#Comment if you want the yuri version i guess

[bluegumballmf]

Fighting to stay alive

happy christmas

[lou-is-lurking]

20 questions for writers

thanks so much for tagging me, @they-lived 💜💜💜

These questions looked vaguely familiar, so I checked and found I answered an almost identical version here. It's been three years since then tho (??? sounds fake tbh), so some answers will be different (and some won't), so here we go

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 24

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 117,073

3. What fandoms do you write for? Yuri on Ice still owns my ass

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

No Nut November [Otayuri, E]

Jacky's and Becky's Bizarre Adventures [Otapliroy, T]

The Waiting Game [Otayuri, E]

Perfect Storm [Otayuri, E]

Off-Season Gossip [Otapliroy, M]

5. Do you respond to comments?

Almost always, but I'm sometimes still as slow about it as I was three years ago whoops 😅

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Still this one: Stuck making Excuses

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

uhhhhhh.I really don't know. Maybe No Nut November? Or Kiss it Better? Or even Not According to Plan? All the Friends to Lovers ones lol

8. Do you get hate on fics? No. Bless smaller, quieter fandoms lol

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Hell yeah. Still the kinky kind, mostly. Which apparently was also my answer last time I did these questions, but I was Offended (affectionately) when @weeheilandcoo recently challenged me to "write normal sex" as if I never do that??? Which, uhhhhh, it seems I actually do not? So... Yeah. ("Vanilla??? SAD.")

10. Do you write crossovers?

Still only got that lone Yoi/Buffy crossover deep down in my WIP folder (tho apparently I worked on it sometime in October 2022 cos that's the date of the latest version lmao)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, actually! The first was Kiss It Better, translated to Russian and poted to ficbook Here.

Then this year No Nut November and Turn Down the Heat were also translated to Russian and posted on AO3 - with custom fanart / headers! 🥰 Awesome experience everytime, everyone was super sweet <3 <3

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope, not fic at least. I've done a few co-writing projects for other stuff, but most of the time it didn't really work out / wasn't for me. Only exception: A short story for one of my Vampire the Masquearde RPG campaigns that I wrote together with a friend a long time ago. Batshit insane stuff. Good times. 😆

14. What is your all-time favorite ship? Otapliroy (and any other combination of these 3 boys)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

SO. MANY. UHHHHHGGGG 😭😭😭 Side-eying my 50s AU, specifically.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Humor. Banter. Dialogue in general, I guess.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

To actually fucking write lmao. Finishing a story to the point of being presentable. Also, pacing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Can work really well. Can also be fucking hilarious if the translation isn't accurate.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Some vampire show for kids when I was seven or eight. Not sure if that counts since I wasn't even aware of 'fandom' back then 😅

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Impossible to choose, would pick a different one every day lmao. But I've been having a lot of Pliroy thoughts lately so maybe today I'd pick Symbiosis .

Tagging any mutuals and followers who want to play! Feel free to tag me in your posts I' wanna'd love to read your answers 💜

[loopingpyre]

Shadow knife dies so hard in the original they forgot to put him in the final dungeon. This might be a bit all over the place. There was a lot. Most of the final two eps are the characters accepting their decision to be better when they get back. Izuru being on the spectrum makes a ton of sense. Not the direction one expects from the cool loner type. Unlike Mifue and Suzuna, Kotono is too straight for the female MC. Tragic. Kinda messed up you can give Suzuna codependency issues though. Shogo's was great. 13 years...and then he gets a chance to do things right the second time. And all of a sudden Thorn with the steel chair making him go through that again in the ending. My man cannot catch a break! Still, points for being the most forthcoming about how it's gonna suck for everyone when they get back. Even at the end before the Mu fight he calls reality hell. Nice reminder that their real struggles are after they get back. I can't imagine the game expected the Marie bit to be an actual twist. I wasn't ready for her transformation though. Where is she keeping all of those bombs... Super cool tie! Shadow knife's eps. If the Eiji death messed him up this bad I can't imagine how miserable Kotaro's would've been. Pretty much was a longer version of his stuff from the tower which I didn't mind. Mu kinda breaks in the second half of his and Wicked's story. Sad. Wicked though. Wtf! I was so unsure what the point of her story was at first. She doesn't really learn much of anything nor does she care to and you barely get more insight into her over the course of it. Reading that she was comatose and then seeing the hospital scene though. It stirred something within me for sure but I don't know if I can word it. Maybe it's that some people in Mobius just can't be helped? Her scars run so deep and she's also not even capable of living and trying like the rest of them when they go back. Then again her grandfather doesn't take the mask off so she's still got a chance if she wakes up? There's hope there but she's so far gone I'm not sure if you're supposed to believe in that. I will say Ike-P's comments when you are in the aquarium with Shadow Knife and Wicked and depressed Mu were hilarious. I felt so bad for him. He's too normal for all that. Thorn was certainly an antagonist. Part of me was expecting a much deeper reason with Ichika but nope just a lost love/friend. Like if they weren't whispering in Mu's ear then they could've been an earlier musician and Wicked could've been the one who wanted to destroy the world. Grand Guignol sucked. Looks awesome but man those hallways were long. Interesting that Mirei didn't need to be brainwashed of all people. Kuchinashi and Wicked being done with reality made sense but I guess there's not much left for Mirei either (in her eyes). Stay in Mobius ending was insanely miserable. As for the actual end. Happy that Mu and Aria can be together again. I will say Aria did grow on me over the course of the game and only a small percent of that was seeing the yuri vision between her and Mu. Trying to guess who everyone was in the credits was a fun little game. I really liked how even the characters who didn't have much of an image problem still presented differently in Mobius. Also liked how they didn't really show anyone's face. Makes them regular people who are back to a regular world. Seeing the musicians interacting with the club members was super sweet too. I wonder if Mirei knew that was Kotono and her kid. While there's a lot of hope, the Kuchinashi one was quite the downer. Feels like the game wants you to play out how their lives will play out including however you defined the mc. A little meta that you don't really see the MC? The person in Mobius is your avatar and when you finish the game you're back to living in reality. Might be reading too much into that though. Quick note on the last few songs. Were there like effects or something? How was she doing that with her voice?? Might have some final things to add once I sleep on it. Thank you for reading my rambling this whole time! 4096 limit.

So the fun part about the Wicked thing is that her character episodes are a bit limited. This is because there's a natural stopper in the form of an official light novel sequel to the game, that's all about her.

You can find a translation here if you're interested. I adore this thing so much, this was written before Overdose was released, so future content couldn't really contradict it. The 12 episode anime adaptation actually gives her more screentime outside of Naruko so it's less of a twist, but that anime is already more of a fun fan thing because it's not a straight adaptation of the game to begin with. The whole thing about reality and hell is that it's trying to play on the game's fancy tagline that uses a special kanji that refers to both of those words at the same time, reality is hell. Thorn is very interesting also because like, their backstory is packed with Stuff that they keep hidden from you and there's so many wild implications in the idea of assuming someone else's guise so they 'aren't dead'. Like, holy shit. I like how the ending is stylised like that. It's rather interesting in that it's an overdose exclusive addition, and Takuya Yamanaka, the game's director isn't actually sold on if it was the best thing to even add because he wanted it to be interpret-able and not just give them happiness, but he also wanted players to get a little bit more out of the characters if they'd already played the vita game. It's one of those things where I think they managed to run a smidge better in the anime due to being able to just do whatever. I like Kuchinashi and Shogo just so happening to cross paths though, that's cute. The last few songs are especially insane, the boss rush in the grand guinol is all new overdose remixes, arrangements by Cosmo@P, who also composed Thorn's theme, Distorted Happiness. They go incredibly hard and I think it has to be a combination of skills to make Ueda's voice go wild. I'm really glad you enjoyed the game! If you ever come up with any other notes about it let me know, it's been a ton of fun reading your stuff!

[mellowyellow236]

Dress Design!

Even though no one has asked, these are all of the processes that I went through before landing on the final design of the dress Yuri uses in the Manhwa AU. Designing ball gowns has been my hobby since I was in middle school (maybe earlier) so I really wanted to talk about it. Credits for the AU to @twstfanblog

This one was the first I did and my second favorite. You’ll notice that I stole the sleeves and used them for the final dress, I just couldn’t figure out how to do it a second time. I ended up deciding against this dress because the purple and blue looked too childish for the more mature personality she has as an adult in this AU, while Yuu was wearing red as far as I could tell and so I wanted to use a different color. The black I liked in theory, but I didn’t like how the pattern turned out and it looked far worse without it.

This was the second one I made, which got rejected mostly because I didn’t like the way the collar turned out and also because it looked too much like Briar Rose’s (Aurora’s) dress in pink and blue, and the black one looked like it was just one shade and I didn't like that. I also think that the blue one had a good concept with the tulle feeling over an underskirt, but in practice, it didn’t look very good in practice. At the very least, though, it helped me narrow down what color would look best in the final version. 

This was the second to last one that I did, which I rejected because it looked too much like emo snow white. I was trying to base it off of Victorian wedding dresses, but I guess my favorite old Disney movie snuck its way in there. There’s not much to say about this dress; It had many of the same themes as the first, but was just a hint more historically accurate. I did, however, like the pearls and I kept them in my final design, especially as I tend to pair the character with a lot of pearl motifs whenever I'm thinking of her.

And finally, my last dress design, and the one I went with! I chose this one because it was everything that I needed; Fancy enough for nobility but simple enough for a former Countess, pearls, a medium to dark shade that makes the character look mature, and those sleeves which I loved so much in the original design. I still made other versions of the dress because I was still hoping for black to somehow work and I liked how red looked, but in the end, they never stood a chance against the blue one to begin with.

That's it :) As always, leave a comment or ask if you have any questions or anything to add!

[putschki1969]

2023/04/05 Blog post by Wakana  ご視聴ありがとうございました！〜歌とケーキと泣き笑い〜

❗This is Fan Club EXCLUSIVE content❗ ❗PERSONAL USE ONLY❗ Do ❗NOT SHARE❗ on other sites ❗Join her FAN CLUB! Check out my detailed TUTORIAL ❗

Thank You for Watching！〜Songs, Cake, Laughter and Tears〜

Two weeks ago, on March 25th, I held my “Wakana Spring Shark Festival Vol.2 ~Talk & Mini Live~”! And I invited Yuuka Nanri as guest♡ The theme behind the event was basically a birthday celebration for Yuuka. The cake was delicious (*'▽'*) An entire shortcake like that really feels special so it’s great♡ And once again, there was a problem with the live stream...! (T-T) Right at the beginning there was no sound... (T-T) I'm really sorry to everyone who watched it in real time. When the live stream starts, there is always a slight time lag so I will check the mic until the staff gives the OK. But this time I didn’t get an OK 😳 I was wondering what issue it could be....But everyone's comments were steadily coming in so I thought you were all able to hear and see me which is why I decided to start talking about some random stuff😂😂 Then I realised that there was a big problem with the audio and I was like, “oh no!” ( ; ; )

I was talking about watching Japan win the WBC while waiting for an appointment at the chiropractic clinic but alas, no one was able to hear that. However, I did get some comments saying, "I don't know what you're saying, but your body language is amazing" *laughs*, Anyways, I'm really sorry for making you wait so long at the beginning ( ; ; ) 

After that, we were able to start streaming without any issues! (all the staff did their best!!) We started the event with a mini live! First of all, I wanted to sing something spring related so the first song was "Yureru Haru"＼(^-^)／I had Shin-san play the piano for me many times before but I think it was the first time we performed this song together. I feel like we all have my collabs with Sakai Yurie-chan engraved in our memory☆😉I wonder if Yurie-chan is doing well in Hokkaido~♪(^^) For the second song, I chose "Flag", which will be included in my 3rd album "Sono Saki he", set to be released on May 31st! It was the first time for me singing it with just a piano as accompaniment so I was wondering how it would turn out, but as expected of Shin-san, he created a truly powerful arrangement…😳✨ Then it was time to pass the baton to Yuu-chan.She sang a the FJY song “inside your heart" and “Colors of the Wind” from Disney's Pocahontas! Wow, she is really amazing...😭She talks with such an elegant voice but the moment she starts singing, there is so much dignity in every breath...✨ Each word becomes a sound and sinks into your heart, making you feel nostalgic and warm. I mean, you’ll basically end up crying😂😂Tears are inevitable!😭It seems like everyone felt the same way! (I was reading your comments in the archived version and from what I could tell, you all started crying too *laughs*) And at the end, we sang "Yasashisa ni Tsutsumareta nara" together♪ Singing various melodies is truly fun♪(^_^) You can feel the infinite possibilities of adding colour to your voice! 

In the talk corner that followed, we invited everyone to ask questions in the comments while also trying to dedicate some time to questions that had been asked in the previous event. I honestly wasn't able to follow the comments properly, and everyone was asking quite a lot of questions!😂 You really had a lot of questions...Next time, I will try to answer some more! *laughs* I guess the number of unanswered questions will continue to increase~😂 There was also some discussion about the content of future broadcast events. What would you like me to do during the next shark festival? Some people suggested a tea party some sort of mukbang with gourmet food. I thought both sounded really interesting! So, let's invite Yuu-chan again and do a "Gourmet Mukbang / Tea Party" someday! \\\\٩( 'ω' )و //// Sounds like so much fun! Thank you all for watching! (^-^) I'm looking forward to seeing you again♪ 

I’ll leave it at this for today! In the next blog post, I will write about the album production which has finally reached its climax! Until next time~☆(*'▽'*)/ 

＊＊＊Wakana＊＊＊

[internetmisfitsworld]

So the reveal trailer just dropped. Got some thoughts running in my mind and here's a few of them:

So, the rumors are true. Julian Kostov is Makarov. And I'm not sure how to feel about it.

Am I happy they still (yes people. he has always been attractive. go look up his concept art) choose to make him hot? Of course. Grateful even. I pretty much swore if they pull a Shepherd makeover on him, I'll lose it. However, am I happy with how he looks? Not really. Was hoping they cast someone that, while not necessarily have to look the exact the same as OG Makarov, at least have the same vibe. (Idk how to describe it but yeah I hope it makes sense lmao)

Idk what age Activision intends to make him (mid 30s? early 40s?), but that man looks late 20s 😭 . I'm not saying he looks.. what's the word? boyish? but yeah something similar I guess.

I know Activision must've noticed the hype of making villains hot, and I agree with that thought but why they made him "pretty boy" looks?

For me, Makarov have the appearance of "unconventionally attractive". He have that sort of rugged face with scars all over, dead predatory bicolor eyes. Basically, dude actually looks kinda old and you can get the hint that he was a veteran. Unless Actvision really do intends on making the new him younger and have a different past, well okay then. Also, I know the lighting wasn't that good in that prison, but it seems like he no longer had heterochromia. Welp.

Speaking of veteran, I'm curious if they choose to keep his past the same as before. Was he in the army? Was he ex-Spetsnaz Captain? Same reason for being discharge? Same place of birth? Well, I guess we'll have to see in the next trailer. Or when the game comes out. I swear if they turn him into some kind of Non-Action Big Bad...

No sign of Yuri. Wonders who will play him. Will he looks the same as before? (you know what? forget i ask that.)

Even more funny twist if they decides to just forget about Yuri (don't you dare Activision).

Soo his tattoos. I don't wanna comment anything about it since I don't have enough and proper knowledge of Russian prison tattoos, how it works and stuff. So, I'll just leave that alone. It does looks good though. But funny enough, someone at tiktok said he lowkey looks Jared Leto Joker. Even the hairstyle. Ofc, not the colors though. And now, I can't unsee it either.

However, I do appreciate how obviously intimidating his presence affects the other prisoners. Just a shame about his face though.

On a positive note, I'm excited to see how the event will unfold. From the trailer, there seems to a few glimpse of missions, some of those looks like No Russian even?

Another one of my "in denial thoughts" is, what if the whole prison thing was flashback Makarov? And in the present time, someone else plays him? (yeah yeah i know. i'll stop ✋️)

To conclude, I hope at the very least in this new version Makarov, they give him what the OG Makarov lacks. Proper characterizations, motives and in-depth personality. More than just "hohoho evil russian wants to take over europe".

And no, I'm not asking Activision to gives justification of his actions. Yes, he's evil. Yes, he's a murderous maniac. No justification for that dude lol. I just ask at least give us a peek of his past life. Who he was and who he could've been.

[kiliinstinct]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thanks for tagging me! @celestialtitania

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

56 and uhh.. wow. I guess if we include my Genshin account that would be 58? Wait! My Psued also has some so the total is actually - 74! Damn, that's more than I was expecting actually.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

This is also going to take some calculating...

okay, the total from my mainaccount and it's pseud and my genshin account: 388,886. Kinda blew my mind to see that total lol

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mainly Fairy Tail, but I've dabbled in Yu Yu Hakusho, Yuri On Ice, Naruto, Legend of Zelda and have begun to write for Genshin Impact!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Imma count this down- first being the lowest to the highest.

Soft Caress with 234 Kudos

Wake Up Call  with 474

Have You Missed Me?  390

Flame's Desire 702

Mistletoe Claim  with a total of 1284 Kudos. (and i still don't understand WHY!?)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

It's 50/50. I like to reply when I can, but sometimes I'm in a rush or busy (or half asleep) when I see the comment and then completely forget about it until later. By then I feel awkward replying. ^^;;

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Uhh, I haven't.. ended.. the angstiest fics yet. But, since you're looking for an ending, I guess Sun in the Rain  ? Since it's dealing with grief and loss of parents?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

How is this even harder for me to think of? Uhm, maybe I'll go with Fire Sprite No. 5 ? But there's a few others up there, I think.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I'll be honest, hate is very rare on my fics. (And I'm very grateful for it.) Usually I just have people pressuring me to update and guilt tripping me rather than outright hating on a fic. And some of the hate I received years ago is just funny to me. The worst one I ever got I just ignore because it was hardly worth my time.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes and.. the smut kind? (I do not understand the question o.o)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Only one! And for some reason I never posted it to A03 .. that's weird, I could have sworn I had. Anyway! The Forgotten Temple was a NatsuxLevy fic crossed over into the world of Breath of the Wild that I wrote for a friend. It's the only crossover I've ever done.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Once that I'm aware of! The Matching Scale had one person come to me to let me know someone had stolen it, but the fic was deleted days later. There's one other multi-chapter out there that's based off of it, but that writer got my permission to use the plot before they posted it.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I've been asked 3 different times if someone could translate, but never saw the end result of that. I'm totally down for people to translate my work if they ever wanted to though. Just so long as it's credited and linked to the original.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes.... and no... and.. yes? Okay, there's a few of them but they're not finished so I was never able to post them... Ahem...

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

... Favorite? I'm supposed to have one all-time favorite? Seriously? No. Can't be. There's no way. I've got too many to pick one above all else.

My current Hyper Fixation is TravelerxXiao from Genshin Impact. (Though I'm partial to AetherxXiao rather than Aether's twin sister version of that ship.) Nalu is the one that gave me the most inspiration in Fairy Tail, but I also have a few crack ships that I adore in FT as well, Like CobraxLevy (Or FreedxLevy.. or.. there's a lot of Levy ships don't judge me.) and GrayxLoke. Then there's Sesskag in the Inuyasha fandom... Zelink in Zelda... Zutara in ATLA... and let's not get me started on characters I ship in books or I'll be here all day/night.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

As far as I'm concerned, every single published wip that I have not listed as discontinued WILL BE FINISHED. I'm determined to ensure they are. As for the unpublished ones though.. there's two that I don't think are going to make it outside of the planning and partial writing stage.. which is kinda sad to think about, but I simple can't add more to my plate than I already have.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm told I'm good at keeping characters ic even in au settings, so I guess I can see that's a strength, but covering the emotions and inner workings of a characters mind is probably where my biggest strength is. If there are any others.. well.. you tell me?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Description- especially if I'm mixing it in dialogue- or trying to remember when I need to at least give the reader some idea of how a character looks. I get so worried about over describing that I end up not describing enough at all! It's a problem.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Eh, if it's like.. for the setting, where some characters use a different language and don't know the main one, I think it works if done well. Especially if you're trying to show someone who's bilingual. If it works for world building and has been done well, then I'm not going to complain. Asides from that, I usually avoid it and get thrown out of the story when I see it .

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Yu Yu Hakusho and Inuyasha... on an old old old account that you will never, and I mean NEVER, find.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Uhhh... there's that word again. How can I just pick one child over the other? (Flame's Desire.) I can't just pick favorites like that when I have children running around all wanting attention from me - (Flame's Desire.) It would simply be unfair to pick one above the others when they're all so near and dear to my heart - (Flame's Desire.)

Anyway, I'll go with Flame's Desire, as well as the current Genshin Fic I recently wrote and am still editing so it's not posted yet. lol

Tagging, but you don't have to do it.

