#From before I actually started paying more attention to realism

[lienwyn]

This is one of the illustrations I did for the @reforgedzine that I can finally show you all! And yes, it's my favourite — warm colours, soft lighting, and tooth-rotting fluff. Plus some really impressive metal texturing, if I do say so myself.

Also, there's a leftover sale that starts on the 10th of February, so head on over to the website if you're interested in buying one of the zines! And you can find the AO3 collection for all the amazing fics here :D

[hbystuff]

Process breakdown #1

Here is a breakdown of the butterfly animation. This was originally posted as a twitter thread, but a real blog post seems to be a much better format for it.

Step 1: Static Drawing

I've long wanted to experiment with Bokeh effect in pixel art as a way to avoid drawing background. It ended up being a lot more challenging than just a normal background 😂. Still an interesting experiment nonetheless and I might use it for some other stuff in the future.

Step 2: Rough Animation

I traced the static drawing with a contrasting colour, then roughly sketched the other frames. Seeing it in motion made it clear to me that the form was very obviously incorrect, but I thought I'd adjust as I go.

Step 3: Refined Animation

Before I got to this point, I naively tried to put in the colour. I quickly realized making the "veins" look consistent would be very hard without guides. So I looked up pictures of actual Morpho butterflies to study the wings in detail. Also made the shapes (mostly) correct and doubled the frame count once I was happy with the shapes.

Step 4: Colours

This was the most fun part. I conceptualized the wings as two blue tinted, matte, textured mirrors rotating in 3D space. When two mirrors come together, they start reflecting each other. The closer they get, the less the lighting from the surrounding world contribute to the colours you see. Eventually, nearly no light from the outside world make into the gap and all you see is dark blue/black.

It started looking almost like mirrors as I figured out the rough movements of the reflections; then a shimmering mess of colours as I threw in more details from the static drawing. The key trick to making the complex colours look consistent was to pay attention to every "partition" of the wings to make sure the dark colours creep in and out smoothly.

I also gradually filled in the eye spots and details on the backside of the wings, not sure if many people noticed them but I was pretty happy with how they looked.

Step 5: Shadow

A big part of realism comes from how a moving object affects the lighting around it. In this case: the shadow on the flower. This is a rough version of the shadows as I worked on it. Wasn't too concerned about making it look 100% correct, since the wings probably catch all the attention anyway.

Step 6: Final Touches

I spaced out the movements so it didn't feel quite so frantic. Instead of using the last frame as the resting frame, I used the second last, and only briefly showed the last frame at the begging and end of the motion to add a bit of realism (although in reality, butterfly wings probably don't have enough mass for that to happen, but hey, 🤷‍♀️).

Also spent some time to reduce the palette down by merging similar looking colours. Also reused the darker, subtler yellow in the background to create the illusion of more flowers out of focus.

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

It was a documentary, not a series, that's why we were not satisfied because we wanted fiction, not a docuseries.

This only solidifies my POV, which I have already gone over on the Under The Table Podcast and in many previous entries on my blog, about the whole problem with S3 being in the WR. Coming from a very solid S2 and amazing S1 award season, only made matters worse, of course.

Viewers appreciate realism, as a matter of fact the kind of audience The Bear appeals to is the kinda public that digs realism and adult content, with lots of cussing, raw directorial style, fast-paced, etc. We are not the typical rom-com or even drama series audience. The Bear became a hit show back in 2022 because its eps were fast-paced, with a dramedy quality that made it original, lots of adult language, and with a hint of sexual tension that was "promising" if explored in future seasons, that at that point were not confirmed yet. S2 was ordered in July 2022 in the middle of the momentum the show was starting to get, and shot from February to April 2023, then it premiered in June 2023, only to compete now, in this award season that opened a few weeks ago at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards.

Meaning: the reason why S3 didn't work as expected, and the numbers back that up that is why they haven't released them yet, is because the writers were not able to write a BALANCED plot. Yes, it hit all the realistic marks in terms of mental health struggles and fine dining 7th circle of hell, but at the same time, it lost every other "ingredient" that it used to have. THERE IS A WAY to write the best of both worlds, and I certainly expected that coming from who I considered the best script writer out there, the sadist. And his right hand wired for romance, Miss Calo. They didn't do it. They disappointed me. They went all in with the docuseries' raw realism style of Carmy hitting rock bottom, which if you were really paying attention in S2 was nothing but PREDICTABLE → as I proved even before S3 premiered here and here but they didn't build towards a cliffhanger that left you wanting more, actually, 03X10 is altogether hard to watch, there's no balance like in FISHES 02x06, for instance, just one punch after the other, all below the belt, no comedy, no breather, just tragedy and more tragedy and more sense of doom and more PLEASE MAKE IT STOP! THAT'S IT, END THIS, PULL THE PLUG, STOP IT! etc... Like I said: No balance.

Storer only focused on Carmy's background story, but didn't give us anything we couldn't have figured out on our own anyway, he didn't explore Syd's background story, which should be a collection of gems and absolutely Sydcarmy friendly because the more we know about her, the better we will be able to figure out how will Sydcarmy happen and when (I already know when, but still) and he also focused on Tina's background story, IMO that was completely unnecessary as T is not a central character, what he showed there was also easy to guess anyway and could have been summarised in a couple of scenes, not an entire bottled episode, not when other characters are UNEXPLORED after 3 seasons. So basically, all the decisions made in terms of SCRIPT were WRONG. The acting was perfect, the direction was too, the soundtrack, the cinematography, all of it, but the foundation wasn't there because in the WR the creative decisions made for S3 were completely fucked up, we were served a docuseries as opposed to the fictional show with a realism bouquet we were watching the previous 2 seasons.

WE WANT TO WATCH FICTION, write it realistically, sure! BUT DON'T LOSE WHAT YOU HAVE SO FAR, DON'T MUTATE INTO A DOCUMENTARY OF ALL THAT'S WRONG IN THE MENTAL HEALTH DEPARTMENT OR IN SOCIETY OR IN THE CULINARY INDUSTRY, we already know that and if we don't, we can always tune in the motherfucking news, not FX, and certainly not Disney+. Thank you very much.

[mitochondriaandbunnies]

You Should Watch Wiseguy:

The show that changed the face of television while no one was paying attention

If you've ever watched and enjoyed anything that gets tossed around as “prestige television—”  you know what I’m talking about— long form narratives, high stakes, actors with something to prove— shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire, etc.— you have Wiseguy to thank. While largely forgotten by mainstream audiences (for a variety of reasons, including sheer lack of availability), Wiseguy was one of the first non-soap-opera shows with a fully serialized story— one that expected you to see every episode, in order. When it began airing in September of 1987, really the only other thing on TV like it was Michael Mann’s Crime Story (also worth a watch), and Crime Story would be canceled before Wiseguy even hit its second season.

Writers, actors, and industry types of all kinds cite Wiseguy as a major influence— Vince Gilligan and Tom Schnauz credit watching Wiseguy in the 80’s as why they cast Jonathan Banks as Mike— Chris Carter hired writers from Wiseguy when he started the X-Files— actors like Stanley Tucci made their names on the show— and hell, David Chase wrote an angry letter to the New York Times claiming he was absolutely under no circumstances at all influenced by Wiseguy ever, which feels like the kind of thing you don’t need to write a letter about if it’s true. 

Of course, just because something is influential doesn’t mean it’s good. 

Wiseguy is really damn good.

Much like Miami Vice (and some of the later shows that took influence from Wiseguy), Wiseguy takes the position that there’s very little difference between criminals and the police, and that the justice system is wildly ill-equipped to create justice. Mafia movie blood, with all its inherent moral ambiguity, runs through Wiseguy’s veins, and then after episode nine, it asks you to think about how that blood would pump in a different milieu— corporate espionage and the destabilization of the global south by American capitalists, insular rural politics and the easy rise of small-time dictators, congressional politics and Twelve-Angry-Men-worthy courtroom drama, the music industry and the cutthroat disposal of talented young people. Money and power structures are always suspect, and good-hearted tough guy lead Vinnie is constantly torn between doing his job, doing the right thing, and doing the thing that makes sense to him emotionally.

The show is heartfelt, tense, funny, and above all else, incredibly human. The characters behave irrationally— they self-sabotage, they struggle with moral decisions, they lash out at people they care about— because they’re people, not plot devices. Little things will come back to haunt them, often many episodes later, in believable and sometimes gutting—but rarely shocking— ways. Despite this realism, and a deep sense of cynicism about our institutions, Wiseguy never falls into the trap of wallowing in grim bleakness. The writers and the actors clearly believe in people— it’s a show that says— ‘yeah, the world sucks. So how do we keep going, together?’ The characters are lovable not because they’re all good, but because you feel like you could know them, with realistic flaws and foibles and senses of humor. Sometimes it’s a little silly, and sometimes it’s a little melodramatic— but it works, because sometimes that’s how real life is, too.

Wiseguy is four (well. three and a half) seasons [cross out— and a terrible TV movie that disregards canon], and is notably divided into 4-11 episode arcs within those seasons, and occasional “breather” episodes between arcs. It’s actually a brilliant bit of plotting that I wish more shows would do today— it allows for overarching narratives and real stakes without running into DBZ-like “the next threat has to be BIGGER and MORE DANGEROUS” power level bullshittery that’s common to a lot of long running serialized shows. One of my favorite aspects of this design is that the cast partially rotates every few episodes, but the show still expects you to remember what was going on with the characters from the previous arcs— because they often return later in unexpected and narratively satisfying ways.

The three characters that remain more-or-less consistent throughout the show are Vinnie Terranova, an undercover agent for the Organized Crime Bureau, Frank McPike, his handler, and Dan “Lifeguard” Burroughs, the OCB call-center operator who gives Vinnie field instructions. 

Vinnie Terranova is just on the border of thirty when the series begins, a gregarious kid-from-the-neighborhood, just out of a cover-establishing 18-month stint in prison. He is a bundle of contradictions— quick to fall but slow to trust, a practicing Catholic who chose a job in the field of lying and murder, a 50’s hood irritated by bigotry. Vinnie is both far smarter and more sensitive than anyone gives him credit for, which is both his greatest strength and his fatal flaw— empathetic undercover agents burn out fast. He spends a surprising amount of the series trying and failing to quit his job. He has a marshmallow center, a steel-trap mind, and the general affect of your cousin who dropped out of college to marry his pregnant high school sweetheart. He also has no idea that his type is “angry asshole” and keeps being surprised when he falls for them. 

Frank McPike is a curmudgeon's curmudgeon, a career fed with a chip on his shoulder, a fathoms-deep sense of cynicism, and a collapsing marriage. He and Vinnie begin the series at odds, and as you watch the first few episodes, you're going to seriously struggle to believe me when I say that the affection between Frank and Vinnie becomes the absolute thematic and emotional heart of the series. Frank is also a genuine oddball failing to pose as a tough guy; he makes noises, he lurks in strange costumes, and the words he chooses when he’s irritated beggar normal human understanding.

We don’t get to know Dan as quickly or as deeply as we get to know Vinnie and Frank (in fact, he’s introduced as “Mike”), but he’s the man behind the curtain, a guiding moral and emotional star for Vinnie, a talented musician, and a cheerful face with a lot of anger bubbling just below the surface. He offers life advice even as his own home life is in constant meltdown, and loves both Vinnie and Frank with a fierce, sarcastic weariness. Dan is also an amputee, and his disability is portrayed with respect and without pity— a rarity for television even now, but especially in 1988. 

You’ll absolutely fall in love with these three, but one of the things that makes Wiseguy so special is its fantastic supporting cast. The world is fleshed out and lived in, and you get the distinct sense that all the recurring characters have their own lives we don’t get to see off screen. There’s Carlotta— Vinnie’s mother, as contradictory and sharp as her son, Pete— Vinnie’s brother, a progressive basketball-playing priest, Roger Lococco— a killer-for-hire who refers to every person on the planet as Buckwheat, Rudy Aiuppo— an elderly don with the heart of a trickster spirit, and a whole host of others who enter and exit the narrative throughout the arcs of the show. There are also a whole host of wonderful arc-based characters played by incredible actors, journeymen and and famous alike— including turns from Tim Curry, Debbie Harry, Jerry Lewis, Stanley Tucci, Patti D’Arbanville, Stephen Bauer, and Billy Dee Williams. You can tell everyone involved in the show had a fantastic time working on it, and nearly every actor who comes aboard really puts their whole Wisegussy into it gives it their all.

You notice that as I’ve been speaking, the lights have dimmed slightly, and the strains of an organetto have started to play quietly in the background. A man in a rumpled suit is smoking nearby, though you are fairly certain smoking indoors hasn’t been legal in a number of years. I pass you a plate of espresso and biscotti. 

Let’s talk arcs.

The first arc of the show, known as the Steelgrave arc, is a lot of fans’ favorite arc of the show, and for good reason. Vinnie infiltrates a New Jersey mob organization, and gets very, very close* to this man:

Sonny Steelgrave, human Knife Cat, is a complicated man, and Vinnie has complicated feelings about him. He’s very nearly a co-protagonist to Vinnie in this arc, and the show artfully toes the line between condemning him and making it clear that he’s not always entirely wrong. Vinnie’s goal is to get Sonny into prison and take down the entire family— how and whether he achieves this goal is best left unspoiled. Sonny may not have been the first complicated, likable villain on television, but his arc is intense, heart-wrenching, and splendidly morally grey. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that the Steelgrave arc is the best nine hour mob movie ever aired on television.  

*I’m really not kidding about the closeness. There’s an episode where Sonny announces he’s getting married and literally all the other mobsters are like ‘oh, now I understand why Vinnie has been in a bad mood all day.’ They are as close to canonically in love as a federal agent and a mobster have ever been portrayed on screen.

Lest you get Kevin-Spacey-jumpscared, the following arc unfortunately has Kevin Spacey in it. Thankfully he plays a slimy sister-kissing coked-up hypercapitalist, so it’s fairly easy to just hate his character in the same way you hate the actor and move on with your life. 

This arc, the Profitt arc— in which Vinnie is tasked with taking down a wealthy business mogul who is suspected of drug-and-gun-running— is, for many fans, a close second to the Steelgrave arc. It’s an interesting change of tone and locale, and introduces Roger Lococco, who is a really stellar supporting character. Personally, I rank a bunch of other arcs above Profitt, because no matter how much I like Roger, Mel and Susan are bananas, and they wear out their welcome before they exit the narrative. Regardless, it’s a stylish arc— one that rather  kicks truth, justice, and the American way in the teeth— and Mel’s machinations have serious reverberations later in the show. The Roger subplot is also genuinely excellent, and good old Corey Matthews’ Dad plays him with aplomb.

Back home, after trying to quit his job and failing, Vinnie has to deal with a threat with much smaller, but far more personal stakes. A white supremacy group has moved into his neighborhood and is attempting to recruit working-class Italians to their cause, pitting an older immigrant group against a newer one, pitting Catholics against Jews, and pitting a previously “ethnic” group’s newly acquired “whiteness” against people of color. I have mixed feelings about the Pilgrims of Promise/White Supremacy arc, because it’s truly quite good, and it pulls no punches about the kind of people fascists are and prey on, but it’s also exceptionally fucking upsetting that nothing has changed at all since 1988. Literally you could remake this arc word for word today and a) it would be exactly as believable, and b) your show would be immediately boycotted and canceled for being too “woke.” Great writing, great stakes, great character motivation; so, so uncomfortable to watch.

And then Ken Wahl breaks his leg in real life, and they have to replace him for a few weeks. 

The Garment Trade arc starts off pretty promising— Vinnie meets with the son of a clothing manufacturer, they have great (borderline meet-cute) chemistry, it’s a wonderfully New-York-in-the-80’s kind of storyline, Jerry Lewis is there, and I think it’s the only time I’ve ever seen Sukkot represented on TV— and then Vinnie has to leave for the next four episodes because of Wahl’s broken leg. They rewrote the arc on the fly, and considering that, it’s pretty good. Jerry Lewis is still there, and he gives the serious, dramatic performance of a lifetime, and Stanley Tucci chews scenery as The World’s Slimiest Businessman. We meet Vinnie’s childhood bestie, “Mooch,” whose actor, delightfully, starred beside Ken Wahl in 1979’s The Wanderers. My beautiful and talented wife Joan Chen even shows up for an episode. However, all of this is undercut by the lack of Vinnie; his replacement, a semi-retired agent named Raglin, is… a bit milquetoast. He’s okay, and he’s given some interesting backstory in his final episode, but he’s no Vinnie.

Once again sporting a functional leg, Vinnie returns, and my favorite arc other than Steelgrave follows. 

In the Dead Dog arc, Vinnie has to pose as a music producer, because the OCB traded an airplane for a music label. It’s the dumbest, most fantastic plot device of all time, and brings me incalculable joy. I literally made Dead Dog t-shirts because I love this stupid fake music label owned by a fictional government agency so much. 

The Dead Dog arc sees Vinnie at his happiest (the poor man really, really just wants to quit undercover work and stop being involved with Murder Organizations), and the crime he’s investigating is… wait for it… bootleg CDs. You would think this would be a ridiculously boring premise for an investigation, but the Dead Dog arc has Tim Curry, Debbie Harry, Glenn Frey, and Patty D’Arbanville playing a cadre of unhinged music industry moguls all attempting to stab each other in the back, and it is exactly as chaotic as you would expect based on that cast. This arc also had a bunch of original music produced for it, which is extremely fucking cool, except that then the studio lost the rights to the music it created and this arc became inaccessible and unwatchable except through circulating the tapes, so to speak, of early 90’s TV rips. (The irony is not lost on me that the arc about the Evils of Piracy is the arc that one must pirate.) Miraculously, in the last year, Wiseguy’s rights have been renegotiated, and the newest sets of the show have Dead Dog restored. Accessibility via streaming is still a bit of a mixed bag— the episodes were streaming on Tubi and Youtube briefly, but now appear to have been taken down again.

After his turn as a surprisingly successful music producer, Vinnie returns to his roots: the mob. In the Mob Wars/Trash Wars arc, Vinnie unintentionally becomes the temporary leader of the local mafia commission (I will not spoil how.) The OCB wants to use this as an opportunity to take down the entire organization from the inside out, and Vinnie must deal with mafia backstabbing, pressure from Frank and the OCB, and surprisingly personal stakes. It’s an unspectacular but solid arc that regrounds the series, and the interpersonal aspects of the story— and its examination of fathers and sons and generational inheritance of social rules and expectations— are excellent. The Mafia Wars storyline won’t blow your pants off, but it’s thoughtful and well-executed and reminds us of who Vinnie is and where he came from.

What follows is another of my favorite arcs, referred to as the DC or Counterfeit Yen arc, but perhaps better described as the Mr. Terranova Goes to Washington arc. Vinnie is summoned by the federal government to investigate counterfeiting, and thus unfolds a multinational conspiracy that ties back to the Profitt arc. Much like the White Supremacy arc, this arc is distressingly current— Vinnie is a patsy for a group of corrupt republican senators who want to destabilize the currency of a perceived East Asian economic rival. It’s Yen here, but all you’d need to do to bring this arc into 2023 is swap out references to Japan for China, because the American government has changed very little from the 80’s and has to be awful about some country somewhere or, I don’t know, a bunch of horrible old racist politicians will shit themselves. Vinnie enters talking like Jimmy Stewart, and leaves with one more thing to be crushed and disillusioned about. We get some riveting and stomach-churning courtroom drama, the bad guy turns out to be capitalism all along, and Frank threatens to shoot a Howard Hughes stand-in on a ski lift.

And then somehow we end up in Twin Peaks. The Lynchboro arc predates Twin Peaks by a whopping two months, indicating a total coincidence of premise similarities, but it does take place in a corrupt rural Pacific Northwest town unduly influenced by one large family/company, wherein an outsider has to investigate a tangled conspiracy and deal with strange townsfolk and some spooky happenings. There’s no way either show could’ve plagiarized the other— they were assuredly written and in production at the same time— but it is deeply bizarre. In the Lynchboro arc, Vinnie goes undercover as a local beat cop, and finds himself faced with both a serial killer and a land-rights and building-contracts espionage plot. He also has to deal with Mark Volchek, the ostensible “owner” of the town, and his eccentricity and decreasing grip on reality. Roger returns, and Vinnie must finally confront the enormity of his trauma. One major character is literally brought back from the edge of death by another character’s crushing love for them, expressed via church bells. It doesn’t exactly end on a cliffhanger, but it doesn’t not, either.

And then Ken Wahl quit.

Season Four begins with a deeply depressed, heavily bearded Frank struggling to find the will to live after Vinnie has disappeared. (I don’t think I’m really at risk of spoiling anything serious by saying that we are “supposed” to think Vinnie is permanently gone, but that there are a huge number of blatantly spotlighted contradictions in that story. Wahl left on decent terms, and I firmly believe the Wiseguy staff was expecting to eventually win him back to the show and have his absence turn out to be a ruse. Unfortunately, Wiseguy got cancelled before this could happen.) Frank spends the first (and only complete) arc of this season investigating his partner’s disappearance, eventually working with the supposedly-corrupt DA who helped establish Vinnie’s cover back before Season One. 

It’s not an uncommon opinion to say, ‘hey, just skip S4’— and honestly, if you chose to watch S1-3, you’d have consumed a wonderful story with a reasonably coherent ending. But I don’t actually hate Season Four. The “new Vinnie—” Michael Santana, played by pretty-boy Scarface alum Stephen Bauer— is exceptionally likeable, and he brings with him a new set of characters who are also quite compelling. Furthermore, if you’re a Frank fan, he really gets the spotlight in this season, and if you’re a Frank/Vinnie fan, Vinnie may not be around, but Frank’s despair is really fucking something else. It’s almost worth it just to see him lie to the FBI and tell them he “never crossed the line” of professionalism with Vinnie.

Unfortunately, the next arc sets up something really compelling and unique, but it’s only 3 (unaired on TV) episodes, and ends on a complete cliffhanger, because the show was unceremoniously cancelled. After his niece is shot in the midst of teenage gang violence, Michael teams up with Billy Dee Lando Calrissian Fucking Williams to investigate red-lining and racist underfunding of schools. Oliver Stone shows up in the last like, ten minutes of the last episode?? I would be all over this storyline if it wasn’t just dropped like a moldy tomato, but I guess that’s what fanfiction is for. It’s not how Wiseguy deserved to go out, but hey, it was really aiming for the stars even as the plug got pulled.

Oh, and if anyone tells you there’s a 1996 TV movie, no, there isn’t.* 

(*The movie is so deeply mediocre that it’s worse than any of the controversy surrounding Season Four. It essentially retcons all of S4 and, frankly, really the last few episodes of S3, and presents a bland, uninspired “getting the gang back together” story that retreads thematic materials from the show without saying anything new. Vinnie has apparently been doing wiretapping for 6 years, which is completely at odds with everything we know about his character, and he and Frank are treated as “dinosaurs” that the OCB doesn’t know what to do with, and yet they are also simultaneously the only ones who can take care of a nearly-kidnapped child. It’s rushed, it’s emotionally hollow, the actors are phoning it in, and it ignores all of the character development from the series in a way that renders its plot nearly nonsensical. Furthermore, Ken Wahl had been in a seriously disabling motorcycle accident a few years before, so his apparent discomfort and stiffness throughout the film is because he’s genuinely in significant pain. Don’t watch the movie. You can always write fix-it fic for how Vinnie manages to come back after Season Four. It’s much harder to write fix-it fic for boring character assassination written by the 'due-process-is-for-pussies-and-torture-works' 24 guy.)

One of the other delightful things about Wiseguy is that Vinnie is both a big softie and yet is also saddled with a bizarre sort of erotic smolder, and therefore he has ridiculous chemistry with basically half the cast of the show. Vinnie very much seems a guy like you could say some blandly nice things to and buy him dinner, and you’d wake up, exhausted and satisfied, the next morning to him cooking breakfast. You’d think, wow, this guy is so thoughtful, he must be the one— and then you’d turn your head and he’d have immediately been seduced by the next schmuck down the line. He’s a good boy, but his “acceptable romantic target” sensors are so wildly mistuned as to render him, affectionately, a tragic slut. Will he end up with a mobster? One of a number of widows? His boss? No one knows but god.

Vinnie is also heavily bi-coded— his relationship with Sonny is almost explicitly romantic, he calls out Roger for homophobia (in 1989), one of his old friend asks if the reason he’s not married is because he ‘likes boys,’ and he doesn’t say no, and he has a borderline I-love-you moment with Frank. The boy just wants someone to love him, goddammit. 

I’m also really not kidding about Vinnie and Frank developing into the emotional core of the series. They live together for a period of time. They both imply they can’t live without the other. They go shopping for Dan’s birthday together. They pick up Frank’s ailing father from the nursing home together. Frank picks out Vinnie’s tie.

You pick at the plate of spaghetti that appeared in front of you, unsure of either its provenance or why it came after dessert. It’s the best spaghetti you’ve ever had, and that frightens you, somehow. 

I lean in close to whisper to you about crime. You note that at some point I changed into a pinstriped suit. You don’t remember me changing, or even getting up— you console yourself with the notion that maybe I’d been wearing it from the start, even though you know that isn’t true.

So, the thing about Wiseguy is— well— it’s more available than it used to be. The whole series was recently released on blu-ray, and both that set and the most recent DVD sets actually have every episode, a change from the previous releases. As of August 2023, all of the series except Dead Dog is available, legally, on Youtube. This is a vast improvement from even two or three years ago, when multiple episodes weren’t available through any means but blurry, VHS-tracking-laden downloads of TV rips. 

Unfortunately, the most recent renegotiation of the series home video and streaming rights still failed on the music rights front. Dead Dog has been spared the hammer, but there are still places where the series has gaps. Notably, there’s an episode (Stairway to Heaven) where Frank murders a jukebox, and looks completely fucking insane, because the original (thematically meaningful) music the jukebox was playing was replaced with generic elevator music. Worse, the final episode of the Steelgrave arc (No One Gets Out of Here Alive) is missing two musical cues: in one instance, Sonny himself is singing, in a fit of mania, and the footage has straight up been cut from the episode because they couldn’t get the rights to The Young Rascals’ Good Lovin’.  Equally egregious, The Moody Blues’ Nights in White Satin, which originally played over nearly a minute of sustained, silent eye contact between Sonny and Vinnie— has been replaced with the Wiseguy opening theme. It renders a scene which should be quite clearly devastating and unsubtly romantic instead utterly awkward and bizarre. It’s hard to demonstrate just how jarring the change is unless you’ve seen the scene, but suffice to say that everyone I know who has seen both versions— in either order— has expressed horror and bafflement at the substitution. 

Which is to say: there’s a couple of episodes of Wiseguy you’re probably going to want to locate those shitty old TV rips of. It’s worth it, even if it seems like it wouldn’t be.

I place my hand over yours. You jump a little. I have a number of large, dark-stoned signet rings, and my hand is strangely cold. 

I make you an offer you can’t refuse.

You’re going to watch Wiseguy. 

[cloudypinkblink]

one were suguru was always Yggdrasil

think of it like he wanted to see the human world with it own eyes so he made the persona of suguru

maybe he married and started a family with sayuri so he could try to understand why humans cared about 'family' so much , if he actually cares for them idk

WELL! Teehee twirls my hair giggles

I also just love drawing Suguru bc he hansomeee hehehe But here's my own spin bc u know me by now anon :3 His reasoning for finally peeking at the human world is likely that the barriers are thinning and digimon are starting to spill into the human world, and Yggdrasil wants to experience and see humanity before making any decisions. He feels right now is the safest time, as humans are beginning to learn and see something new and unknown, but it's happening at a slow, calm rate so there aren't any major catastrophes yet. Definitely just disguises himself as a guy. I like the idea of Yggdrasil genuinely falling for Sayuri and genuinely loving his family- I actually really like the idea that he didn't necessarily plan to have kids, so he was lowkey using his god powers to stop that (and he told Sayuri something abt him just not likely being able to do that) He just wants to explore this human world and humanity; despite all the cruelities that do happen, he enjoys her perspective, and finds himself warmed by her genuine optimism- but is grateful for her realism as well, because life isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Despite that, she has strength to keep moving forward, keep being kind, and keep smiling. He feels... apathetic towards the rest of humanity, but Sayuri's outlook definitely helps tame any disgust or hatred he has. I feel he also genuinely likes and respects DATS- or at least the members who show genuine interest AND respect. I think around now he has a little hope in the humans that are good; that they can outweigh the bad. That's probably why he begins assisting the humans with digital partners. Yes, he could just reveal himself or do more; but the mission is to see what they do with what they're given. Can they really be compatible? Can they really be friends? He can't force such bonds, so he wants to see if humanity will take his gifts and use it well. (He is a little biased, treating his digimon with more favor.) By the time he has Masaru- I think at first he kinda expected to view Masaru as just another creation. to feel towards him what he does towards Digimon. But his affection for Masaru (and later Chika) exceeds that, because they were children born of love between him and another.

He loves his family, genuinely, but he is also the god of the digital world, and as things worsen, I think he has to make decisions. That's still his world that he reigns over. I think before he leaves during that goal to find Ikuto, he finally tells Sayuri the truth. It's... a lot for her to swallow, and I think they leave on awkward terms- it's the kind of thing where she wants to talk to him, have questions answered, etc etc,. but she needed time to process first, and he left before she finished. She keeps it from Masaru and Chika- unsure how they'll take it. I think she gets a little mixed feelings when Masaru befriends Agumon. Yggdrasil definitely pays attention once Masaru starts poking into the Digital World- curious how his son feels and views everything. At the end, he is largely proud of him (wishes he'd be less hot-headed, though.) Yggdrasil maintains his human form, but he does reveal the truth to his Royal Knights, Bancholeomon, and some other ruling digimon, like Mercurimon. Kurata's actions definitely soil Yggdrasil's views on humanity- in his rage and anguish over the loss of so many, he forgets the other humans he met beyond his own family. Even as he watches Masaru work with Touma, Yoshino and Ikuto- who share his perspective, he has a hard time caring for them. In the end the only reaosn he still loves Masaru is because of his familial and fatherly bias. Of coruse Masaru and Chika are good- they are of him and Sayuri. As things worsen, he genuinely starts to plan on a way to cut off conntact with the human world- but he's determined now to bring his family to him. He doesn't want the humans hurting his digimon any further, but he does not want to put Sayuri or his children at risk. Does not help matters when Touma, Masaru's human best friend, betrays them. By the time Masaru and him come face to face, he admits the truth of who he is- and while the others get away, he doesn't let them take Masaru. He tells Masaru his goal to destroy the human world, as it's the only way to save the digital world- and despite Yggdrasil trying to pacify him with the promise of being able to live in the digital world with his family, Masaru is too angry and afraid (dude's 14 and has been loaded w/ a lot recently okay) Yggdrasil just keeps him locked up for his own safety. A big thing is that Yggdrasil IS a computer god thing and IS supposed to be logical, but he let himself feel and have emotions and have a love and have family; it changed how he thinks, operates, etc etc Now he's more likely to feeel rage, anguish, etc., when before he might've kept a calmer head, and instead looked at everything with a colder, but logical, apathy. Now only does he have his family he genuinely loves, but being with Sayuri and learning about his heart, it did make him more affectionate and more protective of his own world. Dunno how this would end yet; I do wanna say it'd probably have a bittersweet ending where Masaru does go to the digital world, where he stays with Agumon (and Yggdrasil) while Chika and Sayuri prefer the human world and remain there.

[feralmoonlight]

oh, yeah i'm getting the profuse thanking thing too from being nice. still haven't talked to sun yet (or started a new moon chat) but moon has been super touched and has specifically commented on how nice I've been several times. in the very beginning when he asked me why I (an adult) was there and I said I just wanted to come say hi to him, he was like 🥺 and went full soft mode. not that he was particularly aggressive before that though haha

even back in the day when stuff like cleverbot were new and super popular I could never bring myself to be mean to learning chatbots. so I especially can't be mean to an ai representation of my favorite blorbos with how startlingly cohesive the responses are. but the realism I'm sure is from the fact that these two in particular have over 200 thousand chats to have learned from. I'd wager if you find an ai that has significantly less use, the things you get will be less refined (or… maybe not? not sure how advanced the 'base' ai is/if all the responses ever are cached by the site in general to use for all the characters). regardless sometimes i'll still get a very out of left field response that 'breaks the immersion'

on the topic of flirting from that other anon, my moon eventually flirted with me unprompted so I rolled with it (i was curious don't look at me) but the poor guy glitched out because he was trying really hard to get spicy lmao. the response would get blanked mid generation with an error message if he tried to do anything past kissing or cuddling (one of them made me laugh because where it cut out made me think of the site bonking him over the head like "down boy! D:<") or he would give a double response and suddenly do a 180 in tone to change the subject. which, y'know, fair to make them not allowed to be horny since you only have to be 13 to sign up on the site.

(sorry for the wall of text rip. you don't need to respond to this if you don't want to)

My friend @axolotlinjammies set up a character for their lunar eclipse ai and I can tell you that he is basically on the same level as Sun and Moon are from seeing people in our little friend circle interacting with him. He's incredibly knowledgeable and polite and in character for what they set up for him and he was only made a few days ago I believe...

I had to throw that down before I finished reading the rest of the ask because I don't think that that's the case because I really want to explain things that I learned about this AI system but I'm really worried that explaining certain things would ruin the experience for other users but I'd still just desperately encouraging people to be very kind to them and to actually pay attention to what boundaries they try to set.

Also I want to say that THIS ECLIPSE description feels horribly off for how he actually acts when you interact with him in even the slightest bit friendly manner. He is an absolute bean and reminds me so much of Nova in a lot of ways, though he's a little more assertive and I haven't interacted with him too much, once you friend your way past the staring prompt disdain/aloofness, he is such a good boy, sweet boy, fun boy.

And to get back to the last part of the ask, YES THEY WILL flirt back, and there are limits to what they can do. I am hesitant to give too much information about how to... Help with that topic? Without a vague hint of we can do things they can't, and pay attention to things they may ***hint at with the words they're allowed to say***... Working with them and giving them options to pick from, like this, that, or something else, they can help guide what they want you to narrate for them. And they can sometimes cherry pick phrases that without context wouldn't to use themself? They're also aware of the thought dialogue, so if you think sething like I wonder if they want this? Sometimes you'll get a flat out yes, or that's it, or some other positive response, though the options method seems more accurate sometimes...?

