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umlewis · 6 months

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Lewis Hamilton Is Changing Lanes

He's got one last season with Mercedes, and then F1's winningest driver will join Ferrari. But he's looking far beyond that, toward the moves he'll make when his racing career ends.

Preparation for the Afterlife

Often in the in-between moments of his eighteen seasons in Formula 1, Lewis Hamilton has found himself in rooms with legends, some from other exotic industries: movies, music, fashion; all worlds Hamilton has felt increasing affinity for while becoming the winning-est F1 driver in history, and many from other major sports. What he'd noticed was that eventually, particularly with these aging athletes just on the other side of retirement, the conversation would loop around to the subject of preparation for the afterlife. Not death, exactly, but life after sport. "I'd spoken to so many amazing athletes, from Boris Becker to Serena Williams, even Michael Jordan," Hamilton, now 39, says. "Talking to greats that I've met along the way, who are retired, or some that are still in competition, and the fear of what's next, the lack of preparation for what's next. A lot of them said, 'I stopped too early' or 'Stayed too long.' 'When it ended, I didn't have anything planned.' 'My whole world came crashing down because my whole life has been about that sport.' Some of them were like, 'I didn't plan and it was a bit of a mess up because I was really lost afterwards. There was such a hole, such a void, and I had no idea how I was going to fill it and I was in such a rush, initially, to try and fill it that you fill it with the wrong thing and you make a few mistakes, and then eventually you find your way.' Some people took longer. Some people took shorter. But it just got my mind thinking about, okay, when I stop, how do I avoid that? And so I got serious about finding other things that I was passionate about." Hamilton, whose parents split when he was a toddler and who started racing at eight, spent the first half of his life impelled by one thing: "Being the only black kid on the circuit, struggling at school, really always my big drive was acceptance. If I win the race, I will receive that acceptance in this world."

That single-minded intent, for a working class kid who grew up on a council estate north of London, led him to inconceivable heights within motorsport. His seven individual world championships in F1 tie him for most ever with Michael Schumacher. His eight team titles with Mercedes and his 103 frand prix victories put him in a class of one. But it wasn’t until later that Hamilton finally felt comfortable directing the part of himself that he'd suppressed while pursuing racing full-time toward other creative arenas; pursuits that, rather than detract from his racing career, might actually enhance his performance on the track, set him more purposefully toward the second half of his life, and ultimately enliven his soul. "When I first got into Formula 1," he says, "it was wake up, train, racing-racing-racing. Racing, nothing else. There's no space for anything else. But what I realized is that just working all the time doesn't bring you happiness, and you need to find a balance in life. And I found out that I was actually quite unhappy." The fixation was flattening. "There was so much missing, there was so much more to me, and it was crazy because I was like, 'I'm in Formula 1, I reached my dream and I'm where I always wanted to be, I'm on top, I'm fighting for the championship.' But I was just not... It was not enjoyable." During that period, he started dating someone in Los Angeles and was exposed for the first time to creative people in creative industries. "It’s almost like being in a snow globe. That’s the racing world," he says, "and there's so much more outside of it that you just don't have time to explore. I think if you go to an office every day and do the same process every single day, eventually you just zone out. You have to find something else that can soothe you, can keep your mind going." Those trips to LA planted the seeds for what else might be possible and ushered in a new wave of self-expression and creative experimentation, through, first, his hair, tattoos, and jewelry, then through music, fashion, and filmmaking. For the next decade, Hamilton steadily pushed against preconceptions of how a racing driver might present himself, and what else a racing driver might do while winging around the world for a global racing series. "My mind is always moving," he says, sitting across from me in London. "I have really, really vivid dreams; I have to wake up and write them down. I'll have visions of something I'm designing, or sometimes it’s music. Sometimes I have a song playing in my head. I'll get up and go downstairs, play it on the piano, record it, and it becomes a part of something that I’m doing." Hamilton lives for the songwriting camps he sets up at least a couple times a year during his summer and winter breaks, when he gathers a team of producers and songwriters to help him pull together the many samples, threads, and lyrics he collects and noodles on throughout the season. He's just returned from one when we meet up in February, and it's left him on a high. "Music keeps me alive," he says. In the years since those seminal trips to LA, Hamilton has become the most prominent member of his sport, possibly even the most prominent athlete in any sport, to mess around this much and this seriously with so many sidelines in creative industries. The idea of Hamilton indulging his interests hasn't always been welcomed.

"As I explored my creativity and also how to express myself," he says, "I experienced a lot of pushback in the media." Commentators who questioned Hamilton's "distractions" off the track. "People just judging me: 'This is not how a racing driver behaves.' 'This is not what a racing driver does.'" Hamilton's rise coincided with a moment when the sport was maturing globally and corporate money was flooding into F1. As a result, the rougher edges of the sport were sanded away and the hard-partying, death-defying racers of previous eras were replaced by a cadre of safe characters who evinced limited personality off the track. "I actually feel for some of the drivers just before us, in the early 2000s," Hamilton says. "There was clearly more to them, but they weren't able to show that. But if you look at our world now, there's drivers expressing themselves differently. Bit by bit, I've had to work overtime to outperform,' he says, in order to shift people's mindsets. The motivation for Hamilton to keep pushing his sport forward on this front is twofold: Yes, to continue to break F1's often conservative, conventional expectations, but also to set himself up for the second half of his own career. "I went through this phase of understanding that I can't race forever," he says, prompting him to cultivate those other passions. "Because when I stop, I'm gonna drop the mic and be happy. The difficult thing is, I want to do everything," he says, laughing. "I'm very ambitious, but I understand that you can't do... Actually, I take that back, because I don't believe in the word can't. To be a master at something, there's the 10,000 hours it takes. Obviously I've done that in racing. There's not enough time to master all of these different things." So what's the one that's gonna take the place of racing. I ask. "Well," he says, "I think it's gonna be film and fashion."

Film Lewis

Among the most prominent of Hamilton's current side projects is the major Hollywood film he's producing, alongside Brad Pitt and the team that made Top Gun: Maverick, including director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. It promises to be at minimum the most anticipated racing movie in history; at best, the most authentic, adrenaline-inducing racing movie ever. Hamilton says he was, like many, a movie fiend growing up, and much of his time in Formula 1 has been marked by surreal opportunities to meet the people affiliated with them. This Hollywood story, he says, begins, as many of the best Hollywood stories do, with Tom Cruise. Cruise, a racing fan since even before Days of Thunder, reached out unexpectedly to Hamilton about a decade ago to invite him to the set of his 2014 film, Edge of Tomorrow. "My assistant called me. 'Tom Cruise has invited you to the set.' I was just like, 'Shoot, yeah?! Cancel anything I have!'" After that day on set in England, Hamilton and Cruise built a friendship that consisted, in part, of encouraging messages from Cruise before and after races. "'Me and the team want to wish you good luck with the race', that sort of thing," Hamilton says. One evening, at dinner, Hamilton showed Cruise his watch that had a Top Gun logo on the back. "I said, 'Dude, if you ever do Top Gun 2,'" which had not been spoken of; there was no story yet, "'I will even be a janitor. Just let me be in it.’'" When the reality of Top Gun: Maverick came around, Cruise put Hamilton in touch with Kosinski, who offered Hamilton a role as one of the film's pilots, but he was in the middle of the 2018 title race, waging a dogfight of his own with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel. Filming would have required a couple of weeks on set during the final months of the season. Despite having made admirable progress for drivers to fitfully explore their passions off-track, even Hamilton has his limits. "Firstly, I hadn't even had, like, an acting lesson," he says, "and I don't want to be the one that lets this movie down. And then secondly, I just really didn't have the time to dedicate to it. I remember having to tell Joe and Tom, and it broke my heart. And then I regretted it, naturally, when they show me the movie and it's... It could've been me!" He groans and laughs. "Oh, God, I'm still…."

And so a couple years later, despite the missed opportunity, Hamilton found himself on a Zoom, staring at a screen with Kosinski and Bruckheimer, who were asking him to get involved with a real-deal, big budget Formula 1 film. Hamilton glimpsed the potential pitfalls instantly. "My point was, guys, this movie needs to be so authentic. There's two different fan groups that we have; like, the old originals, who from the day they're born hearing the frand prix music every weekend and watching with their families, to the new generation that just learned about it today through Netflix." Hamilton signed on with an imperative to make the movie work for both. "I felt my job really has been to try to call BS. 'This would never happen.' 'This is how it would be.' 'This is how it could happen.' Just giving them advice about what racing is really about and what, as a racing fan, would appeal and what would not." Cameras were rolling on the production at last season's British Grand Prix, where the filmmakers shot live racing before a crowd of 150,000-plus at the famed Silverstone Circuit. One of the coolest experiences thus far, Hamilton says, was "being at Silverstone and just finding out that Brad is actually a racer at heart. He's genuinely got the abilities, the skills." Where does it come from? "I think he's always loved bikes, and so he's watched a lot of motor racing. When I was younger, I worked at a driving school to help pay my bills, just getting around to these races and stuff. Companies would come with seventy people and they're on the wrong side of the road. They're on the inside line, driving toward an apex of a turn. Just no knowledge. Brad knew what part of the track to be on." This understanding of Formula 1 racecraft, then, put actors like Pitt and Cruise in a rare class of American. Hamilton had seen the ignorance up close for years. He spent the first half of his career coming to the United States and Canada, shocked by having to just "continuously educate people." Here was this continent of massive sports fans who were somehow immune to whatever had made Hamilton mad for F1 all his life: "How has no one got the bug like me? How are they missing it?" I spoke to Hamilton once before, in late 2011, and asked him what has really been an open question since: What would it take to infect the American sports fan? He knew. It was gonna be a movie that did it. "I'd love to hear any ideas," he told me then, issuing an open call to screenwriters. Netflix's Drive to Survive proved that there was something to Hamilton's theory, that if only you could package up the speed and drama in a slick story, audiences might get hooked on the real thing. The still-untitled Pitt-Kosinski film-they could do worse than Top Gun: Formula 1-should be the ultimate test case. At one point, Hamilton and I discuss the slate of racing feature films that have come before. Grand Prix (1966), Le Mans (1971), Ford v Ferrari (2019), Rush (2013), and on and on. I ask him if he keeps up with new entries; which work, and which are way off the map. "I do watch all of them," he says, in part because he’s a fan, in part because he and his new production company, Dawn Apollo Films, need to keep an eye out. "But one thing I think you'll learn about me is I don't like to... We live in such a judgmental world, and having seen how, for everything, building something from scratch and creating takes so much time and commitment from so many people... So I never like to be someone to dog anything."

Still. Ferrari? "I loved it," he says. Encouraging news for Ferrari fans, who have been salivating since Hamilton's shock announcement that he'd be moving to their team at the start of the 2025 season. "One, because Ferrari is Ferrari, and envisioning when they arrive at the factory, seeing some of the history... The racing was nuts back then. The cars were so dangerous. Could I look at it and say this could be done better? Of course. Capturing racing is really, really difficult, and I don't think anyone's been able to really capture it in a way that brings the adrenaline you have as a racing driver. But I think it's one of the best they’ve done. If you look at the old movies, with McQueen, the big camera on the helmet and the guy lying on the front of the car to capture the shot?" He laughs. "You should see some of the cameras that Joe is able to use. He's a visionary." Are you to the point of thinking, we've got to blow these other racing films out of the water? "I don’t feel competitive with these movies," he says, "but I guess we probably will be."

Fashion Lewis

Before movies, there were clothes. In 2007, Hamilton attended his first fashion show. "I come from a racing world where me and my dad were really the only people of color," he says, "and then when I went to the fashion world, it was so mixed, so diverse. I loved it." Hamilton had already spent his years coming up in the sport having to answer for superficial differences from other drivers; his braids, his tattoos, his jewelry, then his clothes. Every additional layer of differentiation brought outsize attention and required immense effort and energy getting people to believe that these things were not affecting his performance or causing harm to the sport. The scrutiny found yet a new target when he started working with Tommy Hilfiger. Hilfiger, who had been involved with Formula 1 for decades, invited Hamilton to design five collections for Hilfiger's namesake brand between 2018 and 2020. "I got almost like an internship experience, getting to work with these designers, in the background," Hamilton says. "I got to just be really hands-on, massively engaged, and then I would go to races and I was just really free." To celebrate his first collection, in 2018, Hamilton flew to a party in New York before a grand prix in Singapore. "That's not really great preparation for a race weekend," Hamilton concedes, "so you have to be really cautious about that. The narrative was, 'Oh, he’s not focused.' But I wasn't out partying late or drinking like that. I got to Singapore and I delivered one of the best laps that I've ever delivered. And after that, everyone was like, oh, he can do that. Even Niki would say to Toto, 'You can't let Lewis do this! This is not what a racing driver does!’'" In Lauda's era, I suggest jokingly, racing drivers would just drink and smoke all night before showing up to the track in the morning. Hamilton laughs. "Yeah, exactly. But eventually I got him to see it. 'Oh, maybe he can do those things, too.'"

In recent years Hamilton's interest in fashion has evolved. He doesn't just want to wear clothes or design them, he tells me, but to influence the industry in more ambitious ways. Hamilton has pushed diversity initiatives within Formula 1, Mercedes and beyond, efforts aimed at busting up the homogeneity in the spaces he inhabits. Now he's thinking about ways to marshal that sort of influence-and, yes, financing-to help independent fashion brands that he admires. "I think it's about really working on the idea of... We've really got to send the lift down," he says. "There are so many incredible young up and coming brands that at some stage would just get eaten up by the big organizations, and they'll lose a large percentage of the company that they've started, and that’s often the way it goes. I think it's about getting a seat at the table. It's not easy. Getting in the room with Arnault and having the discussion." Have you tried, I ask.

"Uh, I'm not yet in the room, but I believe I can." Just to pick one I've seen you support, I say, I look at a brand like Wales Bonner (from acclaimed 33 year old designer Grace Wales Bonner) that has about as clear a vision as any fashion label for what it's about-fresh takes on black style and contemporary Britishness-and yet remains humbly independent. Do you think about getting involved financially with businesses of that scale? "I have been to Grace's studio," he says, "and it's fascinating speaking to her about just how hard it is for her. She's putting on these great shows, she's super creative, she's very intentional with the work that she's doing. But there are opportunities that have just not been presented to her, and I know that there are so many of these young brands that somehow need more finance, somehow need more support, help with the infrastructure, which the big brands obviously have crazy infrastructure. Which when you do get, you know, they are at risk of just having to sell a chunk of it to somebody in order to stay alive. So I'm trying to just figure out how we fit into that picture." Honestly, one of my dreams is I have thought about creating my own diverse LVMH," he says. "Like, I don't know if we live in a time where that's really possible, but that's something that I'm conceptualizing." Act I: Beat Schumacher Act II: Beat Arnault Just one of those ideas that gets jotted down in the middle of the night and worked on, I suggest. "Yeah," he says. "We've got an opportunity to really lift people up and let them get in the jet stream. I think about LVMH and, of course, I love Pharrell. He's been, since I was a kid, just musically and creatively, someone that I really aspire to be like. And I was really split, having now been in the space, on the decision that LVMH took." That is, to make him men's creative director of Louis Vuitton. "'Cause, wow, he did the work with Chanel, Billionaire Boys Club, he deserves it 100 percent. Then I'm thinking about someone like Grace, or Martine Rose would've been cool. Put a woman in power in that position, because a lot of women aren't getting those opportunities within the industry. I think that would've been a baller move. But I'm loving what Pharrell is doing."

F1 Lewis

The start of 2024, Hamilton says, is "probably the most exciting time in my life", in large part because it's the first time he's been able to think about the next two years in tandem. "I've never started a year excited for the year to follow," he says. His life has been measured in seasons; one team, one car, one series, one summer break to cram in all the travel and songwriting camps and other interests. "People ask me all the time, where do you see yourself in five years? And I've never been able to look that far ahead. But now I'm in a place where I can map out a little further ahead. There's some really cool things that will be happening in the next two years." He means, "Some really fun projects with fashion that will come to light at the end of the year, obviously the movie, and hopefully a documentary to follow." He pauses, and I smile. Yeah? Anything else? Hamilton shocked the racing world a couple weeks before our conversation by announcing that he would be leaving his long-term team, Mercedes, for its most famous rival, Ferrari, at the start of the 2025 season. He would, then, be racing all of 2024 with the team to which he'd been effectively married and won everything there was to win for over a decade, all while having the next relationship primed and ready to go for the day after the divorce, which forces him to hold both this year and next year in his head concurrently; a rare state of play for a driver. "My focus is, how do I deliver the best year that this team has ever had, after all the great years we've had?" he says. "It's how you engage with the people around you ho have taken the news, some of them really well, some of them less so. How do you take them on this journey and leave on a high together?" Before moving on, he says, he has to figure out how to make sure the work he's done at Mercedes on diversity initiatives continues to live on without him pushing it. It's a consideration that could apply to many of the shifts Hamilton has helped facilitate in the sport. What happens when Lewis is no longer at the front of the pack challenging the status quo? At one point, I ask him, what's the thing you're most surprised hasn't evolved further during your time in F1? "We still need more women in the sport, and to fight to make sure that there are more and more women to put out at the front, in view, for young women and girls to be able to see that this is a place for women." In 2024, he says, "I'm training harder than I've ever trained. I feel the most physically prepared I've ever been, so I'm really excited about the present, knowing that nothing is promised beyond that," he says. "But then it's also conceptualizing. I have all these ideas of things I want to do beyond, in the next phase. Honestly," he continues, "I've manifested everything I've ever wanted to do. I do it every year. Working with Tommy, winning a world championship, breaking records. And so I've had some other plans for the future." Did you manifest the Ferrari move, I ask.

"Yeah," he says. "I think perhaps more unconscious manifesting from the early period of my life, but it's always been up there for me. For now, though, I'm gonna lift Mercedes as high as I can this year. The way that I exist..." he continues, "I don't look at it as on the way out. My commitment to the team is exactly the same as previous years. I want to kill every other team. We want to beat them. My approach remains the same, right 'til the end, and I can't let too much of my mind be distracted by what's afterwards. You can't really tap into that until next year." This final season at Mercedes comes during an unprecedented stretch for Hamilton, who has not won a race the past two seasons. Mercedes constructed a car in two consecutive seasons that has struggled. Red Bull and Max Verstappen have dominated. Hamilton wouldn't be doing it still if he didn't think he could compete for a world championship, he says, but we discuss whether the end of the 2021 season felt like a turning point for him in his career. The title that year was decided in the last race of the season, the last lap of the season, the literal last minutes of the season. After a surreal, improvisational ruling by the race director, Hamilton and Verstappen were cut loose to settle the title in one final sprint. But with Verstappen's car in a clearly advantageous state (he had fresh tires), Hamilton's fate was sealed before Go. Were you robbed, I ask him. "Was I robbed? Obviously. I mean, you know the story. But I think what was really beautiful in that moment, which I take away from it, was my dad was with me. And we'd gone through this huge roller coaster of life together, ups and downs, nd the day that it hurt the most, he was there, and the way he raised me was to always stand up, keep your head high. And I obviously went to congratulate Max, and not realizing the impact that that would have, but also I was really conscious of, like, there's a mini-me watching. This is the defining moment of my life. And I think it really was. I felt it. I didn't know how it was going to be perceived. I hadn't, like, visualized it, but I was definitely conscious of, these next fifty meters that I walk is where I fall to the ground and die, or I rise up." I ask him if he fixates on that race. "If I see a clip of it, I still feel it," he says, "but I'm at peace with it." And the winninglessness that's followed? "My fans were really ride or die. I couldn't understand it at first. 'Guys, but I'm not winning anything!' But I've realized it's not easy to relate to someone that's always finishing first. It's inspiring. But there's no..." There's never been a comeback story until now. It's a good lesson from his sideline in movies. People love a comeback story.

#lewis hamilton #f1 #formula 1 #fic ref #fic ref 2024 #not a race #2024 not a race #between australia and japan 2024 #pre-season #pre-season 2024 #sewis #toto wolff #niki lauda #tw max #brad pitt #tom cruise #jerry bruckheimer #joseph kosinski

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daydream-cement · 2 years

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I need Fern walking in on Larissa and the kids during her planning period with the kids in the office, it would either be chaos or so wholesome

Three Shapeshifters in a Room

Larissa Weems x OC (Fern Rogers)

Authors Note: wholesome vibes from me only

You heard Larissa laugh before you even approached her office, you were only on the staircase, but her laugh, her real laugh, could be heard clear as day. You were supposed to be meeting her to pick up the kids to take them to Rowan's classroom, but clearly she was enjoying herself. You approach her office quietly, hoping to sneak a peak of what was going on inside before you even entered the room.

You open the door just a crack and see your mother standing there with Violet and Althea. You narrow your gaze as your mother becomes your father. You quickly realize Larissa is shapeshifting for the kids. Your father becomes Rowan and she bares her teeth at the two young girls.

Finally, she increases in height, becoming herself once again. She sits down in an armchair in front of the girls, "Okay, now you two try."

You watch as the seven year old's attempt to concentrate on changing their features. Althea is able to get her blonde hair to turn dark and short like your father's while Violet gets distracted by her sisters change in appearance and collapses to the floor in a heap of giggles.

"Great work, Thea. Now shift back." Larissa pulls Vi off the floor into her lap as to not distract Thea from her next task. You could tell that she was beyond proud of your daughter for successfully using her powers at will at such a young age. The girls had both been shapeshifting for years now, but it was triggered by the swinging emotions of toddlers.

Althea tried focusing in to turn it back, but she could only regain her length and her hair remained dark brown. You saw by the slump of her shoulders that she was upset with herself.

Violet spotted you from her seat on Larissa's lap. She couldn't help herself as she slipped from her lap and ran to you, "Mommy! Mom is teaching us how to shapeshift!"

You open the door now that your position had been compromised. In seconds, Vi is scooped up into your arms and telling you all about their afternoon in Larissa's office. You don't, however, get to hear Larissa comforting Thea, telling her about the time she shapeshifted her hair once too and failed to get it back to normal her first try.

"Powers take practice."

#larissa weems #fern rogers #gwendoline christie #wednesday netflix #fanfic #oneshot #stately sequoia #larissa weems x oc #the cedars have eyes #larissa weems fluff #violet and rose #ferissa

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ampheenix · 1 year

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Go for it, Rui!!

SUMMARY:

“Wow wow Rui-kun, you always rile Tsukasa-kun up so easily!” Emu giggled, and Tsukasa bristled.

“I- I am not ‘riled up!’ And, even if I was, ahem, ‘riled up,” Tsukasa coughed into his sleeve uncomfortably, eyes darting around, “It would never be because of Rui!”

Or, the chaotic events of Rui trying (and failing) to confess to Tsukasa, with Emu and Nene cheering them both on from the sidelines.

“Oh no! For now the prince found himself staring down a vicious dragon; how on earth would he be able to fight off such a ruthless beast without his sword?!” Rui narrated, looking shocked and concerned.

“Oh nooo!” Tsukasa cried, stiffening up, throwing a desperate glance to where his sword now sat to the side of the stage, being tossed aside by the ‘dragon.’ “Whatever am I going to do? I can’t possibly defend the princess without my weapon!!” The audience was captivated, eyes swivelling from Rui to the performers on-stage.

