containers with the boys’ outfits displayed (x). 

(Warning: This fanaccount is really really long with photos too)

The fan meet would start at 5pm, so we entered the venue at around 4pm. They were having this event whereby inspirits could send in their photos they took at the venue via MMS and it would get displayed on screen when they did their last song, however as much as I tried, I couldn’t get my MMS to send so sadly, I didn’t get to participate in this. MVs of past INFINITE songs started playing and fans started getting energetic and riled up.

The boys started punctually with ‘Bad’, rising from under the stage to ground level and cheers emerged. Dongwoo did the solo dance today and it was a whole new level of hot! He was grinding the floor at one point and I went OMG. At this point, I have to say I got a seat at the last row of Level 2, but pretty close to the stage nonetheless, especially to the extended stage and the big screen. There was nobody to my right, but to my left sat the cutest Korean inspirit. We couldn’t understand each other but many times we just looked at each other and laughed and cheered together while waving our lightsticks, and covered our eyes when our boys were being too cheesy. I guess that’s the true meaning of how music bonds people together!

INFINITE started their ment at this time, because of how cool Dongwoo looked during his solo dance, the boys tried to make him dance the same thing to Woohyun’s Nod Nod! So they just randomly sang the chorus on stage and Dongwoo attempted to follow it through before falling onto the floor laughing (I think?) A few of the boys introduced themselves as different types of candies following Sungjong’s ‘I’m your lemon candy Sungjong’ and Woohyun even said he’s ‘our heart Woohyun’.

‘Between me and you’ was next and Sunggyu introduced this song as one he really really liked. The boys didn’t have those elevated stages this time so they just stood on different steps. There was this cute part where Myungsoo blew at his fringe after acing his high note.

They had their second ment here, they brought out the chairs so I knew it was gonna be a long chat. And I’m not sure why but I wrote in my notes that they were talking about ‘Bad’ here? Oh well, anyway they said for ‘Bad’ there was this part at the start that goes betting on you~ and Sunggyu said that they actually did a few different lyrics changes to it sometimes (didn’t really get this part) and he asked Dongwoo to tell us what he changed it to. Dongwoo said he’d sing it as Sajangnim nice~ lol. They then made Minseok sing ‘The Eye’ to which he did a fantastic job! They were laughing at something (I can’t remember what haha omg what’s wrong with my fanaccount) but Dongwoo almost fell off his chair!

They talked about the world tour (haha, that was a year ago but I guess they really enjoyed it) and they said how they would split into different teams during their private time. Sunggyu/Woohyun/Hoya were the opera team, Dongwoo/Myungsoo/Sungyeol were the walking around (visiting landmarks) team and Sungjong was a team on his own (oh baby why don’t you wanna join the others?) But Sungjong said he actually liked doing things alone in a different country. I think the boys teased him about having more staff following him for one person than them when the smaller teams went out. I think he had three staff with him while the teams only had two? I don’t know my Korean language skills are pretty non-existent. But there was once Howon actually went to Disneyland with Sungjong haha #hojong.

And since they were on the topic of world tour, Woohyun made them speak in different languages! Basically doing some simple self-introductions. Sungyeol started with Thai, Sunggyu was designated to speak in Chinese, Myungsoo to speak in Japanese, Woohyun asked Sungjong to do it in Korean #lol, and he tried making Howon do it in Bahasa Indonesia but Howon didn’t know so he put his mic to his mouth and tried mumbling while looking pretty embarrassed twice #cutie. Dongwoo then spoke in English and he got too excited because he was standing and stuff so Woohyun asked him to ‘sit down’ in English! I think at some point Minseok commented the boys could speak pretty good English and Dongwoo said yes or something and they talked about stuff, presumably about breakfast and Dongwoo just said ‘Morning rice’! They also mentioned their sleep routine or was it their skincare routine. I don’t know what happened but Woohyun also spouted out English and said ‘Music is my life, you know what I’m saying’ #lamehaha For how vocal Howon normally is, he was pretty quiet the entire time, maybe tired from filming?

