#I also draw my 1s as just a line but hey look

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Listen when you grow up with the math teachers I did and the peers that insisted on putting the little hat on the 1 then yeah you cross your goddamn 7s

*gathers all of the people in the world who write the number 7 with a little dash in the center of it so I can study them like little critters and find out what makes them do that*

[homebody-nobody]

you’re a part of me

(WHAT?? Jax wrote ANOTHER fic?? THREE FICS?? in TWO WEEKS?? I know, I’m shocked too. We’re gettin closer and closer to bein a Real Fic Writer lads.) How many juke first kiss fics will you write, Jax? all of them. as many as I want. I dunno. you're an adult obsessed with a tweeny-bopper show. shut up. who even has the patience for 5 +1s in this house it's 3 +1 and only barely bc I don't know how structured fic works so it's not even separate like it's supposed to be. anyway enjoy some dumb teenagers falling in love if the dialogue is cringe sorry lol I was trying to stay in the tone of the show and may have gone a little bit too disney channel (Also if you see typos/the same adjective used twice in one sentence/paragraph, no you didn't I don't edit it makes me nervous)  ------------------------------- (ao3) ------------------------------ '... Luke has thrown out any semblance of personal space. He orbits around her just as closely as the others, no longer threatened by or hyper-aware of the consequences of his proximity. Basically, he’s getting entirely too comfortable.'

(3 times Julie and Luke almost kissed and 1 time they did) ------------------------------------ Luke is overly physical. Theoretically, Julie already knew this. She’s seen him with the boys, the way he lives in other people’s space, hanging off Reggie and lurking next to Alex, not caring where his lanky limbs or knees or elbows end up, even if it’s in other people’s ribs. He was never like that with her, too afraid of the crushing disappointment that came when she phased through his hands. But now, there isn’t the strange, tingles-up-her neck way-weird, way-wrong sensation that came when she accidentally brushed through him. So even though Julie’s used to keeping a respectful distance, Luke has thrown out any semblance of personal space. He orbits around her just as closely as the others, no longer threatened by or hyper-aware of the consequences of his proximity.  Basically, he’s getting entirely too comfortable. 

She notices it the first time during rehearsal, when they’re hashing out the particulars of a melody -- Luke wants it to go down, and Julie thinks it should go up. She plunks herself down at the grand piano to prove that her idea will sound better, fanning the half-finished sheet music out across the top, pointing out the measure they’re arguing over, smudged and crinkled from repeated erasings. 

Luke narrows his eyes at her from across the room, his face set in his trademark (adorable) grumpy expression. “It just sounds better!” she argues. “Listen.” She puts her hands on the keys, left hand hitting the chord, right dancing over her proposed melody. “So please, keep chasing me…” she sings, building to the last word and sliding her voice over an intricate run ending in a step up. Looking up, she tilts her head, her wild hair piled into a tenuous bun, curly tendrils framing her face. Luke’s stomach does an interesting flip. “See?” 

He stands up, swinging his guitar strap down across his chest before walking around her, putting his right hand over where hers had just been on the paper. He stands just behind her shoulder, sending goosebumps down her spine. “It should go down,” he insists. “It’ll flow better with the next line and then the break before the chorus makes more sense. Listen.” He puts his foot up on the bench and swings his guitar back up like it's an extension of him, playing a riff and singing the line they’re arguing about before dipping in to the next. “So please keep chasing me,” he sings, his voice gracefully stepping up and then back down, “Cause even though I’m runnin’, I know you’re the one I need.” 

“You’re making it too simple!” she cries, slamming her hands down in her lap and turning to face him. She opens her mouth to continue the argument, but when she looks at him, she starts, finally realizing just how close he is. The toe of his sneaker brushes her leg, and he leans over the sheet music, closing her in against the piano. His dark eyebrows pull together, mouth slightly pinched as he concentrates, solid and strong and very much in her space. “Um --” she says. 

He shrugs, shaking his head a little bit. “What,” he says, not understanding what she’s having a problem with. Julie’s eyes drop to his mouth, close and stupid kissable, and he notices the motion. The air crackles as both of them unconsciously draw closer, song forgotten, focused only on each other. Luke leans in, half an inch, and Julie’s breath hitches in her chest. This is stupid. She knows this is stupid. Luke is dead. Full ghost. Not real. Well, real, but not a viable option. He might have a physical presence now -- a very strong, very warm, very attractive physical presence -- but that doesn’t make him any more possible. And yet, here she is, pulled into him like he has his own gravitational field and she’s helpless to it. Luke licks his lips, and Julie tilts her chin up, fractional motion tiptoeing toward something irreversible and dangerous. 

Just as she’s about to step over that uncrossable line, there’s an almighty crash. Both of their heads whip up in time to see Alex topple off his stool -- he’d fallen asleep as they were arguing. The noise wakes Reggie, whose head was lolling against his amp. “I didn’t do it!” he yells, flailing into sitting up straight. 

Julie clears her throat and turns back to the keyboard, stretching her hands over the keys. “You’re, uh --” she says, glancing at Luke out of the corner of her eye to find him smirking in an infuriatingly adorable manner. “You’re right. It should go down.” He stands up straight, mildly surprised at his easy victory, and backs off from the piano to show Reggie the chords. They sketch out the verse and Alex adds a backing beat, the moment forgotten. 

That is, until Carlos comes in to nag her to eat. Alex poofs out and Reggie dives behind his amp. Since the whole discovering-corporeality thing, they’re not totally sure if Julie’s the only one who can see them still, and they’d rather not have to explain to Julie’s dad what three teenage ‘holograms’ are doing living in his garage. Carlos delivers his message and then darts back inside, eager for dinner, and Julie stands up from the piano, gathering the half-finished song and tucking it into the folder she keeps her in-progress projects in. 

Reggie emerges in a comic mess of limbs and grins at her, Alex poofing back on to his stool. “I’ll be back after dinner to finish this,” she says, hoping they don't notice the shake in her hands as she tucks the folder away. Luke pops his chin over the edge of the couch, behind which he’d taken cover. 

“Hey Julie!” he calls, and she turns back to look at him. “Just remember; KISS.” 

Her brain short-circuits, heart tripping over itself as she remembers his eyes on her, his shoulders and his hands and his stupid concentration face. “I, uh -- What are you --” she sputters.

A shit-eating grin spreads across Luke’s face as he puts his elbows on top of the couch and pushes himself up. “Keep it simple, stupid.” 