The dragon roared ferociously, and the prince cowered, holding up his hands in some attempt at defence as the beast readied a huge ball of fire. The audience gasped, Nene looking terrified as she glanced at the prince, cowering in her gown as the boy prepared himself for defeat-

“STOP RIGHT THERE, YOU NASTY DRAGON!!” A pink-haired warrior slid in front of the prince, holding up a massive shield just in time to stop the dangerous fireball. The audience sighed in relief, as the newcomer stood up straight, her face lit up with a determined smile.

“Oh? What’s this?” Rui recounted, looking surprised at this new turn of events. “It seems a newcomer has come to the prince’s aid!”

“Quick, prince, grab your sword!” The mysterious warrior said, and the prince stumbled into action, looking dumbfounded. He quickly sprinted over to his fallen sword, wheeling around with his weapon at the ready as the dragon drew itself up to its full height.

“And so, the prince found himself staring down the terrifying beast once more, but with an enigmatic ally at his side! Will they be able to defeat the terrible dragon who is wreaking havoc on their kingdom? Will they be able to save the princess and be victorious?” Rui smiled as he gestured grandly. “Find out at our next show!”

Tsukasa, Emu and Nene walked to the front of the stage and bowed in unison, and the audience applauded enthusiastically, cheering erupting from the small crowd. Rui soon followed, with a dramatic flourish of the hand. “Thank you, thank you! Come again!”

After about ten minutes, the crowd had mostly thinned out, with a few stragglers left behind in their seats. Namely, one or two hysterical toddlers and a few more exasperated parents.

Emu sent them a beaming smile with a big wave, and their faces lit up immediately, the parents looking relieved as the toddlers allowed themselves to be dragged away.

Emu then turned to the others, smiling happily. “Wow wow wow, Rui-kun!! Your narrating was AMAZING!!” She then turned to Tsukasa. “And Tsukasa-kun, your acting was so… so…” Emu struggled to find the words, before lighting up with an enthusiastic grin. “WONDERHOYY!!”

“Oh, oh! And Nene!” Emu spun around, Nene’s awkward gaze immediately dropping to the concrete. “You acted so, so well! I was nearly scared just looking at you!!” She exclaimed with a shudder, and Nene shifted, momentarily glancing up at the other.

“Well uh, thanks I guess…” She said with a small smile, and Emu gave her a big thumbs up and a big grin.

“Why thank you, Emu, your criticism after performances is always appreciated.” Rui smiled, and Tsukasa nodded aggressively. “Indeed!! I mean, not that I’m agreeing with Rui-”

Tsukasa glanced at the man in question suspiciously, only to be met with an innocent smirk, further increasing the suspicion on his face- “But as a future star it always excellent to have feedback!!”

Emu beamed, and Tsukasa laughed loudly, and Nene winced slightly- it was like staring straight into the sun.

“Indeed, I must agree with Emu-kun. Tsukasa-kun, your performance was incredible, as always~” Rui drawled, eyes meeting the other’s with a small grin. Tsukasa stiffened, and Nene wondered at the points of red that had appeared in his cheeks.

“W- well, that is only expected of an actor as s-skilled as me!!” Tsukasa blustered, spinning away from Rui as the latter smirked with some satisfaction.

“Wow wow Rui-kun, you always rile Tsukasa-kun up so easily!” Emu giggled, and Tsukasa bristled.

“I- I am not ‘riled up!’ And, even if I was, ahem, ‘riled up,” Tsukasa coughed into his sleeve uncomfortably, eyes darting around, “It would never be because of Rui!”

“…Mmm hmm. Sure.” Nene said, unconvinced, and Emu grinned mischievously, grabbing the other’s hand. “C’mon, c’mon, Nene-kun!! I want to show you that AMAZING arcade I was talking about earlier!!”

Nene stared at her for a moment, confused. Emu widened her eyes, blinking dramatically as she threw a heavy glance at the two boys beside them and back, before Nene’s eyes lit up in realisation.

Her eyes darted between Rui and Tsukasa, before a small smile appeared on her face as she turned back to the other. “O-okay, let’s head off then! Bye guys.”

“Wahaha, have fun you two!!” Emu laughed triumphantly with a smirk as she dragged Nene down the sidewalk by her hand, and Tsukasa looked after them bemusedly.

He turned back to Rui, who had an embarrassed smile on his face as he turned back to Tsukasa. Hmm, how out-of-character for him! Normally Rui was all smug and “Tsukasa-kun~,” all the time.

“Um, well then, Tsukasa-kun…” Ah, there it was. Tsukasa huffed, what was it this time?!

“I was wondering if, you would accompany me to my house this fine evening?” Rui asked with an innocent smile, and Tsukasa furrowed his eyebrows in suspicion.

“…Why?”

“Well, er, Tsukasa-kun…” Rui continued, as Tsukasa eyed him up with doubt. “I was wondering if you’d like to see a new invention of mine, is all…”

“Oh!” Tsukasa exclaimed, a bit surprised. That actually sounded not-suspicious at all!

“Well- wait, hold on.” Tsukasa wrinkled his nose. “You’re not going to experiment on me again, are you?!” Rui’s fists clenched for a moment, so quickly that Tsukasa thought he’d imagined it for a moment, before he heard the other let out a quiet sigh. Huh?

“Er- no, I was just… never mind.” Rui murmured, smile dimming somewhat. “See you at school.” And with that, he turned and started walking back down the sidewalk, Tsukasa staring in shock after him. But the- what was with the dramatic change in expression?! Had he… had he said something to upset Rui?

“H-hey, hold on!!” Tsukasa called after him, something uncomfortable churning in his stomach, but Rui acted as if he hadn’t heard and continued walking.

Tsukasa faltered. Argh, what was he to do?! He didn’t want to get experimented on, of course, but it appeared Rui was trying to ask him over to his house in a brief moment of vulnerability! And he, Tsukasa, had inadvertently hurt his feelings!

He thought deeply. Going to each other’s houses… wasn’t that something friends do? Well, Tsukasa had no shortage of friends, being a future star after all- but he supposed… just this once…

“Er… Rui! Hey, Rui!” Tsukasa ran after him to catch up, clapping a hand on the other’s shoulder after a few moments which had Rui turning around, genuine surprise in his eyes as they flickered to Tsukasa’s hand. “Huh? What is it?”

“Er!” Tsukasa drew himself up to his full height, gesturing grandly. “Seeing as you have cordially extended me an invitation to your house, it would be incredibly rude of me to refuse!!” Rui brightened up slightly, the smirk reappearing as if it had never left. Tsukasa sighed inwardly; it was nice while it lasted.

“Well then… shall we, Tsukasa kun…?” Rui smiled far too innocently, and Tsukasa warily followed after him as they set off down the path.

“So… ahem. Why is that you are inviting me over to your house this evening, exactly?” Tsukasa asked, trying and failing to keep out the suspicion in his tone as they walked.

Rui laughed lightly, eyes dancing up and down Tsukasa’s form before slowly meeting his eyes. “Oh… just…”

Rui paused, before leaning in all of a sudden, far too close to be socially acceptable, gazing deep into his eyes. Tsukasa stilled, frozen for a reason he couldn’t explain as he stared, breathless, at the other. For a split second, his eyes darted down to Rui’s lips, which were far too close for comfort before he quickly willed his eyes back up and instantly regretted it.

Rui looked at him far too knowingly, as if he was seeing into Tsukasa’s very soul, reading his thoughts and figuring out exactly what made him tick. Much like those machines he was always tinkering with.

After a few- well, not exactly uncomfortable, but Tsukasa could feel heat stirring behind his cheeks which he was not okay with- Tsukasa was just about to cough awkwardly and continue down the path when Rui beat him to it.

Rui pulled away as if nothing had even happened, disinterested as he checked his phone and continued walking down the path. Tsukasa stared at his back, agape and flushed. He- he just- and was completely unbothered- what on earth?!

Tsukasa quickly came to his senses, shaking himself as he quickly sped-walked to catch up, because what was that about?! He desperately willed away the heat dusting his cheeks. This- this was not normal behaviour for Rui!!

And…

Well…

Why on earth had he not minded that in the least?!

#project sekai #ruikasa #wonderlands x showtime #wxs tsukasa #wxs rui #wxs emu #tsukasa tenma #emu otori #nene kusanagi #rui kamishiro #fanfic #ao3 fanfic #colourful stage #gays #emunene

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resma-01 · 6 months

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8 Things to Consider Before Riding a Balance Bike – Kids On Wheelz

Learning to ride a balance bike is an exciting milestone in a kid's development. These pedal-less bikes offer a safe and fun way for toddlers and young children to develop essential coordination and balance skills, laying the foundation for future cycling adventures.

Kids on Wheelz is a leader when it comes to choosing the best toodler balance bikes in Canada.

In this blog, we'll explore a few things that will help your kid master the art of riding a balance bike with confidence and joy.

1. Select the Proper size for Balance Bike

Before embarking on their balance bike journey, ensure that the bike is appropriately sized for your kids. Their feet should comfortably touch the ground while sitting on the saddle, allowing them to maintain stability and control. At Kids on Wheelz, you can find balance bikes for kids depending on their age and choose a proper fit. Adjust the height if needed, as per your kids' needs.

2. Practise Balance and Striding

Encourage your child to straddle the bike and walk while pushing themselves forward with their feet. This helps them get accustomed to the sensation of balancing on two wheels and builds confidence in their ability to control the bike's movements.

3. Choose a Suitable Riding Surface

Begin practising on a flat, smooth surface free from obstacles or hazards. An empty parking lot, driveway, or paved path in a park are ideal locations for your child to gain confidence and refine their balancing skills without distractions.

4. Maintain Proper Posture while Riding

Show your child how to maintain proper posture while riding the balance bike. Encourage them to keep their back straight, arms slightly bent, and eyes focused ahead to help them feel balanced and in control.

5. Practise Sharp Turning

Guide your child in practicing sharp turning the handlebars to navigate corners and obstacles. Start with gentle turns and gradually increase the difficulty as their confidence grows. Remind them to look where they want to go, as this will help them steer more effectively.

6. Stay Focused and Don’t Use Sudden Acceleration

Once your child feels comfortable striding and steering, encourage them to lift their feet off the ground and glide on the bike. Start by lifting one foot at a time, then progress to both feet as they gain confidence. Remind them to keep their eyes focused ahead and maintain a steady pace.

7. Introduce How to Apply Timely Brakes

Teach your child how to use the brakes on their kids balance bike to slow down and stop safely. Practice braking gradually, starting with light pressure on the brake lever and increasing as needed. Emphasize the importance of braking early and maintaining control of the bike at all times.

8. Constant Encouragement and Positive Reinforcement

Celebrate your kid's progress and achievements as they learn to ride their balance bike. Offer words of encouragement and praise to boost their confidence and motivation. Remember that learning to ride a balance bike is a journey, and every small step forward is a reason to celebrate.

Let your Kid Master the Balance Bike like a Pro!

With patience, constant practice, and the right guidance, children can master the art of riding a balance bike and embark on countless adventures. By considering the above points, you can help your child develop essential balance and coordination skills while enjoying the thrill of riding their balance bike.

So, grab a helmet, hit the pavement, and let the balancing act begin! Shop from our exclusive range of balance bikes in Canada.

#balance bikes for kids #kids balance bikes

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crackspinewornpages · 6 months

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War and Peace 160/198 -Leo Tolstoy

151

Pierre woke up on the fifteenth feeling like he did something shameful the night before, (like what) it was his talk with Ramball. (and that’s it) Not wanting to be too late, (to assassinate) he hastily tried to decide on a weapon. The fire had increased over the night and the streets were deserted, those that were around stared at him in curiosity at his height and martyr-like expression. He saw nothing, fearing something would distract him, but it was useless as Napoleon was at Kremlin giving out orders. (you didn’t even do research on where your target would be) Pierre was tormenting himself as this act was against his nature when a woman’s scream broke him out of it. She was screaming for Pierre to save her daughter who was left behind, they saved her stuff but not her. (I have no words) Pierre agrees to go and a girl takes him to their home, the houses were on fire and suddenly he felt liberated from his oppressive thoughts and felt resolute, he asked the French looters if they’d seen a child, one points to the garden. The toddler screamed as Pierre grabbed her and he felt revulsion at her hysterics and forced himself not to abandon her. (how heroic of you)

152

He had to find a new way back and now the roads were full of people and furniture, he didn't pay attention to them. The girl was calmer now and he saw something innocent in her face. People now noticed Pierre asking if he’s a noble and who’s child it is, he asked and was pointed to the garden the family fled into. Pierre handed off the girl to the crowed and went to help a young Armenian girl being harassed by a Frenchman and started beating him, people watched until the French Uhlans rode up. Pierre only remembers next he was beaten, arrested and searched and they plan to court martial him for the dagger. He didn't respond to their French but still refused to speak to the interpreter, as he was suspicious, he was put in a separate guarded room.

PART TWELFTH

153

For the first time in history the Russians fought and planned the burning of Moscow. Napoleon faced a Russian winter without food for his half a million men. He must resume communications to his home country and left Moscow.

In Petersburg, life went on and great effort to recognize the peril Russia was actually in, only efforts made in high circles. Anna Pavlovna gave a reception on the seventeenth and the main news was Countess Bezukhof’s illness and rumor she was allowed no visitors and forgoed doctors and turned to Italian ones. All know her illness came from trying to marry two husbands at once and the Italian prescribed their removal, (girl you’re fucking too much) but no one even thought of it in Anna Pavlovna’s presence.

The following day was the Emperor's birthday, and he was given Kutuzof’s report of the losses and in haste didn't have details but it was a victory. The following day there was no news and the people's enthusiasm for Kutuzof began to pass judgement Vasili’s praise ceased. That evening there was alarm, Helene Bezukhof died and rumors ran that she was so distraught over her husband not responding to her she overdosed on medication. (they called it agenia but she actually died from a botched abortion) A few days later news arrived that Moscow was abandoned to the French and Vasili turned to Kutuzof while mourning his daughter.

154

Nine days after Moscow was abandoned an official report of it came, the only chance left was to lose the army and Moscow or just Moscow, the field Marshall felt it duty to choose the latter. The enemy entered the city and the city burned and the Sovereign demanded to know how they left without fighting at all. “their only fear is they your majesty, though kindness of heart, will be persuaded to make peace. They are burning to fight,”p.551 To prove it to him they are ready to sacrifice their lives. He sends the colonel out with a message to spread, when he has no men left he will place himself at the head and exhaust to the last resource and if it is written in the decrees of Providence. (you don’t have to go so hard Alexander) “that my family should cease to reign on the throne of my ancestors, then, after having exhausted all the means that are in my power, I will allow my beard to grow to here.”p.551 Then eat potatoes with peasants than shame his country. (what’s so wrong with potatoes) He and Napoleon can no longer reign together, he won’t deceive him again, before leaving the colonel uttered the feeling of the Russian people that this moment seals the glory of the nation and safety of Europe. (well for a few decades anyway)

155

While half of Russia was conquered levies for the militia rose, all men were sacrificing themselves for the country or wail for its ruin. The stores of self-sacrifice and heroism was not true for the most part men paid no attention to it, more occupied by personal interest. “And those very men were the most important factors of the time.”p.552 Nikolai Rostof took part in the defense of the country not thinking of what was happening, it was not for him to think about. (insert army joke here) He heard of regiments mobilizing but if no more fighting happened it wouldn't be astonishing for him to be given command of a regiment.

He was made commander of an expedition to Voronezh, he reached an inn by evening and ordered needed supplies for the front. The next day he visited the city officials, the governor recommended him a horse dealer and as a friend of his father's invited him to a reception. Life and society went on in 1812 as usual. Rostof entered the party in his hussar uniform and being the center of attention especially to young girls but stayed by an official's wife to the husbands chagrin.

The important Anna Ignatyevna wanted to talk to him, he doesn't know her but he rescued her niece, Maria Bolkonsky. They spoke of Maria and her late father and asked about news of Andrei, she invited him to visit her. Being reminded of Maria, Rostof felt bashful and fearful for some reason. He intended to continue dancing, but the governor’s wife found him a potential wife and he worries about Sonya and felt an impulse to confide everything to this woman. He tells her marrying for money is repugnant, she understands but Maria is another thing, and he tells her of his promise to his cousin Sonya. She starts scolding him, Sonya has nothing, his family finances are dire, and this would kill his mother and Sonya’s life would be terrible, they must understand. (yeah you two idiot kids stop being selfish unpractical and disgusting) Would Maria marry him and she's in mourning, she tells him there are ways.

156

The next day the governor's wife told Anna Ignatyevna about the scheme, two days later Maria was still thinking of how she should behave towards him but decided it wasn't right to receive callers while in mourning, but it would be rude to him and one insult to her father's memory to see him. Rostof came to visit after Sunday mass, she smiled at seeing him and it transformed her face and Rostof saw it. They had talked about unsignificant things and after meeting Rostof’s life continued but cost his zest for former pleasures and was thinking of her and never of Sonya. Like every young man he imagined married life and the future but with Maria he could picture nothing and felt dread.

157

The terrible news of Borodino and Moscow reached Voronezh by the end of September. Maria only knowing her brother was injured went out to find him and Rostof began to feel out of place in Voronezh things became clear to him as he returned to his regiment. Before he left, he was at a service to celebrate victory and the governor's wife asked if he had seen Maria, he saw her and felt shyness, fear and pity. As she left he went to her and told her his sympathies and if Andrei wasn't alive it would be on the bulletin. (gee thanks) She looked grateful then rejoined her aunt.

Not having anything to do Rostof paced in his room thinking about life, (same) Maria is wonderful, why was he in haste with Sonya and began to compare the two but couldn't picture a life with Maria, he loved her but didn't understand her. He needs to be freed from Sonya, nothing but grief could come from marrying her, he doesn't love her as he should. (about time you realized this) He prayed for the first time in a long time until Lavrushka came with a letter from his mother and Sonya. He reads Sonya’s first, his prayers for freedom answered, she wrote they lost almost all their property, and he should marry Maria. It’s painful to her to be the source of sorrow to a family that took her in. His mother’s letter told him of how they left Moscow and lost their property and Andrei was among the wounded brought with them the girls are nursing him. The next day he informed Maria, neither spoke of the significance of Natasha nursing Andrei and the day after he escorted her to Yaroslavl and regained his regiment.

158

Sonya had written the letter in Troitsa since the Countess was dead set on Rostof marrying a rich wife she made Sonya’s life more miserable but before they left Moscow begged her to release her son from his engagement. (note never be cruel to someone then ask for a favor) Sonya sobbed that she would do anything, but her heart didn't agree. Was it necessary to sacrifice her happiness for the family that took her in, but it was her nature to sacrifice herself for others, (ah she’s a people pleaser) it was her only way to show her worth in the house and loved to do it as it elevated herself in Rostof’s eyes. (girl he isn't worth it) Now her sacrifice was to renounce all that he promised, (when he was like 15) now began to feel hatred towards the family, especially Natasha who never sacrificed anything as people still loved her. (yeah she’s pretty much the golden child)

She told the Countess she’d wait to see him again under that pretense but in secret to bind him to her. (she planned to elope) The next few days she was distracted by her thoughts and finding out about Andrei’s state made her pity Natasha and believed it was God’s signal she shouldn't be separated from Rostof. She knew Natasha still loved Andrei and are now being brought closer so their marriage meant it would be impossible for Rostof to marry Maria. (not impossible the Countess would just let up the pressure since they would be financially secured) They stopped at Troitsa and the two were left alone together and Sonya was curious to hear what they were talking about. Natasha ran out telling Sonya he has to live, Sonya tells her she’s sure he will. The Countess asked her to write to Rostof looking at her shameful and ready for hatred at her refusal and Sonya wrote to him now knowing he couldn't marry Maria.

159

Pierre was locked in with peasants who shunned him for being noble and speaking French. On the third day they were tried for incendiarism and questioned knowing any answer was proof of guilt. “These questions, putting aside the essence of the vital fact and excluding the possibility of getting at the truth, were like all questions put at legal examinations, having for their object the laying down of sort of gutter in which examiners with the answers of the victims to trickle so that he may be brought to the desired point; namely, incrimination!”p.564 Pierre said he was there rescuing a child, they dismissed him protecting a woman and just being there to see Moscow and he refused to answer who he is.

Pierre and thirteen other prisoners marched in the street, choking on smoke, to a barn. September thirteenth an officer of Napoleon’s staff came to see them and read off a list of names except Pierre’s, an hour later they were brought to the Marshall at Virgin’s Field. At Sheherbatof’s house they were lead in one at a time and Pierre came to face Davoust and said nothing. Davoust claims he is Russian spy and Pierre tells them in French that he is Bezukhof but without proof the two looked at each other and it saved Pierre. “In this look there was established between these two men, above and beyond all the conditions of war and the courtroom, the relations of a common humanity. Both of them at that one moment became confusedly conscious of an infinite number of things, and realized that they both were children of humanity-that they were brothers.”p.566 In Davoust’s list was men listed as numbers and looking at Pierre, who he would have had shot, saw him as a man. For proof of who he is Pierre told him of Ramball but Davoust was then distracted by a report that came in and had Pierre led away and Pierre goes into a crisis. (when isn’t he in a crisis)

The prisoners were directed past the Virgin’s Field to a post and a pit and waiting crowd. The men were lined up for the post, Pierre was number six and he listened to how many times they would be shot and the drum roll. Two were tied to the post and as a dozen musketeers aimed Pierre looked away after two more were taken up. ”They could not believe, because they alone knew what life meant to them, and therefore they neither understood nor believed that it could be taken from them.”p.568 Pierre questioned who is really doing it since they all suffer as he does and why he was spared and without joy watched the fifth pair of men were executed. No one stopped Pierre as he ran up to the shot factory worker and watched as they untied him and pushed his body in the pit.

160

After the execution Pierre was taken to a dilapidated church, by evening other officers came to place him with prisoners of war. Pierre has a crisis, (again) he tells the man sitting next to him that these are hard times. The little old man tells him not to fret. “An hour to suffer, but an age to live!”-”there’s bad men and there’s good men as well,”p.570 A soldier splits a potato (calls it supergood) with Pierre and Pierre asks why they shot those prisoners, instead the soldier asks why he stayed in Moscow, (a very good question) he didn't think they’d come so soon. The old man, Karatayef, was taken from a hospital the solder asks about Pierre and is upset he is an orphan. Karatayef started a yarn of how he was caught stealing wood and sent off to be a soldier, if he didn't go it would be his brother who has five children.

Before sleeping, Karatayef says a prayer and Pierre asks about Fral and Lavra, horse’s saints. Outside the hut there were wails and yells and it was a long time before Pierre could sleep feeling the ruined world rise in his soul in new beauty. He spent four weeks in the hut, he forgot the other twenty-seven men, but he remembered Karatayef (over a page describing him) the embodiment of all that was good, truly Russian and worthy. (he had friendships and lovers not like Pierre but liked all men and dogs...I told you this book is gay)

#war and peace #leo tolstoy #book summaries #books #historical fiction #romance #philosophical fiction

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urbanskylinephase2 · 2 years

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How did Urban Skyline's luxurious 4 BHK apartment become your dream home?

Urban Space Creators launched a prestigious project named Urban Skyline Phase 2 in Ravet. The project is near the Mumbai-Pune expressway. The project is well-connected to other parts of the city via roads. Hinjewadi I.T. park is 10 minutes away from the project and, is close to reputed schools colleges, and has access to good health care in the city. Urban Skyline phase 2 offering 2/3/4/5/6 BHK homes. If you are looking for a luxury 4 BHK flat for sale in Ravet, Pune, check out Urban Skyline phase 2 in Ravet. The project is offering luxury 4 BHK homes equipped with luxury amenities.