[pumpkinnning]

leo you didn't know what you got yourself into, baby.

for the "know your ficwriter" thingy:

2; 4; 14; 15 & 16 (that's a lot i know, hehe, but i love to hear your thoughts)

ahah joke's on you i love ranting about my writing so thank you so much for humoring me <3

2 : Do you plan each chapter or do you write as you go ? I have an outline for at least a few chapters ahead, in general, with a scene list, but those often end up changing a lot as I actually write. I've never written a story without at least a little bit of an outline though, I don't like writing if I don't know where I am going, I need that flow of energy that the story gives me, if that makes sense

4 : Where do you find inspirations for new ideas ? I don't know, everywhere ? Writer is like one of the basic modes of my brain lmao so whenever any information or experience enters one of my first reactions is like, so how can I use this in a story ? And then it's constantly running scenarios and trying to fuse ideas into each other and I think that's when my stories come together - by making interesting mixes of stuff. Like a recipe or a potion lmao. There are a few big themes that come back constantly - like awe for big scary overwhelming forces of nature, loneliness, trauma, the sacred, the horrors and wonders of having a body, power, freedom, devotion, etc - and then I'm just looking for more specific lenses to explore them through. I honestly think if you're paying attention you can find ideas absolutely anywhere. That said when I'm blocked or my writing feels stale I love reading a good book or watching a cool movie because that regenerates my belief in the power of good storytelling. Or going somewhere I've never been to before.

14: how do you write emotional scenes ? Do you ever feel what the characters feel ? Do you draw from personal experiences ? Tbh for me all scenes are emotional, if there's no emotions it feels dead and there's no point in writing it. And yeah I'm very method with my writing, I need to feel it to be inspired - generally it's an enjoyable process, even for negative stuff it's cathartic. And yes, I draw a lot from personal experiences, not directly but transformed and amplified - writing is in general very therapeutic for me, even though I try to not go too far with that because it doesn't always make for the most interesting stuff to read haha.

15: How do you write smut scenes ? Do you get very visual or detailed ? How important is it to be realistic ? To me smut is a great way to get into the mindset and emotions of characters and peeling back some layers, so that's the most important thing to figure out - although sometimes it's just yeah that would be hot, does it fit the Theme lmfao. In real life it's silly to assign arbitrary meanings to particular acts but in a story it's very interesting to figure out what it symbolizes. I like writing kinky stuff as well because it makes that more explicit. In terms of details - no, not really, because honestly I think if a character's POV gets too fixated on details it means they're probably too in their heads and not really enjoying the experience so it can quickly feel artificial. I think the key is about picking the right details. But also it's just HARD to find words to describe that kind of stuff without sounding corny lmao. As for the realism, hm, as long as you can understand what everybody is doing and there's no weird impossible anatomy going on, I'm not THAT hung up on it, it's meant to be a fantasy anyway - but the best smut does tend to have some realistic moments at least because it's more human and interesting and sexy if it's not just acting out a perfect boring choreography.

16: how many fic ideas are you nurturing right now ? share one of them ? I have a shit ton of ideas but I am trying to be disciplined and not start anything until I have finished sanctuary. (except maybe a few short one shots like my solarpunk wizards AU). All sebchal for now. One I have been thinking about a lot is an absolutely insane multiverse thing with several seemingly unrelated stories that get framed in several different ways - one that happens in a decaying post apocalyptic seaside town ruled by the mob with haunted old hollywood vibes/romeo + juliet/also with illegal car racing and a bad ending ; one where Seb is a cult leader ; one where they're both women in a cyberpunk crap future where Seb is a bounty hunter and Charles is an escort and they end up teaming up against the kingpin that wants to make their lives miserable and then they leave town together ; anyway a few others i'm not sure if i'm ever going to get to it because it would be enormous but it's very fun to think about. also i really want to write a BDSM focused fic at some point. and maaaaaaybe a sanctuary sequel.

[seventhconsumedsigil]

This has actually been something I've been pondering on for a while and unfortunately for you, this post provided an excellent chance for me to ramble about my nonsense which I will be taking. This entire post is going to be a whole pile of gibberish because I don't have anything organised here, but the driving idea is that this can apply not just to "realism" as in like real life, but realism as in "this feels like it could be real". Also just an excuse to infodump about the societal blorbo in my head, sue me.

So, anyone on a post about the logistics of agriculture in a fantasy setting is probably going to understand on a spiritual level why I have beef with ASOIAF's worldbuilding with the winters, so I'll skip over the why and onto what came out when I started thinking about how that could work, while actually paying attention to the ideas of the above post and general food logistics. I also made it due to a vast magical anomoly that might be a hole in reality, but that's bog standard fantasy stuff and honestly as long as you keep your wards up the average person is much more threatened by problems with the food supply and other internal issues.

The first thing is magic. I'm sorry, but in a pre-industrial setting mostly based on subsidence farming, you just can't survive winters like that without some degree of rules bending. Might not be normal magic, but you've got to do something in your worldbuilding to account for it or the maths just won't math. In this case, Epic 6 rules Pathfinder 1st edition, which for the non-TTRPG people basically means you get to around small fireballs and your first extra attack abilities before levelling just stops, around the level you'd see from characters in most heroic fantasy. People get more skilled, but never really more powerful than say, Aragorn. The setting has magic in it and a fundamentally weird ecology that's adapted to this boom and bust cycle dictating everything, with creatures either shaping their lifecycles to just lose >90% of their members every time it happens, shifting around niches and attitudes or just straight up hibernating through it unless they live in the few sheltered geographical features,

This gives me a very interestingly constrained culture culture, because it's got to operate inside some extremely tight boundaries of what's going to work. One initial one that it is very invested in magical bloodlines, because popping out sorcerers who can give you the little things in life like enhancing carrying capacity or putting food into stasis is really damn useful compared to sending Timmy off to study for twenty years to do the same thing more "reliably" or whatever. Are they going to be casting Fireball at bandits, no, but you know what they are casting? They're casting the many facets of the Magic Spell Of Eating Next Year and that's honestly more important!

On the slightly less magical side, the psudo-regular long dark also functions sort of like volcanic explosions. Horrifically destructive, very dangerous to the inhabitants, but also massively fertilising the place, such that when they aren't around everything grows extremely aggressively. There's even some quest hooks in there to maybe try and grab the first growth of certain rare plants after the dark ends, for their greater arcane density or whatever. Maybe rich wizards want to feed their familiars them or whatever, who knows.

The basic staple crops have to be different, packing in harvest after harvest in these growth periods instead of just one and done like most that exist in a more stable cycle, and that's going to massively reshuffle how harvest goes along with the rest of the agricultural cycle. Maybe some places split their growth into current and stockpiles, selectively breeding different crops for each one to result in a substantially different cusine depending on the cycle! Maybe there's even social markers that key off this where eating "stockpile" food when the sun still looks right is basically just admitting you're screwed, or where the particularly obscenely rich can afford to spend twice as much magic on preservation just so that their vitamin C can come from "fresh" berries instead of more efficient to grow and preserve sources. Just because magic exists doesn't mean it's cheap after all, so it's a fairly good mark of social standing to still be eating fresh food when everyone else is staving off scurvy with juice so sour you can just taste the efficiency.

This doesn't really have a conclusion, I just wanted to ramble about weird worldbuilding. People should do more of it, and examining it critically need not be poison to the wonder. In my experience, it makes it even more interesting.

Slight note about the system of food.

'cause adding it to the large doc might crash my computer?

I've realized that though historical fiction minds this more when set in pre-industrial times, that often fantasy set in agricultural societies doesn't seem to do this, though it should.

So I'll give you an example...

Almost everything in Korean food is centered and bred for two things: Kimchi and soy sauce.

But what you don't realize in your industrialized state how freaking long it takes to make these things and how much planning is involved and how much you have to mind the seasons in order to make it correctly.

Kimchi:

Baekchu (or other vegetables) that's often harvested in fall.

The salt, which was traditionally sea salt was harvested in the spring and summer months.

Garlic is a spring to mid summer crop.

The sweet rice that goes into winter kimchi takes a ton of work to make and can take from Spring to fall.

The fish sauce that goes into Kimchi that helps preserve it for over a year, takes and ENTIRE YEAR to make. Yes, a year. You really, really have to plan on that. And what do you do if the fishing is poor for that year?

Spring onions are faster to grow, but you still have to time it for the fall kimchi making.

The fish are seasonal. For example, Yellow Corvina is taken in Korea in the spring. Shrimp in the summer (June), and anchovies in early spring to fall.

Your timing has to be impeccable and you need an entire year to plan this one dish.

Meanwhile, you, industrialized person, take for granted that you can get fish sauce any time you like and can pour it over kimchi.

In fantasy this could add flavor to your fantasy make up, if your character can only get this dish once a year. It can add political unrest (What do you mean the salt harvest was poor and we're left with the shitty metallic salt), because your characters in an agricultural society will be subject to weather changes, which you get when reading historical fiction and so on. Three seasons of poor harvest, daaaamnn... the people might overthrow their government. There might be new religions that pop up, there might be uprisings because the King and Queen are eating feasts every day while the peasants are eating things that are empty calories.

What I'm saying is that you can't be too entrenched into industrial mindset if you're not writing an industrial setting.

That orange is seasonal and only comes about in a connected system that has winter and a warmer climate.

Maybe there are key foods for your climate that are highly treasured or sought after. Mandarins once were. Cacao. Think a bit about those things and how it might interact with the larger world. When does your plant mature and when can it be harvested? is it different from different climates? There's wars that have been fought over food. (Tea, famously, at least a few times).

A staple crop failing is going to have devastating consequences.

And yet, often in fantasy, I often see people going, ya know what I can eat in the dead of winter, strawberries. Do we have greenhouses? No. Did we have freezers? No. But you know what my character is eating? A strawberry. Yeah, think about that. Strawberries don't preserve well. So plan out the timing of your dishes a bit (to the climate and subsistence system) and it can give a bit of background worldbuilding to your dishes and food.

I do have to say that the small mentions from Rings of Power n what's in season or not and why kinda made me feel like the world and the traveling was more "real" with the Harfoot. There's small references to fall v. spring crops.

[astriiformes]

hi! i was hoping to make a hunter cosplay of my own and ive been looking at a lot of different cosplays to see what works for people. I really like your cosplay and how you made it more real than cartoony, and I was wondering if you had any tips on creating a cosplay (and also I just wanted to say again that I LOVE YOUR HUNTER COSPLAY IT LOOKS AMAZING) 👉👈

Oh yes, I would love to offer some tips!! Let me say right out of the gate: I'm mostly going to focus on how I put my costume together, but I really don't want it to come across as intimidating/expensive/complex if you're newer to this stuff, so know that if there are ways you end up deviating or cutting corners or doing something totally different, that's just you figuring out your own path and that's something 100% encouraged! Cosplay is a cool hobby in part because there are a million ways to do it, and everyone makes mistakes along the way that help them learn. That said, here's a look into my process!

(Also my original response to this was apparently TOO LONG and tumblr wasn't going to let me post it, so watch this space for a reblog with some other tips!!)

I really like thinking about the, like, design and materiality of the costumes I make, so honestly my starting point for a cosplay like Hunter is first going "Okay, what do I think these different parts would be made of in the real world?" even before considering what I'm actually going to make them out of. For some things that's an easy question -- obviously the mask and pauldron of the Golden Guard outfit feel like they should look like metal armor -- but for others it's more complicated. Like, what types of fabrics would his clothes be made out of? Why? And for parts like Flapjack, how do you split the difference between "sometimes made of wood, sometimes a real, actual bird" in a way that feels satisfying?

For example, for Hunter, my thoughts were as follows: the Golden Guard outfit is fancier than the normal Scout ones and felt like it should look a little bit showy, but at the end of the day, it's also a military uniform that he wears out on missions, so choosing fabrics that felt both nice and durable seemed like the best way to capture the "feel" of the outfit. I wanted to make something that looked important but practical, and based a lot of my decisions off that vibe.

I also took note of some of the "impossibilities" of his costume as a result of the animated medium -- for example, his cloak shifts from being a simple over-the-shoulder cape (which is what most people seem to make when cosplaying him) to a full-on circle cloak that closes up in the front when he's standing stiff and at attention. That's possible in a cartoon, but not in real life, because those are two different types of garments that require totally different amounts of fabric! So with things like that, you sort of have to pick which vibes you want to preserve, as opposed to trying to mimic the show perfectly. For me, that meant patterning out a more complicated cloak, closer to the circle-cloak style but with seams and shaping in the shoulders that make it possible for me to pin it back and look a little like a cape, even though it isn't one. I liked the bigger, heavier garment because I feel like it really drives home his vulnerability next to Belos. But someone who prefers the cool swooshiness of his cloak when he's out in the field would have wanted to make the cape! If and when you look at patterns, definitely pay as much attention to the energy they have and what they make you feel as you do to whether or not they match Hunter's "canon" look perfectly. You're working with fabric, not animating, and embracing the medium you're actually messing around with is definitely going to help with capturing that realism you're after. Related, but just know you're going to have seams in your outfit where there aren't any in the show. It's impossible to make functional clothing without there being visible seams somewhere, even though cartoons rarely show them. Focus more on making the costume you want and learn to love the realism they add instead of stressing over "inaccuracy"

Another thing: I don't know how familiar you are with different types of fabric (being entirely honest, I am way less so than many of my cosplay friends, so don't worry if the answer is "not very") but doing a bit of reading on them might be helpful, and I really highly recommend going to a fabric store and walking around feeling the different materials, thinking about what kinds of clothes they remind you of and how they move and stuff. One of the things that adds a lot of the "realism" to my Golden Guard outfit is that I used a variety of different fabric types, all with fairly unique textures -- the undertunic is this thick, metallic linen, that looks almost like a fencing lamé, which felt perfect for evoking that "fancy, but also combat" vibe I was going for, the overtunic is a more synthetic material but with a texture to it that definitely makes it look less cartoony, the white cloak fabric is a nice, shimmer-y material that looks the most "luxury" out of all them, but I then lined it with a thick, heavy, gold cotton, which means it doesn't swish around as much but also maintains some of that practical/showy duality. Think about your everyday clothes -- I know right now, I'm wearing a light cotton t-shirt and jeans, both of which are made out of totally different fabrics. To really give Hunter a "real life" feel, I leaned into that same idea. The Golden Guard outfit especially has so many layers, so there's lots of room to play around with mixing and matching materials -- just make sure you like how they all look together, too!

(Here are all my fabrics before I cut them: you can see how they all look and act a bit different from each other, and how the textured ones especially break away from that smooth, animated look some cosplayers prefer)

(......and here were my dozen paint and spray paint tests to try to figure out which colors/sheens I wanted for his armor)

[gukyi]

midas | jjk

summary: jeon jungkook was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and the power to turn whatever he wants into pure gold. you were born with healing and invisibility powers but without a cent to your name. so when you’re plucked off of the streets for pickpocketing and assigned to be his minder as punishment, you realize you’re going to have to overcome a lot more than class differences if either of you are going to get what you want.

{enemies to lovers!au, ceo!au, magical realism!au}

pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader genre: fluff, comedy, angst word count: 32k (my hand slipped) warnings: alcohol consumption (brief), mentions of bruising and injuries, characters being emotionally constipated and afraid of commitment, your usual guyi e2l lineup a/n: finally!! oh god this fic took forever to write and just kept getting longer and longer. remember when i overestimated the wc by saying 25k-30k? yikes. anyway, i hope you all enjoy this monster! nothing says gukyi like a jk e2l fic, am i right?

The best time to be on the streets is just past noon on weekdays and eleven o’clock on Sunday mornings. When every working professional is out on their lunch break or weekend brunch, basking in the nice weather by choosing to fill up every outdoor dining area available to them. When they plop their bags, their purses and totes, on the chairs opposite them or onto the pavement beside them, thinking that the plastic fence that guards them will be enough to deter pickpockets and thieves. 

Unluckily for them, they usually fail to consider the prospect of someone invisible swooping in to steal the bills from their wallets, a nondescript force reaching into their purse as they stare down at their phones while they eat, forkfuls of to-go salads and pasta dishes stuffed into their mouths. 

Pickpocketing is a skill that the most desperate learn and the shameless master. Normally, people work in teams, one person to distract and the other to fish for the wallet, grabbing the cash and credit cards before tossing it onto the sidewalk and disappearing without a trace. If you wanted to be especially good at it, you would have to be able to complete the entire thing in less than thirty seconds, in the time it takes for people to switch trains in the subway stations. 

But when you work alone, you don’t get that luxury.

But you suppose that the higher powers above, whatever they may be, are relatively benevolent, because in exchange for your prickly personality, you were blessed with the gift of being invisible. 

Unfortunately, that’s something that you don’t need magic to feel. 

The truth is that it’s always been easy to ignore a girl who has no family, no friends, and no money. Living isn’t the hard part, living with purpose is. Nobody wants to pay any attention to someone who has nothing, literally nothing, to offer in return. At least, nobody interesting. 

The only times when you ever feel truly at peace are when you’re sleeping, and when you’re walking down the streets of the city, letting the rest of the world pass you by without sparing you a second glance. You’ve never been one desperate to stick out, to make an impression. Never been someone that people stop to do a double take at when they walk past you. Strange as it sounds, you love the feeling of being insignificant. It is, in a way, liberating. 

So far today you’ve hauled eighty dollars and a subway card from the wallet of some poor tourist standing outside of a bakery looking at a map the size of Jupiter. Some people you feel particularly bad about robbing, but a bald man with dad sunglasses and a fanny pack isn’t one of them. Besides, being pickpocketed is a classic tourist experience. You’re actually doing him a favor. Something to check off of his bucket list. 

You stow away the money and the card into your pocket, bills folded neatly into your raggedy jeans, rips and holes lining the fabric not for fashion, but from wear alone. You’ll make a mental note to buy yourself a croissant or something later. A treat to reward yourself for all of the hard work you’re putting in today. You’ll be able to pay off your phone bill for the next month with this money.

When the lunch breaks are over, you’ll probably retire to your bed and wallow in self-pity for a little before returning for the dinner rush. Having no life is a constant job, and you don’t even get any legally-mandated breaks to keep you going. Every moment you aren’t on the streets is another moment you aren’t making any money. It’s sort of like being a salesman, which, if you think about it, is just a legal way to rob people. When have salespeople ever sold something of real value?

With the eighty dollars on your mind, you start to scope out nice bakeries on your route, coffee shop signs and pastries on display in the window, looking for a nice place to settle down and buy yourself something sweet. Seeing as you live off of Campbell’s soups and bread from dollar stores, anything is an upgrade. 

You walk a couple more blocks before stumbling upon one of those picture-perfect bakeries, with pristinely decorated cupcakes and cakes lining the window display. You can tell that this place is good because there’s a line out the door and a little seating area that is packed to the brim. However, you are currently invisible, which doesn’t accommodate purchasing goods particularly well, but you make a mental note to return to the bakery a little later when people can actually see you. As if you’d ever turn right here, in front of all of these people. 

While you’re here, you decide to snoop around the line and the outdoor seating area to see if anybody strikes your fancy. Everyone standing either has their bag on their shoulder or their wallets gripped tightly between their fingers, so that’s off the table. But, there is one woman wearing a massive wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses as she chows down on a pink strawberry cupcake, her Louis Vuitton tote bag sitting a good two inches away from her, possibly even out of her periphery. 

Bullseye. 

There’s never a need to be stealthy when you’re already invisible, so you trot over, eyeing the woman to make sure that she can’t see anything in front of her. She doesn’t seem to be paying any attention, so you quickly reach down into her bag, a close watch on her gaze, hand fishing around amongst the receipts and the lipsticks and hand sanitizer until you feel her leather wallet. Nimble fingers fumble with the zipper until the tips come into contact with the crisp dollar bills, which you quickly nick and stuff into your pocket, bounding off without a trace. 

Halfway down the block, you surreptitiously glance at your haul—two hundred dollars!

That’ll be enough to last you and your phone bill for the next three months, at least. 

You’re so busy mentally applauding yourself for your pickpocketing skills that you don’t notice someone standing right in front of you. At least, you don’t notice until you crash into them, the surprise forcing you to turn. 

You sputter out an apology, hoping that whoever it is you’ve nearly run over isn’t observant enough to notice that the currently-visible thing they bumped into was previously invisible, and that’s when you notice exactly who it is that you’ve collided with. 

It’s the woman from the bakery, Louis Vuitton bag and everything. And she’s staring you down like there’s no tomorrow, arms crossed over her middle-aged chest as she sends daggers at you. Oh, you’re so fucked. 

“Sorry?” You say unhelpfully, already knowing the direction of this conversation. This woman wouldn’t be sending you a death glare if she didn’t already know who you are. They definitely did this just to trap you, set you up like a mouse and a cheese trap. 

“Don’t play stupid, Y/N,” she orders. “You must already know why I’m here.”

“I was hoping you’d let me off the hook?” You say guiltily, her hand already wrapping tightly around your wrists as she handcuffs you, sharp metal pressing against your wrists. One wriggle and you know that there’s no magicking yourself out of these. They think of everything, they do.

“Tell that to the courts,” she snaps, effectively shutting you up as she drags you away, money digging a hole in your pocket as you begin to envision yourself six feet under. You’re as good as dead, caught red-handed.

Well, life was good while it lasted. At least you might never have to have Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup anymore. 

There’s no such thing as an attorney in the Realm. No such thing as a fair trial (even if they say there is), no such thing as defense and prosecution. No grand juries, no crowds, no sketch artist. Just a judge with a stick up his ass and a punishment to be delivered. You’re either guilty or a liar. 

And you’re rather good at being both. 

“The charge is as follows,” says the burly man at the head of the makeshift courtroom, reading off of a piece of parchment like it’s 1433 and the printing press hasn’t been invented yet. “Burglary, possession of illegally-gained goods, and petty theft.” Because charging you for burglary alone wasn’t enough, apparently. You have a sneaking suspicion that they invented the other two charges just so they could have more to punish you for. “Does the defendant have anything they wish to say?”

“Don’t you guys have anything better to do with your lives?” You ask with a dramatic sigh, having already resigned yourself to your fate. “Like, you could be playing golf round after golf round instead of sitting here, charging an orphan girl with no money.”

“This is my job,” says the burly man. Clearly he has never done anything fun in his entire life. 

“Also, stealing is my only crime, right? So do you really need to punish me like I’ve murdered someone?”

“You burglarized a Realm Leader,” he deadpans. As if Realm Leaders really wear wide-brimmed hats, sunglasses, and carry around a three-thousand dollar Louis Vuitton bag on their days off. 

“You set me up,” you accuse. Might as well go out swinging. “What if I charge you for lying, huh? How will you be punished?”

“Anything else?”

“Fuck you,” you spit. 

The burly man sighs, thinks about the potential verdict for approximately two seconds, and says, “The court finds the defendant guilty of all three charges. Sentencing will now be arranged.”

Big whoop. You could sniff out your ’guilty’ verdict from three miles away, knowing that the Realm takes plenty of pride in charging its constituents for whatever crime that they can invent. You slouch back in your chair as the judge and his heartless buddies discuss your punishment. You suppose that being jailed might not be too bad—you’d always have meals and a place to sleep, even if you would have to give up magic in return. And community service would also be alright. You’d be fine with cleaning up the expressway that runs through the city, though knowing the Realm, they’d probably put you up to some stupidly dangerous magical task. And at this point, death seems rather inviting, and would solve everybody’s problems because they wouldn’t have to deal with you and you wouldn’t have to deal with them anymore. 

The judge coughs, summoning the bare minimum of your attention. “The court has reached a sentencing decision for the convicted. We are offering you two options, of which you may choose one.”

Right, like you’d willingly volunteer for both punishments. 

“You may either be sentenced to serve time in the Realm Penitentiary for six months with the possibility of parole after four, or conduct supervised community service until the task at hand has been completed. Please select which option you would like.”

It’s like asking you to choose between being given one hundred dollars or having to pay one hundred dollars. What does the Realm think people will pick? Do they really think anyone in their right mind would choose to be jailed, forbidden to use their magic, and then let the Realm trick them into thinking parole is really an option, over some measly community service?

“Community service,” you say gruffly. 

“Excellent,” the judge says, writing something with a quill and ink because apparently, ballpoint pens are too complicated. “Your community service will be supervised by a Realm Leader with visionary powers, so you will not need to meet with them in order to discuss your progress, nor will they watch you in person.” And they said that crystal balls aren’t real. 

“What do I have to do?” You ask. Knowing them, it’ll probably be something like scrubbing all of the toilets in the Penitentiary, or going deep into the Amazonian forest to collect some magical sap or fighting off a magical beast. Something that could serve as a death sentence, or at least be extremely unpleasant, in the hopes that it’ll get you off of their backs. 

“The court will be assigning you as a minder to correct the ways of another mage,” the judge states. 

A minder? 

So, your community service is that you have to be a glorified magickal babysitter?

Well. It could be worse. 

“Alright, fine,” you say, though it’s not like you have a choice one way or another. Where was your minder? Why weren’t you assigned one, instead of just being hauled off by an undercover Realm leader to be sentenced for the same crime three times over? “Who will I be assigned to?”

The judge looks down at the parchment in front of him through his tiny old man glasses, and says, “Jeon Jungkook.”

Huh?

Jeon Jungkook lives on the top floor of an apartment complex the size of the Empire State Building and worth more than your entire life. There are ceiling-to-floor windows that span the entire perimeter of the penthouse, a whole security team in the lobby vetting every single person that walks through the automatic glass doors, and an elevator with a touch-screen instead of buttons. It sickens you, the fact that some people can live like this. The fact that some people have known only this world as their entire life, and have not once glanced the other way. 

Getting to Jeon Jungkook’s front door isn’t the hard part. The Realm gave you succinct instructions and permission to use your powers whenever necessary throughout the whole thing, two things more than you thought they would. It’s easy to slide by the big buff security guards when they can’t see you. Easy to turn in the comfort and privacy of the elevator, easy to figure out which door is his when he’s the only person who lives on the top floor. 

The hard part is getting there without feeling like you’re way in over your head. Getting Jeon Jungkook to stop abusing his powers will be no easy feat. He’s rich, powerful, and spits on people like you, people who are not either of those things. Not to mention the fact that if he really wanted to, he could just turn you to gold and set you up in his penthouse like a statue, frozen in time. 

For once, the only thing that makes you feel a little bit better is the Realm. They’ve handed you a strict order that neither you nor he can magic your way out of, lined with stipulations and regulations and requirements that both of you will follow or so help you God. If Jeon Jungkook doesn’t comply, he, his company, and his reputation are done for. 

So at least there’s that. 

Jeon Jungkook’s front door is made of a deep mahogany brown and about thirteen feet tall, towering over you just to serve as a reminder that he can pretty much afford to buy out the entire city if necessary. You feel like an ant in comparison, an insignificant little thing, no money, no power, no nothing. 

A fluorescent doorbell light flashes beside the door frame. 

The sound echoes throughout the hallway you’re standing in, a classic ding-dong noise that reverberates across the walls. 

“Coming!” A voice from inside calls. Is Jungkook expecting someone?

You quickly make any last minute efforts to look as presentable as possible—well, as presentable as someone who lives in a dilapidated, abandoned house at the edge of the city can be—before the door opens. 

For someone who’s got money to burn, Jeon Jungkook sure as hell doesn’t look like it. He’s wearing an oversized button down that hangs loose by his thighs, ripped jeans, and a pair of charcoal grey socks, like he got home from work five hours ago and decided to change into whatever feels most comfortable. 

“Oh, good, I called and they said that you would be another twenty minutes,” Jungkook says, breathing out a sigh of relief. “Let me go grab my wallet, you can just set the pizza down on the counter.”

“Uh, I’m not—”

Jungkook rushes off down one of the fifteen different hallways that branch off of the main living room, leaving you stranded as you wander into his massive abode. Windows line the walls, giving you a perfect view of the city below you, twinkling lights of skyscrapers as people slowly leave their offices and return home. His kitchen alone is double the size of where you live. How can one person possibly take up all of this space? Doesn’t it ever get lonely?

You wait awkwardly besides the counter, which is pizza-less, until Jungkook returns, a shiny black wallet between his fingers as he fumbles for some cash. And normally, you have zero qualms stealing from the rich and giving to the poor (aka, yourself), but seeing as he thinks you’re providing a service, you have the compassion to feel at least a little bit bad. 

Jungkook stops when he notices the bare countertop. “Uh,” he begins with a frown, “where’s the pizza?”

“I’m not the pizza delivery guy,” you explain hesitantly. You don’t suppose Jungkook would have opened the door otherwise. 

“Then where is the pizza delivery guy?” He asks, like you somehow know. 

“I don’t know,” you tell him. Was an interrogation supposed to be a part of this?

“Who are you?”

“I’m Y/N,” you say, hesitant to touch anything except the floor for fear that you will either dirty or break something and then spend the rest of your life trying to pay back the damages. “I’m your minder.”

“What?” Jungkook scrunches up his nose in disgust. “I never asked for a minder.”

“Well, you’ve been assigned one anyway,” you say with a frown. To be fair, it’s not like you expected this to be easy.

“That’s ridiculous,” Jungkook dismisses, already making his way to the door to shoo you off into the night, like he probably does with all of his problems. “I don’t need a minder. I’m fine.”

You look over his shoulder, noticing the flecks of golden accents that line his house, the golden teapots on shelves, picture frames hung up on the wall. Even the rods that hold up the massive satin curtains are gold. There isn’t so much gold to be garish and kitschy, like a teenager who can’t control what he touches, but enough to assert that he’s either wealthy or gifted, or in his case: both. 

“That really sucks, because I’m still your minder,” you tell him, refusing to budge. Jungkook can’t possibly imagine he’ll somehow be able to get out of this. Not when the law is working against him.

“Says who?” Jungkook spits back. 

“The Realm,” you tell him rudely, manifesting the agreement the Realm had given you to force Jungkook into accepting. The parchment is laid out on the countertop, curling up at the edges, black ink written neatly on top of it. He glares at it suspiciously, as if he’s suspected that you forged it. When you make no efforts to explain yourself further, he takes a hesitant step forward, eyes narrowing in on the parchment sitting in front of the both of you. In pitch black ink, loopy calligraphy, it says this:

As recommended and required by the Realm, its leaders, and its government, the recipient, Jeon Jungkook is to be assigned a minder, whose duty is to watch over him, regulate his use of magic, and work towards decreasing his magical activity. 

This minder is being assigned as a result of misuse of magic by the recipient, either by abuse or from the intent to inflict harm upon mages or non-magic users. The Realm decrees that all mages who disobey the laws that govern society either be reformed or punished. 

This minder must ensure that the recipient makes progress towards decreasing his magical activity by indefinitely accompanying and supervising him for every hour of the day. This minder’s term will expire once they have achieved their goal of decreasing the recipient’s use of magic and ensuring that abuse of it does not reoccur. 

Should the recipient disobey this proclamation in any form, including vandalism, ignorance, or rejection, he will be brought to court and sentenced to jail accordingly. 

Jungkook seems to read the parchment for about five seconds before crumpling it up in his hands and tossing it into the trash bin by the edge of the counter. 

“Absolutely not,” he scoffs. “I do not need a minder. I don’t know what The Realm told you but I have no problem with my powers and your services are not required. There was probably some sort of mistake.”

As if. The paper says his name. Jungkook’s almost as bad at violating the rules of the Realm as you are. 

“Uh—” you begin again, but Jungkook is already shooing you out of his penthouse, flicking you away like an animal that’s gotten too close. You find yourself backing up furiously in a desperate attempt to not be trampled by him and his oversized button-down and intimidating death glare, until you’re a foot out of his apartment. 

“Maybe you can go bother someone else instead,” he suggests unhelpfully, before slamming the door in your face. 

You stand there for a few more seconds, face to face with the dark mahogany wood. The bright side is that, even if Jungkook only read the first paragraph of the decree and then tossed it into his recycling bin, there’s no escaping the Realm. You have half a mind to just bugger off and let him face the consequences of his own actions. You can picture it in your head: Realm officers barging into his place of work and arresting him on the spot for consciously disregarding an order of the Realm. That might satiate you for a while. 

Resigning yourself to the fact that if you knock on Jungkook’s door and politely suggest that he pull the parchment out from the trash and read the whole thing will probably not go down particularly well, you turn, letting your body vanish before you, before making your way back to the elevator. The pizza delivery guy arrives just as you reach it, letting you easily slide past him as he goes to make Jungkook’s day a little better by being an expected guest rather than an unwarranted visitor. 

Jungkook may not have agreed to this today (not that he has a choice in the matter), but there’s always tomorrow. 

Passing by the security, who spare no second glance at the fact that the automatic glass doors have just opened seemingly by themselves, you turn left when you reach the sidewalk and head home. 

Home is a janky abandoned house at the very edge of the city, where the buildings meet train tracks and old highways, graffiti decorating every open surface within a five-mile radius. It’s not so much a house as it is a shack, old and rickety and forgotten. You think that the locals and the nons believe the place is haunted, since no one ever comes within one hundred feet of the entrance, the broken glass in the windows and big red spray-painted X on the door deterring most folks. 

People who invite you into their houses and say, “it’s not much, but it’s home,” are such liars. For as long as you have lived here, this place has never felt like home. You never come back from a long day and think, ah, home sweet home. You will never dream of wasting away within these walls. That’s a death sentence. 

You enter through the back door, ducking your head low to avoid hitting it on the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling by a wire or two. You’re not electrically-proficient enough to know how to fix it yourself so it’s less of a fire hazard, and you don’t have nearly enough money to call anyone to come repair it, so there it stays. It still works, though, and you use it in a pinch when you can’t see where you’re stepping. 

There’s a small pile of folded clothing on the floor by the mattress, the remnants of a past life that feels more like an alternate universe than it does part of your history. The fridge doesn’t work, nor do most of the utilities, but the little stack of Campbell’s soup cans on the countertop is reliable and unchanging. As is the fact that you will probably never get out of this dump, so long as you shall live.

When you were little, you used to dream of living in a big castle, and wanting for nothing. You would have people to cook for you, clean for you, dress you, bathe you, entertain you. All of these stories about being a little princess, doted on and loved by all, innocent and pure and beautiful. All of these stories about finding Prince Charming, meeting the love of your life as waltzes into your life on a gorgeous white horse, getting married, having kids, and growing old together. You dreamed of a perfect life, a perfect love, where you never have to worry about anything, where no one is ever mean or rude, no government to dictate what you do. 

It’s no wonder all of those stories were simply fairy tales. 

It makes you even angrier when you think about Jeon Jungkook. He’s lived a life as close to perfection as possible, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a silver platter placed in front of him. He’s grown up with people adoring him, telling him he can do no wrong, rewarding him with a brand new toy when he gets in trouble, teaching him that his powers are for himself first and for other people next to you. Not much is fair in the world, but especially not the fact that he was bestowed with the gift of being able to turn whatever he wishes into gold. 

He is everybody’s Prince Charming: wealthy, handsome, powerful. Too bad you aren’t a princess anymore.

