#I reject your stupid pessimistic ending!!!!!!!

[soars22]

Hey.

Hey, Madagio.

Listen to me you dumb fucking cat. This island isn’t your island. It’s fucking different. It’s not just going to fall apart. You know why? You know what’s going to save Quesadilla?

FUCKING GAY LOVE MOTHERFUCKER.

[3hks]

50 Questions For Your Characters

What motivates your character?

How does the public view them? (Doesn't have to be anything major, it could be classmates, friends, strangers in the park, etc.)

Is your character an optimist or pessimist?

Does your character care about their reputation and/or how others perceive them?

Is your character more of a family or friends person?

What, if anything, sticks out about their appearance?

Is your character good with kids?

What are some internal obstacles that your character has to overcome?

What emotion does your character feel most frequently?

If your character is an antagonist or something of the like, do they self-justify their actions? If so, how?

What events in their past helped shape and influence them into who they are today?

What are some of your character's pet peeves?

Who is the closest person to your character?

How did they become so close?

What habits does your character have?

What is your character's relationship with their family?

Overall, is there anything special or peculiar about your character compared to others in your story?

Who/what comforts your character?

Summarize your character's goals in one sentence.

Who's in the way of those goals?

What is your character's relationship with their emotions?

What regrets do they have, if any? (From any part of the story, not just exposition.)

If your character is at a loud, people-filled party, how would they act?

From childhood to their current age, how has your character changed?

What is the main setting of your story and how does it impact your character?

What are the top three most distinguishable personality traits of your character?

How does your character view themselves? (Expectations, intelligence, confidence, self-belief, etc.)

What emotion is the most unfamiliar to your character and how do they deal with it?

What are the three things that your character values most?

Is your character hiding something from other people, if so, what?

What genre of music does/would your character love?

How does your character view their past?

What are three positive traits that your character has?

What are three negative traits that your character has?

Imagine the ideal home for your character. Where would it be located? What type of housing would it be? Who/what would be there?

What are the things that make your character enter a full rage/cold mode? (Depends on their character.)

What does your character want to change about themselves?

Someone your character dislikes goes up to them and confesses. How does your character react? (Doesn't have to be a rejection.)

What does your character have yet to realize about themselves?

Is your character good at time-management and responsible?

What kind of clothes does your character wear?

What is one thing that your character dislikes about themselves? ("Nothing" is also a valid answer.)

What does your character see as the greatest injustice?

What does your character fear?

On a scale from 1-10, how intelligent is your character? (1 being incredibly stupid with almost no knowledge of the world, and 10 literally being Light Yagami. If you don't get it, that's on you lol; but it's basically having over 200 IQ.)

Does your character specialize or have remarkable talent in anything? If so, what is it?

In a group setting, what role would your character have? Leader, co-leader, follower, or outsider?

What event in your story altered your character the most?

In the end, what is your character grateful for?

Why did you choose to use this character to answer these questions? (I would love to see your answers!)

Happy writing~

3hks :)

[always-andromeda]

aaaAAA valentines prompts are here!! (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠) weeee please spare some white chocolate truffle for love of my life dwayne? thank you dearest, compliments to the chef (⁠ ⁠˘⁠ ⁠³⁠˘⁠)⁠♥

– 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦

𝐃𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐧𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐱 𝐆𝐍!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: aHH okay this was super cute!! I hope you enjoy this one, anon!! also lmao, yes, the title is a song. it's from Yellow House and it always reminds me of Dwayne. <3

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Dwayne is aged up to be high school senior, pure fluff, bits of Dwayne being a little pessimistic guy, nothing else I can think of!

First period hadn't even started yet and already you could tell that Dwayne was itching for the final bell. He sighed, folding his hands together and resting his chin on top of them. You watched him peer out from under his curtain of dark hair at a few students around you both exchanging cards, candies, and little stuffed toys. 

"Doing okay there, Dwayne?" you asked as you unloaded your textbook and your binder.

He threw you a sideways glance and replied blankly, "I'm a ray of sunshine." Whatever modicum of patience he usually had in school was drained entirely by Valentine's Day.

"Oh, yeah. You're looking especially chipper today."

This time, Dwayne turned to look at you fully with his brow furrowed.

"It's a joke."

"Have you seen what's been going on today?"

"Uh, yeah, it's a holiday," you shrugged.

"It's bullshit. It's an excuse for fucking candy and card companies to make a killing," he sneered. "Because if you don't buy your boyfriend or girlfriend a stupid piece of paper that says 'I love you' then you're obviously a bad person, right?"

You scoffed, "Not exactly."

That earned another scowl from Dwayne.

"Listen, I get what you mean. It can be superficial and overbearing sometimes, I guess." You struggled to conjure the right words to explain yourself in a way that Dwayne would understand, "But...it's nice sometimes, ya know? It's nice to have someone show that they thought about you."

"Please," Dwayne dismissed. "It's not about thought or care. It's all...bullshit social transactions that no one is gonna give a shit about after we graduate anyways. It's just...dumb."

Placing a hand over the top of your binder defensively, the more Dwayne spoke, the more you found a lump forming in your throat. It made it even harder to speak as you choked out, "Dumb?"

"Yeah. And...gross," he huffed with an air of stubbornness. He'd never been particularly fond of the holiday; the unnecessary drama of couples asking each other to be their Valentine and the gossip that came from rejections for days afterwards. But...you thought...

With a new wave of frustration, you flipped open the cover of your binder and pulled a card out from the inside flap. You slid it across the top of the table in Dwayne's direction. "Then there's a stupid card for you, Dwayne. Happy Valentine's Day," you added bitterly.

Dwayne froze. Already, the cover threw him off. There was the haunting phrase of the day written out in your handwriting and above it, a drawing of a bouquet of flowers in glitter gel pens. Slowly, he opened the card, finding more of your handwriting hiding inside.

I know this is super cliche. And you're probably going to roll your eyes at me when you read this. Promise me you won't hate me too much. Or at least promise me you'll spare me the embarrassment and forget this immediately after you read it. I just had to try at least once. But I really like you. Will you be my Valentine?

With your head hidden in your folded arms, you could only guess what you and Dwayne looked like to the rest of your classmates. Already, you were anticipating how that scene would get spun. Everyone talked about how you and Dwayne were bound to end up together, seeing as you're one of the only people that would willingly hang around with the reclusive guy. And one of the only people that he would actually let hang around him.

Your first thought after that was to think about Dwayne. He didn't like being the center of attention. Being talked about like this would be the most aggravating thing in the world. And god, it frustrated you that even when he was being a jerk, you still worried about him.

Then you felt a poke on your shoulder. You raised your head and found Dwayne, still looking at the card and tracing the flowers on the cover. But this time his hand was on the table, open with his palm facing up. Inviting you to grab it. Which you do, quickly.

"I'm sorry for what I said," he muttered.

You sniffed softly. "That's okay."

"I like the card."

"Thanks."

“And I'll be–" Dwayne paused. "I'll be your Valentine."

The exhilaration inside you flared so intensely that you couldn't help but squeeze his hand in return. And Dwayne also couldn't help the tiny smile that formed on his lips when he felt the warmth of your sweaty hand enveloping his. Maybe both of you could be right about Valentine's Day. It was gross. But...nice. Very nice.

