#Hanging this on the icebox ☆》 Other people's art

[thrailkxll]

Tag dump ☆》

updates as I create them, feel free to block specific ones to help your dash experience.

[retrievablememories]

matched | ten (m)

title: matched pairing: alien!ten x black!reader genre: sci-fi, angst, fluff, romance, smut summary: the quest for love leads you to a new dating app with a slight twist—and straight into the inbox of someone who’s light-years out of your usual dating pool. word count: 9.7k warnings: familial conflict, strained parental relationship, mentions of cheating, prejudice/discrimination based on species, body modifications/alien biology, unprotected sex, oral (female receiving), dom!ten, photography during sex, cumshot, squirting, some spanking a/n: as always, i lose all impulse control whenever i get a ten request so i have finished this sooner than i expected

i decided to lean more into the romance plotline than stress too much over the realism of the science-fiction elements with this fic, so there are some inaccuracies/impossibilities...but that’s fiction for you 🙃

AM 2074 (After Migration)

You are lonely.

Your last breakup did not end well, to say the least, and you haven’t dated for a while since then. It seemed like a smart move—a safe one—to shun all romantic relationships until you felt ready again. At the beginning, you were glad to be alone for a while, to regroup and rediscover yourself worrying about another person’s opinions on everything you did. To not have to deal with someone else’s drama.

The toll of not having companionship is gradually getting to you, though. Even if your last relationship was a mess more often than it wasn’t, you still long for those good moments, like going on night dates on the weekends and sharing pillowtalk into long hours of the early morning. You hadn’t realized how much you’d missed those things until all the emotions of it crashed down on you at once.

Your friend Malika claims to have a solution for your loneliness. Now, sitting at this outdoor cafe, you’re simultaneously eager and hesitant to hear what she has to propose, knowing her track record for silly plots.

With twinkling eyes, she looks at you and says, “You should try a dating app.” She clasps her hands together and puts them on the table like she’s made a grand announcement. You absorb her words for a few moments, looking out at the street across from you and watching cars—some hovering above the asphalt, some driven autonomously, and many still with human drivers—pass by.

You eventually sigh, your shoulders slumping. “That’s the big solution you called me out here for? People have been using dating apps for decades, that’s nothing new.”

“Exactly! The fact that they’re still popular even in 2074 is proof that they work, Y/N. You can put yourself out there and talk to dozens of guys without even meeting them in person. If one connection doesn’t work out, you don’t have anything to lose, and you don’t have to see the guy ever again.”

“Maybe I’ll lose my sweet time and patience during the process, though.”

Malika shakes her head and types something into her hologram pad, then holds it up for you to see. The hologram displays a dating app called matched—it reminds you of what Tinder was supposedly like before it became eclipsed by more advanced platforms, though that happened years before you were even born. “This one is kinda new, but it’s gotten popular fast and has good success rates. I’ve tried it before and met some nice guys. Give it at least one chance before you hate on it.”

“Ugh, I don’t know...there are always so many weirdos hanging out on those apps. What if I meet someone who keeps a collection of severed alien tentacles in an icebox in their house? Like that one guy who showed up on the news?”

“...Really?” Malika rolls her eyes. “You’re so dramatic. Stop getting in your own way and just take a risk for once.”

You shake your head at her optimism. “I’ll do it because I know you won’t leave me alone about it, but don’t expect me to find some great love story on this app.”

--

Once you download the app and start making an account, it becomes pretty obvious that this isn’t just a regular dating platform.

Choosing your gender and age preferences is normal enough, and you pass through those screens quickly until you get to one that gives you two new options.

➤ Species Preference ❐ Human ❐ Extraterrestrial

Whoa. Aliens? An alien-friendly dating app?

You weren’t overly familiar with the mechanics of dating apps, and you certainly didn’t consider that ones allowing aliens might’ve existed until now. It had been 15 years since the first contact with aliens was established, and a little less than a decade had passed since aliens began migrating to Earth and taking up permanent residence—and vice versa.

Humans had little problem with accepting aliens’ technological adaptations and claiming them as their own, though they were far less welcoming of the aliens themselves. That resulted in strained interactions between the two species, with aliens trying their best to assimilate and humans questioning their every motive. As far as personal relationships went, interspecies mingling between humans and extraterrestrials was still fairly uncommon—something that only people who were considered to be on the fringes of society participated in. There were “normal citizens of society” who built relationships with aliens, but many of them also kept it solely as a kink or fetish to be done only in the dark.

You decide to check both options. It feels a little scary, like diving headfirst into the unknown, but you are open to it either way. You’ve interacted with aliens before, both as kind acquaintances and near strangers, and they’ve always been relatively normal in the grand scheme of things—beings trying to survive and make a life for themselves like anyone else. Certainly not plotting how to take over Earth as many people have speculated. If they really wanted to, they possess the technology to have done that ten times over already.

You take a while trying to come up with a clever bio and spend an even longer time mulling over which pictures of yourself to choose, but you eventually complete your profile.

The first few matches you make are not very successful.

Whether it’s human guys feeding you terrible pickup lines or alien guys who can’t make it past the language barrier—or who ask you to move back with them to their home planet after two days of talking—you don’t see any potential love interests during your first two weeks of using the app. 

You’re not sure what kind of skills Malika used to make multiple good matches, but maybe you need to interrogate her so you can sharpen your own. So you decide to do exactly that.

“Don’t give up on it just yet. Just be yourself—which also means not being afraid to cuss someone out if they come at you crazy. Some of these dudes lowkey like the mean girl shit, though, which is kinda weird.” Malika speaks from the shimmering translucent mirage of your hologram pad as you walk through the park one afternoon. She couldn’t make it out to meet you today, but you managed to snatch a moment to talk to her even if it couldn’t be face-to-face. “You probably shouldn’t expect to find a boyfriend in the first few days—”

“Girl, I don't think anyone was expecting that. Duh.”

“I’m saying, just give it time!”

“Okay, but listen. You didn’t tell me it’s also for aliens. Have you dated one before? You never told me!” You lower your voice then, not wanting anyone nearby to eavesdrop on your conversation and hear that part. You feel kinda bad for even thinking that way, but it’s hard to shake the stigma associated with interacting with aliens.

“Yes, and it was the best sex I ever had, but maybe I’ll tell you about that later.”

“Sis. Don’t withhold tea from me!”

“Someday when you’re not literally standing in the middle of the park, okay?” Malika shakes her head, smiling.

“Don’t forget about it, either.”

“I won’t. And you know what to do if you find a guy. I want to be the first to know!”

“Sure, sure. I wouldn’t hold my breath on it, though.”

You decide to spend some more time on the app after that conversation instead of just deleting it like you’d planned to initially. And one day, you get another new match that catches your eye out of the many others.

“Ten? Like the number…?” Besides the interesting name, you immediately see that he’s an extraterrestrial. From the Sommu race, as it says in his bio.

You click on his profile.

You’re a little surprised by how pretty he is, which isn’t to say the other aliens you matched with were all hideous. But he doesn’t have tentacles coming out of his face or two sets of eyes, either. The most noticeable thing about his alienness is his blue skin.

“Likes...dancing, art, music, okay so we have an artist type here...dislikes...fruit. Huh. That’s...interesting.”

The pictures of him on his profile are all deliberately artistic, as in they aren’t just some half-baked selfies he took with a hologram pad. You grow increasingly curious. It’s safe to say he’s either super into himself or just appreciates the art of good photography, and you figure there’s only one way to find out. You decide to take the first step and message him.

➤ Nice pictures :) 

You don’t know when or if you’ll get a message back, since he’s not online when you send it, so you try not to get your hopes up too much. Maybe you should’ve tried to come up with something more cool and funny—nice pictures?—but you try to remember Malika’s advice and roll your eyes to yourself. There’s no point in getting stressed over a dude you don’t even know yet.

You eventually get a reply back from Ten.

➤ thank you 🙏 are you into photography too? you have talent for taking beautiful photos 

You giggle quietly to yourself; another line, but it’s definitely one of the tamer ones you’ve received. Why not see where this one goes?

The first conversation you have consists mostly of the regular getting-to-know-you talk, such as your personal interests and favorite things. You get him to talk more about his photography hobby, which he’s eager to tell you all about—as well as his penchant for art.

To your optimism, you and Ten quickly get comfortable with each other. You soon forget about all the other potential matches you have, but those don't matter much to you anymore. So far, you’ve connected the most successfully with Ten, which means you’re more than glad to stop spending your time reading boring messages from guys who’ve only pretended to have things in common with you.

Things go so well, in fact, that he asks you to meet in person not long after you begin talking to each other.

For your first meetup, you decide to meet at a park nearby—the same one you’d been walking through the day you were talking to Malika about that very dating app. You and Ten have talked through the hologram pad on multiple occasions, so you’re more reassured that you’re not starting from scratch with some faceless being. Still, the thrill of seeing each other in person for the first time is undeniable.

“Y/N?” You turn your head at the sound of your name, and you see Ten walking towards you.

“Ten!” You give him a smile, waving at him. You feel a little more nervous than you usually would on a date, though you can’t tell if it’s the good kind of nervousness. You mostly chalk it up to not having been out with anyone in a while.

Ten’s just as pretty up close as he was in the photos and on camera, if not even more attractive; he’s breathtaking in the light of the sun. His hair is styled nicely, meticulously-place strands curling over his forehead, and his clothes perfectly outline his slim body. He looks pleased to see you, his lips curving into a coy smile.

“You could’ve given me a warning,” he says as he outstretches his arms to you. You hug him, but not without a questioning glance on your face. He is warm and smells good, like juniper, which almost makes you forget about your question.

“Warned you about what?”

“How you’re even more beautiful in person.” He says this at your ear before pulling away, and it makes the back of your neck bloom with heat.

“Oh, you’re laying it on thick.” You giggle nervously, shifting on your feet.

“Are you ready to go?” he asks.

“Yes, let’s go!”

You leave the park to go to an aquarium nearby, which is the biggest one in the city. You find out quickly that Ten is easily fascinated by the wide range of creatures there. Despite living on Earth for a few years now, he hasn’t seen a lot of them until now.

You walk through the blue-lit hallways together, surrounded by water everywhere you turn. You observe the different animals up close and from far away, reading information about them from the signs beside their tanks.

“What the hell is that?” Ten says through laughter, looking at the squished-up mouth of a stingray as it floats in front of the glass, baring its pale underside to you both.

“It’s a stingray!”

He scrunches his nose up. “It’s ugly. But kinda cute, too…”

You both end up staying at the aquarium longer than you expected, with Ten wanting to see practically every animal they had on display; plus, you got to see some you weren’t familiar with before either.

After visiting the aquarium, you go downtown—which is otherwise known as food truck central, where you can get pretty much anything you’re craving. This area is always quite busy this time of evening, especially on the weekends. Food in hand, you and Ten end up walking through a few of the quieter back streets where there’s not as many people—streets where the closely-packed buildings give way to the grassy yards and paved roads of nearby neighborhoods.

“Should we talk about our families now, or is it too soon?” you say jokingly. “You know, that seems to be the only thing we haven’t mentioned after talking about everything else under the sun.” You’re not entirely sure why you bring this up while knowing your own relationship with your parents isn’t great, but you are curious to hear about Ten’s family.

“I don’t really know mine,” he replies.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” You feel a little bad about it, thinking there was definitely a reason why he never mentioned the topic.

Ten looks confused for a moment before shaking his head. “No, it’s not like that. Sommu never form close bonds with their parents or siblings.”

You give him a curious look. “Why not?”

“Well, we aren’t born or raised the human way,” he explains. “Our parents have a bunch of us at once, raise us for the first couple of years, and then go off to reproduce again and continue the population.”

You’re startled at that. “Just for a few years? How do you survive?”

“We age faster...both physically and mentally. We become independent around 4 or 5 years old, and we can live without our parents.”

“That’s...definitely very different.” You try to wrap your mind around that information, though it’s difficult. Even with your not-so-healthy relationship with your parents, you couldn’t imagine having no family whatsoever at such a young age. You also can’t even begin to comprehend what it’d look like to be taking care of yourself at only 5 years old, fast aging or not. “But, you said a bunch at once...how is that possible?”

“We are formed inside things like eggs. It’s not like your form of childbirth. See?” And you become flustered when he lifts his shirt up to show his lack of a belly button, right there in the middle of the street.

“Uh, wow.”

“The human concepts of ‘family’ and ‘relationships’ are...very new to me.” He seems a little embarrassed to admit this. “That’s why I, um, joined a dating app, for more experience...I was told I need to learn to be more…” He searches for the word. “Im...pertinent?”

“...Empathetic?”

“Yeah, that.”

“So, did that come from a previous partner, or…?”

“Yeah, I’ve had two relationships since I’ve been here.” He seems wistful now, maybe a little sad. “They didn’t work out well. Maybe we were too different.” Before the mood can shift too far into negativity, Ten turns to you with a soft smile. “But maybe that’s not the kind of thing you want to hear while we’re on a date.”

You shake your head and smile. “I don’t mind, it’s interesting to know about.” More than interesting. You want to ask him a hundred more things about what his life was like when he first got to Earth. “Anyway, you can never have too many new starts in life. Let’s enjoy this one.”

--

At the end of your date, Ten walks with you back to your place. It’s almost midnight at this point, with you both walking all the way back from downtown. You’d drawn more than a few skeptical stares over the course of the day, but you both did your best to ignore those and just focus on each other.

“I’m really glad we got to go out today, it was fun,” you say, hugging your arms to yourself to shield against the cool spring breeze.

“I think I haven’t had that much fun in a while,” he agrees. Ten smiles wide then, the tip of his tongue sticking out from between his teeth, and you have to do a double take. 

“What—”

“Oh, that. Sometimes I forget everyone doesn’t have this...” And when he sticks his tongue out, you see clearly now that it’s split halfway down the middle. Sort of like how a snake’s would be. “D’you like it?” His expression is wicked when he asks this, and a strange heat sweeps through your body.

“Wow.” You cringe at your lackluster answer, but that’s the only thing you can muster up at the moment, too busy internally questioning yourself. You’ve seen body modders with split tongues in documentaries and on the internet, but it’s never appealed to you like this before, and you don’t know what to do with that new realization.

“It’s okay, it takes some getting used to.” He gives you a smile that might be called innocent by anyone else, but to your eyes it’s quite obvious he’s proud about making you flustered.

“Getting used to...yeah, I’m sure.” There are about 15 different questions you want to ask him about that, too, but you aren’t going there on the first date.

“So...can I expect to see you again?”

“Of course.” You smile again at the hopeful note in his tone. “Just let me know whenever you want to go out again.”

Before Ten leaves, he places a hand on your shoulder and kisses you on the cheek. It’s a simple and short kiss, but it still makes you blush beneath your brown skin.

You wave goodbye to him from your doorstep as he goes, feeling like you’ve finally done something right for the first time in a long time.

You’d taken a chance with dating an extraterrestrial, someone so different from yourself and your species, and you figured it would be a new experience. Obviously. What you did not bet on, however, was the idea that you’d fall for Ten so fast.

After three months of dating exclusively, you feel like you could say you love him, which is frighteningly quick for you; though you don’t tell him this yet.

You’ve decided to bring him to meet your family. The idea frightens you, because your parents have never been very receptive to the aliens’ migration. But you are still holding out some hope that maybe they’ll realize all their assumptions were wrong, and that you’ve found a nice man who you love and who you’re sure loves you just as much. Whether he’s human or not shouldn’t matter.

You manage to set a date when all your schedules match up so you can bring Ten over to your parent’s house. Ten is nervous—more nervous than he was when you went on your first date—which you find a little surprising. You’ve gotten used to him being the one who you can lean on, who always seems to know the right answer.

“Do you think it will go well?” he asks, his tone implying he’s not confident of the answer.

“I hope so.” You give him a smile that you hope is reassuring and squeeze his hand.

When your parents open the door, there’s visible surprise on their faces. You’d already told them your boyfriend was not human, which drew doubtful responses when you first said it, but they’re acting as if they never knew that information—as if this is the first time they’re seeing an alien, period.

“Um…hi, mom, dad.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Ten says, though his own tone is overly formal, like he doesn’t know how he should speak. “I’m Ten.”

Your parents pause for a few moments longer. Finally, the awkward quiet is broken. “We thought you were just messing,” your dad says, though he steps out of the way to let you both come in, if a bit reluctantly.

“I—no.” You’re uncertain how to respond to that, though you don’t feel optimistic about what it entails. Your mother doesn’t say anything at all, just stares at you and Ten like you’re both strangers who’ve just waltzed in uninvited. She goes back in the kitchen to finish dinner once the door is closed, not saying anything to either one of you, and you already feel a cold pit settling in the bottom of your stomach.

Your dad sits in the living room with you and Ten, and another awkward silence ensues as your dad gives a stiff smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He clasps his fingers together and pulls them apart repeatedly, like they’ll give him the answers for what’s going on.

“This is just a fling, right? Of course you won’t be staying with this ma—” Your dad almost says man but then stutters, thinking maybe the term isn’t appropriate since Ten isn’t human. He makes a vague gesture to fill in the space of the missing word.

“It’s not a fling,” you say, feeling like you’ve had cold water poured down your back. You’re sitting straight and still on the couch, and it’s not comfortable, but you’re too tense to move. Ten is almost equally stiff beside you.

“Y/N, we just want you to make good decisions for yourself.” That’s what your dad says out loud, though the look in his eyes finishes the rest of that sentence: And I don’t think this is a good decision.

“I am,” you insist. “I don’t need to be told that over and over again.”

“Me and Y/N are happy together,” Ten explains, and your dad seems a little shocked that he’s decided to speak.

“Do you truly think you’re what she needs?” your dad asks. You’re not sure what makes you more angry; the question itself, or the fact that he keeps his tone non-accusatory and light, as if he’s only asking something like where do you work? Like the answer doesn’t matter because he’s already made up his mind.

“As long as Y/N wants to keep seeing me, there’s no reason to stop our relationship.”

A sound of displeasure comes from your mother in the kitchen, and your skin prickles. Your dad nods to Ten’s answer, but he does so in a way that conveys he just wants this conversation to be over rather than consider anything that was said.

You deeply regret not leaving straight after that failed discussion, but you soon find out just how bad it can get once you all make it to the dinner table. Your mother is chillingly silent for the first half of the dinner, acting like neither you nor Ten exist, while your dad attempts to make awkward small talk about how things are going.

There comes a point where you can no longer handle the cold sweat and the nerves, and you put your utensils down. Not that you had much of an appetite anyway.

“Why won’t you even talk to me?”

Your mother glares. “You can’t guess? What kind of question is that to ask?”

You falter. You don’t know why she always does this to you. Ask ridiculous rhetorical questions that you both already know the answer to. Now you must sit here and explain why you asked like it isn’t already obvious.

“I’m visiting after I haven’t been here in a while. With my boyfriend. I thought...I don’t know. The least you could do—” Your mother shakes her head at the word “boyfriend,” and you already know everything else you said went in one ear and out the other.

“I still don’t know why you didn’t just stay with Christian?” she interrupts. “He had a decent job, came to see us often, and was NOT an alien.”

“But he cheated on me,” you say, a sickness rising in you.

“That’s what men do sometimes, Y/N. You deal with it and move on. You’re supposed to be strong—fix whatever is making him do it.”

You and Ten exchange a tense look, and there is clear confusion whirling in his eyes, but you don’t say anything to each other. “That relationship is over. I’m trying to do something for myself for once, not whatever you think I should do.” Even saying those words makes you internally recoil, unsure of what the reaction will be, but you don’t take them back.

“You may be an adult but we’re still your parents. Frankly, you need to be with a man of your own race and species—not this blue Martian here. How would you even have kids?”

Ten gives a humorless laugh, like he wants to respond but doesn’t want to make the situation worse or offend you. “You know what, I should just leave,” he says abruptly, rising from his seat.

You get up quickly after he does, but your mom slams her hand on the table. “Y/N, you better not walk out of here.”

You feel defeated and exhausted, like you always do when dealing with your parents and their objections to every single thing you do, but you decide not to give in this time. “Stop treating me like I’m still a child, ma.”

“What does being an adult matter when you still act childish? Don’t come back here crying when this doesn’t work out. I’ve already warned you more than enough.”

“That isn’t going to happen.” 

“So now you think you know better than me, when you couldn’t even keep a man the first time around.”

“This is hopeless,” you sigh, feeling wounded and angry at all these cheap shots.

“Y/N, please just listen to your mother for once…” your dad interjects, but you try your best to ignore their protests as you grab your things and follow Ten to the door. You can still hear your mother’s angry complaints as you close the front door behind you, though you’re surprised—but grateful—that neither of them attempt to follow you outside.

The ride back home is uncomfortable and mostly quiet.

“I’m sorry, Ten,” you say, feeling like you’ve been frozen from the inside out despite it being nearly summer. You’re near tears when you speak. Ten shakes his head, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

“It’s not your fault…” he replies weakly, though his words aren’t very persuasive to either of you.

He still walks you up to your door when you arrive back at your place, trailing slightly behind you. The night air is distractingly humid, wrapping around the both of you like a physical thing. Neither of you know what to say to each other.

When you get to your front door, you turn to look at him. “I shouldn’t have made you come. I should’ve known...” 

“I wanted to come,” he points out. “You didn’t make me do anything.” Ten’s tone isn’t outright harsh, but the words are noticeably sharp. Maybe he realizes it, because his face softens as if he’s said something wrong.

You nod. It’s as if there’s a mountainous gap between you two that you just can’t cross right now. “I get it.” You say this almost mindlessly, because you’re not sure what you’re getting, exactly. Your hand rests on the doorknob. You don’t want to end the night on this awkward and painful note, but neither of you are making any progress with this lack of a real conversation. Maybe now isn’t the right time to try to talk about it.

“I think...I’ll just go home tonight.” You expected he’d say that, but the words still make your heart hurt, even if you don’t want them to. He looks like he might say something else, but he just gives you a small nod before starting off.

“Ten…” You don’t know what you want to ask of him or tell him, if anything, but his name slips from your lips like it’s something you can’t keep inside.

Ten stops for a moment and turns back to you. He steps closer again, leaning forward to give you a soft kiss on the lips. When he pulls back, his eyes hold you in place.

He mumbles, “I’m not mad at you,” before leaving.

More than anything, you want to know how Ten is doing, but you’re too ashamed to contact him for the first couple days after that mess of a night. Maybe he thinks you’re just like your parents and doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore. His reassurance at the door wasn’t enough to soothe your worries, and you end up tearing yourself up internally over it—repeatedly recalling the warmth of his lips and wondering if that’s maybe the last time you’ll ever feel it.

Similarly, nothing but radio silence comes from his end. He doesn’t respond even after you finally muster up the nerve to send him a text—a short text, but still a message all the same—and you fear he must really be done with you.

On Ten’s part, he does have one justification for it; he’s preoccupied with dealing with the avalanche of unpleasant memories and emotions that incident resurfaced. Everything about what your parents said and how they looked at him reminds him of his past and ongoing struggles with trying to assimilate on Earth.

Even though he’s often very sure of himself and what he wants, he begins wondering if he’s “enough” for you. Maybe you’ve just been humoring him this whole time, or you’ve decided your parents are right and you’d be better off with another human. 

Those thoughts keep him up into the early morning hours, and he soon realizes he doesn’t want to let you go. In fact, he’s not sure what he’d do with himself if you decided to walk out of his life right now, and the idea of it makes him ill. Which makes him feel even more foolish for tuning you out.