Julie practically runs out of the garage. Alex raises an eyebrow, his gaze arcing from the door to land on Luke. “That was uh…” Luke schools his expression into one of false innocence. “Bold.” Luke rolls his eyes and brushes him off, but Reggie gives Alex a knowing look. Their friends are idiots. 

It happens again one afternoon when Carlos has a baseball game and Julie has the house to herself. Or, so she thinks. She’s lazing around on the couch, avoiding her history homework spread out on the coffee table, Adventure Time babbling on the television. She’s slowly working her way through a bag of gummy bears and m&ms (her favorite candy combination),  wearing an enormous hoodie that used to be her mom’s, home alone; life is fantastic. Until -- 

“Oh, sweet, cartoons!” Luke poofs into existence directly next to her on the couch, and she starts violently enough to shake candy into the couch cushions. Some of it lands on his chest, and he holds up a green gummy bear with a wistful expression. Julie just stares at him, still mildly in shock, definitely still annoyed, and really not in the mood to endure his moping about food when she was having a perfectly nice time by herself. 

“Hey,” he says, either ignoring or unaware of what he’s just done to her heart rate and her peaceful afternoon. “You think now that I’m corporeal --” (he over-pronounces the word, having just learned it from Flynn days before) “I can eat like, regular human food?” It isn’t until he looks to her for an answer that he realizes what he’s just done. “Oh, sorry,” he says, that same stupid-ass grin settling on his face, not sorry even a little bit. “Did I spook ya?” 

His glee at the pun, which he definitely stole from Reggie, sparkles in his gray-green eyes, and Julie’s heart, which had just started to recover from his sudden appearance, trips over itself one more time. Emerging from the shaken-up snowglobe of her brain, she blurts out her first thought. “You’re the worst,” she says, even while thinking the opposite. 

He looks genuinely hurt for about half a second before turning the gummy bear towards her, too, and speaking for it. “You should be nice to Luke,” he says in an absurd voice. “He’s so handsome and talented!” He laughs at his own joke and pitches his voice up to continue with the bit, but she snatches the candy out of his hand and pops into her mouth, grinning. He feigns shock. “That bear could have had a family, Julie.” 

“If they did, they’ll all be happy together in my stomach,” she says, eating another one to punctuate the statement. Luke laughs, and the sound has a heart-stopping melody of its own. It’s comfortable, the relationship that they’ve developed with each other. He always laughs at her jokes and is the first to offer her a compliment after rehearsal, and she loves his dorky sense of humor, even when she gives him a hard time about it. They write music and goof around, and even with the (very strong) undercurrent of romantic (she hopes) tension between them, a friendship sits comfortably on top. He’s only been in her life for a short time,  but she can’t imagine it without him. Her feelings for him endanger that, so she does her best not to let it show. He asks her what she’s watching, and she explains the basic premise of the episode so that he can understand what’s going on. 

She’s hyper-aware of him as they watch the show, and  she envies the ease with which he occupies her space, his shoulder brushing hers, their knees occasionally bumping. He slouches all the way down on the couch, one foot kicked up on the table, turning the remote in his hands and messing with the battery cover, completely at home. (He’s always fiddling with something -- a pen, his necklace -- or bouncing his leg, or clicking a guitar pick between his teeth. It’s a habit that’s mostly adorable and only sometimes annoying.) If he notices her staring at him, he doesn’t say anything. 

It takes a couple more episodes, but she finally relaxes, and the distance between them -- already spare -- vanishes, her shoulder tucked under his, her head angled toward him, their feet bumping on the table. Half her attention is on Finn and the land of Ooo, and half on the boy beside her, who doesn’t seem to give any indication that he’s thinking about this as much as she is. Luke has a way of pulling her in until she’s closer than she ever planned to be, like she can’t help but touch him. Ever since the night they played the Orpheum, he’s become magnetic, his presence a force she can’t resist. If she tilted her head down, just a fraction, it would be resting on his shoulder. What would he do? Would he shrug her off, or rest his head on hers? She watches his hands play with the remote, imagining what his strong, slender fingers would feel like laced with hers. She’s had crushes before, of course -- she liked Nick all the way from seventh grade up to this year -- but nothing so real and powerful as this. 

“Don’t you think Finn sounds just like Reggie?” Luke asks, pulling her from her thoughts. She looks up at him, and he looks down at her, and -- oh. 

He’s very close. 

His eyes always remind her of an overcast sky, swirling with unknown depth, and they widen when they meet hers, filled with awe. Blood rushes in her ears, muting the TV, tuning out anything that isn’t him. Her heart is beating so hard and so fast she wonders peripherally if he can hear it, and then that thought fizzles out with the rest of any kind of logic when his gaze drops to her mouth. He’s going to kiss her. He’s going to kiss her!! Panic and elation and anticipation all scramble in her chest. She’s never kissed anyone before, and even though she’s never asked, she knows he probably has. What if she’s bad at it? She’s half freaking out and half telling herself to shut the hell up as he turns his entire body towards her, his hand reaching up to hold her face and -- 

The front door slams open, announcing Carlos and Ray. “Mija!!” her dad calls. Luke jerks back from her like he’s been burned, eyes filled with absolute terror, before he disappears. 

“JULIEEEEE!!” Carlos hollers, launching himself across the living room at her and landing on her stomach, knocking the air out of her. Her arms come up around him automatically, despite all the sweat and the diamond dirt sticking to it. Feeling mildly shell shocked and like she’s been hit by a hell of a lot more than her little brother, she barely listens as Carlos and their dad babble over each other in an attempt at telling the story of Carlos’ game-winning home-base slide. She’ll be happy for him once her heart rate slows down. 

Luke stays away for almost a full twenty-four hours after that particular mishap, long enough she almost asks Reggie and Alex if he talked to them about it. There’s about a thousand reasons not to, but mostly, she doesn’t know if she can even explain just what happened. She does tell Flynn, who launches into a very confusing monologue that starts with her admonishing Julie for thinking anything good can come from involving herself with a literal ghost and ends with her gushing about how many cute love songs they could write together, zero percent of which makes her feel better. 

The only reason he doesn’t continue avoiding her is rehearsal, which, of course, he would never miss. She’s hoping to talk to him before they get started, but then the bus gets stuck in traffic and all of her boys are already set up with their instruments and having an impromptu jam session by the time she gets home.  “What --” she hisses as she heaves the doors shut behind her. “Did I tell you guys about playing in here without me?” Alex shrugs and apologizes, and she can’t really be mad at Reggie, at least not for long. 