[taptrial2]

thinking about danny's friendgroup in my au as the story goes on. like.

at first he has No Friends until sam starts hanging around him for his grim sense of humor. tucker follows suit because he and sam are already friends, but he and danny quickly become friends because danny is so engaged in what tucker has to say about hardware and video games. tucker likes being able to teach! sam also appreciates danny's wide-eyed wonder towards the world - it's refreshing, she's used to being a pessimist. she isn't sure why he's so full of whimsy until later though (The Issues)

danny and valerie aren't particularly close until the flour sack assignment. danny is frustrated about her lack of participation at first but learns about all her responsibilities as the "episode" goes on. also he goes "hm. you have dimples!" and pokes his index fingers right into her dimples when she smiles at him towards the end of the assignment (he still doesn't know much about physical boundaries yet) and shes like yknow what. maybe youre not so bad. this is cute.

valerie and danny's friendship develops over time. b/c she and star are friends, star gets absorbed into the friendgroup as an orbiter, but she isn't happy about it. she's mean and cold, but after the ice melts a bit, it's clear she's just lonely and used to being in the background of other people's lives, so she avoids rejection by doing the rejecting herself. she also thinks she doesn't really have a "thing" of her own that she's passionate about like the others, and it makes her feel kinda strange, but sam talks to her about how she herself likes a lot of different stuff and doesn't need to have one "thing" to be, like, a person. headcanons: star is passionate about cheer, and is a jock at heart. she's definitely a roller derby lesbian when she gets older, i mean come on her name is literally star

anyway thinking about sam and tucker knowing about danny being half ghost (eventually) but not valerie. they can't tell star because star is a gossip and would tell other people, INCLUDING valerie, who she tells everything to. star and valerie can FEEL that they're not in on something important and it makes them feel Weird but danny goes out of his way to include them in friend stuff even if sam and tucker are wary. how val finds out danny is a ghost is a whole Thing

OH OH OH i think about valerie and jazz's friendship a lot too!!! they also start out not knowing each other At All, but because of valerie going to the fentons for ghost hunting gear and advice, she and jazz see each other often and become close. they end up being ghost hunting buddies. jazz is less passionate about ghost hunting than valerie by a country mile, but she likes spending time with her friend and DOES enjoy the action every now and then. jack and maddie really like valerie and her passion for hunting ghosts and kind of smother her with parental affection which valerie chafes against (i have my own family yknow :/). she thinks the fenton parents are stupid at first but grows to appreciate their passion and technical knowhow over time.

[folksy]

i mean i love spike but i’m obsessed with your metas and agree with most of your criticism of him

i see him as a stupid little guy who is shitty about being evil and shitty about being good but someone who doesn’t have those huge expectations that everyone has of buffy in those later seasons.

he’s an idiot who becomes obsessed with women who hate him consistently throughout his life/unlife and loads of spike lovers kinda ignore that this trait is a flaw that he is punished repeatedly

i think your deep understanding of angel actually makes you well equiped to discuss spike cause they’re so connected characterisation wise, like spikes constructed identity is a reflection of angelus you know

anyways, it sucks that people that like spike don’t understand that you’re not attacking him when you critique, literally every character in buffy deserves critical analysis cause they’re all more than what we like about them

WELL SEE I DO LIKE SPIKE IS THE THING! I just think he’s overrated and gets made into someone by fans when he isn’t textually like that. and it’s not even just on here I feel an issue ppl have with me is that I mention fan interpretation and they get stung bc that includes them when I take in consideration what I’ve seen on other sites like youtube. then angel gets flattened which frustrates me as he’s textually so so interesting if you actually look at his character. in fact I’ll see people attribute the positives of angel onto spike, and the negatives of spike onto angel. an example is angel was cursed to be good whereas spike fought to be good. it’s in fact textually SWAPPED as being ensouled does not equate to goodness (see literally any human villains) and angel sought out darla after getting ensouled- he wanted to try to get back to the life he knew but ultimately he couldn’t and was rejected. he had a pessimistic view of humans and did not really associate with them until whistler gave him the chance of having a positive and meaningful purpose of existence through assisting buffy. yes the ensoulment was a punishment but his life afterwards was filled with choices. which the voiceover by whistler in “becoming” emphasize this point. spike on the other hand had a chip implanted in his head that he had to adapt to. he begrudgingly assisted the scoobies because demon fighting helped scratch his itch to fight that was restricted because he couldn’t harm humans unless it caused him a great deal of pain. it’s practically a shock collar. furthermore, he was able to get blood and money from them as he no longer could feed from humans. and obviously this whole chip plotline was a justification for spike being on the show to fill in the space left by angel and cordelia. and then an instance of spike’s flaws being used against angel is I’ve seen people say the line wishverse buffy says to angel about wanting to get in her pants is so true when it’s like…. yeah angel was attracted to buffy but he repeatedly was like “we shouldn’t do this.” though he does goes along with it instead of stopping, they reciprocated their desire and buffy herself would initiate things (such as the first time they have sex in “surprise”, the kisses in “forever” and “end of days”/“chosen”!). and they literally only had sex once (sans “IWRY”) and he leaves her as he knows that they aren’t good for each other. you could argue it I guess bc of the angelus arc and taking her innocence, but to me that was using angel’s soul predicament and the current tropes he fell into and making them into relevant real life analogies (older sweet guy becomes a douche after having sex with you), complicating their dynamic instead of having them as the couple the show was seemingly heading towards and fans wanting- now there’s tragedy and trauma that effects them for the rest of their shows. it also made angel a more interesting character as I see angelus as the worst of humanity and then we see angel trying to be good despite the fact he has these capabilities and desires. whereas spike used buffy and her partners and sex life as a means of goading them (buffy, angel, riley) into getting upset. spike fantasized about buffy and sex to the point he had a sex robot made of her. and when they have their sexual relationship in s6, he further makes her feel dark and wrong for it by mentioning how her friends would be upset with her and insinuating she wanted it even when she would verbally say no (“dead things”). angel has his redemptive journey influenced by buffy, but I don’t think there’s necessarily the need to impress or win her over in the way spike did (like in “crush”). I would argue that’s trying to get into her pants lol

and yes exactly! spike is similar to xander or the trio regarding his approaches to women and really it’s not acknowledged much by spike fans imo he gets very very romanticized when he acts a lot like what we call now an incel but he gets pass because he’s charismatic, attractive, and a bad boy. but he has entitlement and a tendency of propping women he likes onto a pedestal, and blames them for him being rejected without being introspective (until it comes to buffy later on when he realizes that he has to get a soul like angel in order to be actually respected or loved by her). though I do also view spike as a foil of angel so obviously they have different approaches to things. that’s the point. they’re the same but they’re not type of deal.

sorry this message was very long but I appreciate this ask <3 I like to be reminded that people appreciate my takes and think I’m insightful instead of an asshole

[erabundus]

@momijiba &&. said... kazuha left a little note next to were ren was sitting. i'm sorry for our fight, please come to bed tonight... don't want to celebrate your birthday like this. if you don't want to come to bed that's fine, i miss you my aoi hasu.