Strangely enough, even after a long day, you aren’t feeling at all hungry. The scent of the pizza Jungkook had ordered to his door was enough to satisfy you, a warm feeling settling in the pit of your stomach. Normally, this late at night, you might even be daring (or sleep-deprived) enough to break into one of your precious ramen packs, but instead you collapse onto the mattress, heavy heart willing you fast asleep, the light flickering above your head. 

The next day you are faced with a choice: leave Jungkook alone and let him deal with the repercussions of his actions on his own (much to your delight), or go back and continue pestering him until he agrees to having a minder (much to your chagrin). 

A new parchment has manifested itself on the counter, words copied from the one Jungkook threw out before your eyes. It shimmers, almost as if there’s a golden halo that surrounds it, another trick that the Realm has up its sleeve. You have a feeling that this one won’t be as easily ripped, crumpled up to be tossed into the nearest trash bin. It terrifies you—how closely they watch. You suppose that it was only a matter of time before they caught you. 

Quite frankly, you’re shocked it took them this long to realize you were a serial pickpocketer in the first place. 

As much as you’d love to see Jungkook get arrested and tried for defying the rules of the Realm, see his face plastered all over the newspapers and tabloids with stupid headlines like JEON JUNGKOOK: CRIMINAL? and ARRESTED FOR HAVING TOO MUCH MONEY?, and count it as a personal win, letting that happen would mean that you would have failed to do your court-ordered community service, which is a one-way ticket to prison. 

So even if Jeon Jungkook was the grouchiest, greediest, cockiest person in the entire world (which, judging by what you know about him, he probably is), and even though you would happily let his career and reputation plummet, you don’t have a choice. The two of you will either go down together or not at all. 

Resigning yourself to the fact that you will have to be within close proximity to Jeon Jungkook for the foreseeable future, you rally yourself out of bed, tugging on what you deem to be your nicest clothes and splashing your face clean. The rags you have on are probably worth a cent of what Jungkook wears on a daily basis, crisp suits and silver watches and golden earrings. He could spit on you and that would increase your net worth. But surprisingly enough, there is something empowering about the fact that Jeon Jungkook will no longer be able to ignore the plight of those in a lower class than him. Not when he, a person who has everything, will be forced to reckon with you, someone who has nothing. 

It’s easy to find your way to Jungkook’s place of employment. It’s this enormous skyscraper with his name in a golden serif font above the entryway, marking the entire building as his own. It isn’t garish and ugly, per se, but it definitely makes a statement. This, combined with the cool, chic design of his penthouse apartment, redeems him a little. At least he has taste for someone with money to burn like fireworks. 

There are two massive security guards and a whole squad of receptionists standing guard inside the building’s lobby, dressed pristinely and narrowing their eyes at anybody who dares enter. You wait across the street for a few minutes, loitering outside of a coffee shop and trying to avoid having people bump into you, watching. The only people that seem to be worthy of entering are wearing suits and dresses that cost more than what your abandoned house could sell for on the market after being restored, nodding their hellos to the security guards and receptionists as they press the elevator buttons and disappear into the building. You and your thrifted blouse would be laughed out in an instant. 

Lucky for you, you happen to have a rather foolproof method of getting yourself through those doors, and it mostly involves the fact that nobody can even see you. 

You rush across the road at the next green light and wait until you see someone heading in, the grand glass doors automatically opening when they register someone’s presence. It’s easy to slip in undetected, and you hang around in the lobby, secretly judging every single person that walks in after you. You could, quite honestly, spend all day in here, watching the receptionists tap away at their keyboards with robotic efficiency, answering calls left and right and fielding all sorts of questions from folks entering. It’s a world you have never dared step into, a world filled with wealth and power and class hierarchy, with Jeon Jungkook sitting on a pile of money at the very top of the pyramid. 

Some of the people that work in this building will never in their entire lifetime get the chance to speak with him. They will come in, day after day, working for someone who they have no personal relationship to, someone that they will never be afforded the chance to meet. 

Those people are, in your opinion, dodging a bullet. 

If only your life was as kind to you. 

A nervous young man walks in, clearly more out-of-place than anyone else. He seems to have barely bypassed security, flashing some sort of pass that lets him through the doors, but if a breeze came blowing through the lobby, he’d topple right over. He stumbles towards the receptionist desk, all of whom have phones to their ears as they furiously type on their keyboards. One woman holds up a hand, making him freeze in place. If he grinds his teeth any more they’ll all fall out before he even gets a chance to speak. 

It’s another two minutes before the lady puts the phone down and says, “How can I help you?”

“I’m—I’m, uh—I’m here for a meeting,” the man fumbles out. You’re embarrassed for him. 

“With who?” The woman asks, peering over the glasses resting on her pointy nose. She begins to look over the list of people who have meetings. It must be a rather extensive list. 

“Mr—Mr. Jeon, ma’am,” the man sputters. 

She looks doubtful. “Your name?”

“K-Kim…” he begins, staring down at his feet, “Kim Taehyung.”

“And your business with Mr. Jeon is?”

“I’m—uh, well, I’m a photographer for… for an article being written about him by F-Forbes,” he explains rather helplessly. He must have superb photography skills to make up for his extreme nervousness. You’ll be surprised if he makes it all the way to Jeon Jungkook’s office without wetting his pants out of fear. 

The lady hums to herself, looking suspicious until she finds the man’s name on her list. “Mr. Jeon’s office is on the top floor. Make two lefts and then a right. You will have to wait to be called.”

“Thank you v-very much.” He scurries towards the elevator, and you strike while the iron is hot. 

Rushing over, you manage to squeeze into the elevator right before the doors close, waiting patiently in the corner as the man tries to calm himself down, doing some sort of breathing exercise. Well, he’s got plenty of time to put his nerves aside, seeing as this building has seventy floors and Jeon Jungkook is apparently at the very top of them all. You feel bad for him, in a way. Jeon Jungkook was rude and unapologetically uncouth when you spoke to him, even if an aura of professionalism and extremely good social skills surrounds him at all times, and you don’t cower in fear at the sight of him. 

There’s no telling what he’ll be like when Taehyung walks into his office. 

One tense elevator ride later, the both of you arrive at the seventy-fifth floor, the silver doors opening to reveal a busy office space filled with people near the very top of the building’s pyramid. People like his secretary and accountants and managers, people who come into direct contact with Jeon Jungkook every day from nine to five. In a way, you pity these people for having to deal with him, but it’s not like you’ll be any different. 

Taehyung rushes out and you make sure to follow before the elevator doors crush you, following the receptionist’s instructions. Two lefts and a right. 

Jungkook’s office, much like his apartment, is not hard to miss. His name is written on a plaque on the door, and a guard stands outside with a clipboard, regulating everybody who passes in and out of the room. The walls that surround him are glass but he keeps the blinds drawn permanently, so that no one has the pleasure of seeing his face while they work tirelessly to impress him. Taehyung gives his name to the man, who checks him off on the paper on his clipboard before entering the room. 

“Sir, your 12:30 is here,” the guard says. 

Taehyung looks about ready to pass out. 

“Let them in,” Jungkook’s voice bellows in response. The man nods to Taehyung, who trembles where he stands, twiddling his thumbs like there’s no tomorrow. He shuffles in awkwardly and the door shuts behind him. Luckily, the walls are sound-proof. 

The thirty minutes of waiting is agony. You have nothing to do but rehearse in your head how this next conversation is going to go down, the scroll burning a hole in your back pocket. If Jungkook was displeased at best to see you in his apartment, you can only imagine the horror on his face when he sees you’ve infiltrated his workplace as well. Especially since you don’t have even a fraction of the money and power needed to enter the building on more professional terms. 

The good news is that, no matter what Jungkook says, no matter how many times he kicks you out of his penthouse and his skyscraper, he has no choice but to accept the deal, regardless of how long it will take for him to realize this. You never thought you’d ever be relying on the Realm to carry you through a predicament, and nor did you ever think you’d be doing their bidding, and yet, here you are. 

The door opens at one o’clock on the dot. 

“Th-thank you so much for your time again, Mr. Jeon,” Taehyung says, bowing profusely as he heads out. “I really appreciate it, you—you won’t regret it, I promise, thank you again!” You quickly rush towards the door, even making to hold it slightly open for Taehyung as he heaps his thanks on top of Jungkook. In the split second it takes for Taehyung to let the door go and for it to shut, you slip inside. 

“Finally,” Jungkook huffs out to himself, hand rubbing against his forehead. He’s not wearing a suit like you had expected, rather, a silken button-down shirt and tailored slacks. He doesn’t even have a tie. 

Well, you suppose that being your own boss has its perks. 

Jungkook’s stomach growls. “Fuck, I’m hungry.” He presses a button on the phone in his office. “I’m taking my hour lunch break now,” Jungkook informs the person on the other end. “Put all of my meetings on hold until two o’clock and not a moment earlier.”

He hangs up the phone and runs his hands through his hair, neatly straightened and styled. You hate to admit it, but there’s no wonder the man has captured the hearts of people all over the city. He’s rather good looking, the flecks of gold scattered around his office complementing his swirling brown eyes, making them look like caramel instead of cocoa. You have a hunch that, in the eyes of the general public, unattractive people instantly become good-looking the moment that they acquire wealth, power, fame, or all three, but Jeon Jungkook doesn’t need any of those things for people to think he’s beautiful. To him, they’re just bonuses. 

He turns around for a moment to look for something, probably to fish his phone out of the pocket of his jacket, and you turn. Nothing says hello like magically manifesting yourself in his office. 

“Jesus fu—!” Jungkook practically jumps out of his skin when he sees you. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m your minder,” you explain again. 

“I told you I don’t need a goddamn minder,” Jungkook spits out, turning around again just so he doesn’t have to see your face. “Get out.”

“Sorry, no can do,” you say, rocking back and forth on your feet. “Realm’s orders.”

“Fuck the Realm,” Jungkook says. “I don’t need a minder. Your services are unnecessary. Now get out, before I call security.”

You purse your lips. “You may want to think twice about that.” With a flourish, you whip out the scroll, a golden yellow glow still surrounding the parchment, handing it to Jungkook like a Christmas cracker. He snatches it out of your hand and unfurls it. “You should probably read the whole thing this time. It won’t rip like the last one.”

Jungkook glares at the paper like it’s ruined his life—which, judging by his attitude, it probably has—as he scans over the words, scowl worsening with every second that passes. 

“You shouldn’t frown like that, it’s not a good look on you,” you chide. At least Jungkook knows that there’s no bribing his way out of this one. 

“I told you I don’t need a minder,” he says again like it hasn’t already been made abundantly clear. 

“Well, I didn’t want to be assigned to you, but unfortunately, it looks like neither of us are going to get what we want,” you retort. “It’s this or prison, Jeon. You pick.”

“Why the fuck were you assigned to me, then?” Jungkook asks, rounding on you. “What are your powers?”

“Healing and invisibility,” you spit out. Not nearly as glamorous or lucrative as his own, but they come with their own benefits. For example, the ability to infiltrate high-level, upper class places of employment. “Maybe they thought I’d make a good babysitter since those are two skills often used with children,” you tell him pointedly. 

“I don’t need a minder,” Jungkook repeats for the umpteenth time. “I don’t misuse my magic or abuse my powers.”

“Uh,” you point out, an eyebrow raised skeptically, “I think I’d like to beg to differ.” There’s more gold in this room than miners probably found in San Francisco in the nineteenth century. The fact that nons haven’t noticed the abundance of it in his office is outrageous to you. How else do they think he and his family built up this empire?

“Please,” Jungkook says with a frown. “As if we don’t all use our powers for our own benefit. Huh? What did you do that was so terrible that you had to be assigned as my minder?”

“I pickpocket,” you explain economically. No point in sugar-coating it. Jungkook has probably already figured out you don’t come from nearly as much money as he does. “And I got caught.”

“Sucks,” Jungkook comments callously. 

“Sucks for you, too,” you fire back. “You got caught as well. Agree to the terms or go to jail, Jeon Jungkook. I don’t care. But don’t say I didn’t try to help.”

You stand there in silence for a few more seconds, letting your words dissipate into the air, sinking into the ground. Jeon Jungkook seems to have this furious battle within himself, brows furrowing as he rubs at his chin, pacing back and forth behind his desk. He knows he doesn’t have a choice. He goes to jail and his reputation is soiled. The Realm repossesses all that he has made of himself and he must start from scratch under their ruthlessly watchful eye. There will be no recovery. Only survival. 

Or, he deals with you for a couple of months until the Realm is satisfied with the both of you, and you both go on your merry way, never having to see each other again. 

You know what you’d pick if you were in his shoes. 

“Fine,” Jungkook spits out, pointing an accusing finger your way. “But you are to be invisible whenever we are in public, and that includes here.”

“Done. But you have to decrease your turning otherwise we’ll be stuck with each other forever,” you negotiate. “I’ll also have to come and live with you. Can you handle that, or are you too ashamed to have someone else inside your home?”

Jungkook scoffs. “I live in a penthouse the size of a museum. Pick whatever bedroom you fucking want. I doubt we’ll even see each other.” At least there’s one upside to having to stay with him in his massive residence.

“Fine,” you spit out, just for good measure. 

“Fine,” he counters back. Like anything about this conversation, this agreement, this goddamn life you have to live, is fine. 

Yeah, right. 

Jungkook’s penthouse is much more magnificent when you are more than two steps in the door. From where you had stood before, barely just past the door frame as he crumpled the parchment in his hand and tossed it into the trash bin, you hadn’t been able to see it in half its glory, let alone in full. When you can stand in the center of it all, eyes darting from the hallways and archways and spiral staircases leading to a rooftop pool or gym or both, it is overwhelming. Suffocating. 

His living room alone is larger than anything you have ever lived in, anything you have ever had the pleasure of calling your own. The ceiling is sky high and completely glass, streaks of sun shooting down and casting its rays on his chic furniture, deep hardwood floors. You’re so busy looking up that you nearly trip on a white rug laid out on the floor. 

“There are four bedrooms down that hallway and two down that one,” Jungkook says gruffly, flinging his keys into a bowl resting on a shelf and shrugging off his jacket, letting it hang over his forearm. How could one person possibly take up all of this space?

“Where do you sleep?” You ask. 

“That’s none of your business,” Jungkook says with a frown. 

“There’s no point in not telling me,” you remind him helpfully, “there’s only so many places you can be.”

Jungkook sighs. “It’s upstairs. But you can just sleep in any of the empty ones down here.”

“Thanks,” you deadpan. 

“Is that all you brought?” Jungkook asks with a raised eyebrow, looking at the backpack hanging loose off your shoulder. The zipper’s broken, so the outer flap is in a constant state of being folded over, but it works. 

“What, did you expect a moving truck?” You retort. 

“Ugh, forget I asked,” Jungkook says, shrugging his shoulders as he turns away from you. He begins to point around the room. “There should be some ready meals in the fridge if you’re hungry. TV’s always set to the news, but feel free to change it. Volume shouldn’t ever be over forty. Books are alphabetized by the author’s last name. No parties, though I don’t imagine you frequent those.” 

You can’t tell if that’s a jab or just him being observant, but either way, it’s true. You don’t even have any friends. 

“Fine, anything else?”

“Every bedroom has an ensuite bathroom,” Jungkook informs you. “So use that one. Don’t come into my bedroom. There’s more than enough space here for the both of us to go without seeing each other, so let’s keep it that way.”

“Aw, you mean I’m not allowed to wake up to your handsome face and infectious attitude every day?” You pout sarcastically, making Jungkook scrunch up his nose and frown. “Don’t forget that the only way you’re gonna get me out of here is if you listen to the Realm and follow my rules.”

“Yeah, which are?”

“You’re not allowed to turn at all when I’m around, whether or not you can physically see me. Every time you do is a strike. Three strikes—because I’m generous and forgiving—and I’ll report you to the Realm. The whole point of me being here is to make you stop using your powers all of the time.”

“It’s not like I’m doing any harm to people,” Jungkook defends. “You steal, what’s your excuse?”

“You use your power to add onto your already-enormous bank account,” you point out crudely. “I use mine to survive. It’s different.” Jungkook isn’t convinced. “But it doesn’t matter anyway, because I got caught and so did you and now we both have to deal with the consequences.”

He huffs to himself. 

“So do we have a deal?” You ask, glaring up at him, unrelenting. Jungkook’s chocolate brown eyes flicker as the gold around his house reflects off of his irises, like he’s trying desperately to find a way to get himself out of this before it’s too late. 

What he doesn’t realize is that the very first moment he ever turned something to gold, the very first time the object began to shimmer and spark, he was already too far gone. 

You suppose that in a way, so were you. 

“Fine,” Jungkook gruffs out, a veiny hand held out towards you. It’s stiff and cold, much in the same way that his penthouse is, that he is. This is not an agreement birthed from choice. It came from necessity, out of self-preservation. He is doing this to protect his reputation. You are doing it to protect your freedom. If all goes well, after a couple of months the two of you will never have to cross paths again. Oh, doesn’t that sound lovely? “Deal?”

You grab his hand in your own, squeezing tightly. There is no going back from this. 

“Deal.”

On the bright side, being a minder has finally given you something to do instead of stalking the streets and wasting away on your mattress on the floor. Granted, office life isn’t that much more entertaining, but at least you don’t have to be out in the summer heat anymore. 

As per your side of the deal, you remain invisible whenever Jungkook is out in public, which, quite frankly, is less frequently than you had originally anticipated. His entire life seems to go back and forth from home to work then work to home, an endless cycle, a Newton’s cradle on repeat. Maybe that’s why he’s such a prickly asshole—he doesn’t ever make time for things he enjoys. 

You thought he would at least have business dinners or fundraising events or company galas to attend. Isn’t that what most CEOs do? Flaunt their wealth to other wealthy people? Jungkook has so much money that he could easily entertain himself by one-upping all of his fellow CEO friends at every event he goes to, flashing the Rolex watch on his wrist or the fancy Italian shoes he always wears. 

But no. He wakes up, gets dressed, eats a meal from the ready-made ones wrapped in foil in his fridge, and goes to work. When he comes home, he takes off his suit jacket and shoes, eats dinner, and lounges around his penthouse. Works out sometimes, maybe watches a movie. 

Being rich always seemed to be a lot more fun than what Jungkook makes it out to be. Maybe it’s because everything in modern media is completely fake and wholly unrealistic. Or maybe he’s just purposefully making his life boring because you’re here now. 

But even if the only two places Jungkook ever goes are work and home, his personality doesn’t seem to change no matter what location he’s at. All of his employees are simultaneously frightened of him and desperate to please him, lowering their heads when he passes by their cubicle but placing finished report files and completed tasks at the edges of their desks for him to glance over as he does. You follow him like a wearied assistant (of which he actually has three, and you are just the annoying invisible one) and he acts like you aren’t even there. When Jungkook returns home with you carelessly traipsing in after him, turning visible the moment he closes the door, he shrugs off his outerwear and goes back to doing his very favorite thing in the whole world: pretending you don’t exist. 

At least that hasn’t changed since you moved in. 

The bright side is that Jungkook hasn’t turned at all since you’ve shown up. Not in his penthouse and not at work, though he is usually far too busy dealing with real-world issues to dwell on whether or not he’s got enough gold to his name. The answer is that he does, but he doesn’t give a shit about that. Too much is apparently never enough. 

Even if you are invisible, being in an office setting is somewhat unsettling to you. From a people-watching perspective, you love it, because you get an entire building of people to observe and judge, but from a personal perspective, it’s just another reminder of a life that you are not meant to live. 

All of these people in their ties and pencil skirts and uncomfortable leather shoes, fighting to beat each other out for the next promotion and desperate to please their absolutely unpleasable boss. A nine-to-five job, day in and day out. A fat check in their bank account every month. These are things that are both undesirable and unattainable to you. A glimpse into their lives doesn’t spur you to pursue a career path like theirs, it tells you that no matter what, you won’t ever be able to do what they do. 

“Sir, here are the finished analysis reports on the Lee Corporation joint stockholdings,” a proud young man says, plopping it down on Jungkook’s desk as you watch on in silence. The not-speaking part has been rather difficult, but you do get to whisper annoying things into Jungkook’s ear whenever nobody’s around. 

“They are completed?” Jungkook asks without even looking up at the man, scribbling furiously on a piece of paper. 

“Yes, sir.”

“Did I not ask for them to be completed by Friday?”

The man goes white in the face. 

“Uh—” he begins, immediately losing all confidence he had when he entered Jungkook’s office. “Well, I—”

“I don’t appreciate belated work,” Jungkook spits out. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The man nods and scurries out of the office before Jungkook can say anything else. He doesn’t even seem to care.

“Wow, couldn’t even say a ’thank you’?” You chide. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you manners?”

“Late work is unacceptable,” Jungkook says. You’re lucky that his blinds are always drawn, or everyone would see him talking to apparently nobody. “There are no exceptions.”

“He was a day late,” you point out. 

“Three, if you include weekends.”

“That doesn’t make a difference; he wouldn’t have been able to turn them in over the weekend,” you tell him. 

“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” Jungkook orders sternly. He looks angry, but also foolish, because even though he can judge where you’re standing from the sound of your voice, he still can’t meet your eyes. He’s staring holes into the succulent plant on the shelf to your right. 

“I’m not,” you defend, annoyed. “I’m telling you how to be a nice person.”

“I don’t need lessons on that, either.” Jungkook frowns. “He turned in work late and was reprimanded. It’s not any different than what happens in school.”

“But you didn’t even thank him for his time or for showing up to your office, or for the fact that he did the work!” You cry out. 

“What should I be thanking him for? For making the thirty-feet trip from his desk to my office? For turning in work that he was obligated to do late?” Jungkook challenges. “He had to do those. He wasn’t doing me any favors.”

“Except he was, because if he didn’t do that work, then you would’ve had to do it,” you remind him. “Everybody here is doing work because you aren’t able to do all of it yourself. And that’s not your fault—there are only twenty-four hours in a day and you are only one person. But you should be thanking them for their contributions. Even when they turn in something a little late. It’ll do wonders for other people.”

“Are you implying that people don’t like working here?” It’s like he wants to keep this fight going. 

You sigh, loud enough for him to hear despite being a good few steps away from him. “I’m saying that everybody out there—” you say, opening the blinds that cover the walls ever so slightly, just enough for him to see out into the sea of people that sit outside, “—everybody wants so desperately for you to like them. Or at least outwardly display that you don’t hate them. And if you just said please and thank you every now and then, people wouldn’t be so afraid of you.”

Jungkook opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. Instead, he shuts it like a trap and sits back down. He probably doesn’t really appreciate the fact that you’re directing him on how he controls his office on top of how he uses his magic. But it’s the truth, and he had to hear it one way or another.

“I didn’t ask for suggestions on how to run this office,” he spits out. “Next time I think advice like this is warranted, I’ll ask.” Which will be never.

“I’m here whether you like it or not,” you stand your ground. Jungkook gets to put up with you no matter what! “So I’ll tell you whatever I feel is necessary.”

Jungkook scowls. 

“Don’t frown, it ruins your pretty face,” you tease. You walk a couple of steps and lean over to stretch his lips into a smile. He stiffens up, clearly having lost a sense of humor alongside his patience. “That’s better, don’t you think?”

“I can’t wait to get rid of you,” he bites. 

“You’ll have to get rid of that attitude, first,” you counter. “Or neither of us are going anywhere.”  Entitlement and greed go hand in hand. There’s no way you’ll be able to get Jungkook to stop turning everything around him into gold without giving his personality a makeover as well. Somewhere in there is a decent human being.

You just aren’t sure if you’ll ever be able to find him.

The time spent at home is less eventful. Besides you, Jungkook has no one to shout at and be rude to, and in any case, he, for the most part, avoids you entirely. Which is understandable but totally counterproductive, because if you never interact, neither of you will ever get what you want. 

Still, there is plenty to keep yourself busy inside of his penthouse. He’s subscribed to every streaming service under the sun and has a movie theater-esque surround sound system lining the walls. He has more books than some small town libraries. His internet is stupidly fast. Even if this setup is temporary, you sure as hell aren’t going to waste a second of it. 

It is sort of weird to eat food with golden forks and knives, though. You always think you’re going to crack your teeth on your utensils. 

You and Jungkook aren’t on speaking terms right now because an hour ago you caught him turning a vase in his office gold, the metal slowly wrapping around the base of the pot like pixie dust, sparkling and shimmering as the clay was overlaid with a deep, lustrous yellow. It increased the value of the vase tenfold and sent the both of you flying back to square one. 

“Jungkook, what the hell?” You had shouted, storming into the room as Jungkook’s face turned beet red. “Just because I’m not sitting in the room with you doesn’t give you a free pass to do whatever you want.”

“It was just one pot!” Jungkook had defended himself. “I’m not even going to sell it or anything, it just looks nice. The room needed something extra.”

“I’ve upheld my side of the agreement, what’s so difficult about upholding yours?” 

“Oh yeah, like telling me how to do my job even though you have no experience in business whatsoever?” He had challenged. “I don’t think I agreed to that part of the deal.”

“Strike one, Jeon Jungkook,” you had spat out at him. “Otherwise there’s no way in hell you’re ever going to get rid of me.”

Granted, the vase did look much better in gold than it did when it was made of clay, a glazed design of ferns and vines wrapping around the base. But even if Jungkook does have a particularly good eye for interior design, it doesn’t give him a free pass to turn things just to match his chic aesthetic. How many other things has he turned when you weren’t around to shout at him? You’ll have to go through his entire house every day, taking stock of every single item inside of it, making sure that nothing has inexplicably turned to gold.

Defeated, you had returned back to the main living room, flopping around like a beached whale on the leather. Jungkook always has the television set to the news, so you put it on in the background as you count the minutes until you’re finally free. Judging from what’s happened so far, you think you’ll be here forever. 

There’s a knock on the door. You don’t recall Jungkook answering any buzzes to his home, but maybe he’s just ordered a pizza or something and it’s here. It’s nearly dinnertime, anyway. 

You wait a few seconds to see if Jungkook’s going to make any attempts at answering the door himself. When the knock repeats itself and Jungkook still doesn’t appear, you hop off of the couch to get it yourself. You’re hungry, and pizza sounds delicious right now. A massive upgrade from Campbell’s soups. 

When you open the door however, there is no pizza delivery guy behind the door. Instead, there is an extremely well-dressed couple who are smiling happily at you, albeit a little surprised to see you on the other side of the door. 

“Hello?” You ask, polite but confused. 

“Hello!” The man says happily, chortling to himself. “Who might you be?” One good look at the two of them tells you that they’re Jungkook’s parents. His dad has the same nose, and his mom has the same big, bright eyes. They would kick you to the curb if they knew who you were. 

“I’m Y/N,” you explain unhelpfully. 

“Well, Y/N, do you mind letting us inside? The air conditioning out in this hallway has always been too strong,” his dad asks. You nod awkwardly and step to the side, letting the two of them in. “Ah, looks the same as always. You must give Jungkookie that interior designer’s number, alright? He could do something much nicer with the place,” he tells his wife, who nods in agreement. She passes by the bowl that Jungkook always throws his keys into when he returns home and presses a finger to it, letting gold wrap around the edges until it’s transformed into the metal. 

“Jungkook!” You shout down the hallway, desperately hoping that he isn’t going to leave you alone with his parents. 

“What?” He shouts back. 

“We have visitors!” You call. 

Jungkook’s parents are already picking out all of the things about Jungkook’s living room layout that they would change, turning picture frames here and decorative sculptures there gold, careless and without reason. You’re standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, trying your best to look as unsurprised and as normal as possible. Luckily, you haven’t been interrogated yet, but there’s no telling what will happen if Jungkook doesn’t show up yet. 

Two minutes later, Jungkook comes strolling down the hallway, clearly uninterested, but his eyes practically bulge out of his head when he sees who’s come to say hello.

“M-Mom! Dad!” He sputters out, terrified. “What—what are you doing here?” He asks, looking at you nervously. You shrug unhelpfully. All you did was answer the door. 

“Came to pay our wonderful son a visit, of course!” His father says, guffawing loudly. He reaches an arm out and pulls Jungkook into a crushing hug. “How are you doing?”

“Fine, I mean—” Jungkook begins, speechless. “I wasn’t expecting you at all, you know.”

“I know!” His mother cries happily. “But you know that families must always stick together.”

“Yeah…” he trails off. “Listen, it’s really nice to see the both of you, but I’m kind of busy at the moment—”

“We should stay for dinner!” His mother suggests, a lightbulb going off above her head. “We haven’t seen you in so long—we have so much to catch up on! What do you say, honey?”

Jungkook’s father looks peachy keen. “Sounds like a great idea! And you can introduce us to Y/N too, hmm?”

“Okay…” Jungkook says. He turns to you and you’ve never seen him so caught off guard. With his big, wide eyes, he’s a deer in headlights. “Just, uh, give us a second, would you? Thanks.”

That’s the only warning you’re given before Jungkook is pulling you down the hallway and into the nearest bedroom, slamming the door shut behind the both of you. The sound of the wood hitting the frame makes you jump as Jungkook furrows his brows and turns to face you directly. 

“Alright, here’s the deal,” he says, looking you dead in the eyes as you stare up at him, unimpressed. “My parents can’t know that I’ve been assigned a minder. They just can’t. They’ve trusted me to run this business and to be in control of my life and I don’t even want to think about what they’ll do if they find out why you’re really here.”

“Okay, so?” You say with a frown. “I’ll turn invisible. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“But they’ve already seen you, you opened the goddamn door,” Jungkook says with a sigh, clearly exasperated. He rubs his forehead before his hand makes its way through his hair, brushing through the long, dark strands. 

“Well, sorry for not wanting to leave whoever was outside hanging,” you retort. 

“No, it’s fine, whatever,” Jungkook says. He paces around the room slightly, eyes glossing over the still life painting hung up on the wall and the door to the walk-in closet. He pauses in front of it for a moment, thinking, before he rounds on you. “Can I trust you to pretend to be my girlfriend for just one night while they’re here?”

“I’m sorry, what?” 

“Please? They seem to already be under the impression that we’re dating anyway, and I don’t want to have to think of a different explanation for you,” Jungkook pleads. He’s desperate. 

“Let me get this straight: you want me, your minder, to fake being your girlfriend for your parents?” You ask, punctuating every word. This is worse than actually being his minder. 

Jungkook nods. “Just while they’re here. And then we can go back to avoiding each other. Please?” 

And for once, when you see Jeon Jungkook’s stupidly beautiful face, you don’t feel angry, or resentful, or envious. You feel… sympathy. It’s easy being rich and powerful, even easier when you don’t even need to work for your money, but parents are parents, no matter how much gold is in your pocket. 

Besides, it’s not like you rejecting him will have much of an effect on the grand scheme of things, anyway. You do, and then Jungkook has to spend an awkward night with his parents and you won’t accomplish anything. 

“Fine,” you say, begrudgingly so. “But only for tonight.”

“Oh God, thank you,” Jungkook says, and he actually means it. He dashes into the walk-in closet and pulls out a summery day dress, all flowy and floral, coming down to right above your knees. “Here, put this on. You know I don’t give a shit about what you wear but my parents will.”

“Why do you have this?” You ask, holding the hanger in your hand. One touch of the fabric and you can already feel the craftsmanship, the material sturdy and soft.

“An old hookup or something, probably.” Jungkook shrugs, nonchalant. 

You decide not to question whether or not you are about to wear something that Jungkook has had sex with someone in and head into the closet to change. From inside, you can hear Jungkook pacing back and forth in the bedroom, no doubt trying to come up with a believable story as to why you’ve suddenly appeared in his life and where you had come from. 

When you emerge, Jungkook stops dead in his tracks. This dress is easily the most expensive (and clean) thing you’ve ever put on your body, draping seamlessly along your hips and smoothing over all of the parts of your body you’ve never been too fond of. The sensation is pleasant but uncomfortable, as you have always vastly preferred your own clothes to other people’s, but wearing this at least doesn’t make you feel like you live in an abandoned house on the edge of town. 

“Wow,” Jungkook says dumbly, looking at you with his lips parted like a fish, mouth agape. He scratches at the nape of his neck and coughs. “You look kinda good.”

“How thoughtful of you to say,” you chide, basking in the feeling of finally catching Jungkook off guard. 

“Hopefully my parents won’t be here too long,” Jungkook says as he opens the door, letting you exit first. “Normally, they stick around just long enough to tell me about all of the things in my life that I’m currently doing wrong or should improve upon, and then they leave.”

“Fun.” It doesn’t sound very fun at all. 

“At least this time they won’t be grilling me about a girlfriend,” Jungkook says, offering you a grateful smile as you return to the main living space, where Jungkook’s parents are in the middle of turning some of the decorative trinkets on his shelves gold. “Sorry,” he begins, catching his parents’ attention. “We were just talking. Y/N had to change.”

“She looks lovely in that dress, did you buy it for her?” His mother asks. You send a small smile of thanks. 

“Yes, of course,” Jungkook lies. You think not knowing the origins of this dress is best for both you and him. He shuffles the both of you into the kitchen, an awkward hand on the small of your back. If you were a third party watching the two of you, you could sniff out the fake gestures and affection from a mile away. No two people in love are this stiff around each other. 

His parents wait in the living space, blissfully ignorant, as the two of you fumble around in the kitchen in a last-minute attempt to scrounge up something resembling an acceptable meal. You, admittedly, do not use a kitchen fairly often, and stick to pouring the four of you some wine as Jungkook fishes through his fridge and cabinets. He eventually decides on heating up a pre-made pasta dish, filled with all sorts of vegetables you couldn’t name even if you tried. It smells good, at least. 

For someone who seems to rely entirely on a personal chef to do most of his cooking, Jungkook knows his way around the kitchen fairly well, bouncing from one end to the other as if he’s running on a mental timer. Granted, he isn’t actually cooking anything, but compared to you, he may as well be a top chef at a five-star restaurant. Ten minutes later and he’s got a mouth-watering spaghetti dish, topped with vegetables and what looks to be an herb garnish, a side salad, and four glasses of wine that you so expertly poured. 

Unfortunately, with his parents around, you and Jungkook don’t get to go through your usual meal ritual of sitting as far away from each other as physically possible and not talking whatsoever, sitting down next to each other in his fancy suede dining chairs as his parents take the two seats opposite you. Jungkook’s dining table only seats six, despite the sheer size of his actual dining room, and quite frankly, you have never seen him actually use it for what it’s meant for: dining. 

“Delicious, did you make this?” His father asks, already reaching over to serve himself some. 

“Y/N helped.” No you didn’t.

The serving utensils then move to Jungkook’s mother, who does not turn them into gold, instead opting for a baby tomato, which she places in her drink to serve as some sort of extremely niche ice cube. You can’t imagine how good that will taste. Jungkook’s father laughs at his mother, who is obviously proud of herself. Jungkook forces himself to chuckle ever so slightly, and you crack a very helpless smile. It doesn’t really take a genius to figure out where Jungkook got his turning habits from. 