Minseok then commented (read off his cue cards hahaha) that Sungjong did really well in Knowing Brothers and Woohyun came out and said that Sungjong wasn’t trying to be funny or comical by pretending he didn’t know how to control the soccer ball, he honestly tried to do it but failed and it turned out looking so funny. Then, a soccer ball rolled onto the stage from the side lol and they made Jongie try it out once more to bounce the ball off his chest. As expected, he hit it with his head again and the ball flew towards the standing section lol.

They also talked about Sunggyu’s solo album, and about the double title tracks and how every member like ‘The Answer’ however Sunggyu pointed out that he along with Howon really enjoyed Kontrol more. The boys also asked if Minseok had any questions he wanted to ask himself, because he was conducting the session based on questions off the cue cards, and Minseok was like ‘I have absolutely nothing to ask because I know everything’. Minseok then went to the edge of the stage and held his microphone out to a Myungsoo fan at the standing section to ask if she had any questions but I think she was too star struck because she didn’t say anything. Continuing on with questions, they were asked to point out who would really have it hard without the rally (as in who really really needed this rally) and almost everyone pointed at themselves except Dongwoo. Sunggyu then asked ‘is it okay for you to not have this rally?’ lol.

They made Howon do the acrostic poem with ‘Mu-Han-Dae-Jib-Hoe’ as in ‘INFINITE Gathering’ and there were a few words whereby Howon paused extensively to think but he made a really good one judging from the reactions from the fans. Woohyun then asked if they should go on to their next stage now and fans said yes and he said he could see fans signalling him that he was talking too much and the session should continue and fans did the cross sign with both their hands to ask him to stop talking (I’m sure he was joking at this point haha)

A video came out while the boys went backstage to change and it was of them wearing suits and looking so so handsome. It was the suits the boys did their V App in previously. And I think they played a few games in the video to decide who would be king for the games they’d do on stage! The games came in the order of:

1. Noraebang (They sang Come Back Again but only got 83 points haha, Sungjong sang The Answer, Dongwoo got Shot, Woohyun did Nod Nod and got 99 points),

2. They had counters attached to different parts of their bodies and they had to shake it to get as many counts as possible! It was hilarious seeing them shake with all their might,

3. They had to eat something, I think it’s spicy? I’m not sure about this one,

4. They were given a word of phrase each and one member had to do the actions while other members guessed what word/phrase that was,

5. They were give a can of coke (I wonder if it’s because they’re no longer Pepsi’s endorsers so they chose coke on purpose haha) and had to finish the whole can without burping perhaps (but many boys gave up halfway). 

Anyway, Woohyun was selected as king through the games! We got DNA Korea version as our next stage and I was such in awe because when they did that dance move where they swung their hands that was so powerful!

They stayed on stage for their next ment and chatted about That Summer 3! One part they were talking about the Busan concert and Woohyun said he had a runny nose then he really needed to wipe his nose because he could feel it coming out and Dongwoo said he could’ve done it to the dance moves during Be Mine and demonstrated it on stage lol. Minseok also did a Come Back Again dance move and fans went ‘wowwww’ and immediately Woohyun went ‘It’s not right he didn’t even do it correctly why are you wow-ing for’ lol what an idiot XD.