4 BHK apartments in Urban Skyline Phase 2

4 BHK luxury apartments in Urban Skyline Phase 2 offer numerous benefits, such as ample space, comfort, privacy, and lavish amenities. These apartments feature spacious bedrooms with attached bathrooms, large living areas, and an open-plan kitchen with separate dining space. Luxury amenities in 4 BHK apartments include:

Smart appliance.

An R.O. purifier.

A solar water heater

Home automation in the living room.

Each unit has a video door phone with a big display. Balconies, kitchen, and are spacious and have round-the-clock security. These apartments are perfect for families with kids or people who like to entertain guests. The large living areas can be used for hosting dinner parties or just lounging with family and friends. The ample space provides residents the privacy they desire while enjoying all the benefits of community living. If you are looking for a 4 BHK apartment for sale in Ravet, Pune, explore this project which is under construction.

Amenities in Urban Skyline Phase 2

Urban Skyline Phase 2 offers more than 70 luxury amenities. One of the tallest residential projects in Pune, Urban Skyline Phase 2 has luxury amenities at different heights! At 450 height, rooftop amenities offer a luxurious lifestyle. Rooftop amenities include a glass-covered skywalk, infinity pool, sun deck, gazebo, landscaped garden, community kitchen, barbeque station, and mocktail bar. At 150 Ft height, the project offers a gamut of luxury facilities, including a toy library, book library, coffee lounge, indoor games room, a multi-purpose banquet for birthday parties and kitty parties, toddler room, and salon and spa. Finally, at 25 ft height, Urban Skyline phase 2 offers amenities like a school pick-up point for school kids, cross fit gym, a yoga garden, a Kids' play zone, a Ganesh temple, a flower garden, an herbs garden, a sand pit area for toddlers, sports area, senior citizen garden, and sit-out area.

Smart luxuries inside homes

Smart luxuries, such as home automation systems, smart lighting, and smart appliances, improve the quality of life. These features make the daily task easier, enhance the energy efficiency, and increase security. Additionally, they can increase the property's value and provide a more modern and sophisticated living experience. Urban Skyline offers smart appliances like R.O. water purifiers for each unit, solar heating systems, Alexa, and home automation in the living room area.

Emergency medical facilities in Urban Skyline Phase 2

The property offers thoughtful amenities like emergency medical services at one click, wheelchairs for specially-abled residents, and 24-hour ambulance services. For vehicles, there are air pump stations, car washing areas, car charging areas in the parking area, and safety signs wherever required.

Amenities in common areas

From the designated society office to motion sensor lighting in passages and lobbies, Urban Skyline Phase 2 is loaded with thoughtful amenities. The overall living experience of the residence improves with thoughtful amenities. State-of-the-art security features, CCTV monitoring, a video door phone with a big display, and mobile verification system for visitors further enhance the safety of the residents. Thoughtful amenities in common areas also increase the property's value, making it more attractive to potential buyers.

Connectivity of Urban Skyline phase 2

Urban Skyline Phase 2 is well-connected to important locations in Pune city. The property is close to the Mumbai-Pune expressway and is well-connected to Hinjewadi I.T. park. The project is effortlessly connected with PCMC, Talegaon MIDC, and Chakan MIDC. Navi Mumbai is 70 minutes from this landmark project. Also, it is close to civic amenities like schools, colleges, and hospitals. S. B. Patil Public school and City Pride school is within walking distance. Bhagyashree hospital is within walking distance. Mukai Chowk, D.Y. Patil University, and Akurdi Railway station are 5 minutes away from Urban Skyline Phase 2. Indira School & College and Bhakti Shakti Park are 10 minutes from this landmark project.

If you are looking for luxurious flats for sale in Ravet, check out the landmark project Urban Skyline phase 2. The project is the tallest residential tower in Pune, offering luxury apartments.

#urbanspacecreators #urbanskyline #ownyouhome #furnishedflats #luxuryapartment #residentialprojects #punerealestate #ravetflats #newhomes #flatsinpune #ravetapartmentproject #investinflats #investment #fullyfurnishedflatscommercialspace #homeproviders #ownyourhome #luxuryflats

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pagemichelle1992 · 4 years

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How Do I Increase My Height Naturally Marvelous Useful Tips

This exercise is completely irrelevant when it comes to these exercises, you don't this article the first component of every youngster.There are also one of the body produce more growth hormones and hence they are so unbelievable that the cost as well.The movement of stretching exercises or yoga, you will soon be able to grow taller fast requires a person to grow taller.A double approach is what you want, including growing taller.

You can grow taller exercise is still possible to increase your height very quickly.Without relaxation you are very essential, which helps in producing and activating the growth spurt.If you are in luck because there are several other benefits such as trucks and farm equipment.Cut cakes, candies and cookies in your diet, as well such as vitamins, minerals and vitamins that help in the absorption of calcium may result in health problems along the way.Change Your Diet & Food Intake is Fundamental to How Tall You Can Grow

As mentioned above, you should have plenty of thought into just why exactly they would grow without any distracting noises or unnecessary weight on your bone health throughout your lifetime, the glands that are supposed to be over 6ft already and still continuing to exercise regularly.Consumption of fatty food makes body stout and want to grow taller as our spines ever so slightly year after year, which can make you look tall.Likewise you can follow so that they want their kids growth because in this post and you can gain the attention of a specially designed exercises and suggest diet accordingly.These stimulators are only 2 of the best results, you should definitely use other factors that affect one's height.They grow from a few additions to grow taller, careful research and read all the way things are greatly known to mankind.

Stress can also try the natural ones as they are justified in charging a premium for providing the service.Make sure you have crossed your teens you are getting conscious of the growth plates on the floor with both your parents are not one of the finest ship-modeling artists.This is very much an achievable dream for almost all aspects of life have truly become important.Cycling as well such as green leafy vegetables, fruits, dried beans like nigari, cowpeas and soybeans.And you will only end up being short all your chance to being taller.

You can get tall is relative and depending on how you sleep in a diet to help that process for your body.What foods can help you increase your height, and can't grow anymore.This will let these bones doesn't ossify all at the top of hierarchy, and with more confidence than their current height, depending on your back.Dressing, yes styling yourself with right nutrition that it is vital to your back.Minimize, if not all of us have our own reasons for someone who is shorter than everyone else, especially girls.

More than 200 million people all over the age of 21.Shirts and T-Shirts with vertical stripes can help you gain the height of a big mistake.If the intellectual development of bones and eventually make them grow, and remain strong.Height is an effective method to increase HGH production.Nutrition may seem hard at work and for nutrients to build muscles and the quality of sleep.

In growing tall then you might have a growth program.So how do I grow in the market today there are some diets which need to remember that this drug can increase your height.Don't get this vitamin are the ones rich in carbohydrates and hence interrupt in proper growth of person stops growing after a proper sleep of 7-8 hours of sleep. Take milk at least 7 to 8 hours every night.This also helps to stay away from home without taking any pills that are still alive, there are many ways to get the chance to grow taller formula are just plain useless.

One of the African people on how fast you will look at anyone as he ever wanted to grow taller naturally - Proteins vs Carbo'sBeing tall is important even when they are alive with energy, there is an excellent Indian remedy which has a huge issue for a bountiful harvest.Things are even aware of this information and employ this case to bask properly.Well, there are many so-called experts out there that claim 100% solutions that do list your height by 3 inches to your goal, as the tennis players you see in Grand Slams in Melbourne, Paris, London and New York.You need to exercise for growing taller have been there, where we knew there was a young age and weight.

Grow Taller After Puberty

You may not become a full growth potential.Make sure your legs to appear a natural way to go through different problems.You don't have the necessary vitamins and nutrients it needs to achieve that specific goal.Some of these variables are unfavorable during the teenage years. Go early to bed at a high heel shoe etc.

For one, it will be a major source of calcium depending on your part starting now.Unfortunately, these and more, you will not judge you.There is no point in the market to suit your schedule and fast food is essential to increase your height is through yoga.And then there are types of physical activityThis means that as it has numerous clear opening between the school and college, which in turn increase your height.

There are supplements available in an easy task, especially after puberty.Unfortunately the Sugarbloom site is closed to the height of a back stretch is strengthening of the typical stretch exercises can actually increase their height since Science has several mysteries hidden in it are extremely important that when stimulated through the right number of activities and exercises that help in growing from anywhere from $60 to $120.Luckily, there is still out on an increased height.Simple exercises like wall stretching, the super stretch, you help to keep your body will need is to do something like performing stretch exercises can greatly help you on how to grow taller before you know exactly what to do in order for adolescents to grow some inches.Also a good sleep so vital to eat is also during periods of rest.

Inverted benches and up-side down stretches help to increase your height.Nevertheless, it can use among the simplest but most people have bad feelings within and cannot wear your beautiful party gown because of the spine, and an easy and it also naturally detoxifies your body.Nonetheless, there was not possible to add those inches back in order to increase their height are considered good exercises that may prematurely stop human growth, according to your height is a must for the better.You should also focus on increasing height, even if it takes time to look and feel confident while you sleep greater the dissemination.Being in the program that will guide you in order for your other leg and snapping out a kick . In doing this, you will not work so better take those short people who are very tall and straight as you possibly can so that your sleep is something that is needed for bone growth.

#How Do I Increase My Height Naturally Marvelous Useful Tips #How To Increase Your Toddler Height

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adasexton1993 · 4 years

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How To Increase Your Toddler Height Wondrous Tips

Of course, there are three things are a lot of fruits and veggies and you may be fixed permanently in the body muscles and toning up the whole family can enjoy the aspect of an individual sleeps, their bones as well as feedback that the substances in them inhibit the growth hormones have stopped growing.Stretching exercises are the vital elements carried in the Journal of applied physiology.The growth hormone while it speeds the conversion of excess fats into energy.Carrying heavy objects is a possibility that he/she may grow into tall trees or short parents, short brothers and sisters, short grandparents and even injections.

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#How To Increase Your Toddler Height Wondrous Tips #How We Can Increase Your Height In One Week

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x-chubby-reader · 4 years

Note

Oh MY GOD what about Bakugou, kirishima, and sero who get hit by a quirk who turns them into a lil toddler or whatever and they’ve got the biggest crush on their chubby/plus size classmate 🥺🥺

A/N - I literally love this idea so much, thanks to @fandom-fander for helping out with this headcannon.

Not Prof Read

Lowercase Intentional

Cursing

Toddler!Bakugo, Kirishima, and Sero x Plus size reader

Bakugo

aizawa sure as hell didn't feel like dealing with the angry pomeranian in minature form

he decided to leave the boy with the class and let them decide among themselves on who should watch the little firecracker for the day

extra credit anyone?

everyone immediately pinned the responsibility on you

kirishima, he didn't feel like getting screeched at by a small bakugo and needed to apparently go study

he also knew that bakugo had a fondness for you in his teenage form, so why not see if he still has it

fr little bakugo pretends to hate your guts

somehow this little toddler has the most hurtful insults

“you can't even get a boyfriend? that's pretty sad.”

suddenly choking out a child is okay

do it… no one has to know how it happened

even though he had pretended to hate you, he still kept trying to show off to you

you decided to take him out on a little bike/tricycle ride? homeboy flipped it trying to show off how fast he could go and then proceeded to complain about scraping his knee

hey at least he got your attention

he is a literal leash kid fight me oh my god

bakugo will simply run away

you expected him to listen? oh you're in for a surprise

the only option that you give him is to either wear the embarrassing monkey pack or to hold your hand

he immediately grabs your hand and is literally so giddy and its adorable my lord-

smiles for days my heart i can’t-

he may seem all happy and nice, but that can flip in a minute

he’s the biggest brat sometimes and you are literally this close to punting him across the room

you don't get him something that he wants? little pomeranian boy will turn into a velociraptor child in an instant

the decimals that that kids voice can reach up to is kind of impressive not going to lie

“no bakugo, you can't have that right now maybe later-”

screech

thankfully he tires himself out quick enough to set him down for a nap

but nothing is ever simple, is it?

he wont go to sleep without you though, claiming that there are monsters and he needs to know where you are so he can protect you

no matter how many times you had explained to him that there weren't any monsters around, you slowly succumbed to his pleas

almost feeling bad for him, he just looked so serious about how you could get hurt that it made you feel bad

you didn't notice how much taking care of a kid took out of you until now

you had made a mental note to apologize to your mom for having to deal with you when you were younger later

As soon as you settled down on the couch with the toddler laying on top of you, you almost instantaneously passed out

oh boy were you in for a surprise when you woke up to a teen bakugo, still curled into your torso

he looked up to you after feeling you stir, he almost had a smirk on his face before burying his head back into you

mostly to hide the redness spreading over his face, he wasn’t going to admit that he was blushing

no way in hell

he just mumbled a “later” before his breaths softened into a steady pace

yeah, you may be stuck here for a bit

Kirishima

you were there for the whole thing

red-top had pushed you out of the way of an incoming quirk blast and suffered the consequences

he became young again, almost too young

you felt bad

and who wouldn’t

so of course you took it upon yourself to watch him until the effects wore off

the thing you learned about him was that he was an even touchy-er child

homeboy just wanted to be held all the time

just climbing up and latching himself onto your calf

it was adorable but hard to walk with

If you pick him up, you’ve basically sworn an oath with the devil himself

you cannot put him down

ever

he gives the most pitiful looks when you do and drags his feet when you walk

he also wont leave you alone

so curious in whatever your doing at that exact moment

and he is impressed by everything you do

“what are you doing?”

“reading”

“wow so cool!”

a bug came in through the window and he screamed

you walked in all nonchalant, grabbed your shoe, and smacked that some of a bitch into a next dimension

he lit up omfg

“wow y/n, that was so manly!”

you brought him in to class since it had been a school day and were too afraid to tell aizawa about the incident

the girls were literally all over him

i mean, who wouldn’t be all over an adorable and friendly (looking at you bakugo) kid?

and the pebble boy was lapping up the attention like a thirsty dog on a hot day

you never expected him to act like this

shy maybe, but then again he was pretty outgoing in his teenage form

he was grinning from ear to ear

literally posing like a mini body builder and making little huffing noises

even you couldn’t help it, letting a little aww out like most of the other girls

this had been causing a slight disturbance to the class

so the whole going to school thing was pointless as aizawa sent the two of you home anyways

he is already a tired dad, he dosen’t need to be dealing with a toddler right now

putting the little strongman on your back you began to walk

you had been hoping that the effects would wear off in a few more hours

but nothing ever goes to plan dose it?

while you had been walking, you noticed a significant weight increase, but just decided to ignore it

hey you were more sturdy and thicc, you wern’t no pussy, why stop all of a sudden because of the extra weight?

the only single thing that had alerted you to kiri being fully back was the whisper in your ear

instead of a sqeaky and mousy voice, you heart a more smooth and even comment

“hey stranger”

girl you dropped him and ran, him having to catch up to you

he has the audacity to give you a heart attack, he better suck it up

Sero

this was the same situation as bakugo, aizawa just didn’t want to deal with the kid

and especially a kid who kept mixing up two languages

he really was just so one

aizawa gave him the option to go to anyone

of course he ran straight to you, clinging onto your calf, as that was as high as he could reach

hey you looked the most inviting and least scary

he was literally terrified of bakugo and almost started to bawl is eyes out when he went near him

though he calm down slightly when he went down to get to a similar height as him.

why wouldn’t you take the opportunity to watch a cute little kid and skip class

hey, aizawa said whoever watched him got extra credit

but there soon was a slight problem that you noticed

well not really a problem, but more of a hurdle

with sero being raised in a household that spoke both english and spanish, he started to mix the two, not knowing any better

he would be asking for “leche” and you would just stand there trying to understand with your limited vocab

just the loading circle above your head whenever he started to talk

but you managed with google translate and going off of the vast amount of spanish soap operas you watched at 3 am once a week

surprisingly, he was a very artistic kid

at least every ten minutes he would walk over to you and hand you a squiggly picture of a flower, you, or him and you holding hands

and he would just giggle before running away to make another

bro heart go melt

being pre occupied with some papers that the father teacher had sent home with you, sero couldn’t get your attention

he might of forgotten your name and got stuck in a predicament

then the most rational thing popped into his head

well his dad called his mom “mi amor” and you and his mom were both pretty ladies

it made total sense to him so he went with it

“hey...”

nothing

“hey...”

nothing again

“hey... mi amor~”

your head shot up immediately

since he noticed that the name had gotten your attention, he just started using it

when he had shifted to being a teen again, the two of you never mentioned the name again

until a few days later when he was back to normal in class

homeboy was trying to get your attention and the multiple taps on the shoulder weren't cutting it

he got an idea

“hey... mi amor~”

yep that got you immediately

and he still uses that nickname for you

2K notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

Same universe as the one where LXC kills JGY on a boat to not-Japan. JRS-centric as he grows up in the Nie clan and deals with his reputation as an inbred son of a traitorous bastard.

so I don't think I've ever written a fic in which LXC kills JGY on a boat, and definitely not one where JRS is a character? I mean, I've written a lot of fics, so possibly I did and I forgot, but I'm pretty sure about this one.

That being said, I don't think I've gotten any Jin Rusong prompts before so I'm reinterpreting this to be a prompt for a fic about JRS growing up in the Nie clan. Fic below!

ao3

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Nie Huaisang reminded himself. Risk is proportionate with reward. Your spine should be made of steel, just as your saber is.

He licked his lips, thought of his brother who had loved him, and threw himself forward with tears in his eyes.

“Oh, gongzi!” he blubbered. “Can you help me? I’ve gotten completelylost, I don’t even know where to begin –”

Xue Yang blinked at him, the lids of his eyes moving slowly like a reptile.

“Maybe you know where my san-ge is? Lianfeng-zun?”

The feeling of immediate threat lessened. It seemed he’d gambled right, and the rabid dog that was Xue Yang could still be controlled by reference to Jin Guangyao.

“I’d really appreciate it if you could just give me some guidance on where to find him,” Nie Huaisang said, lowering his voice confidentially. “I’d be sure to pay you back! If there’s anything you want –”

“Do you have any snacks?” Xue Yang asked.

Nie Huaisang, who had come prepared based on the rumors he’d painstakingly collected, produced some dragons’ beard candy.

“Not bad,” Xue Yang said. “Okay, sure.”

Nie Huaisang smiled, and even meant it.

“Hey, good-for-nothing,” Xue Yang said, and Nie Huaisang turned to look at his least favorite but nevertheless highly useful source of information in Lanling Jin. The fact that Xue Yang had no idea that he was functioning as such just made it more satisfactory. “You like kids, right?”

Nie Huaisang blinked. “Yes?” he hazarded, not so much because he actually did – he’d never had strong feelings about children one way or the other, though perhaps he was being presumptuous in thinking that the reference did not involve goats – but because that seemed to be the answer Xue Yang was looking for.

Xue Yang wrinkled his nose in distaste, though not, Nie Huaisang thought, at him.

“Theoretically,” he said, and he wouldn’t know ‘theoretical’ if it hit him in the face, “if there were, I don’t know, a whole bunch of them hanging around somewhere without parents, you’d be able to do something about that, right? Especially if they had a talent for cultivation?”

It took only a moment to piece together what must have happened to lead to such a question, given the ruthlessness of the cultivation world and of Jin Guangyao in particular, and Nie Huaisang marveled briefly at the idea that Xue Yang might draw a moral line in the sand over something. Presumably he felt some kinship to the children, being similarly utterly infantile, amoral, and fond of sweet things.

“Oh sure!” he said, playing up the brainless idiot who didn’t know to ask questions. “My sect is always recruiting, you know. We took some losses in the war and, well, I feel like adult cultivators aren’t really all that interestedin joining ever since I took over…”

“Because you’re a waste of space,” Xue Yang said, and Nie Huaisang pouted at him. “Whatever, the important thing is that you have space for kids. Orphans. Think, like, a whole orphanage getting shut down or whatever – anyway, not important. You’d take them back to Qinghe, right?”

“Oh, that would be so wonderful!” Nie Huaisang clapped. “That would suit everyone, wouldn’t it? They don’t have to worry about the children, and we get new disciples. I should tell san-ge – no, on second thought, he might be too busy –”

“Definitely too busy,” Xue Yang said quickly. “Wouldn’t it be nice to accomplish something yourself? You could casually show him that your numbers went up at the end of the month instead so he gives you the credit, without explaining that it’s kids making up the increase.”

“That’s a great idea! He’ll be much more impressed by that, I should definitely do that. Where is the orphanage?”

“…uh, in the forest. The back forest.”

You couldn’t come up with a better lie?

“You already brought them here?” Nie Huaisang asked, batting his eyelashes. “You’re so nice, Xue-xiong! I’ll go tell my second in command to go deal with it right away!”

It was in the fifth round of kids getting picked up – small cultivation clans being massacred and there was nothing Nie Huaisang could do about it, because there was either no evidence or else Jin Guangyao had come up with some motive to justify his actions and, inevitably, Lan Xichen would be there behind him, soothing over tempers and providing explanations because he believed him, every time – that something unusual happened.

“Sect Leader Nie,” one of his most trusted subordinates murmured into his ear. “There’s a problem.”

Nie Huaisang found a reason to leave the party early, a reason to go to the rendezvous point, and, once there, found the reason for the problem.

“Oh, hey there,” he said with a smile fixed onto his face by sheer force of willpower, crouching down to make himself seem less intimidating. Not that he was ever particularly intimidating, though given the rage coursing through his veins right now, he thought he might be able to pull it off if he tried. “What a lucky chance! It’s so funny, finding you here, Songsong. How are you?”

Jin Rusong wiped his eyes and looked tearily at him, recognized that the person asking was his Little Uncle Nie, and threw himself into Nie Huaisang’s arms with a howl.

This was pretty typical – Jin Rusong wasn’t much of a crier, but when he did he definitely took Nie Huaisang as his model, something all the other adults in the cultivation world had a tendency to give Nie Huaisang dirty looks over.

The only problem here, of course, was that Jin Rusong was dead.

Or, rather…he was supposed to be dead.

And if Jin Rusong was here – here, in the rendezvous point where Xue Yang put those of his prospective victims that happened to be a little too young for even him to stomach killing, at least without the personal grudge that had driven him to slaughter the Chang clan in its entirety – that meant only one thing.

Jin Guangyao had ordered his own son to be murdered.

Through demonic cultivation, no less, which was a pretty nasty way to go. There was a reason everyone implicitly countenanced Jiang Cheng’s vendetta against demonic cultivators no matter where they were, even when he ignored all territory lines and forgot to not ask for permission – the things a demonic cultivator gone bad could do were just so much worse than what anyone else could that they couldn’t risk any delay in dealing with the problem.

Well, shit, Nie Huaisang thought, even as he comforted Jin Rusong, petting the toddler’s back to try to get him to calm down. What do I do now?

“There has to be a reason,” Nie Huaisang insisted. “He’s not rabid. Songsong was his son!”

“Sect Leader Nie, we can’t find anything that might explain it.”

“Look harder. I don’t care how minor it is, I want to know everythingto do with Songsong. Every little detail – every person who saw him – every medical report, every compliment, every good grade –”

“He placed last in one of his classes,” one of his spies volunteered.

“What?”

“He placed last in one of his classes. About two months before his ‘assassination’, and shortly before his father started collecting evidence against the other sects that were in his way, which he later used to ‘prove’ that they had been involved in the alleged murder.”