But Luke -- he barely looks at her, nervous fingers dancing across a complicated riff even as the other boys stop playing. It takes a second of silence before he looks up to see the rest of his band staring at him. “Oh,” he says, the phrase ending in the discordant sound of fingernails on steel strings. “Yeah, right. Sorry.” 

They get started, but nothing sounds right. Luke rushes the tempo and refuses to make eye contact with anyone, spinning off into fancy riffs that have no place in the song they’re working on. Reggie keeps trying to keep up with him, tripping up Alex and frustrating Julie, and when the song grinds to a cacophonous halt for the fourth time, she stands up from the piano. Reggie takes a step back. 

“What is your problem?” she practically yells, stomping over to Luke. He’s been surly and unusually stubborn, and the shift from his usual cheerful, passionate demeanor builds her own stewing anxieties to a dangerous head.

“It’s not my problem you can’t keep up,” he says, and then, after watching the words register in Julie’s expression, immediately regrets it. Alex’s eyebrows shoot up and Reggie makes a very soft ‘ooooohhh’ noise under his breath.

“It’s not keeping up if you can’t hold a steady tempo,” she says, too upset over his refusal to cooperate to catch the reaction from her bandmates.

“Okay, so maybe I was rushing,” he admits, trying to walk it back. But Julie’s on a roll, and once she gets started laying into him, she very rarely lets up.

“Thank you!” she yells, the sarcasm clear in her tone. She’d been especially fond of the product so far, a song she thought embodied the perfect blend of Luke’s harder edge and her singer-songwriter roots. His sudden, uncharacteristic left turn is as much an interruption in their rehearsal as a knock to the tenuous pride she’d been building in the piece.  “And what are all those riffs you’re tossing in? You have to hear how they don’t fit.” 

“Oh come on,” he says, proud in his ability and therefore less willing to step down. He rolls his shoulders back and moves toward her, the challenge set in his spine. “I was shredding and you know it.” Luke is sweet and kind and silly and compassionate, but he’s also a musician, and a lead guitarist at that. His ego, though it rarely becomes an issue, is far from insubstantial. 

“If you want a solo, fine!” she cries with exasperation, her hands flying through the air like they always do when she’s upset. “But you have to say something so we can give you room for it!” Her annoyance has turned down the sensitivity on her Luke-nonsense monitor, caught up enough in the trouble that she can’t see that he’s riling her up on purpose.

“What, you afraid of a little improvisation?” He’s smiling now, and his obvious glee, such a stark flip from where she thought this was going, throws off her tirade. He starts walking toward her, and his newfound physicality gives him an ability to fluster her to a much greater degree than before.

“No --” she stammers, stumbling backwards, distracted out of anger by his sparkling eyes and the power in the body approaching rapidly. “That’s not what I --” There it is again, that power he has to turn the rest of the world into radio static, her vision blurring and her hearing dulling until it’s just Luke filling up the world in front of her. 

“C’mon Julie,” he says, and right now she hates his stupid smirk and the stupid way he rolls her name around in his mouth before letting it out. “you have to take risks once in a while.” She’s backed up against the piano now, her hands wrapped tight around the lid, and he’s still pushing it, strong and warm and undeniably, frustratingly male in her space. 

But Julie isn’t one to let him intimidate her into silence, no matter how cute and well-muscled he may be. She takes a breath and looks him in his ridiculous sparkly eyes, poking him in his absurdly firm chest.“I am not afraid of taking risks, mister,” she says, “Let’s not forget who performed in front of her entire school to get back into the music program --” 

“My idea,” he scoffs, not backing up. Why isn’t he backing up.

“Or who fronts a band of actual ghosts!” she continues, her voice increasing in volume again, and the speed of her heart tripping over itself could be from the argument or the boy who’s collarbones are less than a foot from her face. Both are entirely possible. 

“Less ghost now,” he reminds her, tilting his head, his weight leaned one one leg, his hand resting on the head of his guitar, relaxed when they’re supposed to be arguing. 

“You just get to poof out after we perform!” she says, only about two-thirds of her mind still focused on the fight itself, the other third completely wrapped up in the feeling of Luke in front of her. “I’m the one who has to stick around and ask questions!” 

“So you’re saying you take chances,” he says, diabolically diplomatic instead of challenging. He leans forward, putting his hands on the piano behind her, caging her in with his arms. She refuses to back down again, even though his face is now inches from hers. “You’d take a leap of faith?” 

“Yeah,” she says, only half-certain, because she’s not totally sure they’re still talking about music, and her heart is in the base of her throat and her stomach is somewhere around her shoes, and suddenly her hands are sweating when they definitely weren’t a minute ago. This definitely isn’t an argument about the song anymore. 

“Oh yeah?” he says, and there’s the challenge again, except this one sounds more like a dare, and he’s definitely looking at her lips this time, not even trying to be subtle about it, and her hands are braced on his forearms and when did they get there? And Luke is warm and when she looks up, his eyes are on hers, and despite all that bravado and provocation there’s still a question there, and all she would have to do to answer is lift up on her toes and finally, finally press her lips against his, and -- 

Alex coughs. The oxygen goes out of the room like someone opened an airlock, and Julie feels herself sink, just barely, back down on her heels. The world fills back in, colors and sounds suddenly too bright, too abrasive. Tearing her eyes off Luke, she glances over his shoulder to where Reggie and Alex are, still with their instruments, watching them intently. Alex looks politely put out, his eyebrows tilted up with incredulity, like he's asking if they seriously just made him watch that. Reggie, on the other hand, hides nothing in his expression, shock and amusement there in equal parts as he glances between Alex and the two of them still tucked close against the piano, jaw askance in a surprised smile. 

"Are you done?" Alex asks, in a tone that sounds less like a question. "It’s not that I mind…" he gestures between the two of them with a drumstick. "This, but like, time and place, dude." He's not talking to Julie. Luke clears his throat, appropriately chastised, but still looking smug as shit. 

"Um, sorry," she mutters as he returns to his spot next to his amp. 

Alex shrugs. "Not your fault," he says, "from the top?" 

"Uh," she says, frozen for a moment in embarrassment and confusion. She looks to Alex, and he gives her one of his soft, kind smiles, the sort that makes her feel like everything is going to be okay. “Right, okay,” she finishes, as her hands twitch and she settles back into her body. Rushing back around to the bench, she flexes her hands over the keys, curling them into fists and then back out again when they tremble. “From the top.” 