@pencilofawesomeness @thehylianidiot @genavere @classysassy9791 @phoneboxfairy @grayseyebrowscar @cobrakiin @sandwitchstories @teleiapotami + anyone who wants to steal this

[valentinesweetheartspecial]

hii vinciie im listening to more bands lately n since i play bandori but arent too well versed in music,, do u rec any argonavis bands for me to listen to? also what r some comments on said band if u want to give em?

i generally like pop / pop rock so my taste isnt anything super special but i do like songs that r melancholic n sad!!

HELLO LAB! I’m sorry for being so late to answering this , I was fighting demons and eating my homework . I DO have many Aaside recs heheh, I have a entire Aaside playlist but it’s on apple music which I don’t think you have (? Maybe you do I can send it if so) so I will simply write a list here. I’ll put some bands and songs and a brief description of their styles!!!

For your Main Band, Standard Mobage Music, I’d recommend Argonavis! At times I like their music and at times I don’t. They actually use a large variety of instruments in their songs despite being a 5 man band, so I don’t know where they’re getting these strings and all that but I’ll suspend my belief for the tunes. Their music is like, upbeat inspirational pop rock tunes with an odd amount of strings if you pay close attention. There’s also a heavy focus on piano in their songs! Some specific songs I would recommend are Hey! Argonavis, AASIDE (only listen to the argonavis version. If you listen to the all leaders version your ears will bleed), JUNCTION, Starry Line, VOICE, and my personal favorite of all their songs, Root of Love….Root of Love is not at all like any of their usual music, it’s much more subdued and a bit more…..tender…..? Well, it’s really great anyways, so if I had to choose one of their songs to listen to forever, it would be that one. Their covers of Melissa and Kuchizuke Diamond are also really good! Imo the second one is better than the original

For METAL ROCK GRAHHHH HEAVY DRUMS HEAVY GUITAR HEAVY VOCALS GAAHHGRAHHH I HATE MY DAD music, listen to GYROAXIA! No, I do not know what their name means nor will I ever know. Their music is extremely heavy on the guitar and drums, it’s fast paced, Nayuta is screaming mid song, sometimes he’s rapping, it’s a good time. Occasionally, Ryo is forced to look God in the eyes as he’s forced to play the synth and the bass at the exact same time, and despite the challenge, it always sounds good. Couldn’t they just have one of the guitarists do that? Guess not. Anyways, some of my favorites of their songs are MANIFESTO, SCATTER, BREAK IT DOWN, GET MYSELF, EGOIST, GETTING HIGH, and WORLD IS MINE. And, yes— all of those titles are officially in all caps, and in English. I also really like their cover of Kyoran Hey Kids!!, it’s pretty cool. I kind of hyped them up too much but if you listen I hope you enjoy

I was hesitant to add Fantôme Iris since you said you like more pop rock BUT they do have some melancholy bangers. Their music is vkei! They have a lot of strings in their songs , but in a more…goth way than argonavis. Felix’s va, Arthur Conant Lounsberry, is seriously amazing and I love everything he’s done, in and out of AAside. Yeah I….I don’t know how else to describe their music other than It is Vkei. They also have two guitarists, and sometimes one of them plays the piano. So…here’s some songs: Gin no Yuri, Hitsugi no Naka no C’est la vie, XX in Wonderland, Rhapsodia, and historie. I think rhapsodia is a masterpiece. Also , based on what you’ve told me I think you’d like historie most out of all of these? If you’d wanna hear some of their covers, I recommend 1/3 no Junjou na Kanojo. Um. And only that one. I’ve only listened to the one cover it’s really good I promise.

Next up is HAPPY FUN TIMES MUSIC: Fujin RIZING! They have only had one sad song so far, there’s some crazy lore behind that one….Fujin Rizing is apparently Ska, but I’m a fucking loser and I don’t know what that is or if Fujin Rizing really is Ska. So don’t take my word for that one. What I CAN say is that they have trombone and saxophone in their songs! The focus of the band is to have fun, and that’s exactly what their songs do tbh. You just need to listen to it I like their stuff a lot actually. Some favorites: Banzai RIZING!!!, SWORD!, Run Gun Run, Furareta Otoko No Love Letter, and Jokyou Jokyou Ittekimasu! They also have a cover of HOT LIMIT that goes so unbelievably hard.

Lastly. Epsilon! They are the electronic group yay.….they have the largest amount of songs per band in the playlist, so very sorry if this song list gets long. I was a super big fan of their music even before I got obsessed with Shu so….Yeah….Their music is the darkest out of all the bands, Shu is a emo little fuck and makes sure everyone knows it. They’re the only consistently dual vocal band pre-Kimisute, which is super cool, I love how Shu and Haruka’s voices sound together…Uh, not much else to say honestly , Stream epsilon phi 👍👍👍👍👍 So here’s some songs so you can do that. (Clears throat), Hikari No Akuma, Cynicaltic Fakestar, End of Reason, Play with You, Sake it LOVE!, YUMENOATO, re:play, and finally The song thag gives me diseases: Orthros. They also have a Shu Self Realization song, Raison d’etre. I also wanted to say, Haruka has two solos that are honestly some of my favorite all time AAside songs: Egoistic Sai Phi and Heroic. They both do a really lovely job of capturing Haruka’s most important points as a character….Kanata also canonically wrote a song for epsilon Um. It’s trash. It’s called I’m picking glory, it’s really bad, if you want to listen to a really terrible song listen to that one. Some really good epsilon covers are Enigmatic Feeling, Roki and WATASHIGA MOTENAINOWA DOU KANGAETEMO OMAERAGA WARUI 🫡🫡. Epsilon also has a YouTube channel where they did some vocaloid covers, most of them are bad, but you should check them out anyways. I’m picking glory is on that channel

ONCE AGAIN DEAREST LAB I AM SORRY THIS TOOK ME 40 MILLION YEARS. I do hope you check these songs out and let me know what you think……Love you..!!!!!🫶🫶🫶❤️❤️❤️❤️

[kaleidodreams]

2023 Fanfic in Review

It's time for the traditional year-end fanflc writing questionnaire! If you want to hear more of my thoughts on these stories, you can also check out these individual self-reviews.

List of fics completed this year

Yuri!!! On Ice Inconvenient Crush #LionCub Denial

Sailor Moon Brushwork False Pretenses

2. Number of words written: 59,103 actually posted, but the number would be bigger if you count unpublished stuff. Still, the list is rather small this year… I've mostly been focusing on Inconvenient Crush.

3. Your most popular fic: Denial, with 7 comments and 85 kudos.

4. Your personal fav: Eh, to be honest, I don't really love any of the fics I posted this year… I guess Inconvenient Crush?

5. Your fav scene: Either the part where Mila finds out about Yuri's "friends with benefits" relationship with Otabek in Denial or the scene where JJ invites Otabek to his friend's house party in Inconvenient Crush. I just really like the dialogue in those two scenes.

6. A fic or scene that challenged you: Denial was pretty tough to write. To be honest, I'm still not entirely happy with how it turned out, and I'm annoyed that I ended up having to cut out one of the parts I really liked. (Don't get me wrong. It was the right choice to make and I did save it in case I ever find a spot in another fic where it might work, but still…) Also, Brushwork was the first time I posted a solely f/f sex scene. I think I pulled it off pretty well, but it was definitely something new and different for me!

7. A line of writing you’re proud of: Oh, I don't know… Nothing has really stuck out to me. This exchange between Rei and Minako in False Pretenses is pretty funny?

"Stunning!" Minako declared when Rei turned back around for a final once-over. "You're gonna knock Yuuichirou's pants off!"

Rei rolled her eyes at yet another one of Minako's malapropisms. "Socks. The saying is 'knock his socks off'."

"Now what kind of sense does that make? I'd much rather knock a guy's pants off, if you catch my drift…"

8. A comment that touched you: All of them!

9. Something that inspired your writing: I can't really think of anything in particular, to be honest. I guess #LionCub was kinda inspired by an article I had read concerning parents who use their children for social media clout?

10. Your proudest accomplishment: Sailor Moon Rare Pair Week again, I guess?

11. Do you have any writing goals for next year?: I'd like to finish Inconvenient Crush, and I'm currently working on two other untitled fics. One of them is an Otayuri fic of YOI Rare Pair Week (which basically finished and will be posted next week) and the other is a Chibi-Usa/Helios fic for the Sailor Moon version I host in March. Beyond that… I've been starting to feel a little burned out lately, so I may take another long break once I finish IC. (I won't call it a retirement, 'cause that didn't exactly stick the last time…) I don't know. We'll see!

[linktoo]

Watching Alien 9 - how it's perceived and what it wanted to say

Warnings for themes of abuse and implied sexual assault. 

Two things before I start: I watched the subbed version of this, and also there are only 4 episodes if you want to check it out yourself, it’s very short.  

I started watching Alien 9 basically knowing nothing about it. It's an older anime, released back in 2001 so there isn't much internet discussion about it for each episode. But I remember watching it slowly realizing there’s a lot to unpack here. The art direction is beautiful and the dialogue is actually really strong. I went out of my way to look for analysis I could find on the internet because there was a lot that I couldn’t really put into words… but I very quickly came across an ongoing issue.

I guess this is probably a common problem with a lot of media that came out before the internet became the juggernaut that it has become today. The discussion you tend to find doesn’t seem to be very cleaned up or very nuanced - a lot of it is also probably lost to time with discussion forums and personal websites shutting down. But all I saw were really outdated remarks, like “oh kasumi’s the lolicon" and "this is pedo bait”, etc. It was gross and frustrating. So I wanted to talk about it in-depth.  

The anime is initially presented to be a cute slice-of-life anime. Set in a regular school with a sci-fi twist, it gives off a cheery sweet vibe, but even from the very beginning, there was always such an off vibe to it all. With the music fluctuating between cute and off-kilter and discordant. Every shot feels vaguely oppressive, trying to hide something that should be immediately within your line of sight if you were there yourself. You immediately get a sense that something is wrong. 

Not to mention so many silent shots of this looming, grotesque-looking alien pod that looms over the school with weapons. 

Someone commented that the OST for this anime like “a child with anxiety” which is such a great way to describe it! It’s filled with lots of very juvenile, bouncy tunes (like lots of recorders and kazoos and xylophones and horns), even with motifs that sound similar to nursery rhymes like “Mary Had a Little Lamb” but in a minor key. It gives a very jaunty feeling while distinctly feeling off. I think it also has a very soldierly, elementary school vibe to it - like the sound of a bell and young students chanting together in unison like a military cadence. There are instances of kids singing as a choir, giving a religious, holy aspect to certain tracks. It also mixes in synthy, crazy bonker wet sounding and snappy sound samples for the alien feel of it all. It’s erratic. And it’s so cohesive!! I really don’t know much about music composition, but it’s so distinctive to fit the narrative and themes of the show and I love it. Check it out if you’re interested, it’s so funky: [x]

The show focuses on three 12-year-old girls, being tasked with capturing and subduing aliens  with guns, roller skates, and symbiotic aliens that are attached to their heads and feed on their body fluids. Yeah. That’s a bit overwhelming. 

And Yuri Otani, the main character, gets so much shit for hating it. She was forced into it, in a very isolating method of basically the entire classroom ganging up to all vote for her to join (no one wanted to join themselves). The other two, Kumi and Kasumi, are very competent in their own way, which makes Yuri’s inability to capture these very understandably disturbing, pulsating creatures look foolish in comparison.

She cries. Yuri cries a lot. She’s already had a very overwhelming fear with anything that pertains to aliens and left to her own devices she collapses, faints, shudders, wails, and shuts down throughout the entire show. 

And understandably so, it’s creepy and gross and absolutely horrid! It doesn’t get any better!! But everyone around her acts like fighting these aliens are completely normal. Her peers are passive about her distress. Her one kind classmate friend tells her it’s not that bad because of the emergency perks. The adults around her tell her to just stick it out. The other two peers in the alien fighter club frankly have their own concerns and it’s more than just a bit of a liability that Yuri can barely defend herself at all. 

Yuri in turn struggles with depression every moment she isn’t fighting aliens. She can't get out of bed in the morning. She zones out, at home and at work. It’s very resonant with me, because that kind of depression is debilitating and takes over so much of your life - you’re seen as lazy when really, you quite literally can’t function unless someone firmly and continuously forces you to do something. It’s upsetting to watch. 

There are invasive, sexual overtones to this story. A lot of people have likened it to an allegory of puberty where your body is rapidly changing and just in general everything feels very confusing and upsetting. Being taken advantage of because you aren’t experienced. The danger that these adults put these children in and tell them just to figure it out or basically die trying, is very reminiscent of a lot of real societal pressure for kids to grow up with very little emotional support. To “toughen” them up, because one day they have to face this big scary world alone. It’s uncomfortable and it gets worse as the story progresses. 

I don’t want to get into it too much, but there is an allegorical gang rape scene that occurs to Yuri in episode 2. The Hunt club advisor already recognized that she was struggling with alien capturing and was instructed to feed the aliens alone, without the help of the other two members to keep her safe. There, three boys who willingly attached aliens to their head and have had this odd fixation on Yuri for several days, find her all alone. It’s violent. Their drills are overtly phallic themed. I can’t get over the haunting statement of her friend calling her “miss popular” just a few hours beforehand. Their attention was NEVER wanted and that framing is so unsettling to me, like the way people say women who were sexually assaulted were “asking for it”. It’s one of the most disturbing parts of the whole show.

It’s repulsive what they do to her. And her pain is destructive not to herself, but everyone around her. 

And how she immediately collapses when she sees the one person that has always been the closest thing to emotional support throughout the entire show. 

There are very human moments in the show, when there are people that show signs of affection that they didn’t have to do, but did it because they cared about her and it makes all the difference.

Yuri’s one friend Miyu always waits to walk home with her. The alien capturing duties are very isolating from the rest of the school, and forces Yuri to stay very late after everybody leaves. But Miyu waits long hours, and at the end of the day, excitedly meets up with her. She invites Yuri to go shopping with her. It’s very obvious she looks forward to the time they spend together.

(E.g. Miyu reading the shopping manual, passing a note to Yuri in class, the way she runs up to meet Yuri when she’s free. It’s so sweet.)

You can even see the beams almost being prison bars that Yuri is momentarily free from. She’s the reason why Yuri gets enough courage and resolve to try her best again with alien fighting and bonding with the others of her own accord. It shows a lot about Yuri’s desire to do well with the insane tasks and responsibilities her adults give her, even when no one else notices. 

The other two members of the alien capturing club are Kumi and Kasumi.

And though they help Yuri out, it’s definitely a little of a drag for them. Kumi in particular has this deep rooted anger when Yuri begs for help. Her own situation at home reminds her that she is constantly relied on; to be the good sport, to be the mature one in every situation and make all the decisions for everyone. 

“I don’t feel like being nice. Not anymore.

[...]

You know something? I was the class leader from grade one onward. Being class leader sucks. All you do is look after other people and you even have to be responsible for what they do. I always got stuck doing all the crappy jobs. That's why I have this position now. So nobody can say to me ‘YOU be the leader.’ Back off and take care of your own problems.” - Kumi

You can even see her wardrobe tends to be clothes that make her more mature than she actually is, especially her black turtleneck. But she’s just a kid, too.

And to her, Yuri is another pathetic whiny colleague asking for her help. Again. And she’s tired.

Kasumi's own narrative definitely is its own disturbing, isolated situation. She’s seen to be the least upset out of the three of them in the whole series, always with a level head and a smile on her face. She’s a prodigy, and seemingly enjoys what she does. She loves everything - sports, playing music, scoring high on tests. But you can see how it feels rather empty, how she’s put herself in this situation to constantly affirm to all the adults in her life that she is well adjusted and super talented. I get the feeling she was not given the love and attention really needed as a child, and did everything she could to get some form of acknowledgement. Notably, her big brother who is noticeably absent the entire time. For… disturbingly what was implicated to be because of incest and grooming. She never quite recovers from the yellowknife alien taking advantage of her unhealthy dependency on him, as they weren’t able to save her before it symbiotically fused with her.

It's not until the traumatic incident Yuri goes through that it’s revealed that the three of them are emotionally bound and feel Yuri’s distress as if it's their own. It’s startling, like they realize that they all experienced that same terror individually, but Yuri’s is much more paralyzing. And understanding that distress, they become particularly protective about her. They only have each other that can ever fully understand what they’re going through at the moment. A classmate couldn’t ever really see that, and Kumi and Kasumi become the people in Yuri’s life that truly empathize with the situation.

and with all of them, Yuri SHINES.

Every time there is a kindness that someone extends to her, her eyes light up. She goes quiet and says, “I think I can stick this out, I think I can keep fighting for a little while longer” and god honestly it makes me feel so weepy. Being shown even one ounce of love, one little action that says “I want you to be here with me,” it gives so much weight to her as a person, someone that keeps her being like. I don’t know! Just a little kid!! Doing random kid stuff!!! It’s genuinely healing and the things they do to coax her out of her shell just a little bit brings levity of the show and moments that she can feel safe again.

You also really get to see as she’s encouraged to get over her fears on a much lower level of danger (swimming in an ocean, running through a “haunted” shrine) with her friends. Even when she’s heavily reminded of her traumatic experiences, she can always run away, back to her friends' arms. 

Notice I didn’t point out her advisor leading the alien capturing duties, because she obviously has no real care towards these kids. It’s honestly a little insidious, because every adult Yuri comes in contact with is female, and have this like, motherly/teacher tone that can SOUND nice and polite, but it’s cold. It’s distant. The three go through harrowing experiences and all the advisor can focus on is her job, and what it means for her. Just that it’s just a nuisance to her. 

“This is strange. I didn’t ask for this. I wonder if it got here by attaching itself to a spaceship. I haven’t even finished checking everyone’s summer homework. This is the last thing I needed!”

Obviously, that doesn’t even begin to talk about how she and the other adults are not transparent at all and have hidden intentions for the girls.

And I want to get into that as a narrative with the discussion online, because holy FUCK. 

It’s time to talk about the obvious Neon Genesis Evangelion (NGE) inspiration that touches the show, from the stark compositions and beautiful animation and notably, how the main character is struggling with depression and the overwhelming responsibility that’s piled onto him. It’s honestly such an interesting comparison to me especially since the two main characters are in starkly different (yet overwhelming) situations. While Shinji is a 16-year-old boy, Yuri is a 12-year-old girl and their societal expectations based on each identity sets them apart. 

Everyone really loves to compare Shinji and Yuri, even going so far as to say “Alien 9 is basically just NGE.” God. That’s a bit reductive of a comparison. You can see the way they talk about both of them, how useless and crybaby and whiny they both are perceived to be by this audience. 

They call Yuri “bitchy”, they call her “useless crybaby”, they call her stupid and moronic, but most importantly, they say she has 0 character development throughout the entire show. I want to take a second to process that, because trauma does NOT equal character development. 

And finally, I want to talk about one of the most casually unsettling parts of the show for me, personally:

Yuri’s teacher notices that she’s distracted and detached. She can’t focus on school. And her assumption?

That she’s thinking about summer vacation. And then, in the very next scene, Yuri asks to quit the alien capturing duties because she can’t take it anymore - and the teacher says THIS.

The hypocrisy and apathy in these two scenes. The way adults pretend they care but also assume every sign of distress means you're just lazy. It’s heartwrenching. Which one is it? Stop relaxing, or don’t be so uptight? It’s maddening to me. To change the narrative to suit your own assumptions about this child because really, Yuri doesn’t have a choice in the matter. And she continues to collapse under the weight of these responsibilities, and continue to be locked into something that she is completely incapable of handling. 

Yuri is so overwhelmed all she can do is shut down and cry and everyone just tells her to get over it like one day she'll snap and do her job no problem like she's not going through the most harrowing shit no one should ever go through ever in their lives. And she ends up screwing up more and more because they keep withdrawing all support to "toughen her up". They NEVER take her seriously, they never let her breathe because she's just a little crybaby girl who doesn't know what's best for her and it just keeps getting worse.

And that’s what is so haunting to me, to see such a common response from the audience watching this same show, to sound exactly like these adults. To take away from the show that Yuri is useless and bratty and should have snapped and fought back at one point, like a main protagonist in a hero’s journey converting their trauma into a badass version of themselves or something. I don’t know, there’s something to be said about how these tone deaf reviews were written and discussed by cis men, while one of the few blog posts I actually liked about Alien 9 was posted in 2021 by two women. There’s a bit of a whiplash to how people received this show on the internet based on who was watching and when.

Anyway, there’s still way more to unpack in terms of the other characters in the show, but I’ll leave it here. Alien 9 in all of its flaws and open-ended questions deserves to be engaged head on. It has its flaws and due to cancellation and budget cuts, was forced to leave on a cliffhanger on its fourth and final episode. A lot was left open. 