Ten’s anxiety over losing you culminates in him standing on your doorstep again after almost a week of emptiness and not knowing how you were thinking or feeling—which has been killing him in its own way.

You’re not quite sure how to feel when you open the door and see him on the other side, but relief shoulders its way to the forefront.

“Y/N, I’m sorry—”

“Can you please—”

You both speak at the same time, your words breaking afterwards. 

“You can talk first,” Ten says.

“Come in.” You let him in the door, and the words start spilling before you know how to stop them. “Ten, I-I’m...really sorry. I should’ve known better than to put you in that situation, but I thought…” Your words trail off. You don’t want to let him know just how desperate you still are for your parents’ approval sometimes. Even though it’s a fruitless case. “I just wanted it to go well. I want things to work now, for us. I really, really want things to work for us.”

Ten surprises himself with how quickly he moves to take you in his arms before the last words have even finished settling in his mind. He hugs you tightly. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want me anymore,” he whispers, like he’s telling you something forbidden.

“That couldn’t happen.” You’re saddened he’d come to that conclusion. “But...it’s not fair for you to leave me in the dark, either. I want to help you...so would you please let me?”

Ten squeezes you a bit tighter, as if you might disappear from his arms. “I’m sorry I ghosted you...it brought back bad memories of how things were when I first got here. When people were more open about treating me like some kind of enemy. I didn’t know how to deal with it.” You tuck your chin into his shoulder and listen to his breathing, his heartbeat, the sound of his words. “Y/N, I’m not sure if I’m very good at love, or if I even know enough about it. Maybe the others were right and I’m kidding myself with something I’ll never properly learn. But, I…” His voice cracks. “I-I think I love you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Entirely overwhelmed, you answer his admission with a long kiss, cupping his face in your hands. His response to your kiss is automatic, the knots of tension unraveling in your embrace.

“I love you, Ten,” you whisper against his lips after you separate. Here and now, it doesn’t feel too soon at all; there couldn’t be a better time to say it. His expression is a lot of things at once. Relief, happiness, contentment...he’s blushing, but it shows up as a darker blue on his already blue skin. When he smiles, it turns his whole face into a picture of joy.

--

“I want to go away.” Quietly, you tell him this as you rest your head in his lap.

You’re both lying on your couch, the room dim and the sound of rain occupying the silence. A downpour started coming down soon after Ten got to your place. You’ve sat there just like that and listened to the rain on the windows for the past couple hours, not wanting to do anything else or separate from each other. You knew he wouldn’t want to go home, and you didn’t even have to ask him to stay.

Ten’s been petting your hair the whole time. The motion of his fingers in your kinky strands makes you sleepy, but now the movements pause at your words.

“Go where?” he asks.

“Away from all this. My parents hate me, and they won’t let me have any peace as long as I’m with you. I just want to go away for a while.” Despite you overflowing with love after finally getting your feelings out in the open, the thought of your parents’ disapproval has lingered steadily in the recesses of your mind. You close your eyes against the tears that begin to well up. Ten’s quiet for a few more moments, and then begins stroking your head again.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

A few tears fall despite you trying to keep them in, and your eyelids flutter when you feel Ten’s fingers on your face, wiping them away. “Then we’ll go away.”

Ten’s homeland is a planet where the sun—or rather, a star called Proxima Centauri that’s much like the sun—is always out, no matter what time of day it is. There are days where it rains or gets cloudy, but night never falls and the star never dips any lower in the sky, always staying pinned in that same spot like a tack on a corkboard. That everlasting light throws your body clock off, and combined with this weird new form of jet lag associated with space travel, you are a mess for the first week or so after your arrival.

Ten makes a few jokes about fragile human bodies, but for the most part he tends to you as best as he knows how and tells you stories about how he grew up to get your mind off the discomfort. He feeds you these neon green drinks that don’t look like anything on Earth you’ve had before, and although they do make you feel better, you begin to think maybe you should’ve had a wellness plan before running off-planet.

You aren’t the only human who’s ever visited or even lived there, though, which gives you reassurance about adjusting to everything. By now, there’s a small population of human beings living here due to the interplanetary exchange initiated by Earth.

Before you left, Ten told you he had a small home in his homeland. You didn’t quite expect to hear this, since he’d been on Earth for a while now and had no family to return to. Though he’d migrated, he still expected to come back to his planet every so often, if only to visit. Now was as good a time as any.

Although many differences exist, the scenery is much like Earth’s; there are ecosystems with plants and animals and other living beings—like the Sommu themselves. Ten’s homeland is not filled with wall-to-wall technology like you’d expect an alien city to be, based on the small examples you’ve seen on Earth. You might compare it to the tropics back on Earth, with the Sommu yielding to nature’s rightful place in their ecosystem instead of clearing out whole forests or continually mining for resources. Ten is amused by your struggle to comprehend the newness and unfamiliarity of it all.

When you feel good enough to explore, he starts taking you to the beach often. It looks mostly like any other beach, but there are large coral forms that grow out of the ocean, reaching up towards the impossibly blue and constantly illuminated sky. Because there is no moon to guide the tides, the water is eerily still, the surface mirror-like—like a huge lake or pond that extends in almost every direction for miles. You’d almost believe it was a mirror if you hadn’t seen a bird-like creature skimming across the surface as it flew by, creating fleeting ripples.

You swim around a little in the still waters after Ten convinces you that you aren’t going to turn into a fish or something equally scary. He has to hold both your hands the entire time to get you to step in, and he doesn’t let go until you’re confident enough to explore the water on your own.

“Just focus on me, okay?” His smile is bright and shining against his blue skin, and he looks you directly in the eyes as he backs into the water, breaking the surreal stillness of it with his movements. “It’s just like the water on Earth.”

“Okay, okay,” you say uncertainly, gripping his hands and stepping in tentatively. The water does feel like any other water you’ve touched throughout your life, which helps you calm down slightly. His hands stay tight around yours as you get waist-deep into the water.

When you’re finally able to let go of him, he claps his hands more enthusiastically than the situation probably calls for. “Yay, you’re a big girl now!”

You roll your eyes at him. “You’re not funny, Ten.”

--

On a bright afternoon, Ten lets you into a room of his house you haven’t entered before. You’ve passed by this shining white door several times, but it’s always remained firmly shut until now.

“What’s in here?” you ask as you hold his hand.

“That’s what I’m going to show you.” He laughs and pushes the door open.

You think it’s a darkroom at first, seeing nothing but dim light and the shiny surfaces of what looks like photographs as your eyes adjust. But when he touches his hand to a panel on the wall and the lights come on, you realize it’s not a darkroom. More like a small gallery for all his pictures.

The “pictures” are physical, but they aren’t like the old Polaroids or film photos that have begun fading out of existence on Earth. They’re small crystalline squares that play eternally-moving videos on their glossy surfaces—a bit different from the translucent holograms Earth adopted. You step further into the room to look at them. It’d probably take days to explore them all, there are so many. Different scenes play out as soundless movies, and when you look for long enough, you realize they’re split into different categories. Numerous events within a life.

Many are of the beach, other scenic places around his homeland, oddly-shaped buildings, and plants in colors that there are no names on Earth for. You step closer to one of the walls to look at the collection of images more closely. You actually do “recognize” a select few, linking them together with old memories Ten had shared with you only weeks ago. There’s so much happening in these small snippets of time, so many stories you haven’t yet heard, that you feel like you could look at them forever and not get enough.

“This is...something else.” Your words seem inadequate, but you don’t quite know how to express your sheer wonder.

“I could take some of you,” Ten suggests, from somewhere behind you. “I want to.”

You glance back at him. “Hm, yeah.”

“I’m serious.” Ten comes up behind you to clasp his arms around your waist. He tucks his chin into your shoulder. His lips are close at your neck, and you let them linger there. One of your hands goes to his own hand that’s over your waist, and you run your fingertips over his knuckles as you gaze at the photo wall before you. “I think you’d be the perfect muse.”

“You could do that.” You’re still entranced with it all, and you already know you’ve made up your mind to let him take as many photos of you as he wants.

--

The next time you go to the beach, Ten takes some photos of you standing near the huge coral forms—or at least as close as you are willing to get—and he laughs at your lingering hesitation.

Still, the crystalline photos he takes of you are the embodiment of perfection. When you look over them later, watching yourself twirl around and strike silly poses in the water, you can almost hear the sound of your laughter twining together and feel the warmth of a star that’s not the sun on your skin.

“What if we stayed here?”

You ask Ten this while you’re lying in his bed, watching a kaleidoscope of shapes on the ceiling. The bedroom window is open to allow the breeze to come in. The ceiling of the bedroom—and every other room in the house—is more like an ever-changing reflection of shapes and colors than an actual ceiling. You might compare it to a mirror, like the surface of the ocean, but you think it’s much more complex than that. Sometimes you can see the distorted outline of yourself in it, like a funhouse mirror. Other times, you see the sky above.

Ten lies beside you with one hand behind his head and the other resting on his stomach, and he turns his head to look at you.

“Stayed?”

“If we just decided not to...go back to Earth.”

He pauses for a few moments. “Is that a good idea? You have a whole life there...and your friends…” Ten doesn’t mention your family, which you are grateful for.

You sigh. Nothing like a quick injection of reality after letting your imagination get ahead of you. “We’d have to go back. I’d have to tell them goodbye. And sort some other things out. Maybe it wouldn’t happen right now. But, after I do everything I need to do on Earth...maybe I could migrate here.”

“That’s a big decision to make...and it should be yours to decide.” Ten pauses again, like he’s weighing his words. “You know I don’t have many connections on Earth…” In other words, leaving Earth and returning home for good might not be as big of a deal for him as it would be for you.

You sit up and look out the window, seeing how the warm wind stirs the trees outside. “I want to.” You say it almost inaudibly, your words nearly carried off by the breeze. You turn back to him only to find him already there, sitting across from you and looking at you closely. Your faces are only inches from each other’s as he searches your eyes. “What do you want to do?”

“I’ll do anything you want to.” Ten’s voice is earnest, like he’d follow you to Hell and back if you asked, and you believe him.

Resting your hand on his cheek, you kiss him.

This kiss is a little different from the ones you’ve shared before—more yearning. More desperate. You kiss like there won’t be enough time to do all the things you want to do with each other—to each other. His split tongue bumps against yours, caresses it, and it causes a shiver to go down your spine, like it always does.

You end up lying back on the bed again with Ten’s body crowding yours in, legs tangling together and hips pressing against one another’s. Neither of you have made a move to take the other’s clothes off yet, but then he separates from your lips for a long moment and studies your features, from your eyebrows down to your mouth.

“Touch yourself for me.”

Your mouth drops open slightly.

“I want to see it.” He takes one of your hands and guides it up under your skirt and between your legs, pressing your fingers against your sex through your underwear, and you look at him with wide eyes, taking a deep breath. He lets go of your hand, and you keep yours right where it is. You’re slightly nervous about his black gaze trained on you, unrelenting and prying, but you begin to move your hand anyway. 

Over your underwear, you press your finger between your lower lips, sliding between them and over your clit, and a little tremor goes through your body. You find yourself getting wet more quickly than you normally would with Ten watching you as you tease your entrance. You breathe a little heavier but make no sound yet. One of Ten’s hands reaches out for your ankle, though he doesn’t do anything other than keep his fingers there, a light touch that keeps passing back and forth over your ankle bone.

You circle your fingers across your clit more insistently, your legs tensing as the pleasure mounts higher. Ten’s lips part as he watches you, a heavy breath escaping from his chest. The hand on your ankle slides higher up your leg, just below your thigh, like he wants to slide his fingers into the mix and take over, but he doesn’t make a move to do so just yet.

Finally, Ten reaches under your skirt to pull your sticky panties off, sliding them slowly down your legs and leaving them somewhere on the floor. You want him to touch you again, the brush of his hands against your hips not enough, but he doesn’t grant your desire. “Keep going,” he says, leaning back on his hands, and you can see he’s growing hard.

You bring your hand back to its original place between your thighs, sliding through the wetness more easily and shuddering when your fingertips graze over your clit. You slide a finger into yourself then. A small moan slips out, and you close your eyes, but Ten’s fingers pinch your chin—not enough to hurt, but the sudden touch makes you look at him. “Keep your eyes open.” His thumb presses into your lower lip, and he stares at your mouth for a moment like he’s imagining sliding something hard and hot between your lips.

Ten kisses you on the lips again, and this time he trails the kisses down your body until he’s gripping your thighs on either side of his face. You pause in your movements when he reaches the junction of your thighs, and you watch as he grabs your hand and slips your finger out of yourself. He sucks the slick digit into his mouth, and you cannot tear your eyes away from him.

He lets your hand go and pulls you a few inches closer to his face, dragging you across the bed, and you can barely get your bearings back to sit up again when he slips his tongue through your lower lips. You moan, and he responds to that by repeating it again, catching your clit between the split in his tongue, and wiggling both sides.

“Oh Jesus...oh fuck.” Your hands go to Ten’s hair, pulling on it as you push your hips closer to his mouth, your back curving up. He is alluring tucked between your thighs like this, teasing and sucking your clit with his split tongue and prodding his fingers at your hole until he chooses to slide two of them inside.

His free hand keeps you close against his face as he eats you out, that wondrous tongue sliding against the most sensitive part of your body and making you gasp with boundless pleasure. Little droplets of moisture bead at the corners of your eyes from how good it feels, your stomach tensing and releasing as you try your best to keep still.

He has to keep his grip on your body tight when you come, as you try to squirm away from his tongue because of how stimulated you are. He only lets you go after he’s satisfied himself with licking up all the wet that’s spilled from you.

Then he strips your skirt off for you, because he knows you’re not quite in a state to do it for yourself right now. He peels the rest of your clothes off similarly, which doesn’t take much time or effort to do; you’ve dressed lightly for the weather.

Ten looks at you lying beneath him on the bed, his gaze stuck somewhere between awe and lust. 

He slips out of his own clothes with a certain practiced ease. Yes, he’s really blue everywhere. He looks mostly human-like everywhere, too, except for the lack of a belly button. 

Ten kisses you deeply as he slips into you, and you clutch at his sides. He tries to keep his pace slow at first, maybe for your sake or to just savor how it feels, but he gives into the feeling of you squeezing around him and starts thrusting into you faster. There is already sweat sliding down to his jaw, though you think it might be because of the heat, too.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” comes out of you in a voice you hardly recognize as your own.

His pelvis sliding against your clit from the proximity of your bodies makes you curl your fingers into the strands of his hair, wanting to touch every part of him you can. His lips go to the sweat-slicked skin of your shoulder, leaving little wet kisses behind as he wraps an arm around your waist and simply fucks into you, his shaft dragging against your walls.

He eventually separates himself from your neck, though it comes with some effort, to gaze at your face again. However, he finds that your eyes have drifted shut.

“Do you wanna come?” Ten asks, softly, gently, like you might break apart if he speaks too loud.

You’re a little winded from how he’s thrusting into you and can’t yet see the motive behind this question—because of course you do—but you answer with a shaky “I-I want to.”

“Then don’t look away from me.” His voice becomes harsher on these words.

“I…” Your lips move without any real words behind them as he thrusts into you harder, sinking all the way into you before pulling out to the tip. You want do what he’s just told you, but you find it difficult with the way he’s intent on burying himself into you, his eyes piercing into your own. “Mmm, I-I…”

You don’t know if you can, but the way he’s kindling your rising heat with each thrust makes you want to try very, very hard. Ten keep his hands on the sides of your face so you cannot look anywhere but at him.

The pleasure bears down on you more with each second, and you try to keep your breathing steady as another climax approaches.

“You’re almost there, come on baby,” he coaxes you, sloppily kissing the corner of your mouth before slipping his tongue in again. The way you gasp against his lips and tighten around him signals him to your orgasm, and he sits back to watch it play across your face, smirking at how you moan his name desperately.

Ten’s continued thrusts make you shiver from the flood of sensations overcoming your body, and you whimper at his movements until he pulls out and comes on your abdomen.

Ten gives you time to recover after you come down from your second orgasm, though he makes sure to lay a few more enamored kisses on your weakened body. He gets off the bed and exits the room after that. You don’t bother to ask where he’s going, because you know he’ll be back anyway.

When Ten comes back, he has his camera with him. The teasing tilt of his lips never leaves his face as he points it towards you. He takes a photo of you lying on his bed nude, with the breeze coming in and rustling the tree leaves and your hair, your skin shining bronze under the light of the eternal star. Then he comes closer, making the bed sink under his weight, and nudges your legs apart. He takes more photos of your lower stomach glistening with sweat and his cum—and photos of him sliding his slender fingers between your thighs and bringing you careening into another bout of euphoria.

The camera is soon forgotten after you come again. Ten climbs fully back onto the bed now and pulls you into his lap. His dick is hard again, and the length of it nudges against your lower lips, making you whimper from how sensitive you still are. He shushes you with a kiss and lifts your hips so he can slide into you, his shaft nudging that soft spot inside you and making you grip onto his arms.

You’re too mushy and dazed to do anything but let him push his hips up into you while you cling to him, your head lolling back. Ten’s mouth goes to the open expanse of your neck, and he wets your skin with his tongue.

The kaleidoscope of shapes above you on the ceiling morphs into one glistening reflection, throwing the blurred shapes of your bodies back to you. It’s like looking through a dense fog. You’re a little caught off guard by it, and you stare up at your nude forms. Ten looks up as well to see the cloudy figure of you cradled in his lap, and he only grins and thrusts up into you harder and smacks your ass in reply.

He grinds into you while he has you sitting full on his dick, and you think he must have set off your internal “reset” button somewhere between landing slaps on your ass and repeatedly hitting your g-spot. Your mind is blissfully, amazingly blank. The only clear thing you can distinguish is how he feels in and around you.

When you come this time, it comes with a gush of wetness that makes Ten whisper several smug praises into your ear for being such a good girl and making a mess on him.

As you quickly find out, Ten’s refractory period seems to be nonexistent, while his stamina is overflowing.

Ten knows how to mix the pain with pleasure in a way that enhances both feelings, and you don’t know if you’ve ever experienced anything more perfect. One moment, he’ll say something romantic and fairytale-like to you before shoving your head into the pillow and taking you from behind in the next moment, pulling one of your arms behind you for leverage as he thrusts into you hard. You want him to do whatever he desires to you, and so you let him hammer into you until you think your hips and ass will be bruised by the next morning.

You’ve never knew that sex could be so carnal and so loving at the same time, but this is all of those things, and it makes you feel so full that you could split at the seams. You scream, cry, and moan more times than you can count, so enveloped by pleasure that it seems like the atoms of your body will simply dissolve from the intensity.

When you both finally become too exhausted to continue, it’s still daytime. Of course. But Ten draws the blackout shade forward and seals all the light out, and so you know it must be time to sleep. Time blends together here. Even if it’s not yet the midnight hour, it will be as long as you deem it so.

“Come here,” he says, and rolls you over on the bed so you don’t have to sleep in the wet spot. You grin in sleepy amusement against his neck as he hugs you to his body. “Let’s stay right here.”

You know he’s talking about sleeping for the next few hours, but you can also imagine he’s referring to your new life—one you’ll create together.

[dreaminpeaches]

New Paracosm :Blossom Valley

Long time no see, since I've talked on this blog, but during my time away I created a paracosm (that's also kind of like a side project but I'll get to that part later)

usually this the part of the post where I make my paracosm plot sound like a book or tv or a game, but I'mma just gonna give a semi rambly summary so...

After saving her parents (and kind of the world ) from a courrpt fallen angel, Revi's parents decided to move to a new town for a new start. Despite being trapped in a looping alternate dream realm for the last year Revi was able to continue to the sophomore year at Blossom Valley High. After a year of fighting off demons and outwitting corrupt angels will Revi be able to adjust to being a normal high school kid?

(Long post ahead)

If my summary sounded weird; basically this is the epilogue for a young horror rpg protag after they went through all the crazy dream realm stuff.

In the town of Blossom Valley, there are object heads and most humans (especially the young ones) wear objects on their heads to fit in, there are also angels who live in Blossom Valley as well. Other than the object heads and angels, Blossom Valley is just your average small town; with a few gas stations, a few convince stores, some malls, and lots of ma and pop shops.

At Blossom Valley High like any high school has its own cliques:

The Angelz- The most popular girls at school (or at least so they think), the angelz are a group of well... angels who think rule the school. They have a tendency to sugarcoat what they say, and it's hard to tell if they actually think that they're above everyone (because they can fly) or they're just airheaded. The mayor's (Mayor Harrison) daughter is the leader of angelz, she is a total daddy's girl and basically gets away with murder (not literally at least to anyone's knowledge)

Flower Power- A group of girls who are way more down to earth than the angelz (because they're a group of flowers), during lunch they can be found having picnics outside (even during the rain) and making flower crowns that they give out to their fellow classmates and teachers. They are very outgoing and friendly and are willing to take in any new kids into their group, at least before the Angelz get to them

Solar Sister- a pair of twins who float (literally) between hanging out with Flower Power and The Angelz. Solia is a happy-go-lucky teenager, who loves brightening people's day and being a literal ball of energy. She's a very sporty girl and is a part of all the school sports teams, everything from cheer to badminton. On the opposite end, her sister Luna is more chill and more of a vibes type of gal, she can be seen with a notebook in her hand, quietly watching others. Her notebook contains a few doodles, along with some poetry. Luna can be found hanging around the art room sometimes at lunch and even can be found in the art room at night. Luna's murals can be found on various walls through Blossom Valley (both the high school and the town). Luna also excels at coffee and tea brewing and sometimes reads people tea leaves if she feels like they are in distress. The Solar sister comes from a large family of 6 siblings, recently the two have been busy helping out their family with their baby sister.

Miscellaneous - A group of oddball boys who have a small garage band named Misc. When they're not doing band stuff they are usually roaming the streets of Blossom Valley doing some urban exploration, or hanging out near the icebox of any convince store, slurping slushies and talking about school and life n' stuff. At school, they can be found in the A.V club room or in the hallways during lunch near the vending machines.

and then there is Germ

Germ- is a kid who doesn't talk much at least to people, during lunch you can find him out in the field talking to his worm friends at least on rainy days, on sunny days he usually lurks in the shady part of the football field, and sometimes the pool to soak up moisture. Since Germ doesn't talk much he has a funny way of speaking, most kids don't pick on him for it, but they'll point it out. Even though Germ doesn't talk he does enjoy hanging around the other kids (even though they find him kind of weird), he usually hangs out with the flower powers or Misc. Out of the Solar Sisters, he usually hangs out with Luna, since he finds Solia to be overwhelming and she doesn't get along with his worm friends too well.

that's all I have in terms of characters, as for stories Blossom Valley is gonna be mostly slice of life, simple school stuff; sleepover, prom, crushes, science projects, trips to the mall, you know that kind of vibe. If you couldn't already tell Blossom Valley has a weird core/dream core/recovery core vibe with a slight of liminal space (since it is a small town).

I came up with an idea to tell this story in kind of a mock-up visual novel kind of way. Like the story is told as if it were a series of videos of different VN endings and events (which will be told out of order),

Just a screenshot of what I've been working on...

I've really been enjoying making this little project, I MAY revive Marbolo Nights in this format because I have the first scene written out might as well use it.