The rehearsal goes -- okay, after that. The magic is missing; therefore, while she usually feels inspired and courageous and empowered walking out of the garage, she just feels exhausted and drained. She eats dinner with her family, and her dad definitely notices that she’s uncharacteristically quiet, but saves asking about it until after Carlos is safely sequestered with his iPad. “How ya doin, kiddo?” he asks as she helps him clear up the dishes. “Everything okay?” 

Julie looks at her dad with mild alarm, wondering what exactly he knows. He does his best, he really does, but it took him a while to even notice she was in a band. Not to mention, he still believes they’re holograms. “Um,” she says convincingly. “Yeah?” 

He smiles kindly, in the way that means he’s very politely calling bullshit. “Alright, mija. What’s going on?” 

Heaving a sigh, Julie keeps her eyes on the dishwasher she’s loading, trying her best to plan an escape route out of this conversation. “I promise, Dad,” she says, “It’s nothing.” and then, what she thinks are the magic words. “Boy stuff.” 

But Ray’s been prepping for this, had conversations with Rose about it before she passed, while the cancer slowly ate her alive. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to be there for her daughter through the time in her life a girl needs her mother the most, and she wasn’t about to let him hide behind toxic masculinity and leave Julie to figure it out on her own. “Okay,” Ray says, trepidation clear in his voice but also not unwilling to approach the topic. “What’s his name?” 

Julie almost drops the pot she’s scrubbing. “Does it matter?” she asks, her voice crawling up several octaves. 

“Just trying to learn who is in my daughter’s life,” he answers diplomatically, sitting down at the counter to make it clear he’s not letting her out of this one easily. 

“I promise, Dad,” she says, doing her best to frantically dodge the interrogation she knows is coming, regretting she brought it up at all, cursing herself for being so obvious. “It’s dumb. You don’t even know him.” 

Ray nods slowly, pretending to believe her. Julie goes after the pot a little harder, because maybe if she just finishes the dishes she can go upstairs and bury herself in her bed and not have to have this conversation anymore. “It’s not that guitarist, is it?” he asks, and her spine goes stiff as a ramrod. Ray’s her dad, but he’s not blind. He’s seen the way they look at each other when they perform, the way the boy follows her around the stage like a puppy, desperate for her attention, disappointed when she jams with the other members of their band and not him. He’s an excellent musician, but Ray knows too many stories of near-legends gone sour with misdirected young love. 

“No!” Julie cries immediately in an obvious lie. “Of course not!” She turns, half-laughing, explanations falling out of her mouth “We’re just friends,” she insists, lacing her fingers in front of her and nodding exaggeratedly. “Just friends. Only friends. Uh-huh. Friends. And!” she continues, gesturing widely, “he doesn’t even live here! So that… wouldn’t even make sense!” she laughs awkwardly. “So no way. That it’s him. No way it’s him.” 

Ray sighs out a laugh that Julie’s too panicked to hear and leans forward on his elbows. “Alright, nina. Just be careful, okay?” She’s nodding along, edging her way towards the stairs. “You and your band…” She looks like Rose, in that hoodie that practically swallows her, hair piled messily on top of her head. Her mom was also a terrible liar, he remembers fondly. “You have something special. Don’t throw that away for a boy.” 

Julie nods rapidly and then bolts, thundering up the stairs before throwing her bedroom door closed behind her and diving headfirst onto her bed, burying herself in decorative pillows. How does everyone  know?? First Flynn and then Reggie and Alex and now her dad? Is she that obvious? (Um, yes.) She flops onto her back, staring up at the colorful tapestries slung across her ceiling, the string lights and posters and art. Usually, she loves her room, the feeling of her creative mind as a space she can inhabit, exploring her heart and the things she loves without having to shut out the outside world. But tonight, she feels trapped in her own head, so she grabs her notebook and squeezes out the window, perched on the roof outside her room. 

The evening air is cool and crisp, the gentlest bite warning the oncoming winter, as much as there is a winter in LA. She spends a while scribbling down half-baked lyric ideas and doodling angry black scribbles around the edges of the pages when nothing comes out right. It’s harder to write on her own, now, without the steady pulse of Luke’s genius behind her, the electricity that flows between them as they create impeccable harmonies. Sometimes, it feels like music belongs to the both of them together, a joined force, like they’ve given up their individual melodies for something greater. It’s thrilling and terrifying all at once. 

Eventually, she just ends up holding the notebook open to ‘Perfect Harmony’ with one hand, the other arm wrapped around her legs, her chin propped on her knees. She still hasn’t shown it to Luke, afraid of how real it feels, how clear it makes her feelings for him. Also, it’s a ballad, which they haven’t even approached yet, and she has no idea how Reggie and Alex will feel about such an explicitly romantic duet. She’s thinking that maybe she might be able to vague it up, maybe even make it a solo piece, when Luke appears next to her, like thinking about him draws him to her. (Which might actually be true -- she hasn’t examined that very closely.) 

“Hey!” he says cheerfully, all awkwardness from the evening’s rehearsal ostensibly disappeared. He plucks the notebook out of her hand, using the other arm to hold back her immediate demands for its return. “New stuff?” he asks. This is not normally such a grievous invasion of privacy. Ever since they started writing together, their songwriting journals have become common property, and half the pages in hers are marked up with his handwriting and vice versa. 

“It’s not ready yet!” she cries, pushing against the (stupidly strong) arm he has across her collarbone, willing to climb bodily over him to snatch the notebook back. Luke’s face very slowly falls as he reads it, the lyrics sinking in, and her protests trail off as she stops scrambling to grab it out of his hands. 

He stands suddenly, pacing across the roof. “Did you --” he starts, breathing shallowly, his tongue tucking his teeth between his lips, nostrils flaring before he speaks again. “Why did you copy this out of my songbook?” It’s not accusatory, only a question, born of true confusion. 

“I didn’t,” Julie replies without skipping a beat, equally baffled. 

“I wrote this after the garage party,” he says. “How is it in your notebook?” 

“I wrote it at school before the garage party,” she replies, doing her best to keep down the memory of the Luke in her imagination and the song coming to her fully formed in the form of a Patrick Swayze-esque daydream. She didn’t even tell Flynn about that part. 

“At school…” Luke repeats, studying the lyrics with a furrow between his eyebrows, and as much as Julie is also reeling from shock at the mystery, it’s kind of adorable to watch him try and solve it. “This doesn’t make sense,” he says, looking up at her, signature grumpy expression in place. He tilts the notebook flat, like he’s presenting it to her, hoping she has the next steps. Like he’s reached his conclusion, and it’s that he’s confused. 