But it had a very particular set tone from the beginning, and there was a lot of deliberate intention behind their creative decisions. I’m tired of seeing people say “it’s sooo weird” and “they didn’t know what they were doing” for discussion. It’s definitely a show I keep thinking about on and off again.

[faroreswinds]

Scarlet Blaze - Chapter 13-Chapter 14

We are close to the end-game now!

Story

Mercedes says she’s ok now with fighting the Kingdom. I guess that’s… something….

Lol, Yuri is like “You want to put me to work? Neither you or Edelgard can afford to pay me the price for my life”. Kek.

There is literally a trade route with a foreign country mentioned by an NPC (and the game has the gale to claim the Central Church prevents outside contact)

Ashe is a little happier here too, but only because he wants to help the people in Hyrm that were attacked by the Slithers. A distraction, I guess. 

Alois actually had something nice to say about the Church, about how we could learn from them at how they dispatched people and supplies to help those in need. Kinda cool. 

Frankly, Shamir confuses me. She says she also wants to kill some of Edelgard’s supports because of the Dagda war. She has no chill.

There is a merchant that is actually someone undercover, pretending to be a merchant… huh.

Constance is kinda irritated that the Duke didn’t consider her house as one to contact for the uprising (lol)

Dancer class is honestly kinda awesome, haha. 

Arval comments on this corner of the world being an uncontrolled mess. Lol. It’s been a while since he has chimed in in general. 

Some more new slithers appearing on the side missions

OK, here we go, reclaiming Fort Merceus. 

Kroyna is here... and now she’s dead. 

Why did the Slithers even get involved?!

Jesus christ, Ferdinand just fucking murdered his father. I mean, guy was an asshole. But it was still his dad. 

This makes me feel something. 

Now that a bunch of Houses have been... destroyed, a new duke needs to be picked.

Ferdinand asks if Edelgard is trying to give him solace.... and she looks confused. (So, I don’t think she did, I think she was just being practical). 

I guess there are no more rebels in the Empire now. 

Edelgard now has total power now, they literally said it out loud. 

Edelgard has a point - it makes no sense for Thales and crew to stop those protecting the archbishop from being crushed. 

Edelgard STILL doesn’t trust Shez. Really, this war should be about killing the Slithers, not the fucking Church. 

We STILL DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE SLITHERS EXCEPT THAT APPARENTLY THEY DON’T WORK TOGETHER, THEY JUST DO CHAOS ON THEIR OWN. 

CHAPTER 14

Whelp, guess it’s time to go crush the Kingdom and Rhea, or so the game claims. 

Whoa, Jeralt and Byleth are actually in on the story now. 

Jeralt seems totally cool with the idea that if he needs to kill Rhea, he will kill Rhea. 

Rhea is suggesting now we retake the monastery. To keep the Empire in check, and to shake the faith of others who loyalties are weaker. 

Oooohhhh, time for Valley of Torment. 

Man, we haven’t seen Rhea for so fucking long. 

Caspar mentions his brother will likely be blamed for what happened to the fort. Betcha that will go nowhere. 

Apparently there are still lords who oppose Edelgard’s plan in the Empire (and Monica wants them stamped out)

Leonie kinda whines about not being includes in Jeralt and Byleth’s convos. 

Jeralt actually tells Byleth why he left the Knights, interesting (we as players don’t get to know why, though). 

Man, Hubert and Claude figured out that Dimitri and Rhea are after the monastery. 

Cyril appears in a side map (he’s going to die, ain’t he?)

“adherents to the status quo” THEY ACTUALLY SAID STATUS QUO, I’M DYING, IT’S LIKE THE DISCOURSE

*sweats* Here we go.  This is basically the three way battle again. Except that that it’s really two-version one. Seteth doesn’t want Flayn here. 

“Empire supremacy” sure Edelgard

Felix is here!!!

Sylvain has come to save felix’s life

Sylvain wants to avenge Ingrid.... Too bad he dies. :(

Flayn has appeared. Hubert comments about  “Saint Cethleann” and a second coming, lol.

Dedue....

He doesn’t die.

Neither does Flayn, boooo

Nor does Seteth, he retreats too. 

Edelgard asks Dimitri to step aside and break it off with the Church, and return to his people. But Dimitri refuses, because he knows Edelgard will likely go after him still.

After the battle, Byleth appears shows up and just talks to Shez. 

Well, we are chasing after Dimitri now. And Edelgard wants to be the ones to apprehend Dimitri. 

Rhea went to the monastery, I guess. 

Ooohhh, Arval has taken over Shez’s body...... And attacked Byleth. 

IF YOU DIDN’T RECRUIT BYLETH HOWEVER

There are some minor Arval dialogue changes, since now you will be killing Byleth. 

The title of the chapter is different. If you recruited Byleth, Chapter 14 is called Torment of the Eagle and Lion, but if you didn’t recruit Byleth, Chapter 14 is called A Clash of Ambitions. 

There is no Byleth scene here, it’s completely skipped. 

Fleche, despite being alive, is notably absent here at camp. 

Nevermind, there is actually a different Byleth scene, where he gives Claude some “tips”. Claude asks Byleth to come with him after the battle is over, saying he feels like “maybe his path would be different” or some nonsense. Very on the nose. Curious to see where this goes. What tips did Byleth give him?

We get a different scene with Claude now. Claude signed a pact with Edelgard under duress since they were being attack. 

But Claude also is against the Church and the Kingdom so they won’t be be “shackled to the past” or something like that. So he is declaring war on both the Empire and the Kingdom. 

Is he... a moron?

The Kingdom just wants to be left the fuck alone overall. 

So instead of him helping in battle, we fight both armies. 

Hilda retreats, no death there

Claude ded now. Not sure if he can survive this battle.... 

Byleth appears for one last battle. Sothis is controlling him. 

Byleth seems to be fighting back Sothis’ control, which is why we win, I guess. 

Byleth dead now. 

This was a harder battle this way. 

Shez feels empty after killing Byleth. He wonders if there is another way to solve this. Which... solve what? You were after Byleth..... 

Arval feels relief though. 

Interestingly, it’s Shez who can realize that there is a secret path here this time. 

I didn’t feel like replaying this chapter for all the character dialogue. So I went and watched it on Youtube. 

Claude will ask Lorenz to take care of the Alliance should he fall. 

We really going to be ending this route by saving Count Varley? Amazing....

Paralogue

There is a single paralogue for chapter 13, and you need Jeralt and Byleth with Leonie. 

Firstly…. Leonie is a bitch. She was so mean to Byleth, asking how Jeralt could raise such a cold and unfeeling person. (Jeralt then admitted that he wasn’t the best dad).

The whole battle, which was killing poachers, Leonie and Jeralt talked about their time together, completely ignoring Byleth for the most part. We don’t even know where Byleth was during Jeralt and Leonie’s time together, we don’t learn that at all. :/

Jeralt then goes to the villagers to get a feast (he was kinda expecting one), and Alois won’t even be there. He even doesn’t let Byleth or Shez come. What a jackass. 

Byleth was cute though, when he thought Shez really meant they should hold hands on the way home.

CHAPTER 14 PARALOGUES

STOP GIVING ME PARALOGUES, I WANT TO BE FREE, ASGKFDAKGDAKGJFDKGJKFDSJGKFDSJGKFDJGKDSGFDSKGKFDSJGKFDSJGKFDJGKJFDG

Leonie and Shamir Paralogue.....

Apparently, there is a HUGE merc group called the Guardians of Foldan that just.... exist? 

Anyways, boring paralogue. Some nobles took a shine to Shamir and wanted her kidnapped, and that’s really it. 

Whoa, they are NOT HIDING the fact that Shamir is bi here, the noble interested in her is... a woman. 

Damn, lady.... stop catching all the ladies! 

Linhardt and Caspar’s paralogue....

we are getting the last of the rebels with their fathers in this paralogue.

Caspar is really bloodthirsty with his father. They are having a competition to see how many they can kill. :/

Caspar’s older brother is mentioned again. Looks like he will be “reassessed” for his failure for defending the Fort from the former Duke. 

So far, there have been less rebels and more... thieves. Even Linhardt says as much. 

Wait, and then Count Bergliez and Count Hevring turn on us to “test” Caspar and Linhardt. 

Man, a waste of another paralogue. It made very little sense. It just shows off the “friendship” of the dads more, really. 

We get the magical gauntlets though from Caspar’s father. “Jarngrepir”. Or, as my tongue likes to call it, “Jarnfreplerpler” 

Caspar seems.... particularly stupid in Hopes....

Supports

After chapter 12 is done, a few more supports open up: Shez with Hubert and Edelgard. 

Edelgard with Shez - Why is so much Slither stuff behind supports and paralogues? But this support basically confirms that Edelgard in Houses turned a blind eye to the Slithers. However, this doesn’t…. mesh well with Houses? I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but… Edelgard also allowed them to exist because they were useful to her cause. This makes it seem like Edelgard DIDN’T have a choice with the Slithers in Houses, but that just doesn’t make sense with what we know. Also, Shez says Edelgard was different because she was a noble who paid attention to him. Never mind Claude and Dimitri and all the other nobles from the houses who gave him the time of day before he chose his house.

Hubert with Edelgard - Nothing to really say about this, honestly. Just Hubert saying he finally trusts Shez. Somehow, Hubert can sense there is “another person” in Shez and worry that Shez will become another person entirely. Feels a little forced, for Hubert to be able to “sense” that. 

Jesus, they don’t give you a lot of time to gain supports between Leonie and Ferdinand. Damn. 

Leonie and Ferdinand C - Leonie thinks there might be a cultural difference between nobles?! UM, EXCUSE ME, WHERE IS THIS ELSEWHERE?! Everything else is all about how all the nobles are the same, down with nobility! Maybe, and I say just maybe…. countries are different?!

Leonie and Jeralt Support - It’s a little weird, because Jeralt says that he wasn’t in Leonie’s town for long, and even tells Leonie at camp that she wasn’t really his apprentice (although he does tell her kinda “ok, fine, you were my apprentice” after she whines a little). But in this support, he says he is proud she was his apprentice. OKie dokie. 

Leonie and Ferdinand B support - Never mind, this support turned dumb. Leonie has come to the conclusion that all nobles are the same. Ferdinand is also saying that he is the only one who is doing stuff like… take care of horses…. Um… Marianne is right there? Holy fuck this support was dumb, dumb, dumb. 

Leonie and Lorenz’s support - The Church paid back some of Leonie’s money since it shut down. How absolutely EVIL /s. It’s a weird conversation overall, that apparently commoners “don’t make their own choices” and that “commoners don’t want to be commoners anymore”. I’m…. huh. It feels like whoever wrote this support just doesn’t understand the world in general. Leonie making it as she has isn’t proof of change upon them - what about mercenaries? Seriously, this support makes no SENSE. 

Leonie and Lysithea Support - Lysithea’s biggest concern for becoming a commoner is that she won’t be able to get candy anymore. 

CHAPTER 14 SUPPORTS

A bunch of supports unlocked after killing the Duke. 

Shez and Ferdinand - Ferdinand has been depressed this whole route. 

Ferdinand and Edelgard - Ferdinand is so loyal now. And he says he did the right thing by killing his father. Also, Edelgard doesn’t want to lose so people won’t say bad things her and her war. And Ferdinand would rather die than see people end up saying shit about her. Yay....Ferdinand does mention that the commonfolk need to be educated before they can carry on. (AND EDELGARD DIDN’T THINK ABOUT A SCHOOL, FERDINAND CAME UP WITH THE IDEA). 

Edelgard and Bernadetta - Thales is still live, so Edelgard is still bothered. Also, Edelgard doesn’t believe in being kind to people in despair, because it doesn’t really help them. 

Hubert and Ferdinand - I honestly prefer silly Ferdinand, this serious Ferdinand isn’t as fun. :/ Ah, the “Twin jewels of the Empire” was mentioned here. 

When will my suffering end of this route? 

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fuck

[yutahoes]

Kekkon

genre : fluff 

pairing : boyfriend! Yuta x Reader

summary : You invite Yuta to your cousin’s birthday party. 

word count : 1.2k words

tag list : @ailoveyuta​ @cosmiclatte28​ @aiforyuu​ @yutazen01​ @2-3-t-i​

Yuta was nervously holding the gift bag and cake that he bought, blowing air out of his lungs to relieve some nervousness. He can't believe that he's meeting your family like this. And now? When everyone is here at your house?

A young boy was staring at him in curiosity. "Hi, is Y/N here?" he greeted that made the younger nod. He ran inside the house shouting 'Noona, a guy is looking for you' and he swore, almost everyone went out of the hallway to see him.

You appeared from the next room, laughing. There was flour on your cheek and you're wearing an apron that made him smile. "You're early." You greeted him that made him smile. "You bought cake?"

He nodded, handing you the boxed treat. "I don't know what to bring so I bought one." Using his free hand, he wiped the flour off your face. "Are you cooking? Do you need help?" You shook your head, blushing.

"I'll just clean up my mess in the kitchen. You can sit down." You gestured for the couch then stared pointedly at the two boys who were watching you. "This is Yunho and Yunjae, my cousins. This is Yuta." You introduced and he just smiled at them. "I'll be back."

You even had to push your relatives back to the kitchen just to stop them from prying over Yuta. He chuckled while staring at the two boys whispering among themselves, "He looks so cool." One of the boys claimed while the other nodded, "He looks like a rapper." Yuta grinned, sitting beside them.

"Hi, I'm Yuta Nakamoto."

"Are you Japanese?" Yunho asked, eyes wide.

"Can you speak Japanese?"

"Anata no itoko to kekkon dekimasu ka?”

Both kids had their eyes wide, claiming that he's so cool. "Noona, noona." One of the boys claimed. "He can speak Japanese." Yuta giggled that made you smile, sitting on the armrest of the couch. Yuta's arms were wrapped on your waist. "How do you say amazing in Japanese?"

"Sugoi." You said and they repeated the same term that made Yuta laugh. "He also plays soccer." The two boys looked excited and made you laugh.

Your gaze turned to the little girl walking downstairs with her mom holding her hand. She was wearing a rainbow dress and a unicorn headband. Yuta smiled, "Is she Yuri?" You nodded. The reason why you invited Yuta to your home.

"Unnie, did you get me a prince on my birthday?" She asked running to you. You chuckled at that. "I'm Yuri." she introduced herself to your boyfriend who just kissed her hand that even you were surprised. He's never this romantic before.

"I'm Yuta Nakamoto." he introduced then handed the gift bag he was carrying, "This is for you." You told Yuta not to give her any gifts but the smile on your cousin's lips was so wide that you just thanked him instead of scolding him.

During lunch, you introduced him to your aunts and uncles, even to your grandmother who liked him so much that she wanted to sit beside him. Your mom even teased that all you ever do is talk about is your boyfriend. Yuta chuckled at how cute your family is.

You opened the store-bought cake for Yuri that earned teasing from your aunts. You were supposed to make the cake, Yuta just saved you. “I hope you’re a great cook, Yuta. This girl can’t even cook to live.” Your mom teased that made Yuta chuckle.

“I only know the basics, ma’am.” He said politely. “But I guess, I’ll have to learn from now on and make her fat.” You glared at him but he just grinned.

“Stop calling me ma’am. You can call me eomma.” Your mom claimed that startled you. “The moment you stepped foot in our house, you’re already family.”

Your grandmother nodded. “You can go here every dinner so we can see that handsome face of yours.” You just stared at them in disbelief.

Yuta smiled, a red tint appearing on his cheeks. “I will, halmeoni. Thank you, eomma.”

You smiled then stared at your dad who stood up as an excuse to get some beer. Your mom gave you a look before you followed him. “Appa.” You called, hugging him from behind. “Why are you like that? It’s not like I’m getting married.”

“Will you break up with Yuta if I told you I don’t like him?” You felt your stomach drop at that statement. He doesn’t like Yuta? But why? Your loss of words made him smile. “You’re lucky I like him for you.” You sigh in relief, holding on to the counter. “You must have really liked the guy.” He teased then kissed the top of your head before leaving you to the kitchen.

You do like Yuta. It’s honestly a feeling that you can’t explain. You’re always happy to see him. You feel safe whenever he’s next to you. You can tell him anything you want without being scared that he may be bored. You wanted to spend every waking day with him. Is this what they call love?

“He’s a catch.” Your aunts commented while eating the sliced cake. You are now seated on the porch of your house, watching Yuta playing with your younger cousins. He looks so comfortable with children that it makes your heart hurt. He’s so adorable. 

“Will we be hearing wedding bells soon?” You shook your head, not this soon. You just started dating, for crying out loud.

“You should hold on to a man like that.” One of your uncles claimed, drinking his beer. From your peripheral vision, you saw your dad nod. You planned to. You wanted to.

Yuta smiled watching you walk to the yard, sitting on a bench with a glass of juice in your hands. He kicked the ball to Yuri before asking for a time out then sat beside you. “Tired?” You asked while handing him the tall glass of orange liquid.

He shook his head while chuckling. “I like this,” he whispered, eyes not leaving the three kids who were playing their own version of soccer. You gave him a curious look but he only smiled. “Playing with kids.” He slipped his hand on your waist, pulling you close. “Kids who look like you.”

Your breathing hitched against your throat as his lips lingered on yours. You could feel his warm breath and was about to close your eyes when he chuckled. He lay his head on your shoulder, hugging you. “Your dad is staring at me.”

You chuckled. “If it helps, he likes you.” You whispered. “Everyone likes you.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t like me.”

You laughed. “Yeah.” He glared at you. “I’m in love with you. There’s a difference.” Yuta grinned, his face blushing once again.

Yuri had to walk to where you are, asking Yuta to play with her again. “Oppa, can you marry me instead?” Your eyes widened at what your younger cousin asked. “What is the Japanese for marriage?” Why is your cousin asking that? And she’s still seven years old.

“Kekkon,” Yuta answered that made the two younger boys look at each other. Yunjae claimed that he said that word earlier and Yunho asked if he asked one of them to get married. Yuta shook his head, laughing nervously then stared at you. “I was asking if I can marry your cousin.”

The two stared at you. “What’s the Japanese for yes?” Yunho asked.

You smiled. “Hai.” Yuta had to look at you. “Kekkon shiyou.” You whispered that made him chuckle.

God, you thought, you’re really going to hear wedding bells soon.

[the-lincyclopedia]

Fic writer questions I never get asked

Thanks for the tag, @khashanakalashtar! This is an interesting list! 

What date did you make your AO3 profile? What date did you post your first fic?

I joined AO3 on February 5, 2018. Seriously. I was FFN-only for so long. I posted my first fics on AO3 the day I joined. My first fics ever to hit the internet, however, were published on July 13, 2011, which is when I got my FFN account.

Do you cross-post your work?

Yeah, still. When I first got my AO3 account, I posted a bunch of things that were already on my FFN account, and these days I put basically everything on both. I like that FFN gives a pretty accurate and nearly complete timeline of my fanworks, which is the main reason I’m still posting there. Nothing I’ve posted there in the past three years has gotten much engagement, and I know the site is dying. 

What’s your fic with the most comment threads? The most bookmarks? Are the top 5 of those categories basically the same, and basically the same as the top 5 kudos?

Top 5 by comment threads: 

Face the Future with You (Check Please)

Man Oh Man, You’re My Best Friend (Check Please)

It’s Always You (Check Please)

Love in the Time of Influenza (Carry On)

I Love You, All Right? (Check Please)

Top 5 by bookmarks: 

Love in the Time of Influenza (Carry On)

The Aftermath of Angelic Assumptions (Good Omens)

Man Oh Man, You’re My Best Friend (Check Please)

Nightmares (Carry On)

Christmas Planning (Carry On)

Top 5 by kudos: 

Love in the Time of Influenza (Carry On)

Face the Future with You (Check Please)

Nightmares (Carry On)

The Aftermath of Angelic Assumptions (Good Omens)

Christmas Planning (Carry On)

So basically the Check Please fandom comments more and the Carry On fandom is more into bookmarks and kudos, and there’s more of a correlation between kudos and bookmarks than between either of those and comments. 

What’s the word count of your longest fic or series?

“The Jumper Chronicles,” my longest fic on FFN, is 111,223 words. I abandoned it in 2015 and I really would not recommend it. On AO3, my longest fic is “who could ask to be unbroken (or be brave again)” at 14,772 words. It’s part of my longest series on AO3: “Samwell Men’s Harmonies” at 29,921 words. 

What’s your most underrated fic?