JUST A REMINDER THIS IS NOT REAL GAME

I DONT DO FULL VISUAL NOVEL

I ONLY MAKE DRESS UP GAMES, DOLLHOUSE GAMES, AND LINEAR NOVELS ATM!!

DO NOT GET YOUR HOPES UP PLS!!!

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Something Held | Feeding Habits Update #8

Hi all!

Not me not realizing it’s been 3 months since I posted a Feeding Habits update hahahahahaha. Today let’s chat chapter nine, SOMETHING HELD. This also marks the last chapter in Harrison’s POV so prepare to say goodbye to this icon!  TW: body horror, mental illness, trauma

Just a reminder: This is my original work and plagiarism of any form will not be tolerated.

Scene outline, excerpts & a little reflection on making difficult decisions that my not particularly benefit the book but benefit you as the writer under the cut because this update is GIGANTIC.

General taglist (please ask to be added or removed):

@if-one-of-us-falls, @qatarcookie, @chloeswords, @alicewestwater, @laughtracksonata, @shylawrites, @ev–writes, @jaydewritesfiction, @jennawritesstories @eowynandfaramir, @august-iswriting​, @aetherwrites​

Scene Breakdown

Scene A:

It has been two weeks since Lonan found Harrison at his shared apartment with Suzanna and things are getting strange. Lonan and Suz are getting closer, Harrison is getting more distant and slowly losing it. One morning, Harrison wakes hearing Lonan and Suz’s laughter, and crawls to the kitchen to investigate. When he reaches them, Suz is evening out Lonan’s hacked haircut and they’re both sobbing.

Scene B:

Shortly after this bizarre encounter, Suzanna steps out of the apartment for a breather because her son is sort of terrifying her! So Lonan and Harrison double-team to clean up Lonan’s hair shavings. Harrison begins eating the hair while Lonan stares and they have a conversation about the state of their friendship.

Scene Ba:

This scene is gross and confusing! More hair is ingested. My god.

Scene Bb:

After the above ordeal, both boys rinse off because they’ve been rolling?? around?? in??? hair?? but also?? things don’t stop being a little gross

Scene C:

An air of calm finally settles over the apartment. Lonan brews earl grey tea for him and Harrison to share and Harrison asks if he abandoned Lonan in the final chapter of Moth Work. Lonan doesn’t really answer this question so Harrison continues on his confused, but finally lucid (one-sided) conversation, admitting he understands he burdens his mother, who still has not returned. They circle back to the question of abandonment and Lonan answers Harrison the way he wants to be answered (yes), and this is a moment of freeing, where he feels some sort of responsibility in this irresponsible new life he’s led in NYC. They sort of agree to be friends again.

Scene D:

The boys head into the city to find Suzanna, heading to a bakery near the Hudson River. Lonan drives in his used car, a strange experience since Harrison has not seen him drive in years. Taking the opportunity, he searches through the car and finds a map in the glove compartment. The map is erratically scribbled over and it takes him to moment to realize this is Lonan’s map and the first indication that Lonan, who he has assumed is this stable, perfect person, is not as unscathed as he seems.

The boys pass the waterfront and Lonan nearly crashes the car into an oncoming truck. Harrison regains control of the vehicle tucking them into a side street. Shaken, Lonan apologizes for the mess he’s created both physically from his nosebleed and between Harrison and his mother, which gets Harrison a little antsy because he doesn’t like the suggestion that he’s going to leave. Lonan clarifies, stating he won’t if that’s what Harrison wants.

Scene E:

Later, everyone is back at home and Harrison wakes up to a Lonan-less bed. He gets up to investigate the strange dripping coming from the bathroom and opens the door to find Lonan precariously teetering over a sink filled with water. Harrison, concerned, moves him away and tries to ask why Lonan is presumably going underwater, but doesn’t push. They both stand on opposite sides of the bathroom until the sun rises.

My process:

Honestly, writing this chapter was a huge up and down. The first half of it came much easier to me, but the rest was a literal hellfire to get through. I think I was incredibly fatigued with writing in Harrison’s POV as I’d been writing it since June (I finished this chapter in either December or January). This book has been a pain in the ass to write despite me liking what it is, and I really think it being the only place I’ve physically “gone” since the pandemic makes it even harder to write. I felt claustrophobic in Harrison’s POV since I’ve been writing it for half a year, and in a lil ~breakdown~ my beautiful sister reminded me of something she’d previously told me, “it's not about what works, it's about what you want”.

Let’s chat about this for a sec! I think I was watching a Harmony Nice video on her “hard-to-swallow” self-care, and she basically outline (I’m paraphrasing here) that it’s critical we care for ourselves in ways that might not necessarily be easy to do. Honestly, leaving Harrison’s POV is one of those hard-to-swallow self-care things I literally had to do because my mental health was not happy with me! Y’all know my boys are very close to me, and I’m not picking favourites but Lonan is 2500 times easier for me to write with at the moment. I think Harrison’s situation and how he deals with it is much too similar to mine but in a way that is difficult to place (Lonan and I are unfortunately similar but in a way that is easier for me to understand about myself!). From the beginning of writing his POV I’ve been in Struggleville, but kept pushing through hoping the next chapter would be “the one”. Not to burst my own bubble but there is no such thing in the state of mind I was in! I was pushing myself to find something that doesn’t exist because my brain was really not equipped to do what I needed it to do. I really, really did not want to quit on Harrison’s POV, but I had to, not because I don’t like him (he’s my baby) but because I needed a moment to myself. I felt way too seen in ways I don’t really know how to address in myself, so writing him was horribly frustrating at all times (my fault, not his).

My characters really do live in my head rent-free lol. They live in there! They take up space! They take up energy! They take up concentration, and resources I need for myself! Empathy is so integral to my process, that I give a little part of myself in everything I write. This is a blessing because I really get to dig my heels into the mind of another person, but a curse because I’m not a machine (and sometimes I forget that). It is a lot of emotional energy and labour to give everything you have to fictional people. I don’t think an artist needs to be tortured to create good art (this is not it!) but I never truly practiced this well? In my attempt to be empathetic, I was torturing myself a little bit, not going to lie!

So to combat this, I decided I needed a change. Hence, this chapter is imperfect and probably needs some stuff added to it, and while I’ve only written little of Lonan’s second POV, I’m feeling a lot better! It’s nice to get “outside” in a different place lmao this is so sad (pandemic writing things).

Excerpts:

I wrote the beginning of this in a livestream I hosted on my YouTube channel! There’s also a shoutout here to my dragon tree Lisa <3 miss u boo

Two weeks go by. Lonan sleeps on the couch. Harrison wakes up at dawn—no earlier, no later. Suzanna buys a plant: a Madagascar dragon tree she names Lisa. June grows into the collar. Lonan plays sudoku in the newspaper. Harrison learns to bake focaccia, gluten-free, whole wheat. Suzanna learns to palm read, tells Lonan he’s experienced great betrayal (they stop the reading immediately; Lonan goes back to the newspapers). Harrison begins burning incense at sunrise—frankincense. The dragon tree nearly dies (Lonan saves it). It rains every weekday that contains the letter T. Lonan shifts stacks of soggy newspapers onto the breakfast table, answers crosswords with the help of Suzanna (four across, nine letters, Something held). Harrison burns a baguette. Suzanna buys a hanging basket of pothos. The power goes out for two days and the icebox floods the kitchen tile (Lonan mops it with old newspapers, the ink running like jellyfish). June barks for the first time. Harrison eats a bundle of dried bay leaves. Suzanna waters the plants with rainwater, icewater, wrung into a coffee tin. Harrison leaves the stove on while sautéing shallots (he eats them whole). Lonan wakes up feverish and fills out four newspaper crosswords, then falls asleep on the coffee table. Suzanna moulds panna cotta in coffee mugs and shares the batch with Lonan when they won’t tip out. Lonan teaches her how to propagate the pothos and soon they have twenty empty cans of cuttings poking from the windowsills. They rearrange the furniture, the couch facing the kitchen instead of the TV, the dining table right outside the bathroom, then put it all back the next day. They birdwatch from the tiny window with binoculars and a magnifying glass. They sort coupons. Whittle soaps. Watch Norwegian films without the subtitles. Discuss cliff diving. Make matching anklets (blue beads, elastic string, the plastic clacking how Harrison knows they’re coming). All of this they do as Harrison lies on his bed for two weeks, counting the corners of his ceiling and trying to determine a way to multiply them telepathically.

This is the very next paragraph!

At first he assumes they’re laughing. The sun nearly rising between other high rises, blotting his room with dawn. This is not a surprise. They are probably making pancakes out of buckwheat and discussing the hilarity of whole grains. They are probably laughing at store-bought cherry preserves. Too sour. Their cheeks puckered. But then the laughs get louder, and the sun rises higher and it’s not laughing at all, but gasping.

Here’s Harrison crawling!! is this straight out of the exorcist probably!

Harrison’s instinct is to crawl. As if his smallness against the ground will stop anyone from hearing him, even before he unlocks his door. On hands and knees he shuffles from his bed to his doorframe, edges the door open with his shoulder. On hands and knees he hikes through the hallway, the gasping getting louder, shuffling until he sees them. Lonan sitting on one of the kitchen stools, a grocery bag wound around his throat. Suzanna clacking scissors in two hands so their blades ping in the sun. Her fingers loped around his hair, knuckle-deep, the blades snipping, the gasps growing, them both sobbing, the hair falling, the sun stalking, their bodies rocking. Harrison takes it in from his crawl. Experiences it all on his knees.

So this excerpt seems really you know, normal:

They clean up the hair. Harrison with the dustpan, Lonan with the broom. Harrison still kneels. Lonan still cries. The only thing that has changed since crawling into the kitchen is that Suzanna is taking a walk around the apartment complex. She needs air. Room. If she cries long enough, a cigarette. So Lonan sweeps. Harrison collects. This repeats.

The kitchen smells of nutmeg. Freshly grated from a whole club over espresso, Harrison imagines. He smells this as he tracks Lonan with the dustpan, hovering its open belly for clippings of hair. And Lonan is so compliant, brushes cuttings of himself onto the plastic surface so Harrison can trash it. As Harrison looks on from his knees, Lonan diffuses in sunlight, the window illuminating only his edges. A body so familiar Harrison knows exactly where it flares with light or absorbs it. A body with skin like mulberry silk. A body he could recreate in charcoal with his eyes closed. His archangel translucent and luminescing.

Skip this excerpt if you don’t want to read about Harrison eating hair!! i’m sorry!

Harrison picks a bundle of fallen hair from the dustpan. It’s airy from being recently shampooed, smells faintly of pear, maybe even ginger. This hair, touched by a woman, or a few women, and cut by one, or a few, in different contexts. Eliza’s hands deveining the roots, and then Suzanna’s, trying to fix them. So Harrison eats it. That bundle like a toothpicked cube of cheese. He puts it in his mouth and swallows.

Lonan watches like he’s unconcerned. He watches this feral animal—Harrison must be something feral, starved of something and ravaged by that hunger. Chewing mouthfuls of hair like that will quell of him of what is missing, if there even is anything missing, something unidentifiable in this bland circuit of New York City, this time-loop of sonhood, this fresh start a dousing of flatness. As Harrison eats, he understands he consumes that something like it’s holy communion, reuniting with that something by absorbing it. And still, that hunger moves him, from finishing the dustpan of hair, and closer to Lonan.

“Do you think I’m a bad friend?” Harrison asks, wringing the corner of his lips clean from loose hairs. From this perspective, Harrison on his knees collecting hair, Lonan’s eyes look bluer. Maybe their saturation has nothing to do with the angle, but Harrison feels this is true; his eyes are so crystalline, they are temptingly edible. Like two plump blueberries. Or a matching set of clear glass marbles. Harrison swallows. He repeats, “Do you think I’m a bad friend?”

Lonan swallows, adjusts his grip on the broom. “We’d have to be friends for me to answer that.”

“Aren’t we?”

And here’s the rest of this scene!

“You’re my mother’s friend,” Harrison says. “She trusts you.” He crawls closer to Lonan. “You’ve got secrets. Rituals. Tell me her favourite finger-food and who she wants to marry.”

“I don’t know your mother that well.”

Harrison wraps a handle around Lonan’s ankle. A muscle there jumps like a dolphin breaching the water. He’s memorized this plane of skin, could rebuild it from single grains of sand while blindfolded. He furls his hands across its surface, unfurls.

“You garden with her,” Harrison says. “You share a plate for dessert.”

“She’s kind to me.”

“You cook her breakfast.” Harrison tugs on Lonan’s ankle, knowing it won’t raze him, knowing he’ll come down anyway. “You know the exact temperature she drinks her coffee down to the last digit.”

“I’m trying to be hospitable.”

“You’re trying to be a son.”

Lonan kneels. Crouching so they’re huddled over each other, so it’s nearly impossible to distinguish one body from the other, which one sinks, which one rises.

“My mother’s only got one son to live with,” Harrison says, his voice thin from a clogged throat. He reaches for Lonan’s scalp, scrapes a line down the centre, now an even plane of cropped hair. “And it isn’t me.”

“You’re unstable,” Lonan says, burrowing his face either into a cabinet or Harrison’s shoulder—neither can tell. “You won’t let yourself have friends.”

Farther, toward the tile they go, a pile of hair scattering. “My mother wants me to forgive you by replacing me with you.”

“She’s grieving,” Lonan says.

Harrison loses his hands. He doesn’t know where they disappear to, if he touches skin or tile. “I haven’t died,” he says. Skin or tile. Skin or tile.

Here’s an excerpt from scene C ft. this memoir bit from the time I was shocked that this university I visited had real FANCY teabags:

Lonan brews tea. Earl grey, from a tin. Harrison doesn’t know why he expects it to come from a bag. An individual paper sachet, or if he’s lucky, one of those fancy ones woven from nylon. But it’s from a tin. Two teaspoons into the bottom of a single mug they pass back and forth, wordless at the kitchen table. Strung in the bathroom, Harrison’s t-shirt hang-dries, nearly figure-like, an unfilled phantom. He tugs a throw around his shoulders and stares at his hands. Each crest of cuticle. Each bulb of knuckle. Each maze of fingerprints.

He is material. This is fact. Not just outlines. He’s got skin that goes pinkish when pinched, a pulse that juts from his wrist, two eyes that burn at the scent of lavender, ten fingers. But as he holds his hands up, studying them in the faint moonlight, it is difficult to believe his tangibility. In the city, he has lived as a haze. Fogging over grocery stores, eateries, nondescript. Fresh start has always implied an air of zest, a zing that should have fueled him to plant roots in this restart. But Harrison is rotten, aphid infected, overwatered, underwatered, then not watered at all. He flexes his fingers. He pops the joints. He tries to press his pinkie to the back of his hand. But none of this brings him back to himself. His hands continue feeling like someone else’s. His body invisibly marred in some way he can’t reverse, disconnected in retaliation.

Harrison reflecting on his relationship with his mother:

Suzanna has never left him alone this long, and to her detriment. He imagines her now, living the life she always should’ve lived, the life she lived before he crosscut his way to her most important thing. She’s probably at a salon, having her hair twirled with a round brush, making dinner reservations at some place always too expensive for two (extra points if it has a French name, more if she has to wait a half hour before getting a table). When she talks to her stylist, she doesn’t mention a son, but plans to travel up the west coast, all the way into Canada if she’s feeling adventurous. She’ll buy crime novels she’ll never read at duty-free, reapply a lipstick that cost her a paycheck in the reflection of a hand-dryer. After the salon, she’ll meet a woman at a wine bar, converse about children, and still not mention a son. Suzanna’s singleness will be a celebration.

The boys finally trucing it out <3

When Harrison finally opens his eyes, Lonan is staring at him. His eyes two reels of the Pacific. They cycle in blue. So much of him has changed, and yet he is still the same. Beyond the haircut, Lonan isn’t that much different. He can’t be much different. But as Harrison searches, splaying his palm on the wet table, he knows this is untrue. Lonan is hollower than he was last summer. A little more haunted. They have this in common, then.

“Can we be friends?” Harrison asks. With his pinkie, he finds himself writing against the damp table just as he did Lonan’s scalp not too long ago. Lonan’s gaze follows each loop of each letter, Harrison’s steady left hand.

Lonan is consumed studying what Harrison has written, where each letter connects in near-cursive scrawl. After a moment, he nods, once, twice, and then reverts to staring at the table’s new inscription. On its surface are two words: something held.

The boys in the car like old times <3

Lonan drives. This is strange because Harrison has not seen Lonan drive a car in over a year. Usually, Harrison takes the wheel, but tonight he guides them through the city, in search of Suzanna. His car is clean. This isn’t unexpected. A cherry-coloured hatchback that rattles whenever he makes a left turn. It smells vaguely of cotton air-freshener and the undercurrent of cigarettes.

“You still smoke?” Harrison pokes at the plastic nob for the radio, and it crackles to life. Synth and electric guitar pulse in 4/4 time.

“I bought it used.”

They’ve agreed to get to know one another while they search for Suzanna. Another restart, some attempt at an honest hour. As Lonan changes lanes, Harrison pokes open the car’s glove compartment. A tin of nicotine gum falls on the mat. A hot pink feather pokes from underneath the driver’s manual. Harrison hauls out both, runs the feather along the gum tin, then the back of his hand, and then Lonan’s cheek. When that rouses nothing, he unlocks the tin and removes a slit of gum. Right as he’s about to pop it in his mouth, Lonan says, “I wouldn’t eat that.”

“Why?” Harrison asks. “Did you lace it?”

“Like I said, I bought the car used.”

Harrison puts the gum back, and then the feather. He sticks his hand farther into the glove compartment, feels around until he drags out a map of the state, bilgy and half torn. He unfolds it, careful to avoid the rips, and flattens it against the dashboard. Almost immediately, it wilts against the cold, faded from time in the sun. It’s been marked up. Half with pencil, half with a red ballpoint pen. After a few minutes, Harrison understands the previous owner’s route. Or at least he does at first. Following the red pen arrows, they started at Long Island, then reached Manhattan. Then a much longer arrow takes him from Manhattan to Geneva, and then Buffalo. And then the red pen circles, once, twice, three times, four times, and what is in the centre doesn’t even have a city name. What it does say is HELP, in all-caps, each letter then melting into an illegible scrawl. Harrison sees bits of words: Luke, woe, hands, clay, guard, stray, each wobbly and disappearing into the other, becoming cities of their own, destroying others. He tries to understand the route, but the farther he pours over the map, recircling each line with his finger, the more lost he gets in the ink.

“Is this your map?” Harrison asks. There is no proof that it is. Even the handwriting is all wrong. Ragged. Confused. Desperate. Not like Lonan’s careful, hesitant print.

“Like I said, I bought the car used.”

“But is it your map?” Harrison asks again. Gently, he creases the paper and then slots it back into the glove compartment. Outside, they pass three convenience stores in a row, a flock of couples emerging from a bowling alley, tipsy and cradling leftover deep dish pizzas and mozzarella sticks. They pass two more convenience stores before Lonan finally answers.

“I was confused,” he says.

“This is more than confused,” Harrison says. “It’s disturbed.”

“I’m not disturbed.”

“But something is wrong with you.”

Lonan slows at a crosswalk. A group of teenaged girls whisk by in glitter and lip gloss.

“Yes,” he says.

This is Harrison trying to stop Lonan’s nosebleed after their bizarre swerve which I think is kind of <3 tendy <3

Harrison reaches for him. One hand on the back of his neck, and the other reared toward the red stream. His touch is tactful, so faint his fingerprints wouldn’t even be left behind, but still, the dabbing with his jacket’s hem is enough to redirect the blood’s flow from Lonan’s upper lip to the cuff of leather. The radio is still on, garbled like an unmassing of crepe paper lanterns.

This is the final excerpt for this update that takes us to the very end of the chapter! Harrison has just found Lonan supposedly head-first in the sink and though he asks at first why he is doing that, takes an alternate approach as the chapter closes:

Harrison gets up, his knees popping like gnawed bubble gum. He decides he will handle Lonan at a distance, if he chooses to handle him at all. Like a timid pet owner trying to tame their suddenly-rabid yorkie. Like a friend not trying to tip the full glass. To let its contents film at its surface, but never spill.

Somewhere in the apartment, Suzanna probably listens to them. If Harrison didn’t know her better, he’d imagine her pressed neatly against the door, waiting to hear the shuffle of their bodies or the tang of an argument. Instead, he imagines her at the kitchen table, gripping a glass of water for so long, half of it evaporates.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Harrison says, stepping back until his spine hits the counter’s lip. He curls his fingers under the granite. Looks toward the window, now a faint periwinkle. Lonan heaves. His fingers caging his face, an animal restrained. They stand there until the sun rises.

So that’s it for this gigantic update! I have like four short stories to update you on so I hope to be back soon!

—Rachel

[junker-town]

Justice for Icebox and other memorable women in classic football movies

Becky “Icebox” O’Shea (Shawna Waldron) takes the field with her cheerleading skirt still on in Little Giants. | Little Giants/Warner Bros.

Unfortunately, in this case life still imitates art.

The first time you meet Icebox, arguably the protagonist of the 1994 classic Little Giants, is at pee-wee football tryouts. “Gentlemen, suck it up!” the coach shouts at the group of disheveled 10-year-olds, until one finally lays out the ball-carrier with a satisfying thud. “Oh baby, now we’re talking,” he says with a grin, running over to the group. “Nice pop, Icebox.”

“Thanks, Uncle Kev,” she replies, her long brown hair tumbling down as she pulls off her helmet. It’s intended to be a shock. “Can you BELIEVE a GIRL is playing FOOTBALL?!” the director practically screams at the viewer. But that shorthand — the reveal that beneath the comfortable anonymity of the helmet lies a girl — and its close relative, the ponytail sticking out from beneath the helmet, have become ubiquitous to the point of cliché throughout both popular culture and coverage of girls and women playing sports society still doesn’t expect girls and women to play.

Little Giants/Warner Bros.

The viewer sees Becky “Icebox” O’Shea (Shawna Waldron) for the first time — just after she takes off her football helmet — in Little Giants.

Yet for some reason, the helmet hair phenomenon still works despite the fact the movie is almost 30 years old. It’s enough of a twist to get your attention, in the same way that girls and women playing football still garner coverage based on nothing more than their decision to suit up — though they’re just the newest of more than a century’s worth of “girl gridders.” The seemingly immutable expectation that girls don’t play football, won’t play football and aren’t interested in football, though, has been repeatedly contradicted on the silver screen just as it is in reality. In fact, some of football’s most iconic films have featured girls and women who subvert that exact expectation, even as they reinforce a whole slew of other sexist stereotypes.

The central conflict of Little Giants — ostensibly a film about the (spoiler alert) triumph of dweeby male underdogs — is sexism. (It’s currently streaming for free on IMDBTV.) Becky “Icebox” O’Shea is introduced as one of the better football players her age, more than hanging with the boys at tryouts and putting one in a headlock when he gives her guff. Yet, of course, it’s not enough to make the team, a reality that is presented to the viewer as immediately, unequivocally unfair. “What about Becky?” her father Danny asks the coach, Kevin, who is his brother and a retired football star. “She’s better than half of those boys.”

“Danny, I hate to break it to you but Icebox is a girl,” Kevin replies. “Maybe if you started treating her like a girl, she’d start acting like one.” His response clarifies that he is the central villain; soon after, his own wife calls him “pigheaded and chauvinistic” for not letting Becky on the team. Becky, disappointed but unfazed, bands together with the other rejects to form a new team (after single-handedly running off their bullies), and the Little Giants are born.