“It doesn’t,” she says, and it comes out as half a laugh unintentionally, just looking at his ridiculous, adorable face. 

“Why are you laughing?” he demands with exasperated urgency. “This is super weird!” He rushes over and collapses next to her, a mess of flannel and limbs and beautiful dumbass. He shoves the notebook back into her hands as she folds her legs underneath her, relinquishing her grip on her knees. 

“Yeah,” she sighs, unable to wipe the grin from her face. “Yeah, it is.” Luke looks like he wants to ask her what she’s smiling at, but then he starts smiling, too, because her happiness is his happiness. Julie’s already past the strange coincidence, lost in the joy of his gray-green eyes and the feeling of him next to her. She’s too used to strange, to the ever-changing rules of the afterlife and the constant uncertainty that Luke and her boys bring to her life. Yes, it’s strange, but she’s in a ghost band and her crush is dead and still manages to look at her like that so she has a certain level of perspective when it comes to things like this. 

“What are you --” Luke tries to say, but her eyes are on his and they’re warm and brown and kind and he’s finding it a little hard to form sentences. 

“This is ridiculous,” she says, and he’s nodding without knowing what he’s agreeing to. “We wrote the same song on the same day,” she laughs, and he nods again, half-listening, half lost in her. She’s excited now, about the possibility brought on by magic and her connection -- their  connection -- souls tied together with passion and music and love. “That’s impossible!” It cements something for her, the feeling of coming together, of sliding into place. They’re so solid, tight, together, on the same wavelength… musicians have put it a thousand ways throughout the years, to communicate the feeling of a co-writer, a bandmate, a partner, reading your mind, singing the next line, playing the next riff that was just in your head. Julie and Luke get the added bonus of being inexplicably spiritually linked. Nothing can break that, or replace it. She’s not scared of it, anymore. 

“Impossible,” he echoes. He always feels a little bit stronger, a little more alive whenever he’s with Julie like this, just the two of them, hanging out or writing music, and he’s in her immediate proximity, soaking in the warmth of her brown skin and brown eyes and the chaotic energy of her wild, incredible hair. She pulls him in, without knowing the power she holds or the light that she emits, casting a golden glow over everything around her. 

“Luke,” she says, and he tunes back in, realizing that he’s steadily leaning toward her as they sit on the roof, Julie cross-legged, Luke angled toward her, one leg stretched out, his elbow propped on his other knee. “Are you listening?” 

“Um,” he swallows, “Yeah?” but he’s looking at her lips, not her eyes, and he’s thinking about kissing her, just once, just to see what she tastes like, remembering the smell of gummies and m&ms, hoping she’ll be just as sweet. She doesn’t say anything, mostly because she forgot what she was going to say in the first place, watching his eyes watch her mouth, breathing him in. He’s too close again, closer than any friend or bandmate should be, and there’s no mic between them, and the door to her room is closed, and there’s no bandmates or brothers or dads, and her heart pounds in her chest. 

When she tilts her chin towards him, she feels ready, finally, knowing what he means to her. Only a breath separates them, but they both stop, waiting for the inevitable interruption, the door slamming open, or someone calling up from the yard below, but it doesn’t come. Realizing what they’re both waiting for, they breathe out a simultaneous laugh, their foreheads dropping together. The tension fades, and Julie’s smile feels uncontainable, demanding every inch of her face as this beautiful, goofy, genus, talented boy adores her while she sits there, falling in love with him. 

It’s easier, this moment, than the one before, because it feels less laden with the weight of someone pulling away, unsure or unwanting. This moment is comfortable, joyful, the two of them acknowledging every minute of want and disappointment and hilarious misfortune over the past few days, acknowledging what they would have asked for instead. And when Luke finally reaches up, pulling her in gently with his hand on her neck, his thumb sliding over her jaw, it’s with confidence and tenderness, reassured that she wants this, too. Julie leans easily into the touch, and when their lips meet, the spark and rush is better than any performance, any screaming crowd drowning in lights. They kiss each other, moving together, leaning in as one, harmony made in the movement of mouths and the press of lips, and this moment -- it’s perfect. 

[kpopboops]

Baby- Astro

Genre: fluff, D. Store is a cafe, so many uwus 

Word Count: 2245

Based on the Baby MV which was so cute I’m crying, also got inspiration from this post: https://kpopboops.tumblr.com/post/183789192747/astro-dstore-head-canon by @nojam-secrettime

A/N: Before this starts, I’m just going to go over each member’s flavors (like each person’s soda thing in the mv lol) and their job at the cafe. 

MJ: orange, cashier, helps out with barista-ing 

Jinjin: green apple, manager, helps out anyone that needs it, well-rounded

Eunwoo: blueberry, cook

Moonbin: strawberry, barista

Rocky: grape, bus boy/ baker

Sanha: lemon, waiter

LOL the fic actually starts now--------------- <3

Jieun walked into D. Store, the bell tinkling cheerfully as she pulled the door open. “Hi there, Jieun. What will you have today?” the cashier greeted from behind the register. She pondered for a moment before declaring “Grape soda with a strawberry cake slice.”

D. Store was a cafe that opened up in June 2017. The D stood for dream and the design of the cafe clearly emitted that vibe. The neon sign that lit up in rainbow colors always flickered a few times before turning on which was part of the charm. The rainbow “Open” sign was a welcoming addition and the entire store was surrounded by greenery and flowers. The polished wooden door added a nice touch and added to the entire look.

On the inside, benches accented with a sky blue coat of paint and a wire backing lined the walls. A record player sat on a metal stool, playing songs from old vinyls. The white counter and light colors were complimented by the flower vases and the vines that hung on the wooden walls. Two clear refrigerators allowed customers to take their own drinks and a white display case next to the counter showcased the various sweets that D. Store offered. The cafe gave off a secret fairy garden vibe and Jieun had been a regular customer from the start.

A gasp brought her back to reality. She looked up to find Jinwoo at the counter. Even though all 6 boys who worked here opened the store together, Jinwoo was still dubbed the boss. “I’m so hurt,” he said, putting his hand on his chest dramatically. “How could you not pick my flavor when it’s obviously the best.”

Jieun sighed. “Hello to you too, Jinwoo.” Another gasp.

“Oh no, you’re not even calling me what you usually do!” he gasped, raising his voice. “Shut up, Jinjin,” MJ stated as he walked past, giving him a smack on the back with a promotional poster for their new strawberry banana crepe. Jinwoo huffed as he gave Jieun a number. “Go sit down, your order will be ready in a minute,” he muttered. Jieun plopped down into a seat that was tucked into the corner of the separation, the closest one to the counter.