MOST underrated? I have 132 fics on AO3, so there are a lot of potential answers. I guess I’ll pick my work with literally the fewest kudos: it’s a charming little rhyming poem about Harry Potter called “The Willow May Whomp You.” It has two kudos, fewer than 70 hits, no bookmarks, and no comments. I was so proud of it when I finished it, and AO3 really did not care. 

Does your early work contain any writing sins?

I had heard that not breaking up your dialogue was bad (which it’s not? Who told me this? Why did I believe them? Ugh), and I thought that adding adverbs to dialogue tags constituted breaking up your dialogue. So I had lots of unnecessary beats and adverbs and internal monologue mixed up in what otherwise might have been passable dialogue scenes. (I don’t remember whether this came up a ton in my fics and I don’t feel like looking, but I remember it pretty clearly in the original stuff I was working on back then.)

Have you ever had a work podficced?

Yes! I requested it for Fandom Trumps Hate, though, so I don’t know if it counts, exactly. It’s not like someone read my work and approached me about podding it. Anyway, my Yuri on Ice fic “When and If” has a podfic version. 

Have you posted any podfics? Fanvids? Fanart?

I was going to say no, and then I remembered that back in, like, 2009, I tried to make a couple Romione fanvids, one to Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me” and one to “I’m Not That Girl” from Wicked. Unfortunately for everyone involved, I didn’t have a clue how to pull bits of video from a movie (still don’t, actually), so they were basically slideshows. I’ve long since taken them down from YouTube and the computer I made them on has long since died, so I can’t prove any of this to you, but . . . uh, yeah. That happened. 

Are there any trends in your favorite ships?

I feel like there have been, like, eras of my shipping. When I first started shipping (i.e. before I realized I’m queer), it was basically “girl I can project on” shipped with “literally whoever her canon love interest is, regardless of anything about him” (Romione, Percabeth). Then it was “asshole guy” shipped with “other guy who interfaces between the asshole guy and the rest of the world” (Johnlock, Otayuri to a lesser extent). I feel like it’s becoming “broken person whose coping mechanism is meanness” shipped with “broken person whose coping mechanism is sunshine” (Zimbits, maybe Snowbaz). This is pretty similar to the asshole x interface-with-world, but the relationship is a little more mutual and balanced, and the mean one has a better excuse for being mean. 

Do you have fandoms you’ve written a lot for? Fandoms you’ve only written a one-off for?

Fandoms I’ve written a lot for: Check Please, Carry On, Harry Potter, Sherlock, Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and Yuri on Ice. (I’m defining “a lot” as at least five fics, and please note that I’ve got a 30k Lizzie Bennet Diaries fic that’s only on FFN because I really don’t like the ending.)

Fandoms I’ve only written one-offs for: Discworld, Turtles All the Way Down, Maleficent, the Chronicles of Narnia, Paper Towns, Six of Crows, Hoot, the Odyssey, Song of the Lioness, and Downton Abbey. (There are multiple other fandoms with two fics each.)

What fandom got you into fandom?

Harry Potter. I’d been writing next gen fics for like two years when a school acquaintance shared an FFN link to a Marauders fic on Google Buzz and I was hooked. 

Do you have a strategy for summaries?

I try to describe the premise/first part of the plot, and I add notes that might be relevant (i.e., major trigger warnings or other things that might put people off). I don’t use quotes, either from the story or from anywhere else. 

Do you use beta readers? For what? Do you have a go-to beta?

Occasionally for plot/general “is this good?” type feedback, or if they’re mandatory for an event, I guess. (I’m doing my first bang, so that’s a new thing for me.) I don’t feel the need to use a beta for spelling, grammar, or punctuation since I’m a semi-professional copyeditor. These days I do read most things to my QPP over the phone before publishing them. That’s usually more of a cheer-reading situation than a beta situation, though. 

I tag @doggernaut @carryonsimoncarryonbaz @birlcholtz @cricketnationrise and anyone else who wants to play! 

[katyobsesses]

I've done this before HERE but this time I was actually tagged (thanks @useless-fanfictions) so I'm going to update it becuase some of the answers are out of date

how many works do you have on AO3?

22 fics and 3 fanfic book covers so 25

what’s your total AO3 word count?

151,809 words

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Published:

Glee

Marvel (MCU & 616)

Yuri! On Ice

Just floating around my G-Drive or wrote back in the day but never published:

Harry Potter

Merlin

Twilight

Supernatural

Sherlock

Doctor Who

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Ain't No Grave (Can Keep My Body Down) Book Cover with 225 kudos (Marvel published 2016) –A book cover for a popular Stucky fic

A Punch In The Face with 102 kudos (Marvel published 2014) –A Young Avengers drabble of sorts, Teddy/Billy meet cute

Express Your Love with 82 kudos (Marvel published 2014) –I cannot remember what this is, I think it’s Stony? Something about Tony never saying ‘I Love You’ to Steve but instead showing his love through actions?

In A Previous Life with 78 kudos (Marvel published 2014) –A drabble of sorts. Billy and Tommy talk to Wanda about their life with her before they were reincarnated.

Putting a Punching Bag in the Workshop was Tony’s Best Idea Ever with 64 kudos (Marvel published 2014) –Basically what it says on the tin. Stony. Tony is distracted by Steve’s arse as he boxes.

yeah... these I'm not that proud of, I hope my other works surpass these soon because these are old and not my best.

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to, sometimes I get overwhelmed and then don't respond for too long so never repsond but... I really really appreciate them all the same! no matter how big or small the comment is (as long as it's not hate)

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

In Paris With You - a Klaine fic I first wrote in 2011, then updated in 2014 (which is on my FF.net) and then updated again when I got back into Glee in 2019 (which is the version on AO3) It's based off of a poem of the same name by James Fenton that I was studying for GCSEs and it just... got stuck in my head. I still really love it and kinda want to continue it so it no longer has such an angsty ending.

Also As long as I'm here as I am, so are you is kinda angsty in a 'Kurt remembering Finn' sort of way. I guess you could call it a Song Fic...

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I've never posted a crossover, but I did, once, years ago, plan a Merlin/Harry Potter crossover.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

On FF.net, yes. On AO3, no.

do you write smut? if so what kind?

Nope. I mean, if it fit into my story or something I maybe would, but I'm not really planning to write smut just to write smut. My ace arse accidentally makes characters ace by proxy anyway, so smut isn't ever really on my writing radar.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so.

have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of.

have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have one in the planning stages with someone, but they're busy and I'm busy so it's on hiatus for the moment. But we're totally going to get back to it at some point when we're not both busy, it's an interesting premise!

what’s your all time favourite ship?

I don't have one! I like writing Hevans (or simply non-Klaine) because theres an abundance of Klaine (and I relate to Sam), but I definately don't have a favourite ship in general, I'm too much of a Multishipper for that. Though I have recently only written Hevans fics... and Hevans scenes... and Hevans Hevans Hevans so...

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I maybe might never finish any of my WIPs at this rate, my writer's block is a bitch. But I never upload something unless I know where it's going enough that I know I'm going to at least try my best to finish it even if it does have long hiatuses in between chapters.

what are your writing strengths?

I don't know, people please tell me I'd honestly love to know.

But if I had to choose then maybe having the emotions of a character shine through my words?

what are your writing weaknesses?

Writing things I haven't experienced, and maybe describing settings or objects. I also have a hard time transitioning scenes, sometimes they go on and on and on, other times they cut off abruptly it's hard to find a balance. Also dialogue, sometimes, I'm too socially awkward to know how to talk to people IRL and that sometimes makes it hard to know how people talk

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

It depends on if you want the reader to know what the character is saying.

If it's from a POV of a character that doesn't know what the person they're talking to is saying I'll try my best to write it in that language using Google Translate (or write something like Kurt was talking rapidly in French if i don't want to translate it)

But if the characters can understand each other and I want the reader to understand then I'll just use italics and something like Kurt said in French.

If it's words like "Merci!" or "Caliente!" or something that most English speakers know (or something they can figure out from context) then I'll just write it in it's original language.

Going back to In Paris With You. Kurt is French in that, and it's from Blaine's POV so when Kurt speaks French it's in French with Blaine translating what he can to the audience in the narration. He's not meant to be able to understand Kurt perfectly, so the audience doesn't either.

But if I was writing Kurt and Sebastian talking to each other in French from Kurt's POV I'd write it in English so that audience can also understand that Kurt understands.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter. It was how I found fanfiction and I definately distictly remember writing a Time Travel Sirius/Hermione fic when I was like 12 that never saw the light of day and is sadly lost to the death of multiple laptops and the loss of multiple USBs

what’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

One More New Direction or possibly Rainbow (re)Connection for Glee

(that makes you) The Scarlet Witch for Marvel.

I'm just gonna leave this as an open tag so if you want to answer these questions feel free <3

[lastoneout]

Yuri on Ice did get a lot of flack from international fans for not showing enough, but they were also working with much tighter censors, and unlike Good Omens you couldn't really wave away a censored kiss & matching rings as non-romantic. People were upset about what was seen as queerbaiting & Gaiman's comment seemed very non-commital at the time. (I think he clarified later?) I'm not saying the queer vs gay thing wasn't a factor but I don't remember seeing anything like that in the mainstream fandom at the time the show was new, only people upset about how the show skirted the line about their relationship. It's definitely an argument I've seen crop up during the pandemic though.

That's fair and there is a lot of nuance to the situation. In all fairness I didn't really see a lot of people saying shitty things about Gaiman's comments until well after he had clarified, because I wasn't into the fandom until much later and it was all much more like...just seeing things come across my dash from the people I follow and less me actually seeking any of it out.

And tbh I do think it's fair for people to think the rep wasn't enough, I can see how it can look queerbait-y for sure, and I really hope they explore it a lot more in the next season. But I also think that Gaiman's stance on it really helped it feel more on the "not bait" side, and I try to respect the fact that he is trying to dance a fine line as this story doesn't only belong to him, and he wants to do right by Terry Pratchett while still telling a more progressive story for sure(not to say Pratchett wouldn't want them to be gay, the issue is that we don't know and we can't ask him and I understand how that can be hard for Gaiman).

And yeah tbh I was one of the people who was super underwhelmed by the rep in YoI just because I was expecting...more? But knowing they were dealing with a lot of censorship has mellowed out my opinion on the show, and I hope in the future the creator gets to tell more queer stories without being silenced like that.

But I did see a lot of people who were complaining in less understandable ways, an who were ignoring what Gaiman said on the topic in favor of just being salty, and I guess if some people want to be that way they can, it just reads as a bit...unfortunate to me, given that I saw lots of other people who were really happy to write like queerplatonic and ace and genderqueer and all sorts of different versions of Aziraphael/Crowley that made them happy and reflected their own lives and I don't want the fandom to lose that.

It also might just have to do with who I followed, not everyone sees ALL of the fandom drama all at once and it's hard to get a full complete picture, tho I will admit overall it seemed most people in the fandom were happy and the people who just wanted to be angry were in the minority for sure, so hopefully it stays that way.

[laruna]

— epiphany.

characters. lim yuri, kim namjoon, etc.

word count. 19.4k

genre. angst, fluff, friendship, slow burn

warnings. mentions of colorism and homophobia, family issues, arguments

summary. lim yuri keeps a long record of epiphanies, many of which concern a very special kim namjoon. and maybe accidentally falls in love in the process.

December 14, 2007. Lim Household. Seoul, South Korea.

An epiphany is an experience of a sudden and striking realization.

Lim Yuri learned that in English class today. Admittedly, it was the first time in that class that she’d actually heard a word she didn’t know. English was the only language her parents both spoke, so it was all she ever spoke at home. Naturally, it had always been a subject that she breezed through until today.

Normally, she wouldn’t think much of it, but today was the last day of school before the holiday break, her teacher has very cruelly given her class over-the-break work. It’s not like it was anything hard, just the simple task of reciting an epiphany you’ve had over the holidays in perfect English to the class. Unlike most of her classmates, the English wasn’t the hard part.

Yuri has never been very fond of sharing things about herself. She’s always found blending into the background made every aspect of her life easier, so sharing a sudden realization that she’s had sounds like it’ll imply a lot about her. She figures that she’ll just make a list. At the end, she can choose.

Epiphany #01: I look different from the other kids.

She’s not quite sure if that one counts. It’s not something she’s suddenly realized, after all, especially just over the break. It’s something she’s known for a while now, slowly having come to realize it after all the little moments piled up. It’s in everything—the way the other kids in class look at her unless she keeps her head down, the way people talk to her in English first like she’s a foreigner, the way her aunt tells her she has the skin of Jeju and Busan’s beach girls. At first, she’d taken that last one as a compliment, but her aunt had run to the bathroom to give her a bottle of skin lightening cream before Yuri could say anything. Which was mortifying, to say the least.

Sometimes she does wish she lived in Busan instead. Even though her father grew up there, he never seems to have anything good to say about the city, always opting to badmouth everyone he left there instead. He tells her she should be grateful to live in Seoul where the people only say bad things when you’re not around, because they’re blatant about that kind of thing where he’s from. He tells her that the Looks she gets here in Seoul are soft and easy on her. Busanians are too honest.

She doesn’t say it out loud, but sometimes Yuri thinks Seoulites aren’t honest enough. Her mother always tells her not to care too much about what other people think, but she feels like it’d be a lot easier if people just insulted her to her face so she doesn’t have to worry about what they say about her behind the scenes. Is it worse than the insults she comes up with in her head? Is it kinder? Is it pitying? Do they see her and then think nothing at all?

She wishes she didn’t even have to think about these things at all. Sometimes she envies her brothers, because they get treated better than her. Her parents tell her it’s because they look more Korean, but Yuri has no idea what that could possibly mean. She thinks her classmates are distinguishable when she looks at them. They have different shaped eyes and faces and skin tones. Her differences are a smidge more obvious, to be sure, but she doesn’t see why it should be something that affects her social life as much as it does.

But at the end of the day, it does, so Yuri does her best to cause as little problems as possible. She doesn’t meet with her brothers to walk home together until they’re three blocks away from school so that people don’t know they’re related and start picking on them too. 

Her older brother isn’t happy about it, but he understands. He wishes she didn’t have to, but knows that it’s better this way. He apologizes to her for the ‘colorist, xenophobic, homogeneous society’ they live in. Yuri doesn’t understand what any of those words mean, but she nods along anyway.

Daniel, her poor angel of a little brother, doesn’t get it at all. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with her. Her heart breaks a little when he says that he wishes his noona would wave back at him when they pass each other on campus. 

Yuri’s mother comforts her with the thought that if she lived in the Philippines, where she’s from, she’d be considered very beautiful. But she doesn't live in Busan or the Philippines. She lives in Seoul. So, being the weird-looking kid it is.

Thankfully, she’s not entirely isolated. Even if her parents aren’t kind to each other, they’re kind to her and she knows they love her very much. And even if the kids from the music program she’s in with her older brother make a couple of insensitive comments from time to time, but for the most part, they’re nice as long as she does her part and sings her songs—that’s what brings her the most joy.

Despite everything that goes on in her life, it’s music that constantly remains her greatest love and comfort. Her older brother, Kyunghee, must feel the same way, because he’s always cooped up in her room with her and making music when their parents are arguing again and he doesn’t want to deal with it since his bedroom is right next to theirs. 

If there’s anything positive to be gleaned from it, it’s that they have something to bond over that isn’t the yelling that comes from upstairs. Over time, he’s even taught her a thing or two about music. She can’t compose anything on the piano like he can, but he’s taught her the basics of beat-making on some cracked version of GarageBand he pirated from the internet.

For whatever reason, he’s been really into hip-hop lately, so that’s what they’ve been making beats for. She can’t blame him, though. As a VIP, she’s kind of in the same boat. The fiery bars and pure charisma of the Kwon Jiyong was too much for a music-obsessed teenage girl to resist. It’s a little more personal for Kyunghee, though. 

Shin Donghyuk is her brother’s best friend and a self-proclaimed underground rapper, despite only beginning to rap around a year ago. He’s not terrible or anything—the dude’s actually gained a good following since he began uploading his freestyles to Hiphopplaya and Jungle Radio. 

Still, Yuri finds it a little bit suspicious that he started rapping around the same time her brother started producing. She can’t help but wonder if Kyunghee began producing to help Donghyuk’s budding rap career or if Donghyuk started rapping because Kyunghee started making beats he could rap over. It’s like the chicken or the egg question.

It’s none of her business, she supposes, but Yuri’s still curious about their dynamic. All she knows is that, around school, she never sees one without the other, and that they’re always cooped up in the music room. She never approaches them because her older brother always looks like he’s in his own little world when he’s with Donghyuk and interrupting would make her feel like an interloper.

Her brother doesn’t seem to mind introducing them now, though. Today is apparently a big day for Donghyuk, because he’s going to be performing at a rap showcase at some club in Hongdae. Yuri thinks that it’s weird for them to be inviting fourteen year-old boys to clubs, but her brother assures her that the whole event is for rapping, so there’ll be no drinks around. So she guesses it’s okay.

“I’m, uh, not sure, though,” he admits to her on the subway. “But don’t drink anything that anyone gives you. Don’t drink anything at all, actually. But don’t be uncool about it, either. Just—don’t embarrass me in front of Donghyuk, okay?”

“Okay,” Yuri says, rolling her eyes. Donghyuk is a figure she’s only seen in passing, but hasn’t actually met. Despite his friendship with her brother, he’s never been at their house, but when Yuri remembers the way her parents’ arguments resound through the walls, she can’t blame her brother for never inviting him over. She also can’t blame him for escaping to his friend’s house after school, sometimes. His escape is usually her bedroom, but sometimes it’s too loud even in there.

Hongdae Station, Seoul, South Korea.

Yuri clings to her brother’s arm as they get off the subway station, and she can practically feel him vibrating in excitement to see his friend. Donghyuk is at the venue early like all the other performers, so they’re meeting him there. She makes it clear that she doesn’t get what all the fuss is about.

“It’ll be exciting to see him in action,” is all her brother says. “You’ve only heard recordings, no? And you’ll get to hear all the other underground rappers that use our free beats and stuff, too. So look on the bright side! Even if their rapping sucks balls, it’ll be funny. Plus, it’ll be a good networking opportunity if you ever wanna go into entertainment. If they look important, just pretend to like it.” She snorts at his insincerity.

“How business-savvy of you.”

Yuri has to squint when they finally get into the club. It’s dark and it’s loud, as one would expect, so she holds tighter onto her brother’s arm in the hopes that she won’t get lost. It was so bright outside, but the atmosphere inside makes it feel like it’s nighttime. If it weren’t for all the yelling, she would probably think of it as calming.

“Kyunghee! Over here!” she hears a voice call over the crowd, and turns to see a figure that she can vaguely make out as Donghyuk. Before she knows it, she’s being dragged all the way across the room towards the stage, muttering awkward apologies every time she bumps into someone.

Yuri’s dizzy once her brother makes a stop, tuning out the niceties and conversation he has with Donghyuk to gather her bearings. She doesn’t snap back into reality until she feels her older brother clap a hand down onto her shoulder.

“This is my sister,” he says, and she waves awkwardly. “I’ve been teaching her beats and stuff, too. I think we used one of hers on your last mixtape…? Her beats are under GLASS. You better get good, because I think she’s been learning more than you have.” 

So her brother is helping Donghyuk learn how to produce, too. Makes her feel a little less special.

“Luna, right?” he asks, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Weird name. Sounds like a video game character.” He puts his fist out. She’s flushing at his bluntness, but awkwardly bumps it, anyway. She’s trying to be polite and not embarrass her brother, after all.

“Oh, that’s what my brother and mom call me,” she explains, “Everyone at school calls me Yuri.”

“Makes sense. I just used Luna since that’s what Kyungie calls you,” he explains, and Yuri feels a little surge of pride at the fact that her brother talks about her to his friends. “Want me to call you Yuri, then? You probably get called that more by your friends and stuff, right?”

“I don’t really have friends,” she admits, wincing as soon as the words leave her mouth, because honestly, that sounded a lot less sad in her head. Donghyuk doesn’t seem to notice though, because he’s practically howling with laughter.

“Fuck, Yuri, you’re funny!” he laughs, clapping a hand down a little too forcefully on one of her delicate shoulders. She winces again at that, but nervously laughs along like it’s a joke and not just… her life. She also accepts Donghyuk’s bestowment of the name Yuri. It’s just a name, but maybe it’s his way of telling her that he’s her friend now. Which is kinda nice.

He seems nice enough, but he’s too brash and loud and blunt for Yuri to comprehend how he could possibly be best friends with someone as soft-spoken as her Kyunghee. Still, she’s glad her brother has a good friend, even if her current interactions with Donghyuk are kinda weird.

“So,” Kyunghee interrupts, having had enough of the awkward atmosphere. “You said in your text they wanted help with sound check?” Seems a little trashy to make teenage boys help out with this kind of thing, Yuri thinks.