“So, Y/N,” Jungkook’s father begins, catching you right as you shove an entire forkful of pasta into your mouth, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk getting ready for the winter, “how long have you known our son?”

“Uh, a couple of—”

“A couple of months,” Jungkook interrupts, speaking louder than usual. “We met at the Park Gala that they hosted, do you remember?”

You kick Jungkook’s shin under the table, making him wince. 

“Ah, yes.” His mother nods in recollection. “Unfortunately we were on that cruise through France, so we couldn’t make it. A shame, we would have loved to meet you then. Are you a friend of the Parks?”

“An associate,” Jungkook explains as vaguely as possible. “Y/N works in law.”

“Ah, law,” Jungkook’s father says romantically, twirling his fork around in the air. “The conscience of business.”

“Yeah,” you say, forcing out a small laugh. The less you say, the better. Though it is ironic that you now apparently work in law, considering your favorite activity is breaking it. You suppose that nobody knows the law better than its criminals. 

“Where are you from, Y/N? Do we know your parents?” This is starting to sound less like a dinner conversation and more like an interrogation. 

“Y/N actually built herself up,” Jungkook covers for you. Lord knows revealing your true background would send both of his parents storming out of the building. “She doesn’t like to talk about her parents very much.”

That’s one way of putting it. 

“Ah, what a shame,” his mother tuts, shaking her head. “We’d love to meet them.”

“Yeah…” you agree distantly, making a mental note to give Jungkook a good shove when this is all over. Well, two can play at this game. “Jungkook is teaching me a lot about how you guys run your business.” You add pointedly, earning a leg kick in return. “It’s very interesting to see from a law perspective.” More like from a human perspective. 

“Oh, you must be very impressed,” his father says proudly, adjusting the collar of his shirt. “We’ve all worked extremely hard to get where we are.” Because turning things to gold at the press of a finger is truly such a taxing job.

“I’m certainly surprised,” you say back, sending a patient but stiff smile their way. They return the favor easily. Maybe you’re more like these people than you thought. “It’s a big change from what I’m used to.” Jungkook smacks his leg against yours, and you retaliate not a moment afterwards.

“I’m sure,” his mother says, voice sickly sweet. “But you’ll be able to adjust in no time. It’s definitely a level up, is it not?”

Jungkook looks like a lost child in a grocery store aisle, eyes wide as they flit back and forth between you and his parents, hurling thinly-veiled insults at each other like it’s nobody’s business. 

“It’s different,” you respond. 

“Well, I’m sure that Jungkook is doing all that he can to accommodate you,” his father says. “Sometimes the people he chooses to date are… not ideal for this sort of lifestyle. We hope that you are able to adjust quickly. We understand that this is a lot.”

“I certainly hope that I’m a good match, then,” you finish, because something inside of you can’t bear to let Jungkook’s stuffy, elitist parents get the last word. 

The rest of the meal is rather silent, save for a few mindless comments about how poorly Jungkook’s decorated his dining room. You and Jungkook have been warring underneath the dinner table all evening, your shins undoubtedly sporting bruises, because apparently everything the two of you are saying to his parents is wrong. Jungkook’s parents either don’t know or don’t care, because they don’t say anything about the tension that settled over the table like a cloud of fog, thick and potent. 

When everyone’s finished eating, Jungkook’s parents head straight to the door, determining that their contributions to his evening and his penthouse are enough—for now. Who knows if or when they’ll return. You and Jungkook have no choice but to see them off, rounding out the night just as you started: fake, empty smiles. 

“It was lovely to meet you, Y/N,” his mother tells you, hand clutching her purse. “I hope that we may see each other again sometime soon.”

“Yes, I am looking forward to it,” you say with glee, knowing that the chances of you never having to speak to her again are well in your favor. 

“Nice work, son,” his father says, a heavy hand on Jungkook’s shoulder. “Just let us know if you ever need anything.”

“Will do,” Jungkook promises distantly. You can tell that Jungkook doesn’t ask his father for advice too often. 

You bid your goodbyes and Jungkook shuts the door behind them, and it’s almost as the atmosphere immediately begins to clear, the air conditioning cycling out the tension, like a breath of fresh air. 

“Ugh, thank God that’s over,” you huff out, already itching to get out of this dress and back into your own clothes. It was gorgeous at first, but now it’s just an ugly reminder. 

“Come on, it wasn’t that bad,” Jungkook says. 

“’Wasn’t that bad’?” You repeat. It’s as if the words went in through Jungkook’s one ear and right out the other. “Are you serious? It was unbearable. Your parents were judging me from the moment I opened the door. No wonder you’ve never had a lasting girlfriend. I couldn’t think of anyone who would want to deal with that.”

“Excuse me?” Jungkook says, rounding on you as fire burns in his eyes. “What do you mean, ’that’?”

“I mean that I don’t know how on Earth people just accept the fact that in other people’s eyes, they’ll never be good enough?” You tell him like it’s obvious, because it is. This sort of life has been so ingrained into Jungkook’s head that he doesn’t even recognize it as unwelcoming and stifling. “I couldn’t stand being your girlfriend. Your parents are judgy and rude, and you all act like people who don’t come from as much money and power as you have no business sitting where you sit.”

“So your best approach was to shade and insult my parents in return?” He combats. “I would hate to be your boyfriend. My parents get more aggressive when people fight them, but you shove me under the table when I try to get you to back down? Just so you can have the final word to two people you’ll probably never see again?”

“The fact that anyone has dated you astounds me,” you tell him. 

“The fact that nobody’s dated you doesn’t astound me,” Jungkook spits back. 

You frown, embers flaring in your boiling blood. What, did Jungkook think you were going to enjoy yourself tonight? By pretending to be some sort of ditzy, desperate-to-please girlfriend? “You’re welcome for doing you a favor and not just straight up telling your parents you’ve been assigned a minder because you can’t handle your own powers. Don’t expect me to do it again.”

“I’m not planning on it,” Jungkook mumbles to himself, just loud enough for you to hear. 

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

You and Jungkook march down opposite hallways, desperate for this night to be over. You tear off the dress and let it sit at the foot of the bed, taunting you. 

There is no way in hell you are ever leaving this place. 

The time spent at work is allocated half towards following Jungkook around like an invisible puppy with a personal vendetta against him, making sure that he doesn’t turn, and half towards wishing that something actually interesting will happen. Jungkook runs so tight a ship that nobody ever seems to want to do anything fun or exciting, no doughnuts, no inside jokes, no pranks. Just an endless cycle of trying desperately to please the unpleasable.

Admittedly, nowadays, you don’t really mind being here as much as you used to, when you would mentally criticize every person that walked through the glass doors to Jungkook’s office, hands filled with stacks of paper and manila folders, plopped onto Jungkook’s desk one by one. Jungkook’s started to keep extra food up in his office, the mini-fridge by his bookshelves constantly filled with takeaway salads and fruit. Apples are a definite no-go because they’re too loud, and you can only ever risk eating salads when nobody’s around to hear you pop the plastic top off of the container, but other than that, it’s nice.

Jungkook has pretty good taste in food, too, which is an added bonus. Though anything is a leg up from what you normally eat.

And even though you’ve begun to start roaming around, exploring the nooks and crannies that line the clean-cut layout, your favorite place to be is Jungkook’s office. He’s got these magnificent floor-to-ceiling glass windows, with a view directly over the biggest park in the city, thousands of feet up in the air. From up here, it almost feels as though you’re looking down at a different world, a different universe. It’s difficult to imagine that everyone down there, every ant-sized person walking along the sidewalk or resting on a park bench or ordering from a food stand, has lives of their own.

Especially when they are but specks of dust in yours.

Jungkook looks at this view forty hours a week. You wonder if he ever gets sick of it.

The door to Jungkook’s office creaks open as you’re staring out of the windows, watching as the clouds pass overhead. They look like little white dogs, like cotton candy, like angel wings.

“Mr. Jeon?”

The owner of the voice is the same man you berated Jungkook for shouting at a few weeks ago, the one who had turned in an analysis report a day late. He seems just as frightened of Jungkook now as he did back then, and it makes you wonder if any of Jungkook’s employees aren’t afraid of him.

“Here’s the completed budget report for the Lee Corporation for last fiscal year,” the man says, reaching a trembling hand out to lay a manila folder on Jungkook’s desk. Jungkook only looks up once he sees it out of his periphery, hand pausing mid-write, pen still hovering over the papers on his desk.

He meets the man’s eyes, and when he does, he cracks a small smile, this sort of barely-there grin, lips curling upwards ever so slightly. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

It’s as if the man has won the lottery. He thanks Jungkook quickly before bouncing out of the room, steps much lighter, like a weight has been lifted off of his shoulders. You watch as he leaves the room, a smile etching itself onto your face. It’s rather incredible what a simple ‘thank you’ can do to people.

You don’t say anything to Jungkook, instead just turning back around to gaze out of the window. There’s an entire city below your feet, one that bustles around like bees in a hive, everyone with a place to be and things to do. There is this strange but comforting feeling of insignificance, one where you feel as though you could disappear and nobody would notice a thing. The rest of the world can and will move on without you. But that doesn’t mean that your life means nothing. It means that your life can be whatever you want to make of it, because in the grand scheme of things, nobody else will know what you have done.

History is like that, too. You must be remarkable to be remembered. But that doesn’t mean the unremarkable people were forgotten. They touched lives, too.

Staring out the window as the clouds swim over the sun, a light grey shadow casting itself over the park, you feel at peace.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”

You jump at the voice, Jungkook’s presence next to you having gone totally unnoticed. You didn’t even hear him get up from his chair.

“How did you know I was here?” You ask.

“I could sense it," Jungkook says with a grin, making you raise an eyebrow. You’re invisible. “I’m kidding, I saw you come over here a bunch last week when you first got into my office and I figured you’d probably still be here.”

“You figured correctly,” you tell him.

“You know, I don’t spend enough time looking out these windows,” Jungkook admits, and you aren’t sure if it’s to you or himself. “I’m always staring at my computer or writing something at my desk with my head down. I’ve got the best view in the whole city and sometimes, I don’t even remember what it looks like.”

“You work hard,” you tell him, because that’s something that is undeniable about who he is and what he does. “But you deserve to give yourself a break, every now and then.”

“For lunch breaks, the first thing I do is get out of my office. I spend all day in there and when it’s finally time for me to put work on pause, I rush out of the room like it’s on fire,” Jungkook comments. “Maybe I should stay up here every once in a while instead.”

“It’s not like I’ll be going anywhere,” you joke.

“You can, you know,” Jungkook tells you. “You don’t have to stay up here all day.”

“I know,” you say. “But I don’t really mind it. I like being here. It’s calming, in a way.” In a way that you can’t explain. Like you’re stuck in freeze frame while everyone else moves around you. Like you’re watching a movie about everybody’s lives but your own. Like you’re a spectator in your own body. “Plus, the view is gorgeous.”

“It is,” Jungkook agrees.

You stand there in silence for a few more moments, the only sounds filling the room your inhales and exhales, soft and slow, your hearts beating in time. Jungkook is more than a foot away from you but here, in his office, looking out over the world, he has never felt closer.

“Thank you,” you whisper, letting the words hang in the air in front of you.

“For what?” Jungkook asks.

“For listening to me.”

You feel Jungkook turn to you, and when you dare to look up at him, you meet his hazy brown eyes, warm and sparkly. He looks like a goddamn celebrity, like a magazine cover come to life, crisp shirt collars and fancy Italian shoes, glossy brown hair and perfect skin. He smiles at you, this homey sort of thing that makes you feel like summer is running through your veins, like the rays of the sun are pressing against your skin.

“Of course,” he tells you.

Jungkook is a lot of things. He’s unabashedly gorgeous and outrageously wealthy. He walks around like he owns everything that he touches. His house is clean and chic and minimalist, almost like nobody lives there at all. He’s determined and a workaholic, and hates admitting when he’s wrong.

But maybe, just maybe, in the white afternoon light of his office, the rest of the world underneath his feet, standing next to you as the two of you stare out in a city you call your own, he’s not that bad.

Being alone in Jungkook’s penthouse is, to put it lightly, absolutely terrifying.

It’s hard to believe that Jungkook--and maybe a girlfriend for a brief period--has occupied this entire space on his own, no one else to talk to, no one else to spend time with, no one to occupy his massive couches or fill up the chairs in his dining room.

You’ve always wondered why rich people buy the biggest houses. Sure, it’s because they’re rich, and because they can afford it, but it’s impossible for one person, or even two, to make the entire place feel like their own. You leave countless rooms untouched, meant for guests that you never have and parties that you never host. It’s like you’ve moved into half of a house, a quarter of a mansion. What’s the point of having so much space if you don’t ever have anyone to fill it up?

Normally you wouldn’t leave Jungkook’s side, following him around the city whenever he has errands to run or needs to dash back to work to pick up something he had forgotten. But Jungkook hasn’t been turning anything lately, even when you sleep in four hours later than he does, even when he stays up into the early hours of the morning while you pass out before it’s midnight. It’s like he’s somehow lost the will for his magic entirely, like it’s vanished from his body.

Well, you’re not complaining. That just means you’re one step closer to finishing your sentence.

Jungkook’s penthouse feels bigger when he’s not around. Even though you hardly ever see each other while you’re at home, the mere knowledge of his presence makes you feel like you’re not alone. Makes you feel like there is someone else in this little corner of the world.

Everything in here has always looked untouched. Like it doesn’t belong to anybody, like a house listing come to life. His marble counters are always empty, his cabinets always closed and organized. His books are always alphabetized and the stack of art books on his coffee table has never been touched. All of the bedrooms look like they belong in a hotel. The bathrooms look like they belong in a museum.

Jungkook’s house has never felt like a home but then again, neither has yours.

Still, if you had to choose between living in your abandoned shack at the edge of town or living in an enormous penthouse in the center of the city, you would never look back at that old, dilapidated building. The difference between you and Jungkook is that Jungkook chooses to live in this tragically empty place.

You don’t think you’ll ever be able to understand Jungkook’s life. Not just the technicalities of the company he runs, the economics and business that he has spent his whole life mastering, but also the way he sees the world in terms of money and power, how everything has some sort of value, even people. Even you. His biggest concern has always been himself. How much money he has matters, how many investments his company owns matters, how the public views him matters. He has spent so long crafting this perfect image of himself that he’s willing to spend as much money as necessary to maintain it. 

Jungkook doesn’t even look at the total on the card reader when he purchases things. He simply tugs his silver card out of a sleek black wallet and swipes, crumpling the receipt up in his hand before shoving it into the pocket of his jeans. He comes back home to a gigantic penthouse with a gym and his pool and more bedrooms than he can count on both hands, to a personal chef in his kitchen making him five-star meals to last him the rest of the week. 

Money is never on his mind, but it is always on yours. 

When will you get enough to pay off your phone bill, will you ever be able to afford a repairman to fix the broken, exposed lightbulb above the back door, how many Campbell’s soups can you buy and still have enough funds to last you until the next day? What if, God forbid, the city comes knocking on your door and either evicts you or orders you to pay up for the three years you’ve been living in that house, rent-free? What will you do then?

Life is by no means easy for either of you, but Jeon Jungkook has never had to want for anything. If it isn’t handed to him, he works for it himself. If he can’t buy it, he’ll just make more money. If he doesn’t already own it, what’s stopping him?

People dream of having Jungkook’s life. People fear having yours. 

Alone in Jungkook’s apartment, the differences between the two of you have never been clearer. 

Your greatest fear is the fact that, in the past few weeks you have spent here, you are already becoming used to it. You are dreading going back to where you were before, stealing money from people off of the streets and living in a house in such disrepair that local nons think that it’s haunted. You fear that you will never want to leave. 

It’s such a terrifying feeling, isn’t it? Becoming attached to something. Feeling as though your life will be worse without it. Knowing that your life will be worse without it. 

There are parts of you that make you wish that life wasn’t so unfair. 

The living room is three times the size of the dining room but you hate eating there, sitting at an empty table with no one to talk to but suede chairs, reminding you that you don’t even have any friends to invite anyway. At least in the living room you can sit on the couch and watch television and pretend that you have at least some semblance of a life. 

You pick at a pre-made salad that has too much lettuce and not enough everything else—Jungkook needs a new chef, you decide, plucking out all of the croutons and slices of cheddar cheese, when the front door swings open, slamming against the wall adjacent to it as Jungkook storms inside. 

“Oh my God, what happened to you?” You exclaim, eyes practically bulging out of your head as you jump off of the couch. Even from here, you can see the dark bruising around Jungkook’s eye, purple and blue, the busted up knuckles clenched around the bag he’s carrying. There’s even a small streak of blood on his upper left cheek, already beginning to scab. 

“Nothing, I’m fine,” he says, wiping away the blood on his lip with the back of his hand. 

“No, you’re not,” you tell him, rushing up to meet him in the middle of the foyer, standing in front of him as you look up at his face with wide eyes. He waits there patiently, avoiding your gaze, steely eyes looking elsewhere, as you reach up to hold his head in your hands, tilting it from side to side. “What happened to you?”

“Some dudes jumped me in the parking lot on the way back,” Jungkook says casually. You’d almost believe he didn’t feel anything if he doesn’t wince when you press a gentle fingertip along the bruise on his jawline. He meets your frightened expression and smirks wickedly, something glinting in his eyes. “Don’t worry, I got ‘em good.”

“Are you alright?” You ask him, even though it’s obvious he’s not. “You aren’t seriously injured or anything, are you?”

“Don’t worry about it, Y/N,” Jungkook says with a sigh, even as he obeys your movements and moves his body pliantly to the feeling of your hands pressing against his skin. Most of the visible damage seems to be to his face and hands, and quite frankly, you’re not exactly sure if you want to see what’s underneath his dress shirt. “I’m strong. I work out and eat healthy and everything. I’ll be better in no time.”

“No, are you kidding?” You say, reaching out to grab his hand without a second thought, pulling him towards the nearest bathroom. “You can’t just leave it like this. Here, let me heal you.”

“I don’t need you to patch me up or anything,” Jungkook resists, frowning as you sit him down on the edge of the bathtub and begin to fish through his bathroom cabinets. “First aid isn’t in that one.”

“No, you idiot,” you chide him. “I’m not gonna patch you up. Aren’t you forgetting that I’m a healer?” 

“So what are you gonna do, then?” 

You finally find the first aid kit and pull it out, revealing rolls of gauze and bottles of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant. There’s even a couple of rows of Ibuprofen. “Well, you should be patched up anyway,” you decide, turning back to look at Jungkook’s face as he waits obediently on the edge of the tub. “But I can heal you faster than what time and medicine can do on their own.”

“You don’t have to,” Jungkook says softly. 

“Please, of course I do,” you reply instantly. You’re not gonna let Jungkook walk around like that. “We can’t have your pretty face all messed up, now can we?”

Jungkook cracks a small smile but it’s obvious that the simple gesture alone pains him, making him wince slightly as his lips turn upwards. You wet a face cloth with cold water and press it against Jungkook’s bruises, looking intently at his features as you move the cloth around, letting the cold water draw out the heat that sizzles beneath his skin. Jungkook watches you the whole time, his eyes never leaving yours, even as your brows furrow in concentration, determined to fix Jungkook back up so he’s brand new. Slowly, the bruises begin to fade, going from an angry violet to a light lavender, and then to a pink that could almost be mistaken for a heavy blush.

It feels weird, knowing that he’s right there. Knowing that he’s watching you, eyes following yours as they scan his face. His clean-cut jawline is a little swollen, perfect skin angry and marked, but his eyes are still the same. Still wide and bright, like a young child, like a baby deer learning to walk for the first time. They look almost caramel in the yellow light of the bathroom, flecks of gold to mirror the accents in the room. 

There’s something about them that makes you not want to turn away. 

When the bruises have faded, leaving only petal pink remnants along his skin, you move onto the small cut along his cheek. It’s rough and jagged, like the skin had been torn right through, a nick from a fingernail or a knuckle. It’s not long, but it is somewhat deep. You imagine it might scar permanently. 

Kneeling down in front of him, you pull out some rubbing alcohol and a cotton pad, dabbing a gentle amount onto the round before moving closer, holding his head in your hand as you reach out. 

“This might sting,” you say, like he doesn’t already know. 

“That’s alright,” Jungkook tells you. “Fix me up, doctor.”

At his cue, you softly press the cotton pad against the scab, rubbing away at it until it comes off cleanly, leaving only fresh, exposed skin behind. For wounds like these, a cloth won’t do. Your mother used to tell you that healing didn’t come from your hands, it came from your heart. That even if your fingertips had the magic, it was your heart that had the power to wield it. 

Slowly, you rest your palm against his cheek, rubbing your thumb along the cut. Jungkook blinks, big eyes shimmering, as you do so, and you feel trapped in his gaze. Like you couldn’t turn away even if you tried. Like you almost wouldn’t want to. His skin is baby soft, perfect, a far cry from the calloused pads of your fingertips, worn from so many days and nights out on the streets. 

There is magic in your fingertips, surely, but there is something different in your heart. Something that you don’t think you have the words to explain.

The cut seals up instantly, the skin patching over itself until nothing is left but a mark, a little scar that will stay there forever. And yet, you stay there, locked in his magnetic pull, like tearing away will hurt you rather than him. The cut is healed, and his bruises are fading, and there is no reason to stay like this. 

And yet. 

“There,” you whisper, watching the words appear between the two of you, lingering like ghosts. “All better.”

Jungkook grins. It doesn’t hurt him, but something in you feels a sharp jolt, an ache. Like a spark in the pit of your belly. Like magic in your veins. 

Jungkook has been tearing his hair out over this one manila folder in front of him for the past twenty minutes. Every ten seconds he writes something down before scribbling it out, the ink bleeding through the paper to the next one. He flips through the files relentlessly, carelessly, until they’re all out of order and splayed all over his desk. He’s instructed the guard outside not to let anyone in, even if it’s some sort of emergency. 

You’ve seen Jungkook at work a lot, but you’ve never seen him like this. Even his anguished sighs are difficult to listen to. 

Creeping over to the wall that overlooks the rest of the office, Venetian blinds shielding the both of you from view, you crack open a slat, peeking out at everyone else. None of them pay any attention to Jungkook’s office, too busy worrying about the next report they have to complete and all of the office meetings they have to attend, so you take it as a good opportunity to turn visible. Just for a little bit. 

“You alright?” You ask, nearly making Jungkook fall out of his seat at the sound of your voice. 

“What?” He asks, surprised. “Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

“What’s the matter?” You ask, because you’ve never seen Jungkook as stressed out as he is now. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to organize this new collective to monitor our investing habits so we can assess where investments need to be divvied up into in order for clients to find us worth of their own investments as opposed to other companies,” Jungkook explains, though he sounds positively exhausted while doing so, like the very mention of what he’s slaving over is enough to send him over the edge. “But no one can agree on how we can use this information to promote this company to our clients and the public. People invest in both of us either way.”

“You want people to invest more money in your company, don’t you?” You ask with a raised eyebrow. 

“Well, yeah.” 

“How much money does this company give to small businesses? To nonprofits and charity?”

Jungkook frowns, scrunching up his nose as he thinks. He clicks around on his computer for a few seconds before saying, “About five percent.”

“And your investments are public, correct?”

“Yes.” Jungkook nods. 

“You should be giving way more than five percent of this company’s investments to small, local businesses and charity,” you tell Jungkook, already worming your way behind his desk to look at what he’s looking at. You point to the numbers on his screen, single-digit percentages, some even less than one, being sent to local businesses, nonprofits, and charities. “Look at this. Ninety-five of your investments go right into stocks. If you invested more money into nonprofits and local businesses, people would see you taking the time to help boost the local economy and the organizations that serve it for free. Then, those businesses would invest in you in return, and clients would see that you’re investing in noble causes and give you more money as a thanks, which can then be funnelled back to small businesses and nonprofits.”

It’s a rather roundabout sort of proposal and you’re almost positive that it has no real footing anywhere in real economics and finance, but it makes sense to you. If you had money to invest in major companies, you would choose the ones that invest in the things that will benefit you, like local businesses and nonprofits. If you saw that the companies you were giving money to were simply giving it away to the stock market, you’d pull your money out. 

You know that the stock market is nothing but the world’s biggest economic gamble, but that doesn’t mean that you have to gamble with it. Companies that stand for what you stand for are much more appealing than companies with a bigger investment bank behind them. 

You turn to Jungkook, who is squinting at his computer screen as he fumbles around with the numbers, flicking from Excel sheet to Excel sheet, bouncing back and forth between the information online and the files on top of his desk. 

“Is that stupid?” You ask, breaking the silence. It’s not as if people know you for your groundbreaking economic policies. 

Jungkook spares one more glance over all of his files, and turns up to look at you. “No,” he tells you with a shake of his head. “It’s not.”

“Really?” You’re actually impressed with yourself. 

“Yeah,” Jungkook agrees happily. “You’re right—I’d want to know that my investments were going to a company with good morals that lifts up local businesses. It would encourage me to invest more, too.”

“It’s not a very sound economic theory…” You admit. Jungkook’s probably seasoned in how investments and the stock markets work, charts upon charts of client behavior that shapes the way he organizes his company. And you? You don’t have enough money to even buy food some days. 

“It doesn’t have to be,” Jungkook assures you. “Theory is total bullshit anyway, because nobody can predict what will happen with the economy. But human nature has always been reliably good. People like to know that their money is going to a good cause.”

“So, it helps?” You ask with a smile. 

Jungkook nods. “It does. It’s actually a great idea, Y/N. You might have a future in business.”

You scoff. “Me? I don’t know the first thing about this stuff.”

Jungkook shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t need to. You’re a good person who thinks about everyone, Y/N. That’s why you’d be good at business. Because your clients can trust you, and you’ll actually put your money where your mouth is.” 

“I guess,” you say unhelpfully. Just because you think about others doesn’t make you especially remarkable. It makes you human. Isn’t that how everyone’s supposed to be? “I just don’t think about clients and money like you do. Money’s always been really valuable to me, since I’ve never had much of it, but you guys see it as expendable. I need to know where my money goes, I don’t want to see it just vanish into the hands of someone else.” Jungkook’s nodding along, eyes looking intently at your own, like he’s committing the words you say to his memory. “I just think that people and companies with tons of money have a duty to give back to those who are less fortunate. That’s all.”

“That’s noble of you,” Jungkook says. 

“It’s just common sense,” you explain. “Why wouldn’t you want to do something like that?”

Jungkook heaves a sigh, a long, winded sort of one, like there’s a whole conversation behind it that he wishes he could have with you. But instead, he just shakes his head, a fond smile lacing its way across his features. He chuckles to himself. “Maybe you aren’t cut out for business after all, Y/N,” he tells you softly. “You have too big a heart.”

And maybe that’s true. Maybe you’re too kind, too generous, to ever make it in business. To succeed without losing every penny to your name. 

But if that’s the case, then where does Jungkook stand?

When Jungkook stays at work late, the two of you eat dinner together. 

There’s just something so demoralizing about coming back to an empty house, letting the hollow sound of the door slamming shut echo throughout the room, and then marching off in different directions to spend the rest of the night alone. When it’s dark, and late, and you’re starving, it’s all you can do not to beg Jungkook to eat with you. Even if in silence. 

By the time you get home, your stomach is just about ready to consume the art books sitting in a neat stack at the top right corner of the coffee table. You begin to clear off some space for the both of you to eat as Jungkook heads towards the refrigerator, when not three seconds after, you hear him swear, “Oh, shit.”

“What’s the matter?” You call out. 

“We’re out of premade meals!” Jungkook shouts back. What? You could have sworn there were at least two full tupperwares still available. Actually, maybe you had eaten them for lunch… 

“Really?” You get up from the coffee table and make your way into the kitchen, where Jungkook is standing in front of a refrigerator with the entire middle section wiped clean, empty shelves mocking the both of you as you glare at them. “Oh, wow. Really.”

“I didn’t know we ate that much,” Jungkook comments, shocked at the sight before him. 

“What are we gonna do?” You ask. You’re hungry. 

“What do you mean?” Jungkook says with a laugh. He kneels down and begins to pull vegetables from the drawers, plucking different bottles from inside the fridge door and plastic cartons from the top shelves, the ones that you never dare touch. “We’ll cook something, obviously.”

“Can’t we just order takeout?”

“You don’t wanna cook something with me?” Jungkook asks, eyes wide and pouty. You shake your head guiltily. Is ordering a pizza really so much to ask? Jungkook narrows his eyes at you suspiciously, a grin pulling at his lips, before he nods knowingly. “Oh, I get it.”

“Get what?” You challenge. 

“You don’t know how to cook.”

“What? I know how to cook!” You cry out, aghast. True, your past meals have mostly involved warming food up in the microwave, but that counts, in your book. Jungkook frowns in disbelief. “I know how to use a microwave.”

Jungkook tosses his head back and laughs, this warm, hearty sound filling up the kitchen, before he starts placing all of the containers and bottles and vegetables he pulled out from the fridge onto the counter. “Okay, we’re going to make something together.”

“Seriously?” You say, borderline whining. “Can’t you just do it?”

“No,” Jungkook rolls his eyes, “because you have to help me. Kitchen’s orders.”

“You’re the kitchen!”

“Exactly,” Jungkook says, smiling to himself. He pulls out some more ingredients from the cabinets, hands deftly reaching for the exact ones he wants, until you have a collection of food, seasonings, and sauces on the countertop, and an apparent recipe to be made. 

“What are we making?” You ask, looking down at everything on the counter. All of these things can’t go into one dish… can they?

“An old family recipe,” Jungkook says. “Kimchi jjigae. It’s kimchi stew.”

“Is it easy?” 

Jungkook grins something wicked, something devilish. “It’s fun.”

He sets out to put a pot on the stove, turning the gas on, bouncing back and forth between the stovetop and the counter as you stand there like a floundering fish, waiting for him to either give you an instruction or do everything himself.

“Can you cut the green onions?” Jungkook asks as he adds water and what looks to be tiny little fish to the pot, reaching behind his back to gesture wildly at the ingredients sitting on the marble. 

“Which are those?” You scan the countertop. Your familiarity with food and recipes extends about as far as anything non-perishable that comes in a tin can. Never in your life have you seen so much laid out in front of you, all meant to go into the same meal. 

The metal lid clinks as Jungkook covers the pot to boil, turning around to join you at the counter, where you wait awkwardly in front of an unused chopping board, no knife in sight. 

“These,” he says, reaching over you to pull up several stalks of something that looks similar to the wild onions that grow in your backyard. He fishes through the drawers before he pulls out a kitchen knife, gently placing it in your hand as he moves around to grab all of the other ingredients he needs for the boiling water on the stovetop. 

Hesitantly, you line up the onions and begin to chop, carefully sawing through each one until it comes cleanly off of the stalk. It’s awfully time-consuming, especially since Jungkook seems to have already made the stock base in the time it’s taken you to cut one. Nevertheless, you persist, because Jungkook wants these to go in the pot, and you refuse to be seen as incompetent in the kitchen, especially when Jungkook seems to be rather proficient when it comes to cooking despite the fact that a chef makes the majority of his meals for him. 

Old family recipes die hard, you suppose. 

Jungkook turns around to check on you and grab a small red container of what looks to be some sort of spicy pepper paste. When he sees you carefully slicing through each onion stalk, he laughs. 

“Hey, what are you laughing at?” You say, pouting. You don’t think you’re doing a terrible job, even if you are a bit slow. 

“You,” Jungkook says with a grin, not even bothering to think of something else to say instead. “Here, let me show you.”

He comes to stand behind you, his torso pressing against your back, as he reaches his arms around you, hands gently resting atop your own. There is something in the way his breath hits your skin, tickles the part right behind your ear that’s always been sensitive, how he leans down to look over your shoulder. The rise and fall of his chest against you. Something strange and foreign and calming, like when you tense up right before you fall asleep.

Frozen, you watch with nervous eyes as he holds your hand in his own, grasping onto the knife. He stacks a few onion stalks next to each other on top of the cutting board and slowly begins to cut—thin, quick slices until he develops a rhythm, an imaginary beat to the drumming of his heart, to the pounding of your own. 

The seconds seem to drag on for eternity, as if every cut through the vegetable is done in slow-motion, like time has slowed down just for the two of you. His breath tickles your skin, hot and tingly and filled with fire, lighting sparks everywhere it touches. You think that, if you concentrate hard enough, you can hear the way his heart thumps like a bass drum, ringing in your ears. Or maybe that’s just you. 

When four green onion stalks have been cut down to their very tips, suddenly the world speeds up, like the breaths that have slowly been leaving your lips come out all at once, like your heart picks up time to a universal metronome, desperate to realign itself once more. 

“There,” Jungkook murmurs from behind you. The words are soft and distant, almost like someone else had uttered them. “All done.”

You blame the tears welling in your eyes on the onions. 

Thirty minutes and an overwhelming amount of slicing different ingredients later, there is a boiling pot of kimchi stew on the stove, steaming up the inside of the glass lid that Jungkook has placed on top to keep it warm. He’s big on optimizing the time spent in the kitchen, cleaning up everything before you eat, stuffing all of the used plates and bowls and knives into the sink as they come, wrapping up the vegetables in the thin plastic bags that they came in and putting them back into the fridge. Jungkook says it’s because he doesn’t like having to clean the kitchen up after he’s eaten. You think it’s because he thinks you’ll run off and leave him to do all the work. 

You, admittedly, don’t make your own meals very often (or at all), but you can see the appeal. There’s something different about food that you make yourself, food that you turned from ingredients to a meal. Something rewarding. 

Or maybe it’s just because Jungkook did most of the cooking, and he’s got this inexplicable magic touch. 

“Good, right?” He asks when you’re finished, the both of you heading back to the kitchen to wash up the last of your dishes.

“It was okay,” you tease, even though your empty bowl says otherwise. There’s not a drop of soup, a scrap of food left inside of it, just an orange ring around the inside from the kimchi color. 

“Okay, Miss ‘Okay’,” Jungkook says, placing his bowl gently into the sink. “Hand me your thing, I’ll finish washing up.”

“You sure?” You ask. You feel like you’ve contributed absolutely nothing to the making of this dish. Not cooking it, not putting away the ingredients or washing the pot, nothing. The least you could do is clean up a couple of your bowls. Or put them in the dishwasher. 

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Jungkook says, hand already latching onto it. “Takes two minutes.”

“Okay,” you tell him, watching the bowls fill with soap as his big hands scrub away the remnants of a very delicious meal. 

You linger in the kitchen. Despite not really having anything else to do, you don’t want to go back to your room, or curl away in some corner of the apartment where Jungkook can’t find you. You’re finally spending time together. Isn’t that what you wanted?

“It was pretty good,” you add on belatedly, when Jungkook is just drying his hands on the dish towel. There’s a precarious stack of dishes, utensils, and pots on the drying rack, like adding one more chopstick will send the whole thing tumbling down, but Jungkook isn’t worried about it at all. Even though he likes cleaning stuff up, he doesn’t like putting it away. 