One of the more compelling aspects of the movie is that the few characters who are skeptical about Becky’s ability — mainly Kevin and a late recruit named Spike — are unsympathetic. All the other kids and adults readily accept her passion and talent for the game. Her gender is never mentioned as a potential hindrance, and when she opts out of playing, the rest of the team is not just sad but afraid to compete without her. “Without Becky, we’re cream of wheat!” laments the kicker.

The same can’t be said of 2000’s Remember The Titans, the Disneyfied version of a true story where football is presented as a foolproof way to solve racism — and the directors make a halfhearted attempt to shoehorn sexism and homophobia cures in, too (intersectionality … question mark?). In Titans (currently streaming on Disney+), Sheryl Yoast, the nine-and-a-half-year-old daughter of the assistant coach Bill Yoast, is a football fiend to the point of practically being a savant. Like Becky, she’s depicted as the only child of a single father, a similarity that was far from coincidental: the real Sheryl had three sisters, lived with her mother, and didn’t care about football at all.

The heavily-fictionalized Sheryl (played by a young Hayden Panettiere) taps into a few different clichés. She’s extremely precocious, and precocious children are one convenient way to diffuse tense scenes (of which there are plenty in Titans). Her constant presence (explained by the passion for football and the single-parent family) makes Yoast more sympathetic, when he might otherwise seem uncomfortably similar to all the other racists in town. Mostly, her presence reiterates the idea that girls who like football must be explained. Without the feminizing influence of a mother, these films argue, it’s only logical girls will deviate from heteronormative expectation and dive into sports, which are still ultimately gendered male.

Remember The Titans/Walt Disney Pictures

Sheryl Yoast (Hayden Panettiere) and Coach Boone (Denzel Washington) watch film together — with Yoast offering some harsh words for his offense — in Remember The Titans.

“Why don’t you get this little girl some pretty dolls or something?” the otherwise undeniably great Coach Boone asks Yoast at one point, as Sheryl scowls. “I tried — she loves football,” Yoast replies. By the middle of the movie Sheryl and Boone are grinding tape together.

That brief moment of acceptance is about as good as it gets for Sheryl, despite the fact she’s the one who, at the movie’s most pivotal moment, compels her father to finally collaborate with Boone to win the state title. “Mama, are all white girls that crazy?” Boone’s own daughter asks at one point — a memorable line that unfortunately once again reinforces Sheryl’s difference, which is repeatedly shrugged off until it is ultimately ignored. Her interest in the game, convincingly depicted throughout the film, is nothing more than a means to an end.

Becky’s bugaboo, in contrast, isn’t that people don’t take her interest in the game seriously. Instead, it’s the other side of the double-edged sword that women in sports have to confront: the idea that sports are inherently anti-feminine, that it is impossible to play them wholeheartedly without implicitly rejecting all the things (white supremacist, cisheteropatriarchal) society deems valuable about being a woman.

Little Giants/Warner Bros.

Icebox tries on lipstick as she debates quitting football and becoming a cheerleader in Little Giants.

It’s wrapped up in her nickname, Icebox: When “hunk” Junior Floyd joins the team (keep in mind they’re all supposed to be around 10, which makes it a little weird), Becky’s instantly conflicted. “I’m the Icebox, the Icebox doesn’t like boys … I don’t get crushes,” she says as she eats powdered donuts straight from the box (the film’s proof positive of her lack of self-conscious femininity). Even at that early age, it’s presented as a given that girls will understand playing sports is perceived as antagonistic to heterosexual romantic relationships.

That internal conflict ties her to one of the least sympathetic women in football cinema, Any Given Sunday’s owner/general manager Christina Pagniacci (played by Cameron Diaz). For how nuanced a picture the Oliver Stone classic (currently streaming on Netflix) paints of life in professional football, the portrayals of women throughout the film are two-dimensional to the point of being confusing. (Why on Earth does Cap’s wife hit him when he says he wants to retire? Even the most stereotypical gold digger presumably has a little heart.) But Christina gets the most screen time out of any of them, enough to depict her character as Icebox ... if all Icebox’s worst fears were realized.

Pagniacci’s behavior throughout the film doesn’t seem much worse than how billionaire sports team owners are prone to acting (that is to say, very badly). She wants to move the Miami Sharks to Los Angeles to take advantage of tax incentives (where have we heard that one before?). She argues with the head coach constantly, which is presented as excessively combative even when she’s right — as in her insistence that the team should invest in the passing game and stop running the ball so much (how is this movie 20 years old?). She pushes to keep players on the field even when they’re not healthy, and her involvement in the team is centered on growing profits (which, obviously — that’s how ownership thinks).

Any Given Sunday/Warner Bros.

One of many disputes between Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz) and Coach Tony D’Amato (Al Pacino) in Any Given Sunday.

But it’s a lot easier to make ownership the villain when ownership is a woman. Christina was modeled after late Rams owner Georgia Frontiere, who moved the team to St. Louis and had already inspired several money-grubbing, ice-queen lady-owner characters. Pagniacci’s greed and calculation are repeatedly lamented by the other characters on gendered terms: Instead of being savvy and pragmatic she’s hard-edged and heartless, characterized as such by a bunch of people who themselves could easily be described that way.

“He wanted a son more than anything else in the world, and when you really think about it, what Christina is is just such a tragedy,” her own mother tells Coach D’Amato (Al Pacino) within earshot of Christina, who cries silently in the next room (another confusing scene). “I honestly believe that woman would eat her young,” mutters the league commissioner towards the end of the film. It’s not enough for her to merely be the bad billionaire boss, which would be easy enough to make convincing. Pagniacci has to be presented as cold and distant — intrinsically undesirable, despite the fact she’s conventionally attractive — to make her villainy irrevocable. For women, there’s no redemption from men not liking you.

That’s what Becky realizes by the midpoint of Giants. In a patently strange scene, she sits down with her sexist uncle, torn up about why Junior doesn’t seem to like like her. “He’s probably gonna want some cute girl, not some teammate,” the fully-grown man tells his 10-year-old niece. “But I don’t know about being a cute girl — I’m good at sports,” Becky replies (again, being a girl and playing sports are shown as intrinsically at odds). “You have a lot more to offer than football,” her uncle says very creepily, in another classic deflection: sports are too bad or dumb or boring for a nice girl like you. “Do you think I’m pretty?” she asks. The strings swell, and Kevin replies, “I don’t think you’re pretty … I think you’re beautiful.”

The scene is so, so odd, and deeply out of sync with the rest of the movie to that point. Kevin was an unrepentant misogynist and then, suddenly, his “guidance” (telling Becky to be a cheerleader) is shown as positive. Becky takes his advice, quits the team before the big game and only comes back late in the game with her cheerleading skirt still on. It’s visual evidence of the compromise she’s already made: it won’t be possible for her to have both of the things she wants — the attention of boys and the chance to play sports — so something’s gotta give. It would be less depressing if it weren’t so often a reality: girls drop out of sports at remarkably high rates after puberty.

Becky’s star turn and unsatisfying conclusion probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Of course a girl was the center of an underdog story: Who’s more of an underdog in sports than a girl? Little Giants ends with the Annexation of Puerto Rico, a problematically-titled, game-winning play that holds a beloved place in sports lore. The play begins with Becky charging down the field, drawing all the defenders to her — after all, she’s one of the best players on the team. Once the opposing players are concentrated around her, she opens her arms: no ball. It was all just one, long fake.

Little Giants/Warner Bros.

Icebox reveals the fake during one of Little Giants’ most memorable moments, the Annexation of Puerto Rico.

[aconitemare]

[jaydick] Before That, And Colder

Chapter 2

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

AO3

A breeze lifts gently over the port, sweeping Dick’s dark curls from his face as he adjusts his tortoiseshell sunglasses on his nose. He smiles appreciatively at the valet who opens his door and quickly switches his call from bluetooth to phone. There’s no need for the valet to hear the frustrated growling on the other end of the line.

As he steps out, he deposits the keys to his sleek and silver Audi R8 Spyder — a recent gift from Bruce, justified as mission-based although Dick could see the quiet excitement in Bruce’s tugging lips when he led him to the Batgarage, understood this was a gift — into the valet’s open palm, along with a cash tip. “Thank you,” he mouths, hand cupping the receiver. 

A recent stalker with a penchant for crowbars pushed Jason into requesting Tim’s — and, by extension, everyone else’s — help. Last night, he agreed to let Dick join Tim on surveillance; the stalker likes to leave Jason pictures of their assaults, which means it’s likely only a matter of time before they catch some distinguishing trait on camera. Unfortunately, time is of the essence and Jason is short four Outlaws and Dick gets antsy playing the waiting game. He’d rather investigate Red Hood’s Iceberg Lounge associates. He called Jason to update him on the change of plans the minute he pulled into valet and not a minute before. 

“I mean it, N,” Jason insists. “Don’t come here. I don’t need bats up in my belfry. Vigilante-types make my guys nervous.”

“And you don’t?” Dick challenges. A bellhop removes a suitcase from the trunk and quickly wheels it past the shiny glass double doors, which another attendant holds open while Dick leisurely walks towards the entrance. Seagulls squawk, diving in and splashing upwards from the engulfing Atlantic. The air is cool and carries a light, briny taste. 

“No, I make them terrified.”

“That’s a good thing, right?” asks Dick. “If they’re busy soiling themselves because the big bad Hood looked at them funny, they’ll hardly even notice me breathing down their necks. So to speak.”

“Wro-o-ong,” drawls Jason on the other end. Dick imagines him rolling his eyes, or maybe reclining in exasperation if he’s on a nice office chair. Jason is a casino-owner now, or something along those lines. He might even wear a tie. “Terrified is good for them. It makes them efficient. Nervous people get clammy hands and drop the ball,” explains Jason.

“They won’t even notice me,” Dick appeals. He nods politely at the door attendant and stops at the front desk for his room key, where another bellhop promptly escorts his luggage. He tries not to speculate inwardly over anyone’s salary here. He resolves to just tip very well, as the tried-and-true Wayne method of resolving one-percenter guilt. 

“I’ll notice you.”

Key card in hand, Dick pushes his sunglasses over his bangs, tapping the desk in an appreciative gesture. He follows the direction the receptionist pointed out. “That’s flattering, Jase, but sounds like a you-problem,” he says absently. He’s watching the virtual fish that wade through the pixelated water of the lobby’s walls. Beside the crystal elevator is an extravagant fountain that burbles and gurgles. Dick inhales the air around him: filtered by salt, not chlorine. Nice touch, he thinks wryly. Though he doubts Cobblepot had anything directly to do with the interior design of this place. 

“Har-har,” Jason responds without much humor. “Look, I’m not a complete jackass. I appreciate the help, trust you’re all fairly competent, etcetera, but this is my territory. I don’t swing into Bludhaven and criticize how you’re running things.”

The clamshell-shaped light switches on as a ding sounds. “Who’s criticizing?” Dick asks innocently. The doors part and Dick steps inside. The walls are crystal but not completely transparent, warped as they are by the cleavage and cast in a sickly blue light from above. There’s even air conditioning, which makes the confined space frigid. He’s certainly in the iceberg now. 

Jason sighs into his speaker. “Nothing, absolutely nothing about the Iceberg Lounge is legal,” he confesses. This confession is not much of a revelation, however, as news of Red Hood’s latest operation circulated the bats via Batman more-or-less immediately. Jason shares major updates on the Underground he plans to infiltrate and, in exchange, Bruce turns a blind eye to the everything-else part. The whereabouts of the Lounge’s original owner, Mr. Cobblepot, is anyone’s guess — although everyone’s guess is pretty good. 

Dick watches the number on the screen tick upwards. He can’t wait to be out of this icebox after mere seconds. He misses his first apartment in Bludhaven, the one with the dirty carpeted stairs and the humid lobby and the friends. The hotel’s design is foreign and cold by comparison, although if he’s being fair, most of Gotham has felt like that since his return. 

He’s preoccupied by several thoughts and not giving his all to this conversation — which he did start, yes, but only out of courtesy to Jason. He’s mostly amused that Jason seems to expect Dick to crash through a window in full Nightwing get-up and arrest everyone on the spot. Then again, maybe Jason’s paranoia isn’t wholly unfounded. Tiger did always say Dick was a terrible spy. 

For the sake of this conversation, however perfunctory, Dick pretends to gasp. “Jason!” he stage-whispers as the doors finally, gratefully, open. “Don’t tell me — is this a money laundering scheme?” He makes sure to add an extra dollop of shocked horror to his words. 

Dick partly expects Jason to hang up on him, as people usually shut down when Dick tries on sarcasm for size. It’s not a good tone on him, he’s been told. That’s a miscalculation on Dick’s part, of course, because Jason isn’t affected by words the same way others are, especially Dick’s words. “Yeah, among other things,” Jason mutters instead. “Just stick to parking lot surveillance where my bike is, alright? You know, the original deal. No offense to you, but I don’t like people touching my shit. I’ll let you or some other bat-brat know if my human resources need outsourcing.”

Dick hums agreeably; he hadn’t expected Jason’s utmost cooperation anyway. It’s always best to obtain someone’s blessing, if he can, but permission just gets in his way. “‘No touching,’” Dick repeats as he wanders down the hall in search for his room. “Not a request I hear often,” he teases. 

“Not a request, or I would’ve added please.”

3401, 3402, 3403, 3404...

“Yes, yes,” Dick placates. The floor here is a sandy-beige marble topped by a molding made entirely of tiny seashells. He resists the urge to crouch down and run his fingers against the texture. “If you won’t let me in your cool casino gang, then I can’t force you. Batman didn’t supply me with a gun to your head,” he assures. 

3410, 3411, 3412…

On the other end, Jason snorts. “No, he just gave you a lifetime supply of entitlement and an annoying personality.”

3414, 3415, 3416… 

“Hey, the latter was home-grown, thank you,” Dick defends, feigning offense. “Also, I unfortunately must end this conversation because — ”

The line goes dead. Dick removes the phone from his ear and frowns at it.  

He discovers he likes this floor better, especially after the preternatural blue of the elevator. Here, the light is a warm yellow cast from plastic conch shells. The mosaic walls are made entirely of pale blue sea glass with waves of green rippling through. It’s an artistic take on the beach. An artful interpretation with central air conditioning. 

He arrives at his room shortly after the phone call, sliding his key card in and waiting for the green light to appear with a short buzz. It does, and Dick pushes in to find his Coach suitcase already beside his California King bed. The style is less minimalist than he had expected, with bold blues and reds splashed across the walls in a lucky imitation of the violent sunsets over Bludhaven’s waterfront. Dick is almost nostalgic, he thinks. 

The first thing Dick does is check for bugs. This takes some time, since Bruce called the hotel before Dick could and ordered his version of “modest and undercover,” which still qualifies as a suite. Dick doubts the room is bugged, as certainly most of the nefarious higher-ups’ attention would be paid to the casino and not the hotel. Still, best to begin and end all missions with routine since the middle parts always get too chaotic for formalities. Dick adapts better than Bruce himself does, but he still knows the value of order and tries to accommodate it when he can. 

The minute corners of the ceiling and the floor are dustless. The carpet is soft and thick, Dick’s feet sinking in with each step. The nightstand has a phone, a notepad, a lamp, a service menu, and a casino itinerary, but no bible. Dick wonders who made that decision during the hotel’s design. The television is expansive, flat, and mounted across the wall facing the bed. The extravagance elicits from Dick the same feeling as if a giant mirror has been hoisted onto the ceiling too. Does Bruce also ever get disgusted by such ludicrous excess? Or has he become used to it, like a buzzing in his ear, like tinnitus? Bruce accumulates and accumulates, yet never seems to care for that accumulation one way or another. To be fair, though, Dick has never felt a certain way about grass being green. Or air having smells, as might be the better analogy; sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always taken for granted. 

The sweep proves the room clean, as expected. Well, Dick has his own suspicions about government agents and corporate drones peering through the shiny flat-screen, but Lex is a busy man so Dick thinks he’s safe. This is the kind of spot-on humor Tim would appreciate if he hadn’t objected to tagging along. Tim is also a busy man apparently. 

Evening won’t fall for another few hours, but Dick should get a head start on socializing. Deciphering who’s actually important, who’s within the Red Hood’s board of trustees, won’t be easy in the intoxicated, big-talking, narcissistic casino crowd. In preparation, Dick accessorizes with a range of subtle tools and weapons: a miniscule switchblade, disguised as a pendant and hidden under his shirt; bandages slipped into his jacket pocket; and a flask of disinfecting alcohol slipped into a pair of white boots. He’s roughing it in designer shoes. 

Satisfied, Dick sticks his key card into his wallet and sets about trying his luck. 

  ___

  The casino keeps to the same ice-white theme as the hotel. The gaming floors shine like chromium, solid as a frozen lake. The floors winding between the games and shops and restaurants, however, are watery blue with digital fish splashing beneath guests’ feet. It’s novel, really, and it’s possible Dick might’ve even liked the whole schtick if it weren’t so Penguin-y. 

The woman beside him places her hand on his wrist. From the ceiling plays an inoffensive pop song, the singer’s voice autotuned to sound as if coming from deep underwater. Dick smiles down at the woman. “Oh, sorry, were you trying to get my attention?”

She’s pretty in a forgettable way, with long blonde hair and a sloping nose. “No, no, sorry!” she says, pulling away clumsily as if remembering herself. She has a plastic water bottle on her, but no alcohol. Trying to sober up still. “I just thought you looked really familiar, like I might know you — ?” Her voice pitches upward at the end, waiting for him to finish her half-formed idea. 

Dick communicates to the dealer he’s doubling down and pushes a stack of orange chips forward. He’s hoping the dealer will make a face, however unlikely that is, or do something to attract the attention of a supervisor. He wants to attract the house’s attention as subtly as possible, suss out anyone who might be high on the chain. 

“I was at a televised event recently,” Dick responds, because he doubts they met personally. “The Wayne Foundation was heading a protest against the detention centers in Texas.” The girl’s mouth opens, gulping, fish-like, and Dick wonders if he should talk more about the protest or leave it at that. She’s impressed, but only hazily so, as if she’s recognizing the patterns of words and their moral virtue — foundation, protest, detention centers — but can’t make sense of the detail. Dick muses inwardly; it’s been a while since he was last inebriated, but he’s always been a drifting, Play-Doh-brained drunk like her. He’s tempted to order himself a drink, but that would be counterproductive to Mission: Find Jason’s Mole. 

He initially tried chatting with the dealer directly, on the off-chance of information trickling down. She’s young, barely Dick’s age, and has shaved half her head in that edgy-punk-rock style Dick recalls Shawn being fond of. Unlike his ex-girlfriend’s cropped hair, which she had dyed with the same warning colors of poison dart frogs, the dealer’s is a natural black that tumbles down her shoulders. Dick did not get far with her as she gave only clipped responses. Now, from under her curtain of hair, she peers with sharp eyes that leap across players’ hands.

The man on his other shoulder slaps the table roughly, startling the dealer and dragging Dick’s attention away from the cards. “You’re one of Wayne’s kids!” he exclaims, pointing a finger. He has a faint Chinese accent ground out in gravelly tones. The knuckles are hairy but bejeweled with smooth rings, and the nails are perfectly manicured. “I’ve been looking at you, trying to figure out!”

Dick would’ve noticed him staring, in that case, but one doesn’t have to stare to watch. The thought alerts him momentarily and his eyes do a quick sweep of the floor again. I’ll give it another hour, he decides. If no one seeks me out, I’ll just have to go snooping. 

“That would be me,” Dick confirms. He takes the man’s hand and they shake cordially. 

“Should’ve known,” the man continues. “You always dress so — colorful.” He took a moment to decide upon the that adjective, but he doesn’t sound disrespectful so Dick grins. The man is right; Richie Grayson does generally go for the pastels. For the night, he’s dressed himself in a white blazer with muted paisley designs whirling across the silk. Over his breast rests a peach-colored pocket square to match the interior peach fabric he’s displayed by rolling the cuffs to his elbows. No tie, jacket left unbuttoned, and hair gelled carefully-carelessly: he’s the picture of insouciant extravagance. 

His first time out with Damian as “Richie,” Damian was infuriated by the silly pastels and airheaded conversations Dick cloaked himself in. Damian ranted about Dick’s public persona being an “odious script he must’ve concocted as a bad joke.” Dick spares him the embarrassment of the truth, which is that Dick appreciates a vacation from himself. The breezy talks and airy outfits are less of a deep-cover character and more for fun. Of course, Damian is also embarrassed by his usual wardrobe of sweats and running pants, so Dick doesn’t bother trying to live up to the kid’s standards. They’re both just glad to have each other back. Dick has missed out on so much, but Damian hardly notices the changes in either of them. It’s because he’s still young and time isn’t finite yet. Childhood clings to Damian’s full cheeks and attitude. His stubborn youth relieves Dick. He’s missed out on a lot, but not everything. 

“Yes, I keep up with Bruce Wayne, men like him,” the man at the table continues for explanation. He taps his head. “They’re smart. Can learn from them. Or I try to, at least.” With that, he laughs all the way from his gut. Dick can feel himself warming up as he often does around good-humored people. He can’t help it; he’s a sucker for laughter. 

He buys drinks for the table, except for the woman, whom he buys another water. The hour drags on. He wishes he was playing poker and not blackjack, although poker gets too vitriolic for his tastes and doesn’t concern the house much, which is what he needs to do. He’s beginning to doubt his plan, though, and he wonders if it would be easier just to beg Jason to let him in on the case in full. He’s not going to do that however. He hadn’t expect a yes, but that doesn’t make Jason rejecting his help any less irritating. At this point, he’d prefer swimming with sharks ( again ) over playing nice with a guy who’d apparently rather get assassinated than just cooperate a little. 

He’s close to leaving the table when he spots a person of interest. The man is on the shorter side, just shy of scrawny, with tan skin and dark hair. He’s not paying any attention to Dick, just meandering through the tables, but Dick recognizes him from Batman’s Teen Titans database. Miguel Barragan: otherwise known as Bunker, a former member of the Teen Titans and the current owner-on-paper of the Iceberg Lounge. Dick is almost giddy to have such a solid lead right off the bat. He quickly collects his winnings and bids everyone a goodbye, Miguel locked in his peripheral throughout. 

He doesn’t approach Miguel directly; he’d probably alert Jason right away of his casino’s sneaky guest. Dick trusts his charisma to carry him through most confrontations, but he also considers anyone associated with Jason to be a bit of a wild card. He’s not sure how he could win Miguel over to his side because he’s not sure how Jason won Miguel over. Dick doesn’t understand how Jason wins anyone over — or, perhaps more accurately, how anyone wins Jason over. Dick hasn’t been able to parse out what grounds the amorphous Outlaws have been founded on, since their modus operandi changes as frequently as their roster and these outlaws seemingly share one characteristic, which is that they are all outlaws. 

Dick is admittedly guilty of avoiding Gotham, focusing instead on reestablishing his life in Bludhaven after Spyral. He still receives updates, some of them about the Outlaws, whose guns sometimes shoot rubber bullets and other times kill. Batman occasionally sends the Outlaws on missions, making them either private contractors or accidental, honorary bats. Dick has long given up on deciphering and disarming Bruce’s relationships. Or maybe he hasn’t, since on the practical level, it is on Bruce’s behalf that Dick’s helping Jason. Dick responded to all of Bruce’s messages, albeit late, and Dick himself doesn’t know if his recent lateness is as accidental as he pleads. Dick’s life has always been hectic, yet he’s always made time for Gotham. 