ren's  gaze  was  focused  intently  on  the  book  in  his  hands.  some  dog-eared  journal  from  a  long  deceased  owner  —  callously  put  up  for  SALE  by  a  distant  relative.  he  snagged  it  on  a  trip  through  a  market  some  time  back,  its  age  and  wear  catching  his  eye.  collecting  strange  and  obscure  books  was  one  of  the  wanderer's  hobbies  —  the  rarer,  the  better.  as  much  as  he  tried  to  distance  himself  from  mortal  lives  (  for  the  good  of  everyone  involved  )  it  was  still  INTERESTING  to  sneak  a  tiny  peek  into  what  such  a  mundane  existence  might  entail.  money  troubles.  family  traditions.  embarrassing anecdotes. relationship  struggles ...

his interest went SOUR as he turned the page.

true  to  his  prior  threats,  he  didn't  speak  as  kazuha  placed  the  note.  he  didn't  acknowledge  him  one  bit  —  though  a  SHARP  set  of  eyes  may  have  noticed  he  was  a  little  too  still.  (  the  rise  and  fall  of  his  chest  coming  to  an  ABRUPT  end.  )  a  tiny  mistake  in  an  otherwise  flawless  act  of  indifference.  what  did  it  matter? he didn't want to talk to him anyway.

of  course,  that  didn't  stop  him  from  snatching  up  the  letter  the  moment  kazuha  left  the  room.  he  slipped  it  in  front  of  his  book  and  immediately  started  to  devour  the  familiar  script  with  his  eyes.  what  would  it  be?  a  request  —  a  demand  for  him  to  leave  and  never  return?  a  rescinding  of  his  confession?  no, a confession that he found him repulsive? a  thorough  deconstruction  that  detailed  why  their  personalities  were  intrinsically  incompatible  on  every  possible  level  —  and  that  he  deeply  regretted  ever  associating  himself  with  him  to  begin  with?  ren  knew  he  had  a  tendency  to  immediately  ASSUME  the  worst  in  others.  (  a  pessimist  to  the  highest  degree;  he  thought  it  justified.  ) it was only natural he would find himself slipping back to familiar bad habits. spiraling, even.

yet  instead  of  the  REJECTION  he  braced  himself  for,  ren  found  himself  met  with  the  opposite  —  an  apology.

he  read  the  letter  once,  twice,  three  times,  surprise etching itself deeper and deeper across doll-like features — until finally, he  smacked  himself  in  the  face  with  the  open  book.  this  was  stupid, he couldn't help but think.  ( and if only he realized as much sooner. ) why  were  they  wasting  time  tiptoeing  around  each  other  over  some  petty  argument?  ren  peeled  the  journal  away,  drumming  his  fingers  on  the  page. aoi hasu ... curse him, and curse his poetic way with the written word.

... he would be there shortly.

[charles-rxwlands]

lay all your love on me

okay!! so this is my fic for @magpiencrow's 1.2k writing challenge.

this is based off of the song lay all your love on me, slowed, by putin

pairing: nikolai/reader

rating: general

tags: gn!reader w/ gn pronouns, fluff

summary: falling in love with nikolai lantsov told through several vignettes

or: mindless nikolai/reader fluff with a alina and ivan being little shits

warnings: right off the bat there's a nightmare about drowning in the ocean, and there's one (1) swear word at the end, but other than that, there's nothing

word count: 4.1k

read on ao3

constructive criticism, feedback, and reblogs are greatly appreciated !

I haven't written anything in a while, so i may be a bit rusty, but please enjoy :)

You were drowning, and also pretty damn sure you were going to die out here. Your lungs were on fire, screaming for air, but you couldn't emerge from the ocean for long enough to suck in a breath. Sure, your hand or head breached the surface every now and then, but a wave would come crashing down on you immediately after, destroying all your progress.

      The undulating waves threw you around like a football - a very pathetic one, at that. As hard as you tried to fight the current, it still insisted on moving against you (stubborn bastard), so really you weren't going anywhere. Just pathetically bobbing around in the same pathetic place. You couldn't feel your limbs - the only thing you could feel was the agonising ache in your chest. It was as if your arms and legs had frozen over along with your will to live.

      How easy it would be to just... 

...let the ocean take you...

      Suddenly, someone grabbed you by the wrist. You screamed, which was a mistake; immediately, salty seawater filled your mouth, making you gag and choke. Nevertheless, you valiantly tried to release yourself from whoever - whatever? - had their hold on you. 

      "Y/n, Y/n! Relax, darling, relax," a voice said, sounding out of breath. "It's me."

      You whirled your head around. Sagging with relief, you gasped out the name of your saviour. "Nikolai."

      "Yes. Yes, Y/n, my love, it's me. It's Nikolai," he soothed, running his hands over your wet hair.

      "Nikolai," you breathed. "Nikola-" - a wave reared up on its hind legs, ready to come crashing down onto your friend, ready to take him away - "no, no, Nikolai, NO-!"

   

You startled, eyes flying open. You were shaking like a leaf. Were you cold, or was it just the adrenaline from the nightmare still making its course? You shook your head as if to rid your mind of the dream. It wasn't real. Nikolai had saved you that night. It was fine. It wasn't real.

      But it could very well have been real, a traitorous voice in your mind whispered. Scowling, you cursed your pessimistic side. Even if a wave had separated you two, Nikolai would have fought tooth and nail to get to you again. You would have done the same. After all, you were childhood friends, and you knew better than anyone that Nikolai didn't let go of his loved ones so easily.

      He hadn't wanted you to accompany him on his journey overseas as Sturmhond. You insisted otherwise, channeling some of Nikolai's stubbornness that had rubbed off on you. ("You're not getting rid of me that easily, idiot. So let me come, unless you want me to steal your kneecaps."). 

      A half-smile appeared on your face as you thought back to the memory. Slowly, you got up from your bed. Your blanket was draped over your shoulders. You slipped out of your cabin quietly, walking down the hallway until you found yourself in front of Nikolai's room. He stirred in his sleep when you entered. The door creaked slightly, but it didn't seem like his distress was because of the noise.

      You sat on the edge of his bed. Nikolai, previously facing away, turned over to face you. His eyes were still screwed shut, eyebrows knitted together and an unhappy expression on his face. You frowned. 

      "Nikolai." you nudged him gently. "Wake up. You're okay, just wake up. It's just a dream."

      He opened his eyes, blinking at you. "Y/n?"

      "Hi," you said. A lock of golden hair fell over his forehead, and upon instinct, you reached to brush it away. He let you, not uttering any of his usual complaints. 

      "You were gone," he mumbled, undoubtedly referencing his nightmare. "I- I couldn't save you, and you were gone." 

      You shifted into a more comfortable position - your whole body was on the bed now, with your back against the headboard. He leaned his head against your chest, and you ran your fingers through his hair. "It wasn't real. It's okay. You saved me - I'm not going anywhere, 'Lai."

      "Me either," he agreed, wrapping his arms around your middle. A beat of silence. Then, "Thank you."

      You were more than content to fall asleep like this. Even if it meant waking up with an ache in your neck. Judging from the way he was curled up, practically drinking in your presence, Nikolai felt the same way.

      What a feeling it was to have found solace in Nikolai Lantsov, and to know he had found solace in you, too.