The King throne/chair was moved out and they started the missions with inspirits! I think there’re lots of fancams for this so I won’t elaborate too much. Dongwoo was first to spin the wheel, and while Woohyun had the crown and was sitting comfortably on the throne, Dongwoo managed to spin to the crown sign on the wheel and the king changed to him! He was so happy whereas Woohyun looked confused and shocked, kinda like ‘I haven’t even started having fun and I already stopped being king???’ Jongie was next and he had to do 2X dance play. He went in front of standing and asked who knew how to dance to ‘The Chaser’ and the crowd just swarmed in front so he picked a fan wearing glasses and the security literally carried her over the barricades and onto the stage. She did pretty well considering it was 2x! She was a Jong fan and Jongie hugged her in the end. Sunggyu was next, and his mission was to gift a fan his hoodie and Dongwoo chose standing section for Sunggyu to gift his gift to! I think Myungsoo was next and he spun the wheel to get the same mission as Gyu. He chose to gift his tumblr jar to a lucky fan on Level 3! And I have to say I was super super lucky because where I sat, that was the route he took to head up and down the stairs onto Level 3 so I got to see him up close and personal. God Myungsoo, he smiled and waved while heading up.

Sungyeol (I think?) was next and he had to dance to girl group dance and it was TT he had to dance to! He did it on stage it was cute. Woohyun was next, he got the mission to re-enact a scene off ‘Goblin’ and he was also chosen to go to Level 3, and once again he took the route Myungsoo took so I saw him really close too. Woohyun and the fan were really cute, they were so shy the first time round so they had to do it one more time and the fan burst out crying at some point. And Woohyun was hugging her and patting her head. Then Howon was next and he kept spinning the stuff other members had already completed so he had to keep spinning the wheel. Finally, he got a new mission and it was to wear couple tee with a fan and he made everyone scream. At first, he wanted to go to Level 2 and Yeollie said ‘since your mummy is on Level 2 you should gift this to her’ and Sunggyu said ‘you can take a selca with her too.’ He eventually went to standing C. He was in front of my section too so I saw him quite close and he’s so handsome and looked so sweet when he said he wanted to take a selca with the fan too while wearing the shirt. I think one side of the shirt said ‘pretty’ and Howon said he’d take that and gave the fan the other shirt lol. When the fan took out her phone, he was quick to note that the display screen was Woohyun lol #mypoorbaby After the mission, he sent the fan off and when she turned he did the action of wanting to hug her but she didn’t see it so he just wrapped his hands around his waist and pretended he was hugging himself lol.

They then ended the ment and continued with songs, this time ‘Love of my Life’ in Korean too, the one Myungsoo did for his solo at IEA. Howon was still wearing the couple tee at this point so it was cute.

We got another video where the members summarised their last 7 years with their thoughts and memories and I got so emotional I was tearing up at this point because look at how far we’ve come!

The boys came back out again and sang ‘One day’ which will be one of my favourite stages to witness live!! Another ment here and they made all the members do Sungjong’s neck movement from ‘Bad’. I remember Gyu doing it like how he’d do his morning aerobics #grandpagyu. Woohyun kept saying he’d prefer doing Jong’s other line ‘이제 깨닫는다’ more and he kept imitating it saying Sungjong would pose there and wink. Howon did a super sexy improvised version of the song. He also did the action to the first line of ‘One Day’ haha. Sungyeol said he’d do a 100% imitation of Jong’s movements and even Jongie was surprised and he went ‘oh am I really like this?’

They said ‘The Eye’ would be the last song and proceeded with that stage. They went backstage and inspirits started chanting Dorawa dorawa Dashi Dorawa~ and this has got to be one of my favourite parts of the fan meet because inspirits chant it tirelessly and we know the boys will be out with another amazing part of the program. After about 3-5 minutes, the screen showed the comeback teaser for May 2017!! I know I told my inspirits-only admins before that the video was safe to watch but boy I was wrong. Watching it on the big screen and seeing the boys’ faces up there was amazing!!!