What is different now? Dick sees the past year like a literal timeline laid out before him, and if he could just follow that line, eventually he’d find what had changed. Maybe he’s missing a step, though, because he just keeps going back to the dormitory at St. Hadrian’s. He sees himself sitting on the twin-sized, standard-issued bed, back hunched, phone attached to his ear like a lifeline that might disintegrate at any moment. He hears himself leave a message for Mr. Malone; then Dick turns around, abandoning the scene before the line can disintegrate and he shares the same fate as this sad, forgotten figure on the bed. 

Dick’s response to Bruce’s latest message was immediate, as Bruce probably assumed it would be. He dangled Jason’s vulnerability like a bait over Dick’s head. Dick, with the stench of death curling into his nostrils at the mere suggestion, took the hook in his mouth and allowed himself to be hauled aboard out of Bludhaven’s hazy depths. So he has resurfaced in Gotham, which he knows is for the best. It gives him the opportunity to right a wrong of his, when Jason first was in danger and Dick had busied himself elsewhere, away from Bruce. 

Of course, Jason is not as helpless as he was in his Robin days. The Outlaws are fittingly named, operating more like a loose group of friends egging each other on than a true team (or so it seems to Dick, and indeed everyone else watching them in suspense), but they do pull through for the Hood. Miguel is one of these friends, and therefore likely knows about the Park Row victims and the photos, although whether his priority is Jason’s safety or Jason’s trust is up for debate. Dick has to play it safe and assume that Miguel would report his good intentions and have him thrown back into the parking lot to watch a bike. Or forced off the case altogether, Dick thinks with exasperation, as Jason is prone to theatrics and extremes. Roy and Kory, at least, he does not have to worry about, being off-planet with the Justice League. Artemis and Bizarro have recently disappeared, but Dick doesn’t write them off yet. In his experience, those whose lives defy death rarely stay gone for long. This is both a comfort and a conflict of interest. 

He watches Miguel furtively; he accomplishes this by mingling gregariously, camouflaging himself within a dense thicket of drunken socialites. He works crowds consecutively, easing himself in and out of dialogues, his split attention unnoticed in an atmosphere that cultivates distraction. He keeps his face turned away from Miguel at all times. He moves his tortoiseshell sunglasses from his mussed hair to his eyes. He follows. 

Miguel does not stay among the blackjack tables. He eventually moves towards the floor with the digital fish, his pace brisk but not hurried. Flashing shop signs and stumbling, moseying guests help blur Dick into the background. He wonders how long he can keep this up for and where he might end up. Best case scenario: Miguel talks to several key players in Red Hood’s operation for Dick to investigate and provides an insider’s look at the map of the casino before he can slip behind a door Dick can’t reasonably follow him through. Worst case scenario: Miguel notices he’s being followed by a weird man who wears sunglasses inside, confronts him, and Jason yells at him about respect and boundaries, as if those are things that exist in their makeshift family. Scenario of undecided goodness: Miguel is the leak and Dick catches him.

From a yard ahead, Miguel shifts his hand from the pocket of his slacks. He presses his ear, tilts his chin downward and to the side. An earpiece, for sure. He’s communicating with someone; perhaps Jason, Dick’s brain immediately supplies, and he does feel some guilt laden over the little kick he gets from the idea of pulling one over on the uncooperative prick. Dick gets his jollies from helping people against their will. Probably not everyone’s idea of fun, but his family just wouldn’t be his family without the unnecessary shadows cloaking every kind act. 

Then Dick notices Miguel twist his head just slightly so that his eyes address the floor. Is he looking at Dick? Has he been caught? Dick hangs back, pausing to admire a shop window. He’s grateful for his sunglasses now, which enable him to keep track of Miguel’s progress. Hopefully he looks more eccentric than suspicious in them. 

He melts back into the loose crowds once he’s confident Miguel has lost him. He knows Miguel took a right at the escalators, didn’t go up them. Dick keeps a bit of swagger in his walk, feigning leisure while taking broader steps than usual. He needs Miguel to lose track of him without losing track of Miguel himself. 

Dick rounds the escalator corner, hands shoved in his pockets. A uniformed woman sweeps a plastic straw into a dustpan. He smiles graciously and sidesteps her. He glimpses Miguel’s figure retreating into a misshapen circle of the line spilling out of a burger joint. His body is swallowed whole by the hungry mass, absorbed neatly into the membrane of good-timers and luck-triers. Dick feels a little of the excitement go out of him. Where, really, can he get with this? He might have to pay Jason a visit as Nightwing after all. 

Still, he may as well continue for a bit longer. He’s less than subtle while maneuvering through. His passage doesn’t feel half as smooth as Miguel’s looked. The people in line are glassy-eyed with dumb, slack-jawed smiles. Dick can’t help envisioning them as blind, newborn kittens under his feet. He pushes through in a series of mumbled apologies and penitent smiles. He receives, in return, a few blank smiles delivered on auto-pilot. Mostly he’s just ignored, which does irk him but he reasons that if they’re not bothered enough for a reply, then they’re content and so is he. 

He finally breaches the wall of people. Miguel has stopped walking and stands, back facing Dick, near a bistro. A waitress, tufts of blonde locks sticking up like macaroni, intercepts the two of them, carrying a tray from the bistro to the nearest gaming floor. She all but waddles in the standard short white dress and tiny black blazer, throat pinned to her head with a stiff bowtie. When she passes, Dick realizes Miguel is not alone. Leaning against a load-bearing stalagmite is someone else, sneakered heel digging into the floor with their toes pointed up, their fists plunged into the pocket of a pullover. A hood hides their face, though the tip of a nose peeks out. Dick takes a step forward only to be reeled backwards, shoulder jerking where a hand has caught it. 

Dick nearly grabs the hand and yanks, but remembers his surroundings and stifles the impulse. He lets himself be dragged towards an unmarked set of double doors. A small box is mounted to the wall in front of him, and another hand reaches out to wave a card over it. A light flashes green and buzzes. Dick’s feet have to dance for purchase as he’s pulled awkwardly by his side. The second the doors swing shut behind them, Dick breaks out of the grasp. His shades have slid down his nose and he pushes them up. He has time to recognize the people milling about as normal employees, some resting in chairs with stained cushions and others carting hampers and vacuums or talking into radios. Name badges abound. 

The hand roughly grabs him by the collar. “Easy!” scolds Dick at the same time he gets a good look at the person attached. He’s a big guy with furry arms that could constrict a boa. A gray vest stretches over his broad frame, accentuating his size as well as any muscle tee. He wears a high collar fastened with a wide tie. His throat is as thick as a tree trunk, though, and the overall effect is that of an ill-fitting leash. 

“I don’t work here, what are you doing?” Dick demands. He doubts the casino employees here are expecting dignity anyway. Maybe he should even try for tipsy, just to put on a show for anyone watching him get hauled across the room from the scruff of his neck by Hulk Hogan. This has all turned out surprisingly well for him, really. Whoever this guy is, he’s not a hero. 

“Behave,” the man orders as he shoves Dick — unnecessarily roughly, for that matter — through another set of double doors. These ones give way without identification.

Dick skips nimbly forward so he doesn’t fall on his face. The man’s hand is on his neck again in an instant, which screams overkill considering Dick hasn’t put up a fight or attempted escape. “‘Behave’?” Dick quotes. “What am I, your long-lost son?”

“Good question,” says the man. The walls here are more eggshell than snowfall with air pockets bubbling beneath the wallpaper. People with name badges eye them curiously but say nothing. Dick wonders how anyone would get rescued in this heads-down atmosphere. It occurs to him, grimly, that they probably wouldn’t.

“Is it?” Dick prods. “Did someone forget to file for a paternity test?”

“What are you, smartass.”

Fingers tighten around his neck, a warning to behave or a threat for what’s to either way. Dick guesses it’s the latter and replies, “What is manhandled, for 300.”

“Yup, keep it up,” the man replies. He takes a sudden left, Dick spinning after like a sidecar held to the driver by a rope. There’s another box-shaped scanner around the corner, presumably for the narrow, metal door adjacent. This device doesn’t scan from afar but requires insertion, and the man feeds it a different card from the one before. There’s no buzz or green light. Just the same, the knob turns easily in the man’s grip. 

“Lot of doors here,” Dick observes at the same time that he’s unceremoniously launched, face first, through a door. 

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

[raendown]

Pairing: none Word count: 3420 Summary: Travelling through time was a complete accident. So was passing on the idea to someone much more dangerous.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

Forward And Back (And Leave It There)

Madara squinted his eyes and leaned closed, finger poised at the ready. A quiet voice told him it was a bad idea but there was little that could stop a curious Uchiha and so Madara felt no shame for ignoring the idiot behind him and poking the object which held his fascination. He regretted doing so immediately when he felt the tip of his finger come in to contact with something incredibly hot. Only then did his brain catch up with what he was seeing and rationalize it; whatever advanced jutsu they were using had contained fire itself in to this pale orb so of course it would burn.

“Please stop poking at my lightbulbs,” the same voice asked him tiredly. Madara turned to glare over one shoulder.

“Tell me what jutsu does this,” he demanded.

“It’s not a jutsu, it’s electricity.”

“Brother’s been using that word a lot lately,” Hashirama piped up from where he was excitedly inspecting a funny looking stove across the room. “Is that what it does? And this, does this use elek-i-ticity too?”

Rubbing at the bridge of his nose, their accidental host sighed. “Yes.”

“Madara, do you think elek-i-ticity is why we time traveled?”

“Of course not! Obviously it was your insane brother’s fault! Who knows what kind of madness he’s messed around with this time? If he can raise the dead then I certainly wouldn’t put it past him to have been the one behind all of this kerfuffle.”

Still rubbing his nose, although now more slightly more vigor, their host grit his teeth. “I’ve already told you, the time travel was an accident. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of my Mangekyo–”

“And that’s another thing! How dare you! What member of my clan did you steal that from? Don’t look at me like that, young man, it’s obvious just by looking at you that you aren’t an Uchiha. My clan’s bloodlines run strong.”

“Is he always like this, Shodaime-sama?” When Madara squawked in offense the young man turned back to him with a roll of his one visible eye. “I didn’t steal the eye; it was a gift from a friend. And I’m still trying to get the hang of everything – by myself, since no one in your oh-so-auspicious clan is willing to help me learn.” Despite the youth of his body there was an exhaustion in his voice that spoke of more years of pain than he should have experienced. It made Madara wonder if he’d been born with that gray hair or if stress had drained all the color away as parents the world over claimed.

There was something about that exhaustion which gave him pause. Years ago, when he and Hashirama were just young kids dreaming beside a lazy river, the first concept of their dreams for peace had been in honor of their fallen siblings. Together they had dreamed of a place where children would be safe and the adults would stop asking the younger generations to fight their battles for them.

How old, he wondered, had this child been when he saw his first battlefield? At present he could hardly be more than mid-adolescence and yet already the light in his eye was dim.

Madara crossed his arms and looked away with a stubborn expression on his face.

“I still say Tobirama must have had something to do with this,” he insisted. “This isn’t anything I’ve ever heard of the Sharingan being able to accomplish.”

“Cold! Cold!” Hashirama’s voice drew both of their attentions over to where he’d opened the top door of what looked like an upright storage chest only to find the inside coated in ice. Their host dropped his face in to one palm and shook his head.

Unable to resist, Madara sidled across the room to help his old friend inspect the latest marvel. The future was full of such amazing things. Back in his own time he’d heard of the daimyo’s latest expensive luxury purchase called an icebox and he wondered how similar it was to the small frozen cupboard he was shoving his face in to at the moment. Several frozen fish stared back at him from between brightly colored boxes labelled with food items he’d never heard of before. What on earth was a pudding pop?

When Hashirama shoved him out of the way to make a closer inspection for himself, Madara opened the lower door of this strange cupboard. Although it was larger, the lower portion was noticeably less cold. Nothing inside was frozen but rather kept at a delightfully chill temperature that one might expect to find in the evenings of late autumn. Fascinated, he rummaged around and breathed a sigh of relief that he recognized at least most of the foods inside this area. He knew the fruits and the vegetables, the milk and the butter, and although he definitely recognized the teriyaki chicken cutlets near the bottom, he couldn’t say what that thin clear sheet wrapped around the top was. What was the point of cooking the chicken if it wasn’t going to be eaten?

“This is amazing,” he heard Hashirama mutter from above him. Madara was inclined to agree.

“Can you guys close the fridge please? You’ll let all the food spoil and it wastes power to leave the doors open like that, you know? Well, actually, I guess you don’t know.”

“Power?” Madara frowned in confusion.

“Electricity.”

“Why did you call it power if it is called…that?” He certainly wasn’t going to make a fool of himself as Hashirama kept doing by taking a chance on mispronouncing it.

“It means the same thing. Just a slang word. Could you close the door?”

With a shrug Madara stood up and deigned to do so. Hashirama popped the top door shut on the ice cupboard but as soon as he’d let go of that he was back over at the fancy looking stove, poking at buttons.

“Hey! Hey Madara! Let’s light this! Do you think the fire goes in here?”

“Don’t!” The adolescent came flying across the room and shoved himself in between the stove and his two visitors. “It doesn’t need fire. Just – please go sit down in the living room before I have a heart attack or something.”

“My apologies if we’ve touched something we shouldn’t,” Hashirama told him. Instead of answering, the youth only narrowed his eyes and insistently pointed the way to the living room.

Within five minutes it became obvious that it was just as dangerous for them to be in here as both Madara and Hashirama attempted to figure out how the ‘tiny people’ had gotten trapped inside the wooden box against one wall.

“It’s just my television,” their host moaned in despair. He claimed it would take much too long to explain to them how the device worked but without a satisfactory explanation Madara was still much too curious to back off. He continued to bend left and right in an effort to peer at all sides of the box so he could find the hole where the little people entered through. Maybe a door or some kind? There were a lot of weird ropes – apparently called wires although it didn’t look like any wire he’d ever seen – but he didn’t see anything that could be considered an entrance. How the people got shrunk was more important anyway. What a jutsu that would be! Defeating his enemies would be so much easier if he could make them pocket sized and hold them down with the flat of one palm.

“How are these bound?” Hashirama asked from where he now stood next to a squat wooden bookcase. “I can’t even see the stitching.”

“Please put those down, Shodaime-sama!”

“But they’re so pretty! Such a beautiful orange color and the women on the front look very happy.”

“Gah!”

Flushed red from hairline to the top of his half-mask, the adolescent lunged across the room to extract his seemingly precious tome from Hashirama’s grasp. They must have been worth quite a lot if he was unwilling to let someone as auspicious as the God of Shinobi handle them. With a sheepish expression, Hashirama apologized for touching something of such value, slipping both hands behind his back and wandering away to inspect the pictures hung upon the wall.

Abandoning the ‘television’ for a moment, Madara joined the idiot’s inspection. Whoever painted these photographs was a master artist, able to create incredible detail in their work – it was as though they had simply captured a moment in time and hung it upon the wall somehow! The figures depicted in the painting appeared to be staring straight out of the image in to his own eyes. Most of them were smiling but for the young boy to one side who resembled a younger version of their host; he was scowling and turning his head to glare at another young boy on the other side of the painting.

“My word,” Hashirama murmured under his breath. One of his hands came up to stroke the glass covering which protected the amazing art. Probably it was meant to guard it from people like him who failed to smother their urge to fondle things which didn’t belong to them. Entirely ignoring the fact that he also fell in to that category of person at the moment, Madara returned to his perusal of this ‘television’ object, now looking for any seals which might have been powering it.

From the corner of one eye he could see their host bring his hands together and forming seals. Madara’s body tensed automatically until he recognized the summoning jutsu and he relaxed again when the boy placed his hand on the floor and a small pug appeared in a puff of smoke wearing a cute little vest.

“What’s up boss?”

“Can you just…just watch them for a minute, okay? Make sure they don’t break anything or – or leave, kami forbid.”

“Sure thing.” The puff hopped up on to a the arm of a dilapidated looking couch and sat at attention for all of three seconds before his back leg came up to scratch his ear.

With a shake of his head their host popped back in to the kitchen area, where he could be heard rummaging through doors and cupboards. Quiet grumbling drifted out in to the living room as he muttered to himself under his breath.

Madara had only just given up on locating any seals on the surface of the ‘television’ and plopped down in front of it to attempt communication with the people trapped inside when their host came back. He was holding what looked like a small pellet in his hand, dark and round, but before either of them had a chance to ask about it he popped it in to his mouth and crunched down.

“Is that a good idea, boss?” the pug asked gruffly. “Your chakra levels have been wacky enough lately without you taking boosters every time you get a little tired.”

“Trust me, it’s necessary this time. I promise when it happens next I’ll just sleep it off, alright? But I need to replenish my chakra stores if I’m going to get these two back to where they belong; they can’t stay here!”

“Alright, alright.”

“Oh, we can’t stay?” Hashirama turned away from his perusal of more amazing portraits. “I had hoped to have a look around the village that we built.”

The boy gave him a flat look. “It’s very village-like,” he said shortly. Hashirama wilted.

“Oh. Well, ah, thank you. I suppose that covers that.”

“Right. Were either of you doing anything of note just before you were pulling forward in time?”

“Nothing more out of the ordinary than me showing this oaf his own ass,” Madara replied, a suspicious grimace falling over his features as his mind went back to the battle they had been pulled out of. “But kami only knows what that fool Tobirama was up to. I’ve no doubt that whatever dangerous idiocy he was up to this time could have affected us as far away as the other side of the battlefield.”

Groaning, the host rubbed at the bridge of his nose as he had been doing before. “How many times–? It was my–! Never mind. Whatever. Can you both just stand together in the middle of the room so I can try to replicate what I was doing? Hopefully this should send you back to whenever it is that you came from.”

Like the giant puppy he was, Hashirama hopped to immediately. Madara followed with a heavy dose of reluctance and much less speed. Just because they were friends once didn’t mean he had to be excited to stand next to the man. Once they were both standing together in the center of the room as they’d been asked to their host lifted his slanted headband to reveal a transplanted Sharingan. With a spark of chakra Madara activated his own, memorizing the sight before him and recording the proceedings for later consideration. If one of his own clan members could unlock similar abilities it would be his duty to care for their safety as they learned how to wield them; any information at all would be helpful and a practical demonstration even more so.

The boy’s eye melted in to Mangekyo formation, whereupon its ceased spinning as all did when they reached that stage, and he brought his hands together in an ancient seal designed to gather chakra in preparation for a big release.

“Kamui!”

The world melted. It was the only way Madara could think of to describe it. Or perhaps he might have said that reality itself was reduced to the eye of a hurricane. Either way, the room around them disappeared in a spiral of black and Hashirama’s fingers clutched at the sleeve of Madara’s robes, keeping a good grip on him in case they were somehow separated in this emptiness between worlds. Stupid, really, to worry for someone he should have seen as his enemy. For a moment there was a sensation – almost an instinctual feeling – as though they were somewhere other and Madara had the fleeting thought that the two most powerful men to have ever existed had put their full trust in the hands of a boy whose name they never even bothered to learn.

Yet the moment passed quickly and they traveled seamlessly from one reality to the next, appearing back in a half decimated forest clearing as though they’d never left. The two men looked at each other in silence before turning to watch the fighting going on around them, wondering if anyone had even noticed their little trip. It became obvious that at least some people had when they noticed the relieved looks both of them were receiving. Their clan mates were happy to see them back after disappearing so suddenly, though unwilling to disengage from defending themselves just to come over and say so.

Both of their brothers, on the other hand, had no problem rushing over with matching expressions of suspicion. Madara allowed Izuna to lay a hand on his arm for a moment in greeting before he peeled back his lips and snarled at Tobirama, now standing protectively in front of his own older brother like some rabid guard dog.

“You!”

Tobirama narrowed his eyes cocked his head to one side at Madara’s angry shout.

“Can I help you, Uchiha?” he asked.

“I still say this was all your fault somehow! What have you done? What unholy jutsu were you messing with now that sent us through time itself?”

“Sent you through time?” Put off balance by such an unexpected answer, he turned his head to stare his sibling down with a look of vicious intensity. “What is he talking about? Give me details.”

Madara scowled at him and crossed his arms petulantly. “Oh as if you don’t know! Whatever it was that you did sent us in to the future – which, by the way, is incredibly stupid and confusing. Cupboards full of ice and tiny people trapped in boxes and fire contained in tiny glass orbs. And it’s all your fault!”

“Time travel. Hmm.”

“See? Brother didn’t have anything to do with it,” Hashirama chipped in. “Just as that boy said. It was an accident!

“Indeed, time travel is not something that I had previously considered as an area of experimentation. What a fascinating idea. To know that such a thing is possible – I know just where to begin my research!” He seemed to have already forgotten about the bloody sword still held fast in one hand, the other one already curling as though aching for a pen to fit between his fingers.

“Uh, what?” Although it was Hashirama whom he always met in battle and had gotten to know well when they were friends all those years ago, no familiarity was needed to recognize certain warning signs when it came to Tobirama. Worry settled over Madara as he noticed several of them now.

Tobirama refocused on his enemy just to grace him with a dangerous smile. “I must thank you, Uchiha, though it pains me a little to do so. What a fascinating concept you’ve given me. Time travel. Excellent. And it’s all thanks to you.” With that he turned and marched away, either forgetting they were still technically in the middle of battle or dismissing it as unimportant in the face of something more interesting.

“No! Senju get back here! I said no! Are you listening to me!?”

Once his hair had settled in the wake of a harried looking Madara rushing past him, Izuna following after, Hashirama stared blankly in to space for a while, simply allowing his mind a moment to process everything that had happened in such a short amount of time. Their trip to the future had only lasted a little over an hour yet he felt as though his entire perception of life had been altered. Although they hadn’t been able to explore or ask questions, they had still learned a few invaluable secrets which he knew he would keep close to his heart for the rest of his life.

His village, his precious lifelong dream, would someday become a true reality. Not only that but it would thrive and prosper many years after he was gone. Even long in to the future the village he built would stand as a beacon of safety and community, a place for those of different clans to live together in peace with each other. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, feeling as though he’d been granted a boon by the gods themselves; surely no man but him could have such certainty in their own dreams.

Then he turned and hurried after the other three men, if only to prevent Madara and Izuna from following a distracted Tobirama all the back to the Senju compound.

-

(Blinking tiredly at the now-empty space in his living room, Kakashi sighed and wondered if he should report what had just happened to the Third Hokage. He wondered if there were any official records which should have warned them that this would even occur someday. Although, he reasoned, if there were then they would probably have encouraged someone more important to be present than a scrawny teenager who was too young to have been in ANBU for this many years already.

Some day when he was older Kakashi would meet a man who would call himself Uchiha Madara and threaten the shinobi system as a whole. When that day came Kakashi would be among those inclined to believe that the man might just be who he claimed to be for he would have a knowledge that others did not.

He had met Uchiha Madara, had pulled the man through time himself. Who was he to say that such a thing had not extended that monster’s life somehow? Time was something no human could control and yet the full abilities of Uchiha Madara had never been recorded. It wasn’t impossible.

For now Kakashi remained blissfully unaware of the future which awaited him. His thoughts were on the present day and how his life existed only as a future for those long gone. Deep thoughts indeed for a boy who only came home to escape a certain loud mouthed friend and would have performed a number of underhanded tasks just to get a quick nap. That was how he preferred to spend his time.)