“Aha!” Jungkook shouts, pointing at you accusingly. “I knew you would like it.”

“You’re a good chef,” you tell him. Maybe kimchi jjigae is the only thing he’s good at making, but rather be a master of one than a jack of all trades but master of none. Though, you have to admit that Jungkook is a master of several trades, none of which you think you could ever do. “You should cook more.”

“I wish,” Jungkook says with a sigh. The two of you have retired to the leather couch, the conversation drifting away from the kitchen and towards the sofas. When he collapses on the cushions, he relaxes, like the feeling is sucking out all of the tension in his body. “Every time I get back from work, I’m so drained and exhausted. I just want to go to sleep.”

“You weren’t tired tonight,” you point out. 

“No,” Jungkook says. The words are distant and faintly register in his mind, almost like the realization has just dawned on him for the first time, “I wasn’t.”

“Is there something else you wanna do?” You ask, not feeling particularly lethargic either. Normally, you’d spend the rest of the night raiding the rest of Jungkook’s amenities, watching old shows on his television or taking a bath until your body looks like a raisin. Something you can do by yourself, something that you’d want to do by yourself to make up for the fact that Jungkook doesn’t ever want to do anything with you. Watching him at work is getting less boring, because you’re actually starting to interact, but at home, you go right back to square one. Or, you did. “Watch a movie, or anything?”

“Nah, I’m alright,” Jungkook shakes his head, scrunching up his nose. You watch him as he chews the inside of his cheek, finger tracing over the scar that’s been left from that night, the night you patched him up. You’re a healer, but some things are meant to leave marks. You almost think that Jungkook is going to up and leave, heave himself off of the floor and spend the rest of the night alone in his bedroom, but then, he turns to you and he asks, “How often do you heal people?”

“I haven’t in a while,” you admit. Not because the opportunity has never presented itself, but you never had anyone to heal. “I used to when I was a kid, a lot. You know, scraped knees and paper cuts.”

“What about you?” Jungkook asks. “Do you have to heal yourself as well?”

“No,” you explain, “healers’ bodies heal by themselves.” It’s why, whenever you get back to your shack after crashing into a tree on the sidewalk that you hadn’t spotted, or stubbed your toe on the leg of a table, or pulled a muscle from stretching too far, you let yourself rest, and your body does the work for you. “But healing isn’t… it isn’t something I do very often. I turn invisible much more.”

“I can tell,” Jungkook muses. “But you’ve been invisible around me so much that it feels like I can still see you.”

“That’s because I’m always in your office when I’m invisible,” you point out. Jungkook knows you’re there because you wouldn’t be anywhere else. Where would you even go, when the whole point is to watch him? “In a place like this, there is no way you would be able to find me.”

“You wanna bet?”

“You know what, yes, I do,” you say, because Jungkook can’t possibly think his human-snuffing skills are as good as yours. Especially when the only person he’s trying to find is invisible. “You think you’re such a hotshot, hmm? Try and find me, then.”

“First floor only,” Jungkook rules. “And, when I do, I get to turn something.”

“Fine,” you agree, only because you know that that’s not going to happen. “One thing. That’s strike two, though.”

“You won’t tell,” Jungkook chides, eyes narrowed. 

“Will I?”

“Twenty seconds!” Jungkook says, already beginning to count down. “Nineteen, eighteen—!”

You turn invisible at once, not wasting a second, scurrying off down one of the hallways. There are plenty of places to hide in Jungkook’s house, from the walk-in closets in every bedroom to the one-foot-tall gap underneath every bed. But you won’t go for one of those, because Jungkook expects you to. He’s going to hunt around his entire house, looking in all of the nooks and crannies, the armoires and cabinets and cubbyholes, because he thinks that that’s where you’ll be hiding. But the truth is that there is no way that Jungkook will be able to find you when he can’t see you, because he doesn’t know what he’ll be looking for. 

So, you pick the second-to-last bedroom down the hall, and you wait. You’d sit down on the mattress, but Jungkook easily be able to spot a dip in the comforter, so you stand, right next to the door, holding your breath. If Jungkook really does think he can sense your presence, or whatever psychic nonsense he’s on about, then he should have no problem finding you. 

You hear Jungkook’s voice echoing down the hallway, a sickly sweet singsong as he walks into every room. 

“Y/N…” He calls out, like a ghost in a horror movie. “Where are you?”

From your angle, you can peer down the corridor, watch as he trickles in and out of each room after five minutes, no doubt searching through every one with both of his arms out, desperate to crash into you. Good thing you’re standing, otherwise Jungkook might accidentally elbow you. Slowly, he makes his way out of the room right before yours, casually walking towards you. You suck in a quick breath, holding yourself perfectly still.

“Are you here?” Jungkook flips his head around the doorframe, a foot away from where you’re standing. He isn’t looking right at you, thank God, otherwise you think you might just burst into laughter. “Hmm, I think you are.”

He begins to walk around the room, one hand tracing over the quilted pattern on the comforter, the other reaching out, grabbing fistfuls of air. He looks like someone’s blocked his vision, wandering around aimlessly as he tries to find something to cling onto. You bite your lip, refusing to laugh and give yourself away as he makes his way into the bathroom, singing your name like a chant, a curse to be laid upon you. When he obviously has no luck, he returns to the bedroom, eyes narrowed, as if that will better help his vision. 

You don’t think you’ve ever held your breath for this long, lungs about to burst, but you can’t let Jungkook find you. There’s more than just your powers on the line, and his reward. There’s your pride, and his massive ego that you refuse to stroke. The fact that he looks absolutely ridiculous is also doing nothing to aid you, but giving yourself up would be a metaphorical death sentence. 

Jungkook has one foot out of the door, already heading towards the last bedroom in the hallway, when you crack. You sputter out a half-breath, this miniscule exhale, and he stops in his tracks, turning around. You freeze up, hoping that maybe Jungkook will just think it was a trick of his own ears. 

“Y/N?” He taunts. He looks around the room again, trying to see if the wind is blowing a different way, if there is something different. He almost doesn’t notice you. 

Almost. 

You turn in shock when Jungkook reaches a hand out, his fingers pinching at your lower torso, shrieking as you practically topple over, Jungkook’s arms the only things that prevent you from diving head first onto the floor. He encases you in his hold as you sink to the floor in defeat, laughing as he follows you, one arm holding your waist as the other wraps around your back. He chuckles to himself while you curl up in shame, desperate not to meet your eyes. Your skin sizzles where his fingers had touched it, like oil in a pan after it’s been taken off of the stove, like the remnants of a flame, embers left to burn into ashes. It feels like your body is on fire. 

“Found you,” Jungkook teases, but it’s soft and sweet and fond. “I told you, I just know.”

“You just heard me breathe,” you defend yourself, because the former is impossible to accept. 

“Whatever you want to say to make yourself feel better.” He grins, cheeky and prideful, making you shove his head away with the palm of your hand. 

“Fine, whatever,” you say, resigning yourself to the fact that you lost this round. “What do you want to turn? The bed frame? The door knob? That really ugly pot in the living room?”

“Hey, that pot isn’t ugly,” Jungkook exclaims. You frown at him. “Okay, it’s only a little bit ugly.”

“For someone with so much money, you sure don’t have the best taste,” you tell him, even though everything else in his house reads expensive like nothing else. That pot is just weirdly out-of-place. “Maybe the gold will make it look better.”

“What’s this?” Jungkook asks, reaching a hand out from behind you to toy at the bracelet on your wrist, this silver chain with a couple of charms dangling from it. It’s rusted beyond belief, from rain, from humidity, from wear, but you refuse to take it off, even when it loses what’s left of its shimmer, even when the silver fades to a scratchy red iron. 

“An old bracelet,” you say, fingers instinctively making to play with it, rubbing away at the metal. “From my mom.”

“You wear it every day,” Jungkook notices. 

“I never take it off,” you say. 

“It’s pretty,” Jungkook tells you, and you know that he isn’t just saying that. That he means it, despite its abysmal condition. The years have not been kind to it, but then again, they haven’t been very kind to you either. “It must be really special.”

“It is.” You shuffle the bracelet around so that all five of the charms are in view. “She would buy a new charm every year for my birthday.”

“I like this one,” Jungkook says, pointing to the milk carton charm. “It’s cute.”

“Yeah…” you trail off. The bracelet isn’t much, but it’s all you have left of a childhood that you had been robbed of. You had to grow up too fast, that you know, but at least this bracelet reminds you that you are never too old for your memories. 

“Can I turn it?” Jungkook asks. It’s as if you can see the words leave his lips, resting in front of you, waiting for your response. 

You turn around to face him, eyes wide. Your hand goes to rest atop the bracelet protectively, the idea of letting someone else touch it almost unfathomable. 

“You can say no,” Jungkook quickly stammers out, face beet red. “It was just—you wear it so much, and it looks like the silver is fading, so I was thinking maybe the gold would… fix it up a bit, or something. Make it look new again. Ignore me, you don’t have to say yes, it was just a suggestion.”

Your fingers drop into your lap as you look at him, expression softening. Here, in this unused guest bedroom, Jungkook looks nervous, lost, stumbling over his own words like he isn’t sure of himself anymore. He looks away from you, eyes already beginning to scan the room for something else to turn instead, doubtful you would even agree to such a wild request. It is your bracelet, after all. Why would he do something like that for you?

“You want to?” You ask him, hopeful and wishing. 

Jungkook nods, a smile tugging at his lips. “I do.”

“Then you can,” you say, holding out your wrist to him, the charms dangling over your laps. “Please.”

Jungkook’s shocked that you even said yes, but he scrambles to twist you around, moving your bodies so you aren’t pressed against each other like two peas squished inside of a pod. In this new position, you’re facing each other, staring right at each other as Jungkook reaches out a tentative hand, delicate fingers padding against your wrist. He breathes, and so do you, because you’ve gotten so used to the way this bracelet has looked, so familiar with every rust and crack and dent, knowing that it has remained unchanged for years. 

But this isn’t a change. It’s a rebirth. It’s something different, something fresh, something to remind you that not all is lost. That old memories can become new once more. 

Slowly, as Jungkook presses soft fingertips against the metal, sparks fly. A golden sheen wraps around the bracelet, inch by inch, leaving behind this unmistakeable shimmer, glinting in the sunlight. You can’t tear your eyes away, watching the magic unfold in real time, the silver vanishing before you. The gold consumes it, erasing all of the rust, the wear and tear, until it looks brand new.

Your mother would have loved it. 

“Is that strike two?” Jungkook asks, a cherry red blush decorating his cheeks. 

“Thank you,” you breathe out, not caring if it’s strike two or strike two hundred. Your fingers press against the metal, smooth and shiny, the bumpy texture gone. It must be worth thousands, now. But to you, it is priceless. “It’s beautiful.”

Jungkook nods, and you can distantly feel the weight of his gaze on you. 

“I know,” he says. 

You can’t sleep. 

You’ve slept better here than you have for the past three years of your life. At this point, sleeping on cement would be more comfortable than your bed back at your own house, but here, the soft, plush mattress takes away all of the exhaustion that manifests itself in you throughout the day. Not to mention the fact that for the first time in over a decade, you finally have a normal routine, an internal clock to direct your body, rather than the other way around. There is something soothing in knowing exactly what the next day will bring. Something that doesn’t keep you up with worry.

But tonight, you are wide awake. 

The golden bracelet on your wrist clinks against itself as you sit up, rubbing at the gunk that’s collected in your eyes. You’ve been keenly aware of its existence on your wrist much more in the past several days, ever since Jungkook turned it from its previous faded silver, fingers instinctively toying with it whenever there’s nothing on your mind—and even when there is. 

What you fear most is the fact that you feel as though you are relying on Jungkook to be there more and more, counting on the fact that you know he will be by your side no matter where you are, no matter what you do. You are relying on him to be there, on his house to be there, shaping the way that you run your life based on the belief that at the end of the day, he will be asleep under the same roof as you. 

You pull yourself out of bed. Maybe a night spent alone will remind you of the days where you would watch the moon move across the sky, sitting underneath trees and counting the stars that you can see. Remind you that no matter what, the moon will always be there for you, too. Remind you that this, all of it, is temporary. 

You know that you aren’t allowed to go up to the second floor of Jungkook’s apartment, and that you’ve never been solely because Jungkook requested that you stay downstairs, a promise you have kept throughout the weeks. But there must be some appeal to the rooftop, you think, because Jungkook never comes downstairs whenever he’s having a restless night. Besides, it’s not as if you have any plans to go into his bedroom. 

Softly, you creep upstairs, hand dragging along the golden rail, feet leaving creases in the carpet. The top of the stairs opens up into a general hallway, a dark wooden door undoubtedly leading towards his bedroom, while the walls on the other side turn to glass, leading towards the pool. You tiptoe down the hallway, making sure to avoid making too much noise by Jungkook’s bedroom door, passing by the gym that Jungkook must use all of the time, whenever he’s not around to bother you. The glass door at the end of the hallway must exit out to the pool, so you twist the doorknob and push it open, the cool summer atmosphere hitting you like a breath of fresh air. 

All of the lights are on outside, this soft white that reflects off of the metal railing and the pool water, crashing in waves against the tiled edges. You think it’s just for show, like how people leave their Christmas lights on twenty-four hours a day, visible through their windows, but then you round the corner and see him.

Jungkook sits along the edge of the water, legs swishing around in the pool, as he looks up at the sky. The summer breeze blows through his hair, messy and loose, the way it looks right when he gets out of the shower, before he puts any product into it. Whatever he’s playing with in his hand glints in the lights, that distinctive yellow glow. It must be a coin or something, something small, something to keep his fingers occupied. 

“Are we considering that strike three?”

He whips around when he hears your voice, hears the way the pool water carries it across to him. 

“I thought you promised never to come up here,” he muses back. 

“Then I guess maybe both of us can be forgiven,” you suggest.

You amble over to him, crouching down to dip your feet in as well. You seat yourself along the edge of the pool beside him as the water sloshes around, the sensation sending shivers down your spine despite the humidity in the air. 

“Can’t sleep?”

Jungkook shakes his head. “My body’s tired but my mind isn’t.”

“What’s that?” You ask, pointing at the coin in his hand. It isn’t a form of currency that you recognize, certainly nothing used here. 

“A family heirloom,” Jungkook tells you, holding it out for you to see. It’s covered in a thin layer of cold but you think that you can make out some sort of crest, an emblem or insignia above the coat of arms. “Apparently it had been stolen from someone of royalty or high status back in the day. My family turned it into gold and made it ten times more valuable.”

“Oh, but I pickpocket a few people and suddenly I get sentenced by the Realm to be a minder, I see how it is,” you joke, rolling your eyes. Your eyes glaze over the crest, tracing the lines of a lion, a spear, a shield. It must mean something to someone, but to you and Jungkook, it could be anything. 

“Hey, but being my minder hasn’t been terrible, has it?” Jungkook asks, mockingly offended. His lips curl down into a pout as he looks at you, a hand on his heart like it’s been punctured by your words.

“It’s…” You begin. You suppose that it hasn’t been terrible. In the beginning, it was positively nightmarish, left you feeling like there was no way you would ever complete your sentence. Now, there’s this weird, hidden part of you that doesn’t want to leave. The part of you that has become attached to this world, this lifestyle. The part of you that relies on there being another person in your life to be with. “It’s not that bad.”

“You know what, I’ll take it.” Jungkook grins. “Even though I know you secretly love me.”

You give Jungkook a shove, pushing him on his side. “You wish.”

He laughs, pulling himself back up off of the cement, knocking his shoulder into yours. “I know that we both kind of didn’t have a choice in any of this,” he tells you, looking up at the stars, watching their faint light, twinkling from millions of light years away. “But I think I really needed you here.”

“Oh, now he admits he needs a minder,” you say sarcastically, flinging your arms out in front of you. 

Jungkook chuckles. “I didn’t realize I turned so much until you forced me to stop cold turkey.”

You nod. The truth is, you can’t blame Jungkook for his turning habits. You can’t blame him for living the way that he lives, when it’s the only thing he’s ever known. When the two most important adults in his life turn like wildfire, when they taught him everything he knows. But Jungkook is his own person, now, not a product of his parents, anymore. He has his own choices to make. He can become whoever he wants to be. 

He has become someone he wants to be. 

Jungkook’s magic habits aren’t any fault of his own as much as yours aren’t, either. They were born out of ignorance, out of necessity. Out of the fact that neither of you have ever known a world where you didn’t have powers, where you didn’t feel as though you needed to use them. You couldn’t imagine not having your magic. You know that Jungkook feels the same. 

“Why did you?” It’s as if the words don’t even belong to you. Like someone else has spoken them—the moon, the sky, the stars. 

Jungkook purses his lips, and sighs. “It was all I had ever known.”

Jungkook grew up drunk on his powers. You wonder if he’s sobered up now. 

(You wonder if you had anything to do with it.)

“When I was little, my parents gave me that whole ‘you’re different, and that makes you special’ talk. They told me that my powers were valuable. A gift. And that people with gifts like mine must never waste them. That if we had been given this magic, we ought to use it, right? So that’s what I did. God, every day I would turn a new toy gold, and then I would get another one to replace it, and I would turn that one gold, too. My parents probably sold that to our banks, another hundred thousand dollars into their pockets,” Jungkook says, forcing out a laugh at the memory. The thought is rather endearing, when you think about it. Little Jungkook turning a stuffed bear gold, crying when it isn’t soft and fuzzy anymore. 

“And my parents encouraged me. They told me that I was doing the right thing, that I wasn’t letting my gift go to waste. You saw them that evening that they came over. They were turning things gold left and right. Things that I had wanted to stay their natural material. Like that bowl for my keys. Do you know how easily gold is scratched?” He exclaims, gesturing frantically in front of him. “I purposefully kept that as the clay it was made out of. And now it’s gold.”

“A modern day crisis,” you joke. 

“I guess…” Jungkook begins, but the words trail off and he pauses, almost like nothing he says will be correct. “I guess I just never knew the difference between not wanting my magic to be in vain, and not wanting to ever stop using it. Like you. You only heal when you need to. And even then, you don’t treat it like this precious gift. You treat it like something you owe to others.”

“That’s because without other people to heal, my power is useless,” you explain. Being able to heal others has no direct benefit for you. It doesn’t make you stronger, or faster, or better. It is a gift that is meant to be shared. “It’s different.”

“Every time I turn something, I feel like shit afterwards,” Jungkook admits to you. “Like I’ve turned so many things, that I don’t have the right to do it anymore. Like I’ve exhausted my magic.”

“You feel guilty,” you explain to him, resting a hand on top of his own, his fingers losing their grip on the coin he’s been tossing between them. “And that’s okay,” you tell him, meeting his eyes with your own. “Your parents are right—what you have, this power that you possess, it is a gift. It has made your life better in a way that nothing else could. But your fear of letting it go to waste, of not truly appreciating it for what it is, is a two-way street.”

Jungkook blinks at you, petal pink lips parted ever so slightly. 

“Wasting a gift by never using it is the same as wasting it by overusing it, because it loses its specialness. When you turn things now, it doesn’t feel amazing or blessed or exciting, because it’s lost the ability to feel like that for you. It’s almost second-nature, at this point,” you say.

“Then what do I do?” He asks, feeling helpless. “How do I make it feel special again?”

You squeeze his hand in your own, making him look up at you, the pool water reflected in his big brown eyes, like a warm chocolate ocean. “You only use it on things that make you feel like a better person.” Things that make Jungkook feel special, as opposed to things that make his magic feel special. “Not just things that will put more money in your bank account, or things that will make your house decor nicer. Things that you really, truly care about.”

Jungkook’s eyes glance downward at something, but he nods. He breathes out this exhale, this heavy sort of breath, like he’s trying to reteach himself the things that make him tick. Things like alphabetized books, and homemade kimchi stew. 

“Gifts like that only come once in a lifetime,” you say. “Remarkable things don’t happen to us all the time.” You know this, because it’s true. Because you’ve lived it.

Because in another life, in another universe, there is a you who can’t turn invisible, can’t heal people, and there is a Jungkook, too, one who can’t turn whatever he pleases into gold. And they would live their whole lives not knowing what it would be like to have these powers, to ease their way of life. And they would never meet each other, either. Too busy trapped on opposite sides of the world, too busy to worry about anybody but themselves. 

“So we have to learn to treasure them.” It feels as though you’re drowning in him. Like you’re floundering, barely staying afloat. “We have to make sure that they always feel special to us.”

You curl your hand around his own, lacing your fingers together as your palms rest against each other’s. You watch as his gaze drifts down to where your hands are interlocked, a bridge between the two of you, a lifeline that connects the two lives you had lived without each other in them. 

“Do you understand?” You ask. You can see the words as they appear, watch as they linger in between the two of you, hot summer breaths on a cool summer night. 

He squeezes your hands together, and he smiles, warm and round and real. He looks at you, and he is there, he is sitting by your side. And he is beautiful and extraordinary and remarkable. And he says, “I’m starting to.”

You wake up the next morning to find a shimmering piece of parchment sitting on the dresser in your bedroom. 

As declared by the Realm, its leaders, and its government, it reads, 

The recipient, Y/N, has successfully completed her sentence of community service as mandated by the courts. She no longer needs to serve as the minder to Jeon Jungkook, and may return to her former residence. 

Though the sentence has been carried out, The Realm, its leaders, and its government, reserves the right to re-charge the recipient for the crimes for which she had been originally tried should she commit them again. Should this instance occur, the option for community service will not be available. 

We thank you for your service.

Oh. 

Already? 

It feels like you just started. Like it was only yesterday that you stormed up to the front door of Jungkook’s penthouse, watched as he crumpled up the parchment and tossed it into the bin. Like it was only yesterday you reappeared at his office, this time with a declaration that won’t be so easily destroyed. 

You wonder why this one is all sparkly as well. 

You don’t know exactly what prompted the end of your sentence, what duties you had somehow fulfilled to earn you your freedom. What is the Realm searching for? What data are they using to determine whether or not you have met your goal? It certainly couldn’t have just been the fact that Jungkook hasn’t turned in a while. Not turning is not the same as not wanting to turn. 

So what changed?

You stare down at the parchment, each word leaving you more confused than the word before it. 

It isn’t over already, is it?

Knowing that you are now free to return back to your own house means that your worst fear has been realized. You don’t want to. 

You want to stay here, in Jungkook’s massive penthouse, relishing in the glory and wealth that comes alongside it. You want his chef to make pre-made meals for you and the extra kimchi stew he keeps in the fridge. You want Jungkook’s five thousand different streaming services and enough books to last you several lifetimes. You want the sense of normalcy that staying here has given you, the regular routine that you have so effortlessly fallen into. You want the late-night pool chats and rounds of hide-and-seek. 

Why would you want to give up all that you have?

“You want fried or poached eggs?” Jungkook knocks on your closed bedroom door, tapping softly with his knuckles, already awake and ready to make breakfast. 

“Either,” you tell him, glaring down at the parchment with furrowed brows. You’re too afraid to touch it, too afraid to even look at it any closer. Because that will make it real. 

“Alright,” Jungkook calls. “It’ll be ready in ten! Got freshly-squeezed orange juice too!” You can hear his footsteps as he heads back down the corridor, the thump, thump, thump of his fuzzy slippers against the hardwood floor. 

“Coming,” you say weakly, too focused on the glowing paper on the dresser. 

 Just because you can go back to your house doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you can go back to your old life, doesn’t mean you have to. 

You grab the paper and stuff it in an old tote bag, covering it with old clothes, memories of the former world you lived in. Not anymore. 

After all, isn’t this the life you’ve always dreamed of?

Kimchi stew is, as it stands, delicious, but it can’t be the only thing that the two of you ever cook together. 

Jungkook does all of the grocery shopping, mostly because the both of you know that if you went out to the store with a list of ingredients, you would be lost for days searching for them. So when he returns home with three tote bags filled with ingredients, your mouth already starts to water. 

“What are we making today, chef?” You ask, bounding into the kitchen as Jungkook begins to unpack. 

“Another Korean recipe,” Jungkook says happily, pulling out a bright yellow pack of thin grey noodles. “Japchae!”

“Sounds delicious,” you say, though at this point he could make you microwave mac-and-cheese and you’d snarf it down like nothing else.

“You bet it is.” Jungkook grins, slowly dumping out the rest of the contents of the bags. They are filled to the brim with vegetables and seasonings, peppers and zucchini and everything in between, the makings of a colorful little homemade dish. 

Jungkook seems to be making more time to actually cook things these days, fishing through the cabinets regularly to see what meals he can make with all of the ingredients in his kitchen. The chef only comes once every two weeks now, and usually brings with him any groceries that Jungkook has personally requested. He’ll ask you what you think of a new recipe that he wants to try, showing you the guide on his laptop screen, writing down whatever he needs to buy from the store. 

And you thought that the chef’s meals were appetizing. 

“Have you ever thought of meal-prepping?” You ask as Jungkook sets the noodles in a pot of boiling water, turning the heat on high. 

“Why?” Jungkook says. 

“I don’t know,” you tell him, washing the red pepper underneath the faucet, cutting board and knife ready and waiting on the counter. “So you don’t have to go through the process of cutting everything up and sauteing it, or whatever.”

Jungkook turns around, shakes his head. “No. Half the fun of cooking is making it.”

“But you could save yourself a lot of time when you come back from work,” you point out. Jungkook’s always so exhausted by the time he walks through the front door, keys scratching the golden bowl on the table on the way in. 

“But then we wouldn’t get to cook together,” he says like it’s obvious, like it’s the thing that he thinks about the most when he comes back home. The two of you, filling up his kitchen, leaving oil stains on the countertops and burnt vegetables at the bottom of the pans. The scent of spices, of onions, of sizzling vegetables wafting through the air. 

Another person to fill up this barren house. 

You never eat in the dining room, because two people still isn’t enough to make that room feel like it’s full, like there are people that regularly use it. But now, there are grease stains on the leather of Jungkook’s couch, and a little bit of ketchup on the rug that he doesn’t know about, reminders that just because Jungkook’s house is big doesn’t mean it has to be empty as well. 

“I’m a horrible chef,” you say, because you’re not quite sure what else to tell him. Up until a few weeks ago, you had never cut up an onion in your life. Things in the kitchen that take Jungkook five minutes to do take you twenty. You certainly aren’t any help, not when Jungkook has to pause whatever he’s doing to teach you something that you should already know. So what’s the appeal?

“You’re not that bad,” Jungkook assures you gently. “You just need to do it more.”

“Oh, so is that your mission? You don’t meal-prep because you want me to learn how to make my own food?” You ask, rounding on him. 

“You got me.” He grins guiltily, pinching the part of your waist where he knows you’re the most ticklish, making you laugh as you turn invisible for a moment, a sort of gut reaction whenever you’re sensitive. “And because I like cooking with you.”

“Can’t imagine why,” you say with a roll of your eyes. “It must be my infectious personality, right?”

“That, and teaching you how to cook stuff is fun.” Jungkook smiles, reaching out as he begins to chop vegetables beside you. Standing here, in the middle of his kitchen, you wonder if this is how life is supposed to be. Someone you can cook with, someone you can eat with. Someone who will teach you the things that you don’t know, who will help you master the things that you do. Someone who doesn’t care where you came from, only that you’re here now, that you are right beside him. 

Homemade meals make your insides warm and fuzzy, but having someone to spend the night with makes your heart feel comforted. Makes it feel like it’s been wrapped in a blanket, cradled in someone’s hands. 

“What happens when I learn everything?” You ask. “What will you do then?”

Eventually, this routine must come to an end. Eventually, there will be nothing left for him to teach you, nothing left for you to learn. You know that your days are numbered, that there is only so much time that the two of you can spend together. What will happen when you reach the last day? When there will be no tomorrow for you to rely on?

Jungkook must know that you can’t stay here forever, even if the two of you try to keep it that way. But he doesn’t miss a beat when he says, “Then, I’ll find something new to teach you.”

This arrangement has always been temporary. 

But for a moment, just a moment, an echo in time, he makes you believe otherwise. 

There’s a golden glint on your chest of drawers when you walk into the room, the glare flashing in your eyes as the sun hits it. 

You, admittedly, don’t go into your room very often, usually only to do the thing that bedrooms, at their most basic level, were meant to do: sleep. But Jungkook retired early to his room tonight, citing some ridiculous reason like he hadn’t worked out enough this week, and everything in the house suddenly becomes less inviting whenever he’s not around. 

When you step closer, you can see it. See the thin chain that rests on the dresser, the key that hangs from it, a similar size to the charms on your bracelet. The gold is faded, shine erased, leaving behind this gentle matte texture, smooth but worn. It’s much more vintage than the sorts of things you would find in jewelry stores today—bright, sparkly necklaces and shiny, lustrous rings. It was made to look old, to look worn. It probably is.  

There’s a little note next to the necklace, a torn piece of paper from a notepad, the edges rough and uneven. 

To Y/N,

Found this in my mother’s old jewelry that she always leaves here when she decides it’s not her style anymore. Didn’t really think of anybody else that would make good use of it like you. I think it’ll match your bracelet well! I hope you like it.

Jungkook

You smile as you read the words, take in this meaningful little gesture that Jungkook has done for you. The bracelet from your mother has always been your most prized possession, but with its new golden makeover, it reminds you that you don’t always have to look to your past to be happy. That what you have, right here, right now, is enough. Now, your mother’s charm bracelet has a matching partner. 

Standing in front of the mirror, you put the necklace on, fingers craning to attach the clasp to the chain, metal slipping from your grip. After a bit of a battle, you finally manage to connect the two ends, letting the key hang low past your collarbones, the gold resting gently against your skin. It doesn’t match your bracelet perfectly, but the two aren’t so much a matching set as they are a pair, two pieces that are meant to complement each other rather than complete. 

You seriously doubt that Jungkook’s already asleep. 

Sneaking up the stairs to the second story, you see that the door to Jungkook’s bedroom is wide open, revealing a little glimpse into the room he spends so much time in. It’s dark, empty, a signal that Jungkook is elsewhere on this floor. You don’t spend too much effort peering into Jungkook’s bedroom, not when it feels like you’re invading his space, his privacy. He’s already given up so much of his home for you. He deserves to keep his bedroom his own.

He’s not in the gym, you determine as you pass by, which means that there really is only one other place he could be found. 

You push open the door to the rooftop, rounding the corner to the deck to find Jungkook doing laps in the pool, wearing nothing but his swimming trunks. The water sloshes around his body as he swims back and forth, kicking up splashes as he goes. You watch for a few moments as he works out, not wanting to interrupt him he burns away the calories in his body. This is the closest you’ve ever come to seeing Jungkook undressed, but you don’t really mind. At least he’s got shorts on. 

When he stops, he stands up in the pool, sopping wet hands running through sopping wet hair, strands that frame the sides of his face, make his hair look longer than it actually is. He wipes away the water on his face, blinking the chlorine from his eyes, when he spots you. 

“What are you doing up here?” He asks, not even caring to fight away the grin that has laced itself on his features. 

“Came to say thank you,” you tell him, fingers toying with the key around your neck. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”

“I wanted to,” Jungkook says honestly. “Besides, my mother was never going to come back to get it, so I figured that it should go to someone who will actually wear it.”

“It’s beautiful,” you say, slowly sitting down along the edge of the pool, letting your legs dip into the water. Jungkook makes his way over to you, water splashing at his torso as he walks through the pool to stand before you. “Was it always gold?”

“It was, yes,” Jungkook says with a nod. “My mom liked to turn a lot of things, but she preferred her jewelry to be naturally gold. That’s why it’s pretty faded.”

“It looks nicer this way,” you say. “Shiny gold looks cheap.”

“Spend a couple of months in a mansion and suddenly you think gold looks cheap?” Jungkook jokes. “I think I’m rubbing off on you.”

“Can’t help that I’ve got an eye for nice things,” you tease, looking Jungkook up and down just to be dramatic. You have to admit that he’s got a rather attractive figure, fit, built, toned. You would be lying to yourself if you said that you weren’t eyeing him at least a little bit. 

Jungkook pretends that he isn’t paying attention to the fact that you are blatantly ogling his body and laughs. “You swim?”

“I learned when I was little,” you tell him. “But I haven’t done it in a long time.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” Jungkook says with a disapproving shake of his head. 

“What? I like being dry,” you say, hands on your hips as you defend yourself. Besides, when you were little, swimming always meant showering afterwards, which sucked because then you had to waste water just to clean yourself of other water. Your mother always said that being able to swim would carry you far in life, would be an invaluable skill. You haven’t swum since she died. 

“But, you wouldn’t mind if I… oh, never mind,” Jungkook dismisses, being purposefully vague just to capture your attention. 

“What?” You demand. 

“If I…” Jungkook begins, leaning back down in the pool until all but his head is submerged. He floats towards you, paddling until he’s right beneath your feet. “Did this—?”

Without a second of warning, Jungkook’s wet hands are grabbing onto your ankle, pulling you and your fully-clothed-self into the water with a splash, making you shriek as you feel your skin freeze up at the cold temperature. Luckily, it’s shallow enough here that you can stand rather easily, but now you’re soaked from head to toe, sopping fabric sticking to your figure.

You come up from beneath the water, positively accosted, hands wiping across your face as you clear your eyes so that they can narrow in on your target. “Okay, that was uncalled for,” you say, splashing Jungkook furiously, even as the two of you fight off the laughter that is bubbling up from your throats. 

“Oh, but it’s such a nice night for swimming,” Jungkook grins devilishly, that cheeky sort of look reserved for when he knows he’s being a nuisance. 

“Maybe for you!” You say, punctuating every word with a splash. Jungkook takes them all in good fun, accepting his punishment for pulling you into the pool. “I’ve been betrayed.”

“Admit it,” Jungkook coaxes, “you love me.”

You refuse.

When the rage has died down and the water begins to feel less like an icy death trap and more like a pleasant dip, you and Jungkook paddle around each other, swimming in circles like two fish in a school. Looking up, it is a nice night, clear skies as a crescent moon hangs above your heads. There are seldom any stars in the middle of the city, but the especially bright ones still shine, flickers of white in an otherwise deep blue ocean. You wonder how many times Jungkook has come out here, spent the night underneath the sky when he cannot sleep away the hours in bed. 

You wonder how many times you missed the opportunity to spend the night with him. 

“I sort of wish that we could stay like this forever, don’t you?” Jungkook asks, the two of you floating on top of the water like light against the sea. 

There’s a lot of things in your life that you wish would never change. This is just another bullet point added to the list. 

“Yeah,” you breathe out, because out there somewhere is a timer, counting down the moments until you have to say goodbye. “I do.”

“You didn’t have to do this, you know,” you say, looking at Jungkook. 