“Yeah,” Donghyuk confirms. “They can only have three people in the sound booth, including the guy who’s already there. C’mon!” Kyunghee looks all too giddy as Donghyuk grabs his arm and drags him away, probably to the aforementioned sound booth. In the moment, he looks too carefree to be her worrywart of a brother.

“You can handle yourself, yeah?” he yells out to her as he’s being dragged away. He doesn’t wait for her to answer before he’s out of earshot.

“Totally,” Yuri says sarcastically to herself.

Alone, she finds herself weaving through the crowd again. Without her brother around, she finds herself easily slipping in between everybody thanks to her small stature. She takes in soft lights and harsh voices as she makes her way towards the seats by the entrance, which seems a bit more void of people. Everything around her is too stimulating right now. Soft lights. Harsh voices. 

Yuri’s almost there when she bumps into a tall male figure. She looks up to see sharp eyes narrow at her, so threatening and intense that she almost jumps back. His street clothes help up the intimidation factor, along with the dark beanie concealing his jet black hair.

“Sorry,” she mutters. He doesn’t reply, gently shoving her out of the way before continuing to trudge along his weird, bendy path. She watches as the big guy bumps into a few other people before coming to a realization.

“Hey!” she calls out to him, and he whips around to narrow his eyes at her (again), which she now realizes is more of a squint than a glare. “Are you looking for your glasses?”

His eyes soften, gaze immediately turning away from her in embarrassment.

“N-No!” he sputters, but the way he says it makes it very obvious he’s lying. She really doesn’t know why she’s attempting to help this guy out in the first place. Either she feels bad, or she just wants to be right. 

Probably the latter, if she’s being honest.

“If you admit it, I’ll help you find them,” she says.

“...I lost my glasses.”

They’re probably a sight to see, the tall boy squinting down at the ground with Yuri practically glued to his hip, finding a much easier time seeing with her contacts and closer proximity to the ground.

“How’d you lose them anyway?” she asks, and he sheepishly rubs at the back of his neck.

“It was in my back pocket,” he explains. “To be honest, I didn’t even realize I’d dropped them until I reached for them and they weren’t there.”

“Why weren’t you, like, actually wearing them?” she asks, matter-of-factly.

“I’m rapping soon,” he says like that’s an explanation. “It won’t help my image.” 

“Oh, ugh.” 

“What?” he says.

“Are all you rap dudes like this?” she asks, “Just swallow your pride and don’t hurt your eyeballs trying to look cool. If your rapping is good enough, it doesn’t matter if you look like a loser or not.”

“Gee, thanks,” he says sarcastically.

“Look, I didn’t mean it like that,” she defends herself. “You don’t look like a loser and there’s nothing wrong with glasses. I think the only person who seems to have a problem with it is you.”

“Name one successful rapper with glasses,” he retorts.

“Swings,” she says immediately.

“Shit,” he mutters, and she laughs at him. “Oh, fuck off.”

“Hey, be nice!” she huffs. “You’re a complete stranger and I’m helping you find your glasses. For all I know, you could be leading me outside to kidnap and murder me. Heck, I don’t even know your name!” He rolls his eyes as she points this out, but answers, anyway.

“Namjoon,” he says.

“What?”

“That’s my name. Namjoon,” he repeats, stretching out a hand. When Yuri takes a look at it, she realizes just how big he is. His hand would absolutely dwarf hers. 

“Yuri,” she says formally. When she steps forward to shake his hand, she feels her foot clink against something and hears the light sound of plastic sliding across the floor. “Oh, your glasses!” 

The lenses are thick, she notes as she picks them up. Damn, no wonder he was bumping into everyone. His vision must suck. Other than a few scratches on the lenses, they seem fairly undamaged. Even so, she gently blows a warm breath onto the lenses and wipes them off with the sleeves of her hoodie. Less gently, she pulls Namjoon down by the strings of his hoodie so that they’re at eye-level with one another before putting his glasses back on his face. Even in the low light, she can see the embarrassed flush across his cheeks.

“Thanks for the help,” he says sheepishly, quickly straightening up and pulling away. “Gotta go now. It’s showtime.” And then he’s off.

“Who the hell says ‘it’s showtime’ out loud?!” she yells after him, not ready to give this guy a break just yet. 

“Who the hell wears their jacket like that?!” he turns around to yell back. Involuntarily, she pulls on the side of the puffy down jacket she leaves hanging off of her body. When she flounders for a response, he just laughs at her, a deep, loud thing that booms over the chatter of the crowd. She bets the sound could fill the whole room if it were empty.

She looks away, embarrassed, when she notices people are seating themselves and quickly plops herself down on the nearest seat. Well, shit. It really is showtime.

A lot of the rappers are vaguely familiar to her, and she’s struck with the realization that names she’d only seen online now have actual physical forms. They’re obviously passionate about what they’re doing, and now she kind of feels bad for how her and her brother used to roast whoever they deemed ‘the worst ones’ from behind their computer screen.

When Donghyuk steps up, the host introduces him as Suprema—yes, like the hype beast brand. She shivers as the Douche Chills overtake her body. Despite his overwhelming teenage boy-ness, he’s pretty okay, or at the very least, better than she expected. But the bar was pretty low, if she’s being honest. Kyunghee probably thinks the world of his skills, though.

The only other familiar face she sees is introduced as Runch Randa, and she has to stop herself from cooing at how cute she finds the stage name. She also has to stop herself from rolling her eyes all the way into the back of her head when she realizes he’s not wearing his fucking glasses.

As much as she wants to clown on him, she finds herself speechless when Namjoon steps up to the mic and spits straight fire, his narrowed eyes making him look all the more intense. While he’s not quite as aggressive as some of the other rappers she’s heard, his lyrics are riddled with wordplay and double-meanings that it takes her a couple of seconds to wrap her head around.

She’s snapped out of her reverie when she hears the crowd cheering, prompting her to clap along. Thoughts of Runch Randa dissipate as the next act steps up. She doesn’t quite recognize the name or face, so she lets herself get lost in the music without predisposition. When she recognizes one of her beats being used as background music, her heart beats a little bit faster.

Yuri knows that posting them online for free means lots of people will use them, but it’s another thing to actually see it in action. The amount of amateur rappers, good and bad, using her music and appreciating what she does for them makes her feel all warm and fuzzy. Huh. Maybe that’s why Kyunghee enjoys helping out Donghyuk with his rapping endeavors so much.

By the time the show is over, she’s warm and happy, but also very drained of energy. She has half a mind to head backstage to search for her brother, but the thought of swimming through the moving crowd makes her nauseous, so she heads outside instead. Kyunghee will find her eventually.

It’s dark when Donghyuk and Kyunghee finally come outside, laughing over ‘some newbie’s shitty freestyle’ with their arms slung over the other’s shoulders. They talk animatedly about what they liked and hated on the walk to the station and in the subway. Yuri nods along to the conversation despite having been tuned out for a while now. The only thing in her head is music. In the moment, something about that feels very important.

Epiphany #02: Music is something Lim Yuri wants to do for a long time. Maybe forever.

January 12, 2008. Starbucks, Seoul, South Korea.

Ever since that show in Hongdae, Yuri’s been more in love with music than ever. Naturally, she’s thrust herself into it with a passion, making new instrumentals when she’s at home and working on improving her vocals with the kids from her music program when she isn’t. Other than that, though, she hasn’t exactly left her house. Not until today, at least.

Apparently, she wasn’t the only one meeting new people at that Hongdae show—Donghyuk and Kyunghee had done a good amount of networking backstage, exchanging numbers and starting a group chat with a bunch of other underground rappers. In time, they decided that the others were cool enough to work on music with in-person. So here they are, Yuri and Kyunghee spending their last Saturday of winter break waiting for everyone else to arrive.

Suddenly, Donghyuk enters with a very familiar figure in tow.

Namjoon grimaces as soon as he makes eye contact with her, and Yuri has to bite her lip to hold in her laughter, because damn, this dude really sucks at keeping a straight face. Neither action goes unnoticed, it seems, because Donghyuk sweeps his gaze back and forth between the two.

“You two know each other?” he asks, and Yuri nods, a devilish grin on her face. Namjoon’s expression of anguish only deepens when Donghyuk adds, “Oh, nice. Is he cool?”

Namjoon sends a nervous glance her way, looking like a kid who’s just been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. It endears her, for whatever reason, so Yuri spares his pride.

“Yeah,” she giggles, unable to hold her laughter in anymore, “Yeah, Namjoon’s cool.” His body relaxes at that, but the tips of his ears still glow bright red.

“Hey,” Kyunghee says, nudging her arm. “He’s our age. Don’t go talking to him casually, now. Show some respect.” She rolls her eyes, but obliges.

“Namjoon-oppa,” she corrects herself, and he smiles, looking a bit too satisfied at that. Maybe it’s because now he has something to hold over her head, too. It lowkey makes her want to smack him. Before she can say anything, though, two slightly less familiar figures walk through the door,

They introduce themselves as Hunchul and Ikje, or by stupid-teenage-boy-rap-name, Iron and i11evn, respectively. Yuri finds both monikers considerably cooler than Suprema and Runch Randa, if she was being honest. The guys themselves, though, are a lot less cool.

Ikje is twenty, which is like, okay, weird. It makes sense when Donghyuk cracks a joke about him being a little drunk when they exchanged contact information. What kind of twenty year-old was keen on hanging out with a bunch of fourteen year-old boys and one of the boy’s twelve year-old kid sister? He’s a little immature, to be sure, but passionate about rapping. And that’s what everyone is there for, so she lets it slide purely because he doesn’t seem like a creeper.

Despite being the same age as her brother and everyone else, Hunchul does seem like a creeper.

“You’re Glass, right?” he asks, shaking her hand. “I’m Iron. Our names kind of match, right?” 

“Um, yeah, I guess,” she says, forcing a laugh. Awkwardly, she continues, “My big brother chose the name for me… because my name is Yuri… and that sounds like glass.”

“Big brother?” he asks. “Kyunghee is my age, you know. How old does that make you?” Her cringe reflex nearly kicks in, infinitely uncomfortable at this point.

“Thirteen next month,” she answers honestly, and fights the urge to cringe when he pats her head. As touch-starved as she is, she’s not this desperate.

“Ha, cute,” he laughs. She doesn’t think he’s very funny. She’s always prided herself on her instincts, and something about Hunchul just feels off.

Thankfully, she doesn’t have to deal with him for long. The group all converses for a while, but soon enough, they’ve all kind of splintered off into pairs for conversation. As expected, Kyunghee’s first pick for this is Donghyuk. Naturally, she gravitates towards Namjoon.

“Hey, glasses guy,” she says, and he flushes.

“Oh God, please don’t let that become a thing,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“Sorry,” she says, even though she really isn’t.

“It’s fine,” he says, scratching nervously at his face. “I actually wanted to thank you again for that. I lose things a lot and my mom probably would’ve killed me if I lost my glasses.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” she assures him, but the gratitude still has her glowing.

“I should probably thank you for producing, too,” he continues, “When your brother said you were a 96-liner in our group chat, I was so surprised, because I recognized your account name since I’d used your beats before, since they’re free and all. You’re really talented.”

“Oh,” Yuri says softly, covering her flushed cheeks and wide smile with her hands. Her glee is soon apparent when she fails to hide a giggle, preening under his praises. Her voice goes small when she finally replies, ducking her head. “Well. You’re very welcome.” He laughs at her sudden bashfulness.

Conversation continues smoothly, even if it’s mostly about music. The atmosphere emanating from their little group in the cafe is warm and lively. Even when the barista has to come over to tell the group to simmer down, she can’t find it in herself to be upset.

She hasn’t had many friends in her life, but the way things are going, she feels like she will soon. She makes a mental note to add it to the list when she gets home.

Epiphany #03: Lim Yuri is capable of making friends, after all.

January 16, 2008. Lim Household, Seoul, South Korea.

It’s been two days since school started back up, but it already makes Yuri want to claw her eyes out. She ended up just bullshitting that English assignment and spitting out some shit about how she had an epiphany about platypi being the only mammals to lay eggs or something.

But for whatever reason, she’s still adding onto that epiphany list. Kyunghee catches her adding onto it one night and says that she probably likes it because it gives her life more structure. She tells him it’s not that deep, bro. 

But maybe it is. Who knows. She adds it to the Epiphany List, just to be safe.

Epiphany #04: I like things that give my life structure.

Her mind jumps to the very turbulent, very unstructured family life they have at home, and thinks that maybe he might be onto something. Thankfully, it’s not that bad today, but her parents are still not speaking to one another and shooting each other passive-aggressive stares from across the table, thinking their kids won’t notice. If she had the balls, she’d tell them how obvious they are.

Unfortunately, her younger brother Daniel does have the balls. When he opens his mouth to speak, their mother must sense the impending bullshit, and quickly interrupts.

“How was school?” she asks, turning to Kyunghee—easily the most diplomatic of the three of them.

“It was good,” he says, “Classes were good. Friends were good.”

“Any friends in particular? Of the romantic variety?” she teases, poking him a couple of times in the side. Their mama loved gossip too much. Everytime they brought it up, she’d say I’m Filipino, I can’t help it! Gossiping is in my blood! Yuri and Daniel roll their eyes fondly at her antics—usually, Kyunghee would be doing the same.

But he doesn’t.

“Uh, n-no,” he stutters. Kyunghee always stutters when he’s lying. There’s a beat of silence before Kyunghee answers. Their mother looks entirely too pleased with the fact that after what has to be the thousandth time of asking about this topic, her hunch is finally right.

“Subtle, hyung,” Daniel snorts. “Way to be fuckin’ obvious.” Their father reaches over and pulls at his ear.

“Don’t curse, Jaeyeol,” he says. Daniel shrinks in his seat.

“Sorry.”

The rest of dinner is tense, their dad having successfully killed the vibe. They wash their dishes and clear the table in awkward silence, every action done hurriedly so they can get the fuck out of there as fast as possible. Afterwards, everyone else files back into their respective rooms, but Yuri follows her older brother instead. Fer and her older brother are both in middle school, so she’s curious if she knows whoever her mom was teasing him about. Always too nosy for her own good, she’s determined to find out. Maybe it’s that Filipino blood her mother was talking about.

Kyunghee doesn’t think much of it when she follows him back into his room. Maybe it was because of the age difference, but he was always closer to her than he was to Daniel, just like Yuri was always closer to Daniel than he was to Kyunghee. Her coming into his room to talk about stuff—especially music, these days—was commonplace. He pays no mind as she flops onto his bed, making his way over to sit at his desk and turn on his computer instead.

“Soooo,” Yuri says obnoxiously, just as a little sister should. “Who is she?”

She was expecting Kyunghee to roll his eyes at her like he always did, not quite spilling the deets but dropping little hints and hoping she’d dig enough to get it. But there’s none of that—instead, he presses his lips into a thin line and shakes his head.

“Drop it, Yuri,” he says through clenched teeth, turning around in his seat to glare at her. His tone is so sharp that she can’t help but to curl in on herself. He must see the fear in her response, because his expression immediately softens.

“Look, I’m sorry, just—just forget about it. It’s nothing, Yuri, okay?” he sighs. Normally, she wouldn’t ask her older brother to do anything he didn’t want to, but Kyunghee isn’t normally this secretive with her. Naturally, she’s more than a little curious. Butting into other people’s business was her favorite pastime, after all.

“I won’t judge, I promise,” she assures him, “Everyone likes someone for a reason, you know? I promise I won’t laugh or anything, even if she’s a total weirdo—”

“It’s not a she, Yuri.” He’s turned back to his screen by now, but even just from his profile Yuri can see the flush of mortification on his face.

“Wait, that means…” she trails off and everything clicks. “Oh, oppa.”

“This isn’t something you can help me with,” he cuts her off tersely. “This isn’t something you can understand. Just—just go to your room, Yuri.” He sounds like their dad. It makes her feel small.

Regardless, she nods, plodding along back to her room with a heavy heart. When she gets there, she sits at her desk and opens up her journal, adding another bullet to her epiphany journal.

Epiphany #05: Sometimes you won’t be able to understand what someone is going through, no matter how hard you try. No matter how hard you want to.

January 18, 2008. DGBD Club, Hongdae, South Korea.

It’s moments like these that make Yuri remember that, oh yeah, these rap clubs are still clubs.

Ikje is the only one of legal drinking age, so he’s the only one downing alcohol on the opposite side of the club. Hunchul is sat right there next to him in the corner of the bar, handing the bartender more and more money so he can witness his friend get absolutely shitfaced. Unlike Ikje, he is not of legal drinking age, but that will not deter him from seeking entertainment in any way he can… even at his friend’s expense. Meanwhile, Kyunghee and Donghyuk mess around in soundcheck and Namjoon looks to sit as far away from Ikje and Hunchul as he can get. 

It’s kind of endearing, she thinks, the way Namjoon is so straight-laced about these things, despite his ‘hard’ underground persona. Outside of it, he comes off as kind of a stickler. Maybe a little dweeby, but it’s why she trusts him more than the others, so she pays it little mind when he situates himself next to her at the opposite side of the club so he’s not alone.

Poor Namjoon, her low self-esteem weeps for him. Having to kick it with Kyunghee’s annoying kid sister.

He’s nice enough, so she supposes he’s good at humoring her. Kyunghee would kill him if he was anything but polite to her. That, or the more likely possibility that he’s being nice because this is a business transaction, which makes sense, too. She’s just here to be the producer to his rapper, the Kyunghee to his Donghyuk… minus the lifelong friendship part.

She doesn’t know why talking to him is so daunting when they spoke extensively in the group chat—which she is very proud to say she made her brother add her to last Sunday—so it’s not like they’re strangers. She didn’t love the vibes in there, but they never did anything to make her feel like she was on the outskirts of it all. That’s something she’s imposed on herself. She just didn’t know what to talk about in the chat if it didn’t have to do with music.

She tries not to think much of it, distracting herself with the notebook in her lap. In it, she takes little notes on all the different rappers and indie artists she sees performing throughout the night. On top of her writing it in English, she doubts anyone would understand the references and shorthand she uses, so she makes little move to cover it when Namjoon leans over and squints at it.

“Nosy,” she chides playfully.

“Sorry.” He pulls away with a flush. “What are you writing about?”

“Oh. It’s just like, an analysis, kind of? Of everyone’s different rapping styles,” she explains. “Like flow and lyricism and genre and stuff like that. It’s kind of just for me. I produce better if I know who I’m producing for and how they sound, y’know?” He nods.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he says. Leaning over to peek at it again, he adds, “Your handwriting is nice, by the way. I didn’t know you were so good at English.”

“Yeah, my brother and I are both fluent,” she says, looking down at her hands. “We speak it at home. But like, I’m no good with words, so I’d be no good for songwriting help or whatever. I don’t know. It’s dumb. I’m dumb. I’m fluent in two languages, but can’t speak like… in general. That’s why I’m a beatmaker and not a songwriter.” 

Oh God, she rambled.

Namjoon is staring right at her when she looks back up. She forces herself not to look away—that would be suspicious, right?—despite the probing, unreadable expression on his face making her cheeks heat in embarrassment. Conversations between them rarely strayed into personal territory, especially when their whole relationship was about music. In her head, she repeats the phrase business transaction over and over again like a mantra. She can’t help but feel like she’s crossed a boundary.

“If it helps any,” he offers with a grin, “My mom’s trying to get me to learn English by making me watch Friends. I can’t make out what your notes say quite yet, but I like to think I’m getting pretty good.” Yuri laughs at that, surprised but relieved.

“You strike me as a Chandler,” she says. “Maybe a Ross.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m very offended by that second accusation,” he says, but he’s still smiling. She giggles into her hands.

“Sorry,” she says, despite not being very apologetic at all. “If you ever need help with English stuff, you know. I’m here.”

She doesn’t know why she says that, but it feels right. It feels like something a friend would say.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” he says, “I’d like that.” That feels like something a friend would say, too.

They very coincidentally spend the rest of the night talking about Friends. They both agree that Ross is a douchebag and that Rachel deserves better. They talk and talk until it’s closing time and the club owner starts yelling at them to just say goodnight and go! Before kicking them out. Everyone stumbles out of the door bursting with laughter, with even shitfaced Ikje giggling drunkenly as he hangs off of Kyunghee’s shoulder.

They’re still laughing even as they run through the streets in a frantic attempt to catch the last subway. Yuri can’t help but think that it feels just like those teenage coming-of-age movies, the ones where they go to high school parties with red Solo cups in their hands. It almost feels like a dream, a fantasy that she never thought she’d get to have.

Namjoon lets her hold his hand so he can drag her along as they run, seeing as her short legs don’t allow her to keep up with the others. She wonders if it’s the cold night air or the way that he links their fingers together that make her cheeks flush.