[brokeandjetlagged]

“So What Can’t I Do?” Mingyu/Reader

I’m Finally back to writing guys!!! please enjoy this fic, i worked pretty hard on it and i love how a lot of it turned out :-)

rated: T

(I also cross-posted it on ao3, but it’s mine, thru and thru)

Even if we’re not together, just like always / Our smile flowers bloom / I’ll be the spring to your smile. Studying abroad is hard enough without Joshua being a smart ass, Jeonghan being a dick, and Mingyu being...Mingyu.

Hello, hello! This is my first fic to post here. i studied abroad in s. korea and received a mingyu request on tumblr right before i left, so once I got back i wrote this as soon as i could. i hope you enjoy it!

"Josh," you force past your chattering teeth. "You failed to mention that Korea was a fucking icebox ."

Joshua screws his mouth into a frown, shooting a look at you. He'd be more intimidating if he weren't bundled up to his ears, a wool scarf wound so tight around his throat, he might as well be wearing a neck brace.

"I haven't been to Korea during the winter since I was, like, six," he says bitterly.

"And here I thought you'd be my expert guide." You shake your head. "That exchange students' chatroom should do more thorough background checks."

Joshua rolls his eyes, scuffs his boot on the lip of the curb while you wait for the crosswalk to change. "Maybe they should screen out the dumbasses that can't be bothered to download a weather app, too."

"Ouch," you clutch at your chest in mock hurt. You barely feel it through the coat, jacket, and two sweaters you're wearing. "I looked at the weather. Doesn't mean I'm any more prepared for being dumped in a frozen wasteland ."

Joshua raises his eyebrows, almost daring you to look around the street you're crossing (at the Samsung store and the GS25, and then the three cafes, four restaurants, and then another GS25). "Wasteland. Right."

"Where's this place again?" You drop the whiney tint to your words. You'd left the comfort of your room almost an hour ago, and as much as you'd liked the change of scenery from Sinchon to Daehak, you're itching to get into an enclosed space. Preferably heated, and most definitely serving coffee.

Joshua fishes his phone out of his coat pocket, swiping into his maps with fumbling fingers. "It's coming up right around the corner," he says, his eyes crinkling adorably.

"You must be excited," you say, trying to keep the knowing grin buried into the fabric of your scarf. Excited is a bit of an understatement. Joshua hasn't stopped mentioning getting together with his childhood friends that are also studying in Seoul since the very first roulette style chat that had introduced you to each other on Study Korea! dot com almost a year ago.

"I still can't believe Jeonghan stayed in Korea," Joshua gushes, adding a bounce to his step that he probably isn't even aware of. "He got accepted into UCLA, for Christ's sake. I didn't get accepted into UCLA."

You shove his shoulder, careful to not send him careening into a pile of trash that hasn’t yet been picked up from the night before. (The streets here are much nicer in this part of Seoul, south of the river. But still, the cramped streets surrounding universities are...well, universal, and there’s trash and the sidewalk is full of cracks and crowded with people. You adore it.)

"Are you jealous or in love?" you say teasingly.

"Shut up," Joshua says around his laugh. His head jerks up to read the Hangul on the signs above you. It takes a half a second longer than him, but you make out the name of the cafe easily enough and let out a little happy squeal.

Joshua holds the door for you, and you eagerly stomp up the stairs to make it to the main level. It's crowded with students at this time of day, and you falter without Joshua immediately at your side. You haven’t been here long, and it's hard to fight off the newness of everything when you're not with someone you know. A sense that this isn't home, that it's different, creeps along your body.

"There they are," comes Joshua's voice from beside you, shaky and nervous all of a sudden. It's just as hard for him, you have to remind yourself. Joshua is Korean, sure, but he hasn’t lived here in years . The city isn’t like a second skin he can slip on over his current one. And now he's stuck somewhere in between Korean and American. The worry is etched clear onto his face.

You smile and put your hand on Joshua's, hoping to add any kind  of comfort you can.

"You're right," Joshua says, even though you didn't actually say anything. He's eyeing a table in the back like he can obliterate it with his gaze alone. "It'll be fine."

"That's my boy." Joshua smiles again at you before tugging at his scarf and starting to stride towards the table. You settle in behind him, content with just watching for now, with letting him take this plunge first.

There are a few girls, and more than a few boys all crowded into the long booth. They're talking excitedly, books and plates and cups scattered across the table. And even though the rapid-fire Korean intimidates you (you can't keep up with a stream like that, not even in your wildest dreams), you’ve given yourself enough pep talks that the discomfort doesn’t make you want to bolt for the exit. One boy especially perking up when he catches sight of Joshua and you approaching.

" Jisoo ," he screeches, and he's shoving two or three people out of the way so he can stand. He's has to be Jeonghan, the long hair swept back into a ponytail, the dimples and the sharp jaw. ( "He's so graceful," Josh's voice had crackled over Skype. "Even when we were kids, no one could look anywhere other than Jeonghan.")  

Joshua pulls him into a hug, much to the amusement of their audience, and they thump each other on the back the way that guys do, before Jeonghan turns, his arm still around Josh's shoulders. "This is Jisoo, or Josh. We went to the same elementary school before he moved to the states. Our very own Cali Boy~"

"Shut up," Joshua says, shaking off Jeonghan's arm, a light dusting of red high on his cheeks.

The whole group starts to shift over, Jeonghan pulling Joshua down into an empty space. You swallow dryly, your throat clicking as you stand there, not sure if you should do more to announce your presence, or count this as an 'L' and slink away to order a coffee and pretend you don't exist. (A plant is right in front of that table by the bathroom. Zero visibility. Perfect.)

"Oh, hey," Joshua stands up again, tugging at your hand so that you step into the table's orbit.  Everyone quiets as they look at you. A hunk of cake falls out of one guy's mouth but he doesn't seem to notice. "This is my friend. We're both on exchange at the same university."

It's funny. You can hear the bustle of the cafe around you, but like it's through a thick sheet of plastic, muffled and distant. It's almost like no one blinks; then this one guy perks up, his eyes sparkly with mirth as he says in loud, stilted English, "Hello! Nice to meet you!" (It prompts a bit of  shoving from the girls sitting on either side of him.)

You flinch away from the loud words, hating the hot embarrassment that floods your throat, closes it. You know the guy doesn’t mean to be anything but welcoming, but it’s still a little jarring.  During orientation, English had been a saving grace, something to cling to as the ropes for getting around were explained, but it feels isolating now. The division it creates between you and the others as clear and distinct as the way the Han splits Seoul right in half.

"She speaks Korean," Joshua reprimands the other boy softly. You almost want to deny him. Your Korean always seems to fall flat with natives. He turns to you now, still speaking Korean, but a little slower than he might normally. "Come on, sit down."    

You nod shakily, and settle down next to Joshua, thankful that you aren't boxed in on all sides. The conversation picks up again, slowly, and the girls at the table are super nice, speaking to you one at a time so that you don't get too overwhelmed. (Nayoung and Yebin and Seulgi. Seulgi is the nicest, you think; she speaks with the most slowness, the most understanding. “ I have a girlfriend from Canada, her Korean was shit when she first got here.” )

The boys aren't all that bad either, after all. "This is Jihoon." He points to a shorter boy next to Seulgi, and then there's Soonyoung and Seokmin, the loud boy from earlier. They all go to a private performing arts college down the road. ("Idol wannabes," Joshua whispers under his breath; you swallow the snort that bubbles up your throat.) The others, Seungcheol and Mingyu, go to Seoul National with Jeonghan. Mingyu still has cake crumbs dusting his lips.

"I'm getting a coffee," you say, just loudly enough for Joshua and Jeonghan to hear.

"That's a good idea," Jeonghan mutters, and he straightens up, waving at Mingyu. He fishes a credit card from his back pocket and flicks it down the table to him. "Hey, maknae! Go get hyung another americano."

"You've already had, like, four," Seungcheol laughs, but he's already moving to let Mingyu pass by him.  

"Want me to come?" Joshua asks, his voice low. You shake your head, taking the opportunity to unwrap yourself from your two outer layers of clothes.

“I'll be okay, keep catching up with your long lost sweetheart." You get up to dodge the swat Joshua aims at your shoulder, Mingyu pausing when you nearly knock into him.

"Sorry," you say, rushed, in English. "Wasn't paying attention," you add quietly, switching back to Korean.

"It's fine," he says, giving a small gesture for you to go ahead. The wait for the counter is short, but it feels longer with the added stress of Mingyu hanging by your shoulder. You see him try to open his mouth a few times--obviously a talkative person--but he never seems to force the words out.

One quiet vanilla latte , please later, Mingyu leans against the counter, his fingers hooked into his belt loops. It’s more trouble than it’s worth to wrestle back to the table and then repeat the process when the buzzer goes off, so you wait with him.

“Do you like Korea?” He says after a moment. He says it so fast that you could probably ignore that he spoke at all, write it off as the whir of the coffee machines or the bustle of the staff in front of you.

“Uh, yeah,” you say. This part is the easiest. Small talk is where you live. “It’s a lot different than what I’m used to.”

Mingyu smiles softly at that. “Different is good?”

“Different is good.” You lick your lips, hesitating a bit before saying, “If you don’t try new things, you don’t grow, right?”

“Yeah,” Mingyu says. “I don’t know that I’d fly halfway across the globe to grow a little, though.”

“I’m brave, I guess,” you say. The laugh that you color the words with is hopefully more self-assured than it sounds in your ears. Brave isn’t exactly what you would call it.

Mingyu’s eyes crinkle with his smile. “Way brave,” he asserts. “I went to the States when I was fourteen for vacation. I was only there for a week and couldn’t stand it.”

“Where’d you go?” The barista slides a few iced drinks forward, and the buzzer goes off in your hand.

“San Jose,” Mingyu says, grabbing his load off the counter.

“San Jose sucks.” You’ve never been to San Jose.

Mingyu nods deeply, like this is the most right thing you could possibly say in this situation.

“Seoul is way better.” He takes a sip of vanilla latte as you make your way back to the table. “Or--have you been outside of Seoul yet?”

“Haven’t had a lot of time with classes starting up, but I want to.”

The table has gotten much quieter as you make your approach, most everyone having gotten back to studying. Mingyu waves off Seungcheol’s attempt to stand up and let him in. Seungcheol’s expression quirks a bit, but he just passes on Jeonghan’s drink and grabs his textbook back. Mingyu settles into the booth across from you.

“You should go to Anyang. It’s right outside of Seoul, but you get a totally different feel,” he says earnestly.

“Yeah and that feeling is being slowly crushed by boredom,” Jihoon says from a few spots down. Seokmin snickers.

“Anyang is not boring,” Mingyu pouts. “It’s my hometown.”

“All the more reason to never visit,” Jeonghan says. He looks like he’ll tack on another insult, but then his eyes narrow at Mingyu and the straw he’s got his lips pursed around. “Did you use my card to buy your own drink again ?”

Mingyu freezes, kind of like a cartoon, and then glances at you and smiles. “It was nice to meet you,” he says pleasantly as he jumps up and starts throwing notebooks into his backpack.

Jeonghan screeches something about refusing to fund a caffeine habit that is not his own as he tries to climb over Joshua and get to Mingyu. But Mingyu is already gone, hustling through the maze of tables towards the doors, and you laugh along with everyone else as Jeonghan continues to glare daggers at the spot Mingyu hastily vacated.  

“He was nice,” you say.

“He’s a monster ,” Jeonghan seethes.

“I’m sure,” Seulgi assures Jeonghan, but she shoots you a wink. And any lingering discomfort melts away from your chest. You’ll be just fine.

{*}{*}{*}

“You’re screwed,” Joshua deadpans from across the room.

“I don’t remember asking you,” you say from facedown on the bed. You can’t see him, but you’re eighty percent sure that Josh hasn’t looked up from his stupid graphic novel during this crisis of yours.

“You didn’t have to. It’s in my nature to make obvious comments,” Joshua quips. “If you can’t handle going out for coffee with the girls, I’m not sure how you’re going to function socially here.”

You wish beds here were softer, so you could imagine sinking deep into a literal pit of despair. You groan into the cheap quilt.

“You make a good point,” Joshua goes on, as if you’d actually said something. “They could just be inviting you out to make fun of you or embarrass you in public. But they’re too nice for that.” He pauses. “Also, you’re not the star of a B-rate Korean drama so I wouldn’t worry if I were you.”

You turn your head to glare at him through the curtain of your hair. “You’re right. If this were a B-rate Korean drama, I’d have a useless nerdy friend who was just there to be an annoying shit.”

Joshua puts a hand to his chest. “You’re words would wound me if I knew you weren’t going through a challenging character-arc.”

“Shut the fuck up.” But you drag yourself up and start looking for your bag and a fresh pair of socks. “Don’t you have somewhere to be tonight?”

Joshua looks around your little single room, his eyebrows raised. “Only spending time with my dearest friend in the whole world--” the sentimental timber of his voice breaks around a yawn. “Yeah, but Jeonghan hasn’t texted me back about where we’re meeting. So, here I will remain.”

“No,” you say, wrapping a scarf around your neck. “I’m leaving, and so are you.”

Joshua clutches his book to his chest, his eyes big. “Come on, my roommate sucks . Don’t make me go back there. I won’t even look in your underwear drawer for that long.”

He yelps when you yank him up by his collar. “ Out. ”

“Fine,” he mutters as you both slip your shoes on in the cramped entryway before the hall. “I’m telling the guys what a bitch you are. Maybe then they’ll stop asking me to set you up with literally all of them.”

“Ha ha.”

“I’m serious,” Joshua pouts as you lock the door behind you. “It’s annoying. I shouldn’t have befriended a girl before coming here.” He looks off into the distance. “Mistake number one.”

“Mistake number one,” you say, smacking him on the shoulder. “Was befriending a smart, sexy, irresistible girl. Get it straight. We’ve talked about this one.”

Joshua’s eyes go unfocused again. “Kill me,” he whispers to the hallway’s wood paneling.

“Have fun with your awesome roommate,” you say brightly as you get close to the elevator. Joshua’s dorm is on the opposite end of the floor, and he waves his hand over his head as he continues on his way.

“You’re horrible and I hate you,” he responds in the same bright tone. And he trudges onward to maybe catch his roommate talking to the super rare anime statuette he has, or making love to a sock. Weirdly enough, those are the only two off-beat things he does, but he does them--according to Joshua--literally all the time.

“Alright,” you say to yourself, stepping onto the elevator. “Let’s do this thing.”

{*}{*}{*}

Joshua finally gets a text back a few minutes later. And he nearly throws himself into his coat and shoes without so much as a backwards glance at his roommate.

Seungcheol and Jeonghan meet him at a weird red sculpture in the middle of his neighborhood fifteen minutes later, and Joshua thanks whatever gods are listening for the break in arctic temperatures when his teeth don’t chatter around his greeting. There isn’t three minutes between the high-fives and Jeonghan leading them into a seedy looking restaurant, Seungcheol shaking Josh’s shoulders and singing under his breath.

“You haven’t had makoli yet, Jisoo?” Jeonghan asks while he flips through the menu.

“Only in L.A.,” Josh admits.

“Nothing beats the stuff in the homeland though,” Seungcheol says, winking. He gives off a similar vibe to overconfident jocks back home, the kind who’s so sure that everyone will fall at their feet. But Seungcheol knocks his arm against Joshua’s in the booth good-naturedly and Joshua decides that he’s probably a step or two above those types that would shove him against the lockers in gym.  

They get two bottles of liquor to start and a simmering pot of soup to warm them up.

“So, Jisoo,” Jeonghan says, pouring out everyone’s first cup. “Been up to visit your grandma?”

He nods. “Yeah, I went last weekend. Took my friend with me.”

“I still go to her samgyupsal place all the time during breaks,” Jeonghan says, his tongue sticking out when he pokes at a floating blob of fish in the stew. “No on in Seoul can get the side dishes right like she can.” He glares at the little plates of radish on the table.

“That friend,” Seungcheol pipes up, swirling his cup. “Just a friend?”

“She’s too much of a pain in my ass for anything romantic to be going on,” Joshua says, sighing internally as he feels the conversation heading toward a familiar direction.

“Fair enough,” Seungcheol laughs, raising his cup. They all clink together and take long pulls. “One of our friends might be thinking of asking her out.”

“ Just one?” Joshua laughs. Jeonghan motions for Joshua to pour him another cup, which he does. “Everyone’s been hounding about her for a while.”

Seungcheol waves away the notion. “Everyone’s just being assholes because they can all tell Mingyu has a crush on her.”

“Mingyu…” Joshua racks his head for a moment. Ah, Mingyu. Tall, dark, almost enviably handsome. Joshua hasn’t spoken a lot with him, but he  had just assumed it was because he got all shy and demure around the foreigners in the group and...oh. Maybe he’s just shy and demure around girls he wants. “Really?”

“I know,” Jeonghan says, making a face as he swallows the remains of his cup. “He’s never had sense about girls.”

Joshua feels heat gather in his cheeks. Okay, maybe she can be annoying sometimes, and maybe he’s said some crass things about her while he was drunk, but no one else can talk about his friend like that--

Seungcheol seems to sense Joshua’s displeasure before he can figure out how to voice it, he throws a balled up tissue at Jeonghan. “Why’d you have to phrase it like that?” He turns to Joshua, his eyes apologetic. “Jeonghan’s counted as an asshole too, remember. He just means...it’s hard. Mingyu is like a puppy.” Mingyu’s towering physique flashes through Joshua’s mind’s eye and he frowns. “He gets attached real easy.”

That’s more material to frown about, but Joshua figures unless Mingyu actually does something about his little crush, he shouldn’t have to worry about it too much.  

“I hope you’re not attached to your livers,” Joshua says, eager to change the subject. “America taught me how to drink pretty well.”

“Oh,” Jeonghan crows, a glint in his eye. “Our Korean pride is on the line.” He juts his jaw over to Seungcheol, smiling. “Let’s do this.”  

{*}{*}{*}

“I can’t do this,” you say to Yebin. She can’t be more than a high school student, but she seems close with Nayoung and is thus able to tag along and make your life miserable.

Yebin throws back another soju shot like it’s water. “Come on. You’ve barely had two bottles.”

“You’re a,” the Korean word fails you with this much alcohol in your system. “Monster,” you finally say in English.

“Aw,” Seulgi coos. She’s not much better off than you. “Yebin. You broke her.”

“No,” you plant your hands on the table, not so much to stand up, but to feel grounded to something. The world tilts for a moment. “Pretty sure the soju did that.”

“It’s cute,” Nayoung says, leaning against you. “She’s so cute.”

“You’re cute too,” you drawl. Her hair is soft and silky against your throat.

“Come on guys,” Seulgi says, swatting at you. “We aren’t in Hongdae right now.”

You blink stupidly a few times. “Lesbians,” you say, somewhat delayed.

“Right,” Yebin says, cracking up against Seulgi’s side. “Can’t give all these nice boys the wrong impression.”

“Who says it’s wrong?” You wink, throwing your arm around Nayoung. She shrieks with laughter and pushes you away, both of you teetering dangerously on your stools before righting yourselves.

“I already have a girlfriend,” Nayoung tips her head back importantly, she’s slurring and barely heard over the loud rush of other customers laughing and drinking.

Seulgi rolls her eyes. “You flirting endlessly with Sooyoung does not make her your girlfriend.”

“She’s so protective,” Nayoung drunkenly whispers into your ear. “She’s got nothing on Joohyun. That girl is like a tiger. But don’t worry.” She narrows her eyes at Seulgi over the table. “Sooyoung will be mine.”

There are a few ways you envisioned this initial coffee date would play out. And ending up going to karaoke and drinking well past…well. You try to check the time on your phone but the numbers are swimming too much. It’s not an unwelcome derailment of your plans, by far.

“You guys are fun,” you say out loud. “Fun girls. I was worried. That...I don’t know. I’m glad you guys are my friends. Are we friends?”

There must be something very kicked-puppy about your look at the moment, because all three of them crowd in, laughing and pinching you to make you giggle and squirm. “Of course you’re our friend,” Seulgi says. She pours everyone another shot. “Silly girl.”

{*}{*}{*}

One drunken episode with Nayoung and the others starts to become a weekly occurrence. Well, maybe not the getting shitfaced part. Sometimes you really do just go to cafes and gab about boys or whatever girl Nayoung or Yebin are chasing at the moment. Sometimes Seokmin or Jihoon will tag along.

This time though, Mingyu comes in tow with Seulgi, which is a little surprising. You haven’t seen Mingyu outside of the big group meetings before. Some part of your brain had kind of just assumed that he was attached at the hip to Seungcheol or Wonwoo, another one of Jeonghan’s many friends. But it’s nice to see him again. You remember how kind he had seemed the first time you met him.  

“Hi! How’ve you been?” He says brightly. He was already smiling when he walked up, but it seems to it get...bigger? Like he doesn’t have a big enough face for the smile he wants to give. You could probably count all of his teeth is you had the time to do it.

After you place your coffee order, Seulgi fiddles with her bag instead of participating in the small talk that Mingyu starts up, which is unusual, but nothing that raises any red flags. The stories that Mingyu is telling take up too much of your focus for you to be concerned with much else, anyway. Mingyu seems to be the type of person that can spin anything into a happy, funny occurrence. He saw his ancient Biochem professor in the mall yesterday, and currently has at least nine theories as what he was buying (his top guess: lingerie for his mistress).

“But not, like, sexy lingerie, you know?” Mingyu says. The word ‘lingerie’ looks weird coming out of his mouth as he smiles around his straw. He has one slightly longer canine, and it flashes when he smiles. Which, is to say, constantly. “I don’t think Professor Oh would know sexy if it bit him in the ass.”

You blink at him, a little weirded out that a strange warmth of affection is spreading through your abdomen. Is it normal to be endeared to someone when your first full-length conversation is about the kind of underwear his old teachers prefer?

“He doesn’t deserve to have a mistress if he can’t even buy her nice things,” you say.

“That’s what I’m saying ,” Mingyu says, leaning back in his chair like you’ve solved a murder.

“Oh no ,” Seulgi’s voice cuts into the air like a chainsaw, loud and unexpected, making you jump a little. Seulgi doesn’t notice though, looking at her phone with a crease between her eyebrows. “My lab partner’s computer got a bug. I have to go meet him to get notes for our project.”

“Oh,” Mingyu’s whole body deflates a little, like it’s his problem to bear. “I’m sorry. Will your project be okay?” Seulgi makes a noise in the back of her throat instead of answering.

You shift in your seat, thinking dismally that your coffee has only just come. “Do you want me to come with--”

“ No. ” Seulgi stops shifting her bag onto her shoulder. “No. It’s near my house anyways. You should stay with--um, yeah. Just stay. No big deal.”

“...Okay.” You give her an odd look, but take a sip of your coffee and decide to let it go this time. She’s been acting strange since you got here. She must be really stressed about this project.

“So.” Mingyu fiddles with his straw wrapper for a second, Seulgi’s departure like a needle scratch to a record. He grapples to find another rhythm to latch onto. “Have you seen any Korean movies?”

“Nothing recent,” you say. “Subtitles take a while to come out.”

“Oh,” Mingyu nods deeply, like the motion does something to make the information solidify in his head. “Well, there’s this art house that does that with Korean films really fast. A lot of foreign English teachers live in my neighborhood.”