· · ─── ·𖥸· ─── · ·

Nikolai's pov

Nikolai watched from the corner of the ballroom as you laughed at one of Ivan's jokes. One would say that he was scowling, but the Prince of Ravka didn't scowl. No - he was simply observing your conversation with the Heartrender with visible distaste. He was not scowling. And he was not jealous.

      You and Ivan were smiling at each other, standing by the refreshments table, mouths moving quickly, the both of you obviously interested in whatever you were talking about. You threw your head back in a laugh. You looked gorgeous. Nikolai wanted to make you laugh like that - more than he wanted to admit.

      The last straw was when Ivan lay a hand on your shoulder, and then snaked his arm around you. You didn't seem perturbed by his touch - no, actually, you leaned into it. He bent down to whisper something in your ear that made you duck your head in embarrassment and lightly hit his chest. 

      Nikolai's glare deepened, if that were even possible. Okay, fine, maybe he was jealous. Did he even have the right to be jealous, though? It wasn't as if he was dating you, as much as he'd like to be.

And oh boy, he'd like to be. 

      Suddenly, Alina appeared at his side, seemingly out of thin air. He flinched. "Alina." 

      The girl in question had a mischievous look in her eye. Her hands were clasped in front of her, the long, flowy sleeves of her dress falling just past her wrists. The bottom half of her gown was a sparkly gold, whereas the top half was a dark blue. The two colours faded into each other at the middle, creating a gradient effect. It was a beautiful dress. You had helped Alina pick it out yourself, if he remembered correctly.

      "Hello, loverboy." she poked him in the side, grinning knowingly. "How's your crush on Y/n going for you?"

      "I don't have a crush on them, Alina, for Saint's sake."

      "Oh, is that so? You do seem... ah, what was the word... utterly whipped for them, contrary to what you just said," she said, tilting her head to the side, feigning innocence.

      "Am not," he argued. "I-," Nikolai paused, taking notice of you and Ivan walking past a couple metres away. Unfortunately, you were too engrossed in your current conversation to notice him. His eyes lingered on you. He only looked away when you disappeared back into the throng of people. 

      Alina let out a triumphant 'ha!'. 

      He directed his attention back to her and glared. "Alina, I swear-,"

      "Utterly. Whipped," she mouthed.

      "I will behead you," he threatened.

      She laughed. "In all seriousness, I really don't think Y/n and Ivan like each other like that," Alina said.

      "Well, of course not," he agreed. "Y/n very clearly has eyes for me. I can't say I blame them - who could resist all this? Everyone's all over me, as I'm sure you've noticed." 

      Alina stared at him pointedly.

      "Ah, except for you, of course. You seem to be the only one immune to my charm and charisma. An odd one, you are."

       She rolled her eyes. "Why do I even bother," she groaned. "Just swear to me that you'll tell Y/n you like them soon. Within a week. Swear on... your dignity."

      "My dignity?" Nikolai drawled.

      "Yes, your dignity, because if you don't fess up soon, I'll have to tell Y/n about your crush on them myself," she grinned smugly, and darted off before Nikolai could retort. 

      He sighed. As he saw it, he had three options:

      1. Blackmail Alina (because of course she wouldn't give in to simple bribery)

      2. Get on his knees and beg Alina to not tell you of his massive crush (there! he admitted it; he had a massive crush on you! One that he'd been harbouring for just over a year now, too)

      3. Listen to Alina, and confess on his own terms

      All three were mortifying, and things he absolutely didn't want to do. However, the last was considerably easier to do, and came with the most benefits and the least consequences. You had already seen him through his most embarrassing moments (and he through yours) so even if you rejected him, the humiliation would be minimal. 

      And maybe he wanted to confess. And maybe there was hope that you liked him back. Nikolai wasn't stupid - he knew when people fancied him. He suspected you liked him back, but then again, that could've been wishful thinking, or maybe he was misreading the entire thing.

      He didn't even understand why he was so jealous of the way Ivan and you had interacted. Before he had fallen heads over heels in love with you, his childhood best friend, people flirting with you hadn't been a problem. He'd encouraged it, even. But now, bitterness flared up inside of him every time he saw someone getting a bit too cozy with you. 

      In short, his feelings for you had completely destroyed his facade of smooth, suave, sexy Prince of Ravka. And it kind of terrified him how poorly he hid it.

· · ─── ·𖥸· ─── · ·

Nikolai had been acting strange lately, and it was bothering you. You feared the worst - had he finally caught on to your crush? You thought you'd been subtle until Ivan had approached you at the most recent party. Apparently, the scowl on your face as you watched Nikolai flirt with the guests had been fierce enough to kill.

      Ivan had given you (unsolicited) advice, telling you to be straightforward and direct. That was what he'd done with Fedyor, after all, and that had worked out well.

      You were pacing around your room. Ivan was perched on your bed, watching you have a borderline nervous breakdown like one would watch the view. 

      "You're enjoying this, aren't you, Ivan?" you demanded. "I'm about to make a life or death decision, and you're enjoying it."

      He chuckled. "I wouldn't call this a life or death decision, Y/n. If Nikolai rejects you, he rejects you, and it's his loss. If he reciprocates, good, and you'll be free to frolic in the meadows with him, all fine and dandy."

      You stared at him, your expression communicating, "Did you really just say that?", very clearly.

      "Okay, okay, fine, I'll be serious." Ivan relented. "Just tell him, Y/n. What's the worst that could happen?" 

      Just as you were about to respond - "Well, I don't know, what if he rejects me, things become eternally awkward between us, and our 10 year long friendship is ruined because I couldn't keep my mouth shut?" - someone knocked at the door. You opened it to find Nikolai waiting. His hair was perfectly styled, as always. He wore a dark turquoise suit jacket, and a simple white dress shirt underneath. The ghost of a smile appeared on your face; you had chosen the colour for him.

      "Hi, Nikolai," you greeted. 

      "Hello," he said. "Come on a walk with me. It's a lovely day outside, and both of us have been dreadfully busy lately - we may not get another chance to spend time together, I'm afraid."

      "Oh! Of course, just let me grab more suitable shoes- I'll be out in a minute- Ivan, move." You rummaged around your room in search of the sandals Nikolai had gifted you for your most recent birthday. Ivan flashed you a grin.

      "Tell him!" he whispered as you ducked out the door.

      You hoped you didn't seem too jittery as you took Nikolai's arm, even if your insides were filled with butterflies. He seemed deep in thought for the first few minutes of your walk. It wasn't until you were both outside that he finally spoke.

      "I hope you don't mind me asking, Y/n, but what was Ivan doing in your room?" he asked. 

      The question caught you off guard. Why was he so concerned about you and Ivan? It wasn't as if-

      Oh.

      Oh.

      "Nikolai, don't tell me- are you jealous?" you exclaimed.

      "Just answer the question, Y/n," he grumbled, which was enough of an answer for you.

      You laughed, only feeling a bit bad that you were so amused. Nikolai Lantsov, jealous. You found that incredibly funny. "Oh, I'm sorry for laughing," you apologised, even as another giggle escaped your mouth. "You don't have to worry, Ivan and I are strictly friends."

      He didn't seem convinced. "But the two of you at the party a few days ago-,"

      You cut him off. "Nikolai. I promise that there is nothing romantic going on with Ivan and I. And besides, I don't think I'm anywhere near his type."