Epiphany #06: Lim Yuri has a friend.

March 15, 2008. PC Bang, Hongdae, South Korea.

Okay, so maybe Kim Namjoon is not necessarily a friend, per se.

Not to say that he’s unfriendly, or that he doesn’t want to be her friend, but friendship is the kind of thing that develops slowly, right? They’d only just started hanging out recently, after all, and the age and gender difference was bound to make forming a meaningful friendship just a little bit harder.

At this point, though, he’s definitely more than a business partner. Maybe not a friend just yet, but more than just an acquaintance. He feels like a classmate, a peer. Her answering his texts asking for help with English homework has definitely helped with that, as of late. Conversations have continued to stay outside of personal territory, especially when the others were around. 

While Friday nights were reserved for rap performances at DGBD Club, Saturdays were for going out somewhere that they could work on music together or just chilling and hanging out together. They rarely ever met up on Sundays, which were reserved for Yuri helping her mom at her job of doing vocal training with the weird musical theater kids. For Kyunghee and Namjoon, Sundays were cram school days, and for the others… she didn’t really care how the others spent their Sundays, if she was being honest.

As of today, they’ve decided to migrate to a PC bang since there’s a distinct lack of baristas yelling at them to shut up. Plus, if they want to take a break to play MapleStory, they won’t have to worry about the club or the cafe having a shitty bandwidth. 

They’ve got a two-person-per-computer policy, and Yuri finds herself immediately paired off with Namjoon. She doesn’t feel like pairing off with her brother—his energy has been kind of awkward around her since his confession—and she doesn’t like the rest of the guys’ vibes, so Namjoon it is.

They’re stuck away from the others, the only available computers in the PC bang spread far away from each other. She notices he’s talking to her a bit more freely. Self-consciously, she wonders if it’s because he’s embarrassed to talk to her around their friends or if he’s intimidated by her older brother breathing down his neck.

“Do you not like them?” Namjoon asks, out of the blue.

“Huh?” she says, blinking a couple of times in surprise. “Who? What? What are you talking about?”

“You know,” he says. “The others. Hunchul and Donghyuk and Ikje-hyung and them.”

“I don’t dislike anyone,” Yuri huffs, maybe too defensively. “I just—I don’t know. I mean, I don’t like them, but it’s not like I dislike them.”

“Why though?” he asks. “Did they do something weird?”

“No, nothing like that,” she assures him. After a long while of thinking, she admits, “I just don’t like their energy, I guess. I get weird vibes from them, you know?” Namjoon scoffs.

“You shouldn’t pass that kind of judgement without reason,” he says. “You’re smart. Use your brain.”

“I’m not really that smart,” she laughs nervously, ducking her head to hide the flush on her cheeks. “I only use my brain, like, thirty percent of the time.” He laughs at that. For whatever reason, it feels like victory.

“C’mon, don’t say that,” he says reassuringly, “You come up with like, five new beats a week.”

“That’s different!” she argues. “Producing is more… subjective? Than words and lyrics and stuff, I mean. So you can just go with your gut to see if it sounds good or not. You don’t have to think too hard like you do when you write lyrics. Putting stuff into words is hard. Feeling my way through stuff has worked for me ‘til now, so I’m gonna keep doing that.” He shakes his head at that, but relents.

“You do you, I guess,” he says. “But I think I’d choose going using my brain over my gut any day.”

“Did you use your brain when you were bumping into everyone at the club ‘cause you lost your glasses? Or were you using your gut?” she asks cheekily. “It kinda seemed like you were using neither, if we’re being honest.” He rolls his eyes before leaning over to flick her on the forehead.

“Shut up,” he laughs, a flush on his cheeks. When he turns back to the computer screen, she can see his profile from where she’s standing next to their desk. She notices something she hadn’t before, and it makes her realize she’s never quite seen him grin so long. She lets out a little gasp of delight.

“What?” he says.

“Nothing.” 

He furrows his brows at her response, but doesn’t press it any further, either. When she gets home, she gleefully adds her newfound discovery to her list.

Epiphany #07: Kim Namjoon has dimples.

It’s an unexpectedly cute addition to the hard rap persona she’s always envisioned him with.

May 17, 2008. Lim Household, Seoul, South Korea.

“Holy shit, this place is nice,” Donghyuk whistles as he takes off his shoes.

Yuri is not exactly thrilled about Kyunghee inviting everyone over to their house.

Chilling together at PC bangs and the DGBD Club was one thing, but inviting these people into her home was… not ideal. She didn’t exactly love being vulnerable around other people, so she considered her house a safe space to do just that. Having guests over makes her feel like she’s in school again—and just like when she’s in school, she would prefer to be blissfully ignored.

Thankfully, she is. The boys are all switching between fucking around on her and her brother’s shared MIDI keyboard and kicking each other’s asses on Kyunghee’s copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii. She also gets to stuff her face, so she supposes it’s not all that bad. Their mom had made way too much food, impossibly happy that Kyunghee was finally bringing friends home. It was unprecedented for him. Sadly, she could guess why this was the first time for that, seeing as he had very conveniently picked the day that their dad was gone on a business trip.

She quietly sits in the corner and eats her tteokbokki, careful not to spill any of the sauce on her notebook as she writes in it. She nearly chokes when Namjoon makes his way towards her, because she can’t quite wrap her head around it. It makes her a little tingly when he chooses to spend time around her even though he really doesn’t have to.

Now that she thinks about it, they’ve been doing that a lot lately. Hanging out alone, she means. Texting each other one-on-one rather than in the group chat, heading out to Hongdae separate from Kyunghee and Donghyuk, going out to PC bangs and Starbucks without everyone else. In the beginning, it was just so they could tutor each other, as they’d made the deal that while she helped him with his English, he’d help her with the horror that was linear equations.

Yuri can’t fathom how he can find English so hard but algebra so easy. It’s very Namjoon-like, she thinks. He’s incredible at very niche things, but he can’t do things that most people can do. She’d never want to humiliate him by asking, but Kyunghee heard from Donghyuk that Namjoon can’t tie his shoelaces correctly. And honestly? She believes it. He strikes her as a scatterbrained genius.

She thinks about Namjoon a lot lately, for whatever reason. But not in a bad way. If anything, she regards even his worst quirks fondly, like how he duct tapes his bag because he keeps accidentally breaking the strap off or those times (yes, there were multiple) he made them run back to the PC bang while they were walking back to the subway station because he suddenly remembered that he left his phone there. Despite all this, for whatever reason, she’s been feeling exceptionally shy around him lately. 

Is this what it’s like having a friend? She doesn’t know if it’s just the fluttery excitement of a new friendship, but it makes her face go hot. It only gets worse when he leans over her where she’s sitting at the table, his chest lightly pressed against the back of her seat.

“What are you writing in there?” he asks.

“Just stuff I’ve noticed,” she says casually. “Nothing interesting.”

“I see my name there, though,” he says, and she immediately clamps her hand over the page. Her response makes him chuckle.

“I thought you couldn’t read English,” she says, cheeks flushed.

“I’ve improved. Thanks for that, by the way,” he teases. That bastard. “What is that? What did you write about me?”

“It’s the same thing I was working on in Hongdae,” she admits. “The music analysis notebook.”

“And you wrote about me?” he asks.

“Yes?” she says, like it’s obvious. “You’re pretty prominent, dude.” 

“Interesting,” he says, looking at her expectantly.

“What?”

“Are you gonna tell me what it says?” he asks. “You wrote about me, so it’s only fair, right?”

“I guess,” she says, flushing.

“What’s this say?” he asks, pointing to a sentence that follows his name.

“Oh, that just… that just describes how like, you do this thing, sometimes,” she laughs nervously. “You do this thing when you rap, where you like… puncture the ends of syllables very aggressively. It’s just funny because that’s how English sounds, but like, you’re doing it in Korean, and… I don’t know. It stands out. I just like when you do it.”

“Oh.” He makes a face.

“Hey, I don’t mean—it’s unique. Because it sounds English, but it’s not?” she explains, but it feels like she’s digging herself into a deeper and deeper hole. So she continues, “Uh, I don’t know how to explain it. It probably just stands out to me because I speak English? But it’s still good. It’s really cool, actually. It’ll be good for when you audition for a label or whatever you wanna do.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I…” he trails off, shaking his head. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to audition or do anything like that. To be honest, I was just planning on doing something behind the scenes, you know?”

“What? Why?” she asks. 

“I don’t know,” he sighs. “I don’t think my parents really like the idea of me becoming a rapper as like, a career. I always figured I’d go to college for sound engineering and become a producer or something like that. Technically, they can still call me an engineer. They can’t get mad then, right?” It’s delivered jokingly, but Yuri can feel the underlying truth in it, sad and wistful.

It’s moments like this that make Yuri realize how easy she has it. No matter how rocky her family life has gotten, her parents had always supported her and Kyunghee’s pursuits.

“That’s shitty,” she huffs, lying her cheek against the smooth wood of the table. “What a waste. You’re one of the better rappers I’ve heard, to be honest. Not becoming a rapper would be, like, a disservice to all of South Korea.”

“Don’t say that,” he says sheepishly, but he can’t stop smiling.

“I’m telling the truth,” she says, and she is. “I mean, most of the dudes who want to drop out and become SoundCloud rappers are doomed, but you have actual talent. You could pull it off, though. You could be the chosen one.”  Namjoon laughs, ducking his head to hide his flushed cheeks.

“You’re too much,” he chuckles, shaking his head.

When he leaves to go to the bathroom, she flips her journal to the back where her epiphany list is.

Epiphany #08: Sometimes hardworking, talented people don’t get what they deserve.

What a bummer.

August 15, 2008. Hongdae Station, Seoul, South Korea.

There’s no single observation that makes it all fall into place—it hits her suddenly, like whiplash, as she’s walking home from the subway station with her brother, like all the little moments she thought nothing of before had suddenly come together to form this big amalgamation of questionable. 

Hands lingering on top of each other for an extra long second during keyboard lessons. Glances for just a bit too long when he isn't looking. The constant stream of yeses, even when it’s for something she can’t possibly fathom anyone wanting to agree to.

Of course, Donghyuk. Sure, Donghyuk. Okay, Donghyuk. Donghyuk. Always. Anything.

“Oppa, do you like Donghyuk?”

Kyunghee stumbles, tripping over the question like it’s a brick placed before his feet.

“Huh? What? Huh?” he sputters, too hurried to be casual. “Of course I do? Of course I do. Like him I mean. He’s my friend. I like him.”

“Oh… you know what I mean,” she says, refusing to push the obvious out into the open. Usually, she’d just say what’s on her mind like she always did, but being wrong about this kind of thing would be mortifying for them both. When he flushes and quiets, she knows that she’s not wrong.

“Don’t tell him,” he chokes out, voice cracking he’s going to cry. He puts a hand over his face so she can’t see, so maybe he really is. “Please don’t tell him.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” she rushes over to hug him, letting him lean down half a foot so he can drop his head to cry into her shoulder.

“I can’t just—we’re mixed kids living in Korea, Yuri, things suck for us as it is! I’m not interested in making life harder for myself!” he tells her. Everything comes out rushed, like he’s presenting a PowerPoint and he has like ten slides left to get through but only two minutes left.

“Hey, hey, hey—” she tries, but he doesn’t let her speak.

“And nothing’s gonna come out of it, anyway,” he continues. “He’s the most heterosexual man alive, his—his fucking rap name is Supreme Boi, for fuck’s sake. Like the fucking hype beast brand. And—and have you heard him speak? He sounds like the guys that called me a fag in middle school.”

“You don’t think he’s like that, do you?” she says, eyes sad and droopy as she rubs comforting circles into his back. His scoffs.

“We high-fived and he said ‘no homo’ right afterwards,” he says, like it’s an answer. 

Well. It basically is.

“Why would you like a person like that?” she asks, appalled. Her brother is a good person who deserves nice things, so she cannot fathom why he would subject himself to this kind of torture. 

“I don't know. I don’t even know how or when or why it happened. I just…” he trails off. Then sighs. “I guess you don’t know ‘til you know.” 

To be honest, Yuri has no idea what the fuck he’s trying to say.

“Sounds dumb,” is all she can offer.

“It is dumb,” her brother agrees. “And confusing and controlling for no reason. You just fall into it, I guess. And you barely ever get anything in return for it.”

Yuri’s nose wrinkles at the senselessness of it all, but she supposes it’s something she’d have to learn eventually. When they get home that night, she takes note of it in her journal.

Epiphany #09: Love is dumb. Cost outweighs benefit. Do not attempt.

September 15, 2008. Kim Household, Seoul, South Korea.

Yuri and Namjoon tutor each other on Saturdays.

However, today is Chuseok, so the club and the Starbucks and the PC bang and all their usual hangout spots are all closed. Meanwhile, Yuri’s dad is home and he invited all his siblings over for the holiday, including Aunt Skin Lightening Cream from Busan. None of them are even from Seoul, so she’s not even sure why they’re visiting when you’re supposed to visit your hometown on Chuseok. 

Fuck Busan, her dad says.

Understandably, she doesn’t want any of her friends coming over to the house, especially when she knows her dad is going to use it as an excuse to get even drunker than usual. Namjoon’s place it is, then.

Yuri’s never been to his house. She’s never really gone over to a friend’s house before period, so when she tells her mom about it, she’s… overenthusiastic, to say the least. Yuri spends a good half-hour reminding her mom that, no, she does not have a boyfriend and she is not going over to his house for Chuseok. They are just friends. Regardless, her mom does her up pretty for the occasion, fitting her into a baby blue hanbok and doing her hair and makeup all pretty.

A suited businessman on the subway even tells her that she looks pretty. She thanks him, and begins to wonder if she should maybe wear makeup more often. For once, she does feel pretty, just a little bit out of her element. But not out of place, with so many of the passengers in similar for attire for Chuseok. The feeling only intensifies when she steps off the subway and catches sight of Namjoon, who they agreed would wait there for her so he could walk her to his house, since she got lost easily. He’s in hanbok, too, but that doesn’t stop his eyes from widening when he sees her.

“What?” she says.

“Nothing,” he replies. “You look pretty.”

“Oh. Um, thank you.” She takes his arm as they walk back to his place. It feels natural at this point.

“Is everyone fine with me coming over on Chuseok?” she asks nervously. “Don’t you have anything planned? Am I intruding? Oh God, Namjoon, what if your mom doesn’t like me?” 

“You’re overthinking this. I don’t see why they’d be mad when we’re just studying together,” he laughs. “Seriously, it’s not like we’re dating or anything.” For some reason, the statement makes her heart beat a little faster.

“R-Right.”

When they get to his house, his parents welcome Yuri with open arms. They tease Namjoon profusely about her, to which they both have to repeatedly remind them that they are study buddies and are most definitely not dating. Yuri feels like she wouldn’t mind dating Namjoon, though.

No clue where that thought came from. She files that one away to deal with later, but it doesn’t stop her quickened heartbeat from kicking it into fucking overdrive. It only worsens when he invites her upstairs to his room, and she can practically feel her legs wobbling as she goes up the steps.

It’s so very Namjoon in a way she can’t describe. Little Kaws figures line his desk, textbooks lay scattered on the floor, and a blue-hooded Ryan plushie lies tucked in his bed like it’s a living person. It’s an instant reminder of how soft he is, no matter how hard he tries to hide it. She grabs the stuffed toy coos at it lovingly.

“That’s uh—that’s my sister’s,” he says. She ignores the obvious lie.

“Baby,” she says lovingly to the toy, squeezing its tummy. “Hey Namjoon, can I lay in your bed?”

“Uh.” Namjoon coughs awkwardly, turning away with flushed cheeks. “Do whatever you want.”

She flops down onto it rather unceremoniously, turning over onto her stomach with little care as to whether or not she smudges her makeup or wrinkles her hanbok.

“Smells like you,” she says without thinking.

“What?” he laughs, swiveling around in his desk chair to grin at her, a teasing smile on his face. With her having just said that, his embarrassment over a plushie pales in comparison. Now she’s the one scrambling for an excuse. She sucks at those, so she just powers on and tells the truth.

“The other guys use like, obnoxious amounts of cologne and Axe body spray,” she explains. Embarrassedly burrowing her face into the sheets, she says, “You just smell like boy.” He chuckles.

“I am just a boy.”

She lifts her face from the sheets to look up at him, hands folded nervously in his lap. In the big desk chair, he looks impossibly small compared to the tree of a man she knows him to be. Hip hop albums and posters line the shelves and the wall behind his desk, and it makes him look an awful lot like a dreamer.

Maybe Kim Namjoon and Lim Yuri are the same, she thinks. Two kids with dreams bigger than they will ever be.

October 25, 2008. Hongdae Station, Seoul, South Korea.

She’s quiet today, Namjoon thinks.

It’s not like she’s being icy or anything. If anything, she’s being really objective and professional about everything—no teasing, no joking. It’s so bad she says she doesn’t want to meet at the PC bang because it’s too loud, and she doesn’t want to meet at her house because it’s loud there, too. He doesn’t get what she’s implying with the latter statement, but thinks it better not to pry.

Decidedly, they’re meeting at the same Starbucks they reunited in that week after she helped him find his glasses in that club in Hongdae. Somehow, it makes the distance between them feel impossibly wider. Maybe if things were this way when they first met, he wouldn’t mind, but it’s all so extremely un-Yuri-like that it makes his skin crawl.

Now that he thinks about it, she didn’t respond to his texts last night, either. Usually, she’d leap the opportunity to talk about her school life or the obnoxious musical theater kids, and he’d give her advice on how to deal with it like a good oppa. He doesn’t really mind, though. It makes him feel like he’s taking care of her. Makes him feel needed.

Which is probably why seeing her like this sucks so much. She’s obviously upset, but she won’t even talk to him about it, and she tells him everything that doesn’t involve the forbidden topic of her home life. Even that she’s let up on lately, letting little inklings of it spill out here and there. Her dad drinks a lot. Her mother’s a bit protective. Her little brother is her baby, despite the demonic energy he exudes. Basic things.

He feels like he should ask about it, but also struggles with the possibility that he might be prying into something she’s not comfortable talking about. He spends so much time wrestling with these thoughts that he ends up saying nothing the whole time, all the way up until closing and the barista kicks them out. Yuri’s working especially hard today, he notices, like she’s trying to distract herself from something. Uneasily, he continues to wonder what it is.

His discomfort only grows as he walks her down to the subway station and she still has nothing to say. On the days she veered into the weirdest, most off-topic territory, he reached over the table to flick her forehead and tell her to focus on the music. But even then, she’d find a way to squeeze a couple of personal anecdotes into the conversation, and then elaborate on the walk to the subway since they really didn’t need to talk about music stuff anymore.

Sometimes, it’d be the other way around, and he’d vent about his life problems on the walk back while she listened. But today, whatever problems he can scrounge around for in his mind feel miniscule compared to whatever she’s going through, if her sudden change of character is any indication. She even refused his regular offer of an extra canned coffee for the road.

She doesn’t look particularly upset, though? Just neutral. It’s definitely an unwelcome change of pace from her usual free-spirited smiliness, but she doesn’t seem to be doing too badly, so he just keeps his mouth shut. 

At least until halfway through their walk, when she trips over nothing and tumbles to the ground.

It’s not a particularly terrible fall, and she pushes herself back up onto her hands and knees without trouble. But then she just. Stays like that. Doesn’t get up off the ground. Gently, he taps her shoulder.

“Hey, c’mon. It’s dirty down there,” he chides softly, like he’s talking to a little kid. She doesn’t budge, so he places a comforting hand on the small of her back. “Are you—are you okay?”

It’s crazy how quickly those three words alone can break the proverbial dam, because suddenly she’s crying. No wailing or sobbing, just quiet tears with the occasional hiccup, which really is all the more heartbreaking.

“No,” she whimpers through her tears. “I’m not. I’m not okay.”

“Hey, hey,” he says softly, pulling her up off the ground and holding her tight against his chest. She’s pliant like a ragdoll, like she’ll fall over if he lets go, so he squeezes her tighter. Her arms make their way around his waist, resting just above his hips. 

The weight of the world comes tumbling out her lips, and he just holds her and listens. 

Everything makes her older brother mad these days. Her little brother, Daniel, the scary one, cries a lot. Her mom cries a lot. Her dad drinks a lot. Drinks too much. Her parents are divorcing and her mom is moving back to the Philippines without them.

It’s just so much, she tells him. It’s so much, Namjoon. She apologizes over and over, because I didn’t mean to break down, not like this, not in front of you. Not in front of anyone. 