The members gave us another song ‘As good as it gets’ this time coming down from different doors of Level 2 #Ifeltsoblessed. Honestly towards the end, I was on my feet most of the time with my cute Korean inspirit seating mate since we were at the last row and nobody sat behind us and I enjoyed the ending part so much I couldn’t really remember much of the end heh. But the members shook a lot of peoples’ hands before going back up on the stage for what would be their ending ment (except it wasn’t as we already know). We did Myungsoo’s birthday support banner then when it was his turn to speak and the place just lit up with white banners for him and it was beautiful. We sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him and Woohyun was like ‘okay can we have the cake now please’ except the cake his fansite prepared didn’t get wheeled out not sure why #awkwardpause. Haha, we chanted for Myungsoo not to cry when he wasn’t crying. And then the members went chanting ‘please cry please cry’. Myungsoo said something like we were his happiness these seven years and he was so sincere in it it was very touching.

When Hoya did his ending speech, the stadium was particularly quiet because everyone was listening earnestly to what he had to say. Then suddenly from standing we could hear the staff shouting really loudly ‘Come out’, presumably to an inspirit who was taking shots of the boys. It would’ve been really awkward for the fan, so Howon stepped up and joked ‘you want me to get out?’ and the members also joked about it a little and then Howon and Woohyun and Sungyeol were apologising to the staff to let the fan off the hook. They’re such angels. During Sungyeol’s ment I think he also mentioned something about 7 years and I can’t remember what he said but a fan shouted 7000 years and Yeol was like ‘I’m not the Goblin okay?’ For Woohyun’s Ment, he was talking and then suddenly a fan said ‘arrasseo~’ and he was like that sounded like a primary school kid’s conversation, like how he would chat with his friend. Then, after that every sentence he said the members and fans replied him with ‘arrasseo’.

Right now as you know the boys were supposed to just end it with one last song. However, the boys being the boys with their love for us and for the stage and because the atmosphere was so so high. They asked if they had time to do a few more songs as service for us!! On Woohyun’s side the staff said no, but at Dongwoo’s side the staff said okay so the boys went ‘alright we’ll do it as what the staff (on Dongwoo’s side) said! :D’ We wanted songs like ‘The Chaser, Be Mine’ however I think they couldn’t find the tracks for it as we settled for ‘Entrust and Cover Girl’ first! The boys again went out onto the extended stage and also onto Level 2 so I was quite close to see their faces clearly too. They were enjoying it so so much!!! They did ‘Nothing’s Over’ next (completely random but because they didn’t want it to end) They were apologetic because they couldn’t find the AR for it only the MR, and we went ‘Of course the MR is fine!!!’ You could hear how well and stable and loud the boys sang. Kings, talented kings only INFINTE!!!

They were so hyped but they knew the staff wouldn’t find any more tracks for them so our sing-along karaoke session started! Medley after medley of songs where the boys just sang together with inspirits. The feeling to be part of that was the best really especially to see yourself surrounded by others who shared the same passion as you! My Korean inspirit partner and I were just waving our lightsticks and singing all that we could! Woohyun, Dongwoo and Hoya were especially good in starting new songs for inspirits to sing along and I was particularly surprised because Myungsoo too, started a few songs!!! He was so into the whole thing!! The boys even said they wanted to bring their after-party onto the stage they just needed some alcohol and they could continue partying with us even if they’re drunk and can’t stand properly. They even sang ‘Monster Time’ and at this point Sunggyu was on the floor laughing at how ridiculous and amazing the whole thing was. Towards the end, they also sang the theme song of Digimon and Pokemon!

Last (yes, the final one) ment here but I can’t remember what they said before concluding their stage with ‘Thank You’. Myungsoo cried at this stage and Dongwoo rushed to give him tissue. The boys went to both sides of the extended stage and did 90-degree bows before heading back onto the centre stage for one final bow. Still a lot of them were teary-eyed and took long looks at different sections of the stadium, trying to soak in on everything.

The fan meet felt more like a concert and INFINITE made me realise how lucky I am to stan the right group. I know I always say how each concert I attended was the best, but seriously, because I wasn’t expecting so many songs for this fan meet, I really can’t express the feeling to be there, to love them. 44,000won for almost 4 hours of a dream come true? Thank you INFINITE!