      "Ivan likes men, Nikolai," you supplied, sensing his confusion. "Honestly, you need to keep up with gossip - he and Fedyor have been going strong for nearly three months now."

      "Oh," Nikolai said.

      "Yeah, oh."

      "And, uh, do you? Like men, I mean?" 

      You bit back another laugh. "Yes, I do. One man in particular, actually." 

      "Is that so? Care to clue me in on who this man is?"

      "You." 

· · ─── ·𖥸· ─── · ·

Nikolai's pov

"You."

      As soon as that single word came out of your mouth, Nikolai's brain short-circuited, and several alarms blared in his mind. ALERT! ALERT! THE PERSON YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH LIKES YOU BACK! 

      He was too stunned to speak, which was definitely a first. So, naturally, he didn't speak, but instead leaned in to kiss you. His lips brushed chastely against yours. A pause. 

      "I- I'm really sorry, Y/n, I should have asked beforehand-,"

      "Nikolai." you took his face in your hands. "Shut up." 

      And then you kissed him, and if his brain had been short-circuiting before, this was a full blown system failure. Sparks flew inside of him, and he was acutely aware of you and you only. It was a wonderful feeling, one that he immediately missed when you pulled away.

      "Wow," you said. 

      He grinned. "I'm that good of a kisser, huh?"

      When usually you would come up with a witty response, you just smiled. It was a smile Nikolai was pretty sure he'd die to see again. 

· · ─── ·𖥸· ─── · ·

Falling in love with Nikolai had been a long process. Your simple crush developed into something deeper like a leaky faucet dripping - slowly, but steadily. And then the realisation that you were in love with him hit you like a tidal wave. Drowning you, consuming every inch of your being, but not necessarily in a bad way.

       You came to your epiphany while laying awake in bed one night after a whole day spent with the esteemed King of Ravka. It was a wonder that you'd managed to spend a whole 10 hours or so in his company without getting fed up, Tamar had teased. He did annoy you - and had today - but you bullied him back plenty enough. It was easy being with him. Easier than you were used to. 

       You loved the way his eyes sparkled after correcting someone on their use of the word 'impossible'. Loved how he devoted himself to his country so selflessly. Loved how he smiled at you so genuinely and lovingly, even when you didn't have the energy to show your love in return after a bad day. Saints, you loved him so, so much, and you were so in love with him, too, and-

       Holy shit. You were in love with Nikolai.

       You were in love. With Nikolai.

       A childish giggle bubbled up inside of you, and you sighed happily. What a feeling it was to be in love with the King of Ravka, even if he didn't know it yet. 

· · ─── ·𖥸· ─── · ·

You twirled a small flower around in your hands as you walked side by side with Nikolai, your shoulders brushing occasionally. The taller blades of grass tickled your ankles, and a gentle breeze weaved through your hair. The sun peeked out from behind a few clouds, warming your face.

     Nikolai intertwined your fingers, sighing in content. He craned back his neck to meet the sunshine, eyes fluttering shut. He looked stunning, just standing there with his almost otherworldly beauty as light spilled over his fine features, highlighting every detail.

     "I'm in love with you," you blurted suddenly. "I love you, and I'm also in love with you, so. Yeah. I'm in love with you, Nikolai Lantsov."

     You gave yourself a mental round of applause for your eloquence and tact.

      He blinked. "Oh." The ghost of a smile appeared on his face, turning into a full-fledged grin when he finally processed your words. "Oh. I'm... I'm in love with you, too, Y/n L/n."

      You beamed back at him, and cupped his face in your hands. You gently ran your fingers against his cheeks, tracing a line down to the base of his chest. The fabric of his shirt was thin and soft, unlike the suffocating material his suits were made of. Lovingly, he wrapped his arms around your waist, and pulled you close. Your heart fluttered. Saints, you adored Nikolai. More than you could put into words. 

      "I love you," you whispered. "I love you so much, so intensely that it consumes me, and I'm drowning in it. But instead of it being hard to breathe, it makes breathing easier. It makes everything easier." 

      You interrupted your little speech by kissing him, just because it felt appropriate, and continued. "I was so lost without you, Nikolai. I didn't realise it, because as I've proved time and time again, I'm more than capable of holding my own-" you smirked as he rolled his eyes at the jab to his overprotectiveness "-but I was. I was a boat lost at sea, floating around in the waves, with no destination and no goal except surviving. Then you came along, and gave me solace. You were my salvation. You and your endearingly stupid jokes and your wild yet grounded behaviour. You're my anchor, Nikolai." 

      He laughed, but not in the mean way. In the happy way. 

      "I would pay you back with a monologue of my own," he said. "but all I can think of right now is how perfect you are, and how much I want to kiss you."

      Your smile widened, if that were even possible. You met him midway, lips connecting almost desperately. The only coherent thought running through your brain was 'Nikolai, Nikolai, Nikolai.'

      Nikolai.

· · ─── ·𖥸· ─── · ·

"That one looks like a dragon," you said, pointing out a lumpy cloud in the sky.

      Nikolai tilted his head to the left. It was rather cute - he looked like a puppy, trying to figure out what its owner was saying. His right eyebrow curved in an upward arch (you still had no idea how he managed to raise a single eyebrow at a time), and he pouted slightly. Adorable.

      "I don't see it," he deadpanned.

      You sighed and shook your head, dismissing the cute puppy ideology. "Nevermind," you huffed. As hard as you tried to pretend you were upset with him, a smile teased at the corners of your mouth, anyway.

      "I'm sorry, darling, but I really don't!" he exclaimed, flopping back into the picnic blanket you two had laid out. Really, it wasn't even a picnic blanket. It was just a blanket. The two of you hadn't had time to find a proper one before embarking on your impromptu picnic. Nikolai, ever the improviser, had then brandished a quilt from Saints knew where. You suspected it came from Vasily's room, because who else would be pompous enough to own a red velvet blanket the size of China?

      You dramatically exhaled again. "I already said nevermind. Not all of us can be blessed with a creative vision such as mine, after all."

      Nikolai laughed. And Saints, the sound was downright melodic. You didn't even want to begin thinking about all the things you'd do to hear it one more time.

      A comfortable silence settled between the two of you. Eventually, he began stroking your palm with his callouses fingers. You bit back a smile, and linked your pinkies together. A gathering of clouds mostly covered the sun - enough to allow only a bit of warm, gold light to seep out. You wondered briefly how Nikolai looked right now, basking underneath the faint sunshine. 

      The answer came to you easily, even without looking at him: fucking beautiful. 

      However, you wouldn't give him the satisfaction of staring at him. The last time he had caught you gaping at him like a lovesick fool, he had teased you endlessly. It was ridiculous. It wasn't as if he didn't stare at you. No, actually. He stared at you all the time. In fact, he was doing it right now.

      You bit back a grin when you felt his eyes on you. But before you could tease him for it, he got up suddenly, offering you a hand.

      "Come on," he urged. "Follow me."

      "Where to?" you questioned curiously.

      He smirked. Tugged on your hand. Winked. "You'll see." 

      "Right, that's not cryptic at all," you muttered. 

      Eventually, after a minute or so of walking (and plenty of you trying to weasel more information out of him) the two of you had seemed to reach your destination. A huge tree hung above you, offering its shade. You plopped down, but Nikolai remained standing.