He frowns as he comes to the realization that she never talks about her problems or her feelings or insecurities, but he spills his to her and she coaxes his out of him all the time. He understands not wanting to share this with everyone, since it’s technically Kyunghee’s personal business, too. He’s glad that she’s able to confide in him like this. It just sucks that it took a breakdown for her to do so.

“I’m sorry,” she says, over and over and over. “I didn’t mean to dump all this on you. You have enough to deal with, you know?”

“Hey, don’t worry about me,” he says, burying his nose into her hair. “Just because my life sucks doesn’t mean yours can’t, either. Just don’t think about me and my shit, okay? There’s nothing wrong with talking about yourself for once.”

“That’s not—I can’t just—I can’t just ignore you. It’s impossible to ignore you,” she sniffles into his chest. Squeezes him tighter. “You’re my friend, you know? I care about you.” 

Namjoon breathes out a shaky sigh at that, goosebumps rising on his skin. His heart swells at her words, despite the circumstances, and all he can do is wish there was more he could do for her. There’s nothing to do but squeeze her tighter.

It’s a while until she pulls away to wipe her tears. He reaches down and smooths out her hair.

“I’m sorry for crying.”

“Don’t be.”

“Thanks, then.”

“Mm-hm.”

The rest of the walk to the station is peaceful and familiar. She picks the conversation back up, opting to ignore her breakdown and talking about literally anything else, instead. She talks about how her little brother has his first crush and how her older brother wants to be drum major next year and how the weird musical theater kids are, unsurprisingly, still off the shits. All the while, she grasps his hand in hers, fingers interlocked. She gives his hand the occasional squeeze, and he squeezes back without fail.

They part once they’re across the street from the station, subway and he finds himself incredibly endeared by the way she doesn’t want to seem to let go. 

“Goodnight, Yuri,” he says, reluctantly pulling his hand from hers.

“Goodnight, Namjoon-oppa,” she sighs, letting her fingertips linger over his for a minute He watches as she turns to leave, but suddenly something hits him.

“Hey, one more thing,” he calls out to her, and tries not to laugh at how fast her head whips around at the sound of his voice.

“Yeah?” she calls back.

“It’s, uh,” he says, “It’s impossible to ignore you, too.” 

It’s just a simple repeat of her own words, but he hopes she knows that he means them, because he wants them to make her feel the way he did when she said them—needed. Important. A little bit fluttery.

Her face crumples then, so sudden that he almost regrets saying it. But then she’s practically hurtling towards him, smacking against his chest with a force that quite literally knocks the wind out of him. She’s crying again, and this time it is the loud sobbing kind. He shushes her softly. Presses a kiss onto the top of her head. He rarely initiates affection, but in the moment it just feels right. 

They hold each other like that for who knows how long. He takes hold of her hand as she calms down, the two staring down at their interlocked fingers all the while.

She misses the subway in her reverie.

“Just say goodnight and go next time,” she jokes, laughing tearily into his chest. “Stupid Namjoon, making me late. Making me cry.” There’s no threat to it, though, because she squeezes him tighter, nuzzles her face deeper into his scent, practically burrowing into him.

“I’m sorry,” he laughs softly.

They spend another thirty minutes waiting for the next subway to come in, two kids holding each other under the Seoul streetlights.

April 11, 2009. Kim Household, Ilsan, South Korea.

Yuri sprints to Namjoon’s house from the subway station at a speed unimaginable.

When Namjoon opens up the door, she’s panting and sweaty. He opens his mouth to question her about it, but before he can say a word, she’s shoving a piece of paper in his hands.

“The final match,” she recites the flyer word for word. Despite how out of breath she is, she still manages to smile brightly and sound excited. “Big Deal Show. August 23. Be there or be square.”

“The final match,” he repeats. His eyes bore holes into the paper even as he walks inside, Yuri following closely behind him. 

“You should do it, Namjoon,” she says. “Everyone’s waiting on you. You’re it, Namjoon.”

“Don’t say that,” he says, shaking his head.

“I’m serious,” she huffs. “They gave it to Kyunghee to give to me to give to you. Donghyuk didn’t get one. They want you.”

Namjoon looks up from the flyer to see her face, bright and wide-eyed and hopeful. He wonders where all those stars in her eyes came from. They can’t possibly be for him.

“Okay,” he says, grinning like a fool.

“Okay,” she says back.

“But there’s one more thing I should deal with before I go into this competition,” he admits. “I’ve been thinking of changing my stage name.” He’s been thinking about it for a while, really, even reserving the username on a throwaway account so nobody takes it, but he still brings it up to gauge her reaction just in case it really isn’t a good idea. Yuri’s always had a good feel for things.

“Aw, I like Runch Randa,” she says with a pout, but continues, “I guess I’m open to change. What are you planning on changing it to?”

“I was just thinking about shortening it to Randa. No big deal,” he says, throwing in that pun for good measure. He’s trying to be nonchalant about it, throwing a shrug in there and all that. But then she does That Thing where she folds her arms over her chest and looks up at him with those big ol’ doe eyes.

“Is this because Fetion called you ‘lunch boy’ in that diss track?”

“What? No. What? No,” he says twice. And forcefully. It’s laughable, really, and he commends Yuri for not letting even a chuckle out because he knows he’d lose it.

“Oh, Namjoon,” she sighs sweetly, and the way she says his name makes it sound like it could belong to anybody but him. It makes his heart fall into his ass. “Don’t look too much into what other people say about you. Rappers like to diss just because, you know? That’s just hip-hop culture.”

“It’s not because of that,” he says, and she frowns like she thinks he’s lying, which is only half-true. “Really. I just wanna go for a more mature sound, you know? Randa just sounds more respectable than Runch Randa, that’s all.”

“Nothing to do with Fetion?”

“Nope.” He even pops the ‘P’ for emphasis. Maybe he’s trying a little hard.

“I don’t know if I believe you, but I won’t press it,” she says. As expected, she sees right through him, but he counts the outcome as a win.

“Good,” he says. “I just wanted your opinion on it.” She gasps dramatically.

“Wanted the opinion of little ol’ me?”

“Of course,” he says, “You’re important to me.” He says it like it’s nothing, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Epiphany #10: Knowing you’re important to someone feels really, really nice.

August 23, 2009. Rolling Hall, Seoul, South Korea.

It’s a really big day for Kim Namjoon.

At the very least, it’s a big enough day that he’s arrived to the venue two hours early, just to be safe. He leans against the wall as he scrolls and scrolls and scrolls again over the lyrics he has written in the notes of his phone.

There’s a sense of finality to it. Logically, he tries to convince himself that isn’t true, but it’s already taken him this long to convince his mom that his interest in rap was more than a waste of time. He just needs this one shot, this one thing, to make her believe in him. That’s all he wants. All he needs. In the meantime, Yuri’s there to support and believe in him. His own cute little personal cheerleader.

Yuri just oozes cuteness, he thinks. If you asked the honest Namjoon, he’d tell you that he just wants to pick her up and put her in his pocket to take home. But the Namjoon in the real world is not only a teenage boy, but an aspiring rapper with a reputation to maintain. Masculinity is a prison. That doesn’t stop him from letting her hold his hand as she helps him practice his lyrics, all the way up until he goes on stage to perform. She even kisses his knuckles for good luck, like they’re in a fairytale. It twists his heart in a way that only pushes him to succeed. He has to do well. He has to win--to prove it to his family, to have something to celebrate with his friends, to make sure that all of Yuri’s producing and support hasn’t gone to waste with him.

But he fucks up his only chance.

He forgets a bunch of the lyrics he’d planned out and ends up having to pull some lyrical miracle spiritual individual shit out of his ass. After it’s all over, his heart sinks at the way that Yuri lights up when she sees him, even after all the performers and judges and audience members have dispersed. She looks at him like he didn’t just completely fuck up, like he didn’t just lose and give one of the most embarrassing performances in his life. Before he knows it, he’s crying.

His hands fly over his eyes in the hopes that she doesn’t see. He feels fucking pathetic.

“Hey, hey, hey!” she says, her soft voice panicked. Cautiously, her hands take hold of his wrists and, for fear of hurting her with his resistance, he goes limp and lets himself be handled. When she places her cool, tiny hands over his eyes, he can’t help but to breathe a sigh of relief. Though he can’t see her, he can feel her dropping her head into the crook of his neck, breath tickling his ear with gentle shushes.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she says softly. “I’m here. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“I messed up,” he said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Namjoon,” she sighs. “You did great.”

“I messed up,” he repeats. “I was the worst one there.”

“Don’t say that,” she chides, moving her hands from over his eyes to thread through his hair. “Are you deaf? Just because you didn’t win out of all these people doesn’t mean you did badly at all. There was only one ranking, you know? One of the judges asked for your contact info, right?”

“Just one. Sleepy.”

“I love Sleepy. That has to count for something, right?”

“He probably just felt bad.”

“Oh, Namjoon.” 

She squeezes him as tight as she can. What else can she do? Meanwhile, he reaches out, feeling around since he can’t exactly see, until his hand finds purchase on the back of her neck. Oh God, she’s so small. 

He can faintly feel the ridges of her spine as hand slides lower to find its place on the small of her back. He could easily squish her if he tried, so he feels a tingly sort of pleasure at the trust she’s given him as she settles deeper into his embrace. God, he feels so bad. He hates that she’s almost always the one comforting him and picking up the pieces when all he wants to do is protect her from everything ever. If he weren’t so worried about hurting her, he’d squeeze her tight and probably never let go.

Yuri squeezes back just as tightly. She doesn’t understand why he thinks he messed up so bad. In her eyes, he did everything perfectly. Sleepy wouldn’t have asked for his contact information if he wasn’t any good, right? How could he have been anything but? Didn’t he hear himself?

She wishes he could just see himself the way she sees him.

To make matters worse, he seems to have lost his student ID somewhere at some point throughout the day. Yuri spends a good half hour helping him look for it in the dim lights of the club, and it fills her with a little sense of nostalgia for the night they first met. Unfortunately, they find nothing this time around. Seeing as he needs it to get on the subway, he calls his mom to pick him up instead. It’s just the cherry on top for how pathetic he’s feeling today.

Namjoon dries his tears and regains his composure so that his mom doesn’t ask about it when she shows up. When she arrives, she thanks Yuri for looking after her son and offers her a ride home, not taking no for an answer even as Yuri assures her that it’s okay and she doesn’t want to intrude. With the emotional draining he’s had today, she’d rather Namjoon get home as fast as possible, but she’s terrible at coming up with lies and excuses.

“Her dad is on his way to pick her up,” he lies for her, knowing damn well she’s taking the subway. His mother accepts this, thanking her again before waving her off. Once she’s out of eyeshot, she mouths a thank you to Namjoon. He forces a half-smile in reply.

Yuri plops down on one of the seats to sulk. Something stops her from leaving for the subway right away, and in retrospect, she likes to believe it was fate. It was probably just laziness.

In the midst of her musing and sulking, she notices a very familiar figure—from the judge’s table no less—emerge from the bathroom. Sleepy from Untouchable, she recognizes him as. She knows because her and her brothers have Quiet Storm on loop in their house, so he’s got to have some sway in the contestants they pass on. She’d worry about making a good first impression, but she was a friend before she was a fan. If it meant risking looking like a crazy person, then so be it.

“You!” she yells from across the room.

“Ah! Me!” he yells back in surprise.

“I need to talk to you!” she yells. He gulps as the tiny girl approaches him like he’s prey, not daring to take her eyes off of him. 

Please don’t be a sasaeng, he prays.

He steels himself as she draws closer, relaxing as he takes in her measly, barely-five-foot stature. Yeah, he could handle himself if things went bad. He could punt a child. He sighs gratefully when he realizes he will have to do no such thing.

“H-Hey,” she says nervously, voice immediately going small when she’s in front of him. “You were a judge, right? For the contest?”

“Yes,” he replies, trying his damnedest not to sound intimidated by this little girl.

“I need your contact info.”

“Excuse me?”

“I—look,” she says, sounding more and more desperate by the minute. “I’m not asking for your number or anything, like—just give me your work email or something!”

“Uh—”

“My friend performed today,” she scrambles to explain. “In case some stuff happens to his work, I want you to have it. Or get your hands on it? So you have material to hear if you call back. Um, here, just take this.” She scribbles her email into her journal and rips the paper out before handing it to him. He squints his eyes at it.

“Beats by Glass,” he reads her email address.

“Yes.”

“I know you,” he says, “a lot of the trainees at TS use your beats for their audition tapes.”

“It’s ‘cause they’re free,” she explains. He looks surprised at that.

“Admirable.”

“Thank you,” she says, “I produced his stuff, too, um—yeah. Just let me send you my friend’s work.”

“Don’t you have your own music to focus on? Wouldn’t you rather promote yourself?” he asks. She shakes her head.

“He deserves this more than anyone.” Sleepy’s eyes soften at that.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

October 17, 2009. Lim Household, Seoul, South Korea.

As a surprise to even herself, Sleepy emails Yuri back. She sends him Namjoon’s music that she has saved. He emails back a thumbs up emoji. Ugh.

Unfortunately, just as Yuri had anticipated, Namjoon found himself in a bad headspace and immediately deleted all of his content off the internet in an especially powerful bout of self-loathing.

He could get a callback, she keeps reminding him, but he just won’t believe it—so he gives up before he even tries. He psychs himself out of things before he even gets a chance. His mom says that’s why he hasn’t started driving yet.

Despite this, Namjoon and Yuri still find themselves working together, even as Namjoon assures her that he is not interested in swallowing his pride and crawling back to the entertainment industry. For now, he’s just a songwriter that she’s teaching the basics of her beatmaking programs. She relents to letting him believe that, but she also takes the fact that he’s having anything to do with music at all as a glimmer of hope that he’ll return to his promising rap career.

At this very moment, Namjoon is not writing lyrics, and a good dozen pages of his notebook now half-filled with content he’s apparently dissatisfied with. For now, Yuri’s relented to letting him absentmindedly scribble on her left arm with a pen while she works her producer magic on GarageBand. She’s allowed it on the simple condition that he doesn’t draw any dicks or write any curse words on his arm because her mom might see.

“No promises.”

“Try it, bitch.”

Fortunately, he does not scribble any dicks nor fucks. It’s all just mindless doodles, like stars and swirls and hearts and that one pointy S everyone drew in elementary school. The only one she actually pays any mind to is a little crescent moon on her inner wrist.

“Aw, that suits you,” she says.

“How so?” he asks.

Yuri doesn’t know how to tell Namjoon that he reminds her of the moon, bright and calm and watchful and constant and underappreciated, without embarrassing herself. So she doesn’t.

“You’re… I don’t know,” she says. “It just does.”

“What were you gonna say?” he presses, raising a brow. As expected, he can see right through her.

“Nothing. There was no end to that sentence,” she says.

“Okay.” From his tone, it’s obvious that he doesn’t believe her, but he doesn’t press the issue any further. He was a lot better than the others at making sure not to stray into uncomfortable territory.

They usually sit together in comfortable silence, which she’s noticed has since become a staple of their relationship. She doesn’t mind, though. There are no expectations between them. It’s a nice change of pace from the constant expectations present in both their day-to-day lives. His silence today, though, seems a little tense. She doesn’t know how she can tell, but she can feel it. Maybe their hearts are connected, she thinks.

“Are you okay?” she asks, hoping she’s not wrong.

“I don’t know,” he admits with a sigh. “I don’t really like anything I’ve written at all. I feel like I’ve reached my limit, you know? Maybe I’m just out of good ideas. Maybe I never had any in the first place. Maybe I was never meant for this at all.”

She shoves at his arm, pouting up at him once she’s fully distracted him from his absentminded scribbling. There’s a wobbly line running down the side of her arm now, but she can’t bring herself to care very much.

“What?” he asks, annoyed.

“C’mon, Namjoon,” she huffs, ignoring the way he scoffs and rolls his eyes at her. “You’re really gonna let one bump in the road throw you off momentum for good?”

“That ‘one bump in the road’ was my last shot, Yuri,” he says hopelessly. “It’s over for me.”

“But you’re still trying,” she says. “I like to believe that means something. C’mon, let’s see what you’ve got.” She reaches over him to grab his notebook, flipping it open to a random set of lyrics. They’re close enough now to where Namjoon barely bats an eye at this—he is, both literally and figuratively, an open book to her.

Smoothing it out, she reads, my heart is like a detective who is the criminal’s son. Even as I know who the criminal is, I can’t catch him. She blinks a couple of times in surprise. Reads it again.

“You wrote this?”

“Yeah,” he admits sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. “Look, that one is really old. It’s from before we even met, I think. I know it’s kinda corny—”

“It’s good,” she cuts him off.

“Yeah?” he says, surprised. She just nods in response, even though there’s so much more that she wants to say.

She wants to tell him that everything he says leaves her in awe. That he’s the smartest boy she’s ever met. When she writes her lyrics, it’s always about something she’s seen or done or felt—but the lyrics he comes up with are written like stories, like there’s an entire universe in his mind. His mind is filled to the brim with different worlds and swirling galaxies, and hers does nothing but walk along a path already laid down by the cosmos.

But she doesn’t.

“It’s good,” she repeats instead.

She doesn’t know why it’s so hard to say what she feels. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t even know how to word how she feels.

Especially with Namjoon, as of late.

Epiphany #12: Talking about feelings with Namjoon is hard now. Like getting over a great big hill.

March 07, 2010. Starbucks, Ilsan, South Korea.

Against all odds, Namjoon gets a callback. 

It comes directly from a man known as Hitman Bang, the CEO of Big Hit Entertainment—according to Namjoon, he’s a very successful songwriter (that’s where the Hitman part is from… how cheesy) who’s worked with big wigs like JYP before. Yuri hasn’t heard of the guy or his company. Probably some poor, weird indie label, from the looks of it. She’s not exactly sure how credible they are, but when the man sings Namjoon’s praises and offers him a contract, she pushes her doubts aside.

As soon as the phone call ends, Namjoon envelopes Yuri in a hug, warm and all-encompassing and very, very Namjoon-like. He feels like he’s on top of the world, like all the dreams he felt he’d thrown away as only dreams were tumbling back into the realm of possibility. It’s like all his wishes are coming true—in everything, there’s only one problem.

Namjoon has yet to tell his mom that he’s been rapping.

Of course she knows that he does it, but it’s just a little hobby in her eyes. She still believes the lie—well, half-truth, he prefers to say—that he’s going to PC bangs all the time, and not rap clubs in Hongdae. She’s found a couple of his lyrics tucked into the pages of his textbooks, but he bullshits excuses about how they’re extra credit poetry for his literature class. He’s been lying about it for years now, but now that he’s going to get signed for rapping, now’s as good a time as any.

He’s nervous. It’s one thing to confess that you’ve been lying for three years, but it’s another to beg your mom to sign a contract that’ll help you pursue your rap dream immediately afterwards.

Yuri was just there for emotional support. They’re walking to his house back from Starbucks because really, he could only gather the courage to do this when hyped up on overpriced espresso. They walk back with Yuri’s hand linked in his, and despite him never being the best with physical affection, it feels natural, supportive. Loving, even.

“You got this,” she says, squeezing his hand in hers.

“I got this,” he repeats, even if he sounds like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s saying.

“Just be honest about how you feel and everything’s gonna be fine,” she assures him. He doesn’t quite believe her (feeling things out was never his forte) but he supposes he’ll just have to take her advice on this one. He wishes she could just be there next to him, but having her randomly sat into their family discussion would just be weird. Instead, the plan is for her to sit in that same Starbucks they were just at until she gets the text that he is 100% okay.

“If it goes really bad, I am four blocks away!” she reminds him, putting up four fingers for emphasis. “Hopefully your dad won’t threaten to kill you, but you know. Just in case.” Namjoon grimaces, but nods. He wonders what her home life must be like for her to make comments like that.

“Okay,” he says.

Yuri’s heart falls into her ass as she squeezes Namjoon’s hands one last time before letting him go back into his house. Once the door shuts behind him, she practically sprints back to Starbucks, not wanting to stay close and accidentally hear yelling or some other part of the argument. She heard enough of that kinda stuff at home.

She can barely sit still at Starbucks, fidgeting anxiously as she thinks about what her friend must be going through right now. She brought her laptop and her notebook in her messenger bag so she could at least take advantage of the free Wi-Fi to work on stuff, but her mind always strays back to him. She periodically checks on her phone for any new notifications (her group chat with the boys has been long since muted) and heaves her shoulders in disappointment every time there is none. It’s been nearly four hours and he has yet to text her anything. 

Suddenly, the blip of a text notification on her phone catches her attention.

[18:27] Namjoon: look outside

Yuri whips around to see Namjoon grinning behind the glass walls of the building. Carelessly shoving all her stuff back in her bag, she practically flies through the door to greet him.