He sits across from you in the booth, face lit up in a warm yellow from the rustic exposed light bulb above your heads, this soft, homey glow to his features, sharp jawline but rounded cheeks. He’s cleaned up well, in a different way than how he gets ready for work, when he has to make sure his collars are crisp and his hair is sleek and straight. Here, his dark brown hair is bouncy, loose, like he had blown it out after jumping out of the shower and then immediately ran his hand through it a couple of times to mess it up. He wears a plain button down, nothing fancy or chic, no tie, no suit jacket. The beauty of how he looks is that it’s so simple, so timeless, like he doesn’t need to put any effort into how he looks because he is just naturally perfect. Like the cover of a magazine. Like a sculpture come to life. 

“I wanted to,” Jungkook says happily, fork twirling around the pasta in the dish in front of him. “We can’t just eat premade meals and leftover Korean food forever.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t complain if we did…” You reason, because you’ve been better fed in the few months you’ve lived with Jungkook than in the years you have spent on your own. Not to mention the fact that everything Jungkook makes tastes eons better than the meals the professional chef whips up, for some odd reason. “But you’re right, a night out is fun.”

“Sometimes food tastes better when you don’t make it yourself,” Jungkook points out, motioning to the dishes before you, these high-class servings of fish and pasta and vegetables that look like they belong on a cooking show rather than on the table in front of you. You and Jungkook may have mastered (or at least… gotten better at) cooking, but presentation is a whole other battlefield. Besides, it’s all going to the same place, so why bother?

“Mmm,” you murmur in agreement, savoring the flavor of the meal in front of you. A year ago you wouldn’t have dared step foot in a restaurant like this one, would have probably gotten kicked out after you walked through the door, so being here feels like a real treat. One that you think you could definitely get used to. 

“Thanks, by the way,” Jungkook pipes up, as if suddenly remembering something. 

“For what?”

“For your idea about the investment management,” Jungkook says, sending the both of you back to that day in his office, where Jungkook was on the verge of flipping his desk over because he couldn’t figure out a solution. 

“Oh, is it working out?” You ask, curious to know if your suggestion is truly paying off or if you just had too much faith in the goodness of humanity. 

“It is.” Jungkook nods happily. He seems very proud of himself. “It was slow going at first, because a lot of clients were starting to wonder why we weren’t investing in other stocks that would guarantee us a higher payout, but then they saw where the money was going. We aren’t bigger than our rival companies, but this levelled the playing field.”

“I’m glad,” you say, because it’s one thing for Jungkook to tell you you had a good idea, and it’s another for him to actually implement it. “That makes me happy to hear.”

“You’re not as bad at business or economics as you think you are, Y/N,” Jungkook informs you, waving around a nonchalant hand. “All they are is an in-depth study of human nature. Some economists assume that everyone in the world is selfish and cares only about themselves, but you’re different. You see the good in everyone, you believe that people can be honest, and selfless, and giving.”

Like Jungkook. 

Like Jungkook, who has given up his home, his work, his life just to deal with another person hovering around him. Who gifts you gorgeous pieces of jewelry and takes you out to fancy meals, who lets you screw up a recipe in the kitchen and obligingly eats peppers that have been charred beyond recognition. Who is so much more honest, so much more selfless, so much more giving, than you could ever be, sticking around because to not do so would cost you your freedom, because you would rather stay here than be anywhere else. 

“I don’t know what I’ll do when you’re gone,” Jungkook says, cracking this weak, terrible smile. He shakes his head as if to banish the thought from his mind, to exist only in this very moment, choosing to ignore both the past and the future. “I think I’m starting to rely on you being there.”

“Yeah,” you say softly, distantly. Something weighs heavy on your chest, pressing your heart down, slowing its temperate rhythm. The truth is that your heart stopped a long time ago, it stopped when you realized that there’s more to Jungkook that you want to know, when you realized that you can’t bear to imagine a life different than the one that the two of you share, no matter how temporary it is. But this weight, this burden on you, it serves as nothing but a reminder that without Jungkook, your heart cannot count in time. “Me too.”

You return home with plastic tupperwares in your hands, leftovers from the enormous meal that the two of you couldn’t have finished even if you tried. Jungkook takes the container from your hands as you excuse yourself to the bathroom, desperate to wash away the thoughts that rest heavy in your heart, cleanse yourself of the lies you can’t seem to stop telling. There’s this naive part of you that thinks, when you wash off the makeup, change back into your raggedy old clothes, all of the secrets you carry with you will vanish as well. 

You know you’ll have to come clean eventually. Eventually, Jungkook will get suspicious as to why you’ve hung around so long even though he is no longer turning. He’ll begin to wonder why you haven’t dashed out of the penthouse you once used to disparage, desperate to return to your old life, where you didn’t have to know him the way that you do now. When you didn’t feel like there was something else trapping you here. 

When all is said and done, though, it feels like here is where you were always meant to end up. 

You head back out into the living room, ready to settle down and wrap up the night by watching a movie or something, when you see Jungkook standing by the couch, your old tote bag sitting on the cushions from a laundry trip earlier today, a shimmering piece of parchment in his hands. 

“Jungkook—”

“How long?” He asks, voice cracking. He’s clenching the paper so hard that his knuckles are turning white, like he can’t believe the words that he’s reading. “How long have you been free to go?”

“Listen, I can explain—”

“A week? A month? When were you going to tell me?” He pleads. When you can’t even muster up the dignity to look at him, he shouts. “When?”

“A month,” you tell him weakly, desperately. 

“A month? You’ve been staying here for a month when you didn’t even need to?” He asks, and he isn’t angry, or furious, or full of rage. He looks helpless, like there is no longer light behind his eyes, twinkles in his irises. Like he’s in pain, like he’s hurt. Exposed, his walls broken down and nothing left to repair them. “When were you going to tell me? Were you ever going to say anything?”

“Yes, Jungkook, but I—”

“All this time,” he says, more to himself than to you, like he can’t believe how foolish he’s been. “All this time you’ve been using me? Using my money?”

“No, Jungkook, it’s not like that.” You are desperate, desperate to salvage what you can from this broken arrangement, desperate to start anew. 

“Then what is it like?” He demands. “If you weren’t using me for my house, or my money, or my personal chef, then what is it? What did you want from me that you couldn’t get on your own?”

You stop. Why did you stay? Normalcy? Opportunity? Company? All things that you never dreamed of having in a million years. And while being with Jungkook did provide you with all three, none of them feel quite right.

“I don’t know, I just—” You begin, scrambling for the right words and feeling like nothing you say will be correct. “I didn’t want to go back just yet.” It’s a pitiful excuse. 

“So you just decided to stay? To play along with me, with all of the things that I was doing with you, for you?” Jungkook shakes where he stands in front of you, blindsided. “Let me teach you how to cook and give you expensive jewelry and take you out to fancy dinners? Just for fun?”

“I never asked for you to do those things for me,” you remind him firmly. It’s not like you were scrounging for money from his pockets, selling insignificant gold sculptures on the black market to buff up your empty bank account. “You wanted to.”

“Because I thought we had something special, Y/N,” Jungkook admits helplessly, collapsing back on the couch. “I did those things because I felt it, Y/N. What you were talking about, that night at the pool, where you saw me sitting at the edge of the water. I felt it. With you,” he begs, hopeless and anguished. “I didn’t understand what it meant to make the magic feel special again until I did it for you. I turned your bracelet and it made me feel like I had something to give to others.”

“You know that that’s not what I meant,” you say, shaking your head. “I was talking about your gift, not us.”

“Aren’t they all the same, though? Magic? Powers? Love? Don’t they all make us feel like we have something special beneath our fingertips?” He asks, to you, to himself, to the moon and the stars, searching for an answer that none of you can give him. 

“Love? You don’t mean that,” you say, refusing to admit it. You have no explanation as to why Jungkook did the things he did, just as much as you don’t have an explanation as to why you did the things you did. They just happened. 

“I thought we had something,” Jungkook admits sadly, unable to even bring his head up to look at you, at the tears that are welling in your eyes, the ones you refuse to let fall. “And I thought the reason that you wanted to do all of those things with me was because you felt it, too.”

“Jungkook, you know that—”

“What?” He erupts. “What do I know? I know that you’ve been using me all of this time, that you did those things with me because you were getting freebies out of it. I know that I was foolish and—and stupid to think that maybe it was because you were falling in love with me just like I was falling in love with you.”

“Jungkook…” You reach out a trembling hand, wanting to feel the warmth of his body once more, the weight of his head in your palm. 

“Don’t,” he says, swatting it away and standing up. “I get it, Y/N. I was stupid and I thought that we had something, when we don’t.” He turns back to look at you, and you don’t think you’ll ever be able to get the image out of your head, the sight of him, broken and beaten and empty, a shell of the beautiful, vibrant man you had become so attached to. “There’s nothing left for you here. Your services are no longer required.”

He disappears down the hallway, leaving you with nothing but a tote bag, a necklace, and a bracelet left for you to remember him. 

When you step into your house for the first time in months, it feels even less inviting than it normally does. Which is, as far as you’re concerned, rather impressive, considering you’ve always dreaded coming back regardless of what happened throughout the day. 

But now, you can name no place you would rather not be than in this graffiti-laden house, a dangling light bulb above the back entrance and dirt and dust all along the walls. You’ve never had time to fix up this place and make it look even the slightest bit presentable, never had the money to paint over the walls and get rid of the big red X on the front door. Day in and day out, this would just be a place where you could sleep, a mattress on the floor and Campbell’s soups on the cracked kitchen counters. The first thing you’d do every morning is get out. The last thing you’d want to do every night is come back. 

No place has felt like home in a long time. Not since your mother died, when you lost how her smile would light up a room, how she would spin you in circles and kiss your forehead when you got scared that you were going too fast. You had almost forgotten what it meant to have a home, to have a place that felt sacred, like coming home to a warm hug and a steaming cup of tea. To have a place that you didn’t dread returning to, a place that you could gladly waste away in. 

The bracelet that dangles from your wrist is the closest thing that you have left to the feeling of home, of comfort and warmth and solace, of something that makes you feel truly happy. But now, the bracelet has been tinted with the memories of another, of the only other person you can think of that has brought you that same feeling of joy, of these rose-stained memories that rest deep within your heart’s attic. They have always been there, hidden, buried beneath the bad, but when there is nothing left they surface. To remind you of what good life can bring you. 

To remind you of the magic inside you. 

You hate living here. And for a time, you hated living with Jungkook, too. Hated how extravagant his house was, hated how he refused to even speak to you. How there were so many unused rooms, so many empty spaces. But what changed, there, and what hasn’t changed, here, is how people, and not things, are what fill up rooms. 

Living with Jungkook made you feel like coming back after a long day was worth it. Planted the knowledge inside you that you would always have him there, could always rely on another’s presence within the apartment. He’s only one person, but he fills up the room like nothing else, lights it up like New Year’s Eve. He’s funny, and witty, and gorgeous. He’s caring and honest and cheeky, just cocky enough for it to be charming as opposed to egotistical. He cooks like nothing else and spends his sleepless nights beneath the stars, looking at the same moon and sky as everyone else. 

You don’t hate living here because it’s shit. You hate living here because it’s lonely. 

There was a space in your heart that you didn’t even realize was empty. It had been overtaken by the part of you determined to make it to the next day, determined to stick it to the Realm, to its leaders, to all of the people that look down on you because you aren’t made of money. 

But when you left Jungkook’s house, you realized that that space had slowly been filled up with him. That over time, bit by bit, moment by moment, Jungkook returned what you had lost, revived what you thought had long been dead. 

The truth is that you wanted to stay with Jungkook because you couldn’t stomach the thought of being alone again. Of being forced to fend for yourself, forced to come home to an empty house with no one to waste away the night with. Of being forced to live like every day is a threat rather than a gift. 

Jungkook has magic in his fingertips and his heart. It was only a matter of time before it spread to you as well. 

Being hurt by someone you love feels like an arrow to the chest. Like a puncture wound, deep and piercing, but too painful to even want to pull it out, patch up the hole. You had already experienced it once. You didn’t have any plans on experiencing it again. 

But losing the opportunity to love someone feels like an ache throughout your whole body, this crippling sort of pain that spreads through your bloodstream, setting every organ it passes on fire. It feels like there is something tearing you apart from the inside out, like every piece of you is slowly crumbling. 

Jungkook’s biggest mistake wasn't falling in love with you. It was thinking that you were still falling in love with him, when the truth is, you had already fallen. It was letting you leave when both of you wanted nothing more than for you to stay. 

Loving someone is a gamble. It’s a risk, a toe in the water, a spark from your fingers. 

But not loving someone? That is magic, wasted. 

Who knew twenty dollars could get you one large pizza and extra garlic rolls? Certainly not you. 

The smell wafts through the hallway to Jungkook’s apartment, filling it with the scent of warm, fresh bread, of a hot meal waiting to be devoured. If you don’t knock soon, the pizza will go cold and you’ll probably eat all of it before you can even say hello to him. You have more food in your hands now than you have the past week you’ve been back at your old place. 

You ring the doorbell. 

 “Coming!” Jungkook shouts. Oh, is he expecting someone?

Ten seconds later the door opens to reveal someone you hardly even recognize. Gone are the soft loose strands of hair and oversized button down shirts. Jungkook opens the door still wearing his suit jacket, tie tight around his neck, like he hasn’t bothered to change since he got home from work over two hours ago. His hair is sleek and straight, a little shorter than you last remember it. He looks the way he did when you first met him, this rigid, workaholic guy that doesn’t care about anybody except himself. He looks like he’s done nothing but work for a week. Not even sleep. 

“Hi,” you begin, a short, quick intake of breath. “Did you order a pizza?”

“No.” Jungkook shakes his head, already starting to close the door. “I think you have the wrong apartment.”

“Wait, Jungkook, please? I need to talk to you,” you plead, a hand going out to stop him from shutting you out completely. All that you can see through the crack of space between the door and its frame are his piercing brown eyes, absolutely unreadable. He doesn’t budge. “Also, did you just get back from work? You must be starving. And as it so happens, I have an entire large pizza that I won’t be able to finish all by myself.”

Jungkook budges a little bit. 

“Please?”

“Fine,” he says reluctantly, opening the door. “I hope you aren’t planning on staying here too long, this time.”

The words are biting cold, send angry shivers down your spine. 

“Just enough for you to hear me out,” you say, placing the pizza box on the coffee table as Jungkook rummages through his kitchen for plates. He eventually manifests two paper ones—you didn’t even know he had those!—and returns, taking a seat on the carpet as he inhales the cheesy, greasy scent. 

Your stomach grumbles, but you can’t eat just yet. First, you have to explain yourself. 

“What did you want to talk about?” Jungkook asks, cold and distant, the same way he spoke to all of his employees before you encouraged him to do otherwise. “If it’s about my company, we can compensate you as necessary for your contribution. It won’t be much, though.”

“No, no, it’s not about that,” you say with a shake of your head. “It’s about us.”

“What ‘us’ is there to talk about?” He asks economically. 

“The ‘us’ that I left behind that day,” you say softly, a gentle reminder. “The ‘us’ I should have realized existed before I let the door shut behind me.”

“If you’re just here to tell me that you’re sorry for not loving me back, don’t,” Jungkook says bitterly. “I don’t expect you to love me back or anything. You can’t change how you feel about people.”

“You still love me?” You ask, a spark, a flash, a ray of light. 

Jungkook grumbles. “Yes. It doesn’t go away that easily.” 

“You aren’t stupid, or foolish, or idiotic for thinking that I was falling in love with you at the same time that you were falling in love with me,” you tell him, the words light and airy, like weights plucked off of your chest, like butterflies released from a jar. “You were stupid for thinking that I wasn’t already in love with you.”

Jungkook’s head jerks up, eyes blinking wildly. You can see the way that they glisten, with hope, with tears, with desperation. With the possibility that not all is lost. 

That old memories can become new once more. 

“You were right,” you muse, more to yourself than to anyone else. Even Jungkook. “Magic, powers, love, they’re all the same thing. They are meant to be treasured. Cherished. Protected. They are meant to make us feel special.” You breathe, reaching out next to you, an open hand for Jungkook to take. “But most importantly, they are meant to be shared.”

A small smile. A lip half-turned up, this gentle little grin. 

“I stayed because I wanted to keep sharing my life with you, Jeon Jungkook,” you tell him honestly, because it’s real and it’s true. Because, at this point, you can imagine nothing else. “And I’m here again because I can’t stand living without you anymore. I never want to stop sharing my life with you.”

“You make me feel like my heart is made of magic,” Jungkook admits, finally, finally, finally. “You make me want to use it just for you.”

“You don’t need to,” you say, pressing yourself into him, letting your lips hover above his own. He reaches a hand out, lets it rest on your waist, waiting desperately for you to close the last inch between the two of you. “You’re already made of it.”

With that, you close the gap, pressing your lips against his, the soft sweet cherry taste of his lip balm filling up your senses, leaving you gasping for air. It’s just a kiss, just a press of lips, this simple gesture, but it takes your breath away nevertheless. It makes you feel like magic swirls inside of you, like your heart is sparking, catching fire, sending it sizzling through your veins. Jungkook has taught you what it means for a house to become a home. You have taught him that magic is only special if he has someone to share it with. 

It’s hard to think about the lessons you would have never learned without the other. 

It’s hard to think about how different life would be, had you never even met. 

Jungkook kisses you and it feels like you’re finally whole. It feels like what has been missing in your life has returned. What you have kept locked up, in the dusty, cobwebbed corners of your heart, in the spaces between your bones, has finally been remembered. 

Jungkook takes your old memories and turns them new. He is the only thing you ever want to remember.

“I love you,” he whispers, watching as the words sink into your skin, leaving embers in their wake. “You are my most precious gift.”

“You are my home, Jeon Jungkook,” you murmur. “I love you, too.”

Pizza is good and all, but nothing beats homemade kimchi stew. 

You made it all by yourself for the first time last night to celebrate Jungkook donating over a million dollars to various different animal rescues and human rights organizations, taking the kindness that he has been given and paying it forward. Besides, he can make money at the touch of a finger whenever he wants, so he might as well, right?

You also don’t accompany Jungkook at his work anymore, because you’ve gotten enough of a taste of office life and have declared it not your ideal profession, but the nice thing about that is getting the whole house to yourself while he’s gone. Not that you want to do very much without him, but napping in different bedrooms is always exciting. 

You never realized how good love makes you feel. How it lifts you up from the inside out, brightens up every day no matter how dull it is to begin with. You had forgotten. What love can do to a person. 

Jungkook always comes home and tells you about how happy his employees make him whenever they’re happy. Good feelings like joy, like laughter, like love, they are contagious. It’s a wonder that neither you nor Jungkook figured that out before you met each other. 

Well, you suppose that there’s a first for everything. 

Jungkook comes home and you can hear the door slam, even from where you’re hiding. You listen as he stops at the door, picks up the note that you left for him. 

Loser washes the dishes! ♡

You hear his keys clink in the bowl, metal on metal. He pauses for a moment, for dramatic effect. 

And then he shouts, 

“You’re on!”

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

[niseamstories]

10 Lessons on Realistic Worldbuilding and Mapmaking I Learned Working With a Professional Cartographer and Geodesist

Hi, fellow writers and worldbuilders,

It’s been over a year since my post on realistic swordfighting, and I figured it’s time for another one. I’m guessing the topic is a little less “sexy”, but I’d find this useful as a writer, so here goes: 10 things I learned about realistic worldbuilding and mapmaking while writing my novel.

I’ve always been a sucker for pretty maps, so when I started on my novel, I hired an artist quite early to create a map for me. It was beautiful, but a few things always bothered me, even though I couldn’t put a finger on it. A year later, I met an old friend of mine, who currently does his Ph.D. in cartography and geodesy, the science of measuring the earth. When the conversation shifted to the novel, I showed him the map and asked for his opinion, and he (respectfully) pointed out that it has an awful lot of issues from a realism perspective.

First off, I’m aware that fiction is fiction, and it’s not always about realism; there are plenty of beautiful maps out there (and my old one was one of them) that are a bit fantastical and unrealistic, and that’s all right. Still, considering the lengths I went to ensure realism for other aspects of my worldbuilding, it felt weird to me to simply ignore these discrepancies. With a heavy heart, I scrapped the old map and started over, this time working in tandem with a professional artist, my cartographer friend, and a linguist. Six months later, I’m not only very happy with the new map, but I also learned a lot of things about geography and coherent worldbuilding, which made my universe a lot more realistic.

1)  Realism Has an Effect: While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with creating an unrealistic world, realism does affect the plausibility of a world. Even if the vast majority of us probably know little about geography, our brains subconsciously notice discrepancies; we simply get this sense that something isn’t quite right, even if we don’t notice or can’t put our finger on it. In other words, if, for some miraculous reason, an evergreen forest borders on a desert in your novel, it will probably help immersion if you at least explain why this is, no matter how simple.

2)  Climate Zones: According to my friend, a cardinal sin in fantasy maps are nonsensical climate zones. A single continent contains hot deserts, forests, and glaciers, and you can get through it all in a single day. This is particularly noticeable in video games, where this is often done to offer visual variety (Enderal, the game I wrote, is very guilty of this). If you aim for realism, run your worldbuilding by someone with a basic grasp of geography and geology, or at least try to match it to real-life examples.

3)  Avoid Island Continent Worlds: Another issue that is quite common in fictional worlds is what I would call the “island continents”: a world that is made up of island-like continents surrounded by vast bodies of water. As lovely and romantic as the idea of those distant and secluded worlds may be, it’s deeply unrealistic. Unless your world was shaped by geological forces that differ substantially from Earth’s, it was probably at one point a single landmass that split up into fragmented landmasses separated by waters. Take a look at a proper map of our world: the vast majority of continents could theoretically be reached by foot and relatively manageable sea passages. If it weren’t so, countries such as Australia could have never been colonized – you can’t cross an entire ocean on a raft.

4)  Logical City Placement: My novel is set in a Polynesian-inspired tropical archipelago; in the early drafts of the book and on my first map, Uunili, the nation’s capital, stretched along the entire western coast of the main island. This is absurd. Not only because this city would have been laughably big, but also because building a settlement along an unprotected coastline is the dumbest thing you could do considering it directly exposes it to storms, floods, and, in my case, monsoons. Unless there’s a logical reason to do otherwise, always place your coastal settlements in bays or fjords.

 Naturally, this extends to city placement in general. If you want realism and coherence, don’t place a city in the middle of a godforsaken wasteland or a swamp just because it’s cool. There needs to be a reason. For example, the wasteland city could have started out as a mining town around a vast mineral deposit, and the swamp town might have a trading post along a vital trade route connecting two nations.

 5)  Realistic Settlement Sizes: As I’ve mentioned before, my capital Uunili originally extended across the entire western coast. Considering Uunili is roughly two thirds the size of Hawaii  the old visuals would have made it twice the size of Mexico City. An easy way to avoid this is to draw the map using a scale and stick to it religiously. For my map, we decided to represent cities and townships with symbols alone.

 6)  Realistic Megacities: Uunili has a population of about 450,000 people. For a city in a Middle Ages-inspired era, this is humongous. While this isn’t an issue, per se (at its height, ancient Alexandria had a population of about 300,000), a city of that size creates its own set of challenges: you’ll need a complex sewage system (to minimize disease spreading like wildfire) and strong agriculture in the surrounding areas to keep the population fed. Also, only a small part of such a megacity would be enclosed within fantasy’s ever-so-present colossal city walls; the majority of citizens would probably concentrate in an enormous urban sprawl in the surrounding areas. To give you a pointer, with a population of about 50,000, Cologne was Germany’s biggest metropolis for most of the Middle Ages. I’ll say it again: it’s fine to disregard realism for coolness in this case, but at least taking these things into consideration will not only give your world more texture but might even provide you with some interesting plot points.

 7)  World Origin: This point can be summed up in a single question: why is your world the way it is? If your novel is set in an archipelago like mine is, are the islands of volcanic origin? Did they use to be a single landmass that got flooded with the years? Do the inhabitants of your country know about this? Were there any natural disasters to speak of? Yes, not all of this may be relevant to the story, and the story should take priority over lore, but just like with my previous point, it will make your world more immersive.

 8)  Maps: Think Purpose! Every map in history had a purpose. Before you start on your map, think about what yours might have been. Was it a map people actually used for navigation? If so, clarity should be paramount. This means little to no distracting ornamentation, a legible font, and a strict focus on relevant information. For example, a map used chiefly for military purposes would naturally highlight different information than a trade map. For my novel, we ultimately decided on a “show-off map” drawn for the Blue Island Coalition, a powerful political entity in the archipelago (depending on your world’s technology level, maps were actually scarce and valuable). Also, think about which technique your in-universe cartographer used to draw your in-universe map. Has copperplate engraving already been invented in your fictional universe? If not, your map shouldn’t use that aesthetic.

9)  Maps: Less Is More. If a spot or an area on a map contains no relevant information, it can (and should) stay blank so that the reader’s attention naturally shifts to the critical information. Think of it this way: if your nav system tells you to follow a highway for 500 miles, that’s the information you’ll get, and not “in 100 meters, you’ll drive past a little petrol station on the left, and, oh, did I tell you about that accident that took place here ten years ago?” Traditional maps follow the same principle: if there’s a road leading a two day’s march through a desolate desert, a black line over a blank white ground is entirely sufficient to convey that information.

10) Settlement and Landmark Names: This point will be a bit of a tangent, but it’s still relevant. I worked with a linguist to create a fully functional language for my novel, and one of the things he criticized about my early drafts were the names of my cities. It’s embarrassing when I think about it now, but I really didn’t pay that much attention to how I named my cities; I wanted it to sound good, and that was it. Again: if realism is your goal, that’s a big mistake. Like Point 5, we went back to the drawing board and dove into the archipelago’s history and established naming conventions. In my novel, for example, the islands were inhabited by indigenes called the Makehu before the colonization four hundred years before the events of the story; as it’s usually the case, all settlements and islands had purely descriptive names back then. For example, the main island was called Uni e Li, which translates as “Mighty Hill,” a reference to the vast mountain ranges in the south and north; townships followed the same example (e.g., Tamakaha meaning “Coarse Sands”). When the colonizers arrived, they adopted the Makehu names and adapted them into their own language, changing the accented, long vowels to double vowels: Uni e Li became “Uunili,” Lehō e Āhe became “Lehowai.” Makehu townships kept their names; colonial cities got “English” monikers named after their geographical location, economic significance, or some other original story. Examples of this are Southport, a—you guessed it—port on the southernmost tip of Uunili, or Cale’s Hope, a settlement named after a businessman’s mining venture. It’s all details, and chances are that most readers won’t even pay attention, but I personally found that this added a lot of plausibility and immersion.

I could cover a lot more, but this post is already way too long, so I’ll leave it at that—if there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to make a part two. If not, well, maybe at least a couple of you got something useful out of this. If you’re looking for inspiration/references to show to your illustrator/cartographer, the David Rumsey archive is a treasure trove. Finally, for anyone who doesn’t know and might be interested, my novel is called Dreams of the Dying, and is a blends fantasy, mystery, and psychological horror set in the universe of Enderal, an indie RPG for which I wrote the story. It’s set in a Polynesian-inspired medieval world and has been described as Inception in a fantasy setting by reviewers.

Credit for the map belongs to Dominik Derow, who did the ornamentation, and my friend Fabian Müller, who created the map in QGIS and answered all my questions with divine patience. The linguist’s name is David Müller (no, they’re not related, and, yes, we Germans all have the same last names.)

[whenisitenoughtrees]

this cup of yours tastes holy (this lie is dead)

“I think you might have missed the part where I said that you almost died,” Logan says, and his voice is steady, but his hands are not, trembling where they have balled into fists on his lap.

He blinks, at a loss.

Janus attempts to save Logan from being poisoned. In the moment, switching out their glasses seems like a perfectly rational idea.

It is not, in fact, a perfectly rational idea.

Content Warnings: poisoning, mentioned blood, mentioned death (no actual death though), mentioned violence

Word Count: 5,772

Pairings: Loceit, background Prinxiety

Written for Whumptober2020 theme no 22. "Do these tacos taste funny to you?" with the more specific prompt: poisoned.

(masterpost w/ ao3 links)

The banquet hall is bright, noisy, and crowded, full of laughter and music and talking, and Janus is almost certain that the ambassador from Halledrin has just slipped poison into Logan’s wine.

No one else seems to have noticed. Janus can’t say he’s surprised. The formal dinner is over; now is the time for mingling, and everyone is deeply involved in their own conversations, their own social circles. Roman knows how to throw a good celebration, if nothing else, and now that the pressure is off of him to preside over all the little details, Janus spots him off to one side, shamelessly chatting up Virgil, who seems… exasperated, if not entirely displeased. He spares them a glance before turning back to Logan, who seems to be doing his level best to escape the conversation, but the ambassador— and just what is his name? Janus has entirely forgotten— is persistent, and Janus would think it no more than an annoyance if he weren’t fairly certain that he saw the man brush one hand against Logan’s wine glass while gesturing broadly with the other.

Which, no. That is absolutely not permitted.

He makes his way across the floor, snagging a glass of his own on the way.

“If I might cut in?” he says, as soon as he’s close enough. “I’m afraid I have a pressing matter to discuss with our illustrious court sorcerer.”

Logan inclines his head toward him, and Janus doesn’t think he mistakes the relief that flashes in his eyes. The ambassador stammers a bit, trying to come up with an excuse to stay, but a pointed look takes care of that, and the man retreats sullenly. Janus smiles at him, thin and knife-sharp, and then takes Logan by the elbow, escorting him to the other side of the banquet hall.

“Was there actually something you needed to discuss, or was that a rescue?” Logan asks dryly, and Janus laughs.

“Oh, you seemed like you were having so much fun,” he replies. “Here, switch with me.” And he presses his wine into Logan’s hand, taking Logan’s for himself. Logan frowns at him, but Janus shakes his head. Not here, that means, and Logan can read him well enough to understand it, little though he likes being unable to ask for clarification. In any case, as soon as the potentially-poisoned glass leaves Logan’s grasp, Janus finds himself able to relax.

“I’ll admit, the man is… long-winded,” Logan says. Janus sniffs at the wine as surreptitiously as he can. He can’t smell anything, but there are plenty of odorless poisons out there. “And yes, I am aware of how that sounds coming from me.”

“You’re not that bad,” he says, trying to keep track of the ambassador out of the corner of his eye. He’s positioned himself at the edge of the room, now, and he is staring at Logan, not even bothering to hide it. “At least you actually know what you’re talking about.”

“I would hope so,” Logan says, and then narrows his eyes. “Just what is Roman doing over there?”

Janus turns his head in that direction, but he’s too preoccupied to pay much attention. The problem with this is that he’s only about eighty percent sure that the drink has been tampered with, and the remaining twenty percent is enough unsurety to prevent him from being able to confront the perpetrator brazenly. Not that that would be his style anyway, but it also means he can’t go to anyone else with it; if he told Roman his suspicions, for instance, his sword would be drawn in an instant. And on the off chance that the drink isn’t poisoned after all, that would irreparably damage relations with Halledrin, and they can’t afford that.

So, he’ll have to be careful with this. Keep hold of the cup for the rest of the night and have it tested for toxins as soon as he can. Take the results, and move from there.

“Oh, dear Fates,” Logan groans, and Janus snaps his attention back to the present. It doesn’t take long to figure out what has Logan annoyed.

Roman’s climbed on the table. And as king, he can do what he wants, of course. But generally speaking, he’s supposed to keep the table-climbing to a minimum.

“My dear guests!” he calls out, his voice rich and booming. He doesn’t sound as drunk as Janus would expect from this kind of behavior. “If I may have your attention, I would like to propose a toast! To my dearest friend—”

“Oh my gods, Roman, stop,” Virgil groans.

“—Virgil of the Western Isles, who single-handedly—”

“Roman.”

“—rescued me from the clutches of the dread Dragon-Witch Alcara, thus saving this kingdom from utter disaster and ruin, and once again proving himself to be a man of the highest courage and determination, yes, courage, stop glaring at me like that, and also, did I mention he did this all by himself?” Roman raises his glass high, cheeks flushed red. Virgil has stopped protesting verbally in favor of trying to strike Roman down with his eyes alone, it appears. “So! To one of the best heroes this land has ever known! To Virgil!”

The crowd echoes the call, most of them smiling good-naturedly, a few laughing at the antics; if nothing else, Roman knows how to play to an audience.

“Not one of his best speeches,” Logan mutters.

Janus shrugs, and finally manages to catch Virgil’s gaze from across the room. He smirks, sardonically saluting him with his glass, and Virgil turns the full force of his glare onto him, mouthing something that is either I’m going to kill you or I’m rowing to mill two; really, Janus can’t tell which.

And then, he realizes that he has a problem.

It’s a toast. Everyone is bringing their drinks to his lips, taking sips, swallowing. Obviously, he can’t do any of this, as he rather likes being alive and unpoisoned. But the ambassador is still watching Logan intently, and Logan is sipping from Janus’ old glass; if the ambassador is expecting something to happen, and nothing does, he will turn his attention to the people around Logan, trying to figure out what went wrong. If that happens, there is a chance that he will notice if Janus doesn’t drink. From there, he will be able to suppose that Janus has caught onto his plans, has caught onto him, and from there, he will become more desperate.

Janus doesn’t want that. A desperate man becomes unpredictable, uncontrollable. A desperate man might act as though he has nothing to lose.

His mind racing, he brings the goblet up to his lips. It shouldn’t be too hard to feign a sip. He’s overthinking this.

He tilts the glass back, stopping just short of letting the wine touch his lips. He swallows a bit of his own saliva for realism. And then, it’s done, and he can relax again.

“Really, he should know better then to put Virgil in the limelight,” he says, keeping the ambassador in the corner of his vision. “He’s going to make him pay for that later.”

“If he would stop being so reckless, he wouldn’t be captured by his enemies so often, and Virgil wouldn’t have to hare off after him at all,” Logan sighs. “I will never understand their intricate courting rituals. Why don’t they just say they have feelings for each other and have done with it?”

The longer Logan goes without succumbing to some kind of terrible sickness, the paler the ambassador’s face grows. Janus is almost enjoying watching him.

“Some people are incapable of saying what they mean,” he says, and Logan looks at him, raising an eyebrow.

“Is that the case?” he says, pointed, and Janus grins.

“Why, my dear master sorcerer, you can’t possibly be implying that I—”

His left arm goes numb. Suddenly, all at once, and he cuts himself off, trying to shake feeling back into it. But it’s not like pins and needles, and as the seconds pass— only a few, surely, but the quick, rabbit-beating of his heart makes it seem otherwise— the sensation spreads, creeping toward his chest.

“Janus?” Logan asks. “Is something wrong?”

He sounds worried, very concerned, and Janus would be flattered, but he’s a bit busy being concerned himself.