      Strangely, he was looking rather nervous. Repeatedly tugging at the collar of his beige button-up shirt, and kicking at the grass. 

      "Y/n, darling, don't just sit there, you're making me nervous," he whined. 

      You giggled, but stood up anyway. "I could say the same about you. What's on your mind, dear?"

      He took a deep breath, and looked you dead in the eyes. "I love you, Y/n. I love you, and I'm in love with you. I always have, and always have been. It's just- you're wonderful. And intelligent. And charming. And I am so, so glad you are my partner - in the romantic sense, and the platonic sense. If I'm being honest, I'm quite sure I'd be tearing at the seams without you to sew me back together every time I do something particularly foolish. 

      And I hope you'll always be there to ground me. Because I will always be there for you. Th-there's no other way to say this, my darling, but I'd quite like to spend the rest of my life with you, so..."

      He brandished a dark blue box from his back pocket (this probably wasn't the time, but you had to mention that you could never fit something that large in your pocket. Why did men's clothing always have bigger pockets?) and got down on one knee. 

      "Will you do me the honour of marrying me, Y/n?" he finished.

      Holy fuck. Holy mother of Saints. Holy everything. Was this real? Saints. This really was real, wasn't it? Nikolai Lantsov was proposing to you.

      A sob escaped from your throat, and you nodded frantically, not wanting him to think you were upset. "Yes," you said. "Saints, Nikolai, yes."

      He smiled. You knew that he smiled a lot, but this smile was different. Usually, he just grinned or smirked in a devilish way - this was more of a beam. He looked so genuinely happy (genuinely happy, because of you!) that it made your heart soar, and you were pretty sure you fell in love with him all over again for the second time. You'd never get tired of it, though. Not when it came to Nikolai (Nikolai, your husband-to-be!). Never when it came to Nikolai.

      You soon found yourself enveloped in a hug. He spun you around, both of you laughing (and crying). When he set you down, you could have sworn you saw his eyes welling up.

      "Now, my love, those better be happy tears," he tutted.

      "Of course they're happy tears, you stupid puppy dog!" you sniffed. "I love you."

      He beamed into your hair. "I love you, too, Y/n."

      What a feeling it was to be in love with Nikolai Lantsov, and to know that he was in love with you, too.

[gothicprep]

"The Power of Positive Thinking" (self-delusion) can be insanely powerful. it gives you an increased willingness to take risks, willful ignorance of negative potentials. 99% of the time it gets you in trouble, 1% of the time you become kanye west. this is why people believe in it. success and fame, beyond just hereditary wealth, kinda self-select for these sorts of people, because if you don't have this trait, this belief, you'll just leave it to the realm of fantasy and get a normal job, and not end up like bulletball guy.

bulletball is a good example of what happens to the 99% of people who, whether some combination of ideology and innate nature, embrace this form of delusion, this Positivity Cult, Ideological Optimism, whatever we want to call it. bulletball is objectively stupid. any rational person would either never do it, or at least, pack it in a year in rather than give it decades of their life, wealth, and sacrifice their marriage. that's why he's a funny, fascinating guy, and became a meme. he made weird choices. yet you gotta have at least some of that same way of thinking in order to become... well probably a majority of anyone you ever heard of, whether a great athlete, artist, or world-historical figure. but if you have that brain, you risk blinding yourself to reality. and also being a colossal asshole.

a lot of us online seem like the opposite - absolute pessimists, depressives, people even if we believe in larger things, absolutely do not believe in ourselves. we tend to focus on what could go wrong. and it probably keeps us out of a lot of trouble. there are so many scams and possibly attempted murders I've not fallen for because I doubted myself, my impulses, my luck, my skill, appearances, other people's motivations, etc... etc... and I've gotten hurt when I didn't. and yet, we'll also never accomplish any of the things we seek to accomplish, personally, politically, whatever, if we can't take a longshot once in a while, and either get lucky or discover we were wrong about the odds in the first place.

I guess this all seems obvious but I'm fascinated by the conundrum, if in some sense we need to embrace some kind of self-delusion, or at least, act of faith or meaning-making, but not at the cost of reason, skepticism, and keeping our fucking egos in check. how you can convince yourself to take risks and challenge the odds and be, in a certain kinda neoclassical sense "irrational", without becoming bulletball guy, or worse?

fanatical belief in the self, in your goodness, and ultimate goodness of the universe, is central to liberalism and capitalism, and the venal narcissism it fosters in its subjects. it’s what allows the whip holder to smile as they snap their wrist, and whipped to smile in turn. so it naturally becomes something we reject and scorn, as symbolic of the terrible rulers of the world and the means by which they rule, and that's not wrong. it adds another complicating factor into how we look at this issue of positivity/optimism/benign self-delusion. ideology has constructed an artificial reality, fisher's capitalist realism, that shapes our sense of what is possible. to find what is really not possible, and what are mere false walls, what is stone & what is plaster, we need a willingness to throw ourselves at it & get bruised

and that's where I don't really have an answer or conclusion, just going in circles like Wallace Shawn trying to figure out which cup of wine has iocaine powder in it. of course, both cups are poisoned.

[vivithefolle]

I was always confused by Hermiones behavior towards Ron in OOTP. Was she trying to hide her feelings? because she didn't really gave him any signs. Why she was so nasty at him with the teaspoon thing. Was she trying to make him jealous with the letters? What did or didn't she understand from Ron giving her the perfume. Is all this just JKR being stupid because she don't want them together before the very end. Sry for all these questions but I am rly confused can you plz help Vivi?

Once again, I’ll copy one of my Quora essays!

it’s a stereotype to say that girls resort to underhanded tactics when it comes to dating, or like to “test” their partner’s love… but it’s a stereotype for a reason: there are teenage girls who resort to those tactics.

The archetype of the Tsundere exists as an exaggeration of the traits some teenage girls demonstrate when they find themselves in a position of vulnerability such as “having a crush on someone”.

For someone as prideful as Hermione is, having a crush on someone is extremely threatening.

Hermione prides herself in her logic and intelligence. The validation she receives from getting good grades is something she needs, because she’s very insecure deep down. She thinks all she has to offer is her intelligence, and as she goes from a little girl to a young woman, this causes her grief because she doesn’t want to be just “intelligent”. As her body develops and changes, she finds that being the smartest one in the room isn’t enough anymore - she still loves being the smartest in the room, but she wants more than just that, she wants validation for other things. That’s why she was extremely hurt when Ron tactlessly (and Rowling-ly) remarks “you’re a girl” - she wants to be seen as a girl, as a woman, as more than a walking brain. She wants validation that she is a girl, and beautiful, and sexy, and capable of making heads spin. She needs “sexual” validation, for lack of a better term.

Of course she doesn’t really realize those feelings. All she knows is that it hurts when Ron seems to consider her “one of the guys”, or looks at girls that aren’t her. She likes it when he compliments her, but she’s also angry at him because he only ever seems to compliment her intelligence and damn it, she wants him to compliment something else! She wants him to look at her, REALLY look at her! Look at her like he looks at the pretty girls!