She practically crashes against his chest, but it’s okay because he picks her up and spins her around like he’s just returned from war. He’s so bright and giggly and infectious that Yuri finds herself laughing, too. She almost feels like it’s a little romantic, but quickly kicks that thought away, as always.

“They said yes,” he says once he sets her down, like he’s still surprised, even now. “My parents said yes. They’re gonna sign the contract with me. I’m gonna be a rapper, Yuri.”

“Oh my God.” She’s in disbelief too, because that’d be tough news for any parent to handle. But Namjoon is the most articulate person she knows. If anyone could break that kind of news, it would be him. “How’d you win ‘em over? What’d you say?” Namjoon laughs nervously.

“It’s kind of—it’s so lame,” he says, embarrassed, but Yuri nods for him to go on. “My grades are 5,000th place in the country, right?”

“Nerd.”

“Shut up. Anyways,” he continues, “The part I think I really got them with was—basically, I asked my mom whether she wanted to have a son who was a first-place rapper or a 5,000th-place student.”

Yuri bursts into laughter.

“Cheesy!” she yells. “Namjoon, that’s so—that’s so cringey.”

“It worked, didn’t it?!” he defends himself.

“It was gonna work no matter what,” she laughs. He shakes his head.

“I think I just got lucky,” he says. She doesn’t believe it.

Kim Namjoon could take over the world, if he wanted to.

March 06, 2010. Ilsan Lake Park, Ilsan, South Korea.

It’s a Saturday night, and Namjoon and Yuri hold hands as they walk through Ilsan Lake Park.

They do this a lot, now, and it makes her feel a little tingly. It’s just walking and talking, she knows, but it’s different. Whenever they’d go over to each other’s houses to study or work on music together, she’d psych herself out of any sense of excitement with the reminder that, as close as they may seem, they were still both getting things out of it. But this isn’t like that.

Neither of them are obligated to spend any time with each other outside of helping one another, but they do anyway. Namjoon ends up talking most of the time, but it’s okay. She’s no good with words anyway, and she likes his voice and the things that he has to say. Sometimes the skip rocks, even though neither of them are any good at it, before giggling at their failures.

Are these dates? she sometimes wonders. They feel an awful lot like dates. She doesn’t know how that makes her feel, but she feels it in the pit of her stomach. Yuri has always been upfront about the things she wants, but with Namjoon, she isn’t quite sure what she wants. She thinks she just wants to be around him.

“I’ve been discussing contract stuff with Hitman Bang,” he says casually, “and he’s thinking about changing it from an underground rap-based group to an idol boy group.”

Yuri freezes in her tracks beneath the streetlights.

“What?” she asks, making a face. “Seriously? You can’t be serious. You’re joking, right?”

“Why the hell did you say it like that?” he bristles. “Jesus. You’d think I told you I was planning on dropping out of school and becoming a stripper.”

“I’m just trying to warn you. Idol life is hard,” she says. “Netizens will have a field day with you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I—fuck, I didn’t mean it like that, okay?” she huffs. “It’s just that—you saw how people treated Nacseo when he signed to an entertainment label. I like idol music, too, but not everyone around us is open to that kinda change, you know? They’re gonna eat you alive, Namjoon,”

“I don’t care about their opinions,” he says, and she scoffs.

“You’ve never not cared about what people think of you,” she shoots back, her mind jumping to every time he’s thrown away a good set of song lyrics because he thought it’d make him sound lame or corny. Or God forbid, soft. “Why would you want to leave? Everyone in the underground scene already loves you. They’re gonna call you a traitor, just like they did to Nacseo.”

“Do you think I’m a traitor, Yuri?” he asks. When she responds with a beat of silence, he looks more betrayed than she could ever feel. “Yuri.”

“Why would you want to leave?” she repeats. “Look, I’m just saying—why would the company suddenly switch gears like that? Don’t you think that’s suspicious? What if they’re scamming you into debt? What if they’re trying to force you into a slave contract or something?!”

“God, why are you suddenly so against this? You sound like my parents right now!” he yells. “You know, of all people, I would’ve thought you’d be the one to get it.”

“What—of course I get it!” she huffs. “I handed you the flyer, I watched you perform, I waited for you when you told your family about it! There’s just no good reason to leave the underground scene to become an idol. The risks are just too much, Namjoon!”

“Well, I—no, you know what? I don’t need to justify myself to you!” he yells, despite proceeding to do just that. “I’m not just gonna stay in the underground because—because you want me to!”

“I just—why would you want to be an idol anyway?” she shoots back, scrambling for some bullshit reason that doesn’t sound as desperate as please don’t leave me. “They’re gonna control what you eat and who you see and everything! Everything’s gonna be different, Namjoon! We won’t be able to go to DGBD and we won’t be able to go out together like this anymore because they’ll throw you into a scandal over some stupid rumors and they’ll never let me see you again.”

“Wait, so—so this isn’t about me, right?” he says. He scoffs, shaking his head, “Yeah, this isn’t about me at all! This has nothing to do with what you think is going to affect me and everything to do with what’s going to affect you! This is all about you!”

“Shut up!” she yells back. “It’s not like that!”

“Really? Because I’m not so sure,” he says, and immediately regrets it when his doubt makes her look at him like she’s been struck. But he just keeps going. He can’t stop himself, no matter how much his conscience screams at him to. “If you were actually thinking about me, you’d be listening to what I have to say, you’d be taking everything that’s happened up until now into account—but you’re not! Why is that? Thinking with your gut instead of your brain again?”

“You’re—you’re talking too fast! Slow down!” she’s crying now, but it doesn’t register for either of them. She puts her hands over her ears, like she’s a little kid listening to her parents fight again. “Just shut up for one second, okay?! Shut up! Shut up! You know I’m no good with words!”

“I thought you were more mature than this!” he yells. “Fuck, you’re just—you really are just a little kid, you know? Seriously, you want me to throw away an opportunity for my family to let me do what I actually wanna do? So I can stay with you and the rest of the losers—”

They both freeze, mouths open in shock as the weight of his words set in.

“Wait, I—I didn’t mean that, I—” he’s stuttering, trying to find the words to fix things, even though he knows in his heart that he can’t take it back. “You’re—you’re not a loser—” He takes a step toward her, arms outstretched with the promise of comfort. 

But she refuses it, taking a step back into the streetlight. She looks so small, hands curled into her chest, so far away from him.

The world hits him all at once. They’re just two teenagers yelling in the Ilsan streets at night. She bows her head down, but he can still see the tears in her eyes, glistening under the street lamps.

“You should go home,” she says softly.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“I’ll walk with you.” 

“Okay.” 

It’s an awkward walk back, to say the least. He’s still mad, and he knows she’s still mad, so he makes no move to touch her as she walks next to him. She doesn’t reach out to grasp his hand like she always does, instead awkwardly linking her pinkies together, like she doesn’t know where her hands belong if not in his.

“We’re here,” she says, stopping at the sidewalk across the street from his house—like she’s not welcome, like she wasn’t lying on his bedroom floor just weeks ago. Weird how fast things can change.

“Hey,” he says, feeling a sense of relief when she looks up at him instead of ignoring him. He almost doesn’t want to break eye contact, like if he does he’ll never have another chance. Still, he reaches into his bag, fishing through the energy drinks and coffee cans at the bottom he’d bought earlier that day, originally purchased with the express purpose of keeping himself awake during training. But this is ok, too. He settles on giving her a Baba Vanilla Delight, because he knows she likes sweet things.

“Drink this,” he says as he hands it to her. “So you don’t fall asleep on the subway. There are weirdos on the train, you know. If any weird old guys try talking to you, call your brother, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, popping open the metal tab and drinking. After a couple of gulps, there’s silence, before Yuri leans forward and gently presses her head against his chest. Reflexively, he places a hand atop her head. No patting or stroking. Just a gentle, awkward, weight.

“You should go inside,” she says.

“Yeah,” he agrees, but neither of them make the move to part. He doesn’t know why. He’s still mad at her and she’s still mad at him. But it just feels right. When it happens, she’s the one to initiate it, breaking away from his touch to sip at the coffee in her hands again.

“Bye,” she says.

“Bye,” he says back, even though his gut tells him not to. 

There’s a sense of finality to it, somehow.

Namjoon turns around sharply so he doesn’t have to think about it, but makes the mistake of looking over his shoulder one last time. She has yet to budge, sipping at her coffee and watching to make sure he gets into his house safely, even though she’s still upset. 

I care, I care, her gaze says. He thinks he’ll know that forever.

But he doesn’t know that she starts crying as soon as he steps inside his house, or that she cries the whole way home, or that when she’s on the subway, she takes her journal out of her messenger bag and plops it in her lap to scribble a pathetic, self-aware message onto her epiphany list.

Epiphany #13: Lim Yuri will never stop caring about Kim Namjoon. Never ever ever. Not in a million years.

What a coincidence that it lands on such an unlucky number.

April 07, 2010. Big Hit Entertainment Building, Seoul, South Korea.

Lim Yuri makes her way to the Big Hit Entertainment building with nothing but a coffee in her hand and conviction in her heart. She’s nervous for a multitude of reasons.

For one, she’s about to interrogate an old music mogul when she’s a fifteen year-old girl that barely scrapes five foot nothing. No matter what bullshit her father has put the family through, she still stands firm with his advice that old men in the music industry are bad news. 

Secondly, she’s not supposed to be here. Nobody knows she took the subway here—she told her brother she was taking the subway to a friend’s house and really, it’s his fault for believing her lie. He should know damn well that she doesn’t have friends.

Thirdly, the coffee enhances every nervous feeling beating inside of her body. She feels like her heart is going to beat out of her chest. Regardless, she’s come too far to turn back now. Yuri raps her knuckles on the Big Hit building’s front door three times before ringing the doorbell.

As she waits, she can’t help but notice that the building is pretty small, especially for an entertainment company. Kinda shabby, if she’s being honest. Man, this place is poor poor. She wonders if they can even afford trainees.

When a staff member opens the door, she tells them she wants to talk to the CEO. He narrows his eyes suspiciously at the little girl and tells her to schedule a meeting ahead of time. When she hands him ₩20000, his eyes widen and he directs her to sit in the waiting room. Damn, really? These people were cheap.

Minutes later, another staff member directs her to the Hitman Bang’s office upstairs. She hates to be judgmental, but this place is like. The shitters. The floors are dirty and the paint is peeling off the walls and the halls are a tight squeeze through. When she makes it up to his office, she’s not surprised to see how small it is. She sits herself down onto the seat in front of him and opens her mouth to speak, but he quickly cuts her off.

“Here, sign in first,” he says. She expects him to direct her to a computer or a card reader or something, but he hands her a clipboard with a stack of binder paper on it instead. The sight makes her wrinkle her nose, but she signs it anyway.

Whew, this is trashy.

“Lim Yuri,” he reads her name off the clipboard, “What brings you here today?”

“I, uh,” she pauses to shrug. “Just wanted to talk, I guess.”

“About?” he asks, quirking a brow.

“Kim Namjoon,” she admits. She’s not sure why saying his name aloud makes her face so hot. “He’s, um, a trainee in your company, I think. Or is going to be. I’m not really sure, uh, we haven’t really talked recently. Gonna need a status check on that one.”

“He’s coming in to sign his contract with his parents next week. It took a while, but he wore ‘em down,” he jokes, shaking a fist in victory. “So not yet, but soon.”

“This sounds like the kind of information that a company shouldn’t be sharing so freely. Haven’t you heard of contract confidentiality?” she huffs. “I came here to protect Namjoon, and you already seem like you’re not doing a very good job.” Old man Bang’s eyebrows shoot towards his hairline in surprise, obviously not expecting the little girl in front of him to be so serious about all this.

“Well, uh, he hasn’t signed any contract with us yet,” he justifies himself. “So I haven’t technically said anything confidential.”

“Nice save.”

“Thanks,” he says, before awkwardly clearing his throat. Regaining composure, he continues, “I can assure you, we’re doing our best to protect our artists, and will do the same for him once he’s with us. What do you think you need to protect your friend from?”

“I don’t know, weird industry stuff that he doesn’t know about!” she says, throwing her hands up in the air in frustration. “Like a slave contract or eternal debt or some weird shitty concept that he doesn’t wanna do, okay? I don’t know!”

“Relax,” he says. She huffs and folds her hands back into her lap. “Your friend is in good hands. It’s easy to take advantage of young trainees, but I can assure you that this is not the case here. We’re forming this next group around him. Because of him. We respect his creative decisions and will be giving him near-full reigns on whatever projects he wants to work on. I’ve heard him rap before, so Lord knows he can.”

“Which one?” she asks after a beat of silence. She can’t fight the hint of a smile off her face, despite the circumstances.

“Huh?”

“What song did you hear him rap?” she asks curiously. “Was it the one about the detective? I like that one. That one’s my favorite.” He blinks a couple of times in surprise.

“Yes, I heard that one,” he says, nodding. “He’s very talented. Incredibly introspective for your age.” 

“I know,” she says, almost boastfully. “Everyone knows except him.”

“Do they now?”

“Yeah. I even asked Sleepy,” she continues bragging. “You know, from Untouchable? ‘Tell Me Why’? Yeah, him, and he agreed, too. I just know he’s destined for greatness, and—”

“You’re right,” he says. “When I first heard his audition reel, I thought, ‘this person deserves to be an idol.’ I didn’t even have to see him to know that.” Yuri lets herself smile at that.

“Glad to know we’re on the same page.”

“And I do know Sleepy,” he adds. “In fact, he’s the one who showed me your friend’s mixtape and passed his contact information onto me.” Yuri’s eyes widen, genuinely surprised that he did that even after she harassed him at Rolling Hall. Outside the bathroom, no less.

“You know, I’m surprised that you know Sleepy,” he continues slowly. She can practically hear him thinking as he narrows his eyes at her. “Are you Glass, by any chance? The one from outside the bathroom?” 

Is that her thing now? She hates it here. His tone isn’t exactly flattering, but what’s she gonna do, lie?

“...I am she.”

“You’re that Yuri?” he asks, and she grimaces. 

“Yes.” She’s expecting him to like, shove a cross in her face or something. Instead, he just laughs.

“I heard you gave him an earful.”

“Well. Harassing old men on my friends’ behalves has recently become a hobby of mine,” she says wryly. He shakes his head, but even the old man can’t resist another laugh at that.

“That also means you made those beats, right? The ones in his audition reel?” he asks. 

“Yes, sir. Every last one,” she says truthfully.

“Interesting.” He folds his hands in front of his mouth and leans forward in his desk, and Yuri can practically see the cogs turning in his head. She can’t imagine what he’s thinking so hard about.

“Hypothetically, if we were to debut your friend in a boy group,” he begins.

“Oh God, I don’t like hypotheticals,” she interrupts. He laughs at her antics.

“It’d be a smart idea to have a female producer,” he continues. “Because if you think about it, that’d be our main audience, right? Girls around your age, give or take a few years?” She nods slowly as she thinks about the implications of what he’s saying.

“Yes,” she says after a long pause. “That would be smart.”

“And we’re already understaffed,” he admits. “It’d be a great help. I don’t know how much I’d be able to pay you—” 

“I can tell—”

“—but you’ll be working with your friend, right? Isn’t that a good idea?” He raises a brow at her, and he doesn’t need to say anything more for her to know that it’s a question and an offer all in one. 

In all honesty, it doesn’t sound that bad. Doing what she likes and working with a friend? Getting ‘near-full’ creative reigns? It sounds too good to be true, even to herself. She can’t exactly say she trusts in this, but it seems like it’s worth a shot. She heaves a sigh.

“You got a business card?” she asks. He seems to panic at that, awkwardly scrambling around his desk. Yuri nervously links her pinkies together as he spends a good five minutes opening and closing and opening his desk drawers again and again.

“Uh, you know what?” He pulls a sticky note off the top of the stack on his desk and writes his email address and phone number. Yuri has to stop herself from grimacing. The disorganization of this little company makes her cringe, but she guesses she’ll just have to take a leap of faith.

April 17, 2010. Han River, Seoul, South Korea.

Yuri links her pinkies nervously as she sits, staring down at the dosirak boxes in her lap.

She’s on a park bench by the Han River, praying to every God she can think of that Namjoon shows up. She’d texted him earlier that week asking him if they could meet there, to which he replied with a simple ‘okay’ text—a very bad sign when coming from the wordiest guy alive. But they did just have a really bad falling out, so she supposes beggars can’t be choosers.

“Hey,” she hears a familiar voice say from behind her, accompanied by a tap on the shoulder. It makes her whip around so fast she nearly smacks him with her ponytail.

“Oh, um, hey! Hey,” she says nervously. Namjoon laughs fondly, shaking his head.

“You look like you got stood up for a date,” he jokes, taking a seat next to her on the bench. She can’t help but blush as his knee bumps against hers. They sit in silence for a moment, as was usual in the Namjoon-Yuri dynamic. Despite the awkward air about them, it dawns upon her just how much she’s missed him, even just by sitting next to him like this.

“Here,” her voice cuts through the quiet as she drops one of the dosirak boxes in his lap. “I, um. I made this for you. And I wanted to say I’m sorry.” Namjoon clicks his tongue.

“Don’t be,” he says, shaking his head. “I should be the one saying sorry. I overreacted and said shitty things to you that I shouldn’t have. I’m embarrassed, really… I’m the older one, you know? I should’ve been the one to apologize first, if anything. I know you say things because you care, or because you don’t want to be lonely… and I get that. Nobody wants to be lonely. Nobody deserves to be lonely, especially a person like you who always does things for other people.”

“Namjoon-oppa.”

“Hm?”

“You have this—” she cuts herself off, voice cracking. “You have this bad habit of making me cry.”

Wordlessly, Namjoon shrugs off his jacket, draping it over her shoulders and placing a comforting hand atop her head. He coos when she leans into his touch. It makes her chuckle softly, even through the tears. She slips her arms into the sleeves, using them to wipe those tears away.

“Sorry for getting snot on your jacket,” she sniffles. He shakes his head, moving his hand down from her head to rub comforting circles into her back.

“Keep it. It looks better on you anyway,” he assures her. He drops a jab in there, too, if only to reach for a bit of normalcy. “And I just took it off, so. It’s got that boy smell you like.” He laughs when she smacks him with one of the long sleeves.

“Suuuure,” she says sarcastically. She rolls her eyes at his words, sincerely doubting that she looks good in anything in her current snotty, teary-eyed state—let alone a jacket that’s like, four sizes too big for her. But Namjoon has, embarrassingly enough, read her for filth. She will very much be keeping the jacket for as long as it has that very distinct Namjoon smell.

She leans her head on his shoulder and realizes she really, really missed him. That’s just the truth of it. She missed him and his smell and his dimples and his weird metaphors and his big wrinkly brain.

“I just want to make things clear,” she begins nervously, “If you think signing with Big Hit is the way to achieve your dreams and stuff, I want you to do that. I want you to know that I’ll be right there with you.”

“Thanks,” he says. “It’d be tough to know someone I cared about wasn’t supportive of this.” The admission makes her blush, but she shakes her head.

“No, I mean like, literally,” she admits, laughing nervously. “Um, I went to their building the other week, you know? To check it out and see if there was anything weird happening there. I, um, talked to the old man upstairs—old man Bang, not God.” He laughs at that. It melts her heart a little. “But, um, yeah. He was talking about how they’re understaffed and had heard about my producing and stuff and thought it’d be a good idea since we worked together already. We’re not discussing contract stuff for like, another two weeks? But before that happens, um, I just wanted to let you know before you sign yours. I won’t do anything that like, forces you to work with me or—”

“You don’t need my permission to do anything,” he says. “You want to still work together, right? Isn’t that why you went there?”

“Yes.” A half-truth, but she’s not gonna admit she harassed that poor old man to ensure his safety. That’d probably be a blow to his ego, and seeing as they just made up, that’s the last thing she wants.

“Then you should. We already know how the other works. It just makes sense,” he says. “And we’ll be together.” And her whole stomach does flips.

Her whole mind is going a mile a minute, then. It barely registers when he holds out his fist, and a couple awkward seconds pass before she has the brainpower to bump it back.

When he smiles at her, dimples on display and teeth poking out from between his lips, it feels like a punch to the gut. The relief she’d felt swell in her chest when she heard his voice is nothing compared to the tingling sensation she feels in her stomach right now. Suddenly, she understands what her older brother meant that night she asked about Donghyuk, and he said some bullshit about not knowing until you know.

She gets it now because she knows. It’s going to race through her mind every time she looks at him. She doesn’t need to write it down, but she knows she will when she gets home, if only to get it out. She needs an outlet for what she feels like is going to be etched into her heart forever.

Epiphany #14: Lim Yuri is stupidly, uncontrollably, undeniably in love with Kim Namjoon.