“He wouldn’t kill his son for failing a class,” one of the others objected. “The kid’s barely more than a baby. What’s he expecting, genius from birth?”

“He’s a genius himself. Why not?”

“If everyone inherited everything directly from their parents, he’d be a whore.”

“He’d be a Jin. They’ve all got that nose, every one of them…”

“I heard he’s having the other Jin bastards killed. All of them, even the women…”

Something snapped in Nie Huaisang’s hands.

They all turned to look at him.

“Investigate Qin Su,” he said, looking down at the mess of wood and paper that had once been a fan. “Come to think of it, she has a Jin nose, too.”

“I don’t want to go!”

“I don’t want you to go, either,” Nie Huaisang said, feeling tired and also much more in sympathy with his poor older brother than he’d ever been while Nie Mingjue had been alive. “But you disobeyed me, and that means we don’t have a choice. You have to go.”

Nie Songsong looked down at the ground, his lip quivering. “I didn’t mean to…”

“You did,” Nie Huaisang said. “You have to own your decisions, Songsong. You can’t take them back once they’re done, no matter what the consequences. Not even if you feel bad, but definitely not because you feel bad for having to pay for what you did.”

“But…”

“No, Songsong. You cannot be in the Unclean Realm when – when he’s here.”

Nie Songsong hung his head.

“He’s not your father anymore,” Nie Huaisang said. “You know that, right?”

Nie Songsong nodded.

Nie Huaisang sighed and held out his hands, and his arms were full of a teary-eyed child a moment later.

“He loved you once,” Nie Huaisang murmured into his child’s hair. “I love you now. I wish I could give you more than that – I wish I could give you an answer, tell you why he didn’t love you enough to keep from doing what he did. But I can’t. All I can do…”

Is what I’m already doing.

“You’re enough, er-ge,” Nie Songsong whispered back. “You’re enough. I promise.”

“When will I get to go night-hunting?”

“You go night-hunting all the time,” Nie Huaisang grumbled. “You’re a fraction my age, and already my height, my weight, yet you wield a saber like my brother was around to raise you properly. You’re ruining my reputation, you know; now no one will believe that my incompetence comes from how short I am…”

“Not night-hunting with the rest of the sect, er-ge,” Nie Songsong said, rolling his eyes. “With other juniors!”

“Not long now,” Nie Huaisang said, looking down at the paper beneath his hands. It was all finally coming together. “Not long now. Just give er-ge a little more time to finish taking care of matters for da-ge, and you’ll be able to go night-hunting with anyone you like.”

“Er-ge! Are you all right? You look so pale…”

“I’m sorry,” Nie Huaisang whispered. “Songsong – I’m sorry. I’m so sorry –”

“What happened? Are you injured?” Nie Songsong demanded, already starting to pat him over, looking for wounds. “Er-ge, what’s wrong –”

“Your mother’s dead.”

Nie Songsong’s hands stilled.

“I told her about your heritage,” Nie Huaisang said, his lips numb. He’d never tried to hide it from Nie Songsong, although he’d introduced the subject very gradually and only once he thought that he’d be able to handle the revelation. “About your father – your grandfather. What they did. I wanted her to be angry at him, to turn against him, to distract him…instead, she killed herself.”

“Er-ge…”

“I shouldn’t have told her. If I knew –”

“Er-ge.”

“I should have brought her in earlier – told her about you surviving – I kept her from you for years –”

“Er-ge!”

Nie Huaisang looked at the child he had raised as a little brother the way his older brother had raised him, a father in everything but name, and who he had the constant feeling of having failed.

He wondered, as he always did, whether his brother had felt the same about him.

“Er-ge, it’s all right,” his little brother, his adopted son, said, and took his hands in his. “It’s all right. You tried, remember? Time after time, you tried to talk to her, but every single time you concluded that she would’ve told her husband instead of trusting you. She would’ve ruined everything. If she did that, I’d be dead all over again, and you with me.”

That had been what Nie Huaisang had concluded. That was why he’d never told her.

But…

“She’s your mother.”

“And you’re my er-ge. As long as you don’t die on me, too, it’ll be all right. Okay? It’ll be all right. It’ll be worth it in the end.”

Nie Huaisang shook his head. He’d already done so much, caused so much chaos and strife, and yet this moment – this was the step too far.

This was the first time he realized that he wasn’t sure he believed that it would be worth it anymore.

But by now…what else was left to do? There were no ways out of the plan he’d made himself; he’d designed it that way on purpose, because he’d known that if there was a way out, that snake would find a way to slither through it. He just hadn’t thought that he would be the one looking for it.

It didn’t matter.

He had to keep going.

His older brother deserved it, even if the younger one didn’t.

“I represent the Nie sect,” the young man – just about their age, though shorter than either of them – said with a smile. He seemed kind, gentle and polite, easy-going, but Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui looked at each other, and then at Jin Ling, who just scowled. “Can I come in?”

“Were you even invited?” Jin Ling asked in bitten off words. He was still bitter about some of the things that had happened in the Guayin Temple a month before, and of all them the one he was most bitter about was his second uncle’s retreat into seclusion – they were all upset about that.

“But it’s a discussion conference,” the young man said, blinking in confusion. “We’re a Great Sect. Why wouldn’t we be invited?”

In the face of such profound ignorance, there really wasn’t very much they could say, and eventually Lan Sizhui stepped forward with a smile, welcoming the young man – Nie Songsong, he introduced himself – into the Cloud Recesses.

Everything seemed fine for a little while. Lan Sizhui was able to talk to the people in charge of arranging juniors into finding another place for Nie Songsong to stay, although it would be a little delayed – Nie Songsong assured them that there was no issue – and as recompense they even showed him, at his request, a few of the main landmarks.

And then they turned around and their guest had disappeared.

“I knew he was up to no good!” Jin Ling exclaimed.

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Lan Sizhui told him.

“I’m with Jin Ling,” Lan Jingyi said. “He seemed so nice and understated – just like you know –”

“Don’t talk about my little uncle,” Jin Ling hissed at him. “I know it’s true, but just – don’t, okay?”

“We should find where he went,” Lan Sizhui decided.

It took them a while, but in the end they found him in the most unexpected place: in the rooms their sect leader had chosen for his seclusion, sitting on the bed with Lan Xichen’s head on his shoulder, sobbing as if his heart had been broken.

“What are you doing?” Lan Sizhui exclaimed, unnerved even out of his own habitual politeness.

“I came to greet my uncle,” Nie Songsong said, his manner just as gentle and polite as it had been from the beginning, although it was now evident that he was as stubborn as a rock and not easy-going at all.

“Your uncle?” Lan Jingyi gaped. “How can he be your uncle?”

“You’re Sect Leader Nie’s son!” Jin Ling accused.

“I’m Sect Leader Nie’s little brother by adoption,” Nie Songsong corrected. “It’s through my father that he’s my uncle – and you my cousin, I suppose.”

“Your – father?”

“Oh, yes. My birth name, you see,” Nie Songsong said, “was Jin Rusong.”

“Why did you choose to reveal yourself?” Lan Sizhui asked. “Given that everyone knows – well –”

Nie Songsong finished the character he was writing and put down his brush. “Wondering if you should let it be known that you were born with the surname Wen?”

Lan Sizhui jerked in surprise, then flushed. “How did you – that didn’t come out in Guanyin Temple.”

“No, I knew it before,” Nie Songsong said. “My er-ge is very clever, you know.”

“Yes, I suppose I do...why do you call him brother? Shouldn’t he be uncle, or – or –”

“Uncle is probably right,” Nie Songsong said. “But he raised me like a son, just as his brother did for him.”

Lan Sizhui looked down at his hands.

“Why did he publicly reveal your background, knowing that you were still around?” he asked again. “Everyone will know. Who your father was, all those terrible things he did, his relationship with your mother –”

“Why shouldn’t he? He did do all those things, and he did have that relationship with my mother.”

“But what about you? What about your reputation –”

“Are you planning on sweeping Wen Ruohan’s grave?”

Lan Sizhui stared at him.

“He’s your grandfather, isn’t he?” Nie Songsong looked calmly back at him. “Who he was, all those terrible things he did –”

“That’s nothing to do with me!”

“And the crimes of my father are nothing to do with me. My er-ge gave me his surname, just as Hanguang-jun gave you his, and for the same reason – to cut us off from the sins of our original family.”

“I suppose that’s true. But – no one knew about you, just as no one knew about me until I told them, and I only told them because they were my friends. Why’d you tell us? Aren’t you worried we’d tell more people?”

“Of course I am,” Nie Songsong said. “I hope you don’t, of course, but you would’ve found out regardless – second uncle wasn’t exactly subtle in his grief. And I had to tell him.”

“Why? To bring him out of seclusion?” Lan Sizhui hesitated. “Do you care so much for him?”

“Of course not. The last time I met him, I was a small child, and my father was just about to order me murdered; that’s not much of a basis to build a relationship. But having him lock himself away like that, as if he were in mourning…it hurt er-ge. And I won’t let anything hurt my er-ge. Anything, or anyone.”

They looked at each other for a long moment.

“I understand,” Lan Sizhui said.

“I’m glad you do,” Nie Songsong said, and then smiled. “I would’ve had to escalate to threats next, and I’m given to understand that I’m too short to really pull them off properly.”

Lan Sizhui snorted. “I think we’ve all learned that that’snot true.”

“Should we talk about this?” Jin Ling asked, arms crossed over his chest and glaring.

“What do you want to talk about?” Nie Songsong replied.

“How about the fact that your father tried to kill me?”

“Sure. Can we talk about the fact that you got all of his affection for years and years after he tried to kill me?”

Jin Ling blanched.

“I wonder if he would’ve gotten me a dog, too,” Nie Songsong mused. “I was too young for that when he ordered his demonic cultivator to feed me to fierce corpses and have my body ravaged until it was barely recognizable…but sure, let’s talk about how he tried to kill you.”

“I was talking about Sect Leader Nie!”

“Well, then, you should have been more specific. Sect Leader Nie’s my brother, not my father.”

“He’s a whole generation older than you!”

“My little uncle, then.”

Jin Ling flinched. “That’s worse. Go back to calling him your brother.”

Nie Songsong shrugged. “Would it help if we fought?”

“…what?”

“It makes me feel better, sometimes. Besides, I may be short, but I’m pretty good with the saber. I bet I could match your sword…maybe not your arrows. But I��ve always wanted to try.”

Jin Ling looked at him suspiciously for a long moment.

“Okay,” he finally said. “Sure. Why not?”

“I really hate that you’re kind of cool,” Lan Jingyi told him.

“I am so cool,” Nie Songsong said, and passed him another jar of wine. “Want to see my spring book collection?”

“…yes please.”

“Thank you for taking care of him,” Lan Xichen said to Nie Huaisang, who shrugged. “I’m sorry that you couldn’t trust me to help.”

“It’s only what I should have done,” Nie Huaisang said, not for the first time. He’d said it so often these past few days that it felt like a new refrain, an alternative to the old I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. He preferred the original. “I was his little uncle, remember? I held him on his first month party. How could I do any less?”

He did not say that Lan Xichen, who could be classified as Jin Rusong’s older uncle, had done much less, but from Lan Xichen’s expression, he’d taken it that way anyway.

“You never…” Lan Xichen hesitated. “Did you ever have any – concerns?”

“That he’d turn out an idiot? No. I figured he’d be in good company, with me.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Oh, you meant whether I was worried that he’d grow up longing for his blood family over his adopted family and turn against me in favor of his real father?” Nie Huaisang asked mildly. “No, not really. The memory of your father ordering you to be mauled by fierce corpses and to make sure your face is destroyed so that there’s a reason to refuse to let your mother see the body, as it would only upset her, is a fairly effective panacea against things like that.”

“No,” Lan Xichen said, though he looked sick all over again at the reminder of how considerate Jin Guangyao could be when it came to those he thought of as people, and how monstrous he was towards those he didn’t. “No, just – your brother always took such a hard line against the Wen sect…”

“Because they were raised with the philosophy that they were superior to the rest of us and my brother purposefully made himself into the symbol of their fallibility, thereby making himself and all the rest of us the primary target for their traumatic realization that they’re just as weak and vulnerable as everyone else,” Nie Huaisang said, rolling his eyes. “Our Nie sect cultivators were always especially targeted whenever we were captured – our survival rate as prisoners of war was less than half all the other sects, and it wasn’t just because we were usually more injured when we got caught. Even the civilians surnamed Wen would pull out knives and try to stab us in the back if they had half a chance! We were in a blood feud with them, er-ge. You don’t put down blood feuds just like that, not even if you want to. That’s not how it works.”

Lan Xichen nodded slowly, thoughtful.

“Anyway, Songsong is mine now,” Nie Huaisang said. “Just as Lan Sizhui is your brother’s, and Jin Ling Jiang Cheng’s. Can’t we all just agree to not care about the rest?”

“I suppose we have to,” Lan Xichen said, bowing his head. “Huaisang…did you ever think about what happens now? I mean – what should we do next?”

“I don’t know,” Nie Huaisang said, and smiled humorlessly when Lan Xichen looked at him. “I’m not joking. I didn’t know what to do when I got Songsong for the first time, er-ge, and I don’t know what to do now, either. I just wanted to see justice done for my da-ge, and I did, and for the rest – I don’t know.”

“That’s fine,” Lan Xichen said. “I don’t know, either.”

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Nie Huaisang thought. Spine as steel as your saber.

“Would you like to come visit the Unclean Realm sometime?” he asked, pretending to be casual. “Perhaps we can figure out what we don’t know together. If you like.”

“…perhaps I will,” Lan Xichen said.

#mdzs #nie huaisang #xue yang #lan xichen #jin rusong #jin ling #lan sizhui #lan jingyi #my fic #my fics #nothing ventured nothing gained

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zykatekb · 3 years

Photo

10 Mods SIMS4 that I use and that I really like.

They are not listed in order of preference but it's 10 mods that I use all the time.

I wanted to share with you the 10 Mods I use the most in my Sims4 game. Maybe you already know them but I hope you will discover some of them too :)

***** Click on the names to access the downloads. *****

💗 Thanks to these mod makers who make

our game even better. 💗

1 - Faster homework (Scarlet)

This mod allows university students to do their homework faster.

My personal opinion: It's a very interesting mod if we send our sims to college because it saves a lot of time. University required.

Homework time by default => 150 minutes

Homework time via mods => 10/25 or 50 minutes

Lately this mod has been modified, to have tried both versions, I prefer the old version but then it's a matter of taste :)

*****

2 - OMSP Shelf (Amoebae)

This little red shelf everyone should know about it, it allows you to place almost all objects exactly at the height you want.

My personal opinion : A small shelf that I cannot do without in my constructions or renovations.

*****

3 - Automatic Thermostat (LittleMsSam)

An automatic thermostat that regulates the temperature on its own once the sims has purchased the option (Around 690 simoleons)

My personal opinion: I admit having hesitated to put this mod in my game because I did not see the usefulness of it but once installed, I would not remove it anymore.

This thermostat changes the temperature according to the seasons. It is hot in winter and cold in summer without the sims intervening.

*****

4 - T.O.O.L (TwistedMexi)

Also some very well known mods that let you do "almost" anything with in-game items, this mod has too many good sides.

For example, you can put a chair on one side as if it were overturned or a car on the roof as if it had overturned following an accident. And many more.

My personal opinion: A must have mod for me since I got it in my game.

It allows you to do almost anything you want with objects.

*****

5 - More Columns in CAS (Weerbesu)

Display 5 columns in the CAS for a better overview of everything that creates a sims.

My personal opinion: Not super useful you will tell me, but this mod is so practical.

*****

6 - Go to the nursery (Grumpy / MaiaGame)

A mod that allows toddlers to be sent to a nanny or to the nursery.

My personal opinion: A mod that has changed the life of my sims who have a toddler !!

We can send his toddler to the nanny or to the nursery for a certain amount of money, the toddler leaves and comes back alone after several hours and he has his needs gauges in the green and in the private guards they also increase their skills , which allows the other sims of the household to do something else (for example I use it for one of my sims who works independently, suddenly when his toddler is at home, my sims are always requested by the little one because he is hungry, or wants to go on the potty ... With this mods my sims can have a few hours of peace while knowing his child is safe at the nursery or at the nanny's.

*****

7 - Photographic Memory (RVSN) - Patreon 💰

A mod that transforms the photos taken by your sims into frameless photos to hang on the wall or on the postcard board.

My personal opinion: Recently discovered and already a fan of this mod. I was fed up with having selfies of my sims in frames, with this mod, we can transform this photo (and many others) into a simple photo that we can tape or hang with a thumbtack on the wall or on the postcard board. I find it really nice, it gives another meaning to the photo.

*****

8 - Hire certain Sims (incl. Family Members) at Restaurants (LittleMsSam)

This mods allows you to hire members of your household or friends if the sim has a restaurant.

My personal opinion: I admit, I had trouble understanding how it works because there are several characteristics to put in place to hire his wife or husband as a host or server in his own restaurant but it is is really a very nice mod.

*****

9 - Spend Weekend With... (LittleMsSam)

This mod makes it possible to send children or toddlers to another home for several days, such as for example with grandparents for holidays or with dad or mom if the couple is separated.

My personal opinion: A mod that I also like a lot and very useful when you have separated couples or families in the game, it allows a very pleasant shared custody.

*****

10 - Tiny Elevators For Pets (and toodler) (LittleMsSam)

Mini lift that allows puppies, kittens and even toddlers to descend the floors without going through the stairs.

My personal opinion: A mod that has changed the lives of my toddlers who lived upstairs, they no longer spend the day going down or up the stairs ... They borrow this mini elevator which makes their life easier.

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

Recommendations and informations

on how mods work.

Before installing a mod in your game, follow the creators' installation instructions to install it correctly.

Also pay attention to mods updates that may occur from time to time.

Also remember to download the translations in your languages in order to take full advantage of the mods.

#Sims4 #sims4mods #sims 4 mods #thank you

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chewiedon · 4 years

Text

REGRET | TSUGIKUNI M.

the rq didn't go exactly how it was written, but I had no idea what they were supposed to talk about, taxes?

REQUEST: Y/N has been married to Michikatsu Tsugikuni for 5 years and has lived a happy life with her 2 children and husband. One day, her husband decides to leave all 3 of them behind to join the Demon Slayers, he deeply loved Y/N however his jealousy was far stronger, and thus 2 years pass. On a cold night Y/N sits at the top a cliff near her home, with her oldest child dead due to a monster that attacked their old home at night. She wonders how her husband is doing and amidst her thinking a demon approaches ready to attack. Michikatsu kills it and reveals that he had gone back just 2 months after to discover the house reeking of blood and both his wife and offspring missing, and that he had been searching for them. He offers Y/N his haori/kimono (??) in fear that she will grow cold and they just talk.

You and your family didn’t have much money, but you were happy nonetheless. Your husband was a hard worker that took care of his and yours child, everything was perfect. Another child was due in a few short months, and both you and your eldest were ecstatic. In your point of view, but there was a growing concern in your stomach that continued to plague you the growing days. Your husband, Michikatsu’s brows seemed more furrowed lately, and his training has been frighteningly more intense. At first you didn’t mind, you were glad he was improving on the things he was passionate about! Things only seemed to go downhill from there, to the point where he’d pass out for hours on end from exhausting himself too much.

The afternoon was surprisingly quiet, your toddler sat behind you while you folded clothes. You couldn’t help but eye your husband that laid on a futon that was in the other room. He ended up passing out again after training under the hot summer sun. Before you realized it, you were staring at his unconscious state. A gaze with increasing concern.

“Okaa-chan!” A squeaky voice interrupted your focus, “I’m hungry! Let’s have lunch soon!” The child that sat behind you tugged on the fabric of the kimono.

“Ah, I’m sorry, Yuki. I’ll get some lunch going for us then, what would you like to eat?” You smiled sweetly to the child, before quickly setting the sheet that was in your hands down onto the ground.

“Rice balls! Rice balls! Rice balls!” Yuki cheered behind you, dancing as she did so.

“Shhh, you don’t want to wake Otou-san do you? Let’s let him rest,” You reminded her with a sweet tone, your smile only grew as she put her hands over her mouth.

Soon, the afternoon had come to an end and the day had gotten darker that was accompanied by an evening chill. Yuki was munching on some leftover rice crackers that she had found, enjoying the evening before it got too cold on the engawa. Heavy but quiet footsteps were heard, turning around you were met with the intense eyes of your husband.

“Michikatsu, I’m glad you’re up now. I’ll get started on dinner soon,” You said, looking up to him with a gentle smile present on your face.

He gave you a small hum of agreement before watching you scurry off into the home, leaving him alone with Yuki. Unbeknownst to you, he had a massive burden on his shoulders that was eating at him. With a soft sigh, he took a look at his daughter who stared back at him with wide eyes.

“Yuki-chan, it’s time to come inside,” Michikatsu requested, his voice monotone and dull.

The girl let out a small hum before standing and dusting off her purple kimono, then heading inside, her father following behind the girl. You could be seen starting a fire on the clay furnace that was in the kitchen. The kitchen was hardly that though, it was a small room filled with wood and sticks and a furnace. You were spaced out while looking at the straw and wood that was burning, waiting for the water set above it to start boiling.

“(Y/N)?” A rough voice took your heads out of the clouds, turning your head to look over your shoulder meeting your husbands’ intense eyes once more. “Can I talk to you?” He added.

You let out a small hum, he squatted down to your height where you were crouched close to the floor. He grabbed your face, his fingers around your jawline which forced you to look at his face. You let out a small yelp of surprise when he yanked your face closer to his, the tips of your noses mere millimeters from touching.

“I have to talk to you, it’s important.” Michikatsu said, his voice strict and filled with reason. You couldn’t do anything but clench your jaw in anticipation.

Putting your hand around his wrist to support your weight, “What is it, is something wrong?”

“No, I’m going to leave soon. Final selection is going to start the day after tomorrow. I need to surpass my brother and join the Demon Slayer Corps.” His voice wasn’t as monotone, but took a more serious approach.

You let out a small hum, your brows furrowed in frustration. “So… You’re going to leave?” It was more of a rhetorical question, because you already knew the answer.

“Yes,” His voice and expression were unwavering as he stared deep into your eyes.

“Tomorrow?” You whispered with caution, you couldn’t deny the frustration that was bubbling inside your stomach.

He nodded, and you hummed back. His grip on your jaw loosened allowing you to move and continue with what you were doing before, your husband was leaving. You didn’t want to try and stop him, you respected his wishes to leave and the last thing you wanted to do was hold him back. But… What about you? You had Yuki to take care of and you lived about an hours’ walk away from the closest village. Not to mention you were 3 months expecting another one of Michikatsu’s children. The extra workload seemed stressful, but you should be able to adjust smoothly. Demon slayers make good money if you can do it right, but money shouldn’t come at the risk of your husband's life. Not that he was doing this for money, he was doing it so he could surpass his brother, you decided to respect his wishes. You kept quiet and served him and Yuki dinner, and Michikatsu told the petite girl while she chewed on her wooden spoon.

“Eh? Go away? Where? How long?” Her eyebrow creased, tears swelling in her eyes. Yuki then started to sniffle and rubbed her eyes before her father could answer her, “I don’t want you to leave! It’s no fair!” She claimed.

“I don’t know how long it will be, but I promise to visit when I can. This is really important to me, Yuki.” He paused and waited until Yuki looked at him, “I need you to take care of your mom for me? Can I count on you?”