Little does she know that Ron does look at her, but he probably thinks he’s a pervert for doing so. Because - because she’s Hermione! She’s not like other girls, she’s not - she’s not the kind of girl you ogle! She’s the kind of girl you gift flowers to - roses, they’re her favourite - the kind of girl you have long, meaningful talks with - not sure if they’re always meaningful, but they sure talk a lot together! - she’s the kind of girl you… the kind of girl you love, not the kind of girl you just look at…

*wistful sigh* Mutual pining, mutual admiration, slow burn, +100k words…

But truth is, many people go around saying that Hermione treating Ron harshly and treating pretty much every boy (with exceptions like Draco Malfoy) more gently is because she actually doesn’t like Ron, and likes anyone but Ron.

When the truth actually is that… Hermione is awful. No, no, seriously, when Hermione is in love, she’s terrible. She can be a nice friend but when she’s in love with you she’s horrible. Especially since she’s a teenager.

Hermione is a prime example of a Tsundere.

The cute, blushy, giggling Hermione who flirts with [insert character here] and cries delicately when she’s rejected? Pure fanfiction. Canon Hermione keeps her love aggressively hidden behind countless iron walls, only letting it peek through when she’s absolutely sure the person she likes isn’t looking.

“How was practice?” asked Hermione rather coolly half an hour later, as Harry and Ron climbed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room. “It was -” Harry began. “Completely lousy,” said Ron in a hollow voice, sinking into a chair beside Hermione. She looked up at Ron and her frostiness seemed to melt. - Order of the Phoenix

Rare footage of the Hermione Granger, scientific name Selfinsertus Overratedus, displaying interest in specimen of mighty fine hunk

Hermione isn’t sweet and tender and kind with the one she loves. At least, the teenage Hermione isn’t. She’s harsh, she’s disdainful and only gives out breadcrumbs of affection once in a while as part of the complicated mind game she’s playing.

You see, Hermione is never going to make the first move. You must be the one to ask her out, because she sure as hell ain’t going to do it for you.

This is due, I think, to the events of Goblet of Fire. Viktor Krum asks her out because Rowling absolutely wants Hermione to be the ugly duckling who transforms into the beautiful swan, so she brings in Cardboard Cutout With No Personality Aside From Being Famous to woo her self-insert.

Now Hermione has gotten the experience of being asked out, and being a rather socially awkward person who also hates being vulnerable - more on that later - well, now she just assumes that if someone asked her out once, then anyone who does like her can do the same.

Which is why she doesn’t realize that Ron is actually aware he loves her. There’s a big comedy of assumptions going on in Romione’s love story.

Hermione believes that Ron either 1) likes her but is oblivious to his own feelings and so she thinks she has to “give him hints” to make him realize it. Emphasized best by this exchange:

Hermione laughed. “Harry you’re worse than Ron [at understanding girls]… well, no, you’re not, “ she sighed, as Ron himself came stumping into the Hall splattered with mud and looking grumpy.

“I’ve sent him so many signals and yet he doesn’t notice. Woe is me!”

2) doesn’t actually likes her, but sees her just as a good mate or worse, as another sister.

Hermione keeps flip-flopping between her two assumptions throughout the series, all because of her biggest assumption: she thinks that if Ron was interested in her, he would ask her out. Because Viktor Krum was interested in her, and he asked her out, so why wouldn’t Ron do the same? They’re both boys and she’s a girl, after all. Isn’t that how it works?

This is also why Hermione’s “““invitation”““ to the Slug Club isn’t even an invitation - really, it’s worse than Ron’s invite to the Yule Ball, at least he was actually offering her to come:

“We’re allowed to bring guests,” said Hermione, […], “and I was going to ask you to come, but […] I won’t bother.”

“I was going to ask you to come but I won’t bother.”

This is literally what she says. It’s more of a “look Ron! An invite! If you’re good maybe I’ll think about letting you have it!” than anything else.

It’s because this is Hermione’s last resort. The ultimate humiliation. She has to resort to inviting Ron when in her mind, he’s supposed to be the one asking her out. He’s the boy! He’s supposed to do it! (And this is why I laugh at all the fools who claim that Hermione is the pinnacle of feminism. Seriously, the girl is more of a misogynist than any other character in the series.)

Hermione failed to take into account that Ron’s insecurity cripples him worse than she imagines, and that he copes with it differently than she copes with her own insecurities.

And this is the part where I explain about Hermione’s hatred of being vulnerable.

You see, I can relate quite a lot to Hermione - I see a lot of me in her, and a lot of people who hurt me in the past as well.

Bullied because she was an easy target, being the know-it-all and local teacher’s pet? Yep. Bullied for her appearance (I got braces when I was 8 and have been wearing glasses since I was a toddler, she had her bushy hair and buck teeth)? Can relate. Cried easily? Super check. Rule enforcer when the teachers weren’t around? Mega check.

And naturally, when you’re such a water fountain as I was, there’s nothing more humiliating than ending up crying in front of your bullies. You quickly learn that it will bring you nothing but more bullying. More humiliation. More vulnerability.

Hence why you start despising any form of vulnerability you find in yourself.

Obviously, being in love? That’s one of the most terrible things you can find yourself in when you’re afraid of being vulnerable. Because, oh god, your feelings are completely insane around the person. They make or ruin your day. You keep wanting to show them how cool / great / impressive you are, and you try desperately to mask all your little faults so they will hopefully return your feelings.

Given that Hermione is already not the most socially-aware battering ram in the knife drawer, she acts especially nasty to Ron, because she’s overcompensating for the vulnerability he makes her feel. And she most likely isn’t even aware of it! Forget Fanfic Hermione cringing as she realizes how mean she sounds, welcome Canon Hermione who just doubles down on a pointless argument just to drive home how totally in control she is and how Ron has absolutely zero effect on her, no siree!

In short: Hermione overthinks. She overthinks everything. She’s overthinking every of Ron’s actions, she’s assuming he’s either out to get her because she assumes he’s perfectly aware of her crush on him and he’s just toying with her (this is the very insecure, pessimistic Hermione speaking), she’s assuming he’s completely oblivious to her feelings and so she uses the ages-old technique of the “subtle hints” to make her feelings known to him (and fails miserably because she doesn’t want to put herself out there too much in case he rejects her, which would be the ultimate humiliation and the worst possible thing to happen to her, in her teenage girl mind), and she’s assuming he’ll never like her the way she likes him, all the while being woefully oblivious to the fact that Ron does want to be with her but she keeps sending him signals that she sees him as a troublesome child rather than a potential partner.

All in all, a teenage Hermione in love is utter torture. She’s her own worst enemy, and it’s only when she decides to let go of it all - of the mind games, of the distancing, of the passive-aggressive; of the overthinking - and just takes a chance that her efforts bear fruit.

There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione’s arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.

(As much as I’m disillusioned with Romione, this kiss is still one of my favourite parts of the series. They mutually sweep each other off their feet for god’s sake, you wish your ship would.)

[pandemilkbread]

paubaya (angst!oneshot)

authors note: hello! i had an angsty dream last night and instead of pouring out my thoughts and using it to write on my story... it made me write a oneshot. also, the new moira song had me thinking— why shouldn’t i make this into an angsty oneshot too... hm. 

anyways. please enjoy :>

Bakugo Katsuki x Reader

Paubaya 

noun /pa·u·ba·ya/  origins. filipino

summary: You were far from being a pessimist; but you knew, you utterly knew, that loving Bakugo Katsuki would end in heartbreak. 

intro. 