“In Anyang?” You say, a smile playing at the corner of your mouth with the way he brightens.

“You remembered,” he pretends to gush, fanning himself. “I’m touched. But no, near Sindorim. I have a one room. My grandma left me a lot of money for my university fees.”

You nod. Nearly everyone else you know from around Seoul lives with their parents. “Cool.”

“So, we should go.” Mingyu says, leaning forward a little. “It’d be so cool. And next time we can go to an American movie with Korean subtitles!”

“You should print us out a schedule.”

“I know you’re kidding, but I totally would.” Mingyu stands up abruptly. “Let’s go.”

“What-- Now? ” You reel back in your seat for a bit, giving him a look, up and down.

“Yeah?” He throws his coat, drawing eyes from a few girls (he’s wearing pants that cling to his legs, and they’re whispering behind their hands and shooting curious looks at you). “Do you not want to? We totally don’t have to.” And Mingyu’s expression wipes clear of all enthusiasm, his eyes going big and round and questioning as he sits down again. The contrast is a little jarring, but you realize he’s just listening for a yes or no before he proceeds, not rushing to convince you of something you don’t want to do. (It figures you’d have to travel the globe before you came across a boy that was genuine.)

“You really want to?” you say hesitantly. “With me?”

“Yeah!” Mingyu says, his legs bouncing. “I mean, it’s Saturday. Unless you have something else you have to do later.”

“No,” you trail off. You’re just surprised that Mingyu doesn’t have anything planned for later. He’s the kind of handsome-cute-happy combination that reminds you of people back home that were always swimming in dates. But, if he’s offering… “Let’s go, then.”

{*}{*}{*}

Mingyu is weird. He’s weird in that sort of too-good-to-be-true way. You catch yourself watching him out of the corner of your eye for most of the night to see if he’ll slip up, like maybe pull out a pack of cigarettes or kick a dog.

He doesn’t though. But you realize throughout the night that Mingyu isn’t perfect, either. He chews his popcorn with his mouth open (obnoxious), he has this...laugh (annoying), and he admits that he prefers pizza cold (blasphemous).

The next time the two of you hang out, at a cafe before Seungcheol and Joshua get out of class for the day, you find out that he has a retainer, but refuses to wear it (lazy). You learn a week later that once he wore the same football jersey to practice for a week straight (gross). He once told a girl he was moving to Guatemala when he was twelve, rather than outright reject her confession.

“What did you do when she realized you hadn’t moved?”

“She never found out,” Mingyu says, looking both ashamed and like he’s trying to hold back a laugh. “I hid in closets whenever I saw her coming until we graduated middle school.”

“You kept up a lie for two years because you were scared of a girl?”

“She tried to kiss me when she confessed!” Mingyu defends himself. “My first kiss. No way was I gonna waste it on Min Jinhee.”

“That predator,” you say sullenly, fighting to keep a straight face as Mingyu whines, shaking his shoulders. “Who did you actually waste your first kiss on?”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Mingyu,” you say softly. He peeks up through his lashes, still pouting, still making your stomach twist and burn in a way that shouldn’t be enjoyable. “Do you even know where Guatemala is on a map?”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it !”

{*}{*}{*}

Someone to the left of you in Korean class fucks up the verb exception for the fourth time when your phone vibrates against your thigh. You’ll be bored for a while, because Teacher Choi gets a certain kind of long winded when something just isn’t sticking, so you open up your messenger app as discreetly as possible.

Pepsi Cola: soonyoung is  having a showcase tmrw night wanna go?

You: we have to go all the way across the river? ㅜㅜ

Pepsi Cola: unless you kno another way to get there

You: ur paying for the taxi if we miss the last trains

Pepsi Cola: our friends are drunk heathens of course we’re going to miss the last train

Pepsi Cola: we’re splitting it and that’s final.

You: fine

“Perhaps,” Professor Choi’s voice is suddenly very loud and very directed at you. You peek up sheepishly. “If you have time to talk to your friends, you’ve mastered all the indirect speech exceptions.”

“Well…” you crack your best, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth smile. “You said mastered. But I didn’t say that.”

Professor Choi laughs at that, but still assigns you extra worksheets at the end of class.

{*}{*}{*}

Jeonghan said that the idol wannabe squad went to a performing arts college, but he didn’t mention it was a K-Arts rival school. The auditorium that you walk into Thursday night probably cost the same as the new football stadium at your home campus. There are high, traditionally vaulted ceilings, but sleek silver patterns cutting along the walls and traveling the length of the floor. The chairs look just as modern but are actually a deep grey velvet. You nearly sink through one as you settle in between Joshua and Mingyu.

“Excited?” Mingyu whispers. It’s almost hard to hear him, one hushed whisper among a thousand other hushed-whispering voices.  

“Of course. I love,” you glance down at the pamphlet Seokmin had thrust into your hands, “traditional fusion dancing.” You frown, the Konglish title blocky as is falls off your tongue. “What the fuck is this?”

“Death,” Jeonghan says forebodingly. His penchant for dramatics is really quite something: he’s climbed almost into Joshua’s lap to get close enough to but into your conversation, his face serene while Josh is blushing up a storm and trying unsuccessfully to wiggle him off.

“Death,” you repeat blandly.  

“Twenty-five dance majors mixing traditional Korean elements with...literally anything. Jazz, hip-hop, salsa. I heard Soonyoung even say that one girl is planning to fuse pansori with a Line Dance.”

You feel yourself wince at that, and you turn back to Mingyu. “This sounds like it could go very, very badly.”

The worry you feel doesn’t seem to register to him. Mingyu’s lips spread into a simple grin. “But dancing is fun! And Soonyoung is a genius. His will be the best.” He states it as a fact.

“You’re a good friend,” you mutter as the house lights start to dim. Mingyu hums, and you ignore how you can nearly feel the vibration of it from him sitting so close.

“No,” he shakes his head, but even in the scarce lighting, you can see the white flash of his smile. “I really just have amazing friends.”

What did we do to get a friend like Kim Mingyu , you wonder, shaking your head as lights go up on stage, and the show begins. What do I have to do to keep him?

{*}{*}{*}

So, it wasn’t necessarily death (although you could have really gone without seeing that line dance performance). Soonyoung’s performance was, as promised, the best. Or, the most interesting in a series of really weird, ‘creative’ sequences.

“It was a metaphor for how traditional Korean life has a tendency to weave into modern life,” Soonyoung is explaining, animatedly and a little more drunkenly than normal. The group was quick to move to the second round after a celebratory barbecue outing, and now the somaek is flowing and everyone is laughing. Soonyoung is practically glowing under the praise from everyone, and you feel a pang for doubting him for even a second.

“He’s so good.” Josh is bright red and leaning on you heavily. “Like, did you see how he moved ? Like with his feet?”

“Yeah,” you say, patting his head absently.  Seulgi looks at the pair of you and giggles before going back to flirting with Seungcheol. “His feet are so cool.”

“The coolest ,” Joshua insists. He sways away from you, and blinks up earnestly. “Like, do you know what I would give to move like that? I’d give up my firstborn.”

His dedication is admirable, but Joshua is so uncoordinated that his firstborn would probably only get him the ability to walk down a particularly banged-up sidewalk completely intact.

“You ready to go home?” you ask. You don’t necessarily want to head out, not when this Chinese guy that came with Jihoon and Soonyoung is chugging soju straight from the bottle like it’s nothing over in the corner. The end result is something you’d rather witness firsthand than hear through text. But if Josh The Lightweight needs to be tucked in, it is your duty.

“Yeah,” Joshua says, and he opens his arms, like a child waiting to be picked up by their parents. “Hold me.”

“Um,” you lean back a little, hoping that someone will swoop in out of nowhere and just--

“I’ll get him,” someone says from the side. And you turn, expecting to see Jeonghan at the ready, but it surprises you when Seungcheol, who’s been flirting with literally all of the girls in the group tonight, starts wrapping one of Joshua’s arms around the breadth of his shoulders, and hoists him out of his seat.

“Are you sure?” You halfway stand, a protective flare rising as you see Joshua cuddling into Seungcheol’s side. Seungcheol doesn’t seem to mind, but he’s a relative stranger, and Joshua...Joshua has been alright, so far in Korea. But he’s drunk and might cling too hard or say something off , and you don’t want him to ruin anything he’s set himself up with here. He doesn’t deserve that.

“Of course. I live like, four blocks from here. I’ll send him back to the dorms once he’s functioning,” Seungcheol says with a wink.

Your gut is still unsettled, but you nod slowly. “Tell him to text me when he wakes up.”

Seungcheol gives you a little salute, and starts maneuvering Joshua towards the exit.  

You try to shake away the unease and turn back into the main conversation that happening on the other side of the table. It seems like it’s just a drinking game that’s dissolved into a screaming match.

Mingyu is next to you, so you lean a little closer to him, and it makes him flinch and then laugh as he turns his head. His eyes are bright as he laughs. “Oh it’s you!”

“It’s me,” you stick out your tongue at him. “What’s going on?” The flow of Korean is too fast and too loud, crashing against your ears like cymbals.

Mingyu’s eyes go dull as he focuses on what everyone is saying for a moment. “Seokmin is accusing Jihoon of cheating at bangchib and I’m pretty sure Nayoung just said that Eubin is crying in the ladies.”

“Got it.” You take another swig of your evil mixture of beer. “Are you drunk?”

Mingyu tilts his head a bit. “Yeah. Not too bad though. Watch this,” and he carefully crosses his eyes and taps his nose. “See?”

“You’re the picture of sobriety.”

“I know!” Mingyu says. “But I think all they’re going to do is get like, royally fucked up at this point. Do you wanna see if anyone wants to go to an arcade or something?”

As it turns out, Wonwoo and his girlfriend are just as desperate to leave the swelling throng of your friends. You leave a crumbled fifty-thousand won note in Soonyoung’s bag, just in case they need it.

“I feel so bad for the owner,” Wonwoo snorts, looking back without much pity at all. “They’re going to be a nightmare to kick out.”

“We should have stayed,” his girlfriend chides. “Remember that time you--”

“Nope.” Wonwoo immediately flushes a dark red, looking straight ahead like he can will the arcade closer with his mind. “We don’t talk about that.”

She rolls her eyes, turning to you and switching to English. “Before we started dating, he recorded a drunk public confession in the street and got hit by a car.”

Wonwoo makes a twisted, almost animal-like sound of agony. “Stop. Please.”

“A car? ” You repeat, just to be sure what she said wasn’t distorted by the groans of indignation that are coming from Wonwoo’s direction.

“Tapped, more like,” she amends. “But yeah, basically. Like, when you see the video, he lets out the cutest little yelp and then he’s hitting the pavement like a rock. I was hooked.”

Wonwoo has given up whining, and is determinedly looking forward, no emotion at all on his face.

His girlfriend leans over and nudges you. “Do you want to know what he was doing for the confession?”

“More than anything,” you whisper, thinking that this is the most embarrassed you’ve ever seen Wonwoo. Maybe the most you’ve embarrassed you’ve seen a boy, period.

“He danced to--”

“No,” Wonwoo interjects, pulling her forward, by the arm. “No more English for you. Not allowed.”

His girlfriend laughs, but complies, letting him drag her forward a few steps so she can pet at his head, managing to be both apologetic and teasing. Wonwoo’s ears are still red, but he seems to get over it quickly, and leans into her touch easily.

“They’re good together,” you say, glancing over at Mingyu. He startles, like he hadn’t been paying attention to the entire exchange.

“Oh, them? They’re the best.”

“I don’t want to be rude but...how’d they meet?”

Mingyu smiles softly, warmth in his eyes that seems like it’d be perfect to fight off the remaining early April chill. “No, it’s okay. They get that a lot, being...you know. She did a summer internship here, and Wonwoo was taking summer classes to catch up because of his service. And, well, they can tell it better than I can.” He shifts, tugging at his scarf. “But, long story short they didn’t let it end once she went back to the States. She came back to teach English, just to see if it could work.” He seems to falter on what to say next; he shrugs lamely. “So far it has.”

“That’s so sweet,” you say, eyes dropping to the way Wonwoo has snaked an arm around her waist.

“Yeah, gives the rest of us hope.”

You nudge him playfully in the side. “What? That you can all bag a foreign girl?”

Mingyu laughs, bright and loud enough that Wonwoo turns back to scowl at him. “No. No, just that we can find something that strong. One day.”

Strong enough to last years. Strong enough to cross oceans. A pull that you can’t ignore. It sounds like something out of a cheesy romance movie or one of those outlandish YA books.

You nod at Mingyu. There’s a certain kind of idealism in thinking that way, one that you’re not sure you could ever pull off. But, looking at them, and looking back to Mingyu--at his cold-flushed cheeks and the way that he’ll start humming every idol group song that plays from store speakers--you can see the appeal.  \

{*}{*}{*}

The next afternoon, Joshua looks like a zombie suffering from PTSD, his eyes hollow and shoulders twitching every time a worker brushes past your table at a little cafe down the street from the dorms.

“How was your night?” You say tentatively. Joshua hungover is usually funny to tease, like poking a grumpy teddy bear with a stick. But he looks...almost traumatized. The slow, cold feeling from when you handed him over to Seungcheol comes back, and suddenly you can’t eat the bread in front of you. “Did something happen?”

“Hm?” Joshua blinks, and seems to realize how weird he’s being. He shakes some of the discomfort off his features, which is a relief. “Oh, uh. Just some heavy stuff.”

“Did Seungcheol sit on you or something?”

Joshua startles, color coming back to his face in way of his blooming cheeks. “What? No. Just, I don’t know. I think I might have drank absinthe or something last night.”

“It was that bad?” You say in sympathy. Something about Korean liquor is--in a word-- disgusting when it comes to hangovers.

“...I,” Joshua pauses, and then seems guilty that he’s holding back. You brace yourself, because usually Joshua will spill anything. Anytime. You grip the mug of your steaming so hard you think it might break off in your hand. “I think I hallucinated that Seungcheol tried to kiss me,” Joshua whispers, his brows joined together in genuine confusion. Some part of your brain melts.

“ Seungcheol ,” you repeat, little more than a whoosh of air. Your fingers relax, more out of shock than anything. “Super-straight Seungcheol.” There’s no opened, question-like element to that sentence. (This is the same Seungcheol that once smacked Soonyoung rather than play the Pepero game with him?)  

“Yeah, thanks for the alliteration,” Joshua says miserably. “Now I’ll never forget his orientation.”

And the way he hangs his head the slightest bit is heartbreaking. “Josh,” you say softly, leaning forward to grab his hand. He squeezes back weakly. “Do you like him?”

Joshua bristles, but doesn’t let go of your hand. “I don’t know. I thought...I thought Jeonghan might be,” he stares at the ceiling for a second. Your heart shudders when the light catches the tears sitting on the surface, pulls painfully. “But he’s not. And now...I don’t know if I could handle it if I let myself like Seungcheol and he turns out to be the same.”

“Okay,” you nod, fighting to keep your lip from trembling. Joshua has never once complained about being gay in Korea. And it’s not the easiest thing. Other exchange students are more open about it, will flaunt it without abandon because Korea is temporary for them. They can have fun on Homo Hill and then go back to wherever they came from after six months. Joshua has family here. Friends. A chance to work here after college. And it’s shitty, but who he loves and who knows about it can really fuck everything up. “If you want to talk about it more, I’m here.”

“I know.” He smiles softly. “But I’m...I’m really hungover to be honest. I’d rather not add another headache to the mix.”

“Fair enough. You tried to get me to carry you out of the restaurant last night.”

“I know my white knights when I see them.” Joshua sighs, and he still looks dead, but maybe now it’s more of a mopey, cute-vampire dead rather than a recently-unearthed-corpse dead. “So how was your night?”

“Went to the arcade with Mingyu and Wonwoo and company.”

“His girlfriend is cool,” Joshua says neutrally. You don’t think that you’ve ever seen them talking, but it’s Americans looking out for Americans. She’s not cringey and she knows Korean. She’s cool.

“Yeah. She won Wonwoo a Goblin plushie.”

“Did you win anything for Mingyu?” Joshua says over the lip of his coffee. His words are careful, and purposeful in the way that they only are when he’s trying really hard not to make fun of you.

“Yeah, I gave him a Wartortle and a handjob in the alley.”

Joshua literally spews his latte, his eyes bulging. Other customers look at him in disgust. (You make a note to change his contact name to ‘nilla Latte. ) “Are you serious? ”

“No,” you shrug, an immense feeling of satisfaction radiating from your stomach at his narrowed glare.

“I hate it when you do that,” he mutters, and his airway must not have cleared all the way, so he goes into another little coughing fit.

“Mingyu probably wouldn’t mind.” You grin at him, and he pushes away from the table, still gagging and motioning towards the bathroom.

Something hot settles in your stomach at the thought though. Of Mingyu. Of doing something like to him. He’d been nice, and maybe a little flirty last night. He gripped your shoulders as you worked a claw machine, teasing and squeezing at you in an effort to screw you up. (It hadn’t worked. You really did win him that Wartortle.) And you shared some soondae at a food cart when the whole group was sober and watching for the trains to start up again.

“Ah,” Mingyu said, holding a huge slice of sausage, speared through with a toothpick. “Eat it.”

“I can feed myself,” you said. But logic like that doesn’t really work with Korean guys. Mingyu knows you can, but he wanted to do it for you anyway, and his soft-eyed look and pouting lip made it nearly impossible to ignore him. There goes sixty years of feminist progress you thought as you tugged the piece off with your teeth. The soondae is good. Hearty and salty, and Mingyu even slipped a piece of liver onto the toothpick.  

The smile that didn’t leave his face for the rest of the night (morning?) was worth it.

So, yeah. Imagining holding Mingyu, touching him like that, of pushing him into a wall , is kind of hot. He’d probably bite his lip to stay quiet, but if he couldn’t his noises could probably be loud, excited, deep. He’d shake, every bit of him would vibrate if you touched him that way. His big hands wouldn’t know what to do, and they might dig into the wall, or dig into your arms. And his eyes would be the worst--if he opened them, maybe he’s an eyes-squeezed-shut kind of guy--all big and pleading and thankful in the best way possible. He’d--

“Stop drooling,” Joshua’s voice cut through the air, making you blink up at him. He looks better now, but his face is still a little red from coughing. “We’re in public. You animal.”

“You don’t even know--”

“You know,” he interrupts, sitting down and pulling up a video on his phone (which means that he’s about to stop talking about this. He’s going to get the last word.) “In our group of genius friends, you guys are probably the dumbest.”

{*}{*}{*}

Mingyu confesses on one of the first days in spring where the weather is nice enough for you to forego a jacket for the first time in two months. Joshua says that in two weeks, the cherry blossoms will start to fall, and the group will take a trip to Yoido to go to a festival and take pictures. Mingyu should have waited until then, if he wanted to be dramatic. And it seems that that’s what he’s going for. He’s got a sack of take-out from a famously delicious (and cheap) kimbap place, and Wartortle’s head is poking out of the top of the bag, too.

Well, it certainly seems like a confession. You’re not too sure. But Mingyu doesn’t do subtlely all that well.  

“Are you busy?”

“No,” you say, fingers twisting into your sweater. “You texted me. We made plans.”

Mingyu ducks his head, and for a guy who says he’s going to be a doctor one day, he’s kind of dumb. (Why does Joshua have to be right about everything?) “Yeah I just...sorry. I’m not good at this.”

“This?” you prompt, and it’s kind of mean, to tease when he’s struggling. But the warm, happy, calm feeling you get around Mingyu is intensifying about a hundred times over right now. You feel like you’re about to slide right out of your skin with nerves, or excitement, or both. (Tease him or kiss him?)

“Um, I like you.” Mingyu says. “Like, um. Like a lot. And I tried not to, honestly. I know you’re....you’re not here, uh permanently. But I--I talked to Wonwoo-hyung. He said I’d be stupid to let that stop us from being happy.”

You pause. The cherry blossoms are weeks from falling, a week from budding. But in your head, it might as well be snowing blossoms in this park two streets from your dorm. A street half a world away from home. With a boy that makes it feel like home anyway.

“Are you?” you ask him. Mingyu’s smile is soft and questioning. “Are you happy? When you’re with me?”

Mingyu nods, his mouth morphing into that grin that seems too big and too small for his face all at once. “I’m the happiest,” he insists. He started out this whole thing a good ten feet from you, but now he’s right in front of you. You look around, and noticed that you moved too, the tree you’d been leaning against when he arrived a good distance away. It’s inevitable. A pull.

“Good,” you whisper, and the smile you give him doesn’t compare to his own, but you’re trying. You’ll try. “Me too.”

{*}{*}{*}

[Five months later]

Joshua looks like he’s trying not to cry as he goes around, picking up the last bits of his stuff. He and you have been sharing this tiny one-room since Seokmin went on a trip to Europe with his parents. It’s cramped, and the neighbors give you weird looks (which is understandable, a boy and a girl living together with no bands around their fingers) but it let you stay here for a few more months after school let out.

Joshua leaves tomorrow morning, and your plane is a few hours after that. And then it’s over, you suppose. There won’t be any more racist club owners or waiters sneering at your pronunciation. No more odd looks on the subway in the provincial neighborhoods. No more drunk creeps lumbering over to “practice English” with you. No more midnight rushes to grab the last train, or days spent lazily studying or chatting in cafes. No more street food or pounding music in dance clubs. No more Seulgi or Yebin or Soonyoung or Joshua or Mingyu.

Something feels empty near your chest. And you’d say it was your heart, but you can feel it thumping in your ears.

“You’ll visit me, in California right?” Joshua says. Everyone said goodbye at dinner tonight. But you’re not sure how to feel about it. Everyone knows that Joshua is coming back (he killed the internship he got at the end of the semester), and everyone is assuming you’re coming back too. Joshua and you came together, you’re leaving together, you’ll return together. Right?

“I’m not sure,” you told Joshua, throat clogged with tears, about two weeks ago. His internship had just offered him a position in their Daegu office after he graduated. “What if I only get job offers back home? What if...what if this is it?”

“Then it’s it,” Joshua said, not unkindly. He patted your hair, smoothed it away from your forehead. “But it’s something that happened to you. No one can take it away from you. And these losers won’t quit being your friend just because you’re 10,000 kilometers away.”

What about Mingyu, you’d wanted to ask. How can I just leave him? But you didn’t. Joshua was still sorting out the whole Seungcheol situation. He had the time though. They could try again, maybe, when he came back.

“I’m already seeing if my mom wouldn’t be totally pissed if I blew off work for the first week of Winter Break to come to LA,” you assure Joshua.

Joshua gasps. “Your work ethic is atrocious.”

“Say the kid that showed up hungover twice to his super important internship.”

“All of the interns did, at least once,” he defends.

“On the first week?”

“Like I said,” he turns quickly to resume his efforts to close his last suitcase. His winter coat is catching on the zipper. “When is Mingyu stopping by?”

You cock your head to the side. “How did you--”

“Young lovers,” Joshua croons. “No way he’d going to let you leave without cornering you one last time, demanding that you wait for him, that he’ll do the same.”

“You’ve been watching dramas with Seungkwan again.”

Joshua shrugs. “What can I say? The kid has impeccable taste.”

You’re saved from rolling your eyes too hard when there’s a knock on your door. Joshua raises his eyebrows, as if to say see? I know everything and you make yourself feel marginally better by throwing a pillow at him.