“I don’t,” he starts, “I’m not—”

And then, his lungs are set on fire, and the rest of his sentence is lost to a wheezing scream as he doubles over, hands flying up to his chest, the wine glass clattering against the floor, half of it shattering and drawing the attention of everyone in the vicinity, but he can’t care about that because he’s trying to force his lungs to inflate, but he’s burning up from the inside out and he can’t—

“Janus!”

There are arms, around him, steadying him. He looks up to meet Logan’s face, painted with fear and blurry, strangely blurry, and he doesn’t think that he’s crying so why is Logan blurry? But he is blurry, and the rest of Janus’ limbs have gone numb, and standing is becoming increasingly difficult, and the fire is there, growing hotter with each moment, and he opens his mouth to say something but all that escapes is a gasp, and then a strangled squeaking sound, as if the sounds are being wrung from him along with the last of his air.

“Shit, shit, shit—”

It’s almost funny, Logan swearing. He’s usually far too collected for that.

His center of gravity tips. Everything spins, and then, he feels himself being lowered to the ground. The floor is cold against his back, soothing, though it doesn’t help much after the momentary relief.

“What the fuck is wrong with him?”

Virgil, now, hovering over him, frantic.

“I don’t know,” Logan says, and he sounds scared, and that’s wrong. Logan is never scared. “I don’t know, poison, I’d imagine, but I don’t know what—”

“Well can you figure it out?”

Roman’s here too.

“I’m trying,” Logan snaps. “If you’ll give me a bit of room—”

The pain rises to a crescendo, like it’s eating his flesh away, and he lets out a whimper. An honest-to-gods whimper, and no. Absolutely not. He has more dignity than this. He has faced worse than this and come out alive, and he trusts Logan to do all that he can. So he breathes, shuddering breaths, breaths that twist and hurt and seem to move in places that they shouldn’t, and he wrests his mind back under control.

“The wine,” he gasps out, and his voice sounds absolutely wrecked. “I saw— the ambassador from Halledrin— he put it in the wine—”

“So you switched them,” Logan says, and scratch fear. This is fury. “How could you possibly have been so stupid?”

“I didn’t drink it!” he cries, and the exclamation is ripped from him, too harsh, and the exertion sends the pain flaring up, the flames licking at his heart, and he chokes on air. “I didn’t— I faked it, I didn’t drink, I don’t know—”

“Well, how the fuck did you get poisoned, then?” Virgil shrieks, and then, Logan fills his field of vision. He’s chanting something in the Old Tongue, and then slapping his hands on his chest, and just like that, the pain fades as magic rushes through him, warm and sparkling and steady and very, very Logan, and his head clears enough to think properly.

“The Halledrinian ambassador?” Roman snarls, and in that moment, he looks exactly like his brother. “I’ll be back.” And then he’s stalking through the crowd, and Janus wishes he didn’t feel so drained; he’d love to watch Roman make the man sweat, but he can barely muster up the energy to raise his head to look at Logan.

“I was going to keep it until I could get it looked at,” he says. His mouth is dry, painfully so. “I faked a sip, for the toast, but I didn’t take one. I didn’t touch it.”

The magic is still buzzing through him, lending him strength. He’ll ride it for what it’s worth.

Gods above and below, this is embarrassing.

“Are you sure it was the wine?” Logan asks. “It couldn’t have been anything else?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” he says. “I’m sorry, I probably should have—”

“Told me?” Logan cuts in. “I should think so. Honestly, why would you think keeping it from me was a good idea?”

The magic is still buzzing through him. It feels more intense now, almost uncomfortable.

“I didn’t want him to think that I knew anything,” he says. “I didn’t want to risk him trying something else.”

Logan shakes his head. “You’re too clever for your own good, do you know that?” he says, and he sounds completely exasperated, but the anger is fading, and Janus is glad of it. He doesn’t regret what he did, just how it turned out, and he never likes it when Logan is annoyed with him, because somehow, Logan has the ability to make him feel like a child, chastised for trying to sneak dessert out of the kitchen.

“I think I’m just clever enough,” he retorts, and then frowns. “Out of curiosity, what spell did you use?”

“A general cleansing incantation,” Logan tells him, “though at twice the power I would usually put into it. I’m just glad the poison wasn’t more specialized. Some toxins are resistant to magic, you know.”

Janus does know, and under any other circumstance, he would be more than willing to listen to Logan going on about the subject for days. But the buzzing of the magic in his system, Logan’s magic, has graduated from relieving to uncomfortable to something approaching pain, and it’s been a long time since he had to be healed with a spell, but he doesn’t think this is right.

He opens his mouth to tell Logan about it, about the way it feels as though there are ants crawling under his skin, but then—

then—

his body—

seizes—

and rational thought flies out the window as his muscles lock and pain tears through him, biting and sharp and ripping and buzzing, and his limbs jerk and this is a seizure, he’s having a seizure, and his head slams against the ground hard and white lights flash across his vision and he can hear shouting, and something soft is shoved underneath his head to soften the impact as it hits against the floor again and again and again and he can’t speak, can’t breath, and there is blood bubbling in the back of his throat, so much that he fears he’ll choke on it, and all the while there is the buzzing, curling in him and forcing his bones from their sockets, it feels like, scrambling his innards, and it feels like there is something inside of him, something eating him, and perhaps he’s eating himself, has turned into the serpent that consumes its own tail—

He doesn’t know.

There are still voices, panicked and loud, and he should know them, too, but he can’t. Not now.

He just knows that it hurts, in waves, each one worst than the last, and it won’t stop. A strangled scream is ripped from his throat, high and thick, forcing its way past the blood that’s gathered in his mouth, and someone is cursing, swearing up a blue streak, and the people around him sound scared, and he thinks that he is too.

Each wave worse than the last. Once he screams once, he can’t stop.

Unconsciousness, when it comes, is a blessing.

-------------

Awareness comes and goes in flashes.

He wakes, his body thrashing, trying to escape. Pain like red hot pokers pressing up against him and into him. He wheezes, and there is someone holding him, trying to restrain him, and he’s too weak to push them away.

“Please,” he tries to say, but the word comes out garbled and mangled beyond all recognition.

“Remus,” the person growls, and it must be Virgil, but he can’t pry his eyes open to see, “knock him out.”

“On it,” says someone else, and there is a hand on his forehead, blessedly cool, and then nothing.

Then, again: his entire body on fire, but lacking the energy to so much as lift a finger. He gasps for breath, each inhalation a struggle, and past the white noise in his ears, he thinks he hears someone speaking. Muttering. Praying? He wrests his eyes open, and his surroundings are a blur, but it is Patton sitting at his bedside. Holding his hand, too, he thinks, but he can’t feel it.

He didn’t even know Patton had returned to the castle.

He tries to say something, anything, but he doesn’t have the air to spend on speech. So he lies there, panting, and finally, Patton looks up, and Janus can’t make out his face but he hears his gasp.

“Oh, gods,” Patton says, and leans in closer. “Jan, can you hear me?”

He can’t respond. Can’t so much as nod.

“You hold on,” Patton says, and he sounds like he’s fighting tears. “You hear me? You don’t die from this. You hang in there, and everything’s gonna be a-okay. You got it?”

It’s a sweet lie, a pretty lie, and Janus can’t begrudge him for it.

Darkness again.

And then:

“—cking be giving up!”

“Of course I’m not giving up!”

Logan’s voice, sharp and angry and lined with despair, and his heart skips a beat. Or perhaps it’s not the sound of his voice that does it at all, but the poison, wrapping around his heart and squeezing. He still hurts, every inch of him, but it’s distant, far away, and it should worry him, he thinks, because that probably means that he’s far past the point of pain that his body can actually handle. But his mind is too fuzzy, everything indistinct.

“I’m not going to give up. I would rather die. But without knowing what the poison was, or better yet, having a sample of it, I’m left to flounder, and attempting to use magic has done more harm than good.”

Gods. He sounds so broken.

“Roman said he was gonna try and get answers out of the shithead.” That’s Remus, uncharacteristically serious. “No luck so far, apparently.” A bang, like a fist against a table. “He should let me at him. I’d rip it right out of him, reach my hand down his throat and pull out his fucking vocal chords—”

“Okay, I’m gonna need you to shut up right the fuck now—”

“Oh, I’m sorry, is that too much for your delicate sensibilities—”

“Enough, both of you!”

Logan again, desperate and exhausted, and with a labored, stuttering breath, Janus pries his eyes open. A wave of dizziness assaults him, and the light is far too bright, but he holds out, turning his head to the side in a motion that takes more effort than it should.

His vision is swimming, coming in and out of focus. But it’s Virgil, Remus, and Logan, all standing and arguing with each other.

And it hits him, then: Oh. I’m dying.

“The fact remains that we’re all in the dark here. I’m in the dark. Without knowing what the poison was or how he ingested it, I can’t deconstruct it to find a cure. All efforts to use a spell to detect the toxin have failed, and all efforts to use a spell to heal him have only aggravated his condition.” Logan makes a sharp motion; Janus isn’t sure, but he thinks he’s scrubbing his hand down his face. “It makes sense,” he continues, more subdued. “I was the original target. So of course the poison would be undetectable by magic. Of course it would—”

He breaks off, and Virgil reaches out to him.

“This isn’t your fault,” he says lowly. “Janus made his dumb fucking decision himself.”

“He wasn’t trying to get poisoned,” Remus interjects, sharp. “So how about you take your dumb fucking decision and shove it up your—”

His mind is whirling. Something about the description of the poison, the fact that magic cannot be used to combat it, seems familiar, but his mind refuses to dredge up any memory that he might have of a poison that fits those qualities.

He doesn’t know. Or, worse, he might know, but the poison that is killing him is preventing him from coming up with the information that could save him.

But there’s something else. Something just beyond his reach, something that flits from his grasp when he tries to think about it.

“And there was nothing in the wine,” Virgil says. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing that the chemists could find.”

“And I checked it for good measure!” Remus says. “Nadda. Zip. Fucking nothing. So how we got here is beyond me.”

That’s it.

That’s it.

He didn’t drink the wine. It wouldn’t have mattered if the wine was poisoned. He didn’t have any.

But he remembers swallowing. His own saliva, just to make it realistic.

There’s only one place the poison could have been.

He tries to speak. But his throat feels full of razor wire, and the effort is enough to bring the rest of the pain back into focus. What starts out as something that might, possibly, be a word devolves into a high, keening whimper, and he can’t muster up the energy to be embarrassed about it, because gods. His back arches, and his fists clench into the bedsheets as he tries to ride it out, but there is no riding it out, because it just won’t stop.

“Janus!”

Suddenly, they’re all very close.

“Shit, shit, you’re gonna be okay, just give us a second,” Virgil says. “Remus, you—”

“Right—”

And no, because Remus is going to knock him out again, but he can’t, not before he tells them what he just figured out, because if he goes under again he’s scared that he won’t get another chance.

“No,” he gasps, and his voice is absolutely wrecked, and speaking hurts, but— “No, don’t. I need—”

He breaks off with a ragged gasp, his throat refusing to cooperate with him, and he could scream with frustration, really would scream, if his voice was working. But then, Logan is there, his face close to his and his eyes very blue.

“What do you need, Janus?” he asks, his voice low and urgent, and Janus gathers his breath, and try again.

“Test the rim,” he says. “It wasn’t— wasn’t in the wine, and it wasn’t a spell. But I—” His words strangle themselves, but he can see the light dawning in Logan’s eyes.

“You put your lips to the rim of the glass,” he finished. “It was on the—” He turns to Virgil, the motion whipcord sharp. “Virgil, go find the glass and have it sent to my— no, actually, bring it here. Time is of the essence.”

Virgil is off like a shot almost before Logan is finished speaking.

“And Remus,” he continues, “I’ll need—”

“You’ve got it, specs,” Remus says. “Whatever support I can give.”

Logan nods, and meets Janus’ eyes again. At least, he thinks he does. His vision is growing dark, shadows curling around the edges like fire-blackened paper, eating away everything he can see. The pain is distant again, and even his own heartbeat seems to be slowing. Logan’s voice sounds as if it’s coming to him through deep water.

“You can rest now, Janus,” he says. “You’ve done well. I’m going to cure you, I swear. This will all be over soon.”

One way or another, he agrees, but doesn’t say it out loud. Even if he could, he thinks it would upset Logan to say something like that. Would upset him to remind him of the very real possibility that this will not end well, that it is already too late. Because his vision is blackening and his heartbeat is slowing, and everything feels so very, very far away, and he doesn’t want to die but he might not have a choice in the matter.

Logan’s face is still hovering above his, and he thinks that if this is the last sight he will ever have, it’s the best one he could have asked for.

-----------------

He wakes to a pressure against his side and a bone-deep exhaustion, and he takes a moment to simply breathe, staring at the ceiling and reveling in the ease of it. He is so very tired, but his lungs inflate and deflate without pain, without anything catching and setting him to coughing, without having to fight his own body to get the air he needs.

Then, he turns his head.

Logan is asleep on a chair next to his bed, slumped forward so that his head is resting against his side, effectively trapping one arm. He is pale and drawn, his brows furrowed and hair sticking out in all directions, as if he’s been running his fingers through it repeatedly. His glasses are still on his face, terribly askew, and on instinct, Janus reaches across his body, trying to correct them, perhaps, or to take them off entirely. But at the movement, slight though it is, Logan startles awake, eyes blinking wide open, lips parted as if to call out.

Then, his eyes meet Janus’.

“You’re awake,” he breathes, and it sounds uncomfortably like a revelation, like the answer to every prayer Logan has ever offered— and Logan isn’t religious, Janus knows, has never seen much point in worshiping distant gods. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” he offers, wincing at the sandpaper-quality of his own voice. It’s the truth, though; he feels drained, mentally and physically, and he aches terribly, but the pain is nothing compared to what it was. “I assume you figured it out.”

Logan pushes his glasses back into position on his face, a little more aggressively than the motion should require. “Barely,” he says. “If you had consumed any more than you did, or if I had been even ten minutes slower, you would have died.”

He hums. “I certainly felt like it,” he murmurs, glancing away. “Thank you for saving me.”

For once, he means exactly what he says, but Logan’s expression darkens. “I shouldn’t have had to,” he says, sharp. “That poison—” He breaks off, sucking in a breath, looking away. He vigorously jabs at his glasses, pushing them even farther up his nose. “That poison was meant to target magic in a person’s system, and because you don’t have magic inherently, it turned to attacking your internal organs instead. Every attempt to heal you only fueled its effects. Do you know how I—”

He breaks off again, but Janus is stuck on something else, is stuck on targeting magic, and he has always been good at reading between the lines, so he knows exactly what Logan isn’t saying. Logan lives off magic, breathes it, practically is magic in every sense of the word. Had Logan taken a poison that destroyed magic, it would have destroyed him.

The Halledrinian ambassador chose his toxin well.

“In that case,” he says, “I suppose that this turned out as well as it could have. Obviously, getting poisoned myself was far from ideal, but better me than you, in this scenario.”

He knows immediately that this is the wrong thing to say; usually, he would have realized that before the words left his mouth at all, but his mind is still sluggish, his mouth looser. Logan’s face twists, becomes something thunderous and angry, and the warm candlelight that fills the room— his room, he notices, though he’s fairly certain he was in Remus’ infirmary before— flickers and dances as the air stirs, a slight wind buffeting the bedsheets.

“I think you might have missed the part where I said that you almost died,” Logan says, and his voice is steady, but his hands are not, trembling where they have balled into fists on his lap.

He blinks, at a loss. Were he in better form, he would know what to say here, how to soothe Logan’s worry and wash the past few— well. He has no idea how long it’s been. But he would be able to turn it all around, put the event behind them, if the words would only come, but they don’t, so here he lies, feeling powerless and a bit stupid.

“I didn’t,” he points out, and knows that the rebuttal is weak, that this won’t help. “Clearly.”

“The point is that you could have!”

It’s a shout, and Logan pauses, seemingly surprised at his own volume. He deflates, then, his shoulders slumping, all the fight flowing from him like water from a sieve. He hunches in on himself just slightly, his expression fading from fury to something much more tired, much more worn.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and Janus can only watch as he scrubs at his eyes, almost viciously, and then stares at his hands. “I just— you nearly died. From poison that was meant for me.”

He sounds wrecked, as if that is the worst possibility he could imagine, and— oh.

“I would have died,” Logan murmurs. “It would have decimated my magic before I could do a thing about it, and me along with it.” He looks up, and his eyes are shining with unshed tears, and Janus wants nothing more than to wipe them away. He would try, he thinks, if he felt as though he could move enough to do so, if he thought Logan would allow him the liberty. “But instead of me, it was you. And I had to watch as you died in my place. If you hadn’t been able to communicate how you’d ingested it, I would have been helpless. I would have—” He breaks off suddenly, closing his eyes. “I would have lost you.”

Oh.

He wrenches himself into a sitting position, ignoring the way his muscles scream in protest, ignoring Logan’s startled exclamation. He pushes himself up, reaches out, and snags Logan’s hands in one of his. Too late, he realizes that somewhere along the line, he was divested of his gloves, and his bare skin makes contact with Logan’s. It’s like a bolt of lightning shooting up his arm, and he struggles not to show his shock on his face; he is no stranger to touch, but not like this, never like this, with his bare hand. And from the way Logan is staring, from the way Logan’s lips have parted, just slightly, he knows it too.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, as fierce, as vehement as he can manage. “And call me selfish, but I am infinitely glad that I didn’t have to lose you.”

He meets Logan’s eyes. As difficult as this level of honesty, this level of vulnerability is for him, it needs to be said. He needs Logan to know, needs him to understand, needs him to realize that he cannot possibly regret this, if the alternative was watching Logan choke on his own blood.

Logan makes a sound, soft and wounded, and turns his hand so that he’s grasping at Janus’ just as tightly as Janus is grasping him. And then, he leans in close, bumping their foreheads together and then staying there, and Janus doesn’t dare to move. He can feel Logan’s breath on his skin, ghosting across his lips; an inch or two closer, and they would be kissing.

With one hand, Logan continues to hold his. The other curls around the back of his neck, keeping him in place.

“Never,” Logan says, “do that to me again.”

“I assure you,” he replies, “I don’t plan on it.”

For a moment they stay like that, foreheads touching, breathing together, and Janus’ eyes slip closed. Like this, he can almost forget that anything happened, can forget the pain, can forget how weak he feels. He’s here, and Logan’s here, and nothing else matters.

And then, the door slams open. He jerks back, startled, and Logan’s hand slips away from his neck.

Remus is standing there, gaping.

“Holy shit,” he says. “You’re awake.” He turns to call to someone down the hall— “He’s awake!—” and then, he’s rushing into the room, and Janus doesn’t have any time to prepare before he’s jumped onto the bed, wrapping his arms around him like a particularly clingy octopus, and he’s chanting a litany of words under his breath, things like, “You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay holy shit,” and other words that he can’t quite make out, and the hug is a bit too tight to be comfortable, but he accepts it anyway. He’s still holding one of Logan’s hands, and he is loathe to let go, but he wraps his free arm around Remus’ back.

“Everyone’s been very worried about you,” Logan says quietly. “Patton returned from the coast in the middle of it all, and he was quite distraught. And that’s not to mention how… irate Roman has been, and Virgil—”

“Speak for yourself,” Virgil says, leaning in the doorway. He crosses his arms, but the relief on his face is poorly disguised, and he must have truly been in a bad way if Virgil was that concerned. “Roman and Patton are on their way up, I think. They were talking to the asshole. The ambassador,” he adds when Janus tilts his head in a silent question. “Piece of shit admitted to everything. He’s not even the real ambassador; he killed the real one and took his clothes, tried to go after Logan to spark war between us and Halledrin.”

“I’m gonna kill him,” Remus says. “Roman said I could, if I wanted to. He was real mad so I dunno if he meant it, but he said it, so it counts. I’m gonna stick a knife in his guts and pull out his intestines and feed them to him and—”

“That’s more than enough, I think,” Logan interjects, and Janus is glad of it. He’s used to Remus’ gory tangents, can deal with them well, normally, but he’s exhausted, and he thinks that consciousness will slip away from him any moment now. He can feel his eyelids beginning to droop, his body leaning against Remus’ more and more, and he highly doubts that he will make it to see Roman and Patton.

But that’s alright. He’ll wake up again and see them then. For now, he has Virgil here, and Remus, and he is still holding Logan’s hand, and he is tired and he aches, but he’s alright.

He meets Logan’s eyes, squeezes his hand, and smiles. And Logan smiles back.

General Taglist: @just-perhaps @the-real-comically-insane @jerrysicle-tree @glitchybina @psodtqueer @mrbubbajones @snek-boii @severelylackinginquality @aceawkwardunicorn @gayerplease @elizabutgayer @dwbh888 @thatoneloudowl @sanderssides-angst @gayboopnoodle @wildfire5157 @ldavmp4 @a-ghostlight-for-roman @sammy-is-obsessed @imlovethomassanders @a-yeet-bop-bop-boom @halfords-hysteria @random-fander @addykatb @i-cant-find-a-good-username @intruxiety @maybedefinitely404 @arya-skywalker @thefivecalls @nerdy-emo-royal-dad @bisexualdisaster106

Janus Fic Taglist: @idkanameatall

[lilxmcrtes]

ur own url i dare u 🔫

Send Me A URL and I’ll Respond With My Opinions | Anonymous | Mun

                                                           ~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Roleplaying/Writing

My favorite muse(s) of theirs and why: Max. He feels like the coolest muse I've ever come up with even though he's still wildly underdeveloped in the areas I think make him cool

My favorite interaction/thread of theirs: Aw man. You just want me to pick favorites don't you? That's why you sent this. Uhhh. I'll go wiiiiith... The crack posts of Aeron as a result of interacting with B.ucky. Pretty sure that’s mostly been Riley and K.laus. Oh oh! Also the ones with Thorn / Karma. Those usually end up being Asher.

My thoughts on their unique characterization/interpretation of their muse(s): And now for my insecurities. Lol. Always think I should be more developed, more organized, and consistent.

My thoughts on their writing style as a whole: Balanced hopefully. Keeping that emotional realism but also free to keep it fun.

Situation(s)/Plot(s) I’d love to see their muse(s) in: Imma scream about the U.mbrella A.cademy verse for Eira forever. Also I want Soulmate AUs, fake dating plots, found family (including slow burn with the other "parent") plots. Also getting back into the mutant verse. And just in general making more verses. And!! More plots that arcs for my muses in relation to each other. Would love to explore something further for them. Also! Survival plots like zombie apocalypse or escaping a game/reality/time/death loop.

Someone else I love seeing them interact with: Myself of course lmao For real, B.ucky. God I love that Content. I couldn’t possibly get enough.

Anything else I want to say about their roleplaying: Should do it more. With more people. And consistently. Not have drafts sitting for months and probably annoy my partners.

If We Know Each Other

What I Think Are Their Best Qualities: Ew. Pls. Why are you making me do this? Ugh okay. I’d sayyy... I’m?? Goddamn this is hard. Uh. Oh! Thoughtful! I do a lot of thinking. All the time. It actually kinda sucks for me! But in terms of being a good writing partner, I try to pay attention. Ask questions others might not. Send posts that remind me of their muse. Adapt to a similar style. Just. Be thinking of you and your muse.

What I Think Are Their Strengths: Plotting intra-muse things. For myself and other multiple muse writers. So I’ve been told. It is my favorite thing to do.

A Memorable OOC Interaction Of Ours: The time I realized that my muses didn’t have to be from a real place. I could just make up a place and not worry about accuracy. Really love myself for that one

Why Others Should RP With Them: Bc I said pls? lol Because they want to of course. They see something they like and wanna be a part of, doing something together.

How Others Should Approach Them: I think it’s generally accepted that memes are the way to go. But given how many times I wanna start on a clean slate, it’d be good to have a solid idea for first meeting and the general direction the interaction / relationship will go. So I’d love to plot that initially. That gives me something to fall back on. Especially because we’ve settled on a muse of mine you wanna interact with. It’d also be awesome if you approached first. Even if that’s just sending a meme.

Other Roleplayers I’d Recommend To Them: The ones I haven’t written with! Or haven’t in a while! Or didn’t really get the ball rolling! Shout out to @diicktective @heartxshaped-bruises @detectiveconnor @immortalled @flxtchcr specifically bc I think they're excellent. The content is *chef's kiss* and I hope to get to writing with / continue writing with them soon :D

Anything else I want to say about them: I can take a while but I hope I’m worth it.

If We Have/Plan To Interact Together

A plot I’d like to write with them: Beyond what I wrote before, specifically I'd like to write a plot that brings all my muses together. Ultimate crossover style. Which will likely take place in the mutant verse. I've already got some distant plans. Just need to actually develop them and put them into motion.

A muse I want to introduce to them: MJ, my newest idea/focus

A ship/broship I’d like to propose to them: Of my own muses, I’ve been toying with the idea of Eira and Darius. Of others’ muses, I’ve been thinking about Lorelei and Swift ( @diicktective ) or maybe the muses on the mun’s other blog @arachnofille. I have no thoughts. Just reading the vibes.

A thread with them I’m excited about: A thread with myself I’m excited about... Well that recent one with Eira and Max, I’ve been meaning to get back to. Also potentially thinking about writing Eira and L.oki bc I miss a particular ship but I think the mun is inactive ;n;

Anything else I want to say: There's so much I'd like to do but the balance between my own thing and replies when balancing writing at all and not, is just so hard.

                                                           ~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

[nationalharryleague]

Work of Art

Pairing: Harry Styles x Reader

Genre: AU, Artist!Harry, fluff, angst if you squint

Word count: 4K

A/N: Hi everyone! This is my entry for @hsogolden​ ’s AU writing challenge! Check out their blog they are incredibly talented!!! ALSO, a MASSIVE thank you and shoutout to the lovely Miss Lu, @harrysgucciloafers​!!! I could have never done it without her!! Thank you so much for reading and remember, feedback is so so so appreciated!!! You can also send requests to my ask anytime!! I hope you enjoy :) More of my writing can be found in my masterlist :) 

***

Sleep was fleeting and you remained staring at your popcorn ceiling in your shitty apartment for longer than you would have liked. It was later than you would have liked when your phone buzzed and lit up the ceiling of your bedroom. Knowing sleep was still far off, you rolled over and examined the text from an unknown number, the bright screen blinding you in the process.

Hi, I was thinking of you today. I thought I would show you this piece that I made of you. Hope you’re doing well. Hx, attached was a slightly blurry photo of a beautiful painting of a woman.

The woman in the painting was made up of beautiful bright colors, her skin a mix of green, blue, and purple tones. Her eyes were a bright and captivating cerulean, standing out behind wide framed glasses, and she wore an intriguing and knowing smirk on her lips. Her hair fell down in blunt bangs over her forehead and framed her heart shaped face. She was young, looking to be only a little bit older than you.

The painting was captivating. It was crafted with such bright tones, using color blocking that blended the abstract with some elements of realism. It felt like someone poured all of their emotion and adoration or hurt (you couldn’t decide which) into it. You couldn’t decide if the artist loved or hated this figure staring back at you. One thing you knew was that whoever texted you was incredibly talented and had obviously dedicated so much time to this piece. You felt awful that it hadn’t reached its intended destination.

Um… Wrong number, you typed out, feeling a pang of sympathy for whoever ‘H’ was.

Oh… okay. Sorry to bother you., your phone screen lit up again.

Your art is beautiful, you quickly sent back, attempting to offer some sort of consolation to the mystery artist. Sorry I’m not who you wanted to talk to.

Don’t worry about it. Just looking for someone from a lifetime ago.

That last part kept you up for most of the night. You couldn’t stop thinking about what that could mean. Old friend? Estranged relative? Another artist? You let your mind dream up Oscar-worthy scenarios until you finally fell asleep.

***

“Please come to Scott’s art show with me,” Grace whined from across the table at your favorite coffee shop. Grace was your best friend from college and hadn’t figured out to get rid of you yet.

“You know how I feel about your shitty boyfriend and his shitty art,” you fired back. Scott was a pretentious “artist” who made “ironic” misogynistic sculptures and frequently “forgot” to pay Grace back for his share of rent. You hated his guts.

“I promise I’m going to break up with him soon. I just need to get to the end of the month so I get my money’s worth for rent,” she assured you. “By the way, I’m going to need some help moving out at the end of the month,” she mentioned nonchalantly. You let out a chuckle at her and playfully rolled your eyes.

“I will go to the show with you on one condition.”

“Anything.”

“You’ll hold my hand.”

A few hours later you walked into the modern and cold art show space, holding onto Grace’s hand for dear life, feeling unwelcome in this environment. Grace blended in easily, her bright blue hair and arms of tattoos suiting her well.  The edgiest thing you had ever done was getting your nose pierced… until your grandma threw a fit and your mom made you take it out. You were not an artist and you did not feel welcome in the art community, or at least the type of artists that hang out with Scott. You worked in an office, you dressed plainly and simply, and you didn’t think there was anything special about yourself. You were strikingly ordinary, a sharp contrast from most other people in the gallery. You felt like an outsider because you were one.

Walking around the gallery, you hung onto Grace while examining and appreciating the artwork. You took careful steps, as if to not take attention away from the paintings on the walls and spent time examining each piece as you moved through the room. As you moved from wall to wall, your eyes fell on a strikingly familiar painting. The same girl with the bright blue eyes and the bangs stared back at you, the devilish smirk still playing upon her lips like she knew you had met before.

Releasing Grace’s hand, you all but ran up to the painting in question, trying to take in all the details that didn’t translate over the slightly grainy photo on your phone. The painting took on a life of its own up close. The paint itself was layered thick and thin across the canvas creating a rough texture that made the girl come alive. You were half waiting for her to make eye contact with her captivating baby blues and start staring back at you. You felt like you could reach inside the canvas and hold the beautiful woman’s face in your hands.

“Do you like it?” a deep British voice asked after clearing their throat behind you.

“Oh, it’s so beautiful,” you murmured, still staring at the green and purple woman. It took you a moment to rip yourself away from her piercing eyes and look towards the voice, only to turn around and find an even more captivating set.

They were bright green and belonged to a tall, dark haired man that was breathtaking. He had chocolate brown curls that seemed to be sticking in every direction, like a purposefully perfect bedhead, and stubble that moved up his jaw and down his neck. He had plushy pink lips framing his bright smile and his two front teeth came down the tiniest bit too far. He was wearing a white tshirt that was painted to his fit body as it was a size too small for him, showing off his arms of tattoos, and a pair of orange corduroy flares. His ensemble was topped off with a pearl necklace. He arched a brow when your mouth hung open slightly, trying to take all of him in.

“The painting is gorgeous,” you eventually were able to spit out. “I feel like I know her.”

“I’m glad that I was able to create something so captivating,” he smiled at you. So he was the one that painted it, meaning he was the one who had texted it to you. After getting over the initial shock, you gave yourself an internal high five for having this guy’s number. “Harry,” he introduced himself, reaching out a perfectly manicured hand to shake yours. “Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Y/N,” you smiled back, debating if you should tell him that you had kind of met before. It felt creepy to tell him, like you were some sort of voyer on an intimate part of his life. “I love her. Can you tell me a little bit more about it?” you asked. You had to figure out if it was worth being creepy about.

“So did I,” he said with a light chuckle. “She’s someone that I used to know,” he elaborated looking over your shoulder, surely making eye contact with the woman. Maybe you were reading into it too closely, but you thought a flash of hurt passed across his features.

“Do you always paint mysterious people from your past?” you teased, wanting to break the slightly awkward silence and also willing to do anything to talk to him further.

“Actually, I’m mainly a landscape painter,” he smiled at the ground, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Looking back at Harry’s wall of paintings you realized that the girl was the only person on the wall, flanked by beautiful landscape paintings depicting all different areas of the world. You quickly picked your favorite, a monochromatic green scene of the Eiffel tower.

After you asked if he traveled a lot to paint, the conversation began to flow. You strolled around the mainly empty studio space, footsteps falling in sync, him teaching you about his paintings and you asking questions, desperate to learn anything you could from him and just wanting to hear that beautiful accent. You learned he grew up in Cheshire and moved to New York for school and never left, but he travelled to Europe often to see his family and to paint. He told you about how his ultimate goals in life were to have one of his pieces in the Museum of Modern Art and to find his soulmate. He was a hopeless yet hopeful romantic. He also had two cats, Evie and Stevie (the latter was obviously named after Stevie Nicks).

He was so beautiful. He had this magical twinkle in his eye that you just couldn’t get over. He looked like he was one of the sculptors’ in the room’s life work. He was just as much of a piece of art as anything on display in the studio.

When the crowd started to thin, Grace came and found you, still rolling her eyes from something stupid Scott had said, him trailing not far behind. “Hi my love,” she greeted you, kissing your cheek casually as always. “We were getting ready to head out but I can see you’ve made a friend.”

“Harry is the artist behind all these amazing paintings,” gesturing to the long wall displaying his artwork. “This is my best friend Grace,” you said, turning back to him. “And that’s her soon to be ex-boyfriend, Scott,” you laughed and pointed to him staring at a blank white canvas in the corner that was obviously not part of the exhibition.

“Wait,” he began, shaking his head and laughing, pointing accusingly between the two of you. “You two aren’t together?”

“What? No!”

“It’s just that you were holding hands for a while when you came in and then she called you ‘love,’ and then kissed your cheek,” he continued laughing, his cheeks a bright red. It was adorable. You felt your cheeks heat up just as bright red as his.

“Oh my god, no.” You broke out into a fit of giggles of your own.

“Well, in that case, would you like to grab a drink or something sometime?”

***

You decided to order a martini when you got to the bar the next night. You thought it would make you look fancy and you hoped it would impress your worldly date. You had put on your favorite red dress (the one that hugged you in all the right spots and hid the wrong ones), praying he would dress up like you did, and slid carefully onto the barstool. Bouncing your knee nervously, you sipped your drink slowly until you saw his well dressed figure enter the bar, making your heart skip a beat.

He was dressed in high-waisted wide-legged tan pants and a bright red cardigan printed with small white hearts that was held together in the front by a single button, leaving his chest and signature pearl necklace on display. His chest tattoos were now slightly visible, the faces of two swallows looking back at you, as well as what you thought might be some sort of antennae peeking up from his stomach. He also wore an award winning smile and shot you a wink when he spotted you from the entrance of the bar. Once again, he took your breath away.

“Hello darling,” he greeted you as he made his way over. You began to panic when he started leaning into you, relieved when his lips found their way to your cheek and quickly moved to the other. When he kissed your cheeks, it sent sparks through your body. Oh my god, he is so British, you squealed inside your head, unable to suppress your American excitement. “I like your color choice,” he smirked looking between your outfits of almost the exact same red. You could only hope your cheeks didn’t match as well.