Eunwoo gave Jieun a small smile as he walked up with the strawberry cake slice and grape soda. “Hey,” he greeted before sliding into the bench across from Jieun. The rainy Wednesday weather didn’t attract many customers with the exception of Jieun. The cafe was rather empty, or to be more specific, Jieun was the only customer that day.

Jieun squinted at him. “Hi sorry I don’t have my contacts today. Who are you?” she rambled. Eunwoo chuckled as he slipped her a pair of spare glasses she left at the cafe. Her frequent visits led to the stockpile of products in case she forgot something. Jieun put on the glasses. “Oh hi Eunwoo,” she blinked. “Eat your cake, the whipped cream is melting,” he replied blankly.

The tinkling sound from the bell made everyone turn towards the door. “You’re back,” Rocky stated, coming out from the kitchen, as a dripping wet Sanha and Moonbin walked through the door. “I was just trying to buy some sunflower seeds but then the weather was like ‘YOU THOUGHT WRONG, CANCELLED, GO HOME IN THE RAIN THOT’ so we’re here now I guess,” Sanha grumbled. Moonbin laughed as he pulled out the various plants and seeds they had bought. As he set a pot of hydrangeas onto the front windowsill, he sighed audibly.

“Jieun’s here and you’re not even going to greet her?” MJ asked as he came back from putting up promotional posters. Sanha did a sharp turn but as he turned, his shoelace got caught in the doorway and he ended up sprawled on the floor. Rocky laughed loudly as he wiped his hands on his apron, hanging it up afterwards. The cuffs of his white shirt were rolled up and slightly wet from washing the dishes in the back. Jieun glanced at his sleeve.

“Shouldn’t you get change out of that? You’ll catch a cold,” she said, concerned.

Rocky blinked out of surprise before realizing that she was talking about his wet sleeves. “I don’t think wet sleeves are going to give me a cold but ok,” he teased as he slipped into the staff room. He came back out rather quickly in a few minutes, dressed in a simple black tee. The rest of his attire was the usual D. Store uniform. Black slacks or jeans and dress shoes were a must but no one listened to Jinwoo and everyone always showed up in sneakers. Rocky’s distressed black jeans were paired with a rather new pair of Nike Air Force 1s. Jieun glanced down at his shoes.

“They’re new,” Moonbin announced, drying his hair with a towel from the staff room. “I bought them for him a few days ago.”

“What was the occasion?” Jieun questioned, finally picking up her fork and taking a bite of the strawberry cake. Moonbin smirked slightly before he ran over to Rocky and threw his arm over his shoulder. “How could you ask that?! It was the first day that we ever met,” he exclaimed. Rocky blinked in confusion before escaping his grasp. He grimaced. “Sorry, I don’t recall meeting someone like you on that particular day. Moonbin gasped before clinging onto the nearest person, which just happened to be Jinjin.

“DID YOU HEAR THAT JINJIN? ROCKY DOESN’T REMEMBER MEETING HIS BESTEST FRIEND!” Moonbin groaned. Jinwoo mirrored him. “NO, HE DID NOT JUST DO THAT!”

Jieun sipped her grape soda, glancing at Eunwoo who was behind the counter, drying mugs. She caught his eye and he gave a slight shake of his head, showing his disapproval. Jieun smiled, taking another bite of her cake which was halfway done. Suddenly, Sanha slipped into the seat beside her, thrusting a napkin into her face. “You have cream on your nose,” he stated matter-of-factly. MJ silently crept behind Jieun as Sanha got the cream off. Just as she was about to pick up her soda, MJ screamed.

“GOT YOUR NOSE,” he shouted, pinching Jieun’s nose. Jieun jumped in her seat as Eunwoo came out from behind the counter, smacking MJ’s head with the cake menu. “Ouch,” MJ muttered, rubbing his head. He moved over to the other side of the bench to make space for Eunwoo. Since Jieun was an interior design major and a physics/chemistry minor, she always brought her sketchbook around. She was always in D. Store, nearly everyday, so the 100th time that she walked in was the time that they all decided to buy her an actual sketchbook. Jieun carried her sketchbook from Daiso for $1.50 into the cafe everyday until she got her actual sketchbook, a Strathmore 300 pg one.

“So Jieun, since Mother’s Day is coming up, I wanted to offer a special cake and I’ve been thinking about flavors and stuff. Can you draw up a cake and see if we can make it?” Eunwoo asked. “Yea sure. Since it’s supposed to be special, we can probably do 2-3 layers and for Mother’s Day, we can write that in frosting. We can probably use fondant to make some roses and daisies and stuff,” she stated, flipping to a new page on her sketchbook. Within a few minutes, she had a rough draft of the cake done and Moonbin, Jinwoo, and Rocky slid into the bench across from her to look at it. “Does this look good?” Jieun asked, turning the sketchbook around so that the boys could see the product. “Ooooooh,” they chorused. “Now we have to try and make it,” Eunwoo announced. “Can we make it lemon flavoured?” Sanha whined. “Only if there can be strawberries too!” Moonbin exclaimed, looking over at Eunwoo.

“Why are you looking at me? I’m not the baker, Rocky is,” Eunwoo grumbled. Sanha and Moonbin switched their puppy dog eyes to Rocky who threw his hands up. “Fine, I’ll do it,” Rocky said, exasperated. Jinwoo glanced over at Jieun, who sighed and banged her head on the table.

The next few days were spent in the cafe once Jieun finished school. They worked on the design, flavors, batter, etc. Rocky collapsed onto the flour sacks in the corner of the kitchen. “Finally, it’s done,” he groaned, proceeding to scream into the nearby bowl of whipped cream. The two-tiered cake featured lemon zest and extract mixed into the batter with strawberry slices in the whipped cream between the layers that each tier had. The top of the cake featured sliced strawberries organized into roses alongside fondant daisies. Rocky had managed to write Happy Mother’s Day in lemon jelly across the top. The frosted outside on the lower tier was a cherry blossom pink and the cake looked like something from an actual bakery.

In the process of making the cake, Eunwoo had decided to create a special French toast in honor of Mother’s Day. After they had made the cake sketch, Eunwoo had sent Jieun a text with lots of puppy dog eye and heart emojis, begging her to design a french toast plate. It was his usual French toast, sprinkled with powdered sugar and cut into triangles. However, instead of the usual dollop of sea salt creme and scoop of ice cream, there were various fruits and whipped cream with a side of chocolate syrup and your choice of 2 ice cream scoops. There was also lemonade and mocha on the side.