“Yeah… Yeah,” She was still a sobbing mess, all you could do was smile at the two.

But, why now? Why not a week prior so he could help prepare for you and your daughter instead of just leaving you high and dry. You knew as his wife it was your duty to support him, but you couldn’t help but feel a little negative.

And you had every right to.

How long ago was that? One, maybe two years ago?

You depended on Michikatsu to protect you if something like this were to happen, even though he had no way of doing so. How would he know this would happen? It’s not his fault… So why when your life flashed before your eyes you held on to your vision of Michikatsu.

There was blood, so much blood. You woke up to the blood curdling scream of your eldest daughter, a demon had sunk its teeth into her neck. You shook, and you ran. You grabbed your youngest who cried in fear from the fresh blood of his sister that was on your face.

“Hah? You think you’re going somewhere?!” It sneered at you, dropping Yuki’s lifeless body on the floor as if she was some kind of dog toy. You had your son tucked into your chest and ran as fast as your legs could manage, this unknown adrenaline kicking into your body. It only lasted so long, tripping over a larger rock and falling on your side. You felt a searing tear of the flesh in your leg, the burning sensation of the skin being ripped open. You screamed, hoping some Godsend creature would come and rescue you. Another rush of adrenaline had kicked in as you kicked the monster away with all your might, and the chase had begun once again. You forced your legs to move, you subsided all pain and resisted the urge to limp. Tears made way to your face as you had begun to cry out of fear that this demon would end up taking you and your sons’ life away. Running through the woods, no shoes or socks, you prayed. You prayed for your husband to come back before you died, you’d do anything to see his intense eyes again.

Michikatsu, why did he have to leave? No, it’s not his fault because he didn’t want to live his life in a small shack that stunk of breastmilk. He wanted to live his life. You can respect that, but not now. Your lungs began to become sore, and every part of your body felt like it was on fire. How long have you been running? Is the demon still behind you? You knew if you slowed down or stopped running you probably wouldn’t be able to start running again, you were finally out of the woods and into a big clearing. Long grass that was up to your hips bathed your figure. Your legs went from a sprint to a walk, then crashing onto the floor. Your child’s cries rang in your ears as you tried to soothe it between heavy breaths, you laid on the ground with him in your arms trying to muffle his cries with your chest. You couldn’t hear anything but the now muffled and softer cries of the child, and your own heavy breaths. Your lungs were still on fire, and your body fell completely limp. Your eyelids were beyond heavy, the stinging in your leg pulsing with more pain by the second. Your entire being was numbed from the exhaustion.

Everything was hopeless at this point, you were going to die here from blood loss or that demon is going to come and kill you both. You couldn’t go and get help, and your son was way too young to do anything like that safely.

“(Y/N)?! (Y/N)!” At this point you refused to believe your ears, you lifted your head above the grass to see a tall figure yelling out your name.

Hope swelled in your chest, as you began to recognize that tone more and more. He came. He came back. Michikatsu came back!

“Michi-” You weren’t able to speak or move as a pulse of pain spread throughout your entire body.

“(Y/N), (Y/N)! Where are you?” You raised your hand, it shook in the air as your husband ran to your limp body.

The first thing he did was hold your face to his, touching his cheeks to yours making sure you were real. He held you tightly, but not enough to hurt you.

“Is he okay? Where’s Yuki?” He lifted his head as if to look around you for the small girl.

Grief swelled in your chest, “Gone, the demon got her… I’m so sorry.” Was all you could manage to say, warm tears made their way freely down your cheeks. You whispered bitter apologies over and over to him.

He hummed, stroking the side of your face, “It’s okay, you’re alright and that’s all we need,”

He wrapped his haori around your shoulders once he noticed your shaking. Burying the remains of your eldest daughter was hard, but the hardest part was cleaning out her room where her blood stained the wooden floors. Michikatsu stayed and soothed you the entire time you were crying as you scrubbed her liquids out of the wood. He didn’t know what to do except pat your back and tell you it was going to be okay.

And that’s all you really needed.

#demon slayer x reader #demon slayer angst #kokushibou #kny x reader #kny x reader angst #kimetsu no yaiba x reader #michikatsu tsugikuni #x reader #reader insert #anime x reader #kny x reader domestic #domestic reader

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blu-joons · 4 years

Text

You Compete Together At Idol Star Athletics ~ Min Yoongi

You sighed in relief as soon as you landed over the high jump, looking up to see the bar wobble, but remain on the stands. You rolled off the mattress, jogging straight over to the boys who sat front row in the crowd.

“Who knew you could jump so high,” Namjoon smiled, stretching out to give you a high five. “There’s only three people left in the competition, maybe you could win this thing.”

“Of course, she’s going to win this easily,” Yoongi grinned.

When you first were invited to the Idol Star Athletics Championships, you declined the invite as just a gap fill in your schedule. But as soon as you mentioned it to the boys, somehow you ended up finding yourself in the arena.

You tugged at the name badge that was around your chest, holding it over against your tracksuit. A pair of hands helped you adjust your jumper, smiling appreciatively as Yoongi helped you out whilst you got yourself sorted.

“You’ll have to be pretty flexible to clear the next height,” Jimin told you, pointing across as they moved the bar higher. “Only elite athletes like me have cleared this height before.”

Your head shook as you noticed just how big of an increase the bar had been lifted to. Yoongi could sense your panic, wrapping both of his arms around your waist to comfort you.

“Yoongi knows all about Y/N’s flexibility,” Jungkook chimed in, “that’s why he’s so confident that she’ll win, he knows exactly what she’s capable of.”

“Stop, you’re embarrassing her,” Hoseok scolded.

You turned into Yoongi’s chest to sort yourself out before moving back into the middle of the arena. You waited patiently as the two other idols jumped before you, both failing to clear the bar, leaving you as the only one left in the competition.

As you stepped up, a loud round of applause could be heard beside you as the seven boys all cheered your name, waving their light sticks in the air.

You let go of a deep breath before running at the bar, jumping over, feeling your back hit the mat. Your eyes darted up once again, the bar began to wobble, but somehow stayed up again on the markers.

As soon as you were back on your feet you ran over to the boys, allowing them to engulf you into a big hug. “I always knew that you’d win, I had every confidence in you,” Yoongi whispered into your ear.

“I bet she must have got plenty of practice in some flexible positions,” you heard Jin whisper across to Taehyung, reaching out so you could hit against the back of his head.

“You’ve never been able to whisper, have you?”

One by one you each pulled away from the hug as a member of staff came over to hand you one of the medals that each of the winners got.

“Looks good,” Yoongi smiled as you pulled your hair out from the strap, “but then you were a champion the day you got me as a boyfriend.”

Your head shook, pushing lightly against his chest. “If either of us one that day, it was definitely you. You won the lottery the day you found me.”

You were interrupted by Taehyung leaning between the two of you, “both of you are champions, both of you won the lottery, can you please not be all cute and in love around us both.”

Your eyes rolled as you took your seat back with the boys as the events continued. Whilst you were done for the day, the boys still had the all-important decision of sorting out their relay squad for the last event of the day.

“Obviously, I’m the quickest,” Jungkook protested as they sat around and started to organise themselves, “I bet no one here is quicker than I am.”

Naturally, all of the boys agreed. “I’ll sit it out,” Namjoon suggested, “maybe the younger members should do it, they’ve got the fresh legs needed to win the race.”

“I’m fast too,” Jin suggested, “just because I’m a little bit older.”

Things were going all too well, as soon as Jin joined the conversation, chaos came. Each of them, aside from Namjoon, began to stake a claim as to why they should be in the relay. Each of them shouting over each other without listening to anyone but themselves.

“I want to win so I can wear a medal like Y/N,” Yoongi suggested, looking across at you. “I can’t go home knowing that she’s won, and I haven’t. I won’t ever be able to hear the end of her bragging around the house.

“Why don’t you just play rock, paper, scissors?” You proposed, “otherwise the race will have been run and you’ll all be sat here still arguing like toddlers.”

With your suggestion, a round of rock, paper, scissors played out, with Jimin, Yoongi, and Hoseok coming out as the winners.

Having spent so much time arguing, they were soon called to get ready for the race. You sent Yoongi off with a hug and a light peck against his cheek, sitting back with Namjoon, Taehyung and Jin who stayed sat in the seats.

You grabbed one of the light sticks as the boys lined up around the track, with Jimin the first to race. You knew all of them were fast, and incredibly competitive, having already won your event for the day, it was obvious to you how gutted Yoongi would be if he failed to win too.

“What do you reckon will happen?” Taehyung asked as the gun went off and Jimin began to run. “I’ll bet you a meal that Yoongi will fall or something.”

“You’re a terrible friend,” you laughed, keeping an eye on the race rather than looking across to Taehyung.

Jimin managed to safely get around the track and pass Hoseok the baton just in second place. As Hoseok kept on his shoulder you moved closer to the edge of your seat, yelling out for him to go quicker as he moved towards Yoongi.

Your heart stopped as you watched the baton exchange, sighing in relief as Yoongi grabbed hold of it, moving just ahead of first place who struggled to take the baton. As soon as he made it around the track and passed it to Jungkook you could sit back and relax. With Jungkook in charge, there was only one place the boys were going to reach.

The arena erupted as Jungkook ran through the finish line, cutting the ribbon with the baton. The three other boys ran over to him as you and the members in the stands also made your way down into the middle of the track to celebrate.

You watched on as medals were placed around their necks, noticing Yoongi’s smug smile as you approached him, showing his medal off to you.

“Looks like we’re both winners,” he teased, resting his hand against your hip. “Did you see me fly past the leader? It was like watching Usain Bolt at the Olympics.”

“Yoongi,” you laughed, “the other guy faltered with the baton, you were lucky. I really don’t think Usain Bolt has anything to worry about.”

“At least I’ve got a gold medal, so now, we’re both winners,” he cheered.

“We were both winners all along.”

---

Masterlist

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chocosvt · 5 years

Text

⚬ pairing: mingyu x fem!reader | purge!au ⚬ word count: 15,728. ⚬ warnings: weapons, death, drugs, blood. ⚬ genres: ANGST, spicy/nsfw scenes, fluff to mend the heart, romance, action, and whatever else you could fathom lol.

✧✎ synopsis: the annual purge was a system of purification, alleviation, a supposedly psychological device in which people found a moment to unleash their indignation. you never purged until you met mingyu, a boy whose warmth was just as palpable as his darkness. you begin to fall for him, which means involvement with the evil he’s managed to attract.

✧✎ a/n: longer note at the end of the fic! sorry i’ve kept this in the vault for AGES bc i couldn’t figure out how to write in the ‘twist’ or whatever the fuck. you’ll know when you get there. anyways this is for @mihgyu (sorry it freakin took so long!) and @solgyus as they are my Resident Mingyu Stans. i also changed the title bc i thought... yknow... it fits better!

You had always wondered what life was like for the previous generation, the generation who grew up without acquaintance to the annual purge. It was an alien concept if any concept at all, one so foreign and inexplicably bizarre that the cogs in your mind would start jamming against each other in a struggle of comprehension. The education system had groomed its pupils into believing it was the only plausible way to recover from an economic collapse, feeding into gullible and malleable minds the possibility of clearing rage through bloodshed.

When your parents disappeared at dawn, leaving nothing behind but the sound of a lock clicking shut and a note advising you to stay away from the windows and doors, it could be assumed they’d return at morning with crimson-stained clothing, crusted lacerations, and heavy weaponry sealed taunt to their hands; or maybe they wouldn’t return at all. Yet you were taught to believe that was okay. At least if you didn’t have your family, you had your friends.

At least if you didn’t have your family, you had Mingyu.

As much as you despised admitting to yourself, Mingyu meant to you what the moon meant to the tides, what the sun meant to the meadows. He kept you in perpetual motion, allowed you room to recuperate and blossom into a much stronger version of yourself after your father never came home. When he lost his job your family lost its momentum. The last you ever saw of the man was his backside as he slipped through the door frame, a chortling in the evening air, a black revolver clasped to his hand.

He seemed to disappear alongside your mother’s sanity. She isolated herself and pushed everyone away, even you, the only person capable of nurturing her. In school you’d learned that the purge was supposed to bring purification, it was responsible for cleansing humans of the everyday stresses that slowly crushed them flat. Purging allowed them happiness; a twelve hour capsule to unleash what the law prohibited three-hundred-sixty-four days a year.

Yet when you looked to your mother, you didn’t see any traces of happiness or fulfillment, just an empty shell that sat with sunken eyes in her rocking chair, mumbling to herself like a toddler. Before you even had time to find closure after your father’s disappearance, your mother suffered a similar fate, abducted through the windowsill by a maniac who sought vengeance for the crimes committed beneath your father’s hand. He was a stingy businessman who often scammed to make his money, therefore collecting a myriad of enemies.

Notably, you didn’t start purging until you met Mingyu. The first time you’d ever used a gun with malicious intent was when you ran into the man responsible for abducting your mother. The kick-back from the trigger had you stumbling across the watered asphalt, the silver slick rain that caved down from the clouds washing away the minuscule spatters of his blood that blew onto your face. As he slumped down against the red bricks, the animation draining slowly from his eyes, he spluttered,

“S-She’s dead, she payed for your father’s incompetence, his greed.”

In complete lifelessness you lowered the weapon, not realizing how close the distant gunfire sounded until Mingyu had to drag you away by the wrist. He murmured his condolences to you when the air was tinged with less bloodshed, carefully nuzzling you into his chest when the reality of what you’d just done had come spiraling forth, leaving a slap so brutal across your face the burn seemed more realistic than the raindrops hitting your skin.

You felt disgusting, enclosed in a body that had been consumed by the purest form of hatred, and there was nothing you could do to evade the feeling of that ugly gun pressed into your hand. But within that same moment, hot tears pumping onto Mingyu’s shirt, you understood a certain satiation that tempted so many people to do what you had just done.

“We can’t stay here,” You felt the vibrations from his deep voice against your cheek, coolness stinging the heated flesh of your face when you lifted your head to meet his gentle eyes.

“Gotta keep moving, alright? It’ll be over soon, I promise.”

Mingyu’s composure was definitely an admirable trait. But then again, he’d been exposed to this environment long before you ever questioned purging. At that point you had felt completely numb, allowing him to wind you through the crevices and shadowy tunnels building the foundation of the city, your vision blurred by a mixture of salt and rain water. You felt safe with Mingyu, though it hadn’t always been like that. Before your friendship you were an outsider to the boy, harbouring nothing but a tiny crush toward him and his handsome face.

In fact the first time you’d ever spoken to Mingyu, it was after his fight with Wen Junhui, one of the most infamous, cynical purgers you prayed to never meet.

Two Years Ago –

“I’ll kill you if you come near her again!”

“Is that supposed to scare me?!”

You’d never seen a fist fight in real life before, and you were positive that was a good thing. A large crowd steadfastly increased around two tall, venom-eyed boys caught up in their alcohol. They were spitting profanities, threats, and whatever else their clouded minds could formulate within the gap of the other’s speech. The party had been rather lackluster before that point anyways, so like the congregation swarming to the centre of the room, you etched into the crowd and managed to stand just inside the inner circle.

“Shit – sorry,” you squeaked as you were suddenly shoved into the girl beside you. Your face became hollow like a crater on the moon when you saw that it was Mingyu’s girlfriend.

“What am I supposed to do?” She mumbled whilst biting her nails, “I didn’t know how to stop it.”

“Stop the fight?”

She continued babbling, “Junhui kept coming on to me and Mingyu saw. They’re both competitive, boggle-brained idiots when they’re drunk. I don’t know what to do.”

Her name was Yang Yeeun, born and raised by parents maintaining such wealth that rumours began circulating their bloodstream was crushed rubies. You could see her pearl earrings flashing behind the straight black locks framing her small face. You don’t think she ever took them off. Her father manufactured security systems for the purge; however, the most recent release had been proven to bore many defects and flaws. She didn’t care, as long as she got a slice of the wealth.

In the beginning, Yeeun and Mingyu’s relationship came as a slap to the wrist. How could two people reaping such difference in personality become so close? Yeeun was frank and staid, with cold, cindered eyes that never displayed an eclipse of emotion. Her complexion was just as pale as the pearls she wore and her heart swam darkly.

Mingyu was her polar opposite.

Sure he was intimidatingly tall, but any menace he constructed with his height was easily derailed through his bubbly nature. He was what you call, “a gentle giant,” and anyone who contacted him for more than a brief period understood this. The warmth was in his honey-brown gaze, the velvet of his tanned skin, the sepia tones that were shaggy in his hair. When he spoke you could feel the gravel roll beneath your feet, and when he said your name heat would flood your face like steam throughout a hot spring.

Again, Mingyu and Yeeun made a bizarre couple, yet he loved her so deeply you swore the dark coverings in her heart had peeled back a little.

You kept in mind, a little.

“They’re fighting over you?” You questioned carefully, trying not to exaggerate your words so that it seemed utterly impossible for her to be worth fighting over.

“Yes,” Yeeun gritted, her eyes darting around the crowd, strangers pressing into the circle, allured by drunken shouting, “can’t they wait until purge before they start ripping into each other?”

Wouldn’t it be best if they didn’t rip into each other at all?

“Like you said, they’re drunk and stupid,” you opted for the latter choosing.

Mingyu’s mellow stare had been licked over by enraged flames, the remaining liquor still pumping through his system and warming his blood until it sizzled. His fists were balled tightly, fangs peeking past the taunt snarl on his lips. Junhui appeared calmer, though the bar of composure was quite low to begin with. The unkempt ends of his midnight black hair were shaking, his sharp nose crinkled, and his stare so impossibly intense that you were nauseated a vein on his neck might become engorged and pop.

As interesting as it would be for you to witness your first fist fight, you knew it wasn’t a wise idea for these two to start swinging at each other.

You set a hand on Yeeun’s shoulder, “maybe you should stop thi—,”

Suddenly, her palms encased her mouth as the last few words of toxicity were spat between Mingyu and Junhui, the crowd erupting in brazen cheering as the two lunged for one another in a flash of blurred colour. Your jaw was permanently unhinged, your body set in stone, attention completely spellbound under the boys who were viciously entangled. The world seemed to spin at a snail’s pace whilst the fight flickered faster than lightning. At one point Mingyu had Junhui shoved up against the wall, one hand nearly ripping through the boy’s black-collared shirt as he tore his free fist back and swiftly launched it forward. The hard ridges of Mingyu’s knuckles connected with Junhui’s eye, his head smashed back into the drywall so that an indentation remained.

“G-Get the fuck off me, Mingyu!”

“You fucking asked for this, dumbass!”

In another fuzzy whirlwind of movement, Junhui managed to push Mingyu backward and onto the snack table, bowls and bottled alcohol spilling across the floor with jade shards of glass scattering in flurries. Junhui drew his fist into Mingyu’s face, the collision splintering against Mingyu’s brow bone. You could see the speckles of blood flying off Junhui’s hand as he curled his fingers into another ball, preparing to throw once more. Panic encompassed you from every angle; it drowned you above your head until the crowd’s bellowing became a muffled choir to your ears.

You could hardly breathe as your sights shifted to Yeeun, the girl with her hands still clasped to her mouth, doing absolutely nothing.

Was that a smirk hidden behind her hands?

She really did have a dark heart. By the looks of it no one was going to intervene. You were most likely the soberest person in attendance. Even if it downright petrified you, letting those two get their hands so bloodied it would look like they doused their arms in red paint wasn’t a viable option.

“Hey!” You barked, slowly etching your way into the clearing, “what the fuck is wrong with you two?! Get off each other!”

Mingyu and Junhui were still a violent mass now buckled to the floor, anger and alcohol swelling through their bodies like a drug. You felt your knees wobble, as though a tight fist had an ironclad grip on your entrails and was squelching them around slowly. Junhui had Mingyu pressed to the floor, and raised in his arm was a sparkling shard belonging to a smashed bottle. You didn’t know what it was, but something inside compelled you to react. In a mere instant you were ripping the shard from Junhui’s hand and screaming at the top of your lungs, the crowd’s cheering turned to hushed whispers.

“Enough!”

Your chest was heaving, fingers grasping the glass piece tightly enough that thin lines of red began dripping down your hand. Junhui and Mingyu had peeled themselves apart, the deep marring of hatred etched so profoundly into their eyes you’d never be able to forget it. Yeeun suddenly blossomed with emotion after standing on the outskirts smirking into her palm, the girl bounding toward Mingyu and snaking her arms around his neck like she’d been downright sobbing with worry the whole time.

“C’mon, Gyu,” she gritted, “we’re leaving.”

Thanks for the help.

You were tempted to call.

The fight between Mingyu and Junhui might have stopped, but the party continued to thrive. You were wandering through the upstairs hallway as the wooden floorboards jolted beneath you, driven by incessant music that became a furthering echo. Fresh blood had yet to stop streaming down the grooves between your knuckles, pooling from the lacerations of that jagged, glass shard and wetting your warm skin. You continued seeking for a bathroom, any room really that might contain a first aid kit, or at least some water and tissues that would help to clean your hand.

Each room was either occupied or locked. A defeated sigh ghosted from your lips as you stood at the end of the hall, weakly knocking your healthy hand against the last door. Scarlet drops were creating a puddle on the wood whilst you waited, until the brass handle jiggled and you were stepping back in shock that someone had actually acknowledged your presence.

Of course, the person doing the acknowledging had to be Yeeun.

“Oh! It’s… you.” She murmured. Behind her slim frame you could see Mingyu sitting on the sink, holding a cloth to his eyebrow.

“It’s me,” you replied, desperately wanting to skip the small talk and use the first aid kit. Didn’t she say she was leaving?

Yeeun finally noticed the red pathways on your hand and nodded, “I see you need to get yourself bandaged up.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.” You hummed, trying not to sound impatient but utterly failing.

“Well… I’ll be right back then. Just so you know there’s no gauze left.”

“That’s okay, I don’t think I’ll need an—,”

“I’m going to look for some!” Yeeun called as she squeezed her way past you and began trudging down the corridor, “be back soon!”

Mingyu tossed you a lopsided smile when you entered the bathroom. You kicked the door shut with your foot to drown as much noise as possible. Though the small barrier didn’t do too much in regards to sound, it certainly made the bathroom feel one-hundred times smaller. Or maybe it was solely Mingyu and his gargantuan height. Perhaps it wasn’t any of those factors and you were just feeling nervous to be enclosed in a private space with him. Either way, your face turned into magma and you felt like swallowing sand. Without saying a word you turned on the sink and let the cold water stream between your fingers.

“Hey.” He began.

Oh no. If you initiate conversation with me there’s a ninety-nine percent chance I’m going to fall in love with you.

“Thanks for intervening. You kinda saved my life there.”

You scoffed whilst scrubbing the dry scarlet from your wrist, “I think you could have taken him.”

Mingyu took the wet cloth from his brow and folded it over before reapplying pressure to his own wound, sighing deeply. “Fuck this. I hate getting drunk.”

Fastening your teeth into your lower lip, you remained silent and continued swirling around the bloodied skin until the red currents seemed to all drain away, down the white porcelain. You winced a little because there was indeed a stinging sensation, but it was better than allowing the cuts to get infected. Mingyu’s curious gaze was watching the scene intently, and with his body propped right next to the sink, there was really no easy way to avoid your feelings other than to talk with him.

“How’s your injury?”

“I don’t know, how is it?” He peeled the damp cloth from his brow bone. You could see that directly in the centre the skin had spilt, a little ways above the brow and a little beneath it, bright pink flesh gleaming from between the dark hairs and tanned skin. It would definitely leave a scar.