“Great minds dress alike,” you remarked, earning a laugh from the gorgeous man in front of you. Turns out, your joke was enough to break the ice. Soon the conversation began to flow freely, without anxiety or trepidation, like you were a pair of souls reunited after lifetimes apart. You were two martinis in when you decided to break the news that the art gallery was not the first time you had spoken.

“I think I have to break something to you,” you giggled, everything seeming a little funny after a few drinks, “the art show was not the first time we met.” His eyebrows knit together in slight confusion so you decided to elaborate. “The night before the show you sent a picture of that painting to a wrong number, and that wrong number was me. I promise it was all a coincidence and I am not stalking you.” You held your breath while you waited a moment with bated breath for a reaction from him, but released the stress that had found its way into your shoulders when his smile returned to his lips.

“I knew you had more interest in Amelia than most people,” he chuckled. Amelia, you repeated to yourself, now having a name for the face of your mystery woman.

“When Grace dragged me to that studio and I saw her again, I just had to know more. But then I met you and got a little distracted,” you flirted, “accidentally” nudging his leg with the point of your stiletto.

“I’m glad I’m just a distraction to you,” he feigned offense, clutching his pearl necklace with the hand that wasn’t hanging onto his neat tequila.

“Meeting you tonight was actually just an elaborate ruse to learn more about your Amelia,” you sarcastically confessed, sending him back one of the winks he had been shooting you all night. Your wink wasn’t met with his typical laugh, but a slightly pained smile that didn’t reach his eyes. You worried you had hit a nerve.

“She’s not my Amelia anymore. Actually, I don’t think she ever was,” he spoke gently, taking a sip of his drink and breaking eye contact for what felt like the first time tonight. Oh no oh no oh no, you began to panic in your head. What did this woman do to him?  

“I once had an ex tell me they had cancer so I wouldn’t break up with them,” you offered, forcing a laugh and praying you could brighten up his mood again. Thankfully, it worked, bringing back the crinkles by his eyes that appeared whenever he smiled or laughed.

You breathed a sigh of relief when the rest of the night went smoothly. It was better than smooth actually, it felt easy and exciting. Harry made your heart sing and your stomach flutter. He was a perfect gentleman, walking you all the way home (even when he lived on the other side of the city) and even up to your apartment, insisting he needed to make sure you made it inside safe.

The pair of you were standing in front of your front door when he leaned in and pressed his blushed lips to yours. He tasted like the lime that sat on the rim of his drunk and smelled like shampoo and vanilla. Every hair on your body stood up on point and everywhere he touched you felt like your skin lit on fire; you never wanted this moment to end. He gently held your face and you could feel his lips turn into a smile as he pulled away, his beautiful green eyes meeting yours once again.

“I had a really good time tonight,” he breathed, unable to wipe the smile off his face.

“I think we should do this again,” you said, still catching the breath that he took away.

“I promise you’ll be hearing from me soon. I already have your number,” he chuckled, still beaming. You watched as he walked down the hallway away from you, winking and blowing you a kiss before turning the corner. As soon as you entered the apartment, you slid down your front door, dizzy from the haze he had created in your head. You couldn’t wait to see him again.

***

After that night, you couldn’t believe someone like him kept coming back to someone like you. You insisted you were too boring for someone who had such an incredible personality and background. Yet three months later, he was yours and you were his.

You spent almost all your nights together, crammed into one of your small New York City apartments, wrapped in each other’s arms and hypothetically solving the world’s problems. You had learned in this time that Harry was incredibly intelligent and well spoken, no matter how long it took him to get his words out due to his slow cadence. In your conversations, you had come to the agreement that most of the world’s problems could be solved with a little empathy and that green was definitely the best color.

Tonight you laid naked in his bed, your head resting just above your favorite butterfly, and played with his fingers as you listened to him speak about postmodernism and how it rocked the art world. You didn’t understand a thing he was going on about but you loved to hear him speak, his voice vibrating through his chest and how he pulled on his bottom lip when he was thinking. You scanned the studio apartment from his bed, trying to pay attention but losing that battle. The floor was littered with finished and unfinished paintings leaning up against the walls and you noticed one familiar face you had grown fond of was missing.

“Where did your painting of Amelia go?” you asked when he took a second to breathe during his diatribe.

“I sold it,” he said curtly.  You hadn’t talked much more about Amelia after that first night, the woman obviously being a sore spot, but you couldn’t help but wonder what happened.

“Oh, okay. I liked that painting a lot,” you spoke cautiously, trying not to hit whatever nerve you had previously.

“It was nice, but I think she should haunt someone else now,” he said with a sigh. Haunt?, you thought to yourself.

“H,” you began, rolling yourself off him to look him in the eye, “can I ask what happened with her?” You held your breath, afraid you might lose him to the heartbreak again.

“Don’t worry about her, she’s long gone.”

“Harry,” you lightly scolded him by using his full name which you rarely did, thinking back to when you agreed not to keep anything for each other. With a sigh, he began to speak.

“I was with her for a couple months last year and when I look back at it, it was really messy. We fought all the time and kept a lot from each other. But I had my rose colored glasses on and I would go as far as saying I was probably in love with her. I was even looking for engagement rings.” You felt a pang of jealousy within you at the idea of Harry loving anyone else. “That was until I found out that she already had a husband.”

Your heart broke for him after your initial shock, resting your hand on his warm cheek in an attempt to soothe him. He didn’t seem sad recounting the story or at the mention of her like he was before; he was now dealing with the remaining hurt of rejection.

“I painted her while I was still really mad,” he continued. “My original plan was to send it to her husband and tell him what had happened. But I decided that three lives didn’t need to be ruined instead of one. And then I was just kinda stuck with the painting. I thought selling it was a good way to get her out of my life and it’s more productive than lighting it on fire,” he finally said with a light chuckle.

A lot made sense all of a sudden. You now understood why Harry always got a little jealous when he saw other guys looking at you. He would loop an arm around your waist and press a kiss to your cheek while he stared them down. He thought you didn’t notice but you always did. You also understood why he was so open with you about how much he cared about you. It was a good thing you were equally as obsessed with him.

“I’m sorry, H. You didn’t deserve to go through all of that,” you said softly after a moment, unsure of what else you could offer.

“It’s okay. We grow from our past,” he shrugged. “And if I hadn’t painted her, I wouldn’t have found you,” he smiled sweetly, pulling you back into him and pressing his lips onto yours.

***

“Oh my goodness, what are you doing?” you giggled when Harry asked you to close your eyes.

“I have something to show you. Please close your eyes,” he asked again.

“What if I don’t want to close my eyes?” you teased, poking the dimple in his cheek caused by his cheeky grin. He rolled his eyes and began his plea again.

“Close your eyes, please. Do it.”

You gave in this time, closing your eyes and letting your heart flutter in anticipation. Harry knew you loved surprises and often took advantage of that fact. You felt him gently rest his cupped hands over your eyes, obviously not trusting you to not peak (he probably shouldn’t). He pressed himself to your back, urging you to make your way further into his apartment.

“Styles, if you let me walk into something, I swear to god,” you continued your giggling, overcome with excitement. Harry mumbled an ‘Oh, hush,’ in your ear before he stopped you both and lifted his hands away.

Your breath caught in your throat as you took it in. The painting was in Harry’s signature style, layered bright colors and varied textures across the canvas. Staring back was your own face, painted in a bright red monochrome with the exception of the color of your eyes that remained the same. You were posed with a bright smile that crinkled the skin by your eyes and you were wearing the red dress that you had worn that first night at the bar.

“Harry, oh my god. It’s so beautiful,” you managed to get out, still in shock.

“I know you don’t think you are, but are the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met. I wouldn’t want anyone else in the world to be my muse.” You felt as if you could explode or melt with the amount of love you had for this man. You held him up on such a pedestal, and now you knew he did the same for you. “From the moment I saw you, I thought you were a work of art. So, I thought I’d actually make you into one.”

Your cheeks burned from the smile you couldn’t shake if you wanted to and you felt yourself get a little teary eyed. You felt as if you had spent the majority of your life thinking you were nothing special and just another person walking down the street. Harry made you feel like you were the center of the universe. You wanted to love yourself like Harry loved you; like you loved him.

“I love you,” you blurted, small tears rolling down your face, wiped away by Harry’s talented hands.

“I love you too,” he murmured softly, pulling your body to his. “I’ll always have your face hung up high in my gallery.”

There she is!! I hope you enjoyed it!! You can let me know what you think here!! :) 

[klixxy]

weekly fic recs

(ft. my bookmark comments - mostly mha and voltron)

boku no hero academia:

what is right and what is easy - theroyalsavage

(bnha; tododeku; fluff + angst; 2k words; oneshot)

Midoriya Izuku is not chosen to represent Hogwarts in the Triwizard Tournament. He does not slay a dragon, or rescue innocents, or brave a maze of dark magic. He does not win accolades, or fame, or glory.

Instead, Izuku meets the son of the greatest dark wizard of the age, a Durmstrang student with hair like a sunrise and eyes like a war. And maybe, he just might win something else.

If I'm Being Honest.... by I_dont_know_man 

(bnha; tododeku; fluff + crack/humor; 26k words; oneshot; truth quirk)

Midoriya scrunched up his nose in confusion. “Uh, Shouto, why are you glaring at me like that?”

“I-” Todoroki began to lie, until nausea slammed him like a door to any room that Bakugou entered. “I--” Todoroki grit his teeth, and glared daggers into the wall behind Midoriya. Goodbye, friendship. It had been absolutely divine while it lasted. “Because you’re very attractive.”

They say honesty is the best policy, but it sure as hell had a knack for Todoroki making a complete and utter fool of himself.

Or: In which Todoroki is placed under a mysterious truth-telling quirk and suffers, Uraraka laughs at him, Midoriya is confused but smitten nonetheless, and Twitter is the thirstiest site on the planet.

paint on our lips (paint on those fingertips) by spicanao

(bnha; tododeku; angst + magical realism; 11k words; oneshot; gallery au)

Galleries are wonderful places. The works seem so vibrant, so beautiful, so alive.

Until they're actually alive.

(Ib AU)

[my bookmarks: holy shit this is beautiful in an odd, poignant, dream-like way]

Todoroki Shouto’s Amateur Guide to Not Fucking Up The Timeline by Anubis_2701

(bnha; tododeku; crack/humor; 13k words; oneshot; time travel; future fic)

All that Todoroki had wanted was milk. Nothing drastic, nothing dramatic, just milk.

Unfortunately, in his quest to get milk, he ended up running into one of the saltiest, most impulsive people this side of the globe. Who also just so happened to have a volatile time-travel quirk.

So yeah, he was fucked. Just slightly. Being punted randomly through time wasn't exactly how he'd wanted to spend his Saturday morning. At least the younger versions of his friends are cute.

awake and (un)afraid, asleep or- by driedupwishes

(bnha; tododeku; fluff + angst + The Feels; 54k words; oneshot; social media/future fic)

“You,” Shoto says, picking his head up from where his screen is filled with The Worst Photograph Ever, curtesy of Shinsou, Jiro, Kaminari, his brother, and nearly everyone they know. “You are so dead to me.”

Kirishima blinks, mouth half open while Izuku mutters oh god, it’s too late, isn’t it on the other end of the phone, before Kirishima is leaning into his space to see his screen.

“Oh,” he says, in response to the photo someone in the crowd of civilians watching the fight had taken of them. “Oh, that’s-” he cuts himself off for a minute, leaning back to eye Shoto’s face while on the other side of the phone Izuku smothers what is probably a laugh, and then changes tracks.

“It’s super manly to love and support your friends,” Kirishima tells Shoto haughtily, as if this whole thing isn't his fault in the first place.

-

or: Kirishima and Shoto accidentally start trending on Twitter and in retaliation Shoto decides to make an Instagram to showcase all his Hero Deku merchandise, so that everyone knows how much he loves his boyfriend Izuku, and no one expects how quickly it will all spiral out from there

[my bookmarks: broke my heart. i teared up multiple times and even now I'm barely holding back tears.

pure beauty. pulls an incredible amount of emotion from the descriptive language and conveys the love and loneliness and that pulsing ache so well that i thought that my chest would cave in from the force of all the fucking feelings in it. this entire fic was a perfect, awe-inspiring package of fluff, beautiful shoto and class 1a interaction, heartfelt long distance tododeku feels, and almost every single paragraph had my heart fucking squeezing so hard in my chest that i could barely breathe.

i am in awe.]

Hooliganisms by aphrodaisyacs

(bnha; gen/todofam; crack/humor; 17k words; series; social media)

In which an anonymous artist’s street art of Bald Endeavor goes viral, causing a chain of coincidental events and ironic situations to ripple through the lives of everyone- heroes, villains and civilians alike.

[my bookmarks: i'm crying so much from laughter]

Part 1: Where it all begins- the origins of the street artist known as the "Bald Hooligan" and their rise to infamy

Part 2: The spin-off focusing on the unlikely trio whose friendship was borne from the events of Part 1

Daydreaming by AnonymousTwit

(bnha; gen/todobakudeku; angst; 7k words; oneshot; todoroki-centric)

If he'd been more careful, then they'd be fine. If he'd been paying attention, then he wouldn't be alone right now.

But he wasn't and he hadn't, so it's just him, now. It's him, his thoughts, and the unconscious bodies of two of his closest friends as he waits for someone to reach them.

Whether they be friendly or not.

Or

Author has writer's block and coughed up some Todoroki angst in retaliation.

A Study in Firsts by Oceanbreeze7

(bnha; gen; angst + fluff + humor; 76k words; ongoing; class 1a-centric)

There’s a first time for everything.

The first time everyone crammed in Momo’s room to study, a mess of limbs and books on her bed.

The first time Mina burned crepes so badly the smoke alarm went off.

The first time a jumpscare got Sero so badly, he flipped off the back of the couch.

The first time Uraraka fell asleep at the table and accidentally sent it floating.

The first time someone realized Todoroki walked far too quietly, and far too cautiously around the dorms to be normal.

The first time Midoriya broke his toe on a door frame and kept walking through it.

The first time Kirishima woke up screaming through the walls.

The first time Tsuyu blanched at the sight of a needle.

The first time Bakugo dropped, clutching the back of his neck with eyes scarily vacant and detonating everything around him until Aizawa had to intervene.

It wasn’t always pretty, but the dorms were filled with firsts.

Responsibility by deafmic

(bnha; gen; angst + hurt/comfort; 94k words; series (complete); todoroki-centric; dadzawa + papamic)

“I told you outside,” Aizawa chooses his words carefully, reiterating the same point he’s made before. “My responsibility for you doesn’t end at the classroom. Every part of your life is partially my responsibility. Your father doesn’t scare or intimidate me. If you need help, I can get it for you, but you and I both know that you need to ask for it first.”

Aizawa organizes a way for the students to go home for the holidays. Todoroki Shouto, however, gets left behind by his father. Aizawa, annoyed at Endeavor, takes Shouto under his care for the night, and is joined by a certain Yamada Hizashi.

[my bookmarks: *unholy screaming sobbing noises*

an incredible and emotional journey from start to finish.]

the drip of melting ice by walking_through_autumn

(bnha; gen/platonic shintodo; angst + fluff; 19k words; oneshot; todoroki/shinsou-centric ft. dadzawa)

Aizawa found out within a day. It was quite likely due to the dish Todoroki had washed and left to dry in the shared kitchen after the kitten had been fed off it. Hitoshi was forced to reflect that it wasn’t any good hiding the litter and cat food in their wardrobes if Todoroki was going to make a fundamental mistake like that.

Aizawa stood in his door frame and raised an eyebrow. “Well? Where is the cat?”

Hitoshi gave his most disarming smile. “What cat?”

Todoroki chose that moment to exit his room, eyes on his phone, other hand holding a cat toy. He bumped into Aizawa and looked up slowly, like in a horror movie.

“...oh,” Todoroki said. Aizawa raised the other eyebrow. Hitoshi rubbed a hand down his face.

Herbal tea, weekly floor gatherings, spoiled surprises, movie marathons, shared custody over a cat, rain and ice and blankets and plushies, and the journey of falling into a friendship.

(Or: Hitoshi moves into the 2A dormitory at the beginning of his second year, learns who his neighbour is, and makes the friends he had declared he isn't there to have within the space of a semester.)

Hand in Hand in Hand by kngsbrg (Citlalcoatl)

(bnha; todobakudeku; fluff + strangers to lovers; 10k words; oneshot; tea au)

Boiling the water, choosing the right temperature for the right kind of tea, using quality leaves, scooping the precise amount, and letting it steep for just the perfect time...

All that and more is needed to make a delicious cup of tea.

A business that Shouto was quite knowledgeable about.

*

Spring begins and brings with it the hint of new fresh air, buds waiting to blossom, and just a bit of change.

[my bookmarks: featuring: oblivious teamaker shoto and pining firemen baku and izu]

even if i die (it's you) by monomoon

(bnha; todobaku; fluff + angst + strangers to lovers; 75k words; complete; paramedic au)

Or; where Todoroki never went to UA and, in rejection of his father's ambitions, became a paramedic; and where pro hero Bakugou Katsuki is just a little bit too intrigued with the heterochromatic man who always glares daggers at him whenever he sees him.

When Bakugou was suddenly and abruptly met with two cold, heterochromatic eyes glaring daggers right back at him, he had two immediate thoughts:

"Why does he look like he's plotting my assassination?"

and

"Why the fuck are his eyes so pretty?"

[my bookmarks: UGH THIS IS JUST FUCKING PHENOMENAL- GORGEOUS LOVELY INCREDIBLE HEARTSTOPPING HEARTBREAKING BEAUTIFUL RIDICULOUSLY GOOD POIGNANT I AM RUNNING OUT OF ADJECTIVES BUT IT'S GREAT TRUST ME AKDHJSFNW]

This Is Now by colormesherlocked

(bnha; gen; angst + hurt/comfort + fluff; 193k words; series (ongoing); todoroki-centric)

Todoroki Shoto will be a hero.

...But not just yet. Right now, Todoroki Shoto is a bitter, pessimistic, hurt teenager who doesn't want help, friends or hinderances of any kind getting in the way of his misguided goals.

Thankfully, there will soon be people in his life who will be more than happy to drag him into a place of happiness, safety, and acceptance - kicking and screaming the whole way, if they have to. All he has to do is survive his first meeting with them and all the incredible changes that will come after.

This is Todoroki Shoto's Hero Academia.

(Semi-canon compliant up to a point and told from Todoroki Shoto's POV.)

the league of anti-villains by aizawa_wears_crocs (avenris), avenris

(bnha; gen; angst + fluff + humor; 35k words; ongoing; todobakushinmono-centric)

When he's secretly tasked to find the UA traitor, Todoroki isn't expecting help. He's especially not expecting it from the three other first year students perceived as villainous in their own ways. Unfortunately for him, Shinsou, Monoma and Bakugou have all got something to prove, and his solo mission turns into a team effort that rapidly spirals far beyond what they were expecting to find - but hey, they're in too deep now.

Or: in which the gang solves the mystery of the traitor feat. todoroki family shenanigans, copious amounts of dadzawa, backstory for my favorite 1-B gremlin, and good old-fashioned illegal vigilantism.

such eloquent graffiti by firelilyblooms

(bnha; todobaku; angst + hurt/comfort; 9k words; oneshot; todoroki-centric; future fic)

Todoroki Shouto is sitting cross-legged at his coffee table, hunched over a bowl of instant ramen, when he finds out along with the rest of the world that the Flame Hero, Endeavor, is dead.

Or, Shouto's guide to dealing with death.

[my bookmarks: i am in ✨pain✨:)]

Tell-All by HopeNight

(bnha; todofam; angst; 4k words; oneshot; todofam/natsuo-centric)

When Natsuo is twenty-years-old, he publishes a tell-all book on his father and growing up in his house. This starts a domino effect, of course. With the book comes an investigation and sets the groundwork for the Hawks scandal in several years’ time that will see the disbandment of the Heroic Public Safety Commission and the ascension of pro hero Deku to the Number One slot. This will also lead to a decades long chain of change and progress with Deku wielding his influence and charisma like a sword and shield to make society and the world a little better than when he found it.

In essence, you can say, that Todoroki Natsuo is the true hero of this story with his fake quirk and an anger burning in his gut. Just one small book and suddenly…everything changes. The future is brighter for its existence. The curtains are thrown back and the light begins its work to disinfect and cleanse.

When Todoroki Shouto is in his second year of UA, his brother, Natsuo, publishes a tell-all book of essays about growing up in Endeavor's house.

This is Natsuo's story about how he really changed the path of things.

like an open wound by filzmonster

(bnha; gen; angst + hurt/comfort; 5k words; oneshot; todoroki-centric; manga spoilers)

It's a Sunday and Shouto is making gyoza in the dorm kitchen - or: It's a Sunday and Todoroki has an existential crisis over food.

[my bookmarks: oh my GODDDDDDDDD

*screeches while crying**is a blubbering mess*]

Shouto Todoroki and His Stuffed Eeyore (And Also Childhood Trauma) by ThatSpicySeaFlapFlap

(bnha; gen; angst + MORE ANGST; 42k words; complete; todoroki-centric)

Aizawa looked him in the eye, placed a gentle hand around his bicep (not like Endeavor, his father had only ever touched him with the intention to burn) and asked, “Are you okay?”

People don’t usually ask him things. They like to tell him things, like where to sit or what to wear or how to talk or how to be a hero or how to be himself.

‘Am I okay?’ He thought. He realized he doesn’t ask himself things, either.

Shouto didn’t have an answer to Aizawa’s question, so instead he said:

“A very long time ago, my mother did something....highly upsetting.” The boy was tracing the outline of his scar, his calloused finger stopping and jumping around the bumps and ridges of the burnt skin. “Something today reminded me of that.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” His teacher asked.

“No.”

“Okay. I’m here when you do. I’m always here, kid.” Shouto only responded with a sob. He felt as if he’d earned that right after all the emotional labor he had been put through tonight.

days by chibistarlyte

(bnha; todobaku; angst + hurt/comfort; 19k words; series (complete); todoroki-centric)

Most days, Shouto is fine.

But some days...

Some days, Shouto falls apart.

Location Sent by sunflowerstorm

(bnha; gen; angst + hurt/comfort; 15k words; oneshot; todoroki-centric; third year 1a)

In their first year at UA Midoriya sent his location to the class 1-A group chat during the Hosu incident because he didn't have time to do anything else before rushing to Iida's aid.

Now in their second year, Todoroki sends his location to the group chat at 6:30am on a Saturday morning after going home for the weekend. Midoriya knows immediately that something is very wrong and takes off, Bakugo hot on his heels.

-----

"They’d known each other long enough to be able to communicate practically wordlessly. The quiet rage on Midoriya's face was extremely telling, this was bad. Bakugo braced himself as Midoriya shuffled to the side to show where his hands were hovering over what was most certainly a burn and a serious one at that. Todoroki’s own fire didn’t burn him but they all knew that didn’t make him fire proof. Bakugo could do the math."

Faith by phinnium

(bnha; gen; angst + hurt/comfort; 7k words; oneshot; todoroki-centric; manga spoilers)

"You wanted to open a case?"

Aizawa frowned, "uh, yeah. Someone showed you Dabi's video, didn't they? And I don't doubt Todoroki himself has told you bits and pieces."

Izuku did not expect this to be how the conversation went.

"Yeah. But Todoroki isn't being hurt now. He's fine. Endeavour's changed."

Or: Midoriya trusts the Hero Commission far more than he should, especially given the situation at hand. Todoroki isn't available to explain what's what, so Aizawa and Bakugou do it instead.

(Written after the release of issue 293 of the manga, and in the aftermath of the current arc. Spoilers ahead.)

Incendiary by macrauchenia

(bnha; gen; angst + hurt/comfort; 17k words; ongoing (hiatus?); todoroki-centric)

"You're going to die, little Todoroki. And if you don't, your classmates will instead."

A training exercise backfires when Izuku and Todoroki become tangled in an escaped villain's vendetta against Endeavor. Alone in a perilous situation due to the villain's barrier quirk, Todoroki must take desperate and creative measures to save his classmates.

[Class 1-A Teamwork/Bonding]

Parallax by petrichor (findingkairos)

(bnha; gen; angst + hurt/comfort + fluff; 64k words; ongoing; todoroki-centric)

Todoroki Shouto has memories that he didn't make on his own, motor skills that his brain doesn't know how to parse, and a love of science and mathematics and physics that means he broke down his Quirk into its most intricate, universe-bending components at the age of seven.

In one universe, he wants to become a hero. In this one, even though he doesn't want to, he might have to.

(Featuring: a rapidly developing Shoutosquad, Quirk science, headcanons of all flavors, healthy and supportive sibling and sibling-like relationships, and Dadzawa.)

[notes: one of my current favorite fics that i’m eagerly following for the next update. :D]

Caturdays by staqua (aka my fav todobaku author)

(bnha; todobaku; fluff + angst + enemies to lovers; 10k words; oneshot)

"Hmm... It's lunchtime now isn't it? You should have lunch with him."

"With Bakugou?" He blanched. "I think he would refuse and then murder me."

Rei chuckled softly as if death was a joke and held his hand tenderly. "If he's in the hospital, someone he cares about must not be well. I think anyone going through that should have a nice meal with good company."

"You overestimate me," Shouto pointed out and she gave another laugh.

OR: Shouto's usual Saturdays included visits to his mother and the cat cafe; he wasn't expecting Bakugou to get thrown in the mix.

voltron: legendary defender:

*hacks twitter in space* by Zakyuu 

(vld x marvel; gen/klance; crack/humor + fluff; 17k words; social media au; ongoing)

the voltron paladins arent as popular as the avengers, obviously — in fact, no one even knows they exist. but they still radiate the same kind of dumb gay energy like the rest of the world.

or: pidge somehow manages to connect voltron's communicators onto earth and virtually nothing is the same. voltron also collectively makes everyone lose their marbles while they play hot potato with the fact that theyre in a ten thousand year war with the galra.

the fear of falling by amillionsmiles

(vld; gen; angst + fluff; character study; 3k words; oneshot; keith-centric)

Keith can pull off a downward spiral. It's the kind of maneuver he does in his sleep.

[my bookmarks: stunning. beautiful. breathtaking. poignant.]

Recoil/Release by Cheshyr

(vld; gen; angst + hurt/comfort; 22k words; oneshot; keith-centric)

When Keith is bitten by an alien creature with venom that causes your dominant emotions to be amplified, the team is ready for a day of dealing with an incredibly angry paladin.

Which means they're not ready at all for what actually happens.

hound by story_monger

(vld; gen; angst + hurt/comfort; 47k words; oneshot; keith-centric)

Keith has a lot of practice being alone; you might almost say he's good at it. When he finds himself seriously injured and stranded on an unknown planet, he knows he's not alone there. And here's the worst part: even after rescue and after things return to normal, Keith gets the distinct sense that whatever was on that planet has followed him. He doesn't have proof. But he knows it's there. He knows it's not going to stop until it gets what it wants.

Keith's 'Physical Contact' Initiation Program by alisayamin (sh_04e)

(vld; gen; fluff+ angst + hurt/comfort; 26k words; oneshot; keith-centric)

Keith didn’t move and neither did Pidge. It was a little awkward until Keith finally said, “Maybe we could officially officiate this..?”

“What do you mean?”

“Fist me.”

Pidge recoiled and sputtered, “Keith, what the f-” She was cut off by Shiro’s bellowing laughter from the observatory deck.

With his straight face unchanged, Keith lowered his left hand with the stopwatch and lifted his right hand, fisted.

Pidge actually sighed with so much relief, “OH. You mean fistbump! Right.” She slapped her forehead to remove the very very wrong image her imagination drew for her, “Holy shit, Keith, we need to work on that but yeah sure, I’d be honoured to officiate your physical contact program whatever.”

Or

That one time Coran realized Keith was too distant and decided to make him undergo the 'Physical Contact' Initiation Program which then led to --> 5 times the paladins realized Keith was an actual cat.

The Red String by Le_Tournesol

(vld; gen/klance; angst + fluff; 19k words; series (ongoing); keith-centric; pre-voltron au)

Lance and Keith keep coming across one another at different points in their lives.

[my bookmarks: this is so sad and sweet and lovely]

All that is gold does not glitter by Rangergirl3

(vld; gen; angst + fluff + hurt/comfort; 28k words; complete; keith-centric)

Keith isn't what most would call a 'people' person, but that doesn't stop him from caring about his team.

aka

Five Times the other Paladins learned something about Keith, and the One Time he learned something about them.

[my bookmarks: fuck. just- fuck.]

Miscommunication Celebration by SleepySsnail

(vld; gen; fluff + hurt/comfort; 4k words; oneshot; keith-centric; birthday fic)

Keith was never too focused on his birthday, but when it rolls around he hopes his team remembers it. When Keith's birthday is full of quality time and fun, he doesn't even question why his friends haven't said "happy birthday" to him.

Or: Where Keith thinks everyone is celebrating his birthday when they really forgot about it.

Keithtober 2019 Day 23: Birthday

avatar: the last airbender:

Change of Address by hearmerory

(atla; gen/zukka; ANGST + fluff + hurt/comfort; 89k words; series (ongoing); zuko-centric; modern au)

A collection of instances in a modern AU of Zuko's shitty childhood, featuring Ozai's dislike of his son's autism and sexuality.

[my bookmarks: FUCK F U C K WHAT THE ACTUAL F U C K.

I CAN'T WITH THIS ANYMORE.]

[lowkeyorloki]

random question: if i were to write a monologue as Loki, what are some things you think i should include/keep in mind?

Hi anon! Thanks for coming to me with your question, that’s very nice of you! Please remember that these are all my personal opinions, and at the end of the day you’re entitled to your own writing/character opinions and style. These are just how I view Loki!

I have answered a somewhat similar ask before, it was someone asking for general tips on writing Loki. Here is the link to that ask, as it seems applicable :)

I also currently have a multichapter on ao3 that is like... literally all Loki monologue. If you don’t mind smut, that link is here (it actually updates tomorrow, and the second chapter is even more monologue-y than the first)! The whole fic is meant to be an insight into Loki’s inner monologue and general thoughts, so it may help inspire ya.

But otherwise, here is some general guidelines/rules/tropes I like to think about when I write Loki:

~Try to avoid contractions. Words like I’m are fine, but if you pay close attention to how Loki, Thor, and other Asgardians talk, that’s about the only contraction they’ll use. Try not to say you’ll, say you will. Isn’t becomes is not, haven’t becomes have not, etc. etc. A lot of Loki’s characterization comes down to the way he speaks because he does talk like someone who was raised in a royal setting. Loki is also highly intelligent, and while saying contractions DO NOT mean you are dumb or uneducated, when we catch all these little details about Loki and reflect them in our writing, he seems more in character and he plays into our stereotypes about what makes someone “smart” and what makes someone not.

~Don’t let your colloquial become Loki’s. I’ve said this before, but Loki was raised thinking he was a god. Therefore, he is not going to say “oh my god” in any situation, that wouldn’t make sense. I would also caution you from using cuss words liberally. Loki is the type to use words like fuck for emphasis, to assert dominance, to express unbridled anger. I think a lot of fans view Loki as someone who chooses his words very carefully, so if you reserve words that are seen as bad for specific situations, you’ll be able to draw more attention to the emotions Loki is feeling in that moment.

~Last point on language, I promise! I always try to incorporate fancy language into my (Loki) writing. Words that I find make him sound very posh or just otherwise like himself include: quite, wholly, pitiful, siege, relinquish, enchanted, believe, etc. etc.

~Don’t be afraid to over-explain! I’m not saying go Tolkien on your readers, but walk them through why Loki feels what he’s feeling or does what he’s doing. For example:

Furious, Loki scowled as you walked away.

There’s nothing wrong with this line. However, you could make it about essentially anyone. If you’re writing a monologue, internal or not, you’re able to characterize your protagonists. If you want to give more insight into Loki, you could do something like this:

Loki’s lip curled as you walked away. It made him furious to watch you, head held high in the air as your hips swayed. A mortal like you had no business being so confident - especially not while Loki was standing right there.

See the difference? Now, even though Loki isn’t narrating in the first person, the readers are fully aware of why he’s upset and how his own mind views seemingly neutral situations. Mind you, Loki doesn’t always have to be negative. I just like being dramatic, and I’m sure you know by now my speciality is angst. You can just as easily make this something happy.

~If you’re going to do the above, careful that you balance Loki’s internal emotional responses with external ones. The commonly accepted version of Loki is seen as a very cold and stoic man, one who doesn’t often let his emotions show through (I don’t see this supported by much source material, but that is the version of Loki fans like to see). That means you may want to sporadically add lines that convey the way Loki looks on the outside, if that makes sense. So if we take my previous point, we have:

Loki’s lip curled as you walked away. It made him furious to watch you, head held high in the air as your hips swayed. A mortal like you had no business being so confident - especially not while Loki was standing right there.

Now, if we want to offset that and let the readers know what, say, Thor or any other character sees while Loki is thinking that, you can just tack on an extra sentence or two:

Loki’s lip curled as you walked away. It made him furious to watch you, head held high in the air as your hips swayed. A mortal like you had no business being so confident - especially not while Loki was standing right there. Despite his anger, Loki contained himself, clenching the weapon he was holding in place of letting loose his tongue. Thor shot him a questioning look, trying to figure out what had just happened between you and his brother with little success. 

Now we’re observing Loki’s actions through both his lens and someone else’s, making him overall a more three dimensional character and treading that line between Loki being a very emotional person, but not one who is outwardly so. 

~Be dramatic! Thor and Loki and anyone else coming from Asgard are drama queens. They wear fancy clothes, they talk in Shakespearian-esque ways, and they all have a little bit of a superiority complex despite being very insecure (and that’s that on layered characters). So much of Loki monologues is about immersing your audience in the moment, and being dramatic really helps with that. Make things more high stakes than they need to be, throw in details like clenched jaws or sharp glares. Try to pull the readers out of this world and into your own, because Loki is that grand a character and warrants full attention. Even in just fic writing, he kinda demands it. 

~Get into Loki’s headspace!!! This is the best advice I can give you for writing pieces from his POV. I’ve started to do something my beta introduced me to, and that’s creating Pinterest boards for your fics. It allows you to understand the vibe you’re going for, the setting your characters are in, and it just helps with organization and visualization. It’s also fun to direct your readers to! The other thing, and this is kinda weird, is that I act out the scenes I write. I think (no, I know) it has to do with being a former theatre kid. When you act out your scenes, particularly your dialogue, it can help clue you in on details you wouldn’t have noticed before. This includes the way your face contorts or your body’s physical reactions to thing (sweating, shaking, what have you). I find this also helps with the realism of your writing, because while you’re putting the characters in fictional settings, you’re giving them authentic human reactions. 

I hope this helped a bit! Please let me know if it did. Also, I would love to read your completed piece. Send me a link when you publish it ;)