Mother’s Day came around and as Jieun walked into D. Store for her usual morning coffee, she blinked in shock at the amount of customers. It was flooded with mother-child pairings, all of which were trying to place an order for the cake or the french toast. Luckily, they had done lots of the preparation beforehand. Since the orders for cake were flooded along with the french toast, Jinwoo abandoned his usual overseeing mode to help Rocky with the cake as MJ abandoned his coffee post to help out with the french toast. Sanha grimaced as he ran in and out of the kitchen, placing plates of french toast onto the wooden tables.

As he stepped on his shoelace which had come undone yet again, the plate of french toast went flying. It would have crashed to the ground had Eric not caught it. He leaned back in his chair, handing it to a flustered Sanha. “Oh now the plating is ruined,” Eric sighed. “I’ll pay for it.”

Moonbin turned around from his coffee making station. “Eric Nam? I haven’t seen you for a while,” he said before walking to Jieun and handing her a compostable, eco-friendly cup full of her usual coffee. “Thanks,” she smiled before weaving her way out of the crowd of people.

“We’ll have to talk later about your new single, Runaway. I need to get these orders in first though,” Moonbin grinned. “I’ll help out,” Eric announced, rolling up the sleeves of his white sweater. “You sure? Wouldn’t want you getting that sweater dirty,” he said. Eric smirked. “I think that you’re forgetting that I used to cook lunch for all of you when you were freshmen in high school,” he laughed before throwing on an apron. “Whatever you say,” Moonbin grumbled, laughing out loud just moments after.

Jieun walked back to the cafe in the spring sunlight after she had finished her classes, planning to finish the rest of her work at D. Store like she usually did. She skipped into the cafe before hearing a “Sorry we’re closed.” Eunwoo looked up from where he was slumped on the bench. “Oh it’s you Jieun,” he sighed before collapsing completely on the bench. “Rough day huh?” she questioned before sliding into the seat across of him. The rest of the boys stumbled out from the back before each falling into a bench. Jinwoo crossed his arms, leaning on them from behind the counter. “Hey at least we made a ton of profit. That means all of you get bonuses.”

“WAIT REALLY?” Sanha screamed, bolting upright and managing to hit his elbow on the table in the process. “Yep. I’ll include them in your paycheck,” Jinwoo grinned. Rocky came out of the kitchen, balancing 3 plates of the huge french toast dish and 7 slices of cake on his arm. “Here,” he said, sliding a piece of cake and a plate of french toast in front of Jieun. “Share it with Eunwoo. “I don’t want it,” Eunwoo groaned, waving his white handkerchief in the air like a flag. “I’m so sick of that dish after testing 34 different versions of it. I don’t think I’ll be eating French toast anytime soon.”

Rocky chuckled a little before sitting down beside Jieun and sliding the next table over. “I don’t think so buddy,” MJ announced, sliding onto the chair in front of her. Everyone gathered around the table, fighting for a spot near a person they liked. As Rocky set down the plates of food, a disheveled Eric came out from the back, sidling next to the closest person but failing to do so and instead falling onto the floor. Everyone laughed as he stumbled to a nearby chair. The sun set slowly outside D. Store. Time was passing but most of all, he warm atmosphere convinced Jieun that she would never find better friends anywhere else.

A/N: I don’t like the ending of this but I have no idea how to end it so lol. Below are drawings of the Mother’s Day special dishes that I feel like they would make. I drew it in class so it might be a lil messy. The graphite from my other drawing also kind of transferred onto it ;-; anyways. Hope you guys are in soft boo hours after that. Roses on cake by @10hour11minute

[bunnygirlheart]

List 5 things that make you happy, and then put this in the ask box for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you. Learn to know your mutuals and followers 🤍

oh sorry i forgot abt this

uhm,, suppose its kind of a cheat 2 just say 'my friends' 5 times huh

welllllll, bunnies, girls, duh

... this got super long after this line so uh

games, ive been playin modded fallout 3 a lot lately and havin a great time, my character has purple hair and like. a laser shotgun? (the metal blaster from the pitt) and a sweet cybernetic eye that gives her night vision and thermal imaging? so cool. She's also got a big ol sentry bot w/ a gatling laser that kinda murders things before I get a chance to actually do it myself which tbh is fine by me?? hehe

I kinda wanna start another game though where insteada robots and lasers i get animals and swords ? that also could be really cool? although . seems pretty hard to go melee i suspect w/ fwe making everything so lethal,, but hey i feel it might be fun to try and i can always tone down the settings if it doesnt work out.

Other than fallout 3 I play mtg like . all the time, and right now ive been playin w/ some monoblue list thats popular in standard atm just 'cuz mtga is hard and i already had most of the cards for that? and my other more fun deck is my oni-cult anvil thing ive been messing with pretty much since the card released? mechanized warfare came out w/ the latest set and its Nice. Also I have a couple mishras and dragon engines but i havent managed to meld yet. Still solid cards on their own though I dropped a mishra on a board where i had two anvils running for a while and abt a million 1/1s so i just swung out w/ em and drained my opponents life to nothing? realllll nice. (they had too many creatures of their own for me to actually be attacking before then so i just . accumulated lil dudes to keep the ground gummed up a while, which was working well enough)

Other than those decks .. I do play my anax deck in historic brawl pretty regularly, and I mean mechanized warfare was a good upgrade there as well, for obvious reasons. Monored would Love to do 1 more damage with everything! Also put phyrexian dragon engine in there too, 'cuz like . yay card draw, yay 3 mana 2/2 doublestrike? ... come to think im not sure i have ox of agonas in there, maybe I should add that one too,, oh one more recent upgrade wasnt from the new set but i only recently crafted a copy of fable of the mirror breaker, so I put that in as well.

oh uhm . when i can actually look at myself without feelin sorta bad is pretty good? like . i shaved recently and after a while of neglecting that it feels Loads better to see my reflection yknow? so uh. when i look . softer . i guess. is nice. ... I really need hormone meds huh?

i was gonna say my friends bc like . obviously? but that still is a cheat answer bc duh of course my friends make me happy? love yall! so instead I'll mention,, i finally started reading gideon the ninth recently? and? its really good so far? ive only read like two chapters but im havin a good time w/ it. Totally gotta keep reading soon.