Mingyu’s smiling, but just barely, when you open the door. It doesn’t look good on him, like when the sun is weak and watery in the winter.

You invite him in, and Joshua is kind enough to clamp him on the shoulder and then say he’s going to go meet Jeonghan at the bar down the street.

Mingyu settles into the couch, and you sit next to him. Normally, you’d have no problem sitting heavily into his lap, sparking a playful fight, wrestling and tickling and kissing until you're curled into his side like a kitten, your head tucked under his chin. It doesn’t feel right to do that now, though. The air is too serious, a little too morbid.

“Are you all packed?” Mingyu says emptily. He’s looking that suitcases and duffle bags littering the ground like they’re bombs just waiting to explode in his face. You wait for a second, just to see if one of them started ticking.

“Yeah.” You nod, your head feeling empty. “Are you...are you okay?”

Mingyu snorts, soft and weak. “Not really. But, I can’t really do anything about it.” You nod again, just to do something other than sit there.

“I,” you say, and you have to clear your throat so that the words come easier. “I’m going to miss you.”

Mingyu closes his eyes tight, and you hate it. He’s never looked like this, like he’s in actual pain. “Are you going to come back?”

“If I can,” you start, but Mingyu does something he hardly ever does and puts his hand on your knee to make you stop talking.

“No,” he shakes his head, and open his eyes to look at you. “You’re either going to find a way to come back...or you won’t. 'If’ won’t work for me. I can’t--I can’t love you this much and not have a guarantee. I need,” he blinks quickly a few times. “I can’t let you do this to me.”

“Mingyu…” You say, not on a sigh, not like you’re about to let him down, but in wonder. In awe. Mingyu...Mingyu’s never said he loves you. You can tell, sometimes, when he fixes you breakfast and will draw patterns into your skin and will refill your subway card for you. But he’s never said it. “Mingyu you love me?”

“Duh,” he laughs, wiping his eyes with the end of his long t-shirt. He’s purposefully not looking at you, but you can see the blush of his dark skin. “Of course I love you.”

“But...you want to break up?”

“What?” Mingyu looks like you punched him. “No. I don’t want to break up. But, honey I will. I can’t be here, waiting like a smuck if you say we can make it work and then you don’t come back. I won’t stop waiting. I’m like that. And then I won’t recover.” His eyes are pleading. “You can’t do that to me. It’s not fair.”

It’s not fair...because he loves you. He loves you too much, he loves you so much he’s willing to end it here, because it’ll break him if you say you’ll come back and you don’t.

Something solidifies in your gut. There are a million ways that this could go wrong. You could file the wrong paperwork for a visa or not get the credentials in time or not find a job period . But those scenarios pale in comparison to never finding your way back to this boy.

“How did you know?” you’d asked Wonwoo’s girlfriend, a few months ago. Wonwoo and Mingyu were off playing darts in an American-themed bar. “How’d you know you’d uproot your whole life for a boy?”

She’d smiled into her glass, but ruefully, like she’s remembering a few things she’d rather not.

“You’d probably think it’s a little silly. I left...not everything. But close to everything. For him. And don’t get me wrong, I know how old-fashioned it seems. My friends back home, my parents, they didn't understand. They thought I could find a perfectly good guy in the states. But it’s hard for him, too. His dad and brother like me, but his mom doesn’t. She’s still trying to get him to go on blind dates with nice Korean girls.”

“So--”

“How? That’s what you asked, right? How did I know? I’ll tell you the truth.” She gulps down the rest of her beer, her eyes on the back of Wonwoo’s head. “I never knew. I still don’t know. We could go up in flames the second I think about going back home, or his mom becomes too convincing for him to ignore. All I know is that the happiest I’ve ever been, is when I’m with him. And I didn’t want to give that up.”

You’d thought she was kind of selfish, back then. But you understand it, now. Or you’ve come to understand it, over the last few months.

Mingyu is the brightest thing in your life, and he’s said in good faith that your his. Maybe it is old-fashioned, or too idealistic, or certifiably insane.

“I love you too.”

Mingyu’s breath rushes out of him in a great sigh, and he seems to literally sink into the couch. “That’s...that’s good.”

“Good?” you giggle, still recovering from the great mental debate you’d just finished up after literally months of push and pull.

“Do you know how stressed I’ve been over the last few weeks?”

“You?” you shove him. “I’m about to go back to a country I’m not even sure is my home anymore. I just decided to move half-way across the world for you.”

“Yeah,” Mingyu says. “But you’re like the strongest person I know. You could’ve handled anything.” You could’ve handled leaving me, and starting over , is left unsaid in the air around you. But you won’t. You decided, just now. And there isn’t a sticky, cloying feeling of guilt or regret after you made the decision. Just Mingyu sitting there in a pile of happy-relieved-ness is enough for you to probably never regret loving him, and promising this.

Promising forever.

Or, at least, the foreseeable future. (You’re still not the hopeless romantic that either Seulgi or Joshua wish you were.)

Mingyu spends a an hour or so just talking about normal things, nuzzling your neck. You let him inside you one last time before this long separation (and if Joshua gives you shit for fucking on the couch, you can always threaten to tell Seokmin about the huge lube stain you found and had to clean yourself). It’s nice, and slow, and Mingyu says he loves you a lot through it, which is nice and kind of makes it even more special. But you try not to attach much meaning behind it than that. It won’t be the last time.

When he gasps after you clench around him on purpose, it won’t be the last.

You’ll have plenty of times to memorize the way he bites his lip when he tries to go harder, or faster.

He’s always liked it when you get on top, and your hips will know bruises from his fingertips again and again (and again).

“I love you,” you say, just to remind him, when he finally has to head to the door before Joshua gets back. It doesn’t hurt, or feel like you’re trying to say good-bye in a roundabout way. You just love him.

“I love you too,” he says giddily. He has work tomorrow, and couldn’t get the hours rearranged to take you to the airport. That hurt, when he told you, but it doesn’t now. Not after tonight. “Have a safe flight.”

“Okay,” you suck on your teeth, and debate kissing him for a second before losing to yourself and kissing him, on the cheek this time. It’s his favorite. (Well, second favorite, but you’re not trying to be vulgar right now.) “See you soon, Mingyu.”

He has to press his lips together to avoid smiling, and he fails, like he usually does. (There’s another thing to never have to remember, to always look forward to seeing: that smile.)

“See you soon.”

{*}{*}{*}

Joshua leaves first. He sprang for a Korean Air ticket on his way back, and you try not to cry when you hug him. You already told him everything that happened with Mingyu, and he’s not crying. He’s ecstatic. He can’t wait until nine months are up and he’s boarding another plane.

“I love you,” you say, only slightly muffled by his shirt. “It’ll be different, going back. After all this.”

“Yeah,” Joshua nods, pulling back and bopping you on the nose. “But some things won’t change. I promise.”

He gets called to board and you make your way back over to your gate. There are still a few hours until you leave, but you power off your phone after sending a few last messages. You buy a thick book from a newsstand and make it about a hundred pages in by the time you stop to hand over your ticket and settle into your seat.

The plane ride coming to Korea felt like it lasted years , but you sleep through half of it, and watch a few American and Korean movies for the last half, and then you’re back.

You’re back, and the air is the same, but different, and you’re mom is beaming, but her hair is different.

You connect to the airport wifi when you power your phone back on, and there are already a flood of notifications. Instagram pictures from Seulgi and Yebin and Seokmin, all posting food and screenshots of club facebook accounts and tagging you in the comments. “For when you get back!!! More to follow.” Kakao is full, with everyone wishing you a good year, and to hurry back. Wonwoo sends a few pictures of sad puppies, along with the text “he already misses you -_-”

Mingyu has about fourteen message notifications next to his name.

11:46 pm I love you!!!! Wear your seatbelt xoxo

12:54 am If you watch Get Out on the plane, don’t spoil the ending

12:55 am I mean it.

3:34 am Wonwoo took me out for chicken. I think he think’s i’m depressed…

3:40 am Don’t ever tell him i’m acting sad so that he’ll buy me food

6:15 am I started sniffling and he bought me bingsoo this is the greatest

6:16 am I miss you~

Your mom tries to play cool, but she’s stroking your hair like she hasn’t seen you in decades as you wait for the parking lot trolley to take you to the car. “Who’s that?”

“Ah, someone,” you say. “I’ll tell you later.”

She nods, and your phone buzzes again in your hand, like Mingyu knows you’re there.

10:10 am Wonwoo says Oh My Girl are flops. Is he deaf or stupid: discuss

Joshua was right (Sadly. Inevitably), you think as you try to stop the smile forming and start typing back a response.

Some things won’t change.

the end 

uh, wow. i miss korea lol. all those things that reader misses happened to me too (and i definitely don't miss drunk creeps asking me to 'practice' with them at 3am). I actually based wonwoo's girlfriend completely on me, lol, except i never had the pleasure of finding a boo to wait for me until i get back to korea for my teaching gig. i just love wonwoo very much. and writing this fic made me love mingyu a lot too. fun fact: josh's chat name changes with each beverage he spews. also: i'm planning on expanding this fic into a series and giving josh and seungcheol their own story, and maybe doing some background drabbles for wonwoo/oc so look out for that come at me here, because I love talking to you guys and getting your feedback  thank you for reading!!

[myowndeliverance-blog]

Breakfast in Hong Kong

Wong Yee LeeBreakfast in hang KongTravel thingamajig | be authorized 2, 2006All people in the nature know the importance of eating early meal and whole country get their old breakfast for its people. English nation have their fried eggs, beans, rasher and mushrooms. Pakistan nation have their chapattis. fmovies people have their belfry or congee. If someone happens to come to visit thong Kong, one can have any group of morning meal one desires. Because of Hong Kong's inborn nature, one bottle find exemplary congee chain everywhere in Hong Kong. Congee get with contrasting ingredients. You can have congee with minced pork, with pac's stomach and intestines, with thousand year old nucleus and sour pork meat, with company and crumble beef and pig's coating (people signal it borts congee for it was used to be vacant only on boats), and many others. It is one's excellent to have a crock of congee with a pair of deep stir-fried breads fast together, or deep stir-fried bread enveloped with rye noodles. conceding that you prohibition like to have anything deep browned for breakfast, you can have congee with fried noodles only. This way of brunch may show common betwixt us but may be difficult to be confirmed by someone who comes from the west. My husband is one of those who finds it difficult to understand how people bucket have something so hot for brunch in a place with the cold over 30 degree centigrade. Of program if you don't elegant anything so traditionallly Chinese, one bottle also find bread and butter in Hong Kong for breakfast. To me, the perfect option is to have breakfast in one of those brisk food kind Chinese drink restaurants. the particular places embargo only bid tea. fly fact, family can appreciate all category of picnic from initial in the morning safe late in the night. Usually in these places, people package have many combinations of breakfasts as you want. My maximum favourite would be the combination of bread and butter, hot dog in omelette, a bowl of admixture noodles face with Chinese salted truck and pork slab cubes, and finally finished with a cup of either drink or coffee. This set of brunch would outlay about HK$20. Then one can animation to trial feeling sufficient with cuisine of twain the westward and Japanese styles. in the process of you potency have known, efficiency and convenience are what hung Kong society value. actual often we don't have the past to enjoy a big meal related that. swank this case, we would forage innermost the icebox and notice what we can find there in the morning. Fried rice left bygone from the night before dinner can do be one good preferred for breakfast. Or everything you assume which be allowed be additionally heavy to start the morning with can be acceptable to us hog Kong people. I hushed remember that one morn last month after the Mid-autumn feast when every family was flooded with boxes of mooncakes, a colleague of mine instruct me that she had eaten a whole immense mooncake for breakfast equitable because she had further many of them at home. I am clear for those who notice how fattening and sugary a mooncake is can imagine what tolerance one must have if he can gulp a mooncake in one go. substance Tags: hung Kong, profound Fried previously mentioned article was produced by Asia Dragon. Visit America at www.asiadragon.co.uk where you will boast authentic Korean furniture, along with Indian furniture, Chinese goods plus Korean rugs, silky furnishings and home dcor ideas. Our Asian couch and family furnishings are available in both classical & current styles. without help also item calligraphy, byzantine art and ornaments, byzantine dresses, tone accessories, and Japanese kimonos.

[bestpancetta-blog]

Easy to  Make Bacon and Pancetta at Home

Curing meat is the reason people could stay put when there was nothing to develop, execute or take. It is the means by which champions and pioneers endured while they ventured to the far corners of the planet.

In any case, the cooler and the advanced nourishment industry — with its jars, plastic sacks and chemicals — have made the normal home cook apprehensive of this most basic and valuable sustenance arrangement.

There is no justifiable reason purpose behind this: All you truly require is salt. Also, the outcome? Malcolm, my 17-year-old child, may have said all that needed to be said, "Whatever is on my bagel is better than average."

He was a test tester for home-cured lox I made while frantically flavoring and drying out tissue more than a while for this article. I had stressed that I cleared out the fish socked with salt in the icebox too long. The outside was dry, jerkylike, not the sleek sort from a bundle of even normal lox. I needed to cut further — into new wild salmon mixed with smoked salt, sugar, fennel fronds and fennel dust — to achieve the prize.

I was astonished by how great it was, and this is no unassuming boast. You can purchase brilliant lox from a store: This was an alternate taste planet.

It was likewise simple. I made it myself with precisely the fish and flavors I needed. What's more, the kid enjoyed it, a considerable measure.

Dissimilar to the choice to improve as a cook for the most part, which pays off each day, the take steps to do your own curing prompts a couple of fundamental inquiries previously you begin. Generally: Why trouble?

"It tastes so great is the main answer," said Brian Polcyn, the gourmet specialist and a writer of a standout amongst the most famous books on curing, "Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing." "A Ford Focus is a decent auto. It will get you Point A to Point B. No disgrace in driving it. A Mercedes E class? You can feel the distinction."

A moment question is one of aspiration. Curing traverses a range from bacon or essential corned meat to the intricate, grease lumped salamis of Italian or French charcuterie. The last take much work on; digging eBay and Amazon for humidifiers, processors, slicers, housings and pH perusers, notwithstanding building a drying space for exact temperatures and dampness.

I'm certain it's a wonderful leisure activity, but on the other hand it's a crazy measure of work — and requires lifted alert about security. Cured sustenance is, by definition, not cooked. Without appropriate safeguards, it can cultivate hazardous microorganisms. Spoil can be useful for wine, brew, cheddar or yogurt. It can likewise influence you to wiped out or bite the dust. Cured meat that includes maturation raises that hazard.

Paul Bertolli, a previous gourmet expert at Chez Panisse and an early supporter of bringing back home-curing, proposes leaving the more confounded stuff to the specialists. An extraordinary presentation, however it gets confused, is one of my most loved cookbooks, Mr. Bertolli's "Cooking by Hand." He went ahead to establish the site Fra' Mani, committed to everything cured; he gained from his Italian grandparents in Canada.

What I've been exploring different avenues regarding for the last eight or so years isn't crushing and maturing yet drying out strong bits of meat as they are changed with quite recently salt, flavors and air. Turns out our progenitors staggered onto something supernatural: Salt jam the meat by sucking the water out, impeding decay and thinking flavor.

The procedure likewise permits the additional flavors to implant into the meat, making it something other than what's expected through and through, and in addition making it more your own.

To what extent it keeps going relies upon whom you inquire. It's sheltered to state dried meat will last half a month in the fridge without issues and any longer if solidified, which is splendidly fine.

New items like bacon or nondried pancetta go malodorous significantly more rapidly and ought to be checked deliberately. Inconvenience is anything but difficult to recognize: I've seen dried meats don't such a great amount of ruin as become yellowish and don't smell new. At that point it's a great opportunity to hurl them. Don’t think of curing as an heirloom exercise in recreating life how it used to be. Like Mr. Bertolli, many proponents of curing learned it from relatives who did it partly out of love, partly out of necessity. So despite the last few generations of mass produced and preserved food, curing is an art that was never lost. Maybe out of fashion, but ever alive.

“For me, it’s the pleasure of making things you are going to consume yourself,” Mr. Bertolli said. “There is a pride in it.”

I’ve developed a basic and useful repertoire that requires no special equipment, space or even much time: bacon, both American and Italian (pancetta); lox, and duck prosciutto, an impressive and fun little trick that I learned from Mr. Polcyn and that you can brag over at your next dinner party as if you just brought it back from Parma. It cures for just one day under kosher salt alone.

I started curing out of love of a particular dish, pasta carbonara. My family and I lived in Rome for four years, and when we moved back to New York in 2008, it was not easy to find guanciale, or cured pig cheek, carbonara’s essential ingredient, even though we’re in Brooklyn, rightly mocked and loved as the navel of foodie obtuseness.

Romans say with snobby certainty you can make carbonara only with guanciale, not pancetta or bacon. I’m fine with any, but there is no question that guanciale makes the dish taste like Rome.

A local shop, Bklyn Larder in Park Slope, made its own and kept us supplied, that is until I came across a recipe from the Philadelphia pasta master Marc Vetri that he called shortcut guanciale.

It promised the exotic without much pain or cost: salt, sugar, pepper, garlic, coriander and rosemary rubbed over the cheek and plopped into a Ziploc bag in the refrigerator for just three days. To use right away, you roast it for about three hours. It is sublime.

We are fortunate enough to have a fireplace, so I thought: Why not dry it the way they do in Italy? I did, even if it drove the dogs mad, hanging temptingly just behind the screen in the unlit fireplace.

Three weeks later I was rewarded with something I felt I didn’t do enough to deserve: It looked Old World on the outside, all tough and dry, the inside a strip of meat encased in almost buttery, flavorful fat.

I realize most cooks aren’t going to find regular use for guanciale, though it adds wonders to other pastas, soups and even seafood dishes. For me, though, it lit a fuse: I moved from the pig’s cheek to its belly. Salts, sugar and maple syrup are all you need for tremendous American bacon.

Nutmeg, juniper, garlic, thyme and bay leaf make pancetta, which can be used dry or fresh and is singularly versatile in the kitchen. Fish, salmon especially, cures in a few days and makes a New York bagel brunch a special occasion. (I just tried a recipe from Mr. Polcyn curing salmon with beets and fresh horseradish. I recommend it.)

The list goes on, for every taste and ambition: jerky, pastrami, corned beef, full hams. I don’t own a smoker, but it notches the art up with little effort. There are websites devoted to prosciutto, which requires only salt, patience and the optimism of being alive in the year or so an entire pig leg takes to dry. Results, apparently, are spectacular.

A few basics for new curers: It’s nice to have a fireplace, for temperature and air flow, but you can hang meat to dry in many places. People use closets, garages, basements, old refrigerators, a kitchen’s out-of-the-way nook.

You won’t smell much of anything as it cures, since it generally is wrapped in plastic for many reasons, mostly because the meat gets quite wet as the salt pulls out the water. But the aroma is terrific: sweet and salty, with flavors like rosemary and cracked pepper at high decibel.

Then there are the inevitable controversies of curing, which I’ll cover here only in outline. This is what the Internet was invented for, and readers of age can decide for themselves.

Last year the curing community was set in an uproar over a World Health Organization report that linked cured and processed meat with an increase in colorectal cancer. As with many risks, experts say, moderation slims the chances considerably.

There is also a theological debate over whether to use the most common curing salt, often called pink salt or Prague powder. It is a nitrite, and thus poisonous in quantity. Some curers prefer alternatives as safer and more natural. Experts I consulted recommended using it (in the prescribed small amounts) for several reasons: It’s effective in killing dangerous bacteria and contributes to the taste and color of good cured meat. I do, without apology.

Finally, I’ll say that curing is handy (this was the whole point, before history was even invented) and can save a bundle. One recent rainy Sunday, our younger son, Nelson, came home from a day of hard New York skateboarding with a friend, starving, as 15-year-olds tend to be. We had not strategized dinner. We considered ordering out, but Indian food or sushi would run $60 at least.

I looked in the fridge, and dinner assembled itself. A hunk of my old standby, guanciale, sat in a Ziploc. I sautéed it, added some onion, olive oil, tomato, white wine, pepper flakes and pecorino. And there we had maybe the tastiest of Roman pastas, amatriciana.

Took 20 minutes. Cost less than $20 for four. The boys didn’t care where that crazy-great, salty bacon came from, but they ate and were happy. I was, too, and the pleasure was not just in my stomach.

[newstfionline]

Being a billionaire in 1916

By George F. Will, Washington Post, May 5, 2017

Don Boudreaux, an economist at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center and proprietor of the indispensable blog Cafe Hayek, has good news: You are as rich as John D. Rockefeller. Richer, actually.

Some historians estimate that on Sept. 29, 1916, a surge in the price of Rockefeller’s shares of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey made him America’s first billionaire. Others say he never reached this milestone and that Henry Ford was the first. Never mind. If Rockefeller was the first, his billion was worth $23 billion in today’s dollars. Boudreaux asks if you would accept this bargain: You can be as rich as Rockefeller was in 1916 if you consent to live in 1916.

Boudreaux says that if you had Rockefeller’s riches back then, you could have had a palatial home on Fifth Avenue, another overlooking the Pacific, and a private island if you wished. Of course, going to and from the coasts in your private but un-air-conditioned railroad car would be time-consuming and less than pleasant. And communicating with someone on the other coast would be a sluggish chore.

Commercial radio did not arrive until 1920, and 1916 phonographs would lacerate 2017 sensibilities, as would 1916’s silent movies. If in 1916 you wanted Thai curry, chicken vindaloo or Vietnamese pho, you could go to the phone hanging on your wall and ask the operator (direct dialing began in the 1920s) to connect you to restaurants serving those dishes. The fact that there were no such restaurants would not bother you because in 1916 you had never heard of those dishes, so you would not know what you were missing.

If in 1916 you suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, a sexually transmitted disease or innumerable other ailments treatable in 2017, you also would not know that you were missing antibiotics and the rest of modern pharmacology. And don’t even think about getting a 1916 toothache. You can afford state-of-the-art 1916 dentures--and probably will need them. Your arthritic hips and knees? Hobble along until you cannot hobble any more, then buy a wheelchair.

You could enjoy a smattering of early jazz, but rock-and-roll is decades distant, and Netflix and Google even more so. Your pastimes would be limited, but you could measure the passage of time on the finest Swiss watch. It, however, would be less accurate than today’s Timex or smartphone.

As a 1916 billionaire, you would be materially worse off than a 2017 middle-class American; an unhealthy 1916 billionaire would be much worse off than an unhealthy 2017 American of any means.

Last year, a Bureau of Labor Statistics paper described the life of workers in 1915. More than half (52.4 percent) of the 100 million Americans were younger than 25, life expectancy at birth was 54.5 years (today, 78.8) and less than 5 percent of Americans were 65 or older. One in 10 babies died in the first year of life (today, 1 in 168).

In 1915, only about 14 percent of people ages 14 to 17 were in high school, an estimated 18 percent age 25 and older had completed high school, and nearly 75 percent of women working in factories had left school before eighth grade. There were 4 renters for every homeowner, partly because mortgages (usually for just five to seven years) required down payments of 40 to 50 percent of the purchase price.

Less than one-third of homes had electric lights. Small electric motors--the first Hoover vacuum cleaner appeared in 1915--were not yet lightening housework. Iceboxes, which were the norm until after World War II, were all that 1915 had: General Motors’ Frigidaire debuted in 1918.

So, thank Boudreaux for making you think about this: How large would your net worth have to be to get you to swap the life you are living now for what that money could buy in 1916?