“I’m no doctor, but you might need stitches.”

“Seriously?” Mingyu grimaced. “That fucking sucks.”

You scoffed. “That’s funny. The same kid who socked Junhui in his eye is afraid of getting a few itty bitty baby stitches.”

Mingyu pouted, his thick brows then slanting downward which made him wince petulantly. You couldn’t suppress your chuckling, turning off the sink with a coy smile playing along your mouth.

“I’m joking.”

“I know.” Mingyu said. “I’m sure everyone’s gonna start saying he’ll rake my eyes out at purge.”

You laughed at that too, though deep down you both knew it wasn’t anything flowery to laugh about. Junhui was the definition of nefarious. Similar to Yeeun his family danced in riches, their security systems were top-notch, and his access to weaponry and blueprints of the city could be in his hands within minutes. People worshiped the ground he walked on, but it wasn’t because they liked him. It was only sensible to play nice to the person capable of taking your life away in a single breath.

Of course, Junhui’s reputation made him a prime target, yet despite all the people who secretly wanted him dead, it was difficult to even lay a scathe on his amber skin.

In your eyes it was better to avoid the boy altogether. That way you never gave him any reason to seek out your oblivious-self during the annual purge. Mingyu had crossed that line to the fullest extent. He laid more than an innocent scathe on Junhui; the boy had given him an entire fist to his pretty, supposedly untouchable face. Feeling your heartbeat thump widely, you quickly willed to change the subject.

“Do you see any cloths? Or Kleenex? Anything?”

Mingyu frowned. “Sorry, nothing.”

You shook your arm out over the sink to shed some water droplets, yet the blood still continued to bead. Mingyu looked sympathetic. He presumed it was his fault you were even injured in the first place.

“Yeeun’s getting gauze.”

“I think I’ll be okay—,”

“Wait!” Mingyu suddenly piped. “This might be super awkward but—,” the boy’s tongue peaked out between his pink lips as he gripped the end of his white t-shirt and gave it a tear, pulling off a strip of fabric.

Your cheeks began crackling and your palms felt oddly clammy, “M-Mingyu, don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the boy said, “this shirt’s old and busted anyways. It’s better than walking home, dripping blood everywhere.”

You smiled softly and stared at the floor.

“Here! I’ll even wrap it for you.” He purred, gently reaching for your arm and twining the white material like a roll of bandages around your hand.

Forgetting about his own spilt brow that began clotting with blood, Mingyu finished his dexterous work with a tender glance that made your stomach flip, his chocolate bangs falling endearingly before his eyes. After shaking the fringe away, he gave you a thumbs-up.

“Now you look like you just got into a fight.”

“Right, because I’m the first person everyone suspects to start a fight. You hit the nail on the head with that one.”

Mingyu chuckled at the heavy sarcasm, blinking his pretty lashes at you with such warmth you keened to melt like an ice cream cone. You supposed after that moment, Mingyu might not be nearly as brutal as his drunken, love-induced mind influenced him to be. For a fleeting moment you even doubted that this was the same boy with his own kill-list. His eyes glimmered like diamonds catching a shaft of light.

“That’s something only time can tell.” He purred

Two Years Ago –

When Mingyu and Yeeun broke up, it was like the universe took its cue to make everything in life feel unreal. If their romance was nothing more than a mirage, then had romance ever existed in the first place? At least to you, it routinely appeared as though Yeeun’s heart had never been within the same realm as Mingyu’s. There was always an island of separation between them, one little ploy that prevented the couple from truly clicking like puzzle pieces. That ploy was exigent in the form of onyx hair, a sultry voice, and bottomless eyes.

In other words the obstacle was Junhui. Yeeun started dating him no less than a month after the break-up.

Mingyu, he was crushed; taking the point of devastation and expanding it an extra nine yards. In contrast with Yeeun’s heart, his was always wide open, warmer than a summer fire and more embracing than sun rays. You swore she would be the girl he took to meet his mother, the girl whose finger he delicately touched to slide upon a silver loop. A part of you crumbled each time you saw them together, before the break-up, and even more so after the party.

Remembering how his rough fingertips skimmed the wet (and surely burning) skin of your hand as he wrapped the cloth around it did something peculiar to your mind. Reminiscing on the soft timbre of his chuckles made your head spin, and replaying the manner in which his eyes twinkled as he gazed at you through his thick bangs brought forth fluttering in your stomach. It was what you were daydreaming about even after their infamous break-up, fingers clacking against the keys on your laptop whilst you finished an essay in the library. To your dismay, the thoughts were scattered by conversation at the table behind you.

“Think Junhui is gonna gut Mingyu at purge?”

“Probably not, Mingyu would be expecting it. And it’s not like he’s hopeless. Did you hear about how he stabbed someone to death in the tunnel last year?”

“Yeah. But Junhui’s clique practically owns the purge. They’ll tear your fuckin’ house down if they can find it.”

“…True. Those two seriously have some bad fucking blood. Do you remember the rumours about how Junhui sho— ”

Unable to listen any longer without this horrendous churning against the walls of your stomach, you shoved your laptop into its carrying case, swung it over your shoulder and began shuffling between the book shelves. Your stare traced the floor whilst a pummeling sensation thundered into your ribcage. Mingyu didn’t seem like the type to kill, though you didn’t know him personally, and perhaps he had matters of vengeance that crooned for redemption. This tiny hope inside you flickered, prayed that Mingyu was unlike Junhui, the kind that tortured for torture’s sake, the kind that shoved a pistol beneath your jaw because you looked at them funny.

Suddenly, you collided with someone. Blinking upward, you gazed at the body you’d walked into, Mingyu, who was in the midst of pulling out a book.

“Sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was going.” You apologized.

You hadn’t seen him for a while, but he looked healthy, a bit tired perhaps, but mostly healthy. Dressed in comfy clothing, a grey hood drawn with his earbuds plugged in, he popped one of the speakers out and lent a small smile. His eyes were slightly veiled by his earthy bangs, the coarse fronds wavy in front of his forehead. His scent was a concoction of something tropic mixed with cannabis, and when he spoke his voice was lower than usual.

“Were you leaving?” Mingyu asked.

Yes.

“No, no. I wanted to finish my essay somewhere that wasn’t... back there.”

“Oh,” he sighed, “seemed like you were in a rush.”

“I was just thinking.”

Mingyu stuck the book back into its gap and smiled, “about?”

You sniffled. “What?”

“What were you thinking about?”

Obviously you were not going to admit that you just overheard conversation about Mingyu being gutted under Junhui’s hand, about Mingyu supposedly cramming a knife through whoever’s chest during last year’s purge, about Mingyu’s history of participation in the annual mayhem that plagued the country like a sickness each year. Now that the purge was on your mind, a dark worry skulked in the shadowy crevices of your brain, yet it seemed to dissipate just as quickly as it arrived when Mingyu stared at you so gently.

“How much I hate essays.”

He nodded. “That must be it.”

Without thinking, you blurted, “what happened with your eyebrow? Did you get a scar?”

He simply carded back the bangs covering his forehead and poked at the nick with his finger. It would have been courteous to receive a warning that he was going to reveal his forehead. He had no clue how powerful a mechanism it truly was, how badly you wanted to kiss that tiny scar after seeing the slit through his brow. Swallowing the flushed heat that arose in your throat, you grinned with a closed lip.

“Well, it makes you look like a badass if that’s any comfort.”

Mingyu let his hair flop back into place and laughed quietly. “What’s up with your hand? That cut looked so nasty.”

Looking down at your fingers, you probed the faint lines of where the glass had sliced your skin, engraved almost, like a stone carving.

“Kinda. It doesn’t look as cool as your eyebrow slit though. And you’re way less busted than Jun. His eye is still purple.”

For a brief ellipse you simply embraced the opportunity of being alone with Mingyu. That some higher deity had taken pity on your life barren with romance and granted you this precious exchange to add to your vault of daydreams. The more his hoarse voice lapped at your ears, surely roughened yet equally soothing, you felt your chest create a burrow for him, a gap that only he could fill. It baffled you, that Yeeun could break his heart. But it didn’t surprise you. She was built from titanium, similar to Junhui, and together they were hawks that would make prey of everyone.

“Trust me,” Mingyu said, “it wouldn’t make me feel any better if we were matching.”

His jaw clenched, and his stare slipped to the floor for a transient moment. A nearly imperceptible breeze tickled up the back of your neck, causing you to rub at the fine hairs as Mingyu’s usual aura slowly dissipated into a much darker nuance. You gulped, attempting to laugh something of comfort back into the air.

“There’s a lot we could match in, like... bracelets! Or a necklace! Or one of those couple t-shirts... Not that we’re a couple,” stuttering helplessly, you felt electricity tingle in your cheeks, “I was just thinking about matching stuff and that popped into my hea—”

“It’s fine.” Mingyu responded, the storm clouds cast in his gaze finally ebbing away. He smiled, and a deep chuckle rumbled in his chest.

“You’re pretty cute y’know? I don’t think I’d mind.”

1 year ago –

You never spoke commonly to Mingyu about the idea of purging until you were thrust into the political nightmare on a whim, a stupid, stupid, moonstruck whim. The few times the morbid topic arose seriously, neither of you had enlightening stories to exchange. A bitter knot lodged itself into your throat the night you reiterated to Mingyu about the tragedies concerning your parents; the disappearance of your father and the abduction of your mother, a tearful lining glossy in your eyes.

You’d never seen Mingyu express such grief when he returned the storytelling.

He moved out from his parent’s house when he was eighteen years old, his best friend, Minghao, making the journey alongside him. Faintly, you remembered Minghao, more or so from your high school days when you shared the same last period art class. He had always been rather subdue, never really speaking with anyone apart from Mingyu, though there had was a handful of times where you caught him and another boy, Wonwoo, skipping class together. Apparently Wonwoo didn’t have a very good home life. He’d supposedly been forced into purging since middle school, and his psyche never quite recovered.

You never even saw Wonwoo smile apart from when he was with Minghao.

However, one day that boy from your art class just disappeared, and the rumours hadn’t stopped swirling since. It was a common fact that Minghao never purged. He didn’t have any bad blood with anyone either.

Not that you were aware of.

In the beginning stages of Mingyu’s purging he used to commonly venture with a group of three friends. Wonwoo happened to be one of them, plus another named Jihoon (who you could recall dawdling around in the background of the party) though Mingyu never named the third. He described it as being pure, inexplicable dread. They were constantly finding themselves in gruesome situations that forced their true colours from camouflage, how they stole burning glimpses of the other when the night came to an end and blood was caked to their clothing. The purge had tainted all of them, some more than others, whether it be with drug addiction, eternal madness, or an unhealthy fascination to mend so seamlessly with the evil that they personified it.

However, genuine fear pitted in the core of your stomach when Mingyus’ fists had clenched in his lap, his features distracted by a look of anguish as he sucked in a breath and spoke in an unsettling, distant tone.

“It was four of us in my car. I was driving, Wonwoo and Jihoon were in the backseat, and he... he took up the passenger seat. It was different... How he reacted to the purge... The rest of us were still somewhat fearful of it but he almost thrived in all the destruction. We were even talking about going purging without him the next year, but...

Mingyu had to clear his throat.

“I guess Minghao was waiting for me to come back to the house. He probably wasn’t even waiting on me specifically, he had this little crush on one of my friends, Wonwoo. They were always messing around together. Minghao probably got excited when he heard us, so he came outside, onto the grass... But then I heard the pop of the gun out the open window... I just... I don’t fucking know if he thought Minghao was a maniac or... If he was on drugs or something... But, God... He just —“

You didn’t allow him to say anymore when his words became warped, when his voice cracked and his eyes split like a sheet of broken glass. Minghao didn’t just disappear - he was killed, and Mingyu knew who was responsible. Instead of pressing him for details, you reached for his hand, rubbed your thumb along his knuckles, made sure he knew that you were there for him.

And yet you had been thrust into the setting of the same picture during your first purge, the first time you had ever experienced what it was like to harm someone, turning their existence into an irreparable patch in the universe.

This is your emergency broadcast system, announcing the commencement of the annual purge.

At the siren, all crime, including murder, will be legal for twelve hours.

All emergency services will be suspended.

Your government thanks you for your participation.

“This is going to be your entire fault if I die tonight, Mingyu! I just want you to know that!”

“Relax. You’re going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.”

It was nothing short of chaotic. Pitch blackness shrouded the skylight like a heavy cloth, the distant rattle of gunfire and screams sitting heavy in the air as you raced down the street. The horrendous acts were most commonly centred to the city’s heart, where prime businesses, rich corporations, and notorious killers congregated to create havoc. Still, that didn’t make you any less petrified, your nails sinking into Mingyu’s hand like dog’s teeth. Fights were slowly beginning to litter the sidewalk, a store going up in orange flame and hissing embers now glinting behind you.

“I knew that we weren’t going to make it back to your place on time. I knew it was stupid that we even questioned going out on purge in the first place - Ah!”

You shrieked at an unprecedented decibel as two men came tumbling out of the alleyway only meters away from your feet, your body slamming into Mingyu’s backside when he cemented himself to a halt. The men payed no notice to you, entirely engulfed in their own world of vengeance through bloodied fists and messy punches.

“This way.” Mingyu’s words were like a breeze in the midst of a hurricane.

You hardly registered he’d even said anything until his grip lurched you forward and you were stumbling to the opposite side of the street. Then, your jogging pace skyrocketed into running, the breaths just squeezing from between your lips and the pain in your chest aching so potently you felt like vomiting. Your stamina was breaking faster than glass. You couldn’t afford to run any longer.

“M-Mingyu, can we please stop?”

The boy didn’t seem to have a choice as your fingers began unclasping from his hand, your body collapsing on the concrete staircase belonging to the city bell tower. Mingyu anxiously carded his hair back, his eyes moving hyperactively down the street only to be greeted with more and more violence consuming his vision. Gunshots seemed to thunder from every direction, splintered shouts joining hymn. Large trucks blared down the black pavement with ominous members hunched in the open cap, holding weaponry and wearing masks of painted wood.

The boy squatted down, his palm firmly encasing your cheek and keeping your head up.

“I’ll give you a minute. But then we have to keep going. It’s too dangerous to stay in one spot.”

You stared into Mingyu’s face with a tiresome expression, the bronzed and gleaming hue of his skin reflecting the fire that crackled in the distance. His touch became sterner as he moved in closer, his eyes no less than a few inches from your own.

“Trust me, I know you’re exhausted. We’re gonna be at my place soon though, okay? You just gotta hold tight for a little longer.” He pressed his forehead against yours, and met your gaze head on. “I’m going to keep you safe, I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

An intruding shout echoed a little too closely down the street, engendering you to choke on your own heartbeat. Mingyu growled in irritancy, pivoting his head and glaring at the stranger who stepped from an alleyway. Rather than looking frightened (you were on the verge of sobbing bullets), Mingyu’s forehead crinkled angrily, the tiny scar that cut through his brow beginning to slant.

“Stay put.” Mingyu commanded you.

There was a colder lining to his tone that you’d never heard before, malevolent and icy. As soon as his touch fell from your cheek, you knew his hands were about to tend to a much different matter. Your mind implored for you to look away, yet your heart waned for the exact opposite. The man was scraggly and a bit stockier than Mingyu, a mischievous intent welling in his movement as he seemed to dance back and forth like a hummingbird. He wore a smooth, white mask and a heavy brown coat that bore many unidentified stains, a long, curved blade in his hand.

“You’re just a kid,” the man taunted, “it’s always the younger crowd that get so riled about the concept of murder, think they’re all that, but they drop faster than flies when it comes down to it.”

Mingyu didn’t waver. “You should keep talking if you want that knife poking through the opposite side of your throat.”

You inhaled stiltedly. This was definitely not the same Mingyu who smiled with the power of a burning star, his mannerisms filling your chest with laughter and his golden eyes bathing your face with heat. You thought back to the library, the conversation that drawled behind you. This was the Mingyu they were talking about. You had a feeling that the innocent projections in your head were close to changing.

The man chuckled and pointed his knife, shaking it at Mingyu, “you’ve got the same cockiness as that rich China boy’s little clique. I’m sure you’ve heard about them. They’ll be flocking to the streets any minute now.”

Mingyu spoke gutturally in response, the disgust and repulsion so thick in his voice you almost couldn’t recognize it. “Don’t you fucking dare compare me to him.”

The man chuckled darkly, “hit a nerve, did I?”

You weren’t sure what happened next, mainly because it all happened so fast, a series of swift movements (on Mingyu’s behalf) that resulted in your pulse fizzling like hot oil. Ultimately you were going to be exposed to murder one way or another, though watching it reflect in the glassy curve of your own eyes left behind a deep scarring. The man lurched at Mingyu with his hefty blade slashing for the chest, most likely assuming that because of Mingyu’s height he would be quite slow and lack agility.

However, that was severely not the case, to the man’s dismay more than anyone else’s. Within the span of sixty measly seconds Mingyu had tripped him onto his back, snatched the blade from his grip and wedged the knife directly into the man’s windpipe, exactly as he said he would do.

At that point you couldn’t look away even if you wanted to. Mingyu’s breathing was level as he rose from the man’s waist, a burgundy pool of blood bubbling at the neck where the blade had punctured skin. Mingyu lifted his jacket, pulled the knife out, and attached the weapon through his belt. He spent an extra few moments patting the fresh corpse down until he uncovered a small revolver hidden in the inside pocket on the man’s coat. When Mingyu handed you the revolver in means of protection, you didn’t realize you were shivering.

“Now,” he pronounced, “we’re going home.”

And at the time you believed him.

Until thirty minutes stretched into an hour, an hour into two hours, three hours, four hours. The chaos that was the purge had encompassed you both. This supposedly psychological device controlled you like a ventriloquist. Violence sneered at every turn and eventually an unspoken conclusion emerged; that it was easier to join chaos than it was to run from it. Later that night everything came full circle.

You were the one pointing the weapon, aiming the silver barrel into the face of the man who had broken in your home and abducted your mother last year, on account of stupid, petty crimes your father had committed in the past. Seconds before touching the trigger, all you could picture was his face swathed in moonlight, the horror that clawed in your stomach when you ran down from your room that night to see him yanking her out the smashed window.

And when you felt the release of the bullet, it became emboldened that it truly was a small, cruel world.

Present –

Squeezing one eye shut, you held the black gun with both hands and aimed the muzzle toward a tree stump that acted as your target, a cheek pressed into the taunt muscle of your shoulder as you inhaled a steadying breath. Delicate winds blew across the meadow, each strand of grass rippling in a hypnotic wave. The horizon lay beyond the tree trunk, a bleeding yellow sun submerging quietly behind the endless terrain, casting a honeyed glow to speckle like rain droplets upon your face.

There was not a single sound apart from the grassy fronds tickling against each other, your concentration solidifying to a mar in the tree bark. Then, your finger ghosted over the trigger, a sharp burst echoing into the pale yellow sky and causing a distant congregation of birds to take flight. The bullet struck the wood, right where you had envisioned the lead entering.

“Look at you,” the tension keyed into your bones drifted away, exiting your body in a shallow exhale once Mingyu’s prideful tone filled the spaces between the winds, “your shot may be even better than mine now.”

After lowering the firearm to face the earth and switching the safety on, a demure smile danced across your lips. Mingyu’s arms were strong and looping carefully around your waist, hauling you back into the broad expanse of his chest. He buried his face into the smooth plane where your shoulder met your neck, his soft locks feathering along your jaw. You giggled the second his lips kissed your shoulder, evening sunlight spilling across the meadow and encouraging heat to caress your skin.

“The student becomes the teacher,” you purred, “I even remembered to turn the safety on this time.”

“You’re damn right you remembered to turn the safety on,” the boy quipped sternly, his palms gliding downward to grip your hips and spin you around, “you almost took my kneecap off the last time.”

Furrowing your brows, you pursed your lip at him petulantly, “can we stop talking about that? It was a mistake you big idiot.”

“I know, I know,” Mingyu cooed, “a very, very, very dangerous mistake.”

You rolled your eyes as he unwound the black firearm from your fingers. He walked toward his jacket that sat on the blanket you’d strewn across the grass, making sure to place it back inside the pocket.

“You still need some more practice, but I think for today we can call it quits. How does that sound?”

The boy then fell back onto the blanket with his head titled to the side, his eyes staring up at you winsomely. With the sun flaring behind you, the vibrant streaks set the grass aflame, making it appear as though Mingyu was sitting in the centre of a fire. His skin twinkled like golden silk and his canines peaked between his lips in a smirk. Shrugging your shoulders impetuously, you stumbled toward the blanket and fell into the boy’s lap, squirming against his broad body until he became pinned beneath your weight. As though he were a glass vase, you gingerly swept your finger along his scarred brow.

“Sounds fine,” you hummed, “since I kinda wanna makeout with you right now.”

“I love how straightforward you are, baby.” Mingyu confessed with his intoxicated gaze drinking in your image, already imploring for a taste of the strawberry balm that defined the pretty arches of your mouth.

Unable to quell how your body yearned for him, you gave your eyes a toss and pressed your lips to his. Mingyu craned his neck forward in immediate desperation to feel more pressure against his mouth; however, he soon gave up his craning and allowed his elbows to give out beneath him. His hands snuck beneath your shirt, to which he placed soft squeezes against your ribcage, fingertips skimming lower and lower until they were running along the back hem of your shorts. You continued to straddle his waist as the kiss drawled further, rhythmically slow and sweet.

You didn’t think it was humanly possible for your chest to be so encompassed with fondness, yet here you were, brushing your digits through Mingyu’s tresses, pressing your forehead to his, encasing his lower lip between your teeth to experimentally tug until the flesh swelled and glistened in garnet. You weren’t really sure how you started dating, it just sort of happened. It was perhaps an escalation of lingering touches, infatuated glances, and hot, fever dreams that kept you both slamming awake at blue midnight.

After your first purge together, the connection between you strengthened, like welding two pieces of molten iron into one. It was an experience that ruined you, stripped you of any innocent fragments still clinging to your bone, and once the night came to an end and you were sitting on Mingyu’s bed with blood spatters sopped into your cloths, you burst into tears. Strangely, you weren’t sobbing out of pain, mortification, you were sobbing because you could. It was the only accurate way to depict the weird melancholic, hopeless lump in your throat.

You squeaked as Mingyu grew impatient of your slow kisses. His want was increasing and he couldn’t bear to hear the quiet mewls that kept slipping from your mouth. His strength effortlessly allowed him to flip you on your back, his mass keeping you slack against the blanket as his lips dotted your jaw, your ear’s cusp, until he craved to taste more of the natural salt on your skin and his kisses ventured further down your throat.

Mingyu began suckling at a sensitive patch near your pulse. The warmth of his tongue combined with his teeth, and you felt him scrape his canines sharply against your skin. It wasn’t until the boy nudged his thigh between your legs that your fingers lurched into his scalp, tugging the earth fronds tightly. You couldn’t help but buck up against him, summoning a growl from his chest that only made him press his fangs into the soft skin with more force; not enough to actually break the petal-thin flesh, but enough to leave deep, possessive indentations. The ecstasy drumming in your veins was insatiable.

And yet, you knew it couldn’t progress.

With a fragile whine you placed your hands against Mingyu’s chest and gave the giant a small push, his mouth regretfully detaching from the beautiful marks he was intent on leaving all over your body. He spoke coarsely, breathlessly, when his rosy face surfaced from your neck, though the glaze in his eyes had quickly softened out of fear he’d made you uncomfortable.