[jodyedgarus]

Why Denver’s Gary Harris Could Be The Next Kawhi Leonard

DENVER — Kawhi Leonard is indispensable to the San Antonio Spurs — or at least that’s how he’s now perceived. His mysterious injury not only threatens to snap the Spurs’ two-decade-long playoff streak, but there’s a chance it could also derail the club’s future by driving Leonard away.

If there’s an irony in how monumentally important Leonard is to the Spurs’ chances now, though, it’s that he was still relatively anonymous to the casual basketball fan just four years ago, despite performing at a fairly high level on one of the league’s best teams at that time. It wasn’t until June 2014, when Leonard earned NBA Finals MVP honors, that he began drawing broader attention en route to becoming a bona fide star, one whose health could shift the tenor of a conference finals series.

Now, another player — Nuggets shooting guard Gary Harris — quietly appears to be on a similar trajectory. From afar, nothing Harris does seems truly spectacular. But zoom in just a little, watch a handful of Denver’s games, and you’ll see elements of Harris’s consistent, well-rounded skill set start to stand out. Just the way Leonard’s once did.

“When I got here, there were questions about whether Gary Harris was an NBA player,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone told me, a reference to Harris’s rookie season, in which he shot just over 30 percent from the field.1 The thought seems comical now, as Harris is serving as both Denver’s best on-ball defender and its leading scorer.

For a while, Harris was far stronger on the defensive side of the ball, where it’s harder for the average fan to notice excellence. A solid scorer, by contrast, handles the ball more and gets his name called while the camera pans to his face every time he finds the bottom of the basket. Forcing a missed shot or denying your man the ball on the other end, however, usually isn’t enough to garner that same attention. So that may partially explain why the 23-year-old Harris flies under the radar.

At 6 foot 4, he doesn’t force teams to alter entire offensive schemes the way that the 6-foot-7 Leonard, a two-time Defensive Player of the Year, can. Yet Harris constantly seems to find ways to disrupt the league’s best wing players.

Harris ranks ninth in the NBA in deflections per game — the same ranking Leonard held last season — hounding volume scorers as they come around screens and illustrating nearly perfect timing as he swats down directly on the ball just as a player is lifting up to launch his shot attempt. Harris’s quick hands and defensive persistence are pretty much the only things that prevent the Nuggets, who surrender more layups than anyone except Orlando, from having the worst defense in basketball. With Harris on the court, Denver surrenders 107.4 points per 100 possessions, which would tie for 20th among the league’s 30 teams. With Harris on the bench, the Nuggets allow 110.6 points per 100 possessions, a rate that would tie for dead last.

It’s incredibly difficult to draw the types of defensive assignments that Harris typically gets without committing a lot of fouls. But just like Leonard did in his fourth season, Harris has collected more steals than fouls so far this year, a feat that only elite defensive shooting guards and small forwards generally manage.

Harris could be named an All-NBA defender in the coming years without changing much about his game. But to achieve true stardom, he will likely need two things: More scoring — he’s still pretty limited in creating looks for himself — and more wins for the Nuggets.

“If we make the playoffs, a lot more people are going to see and know who the hell Gary Harris is,” said Malone, whose team is locked in a crowded playoff race. “It’s funny: Last year, Nikola Jokic wasn’t going to be a part of All-Star Weekend. Then he puts up 40 points at Madison Square Garden and gets a phone call from the NBA the very next day. ‘Hey, we want you to be part of All-Star Weekend!’ So, we know Nikola and how special he is. And I think the same is true of Gary.”

Harris has shown true scoring progress every year since his dismal rookie campaign. The former Michigan State star has gone from 3, to 12, to 15 and now 18 points per game; he has become one of the league’s best offensive threats in transition; and he’s on track to shoot 40 percent from the 3-point line for a second straight year. He moves incredibly well without the ball and has perhaps the team’s best on-court chemistry with Jokic, the face of the Nuggets and one of the league’s most skilled young big men.2

Harris’s development on offense bears similarities to Leonard’s rise. Through their first four seasons, their numbers looked identical — 12.2 points and 2.1 assists on 47 percent shooting and 37 percent from 3 for Harris3; 12.3 points and 1.8 assists on 50 percent shooting overall and 37 percent from 3 for Leonard.

Perhaps even more important: The two men play with an unusually quiet, workmanlike approach, and they are among the most consistent players in the NBA on a night-to-night basis. “He just puts his head down and goes about his business. He doesn’t talk about it much — he just goes out and does it, and we’re fine with that,” says Denver guard Will Barton, whose locker is next to Harris’s. (Harris’s noticeably quiet disposition, along with the Nuggets’ struggles to really break through on TV with local fans,4 undoubtedly contributes to why Harris isn’t better known around the league yet.)

In Harris’s case, one could argue that his consistency on both ends has him on the cusp of joining the elite. Using effective field-goal percentage, a stat that accounts for 3-pointers by looking at the number of points generated per field-goal attempt rather than just shots made per attempt, the chart below illustrates how often the league’s starting shooting guards and small forwards have good shooting nights compared to bad ones. Unsurprisingly, Kevin Durant and LeBron James are at the very top of that list. Leonard rates fifth. And right behind him is Harris at No. 6.

Of course, none of this is to say that Harris will continue ascending the way Leonard has during his fifth and sixth seasons, when he went from scoring 16.5 points a contest to 25.5 points while managing to become more efficient despite a heavier offensive load. Without Harris becoming more of a one-on-one threat, which Kawhi has become stellar at in relatively short order, it’s more sensible to compare his offense to Golden State’s Klay Thompson or Washington’s Otto Porter, who play better off the ball than with it.

Should Harris develop a more aggressive brand of offense, though, there’s reason to think he could find success with it. While he’s not built like Leonard — one of the NBA’s strongest players, and just one of four NBA wing players last season to record more and-1s than he had shots blocked — Harris is far stronger than he looks and doesn’t shy away from contact. The former All-American high school football player is one of three guards, after James and Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons, who shoots 70 percent at the rim — elite company for strength around the basket.

Malone said Harris has been diligent every summer about taking direction from coaches and staff each offseason to continue improving. But Harris told me it was simpler than that for him. “Really, I just want go out there to play and have fun,” he said. “It’s not about me going out and saying, ‘I’ve got to go out and be better than I was last year.’ If you put in the work, it’s going to show itself.”

And if Harris continues to improve and show his work to this extent, it may be only a matter of time until just about every basketball fan knows who he is.

Senior writer Neil Paine contributed to research for this story.

from News About Sports https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-denvers-gary-harris-could-be-the-next-kawhi-leonard/