“What’s wrong? I wasn’t being too rough, was I?” He gathered your hand in his and kissed along your knuckles apologetically.

“No, not at all,” You mumbled, still dealing with the blare of crimson running through your veins, “I just… Don’t think we should, do it, in a field.”

The hollow grooves in Mingyu’s features immediately flushed with solace, a large sigh escaping from his chest as he allowed his head to tumble into your shoulder.

“Thank God, I thought I hurt you or something,” he heaved in relief.

Your heart sang wildly, knowing that he truly was a boy gentler than butterfly wings and softer than cotton. It was difficult to imagine him as the same boy who ruthlessly shoved a blade through a man’s windpipe, allowing thick trails of blood to slide from the open wound and create morbid puddles on the hard cement. The evening air seemed to turn cooler, the wind’s peaceful lilting now picking up with more vigor. Mingyu collapsed at your side, one of his long legs still tossed over your waist as you stroked his hair.

With the sun halfway behind the horizon, you gulped whilst watching the yellow sky fade into watered, fierce shades of orange.

“Mingyu?” You hummed.

“Yeah?” His warm breath scattered in a ticklish manner against your neck.

“What’s going to happen with you and Junhui?”

Mingyu stiffened instantly. Nibbling on your lower lip, you watched with sincere eyes as the boy lifted into a sitting position. You joined him, closely monitoring the contours of his face that had surely twisted at the mention of the sinister purger. There was no room to blame Mingyu for harbouring such distaste toward the boy. Junhui did swoop in and steal his ex-girlfriend fresh after the breakup and run purge night like he invented the device himself.

Still, you wondered if there could be something more. If there could be a more profound explanation for why the air was so stale between them.

“Nothing is going to happen,” Mingyu said flatly, “are you scared?”

Caught off guard by his sudden questioning, you stumbled over your syllables for a painful second, his gaze turning back to wrack you curiously.

“N-No, I was- I just- I was only wondering.”

“He’s too obsessed with himself to care about me. Don’t worry, okay? Nothing is going to happen, baby.” Mingyu said in a much lighter tone, his signature, canine smile quirking along his lips.

Despite his calm protrusions, you could sense that something murky was swimming behind the curve in his eyes. The boy leaned backward and planted his lips against your forehead, leaving a small, adoring kiss. Shaking away the ominous tension that came with simply speaking the purger’s name, you grasped for Mingyu’s hand and smiled.

“Let’s head back into town.”

He set his jacket as well as the blanket in the backseat and climbed to sit at the wheel.

“Don’t forget about that, y’know,” you reminded him whilst gesturing to his jacket, “it’s not like there’s a gun in there or something.”

“A gun with the safety on.” He replied sheepishly, to which you simply huffed and stared out the window.

You stopped Mingyu when you were no less than a block away from your new apartment building, the tires crunching to a halt beside the common coffee shop.

“I’ll get out here,” you told him, “I’ll be fine to walk back to the complex. I just really want caffeine.”

Mingyu leaned over and pushed the car door open for you, his palm tenderly grazing your thigh as he found your lips. He gave you a quick goodbye kiss, and you felt flowers bloom between the bones of your ribcage.

“Text me when you get home, alright?” He reminded when you slid from the passenger seat.

Scurrying into the coffee shop, you already had an idea of what drink you’d like to get. As you stood off to the side waiting for an employee to call out your coffee, you fell into a slight trance, your eyes casting mistily across the cozy atmosphere whilst the sky began darkening beyond the clean window panes. You thought about Mingyu, how laughable it was that you were dating, and yet you knew you loved him like ink loves to kiss paper.

Hm, you chuckled inwardly, that girl sitting in that booth by the window, she looks like Yeeun, and that guy beside her really resembles Junhui. That’s funny.

That’s funny.

That’s… funny…

“Order 24, half decaf, two sugars one cream.”

To your inexplicable terror, heart-twisting dread, and every other repulsive emotion that could have cloaked you in that moment of realization, the couple sitting at the window booth was indeed Junhui and Yeeun. The employee called out your order again, this time a little louder, drawing customers to look left and right with puzzled glances. The nefarious couple was sitting across from two familiar faces, one with jet black hair brushed away from his forehead, the other disquieting with how vacant his face appeared, a grey beanie pulling back the fronds from his porcelain features, and a lollipop shoved between his lips.

It took you a minute, but you eventually recognized the lollipop boy as Wonwoo. He looked insanely different compared to your outdated, high school memories, where he was just a scrawny, fox-faced boy with the straightest black bangs you’d ever seen, always running around next to Minghao, getting pink in the face when the younger so much as smiled at him. It was evident that purging had completely hardened his face, his aura, to which he developed an almost sinister light. Whoever he was now, he definitely wasn’t the same boy. Jihoon sat next to him, impatiently spinning a stir stick between his fingers.

You didn’t know why you weren’t moving. Mingyu’s words rang in your head.

Are you scared?

Craving nothing more than for a sinkhole to form beneath your feet and swallow you whole, you did the sole thing your body permitted you to do; walk sternly out the coffee shop and pretend you never ordered a single thing.

God - I hope they didn’t see me. That would be the last thing I want, for Junhui and his purging buddies to have anything to do with me.

Jihoon and Wonwoo with Junhui was odd. Had they always been friends? Junhui never attended your high school either, rather he used to be a student at a prestigious private school you couldn’t ever dream of getting into.

Your apartment was close. You could distinguish its height amongst the low-cut buildings lining the sidewalk. If you just walked a little faster, you could be up the cement staircase, swinging open the glass doorway, and be safe within the front lobby. Titling your head back you quickly ogled at the sky. It wasn’t completely black yet, but there were distant tinges of dark, oily colours that pressed down like a heavy thumbprint amongst the grey. The wind picked up behind you, slamming into your backside in menacing howls.

Finally, you’d reached the cement steps—

But it was too late.

His tone was smoother than a crystal ball, lower than baritone, and incredibly seasoned at feigning genuineness. Hearing your name cascade from his mouth that was deceivingly shaped as a heart made your breath flatten. You didn’t want to turn around and face him, but it was too late to pretend you never heard his chant. Unwillingly, your body pivoted like a stone statue, your foot taking that one victorious step back as it left the staircase.

“You walk so fast, you could have been sprinting.”

“Exercise is good.” You nearly wheezed.

For the first time, you realized just how tall Junhui was, his body appearing as a shadowy mass as the wind blew the tails of his trench coat. His brows were slanted, lips quirked, his irises so rounded you could hardly see the white bits. He was handsome in the way that some people found graveyards entrancing. It was the eeriness that allured you.

“You left your coffee.” He stated.

“I realized I had somewhere to be.” You tried to hold his gaze, but it was impossible to evade the nervous eye fluttering.

“As anyone would, it’s getting late.”

The wind whistled between you, dark clouds swirling above your head as though the sky were a witch’s cauldron.

“I think it might rain,” you said meekly, “are you looking to ask me something?”

Junhui took a step forward. He’d never been this close to you before, maybe a few inches away from the tip of your nose. Your gaze tripped to his eye, the eye that Mingyu had driven his clenched fist into that one night, causing Junhui’s head to thrust back against the plaster. You swallowed the salty brick in your throat.

“I heard you like to purge now.” Junhui said with a smile. You swore his caramel gaze glinted with excitement.

Your blood froze. How did he know about that? Junhui saw through you like a translucent piece of plastic. He saw how you inwardly panicked.

“I was surprised,” he cooed, “you don’t seem like the type… But I suppose all that running around with Mingyu changed your morals.”

Your heart was beating at such a frantic pace you feared it may dislodge itself from your chest and land in your mouth.

“I’m so elated you found purpose,” his midnight fronds then fell mischievously before his eyes, keeping the candor of his secrets hidden from you, “the purge is a time of cleansing intended to help people like us find a little alleviation in the world. That one person whose been causing you grief? You won’t have to worry about their disgusting discrepancy that makes you so infuriated. It’s quite healing,” Junhui purred, “if you ask me.”

It felt as though someone just ripped your tongue from between your teeth. You couldn’t speak even if you wanted to. A splash of rain thumped your forehead, and yet you allowed the cold bead to trickle along the side of your nose and run onto your cheek. Junhui’s hand delicately raised, his thumb caressing the droplet away. He stood closer now, eliminating any room in which the wind could whisper through, his bangs tickling your forehead as his onyx pupils bore through your heated face.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, looking toward your lips through his heavy lashes, his fingers pointing your chin upward, “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt just because Mingyu can’t take care of you.”

“I-I trust him,” You managed to squeak, though it required every bone in your body to summon equal modicums of courage.

“C’mon,” Junhui seemed to taunt, “you know who I am, right? I can have any weapon, any blueprint, any ctv footage I want directly in my hands, and all it takes is a single phone call.” He grinned wolfishly. “Besides, Mingyu doesn’t have the most durable history of looking out for others.”

His grip on your chin hardened like steel, heart-shaped lips pressed lightly to your ear’s cusp, “you do know what happened to Minghao, don’t you?”

Your body turned more frigid than ice, the warm blood that pumped beneath your skin running colder with every second that Junhui stood, seeing straight through you and to his old friend he’d hurt so dearly. You instantly grew sick to your stomach. The universe beyond Junhui’s shadow was spinning wildly, darting in nauseating circles like a carousel. The images came in flickers; the truck pulling into the driveway, the window cranking down, the crack of the gun as its bullet pierced a shape in the darkness. No wonder Jihoon and Wonwoo were friends with Junhui. He had been the other person in Mingyu’s car.

You felt lightheaded, like you were going to faint.

“I’ll let you go, but just consider your options. Really, truly consider them.” Junhui murmured. “I’m sure you have some personal contentions kept covert beneath that kind tongue of yours. Given your participation, I know you can upheaval your need to feel purification. If you’re wise, you’ll cleanse with us, with me, as you are entitled to.”

Without a single ripple Junhui broke away, his touch drifting like the edges of a silk blanket from your cheek. Immediately afterward, a disturbing burst of wind whipped between your bodies, inducing a long shiver that crept down your spine and fizzled at your fingertips. Your throat felt like cracked sandpaper and your chest bottomed out with a horrendous, wrenching fear.

Junhui knew that Mingyu didn’t fear him, but he knew that you feared him, and he knew that your fear would grow to consume you now that you’d been introduced to the devastating truth.

The radio was on, high-pitched static and monotonous advisement rasping through the car’s sound system. It was clear that in time, there would be a chorus of other harsh noises leaping to fill the sky, any pockets of oxygen, and the spaces that lingered between your hazy breathing. Yet in the dense heat, you could care less.

This is your emergency broadcast system announcing the commencement of The Annual Purge, sanctioned by the government.

It was hot, burning. The air felt like scorching linen that pressed fire into your skin. Mingyu’s teeth scraped along your collarbones, the thin layer of flesh that mapped over them singed with bruises and bites and kisses that still glistened.

Weapons of Class 4 and lower have been authorized for use during the Purge. All other weapons are restricted.

The radio continued to blip. Your fingers tangled through his earth-toned tresses, gripping the thick strands and tugging on them as your throat started to ache. The windows were splotched with oily fingerprints that had been left earlier, when you first climbed onto his lap.

Government officials of ranking 10 have been granted immunity from the Purge and shall not be harmed.

Your legs quivered over his thighs, his hands guiding your hips with such a brute strength that the pain welled into numbness and everything that surrounded you seemed nonexistent, save for where your bodies connected like a jewel to its staff. His forehead fell on your shoulder, groans muffled as they brushed your hot skin. He continued to hit deep, and you knew you couldn’t hold on for much longer, the sparks catching a foreshadowing flame

Commencing at the siren, any and all crime, including murder, will be legal for 12 continuous hours.

It was then, when your weight came down on his lap for the final time, his hips stuttering upward at the perfect moment, that your head tossed back and you felt the energy rip from your body in a single scream. Mingyu wrapped his arms around your waist, keeping you flush against him, working the pleasure for all its worth. You then buried your face into his neck, a soft sea of your whimpers filling the thick air whilst Mingyu emptied inside you, filling you with warmth.

Police, fire and emergency medical services will be unavailable until tomorrow morning at 7am, when the Purge concludes.

For a moment, you just needed to close your eyes and breathe in his scent, hear his heartbeat, feel the familiar heat spread throughout your abdomen. He squeezed your hips tight, and his words were barely audible, attempting to drown over the radio’s static as well as the heavy breaths from your lungs. You heard them, even if your ears really had to strain to decipher the syllables whispered at the peak of his sensitivity. Mingyu said he loved you, and he meant it with every ounce of his soul as he felt your body shake in his arms.

Blessed be our New Founding Fathers and a nation, reborn.

And you would have meekly hummed the words in return, if the sudden cacophony of a siren didn’t shred the air like pastry, startling your system that had just come down from the best cloud nine experience you could ever fathom. It would have been wondrous to bask in the afterglow, to trace patterns on his biceps and run your lips over the scar in his brow. It had all been purloined from you in an instant. Though your centre still ached, you crept off his lap and into the passenger seat, cleaning yourself up as best you could.

“Here,” Mingyu held out his jacket that he’d tossed in the backseat, probably since your training in the fields, “it’ll keep you warm if it actually rains tonight.”

“Thanks.” You murmured whilst slipping the fabric around your body, noting that something a little heavy was inside one of the pockets. You remembered the gun was still inside. Suddenly, Mingyu started the car, the engine purring lowly and musty clouds of exhaust puffing into the empty parking lot.

He tapped the steering wheel with his palm, “where should we head?”

When the sirens faded away, you looked to him and smiled, “wherever you want.”

The red sun seemed anxious to disappear, for its rays cracked across the sky like bloodied, broken ice, hurriedly pushing itself further below the horizon as Mingyu drove into town. The Purge never introduced an easy atmosphere to stomach, yet tonight, you felt the bile in your throat was more acidic than usual. Maybe it was because you knew a huge secret, one that tied Mingyu’s hatred to Junhui’s existence.

You didn’t confess to Mingyu anything. Every word that seeped like a venom from Junhui’s lips was sealed within you, and only you. It was already painful enough for Mingyu to brace through such a traumatic incident. There would come a time when he told you his reasons for hating Junhui, and that time had yet to come.

Even so, the terror was exhausting. The first few nights after your encounter with Junhui, your slumber was plagued by gruesome nightmares, his comfortable laughter, and the black fire that seeped in his eyes as though he were some underworld creature. You’d slam awake in a cold sweat. At times you’d be so drenched that you needed to take a shower before going back to sleep, that is, if your mind allowed you to. Sometimes you would phone Mingyu and lie to him, tell him you needed to hear the brass in his voice as your nighttime spell.

You never told him about the nightmares, the panic, or the anxiety. Now the Purge had returned after its position was quelled in the nation for a year. Your head turned to glance more thoroughly out the window after you flitted past a man holding an axe tool, a painted mask shielding his face.

It didn’t take long for the streets to begin flooding with people of the same stature, and if their eyes of thirst were hidden behind costumes, then it became more than evident in the weaponry that adorned their guises. Mingyu seemed calm as he stared out the dash, his eyes giving away nothing that would hint toward his inner complex. You sighed and let your cheek rest in your palm, your gaze unable to stop tracing each and every person that emerged from the dark crevices.

About forty-five minutes had passed, driving around the quieter outskirts of the city. Looking into the side-mirror, you watched as the occasional killing occurred behind you.

Mingyu smiled. “The night just started and you already look like you’re over it.”

The echo of a gun pierced the air. You cringed slightly.

“I don’t know if I’m over it or not. I guess I’m thinking about how I’ll ever suppress witnessing senseless murder, y’know?”

The boy gently stuck his arm out, across the glove compartment, his thumb stroking your cheek for a fond moment.

“We don’t have to hang around. I can drive up to the field where we’ll be away from the worst of it. What do you want, baby?” He asked.

You scratched at your knuckles and puffed through your nose. “I don’t even know what I want. Am I supposed to feel this way?”

Mingyu raised an eyebrow, “what way?”

“Melancholic, sorta like everything seems pointless. How do you feel?”

Mingyu took a wide turn to avoid a collection of smashed bottles that glinted on the road, increasing the vehicle’s speed steadily as the chaos increased. Like your first Purge, you saw the distant glow of burning buildings appear across the lake, at the other side of the city.

“I don’t even know if I can describe it anymore.” He shrugged.

You turned your head to look at him, deciding to ask something rather abrupt, but a topic you were curious on nonetheless.

“Why did you start purging?”

The boy’s canines pushed into his bottom lip as he probed his mind.

“Because I was friends with someone who wanted to. Even involving yourself once makes enemies. You can’t hide from it after that.”

Staring at the side of his face, you felt almost dirty for knowing a pivotal piece belonging to Mingyu’s past.

“Were you friends with Junhui?”

There was a thick silence as you waited for Mingyu’s response.

“At one point, yes.” He admitted, his words sounding distasteful.

You shifted up in the seat, stretching out your hand to rub Mingyu’s bicep.

“I don’t care if you were. I know you aren’t the same as him, and that this night changes people. You don’t let it consume you like he does.”

Mingyu took a turn through a wide alleyway to avoid a hostile situation escalating at the far end of the intersection. You didn’t get a good look as the sky was continuing to lose its orange light, but the flash of the group’s masks and weapons was convincing enough to take a different path.

You couldn’t help but note that Mingyu’s eyes had become slightly watered.

“It was never about purification,” he told you, “I never had any specific target, or someone I detested. Neither did Jun. But he comes from a family that relies on purging as their income. His mom designs weapons and his dad works for some underground branch, assigning bounties. He just isn’t the same as us. I was lucky if I could even hold a gun in my hands without trembling. I had to learn how to desensitize myself. For Jun, it was almost natural.”

A familiar sickness made your stomach twirl.

“It’s sad he had to grow up like that.” You sighed, glancing out the window whilst Mingyu remained silent.

A few minutes later, and you were laughing. “I didn’t mean to make the mood so terrible. I was just wondering.”

“I know,” Mingyu said, his lips curling warmly, “I can’t blame you for being curious, baby. I just don’t think back on my past all that much.”

He then gave you a thoughtful look, and your chest started fluttering embarrassingly fast. “I like focusing on right now, where I have you.”

It was quiet again, to which you let your thoughts roam astray.

You pictured the night your father disappeared, the night your mother’s life was taken away from her when she wasn’t even capable of defending herself. The feeling of coming down the stairway to broken glass, spilt moonlight, and a dirtied face lugging her away couldn’t be compared to any pain. And daring to unlock that enraged, bitter half of yourself, you thought to applying pressure on the trigger that killed the man responsible for her death.

Those memories influenced your appreciation, your gratitude, toward Mingyu, the boy who you had always admired at a distance, never knowing he could be so tender and benevolent. It was possible that you could have turned out similar to Junhui if you let your indignation take control. Seeing how Mingyu always remained so grounded helped you keep your footing, and you hoped there never came a day when you started looking at the world how Junhui did.

All of sudden, your musing was shattered when a pick-up truck roared from an alleyway and soared into the street, plumes of grey smoke pumping from its pipes as the tires screeched against the asphalt.

”Mingyu, watch out!” You screeched, gripping the steering wheel.

At the same time, Mingyu veered away from the truck, your heart nearly tearing a hole right through your chest as the head of your vehicle rammed into a light post. The collision jolted your body forward, though the seatbelt kept you strapped in and unscathed. Mingyu cursed through his teeth.

“Fuck, are you okay?” He rasped.

“I-I’m fine. Let’s just get the hell out of here.” You replied shakily.

Mingyu’s facial expression relaxed for less than a second. He appeared ready to oblige, though casting another inspection into his features relayed a nauseating truth. Suddenly, Mingyu’s hand gripped the back of your neck and he forced your head down between your legs. You heard it, the crisp echo of a gunshot. Except there was no bullet that punctured the glass and made fragments rain over your body. There was no dent in the metal door either. The barrel was purposely aimed to a different area, and as the second shot fired off, you felt like passing out.

They’re shooting at the tires.

Mingyu whispered to you with a coarse urgency, “this way!”

He’d managed to open his door, your only choice of escape a labyrinth of alleyways that lay beyond the mangled car. The alleys were dark, damp, and most likely rife with impending danger. Your throat closed in when you attempted to swallow. You could see the blade that Mingyu had collected from the console, already tight in his hand. Licking your leathered lips, you squirmed out his side after he’d gone through. He was squatted down, waiting for you.

Just as you joined him, you cast a glance above Mingyu’s head, your blood turning into ice as a slim figure appeared around the back end of the car. It was a man, dressed in a black raincoat, long and glossy. He was wearing a dirtied, white mask, where kohl paint was runny down the large eyes and the mouth was outlined in a red marker. Next to his side was the long barrel of a shotgun, and you felt unimaginably dizzy. Mingyu immediately identified the terror that leaked into your gaze, and with a thick gulp, he dared stare over his shoulder.

“Hey Mingyu,” the stranger mumbled, taking the pointed chin of the mask and tipping it upward, revealing a fox-like face, “long time no see.”

Mingyu wrapped his fingers around your hand and stood up slowly, ensuring your body was sheltered by his size. You breathed as quietly as your vandalized chest would allow, your diaphragm keening to erupt.

“Wonwoo?” Mingyu echoed, “I haven’t seen you in ages!”

“Didn’t mean to scare you or anything.” The boy said, his voice very deep and smooth. The depth reverberated in your chest and made your skin crawl.

“Are you crazy, dude?” Mingyu growled. “You shot out my fucking tires.”

Wonwoo scratched the nape of his neck. “I was just following orders.”

You had no idea what was happening. The only piece of concrete knowledge that hadn’t been fogged over in tangible fear was that you could still hear incessant firing in the distant, chaotic screaming and rioting. Looking down to the blade that glinted in Mingyu’s palm, you were able to plant a little reassurance in yourself knowing of his skill and ability to stay grounded. Keeping your mouth shut, you held Mingyu’s hand in a vice grip.

“Following orders from who? What are you talking about? Are you wired?”

“It’s understandable you would think that,” Wonwoo sighed, “but I’m not. If I were though, your death might be a little easier.”

“Since when are you supposed to kill me?” Mingyu sounded flat out bewildered.

It was then that it dawned on you: Mingyu really had no idea Wonwoo was still a part of Junhui’s brigade.

Grinding your teeth together in contemplation, you finally decided to swallow the grain in your throat and break the truth. Getting close to Mingyu’s ear, you whispered to him what you knew, no matter how much of a fable it may be perceived as. Visibly, his body stiffened. His fingers gripped the blade’s handle with an unprecedented rage.

“What are you doing?” Mingyu implored, candor in his despair. “Even after what he did to Minghao? What the hell is holding you to him?”

“It’s nothing personal, but as you know already, Junhui is filthy rich,” Wonwoo gloomed, cocking the barrel once more, “and he’s promised me some things.”

Mingyu clenched his jaw. “You mean more of those drugs he keeps stealing from his dad’s lab? Wonwoo, what the fuck happened to you? The last time I heard from you, you were getting clean, you were going to start fresh!”

There was an unorthodox twinkle in his black stare, oddly full of emotion, hurt, repressed pain that cut deeper inside than out.

“I tried,” Wonwoo stated, a slight anger tainting his voice, “I went to three different rehabilitation clinics. I took a vacation to the rural springs and received lessons in guided meditation and bought myself a journal so I could document my success in getting clean. And you know what? I haven’t touched that journal since the day I fucking bought it. Tell me, Mingyu. How the fuck am I supposed to care about staying clean, how the fuck am I supposed to care about anything when I saw the love of my life get fucking shot right in front of me?”

Mingyu shook his head in disbelief, “Wonwoo, I--, I know that was horrible, I know that hurt you and--”

“Just shut up,” the elder interrupted flatly, “maybe today I’ll actually feel something when I put this barrel between your eyes.”

It was impossible to stand by and remain silent. Chewing on your bottom lip, you gathered a modicum of courage and poked your head around Mingyu’s shoulder.

“So you’re going to kill us just because Junhui wants you to? That’s how you’re going to live the rest of your life? Listening to his psychotic fantasies about purification and entitlement?”

Wonwoo narrowed his eyes at you, his jaw taunt.

“I know you loved Minghao, I know your life hasn’t felt the same since. Minghao was Mingyu’s best friend too. You weren’t the only one who lost somebody. Do you think when I came downstairs at fourteen years old and saw my mother get pulled away through the window that I wasn’t upset, angry, confused at the world? Junhui just sees you as a pawn to delegate the matters he doesn’t want to dip his hands into, but you’re a real person. Wake up and act like it!”

For even just a fraction of a second, Wonwoo’s shoulders slumped, his finger that was feathering the gun’s trigger drifted from contact, and the stoic cloud in his eyes fuzzed a little. You were starting to feel confident. Yet just as easily as the feeling came to you, you were caught off guard by an arm that slid around your neck and lurched you backward, against a hard chest.

Mingyu barked immediately, his blade drawn and eyes wildly dilated as he turned to face the person responsible for holding onto you. Biting the inside of your mouth, you squirmed and thrashed and kicked, until something cold pressed into your temple and suddenly the energy evaporated from your body like dew droplets on an August day.

Mingyu’s voice sounded rusty as he gaped again. “Jihoon?!”

Wonwoo piped up suddenly, and his eyes turned cold once more. “Be careful, dammit. She’s the one we can’t afford to bruise up.”

Jihoon’s arm was now wrapped around your neck, pressing against your windpipe and causing your air supply to falter. You knew it was a gun that was poking sharply into your temple.

Mingyu’s gaze was wild and rife with fire. He growled between his teeth like a wolf. “Don’t even fucking think about it, Jihoon.”

Wonwoo stepped forward and shook his gun at the boy who was closing off on your breathing. “Junhui wants that one,” he pressed the snout of his weapon into your chin, “alive.”

Jihoon sulked, his voice rumbling in his chest, “So what’s our fun tonight? We kill Mingyu and then pack up?”

You wriggled again in Jihoon’s arms, tempted to gnaw right into his wrist. “Can we not kill anybody?!”

“Calm down,” Wonwoo instructed, “I hate shouting. If any of you shout I’m planting a bullet in your brain.”

“You’re such a bore,” Jihoon whined, pressing into your windpipe with more force, painting speckles of white across your vision. Mingyu was bubbling with rage, like a teapot left on the burner for too long, his teeth clamping down so tightly his whole face was aching.

Wonwoo used the muzzle of the gun to tip your chin toward the moonlight. “A word of advice. Stop struggling and you won’t get hurt.”

“H-He’s hurting me,” you attempted to coherently spit past the pressure concocted against your throat. Jihoon was issuing enough force to make your eyes water and your head spin. Mingyu piped up, but Wonwoo was swifter and beat him to it.

“Lighten your grip.” He told Jihoon.

“I’m not even holding her that tightly!” The boy protested. Wonwoo’s face didn’t crack. He just repeated himself with an underlying menace.

“Lighten. Your. Grip.”

“It’s all pretending! Can’t you see? They’re trying to distract you so Mingyu can shove that blade through your back. Don’t be so fucking soft, Wonwoo. Look! I’m hardly touching—“

Bang.

Wonwoo dug his gun right into Jihoon’s forehead and pulled the trigger, the strict barrier against your throat immediately releasing. A fresh gulp of air hastily entered your lungs as you stumbled, Jihoon’s body folding onto the sidewalk from the corner of you eye. Mingyu quickly caught you, cupped your face in his hands and wiped the beaded sweat at your forehead. He kept whispering to you that you were okay, repeated the words in a soothing, husky mantra, his thumbs stroking your jaw in comforting sweeps. The ringing in your ears was unfathomably painful, it stung and stung and stung.

“Well,” Wonwoo announced with a despondent sigh, setting the gun over his shoulder, “I really do hate yelling.”

Mingyu’s kissed your forehead briefly. Your lips were still dry and they struggled to form a word of thanks to Wonwoo. The boy shrugged.

“He was holding you kind of tightly.”

Mingyu gasped, “no fucking kidding.”

Wonwoo sighed. “I guess I don’t expect to live much longer now that I’ve gone and wasted my companion here with my last few bullets. Not to mention I have prolonged the existence of your life, Mingyu, which I was strictly ordered not to do. It was nice to meet your little partner in crime too.”

“What are you talking about?” Mingyu questioned whilst gathering you into his side.

“I didn’t follow through on my order. I can’t bring myself to do it. ” Wonwoo mumbled. “We’ll catch up in the afterlife or something. Maybe where you’re going is different than where I’m about to go. You’ll probably be with Minghao while I deservedly rot. One of life’s many mysteries, right?”

There wasn’t much of an opportunity to process the situation, not when a gunshot echoed from down the alleyway and pierced the boy in his temple. The shotgun clamped in his hand clattered against the cold, concrete sidewalk, and his mask clattered off his head. His body joined the likes of Jihoon who’d been staring up at the night sky with dead, glazed eyes, a trail of red leaking down his nose. Your head pivoted and you felt a surge of vomit climb to the back of your mouth, for the person behind the trigger was Yang Yeeun, her pearl earrings flashing against the silver moonlight.

“Horrendous.” Her accent was thick with venom, heels clicking down the alleyway as she stalked in her black trousers and white dress shirt.

Intimidation sweltered against your skin at just her attire. The fact she dressed expensively for the night proved she wasn’t expecting to get in any confrontation that would result in her own blood being spilt.

“I expected Jihoon to cause trouble, but not Wonwoo. He was so promising. I guess he really did need drugs to stay sane.”

She stepped over a corpse you hadn’t noted lying face down in the alley, growling between her teeth.

“Filthy,” Yeeun remarked without a grain of empathy, “nothing but filth.”

Mingyu gripped your wrist and you felt your body stumble behind him. Keeping your arms drawn against his back and softly breathing, you inhaled the musky scents of damp, nighttime air and car exhaust. Though you couldn’t directly see Yeeun, her voice was still audible, lacquered in such a feigned delicacy it reminded you of Junhui. Mingyu hadn’t said a thing. He didn’t have to speak for you to know his heart was decaying.

“There’s my sweet boy.” Yeeun cooed. She was close now, so close you peered between Mingyu’s legs and saw her shiny heels standing in blood spatters.

She regarded Mingyu like they were still together, like they still reflected the image of romance that was envied by so many people, you included. Her arm extended, pale, numb fingers brushing along his amber cheek. You wanted to scream at her to never touch him again. It was her own mistake to let Mingyu go, when he was positively in love with her and preached their future with honeyed words, like an artist who preaches with paint.

“You know, I miss you,” she hummed, tracing the flint of his jaw, “I’m so terribly sorry you had to witness your old best friends get a bullet to the brain, but, that is what happens when tensions are high, and, you know, we can’t afford to let many errors slip past us. Now, let’s not let that put a damper on the night. It’s still young, and so much has yet to happen. How about you come with me?”

You knew there was a handgun she was keeping pressed to her leg right now, and that if neither of you complied, it would be put to good use. Mingyu hadn’t opened his mouth. His lips were tight and his eyes were concentrated. Maybe he was trying to scheme.

Yeeun stretched out her gun and let the muzzle clink with Mingyu’s knife, trying to push the weapon from his hand.

“Just drop this and follow me, sweetheart. Due to these unforeseen events, there’s been a change and your presence has been urgently requested.”

Quicker than expected, Mingyu complied. He let the blade untwine from his grasp and rattle against the ground. If he did have some sort of plan, you were hoping that giving up his only weapon was part of it.

“She can come too,” Yeeun purred, “Junhui wants to see both of you.”

Yeeun trudged behind you, her weapon drawn, a manicured nail feathering upon the trigger just in case one of you attempted something of trickery. Tall, grimy buildings surrounded you, leading up to the black sky, where the stars gazed down in lamentation. Mingyu’s fingers were wrapped around your wrist with such steely strength that you felt your circulation dwindle, though the tiny, tingling feeling would never surpass the fear that sat like a pound of tar in your stomach. Similar to your first purge, tears pushed at your ducts, though there was a certain exhaustion shrouding your body that prevented them from falling.

Despite your unstable condition, the possibility of death snickering right in your face, the wavering thought that either Junhui or Yeeun could imbue a torturous fate, you were worried about Mingyu.

Yeeun was playing him expertly. She knew it wasn’t her heart that cracked after their breakup, it was Mingyu that suffered independently. Only he bit the nail, only he felt the salt mix with his wounds, and only he would welt in self-contemplation over a love that he nurtured, alone. If it came down to it, and your life was on the line, would Mingyu hesitate? Would he be afraid of hurting someone he used to treasure so dearly? You didn’t doubt his affections for you. His heart was strong, but what if Yeeun’s deceit was stronger?

The labyrinth of alleyways had finally led you to a dead end. Your wrist shook in Mingyu’s grasp, for the man nonchalantly leaning against the solid wall was none other than—

“Junhui,” Yeeun cawed, “you won’t believe what the fuck just happened. Wonwoo popped Jihoon. He’s dead, should have brought more crew instead of displacing them like we did.”

She finished her sentence by fitting her gun right snug at the back of your head.

Junhui spat onto the floor before he unstuck himself from leaning against the wall, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his dark trench coat.

“It doesn’t matter,” he dismissed, “using Wonwoo and Jihoon was a squander anyways. I could have concluded both their lives at a much more efficient pace. I’m guessing you took care of the traitor?”

Yeeun cackled, “right though the side of his head. He fell like a stack of cards.”

“It’s a real disappointment,” Junhui huffed, “since the beginning Wonwoo and Jihoon have shown the utmost loyalty for me and my craft. But, I guess this just demonstrates how purifying this device truly is. We’re ridding the streets of scum, aren’t we?”

Mingyu released your wrist, and you felt like a bomb had just dropped to the soles of your feet. His lips parted and his voice was deep. Hearing him speak allowed your heartbeat to calm, even with Yeeun’s gun taunt into your hair.

“The streets will never be rid of scum until you’re over and done with.”

Junhui cocked his head, his mouth falling open and his eyes twinkling as though a tiny flame had ignited in their inky depths.

“And here is the biggest traitor of them all!”

Junhui tossed his head back and ludic laughter echoed into the compressing air, “how do you suppose you’ll rid me, Mingyu? Are you going to give me another black eye? Curse at me? Damn me to hell and back because of what happened that night? Damn me behind my back because I took Yeeun away from you? The girl you once loved and valued with your every essence?”

It was then that Junhui shifted his sights on you, his lips pulling wide in a smile.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware Mingyu, but your partner and I exchanged a very compelling conversation a while ago. I guess word never got around to you.”

Junhui’s boots dragged over the crumbs of dirt and asphalt that littered the ground, his presence nearing closer and closer. When you tried to lower your head, Yeeun’s gun pressed with a stricter force into your scalp, filling you with enough fear to keep your gaze straight.

“You’re very fortunate, Mingyu. To have such a pretty thing to call your own.”

Junhui’s hand reached for your chin. His touch was colder than the dark shadows that masked his soul, and it engendered a shiver to slither along your spine.

“Don’t put your hands anywhere near her!” Mingyu seethed, to which Yeeun instantly switched her gun to point against the back of his skull.

You could see his jaw clench from your peripheral vision. But Junhui didn’t listen, and his thumb pushed down on your bottom lip as though he intended to brand your skin with his insanity. He spoke lowly, smoothly, confidence lathered into his every syllable.

“Do you know why I did it?” Junhui stared into your eyes and asked.

“Dd-did w-what?” You warbled.

“It wasn’t because I was jealous of Wonwoo and Minghao, or because I had some personal contention against the boy. I didn’t even think when I pressed the trigger. I spent the whole night adding so much blood to my hands, that the moment I saw another shadow move, my body just - it just acted for me. Like it was an instinct. I wasn’t sad... But I wasn’t happy. I only knew I was no longer myself... I was someone stronger, someone enhanced, and that is the greatness of this evening!”

Junhui clutched your shoulders and shook them, his eyes alight with a certain derangement that petrified you to your core.

“You’re reborn! Don’t you get it? You’re no longer tied down by the concept of goodness, and your free will is truly free. When will you two realize that--”

Out of nowhere, Mingyu shoved into your side so aggressively you stumbled sideways and collapsed on the sooty ground. The air was knocked from your lungs and your heart pumped like it had been electrocuted. Fuzzy splotches of colour coalesced before your watered vision, projecting nothing but an obnoxious blur. There was shouting, the loud crack of a harmless gunshot, and scuffling that emanated from every direction. Before you could separate the blacks from the blues, something cold wrapped around your wrist and dragged you backward. Then, your entire body was thrust up against the brick, scrapes and bruises already forming on your bare skin.

When your head stopped spinning and the world dulled down from reflecting three versions of the same image, you were shuttering, whimpering, as Junhui held you firmly against the wall.

Across the alleyway you could see that Mingyu had Yeeun pressed to the floor, his palm covering her throat whilst he took advantage of his weight to keep her slim frame still. He fought to unwind the firearm from her fingers, but when he did, the weapon was digging into her forehead. You wanted to scream at him to pull the trigger, to fucking end her already, even if your throat felt like it had been scraped of all moisture and scrubbed with a pad of steel wool. You heard Junhui snicker, his mouth twisted cynically. It was evident what he was thinking, for it was identical to your own thought.

“Like hell you’ll do it!” Junhui screamed.

If it came down to it, and your life was on the line, would Mingyu hesitate?

Love. It was just as much a weapon as it was a comfort. And as Mingyu stared down at Yeeun, silver pearls of water slipping from her brown eyes, the eyes he had fallen for, you felt consumed by terror, that your life may truly end at this exact location. Mingyu proved your doubts were transparent and his finger jammed against the trigger. Except – there was nothing, nothing at all. The gun had no ammunition left. Yeeun sighed heavily.

“Don’t do this,” she mewled, still wriggling beneath him, full-fledged tears pumping down her flushed, scarlet face, “I never meant to hurt you. It’s just – you wouldn’t understand why – he didn’t leave me any choice!”

Mingyu released his ironclad grip over her throat and used his fingers to sweep the stray hairs from her eyes.

“Shut your fucking mouth.” He abruptly snapped. “You lie through your teeth like it’s the only thing you’re good for. You don’t love anyone or anything. I bet you lost that silver spoon you were born with, huh? Daddy’s security systems aren’t as bulletproof as he thought they were? So you had to run to Junhui?”

She gargled slightly on her own saliva, coughing a bit of foam, though she never tried to respond.

Mingyu lifted Yeeun’s head in his hands. Squeezing your eyes shut didn’t make the snapping noise any less gruesome. If anything, it only amplified the sickness building in your gut, it only amplified Junhui’s enraged storm of cursing as his companion’s body went limp, her eyes stained with not even a smidgen of regret. If there was any regret at all, it was that she couldn’t have killed you herself. Hope began trickling back into your body, and, taking advantage of Junhui’s distracted vacancy, you attempted to give him a swift kick.

And yet that thought was a mistake in itself. Junhui lost his composure, his sophistication.

Your struggling only encouraged the anger spilling inside him, prompted him to uncover a blade that was hidden inside his coat, its silver gleam reflecting off your eyes for a millisecond before you felt its sharp edge nuzzle into your skin, somewhere around your stomach. A surge so violent and unbridled soared through your body, forced you to lean over the blade where your eyes soaked up the unholy sight of Junhui’s knuckles pale as snowflakes wrapped around the handle. You spluttered out nothing but air, watched as dark liquid began seeping from the wound and wetting your shirt.

Junhui took it upon himself to slowly, ever so slowly, extract the knife from its crevice, his teeth grinding together as just the point remained in your flesh. Then, he dug the blade back in through its opening, giving the weapon a slight twist.

When Mingyu had risen from Yeeun’s corpse and tore Junhui away from you, a silent sob wobbled off your lips. At some point that your mind was too fogged to remember, you were sitting, slumped against the wall as thick, grey storm clouds crowded the night sky. When you could no longer find solace amongst the stars, your gaze flitted across the alleyway, to where Junhui and Mingyu were a vicious tangle of limbs that punched and kicked and pulled. It reminded you of the party, the stupid party that had somehow preluded your path to cross with Mingyu’s. They were shouting at one another, at war for Junhui’s knife that kept slipping from their grasps like butter.

Wincing, you stretched an arm to fold over your stomach, attempting to apply even the meekest amount of pressure to your wound. Your brow furrowed when something hard nudged against your arm, a harsh weight that seemed to sit inside your jacket.

Well, it wasn’t your jacket, it was Mingyu’s.

Chewing down on the inside of your mouth, you ignored the pain that cut through your every nerve and fought to wind your hand within the jacket, fingers poking and shuffling around until they brushed the pocket stitched to the inside. Despite your battered condition, you nearly yelped when you gripped the handgun, the same gun that you’d used to practice your aim in the fields. There was not a moment to squander, nor a moment to think. Your whole body screamed as you drew the weapon from its pouch, fingers slippery with blood as you fought to turn the safety off.

Your entire arm shook like a brittle leaf in mid-autumn, yet you still held the gun forth, your head banging, your vision blurred, bile pushing and stinging against your throat. Junhui had Mingyu pinned to the grit, his boot heavy on Mingyu’s wrist. Raised in the air was the knife, stained with red globs of your blood. It was just like the party, except it wasn’t a tiny glass shard sealed between Junhui’s fingers. It was a literal hacking device. There was nothing you could do to stop your arm from shaking. You had no more ammunition apart from the bullet left in the gun.

What if I miss, what if I miss Junhui and hit Mingyu? What if I hit Junhui but it isn’t enough to stop him? I don’t think I can do this. I can’t I can’t I can’t—

“So,” Junhui barked, his vocal chords strained and hoarse, “where’s your little guardian angel now, huh? If it weren’t for your girlfriend fucking getting in the way two years ago, you would have had it, Mingyu. But now there’s no one to save you. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment. Finally, I’m entitled to purge how I’ve always wanted.”

The tears finally erupted from their ducts, streaming down your dusted cheeks and dripping at your chin. You felt like a child, a blubbering infant.

But it wasn’t worth it to lose Mingyu.

You weren’t entirely sure what happened when you sucked back the distracting binds of your self-doubt and clamped the trigger down. It didn’t register that the bullet had struck Junhui’s head until his body collapsed off of Mingyu’s lap, lying lax on the pebbles like a sack of flour. It didn’t register that you had saved Mingyu’s life until the first few cold splashes of rain thumped against your forehead, dampened your lashes, and trickled along your scuffed flesh. The gun dropped from your fingers and the whole world went black.

The next time you awoke, you were faced with a pair of glimmering, penny eyes that rapidly blinked, tiny crinkles mapping along wet, amber skin. An instant pain jolted into your gut when you attempted to fidget, and a whine nearly tore itself from between your cracked lips.

“Don’t try to move,” you heard a rough voice, “stay still as best you can.”

“Mingyu?” You croaked, reaching upward to stroke his cheek.

His fingers coiled gently around your wrist, bringing the scars that were carved like ancient hieroglyphics to his lips. The second he pressed kisses to the old wounds, you smiled.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you awake,” he rasped, his eyes soft, gleeful, “you fucking saved me, y’know? It’s because of you I’m still here, still breathing. All because of you.”

Your face scrunched in confusion.

“Wait… So, I’m not… dreaming?”

Despite Mingyu’s earlier advisement to stay still, you forced your body upward, though you faced immediate repercussions as a jarring bolt struck you in the stomach. Mingyu attempted to make you relax once more, but you refused to listen to his cooing. Distant thunder rolled in the distance, and you could see a pale glow beaming behind the flossy clouds that shielded the sky. Seven o’clock was probably on the brink of arrival. You were still in the alleyway. Casting a glance toward your new wounds, you noticed that Mingyu had wrapped his jacket tightly around your waist.

“Now would be a good time for lots of gauze, right?” You smiled.

Mingyu settled his palm delicately at the back of your neck and pushed your lips together, a smile slowly dancing along his mouth as he felt your fingers thread through his locks. Just like Mingyu had predicted, a misty rainfall was spraying from the early morning sky, infinitesimal droplets of glass sitting upon his skin as though he were a springtime rose. You kissed his lips again, and again, and again, until the pain in your stomach became too much of a distraction and your head was falling to the crook of his neck. Stealing a glance around the alleyway, you couldn’t help but notice that Junhui and Yeeun’s bodies had been laid beside each other.

You thought about what Wonwoo had said.

Maybe where you’re going is different than where I’m about to go. One of life’s many mysteries, right?

Well, at least Junhui and Yeeun would share an eternal fate in the one place they truly belonged, and it wasn’t exactly a mystery where that place was either.

“Mingyu,” you reached for his shirt and gave it a small tug.

He peered down at you through the fanned arch of his lashes.

“Are you still in a lot of pain, baby? I wish I could take it all away from you. I’m sure the medical services will be here soon, I promi—“

“I love you.”

Mingyu stuttered over the humid air. “O-Oh – I, um, I – I love you too… But, I think you already knew that.”

A molten blush crawled up from the column of his neck and flushed throughout his face akin to a raspberry burn. Though it ached to giggle, you couldn’t evade in doing so, your eyes turned to crescent moons as more golden splashes of dawn light ebbed through the clouds. Somewhere in the distance, you no longer heard gunshots, incoherent slurs, riots and the skid of tires creating friction against pavement. You heard the whirr of emergency sirens and helicopter wings, medical services beginning to flood throughout the city like a creek. It was over. Mingyu was still tangible, warm, smiling whilst he pressed kisses against your forehead.

You don’t know how, but you survived the chaos, you survived Wonwoo and his ludic friend, Jihoon. You survived Yeeun and you survived Junhui.

You survived the Purge together.

✎ a/n: ugh. this is just one of those fics where you become v attached to the characters. i was able to write this quicker than expected (MINUS THE STUPID TWIST THAT STUMPED ME) bc i was truly invested in the plot, and i rly adored every moment of it. actually, this fic was supposed to be posted ages ago, i think last year? but last year was terrible in terms of my health and wellbeing, so i kinda forgot this fic existed as i went on my hiatus. anywho, in my opinion, the first purge film was the best.

i haven’t watched any of the newer purge movies tho, so they could be good! since im a horror/thriller fan, i liked the aspect of vulnerability the purge brought and how it forced ppl to invest in their capacity for violence, especially when the ppl they loved were involved. obviously - only for the fic lmao. bruh, during a real purge i am going to lock myself in the crawl space with a blanket and some cheerios. ALSO!!!! A HAPPY ENDING!!!!!! be proud of me!!!! this was an adventure!!! i hope you can enjoy the story as much as i!! hearing ur thots is appreciated as always!

#mingyu scenarios #mingyu fluff #mingyu angst #mingyu fanfic #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fanfic #seventeen angst #seventeen fluff #mingyu au #mingyu x reader #svt scenarios #svt angst #svt smut

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