You loved reading. Your favorite part? The ending. Especially when the villain’s wicked schemes go haywire at the hands of the prince, who in the name of love saves his beloved from their wicked hands. 

As a past time, you would imagine the days when your own prince charming would sweep you off your feet; promising his unconditional love for you. Showers of light glistening all the way to your magnificent castle. 

But by the tender age of nine did you start doubting those acts of prose in fairytales. Maybe, just maybe, if you believed hard enough he would finally show up. 

And by the miserable age of eleven, when your own father left your home for the final time, the only words of assurance your mother could give you were:

“Oh, honey. Sometimes the hardest kind of love is the one you have to leave behind.”

first verse. 

You loved writing. Your favorite part? The words. How they instantly relieved yourself of thoughts that lurked deep within your subconscious. Your hands scribbled endlessly on the pages of your notebook, professing your love for the kind boy in class (oh, please someone save your sweet heart). 

The contents of your diary will forever remain confidential. The objective? You thought by writing down how you felt for him could you move on from his clutches. He wasn’t necessarily a villain, but to you— a fragile girl at the age of thirteen, he could easily scar you for life. 

A bit over the top for someone so young; but you like to think about it this way. To save yourself from the embarrassment of rejection, to save yourself from bawling your eyes out thereof; keeping it to yourself was the best course of action. 

When the burden became too heavy, you continued writing every single feeling down until you were left empty to the core. What’s left to do? Rip out each and every page and burn it. 

Yet, it was a mishap really. When the gods decided to play you like a fool when the medium of your leaked thoughts disappeared. A joke? Not a funny one at all. 

And only on the rooftop of your middle school building did you realize where your missing item went. Into the hands of the person you liked. 

By now, you were fuming. How dare he take something that did not belong to him? How dare he—

“How stupid is it of you to believe that any fraction of kindness anyone gives you is equal to love?” 

He was right. You were stupid enough to fall for his good looks and kindness, you were dumb enough to be swayed by his charms. Though his angelic persona couldn’t stop you from punching the lights out of his face. 

(but the cries of his friends hiding behind the door did.)

pre-chorus.

Bakugo Katsuki was an enigma. It was near impossible to comprehend how someone that attractive could be devil’s reincarnate, you even felt the heat of Hell radiating out of his body. 

He was no prince charming; no one convinced you otherwise. And yet, you couldn’t help yourself but fall for the antagonist. The epitome of a fairytale villain right in the flesh. 

You first met him in high school, your first year specifically, in the nurses’ office. As a student intern for Recovery Girl, you spent most of your days in her office handling paperwork. Quite surprising really how a quirkless student like you made it into the prestigious school in the first place. 

Well, where you lacked you made up for. You had your brains to thank. It made up for the lack of power, good enough to get you in the general department. 

Anyhow, if someone came up to you and said ‘you’ll be swept of your feet, baby!’ you’d scoff and retort back in laughter. But when Bakugo Katsuki came into your life, it was a pretty close demonstration of what it felt like to be a princess— one that was blasted of her feet. 

(and you didn’t mean it figuratively. nope, he really did blast you off your feet.)

chorus.

How it happened? Simple, a rage visit to the nurse.  

The door slammed open revealing an irked pomeranian covered in bruises. Bakugo marched over to your desk looming an irritated expression. For someone who’d look like he could blast you into smithereens, you stared in awe. He was really attractive in person. 

You’ve heard of the boy from passing conversations in your department. His name frequently mentioned when the words sports festival and kidnapping popped up. His reputation couldn’t prepare you for his good looks, you would never admit it but, god does he look good. 

And with that, he said his first words to you: “What the fuck are you looking at?”

Ah, yes. How romantic. You held back an eye roll and stood up. Predictable. He was probably looking for Recovery Girl to fix that bleeding gash on his temple, but sadly the latter was unavailable. Something around the lines of quick bathroom break or teacher meeting. 

“She’s not here. Bear with it for a sec, let me get something to help.” You mumbled. 

Being the only intern for the office had its perks, you freely practiced first aid when the paperwork was bearable and no one was around. You cleaned the wounds with an antiseptic, then proceeded to patch them up with bandages and some gauzes. 

You found it amusing how the loud boy remained quiet on the chair while you were working on him. You finished your treatment with a pat to his head, “Good boy, you can leave now.”

Your words just seemed to rile him, ending the conversation with a “What’dya call me, ugly!?”

second verse.

By now, you were well-acquainted with Bakugo’s bunch of friends that you call the semi-crackheads and the real-crackheads. It was easy to differentiate the members into the two categories. All you had to do was think: among all of them, who had the most potential to burn down the school in flames?

Bakugo obviously stands at the top of that list followed by Kaminari, and Mina. The other lesser two evils, Kirishima and Sero, were safely sorted into the semi’s. 

How you met? Simple, repetitive gestures you did whenever you saw Blasty. 

After the events in the nurses’ office you’ve come to notice the boy more at school. Whenever lunch came around your eyes would instantly search for his figure, darting around for any sign. When it ends in vain, you sighed. 

The next day however, you found him by the corner of the cafeteria with his friends. You focused your time gazing at Bakugo’s mop of hair, and in turn, he looked up and met your own. You sent him a nasty grin and for some reason, he sent a glare back. 

The boy, obviously distracted from the conversation at their table, caused sets of eyes to turn to the source of his focus. Now gazed upon not one, but five sets of faces with undiscernible looks. So this is what being the center of attention feels like. 

(you sincerely hoped it would stop. though you only have yourself to blame for it.)

pre-chorus.

Time flies quick when you’re surrounded by people who make your life difficult. And when you mean difficult, you mean constant trips to the nurses’ office when any of the quintet manage to injure themselves. Unsurprisingly, this happened frequently. 

Apparently, the pomeranian revealed you worked for Recovery Girl and made his friends intrigued. Especially when he called you “ugly” more times than they could remember. 

You were already on your second year of high school when Mina proposed you joined their group study session.  Evidently, you had the best grades in the general department, well— except for math, and they wanted to use it to their advantage. You willingly accepted though, with the exchange of having blastboy teach you your weakest subject. 

(only after being taunted.)

You felt the rush of heat that swirled in your stomach when Bakugo meets your eyes, grinning. It remained in your thoughts the night after, the feelings rising and falling every second that passed. 

By then, you knew you were screwed. Oh god, he was going to break your heart. 

chorus.

“Do you like someone?” You muttered one day. The other four members of your so-called study group (more like a cramming team, you’d retort.) missed out on today’s session as they had other things to do. 

This left you and Bakugo as the only participants. The silence was unbearable, truthfully you had done enough reviewing to last a year, but you wanted to attend for the sake of seeing his face. 

You knew he was a loud one, a potty mouth at that, and it was worrying to see him so... silent. You wanted to break the peace by riling him up and to your disappointment, he remained silent. 

He did reply though, minutes after. 

“...Shut up, extra.” 

His usual snap backs always made you laugh. Even when it looked like he was going to send you into an early grave. But the way he said it right now, made you nauseous. Something akin to dread swiveled within you. No, it couldn’t be? 

One of your many talents lie in the skill of perception; and perceptive you were. More so when it involved the people you cared about, and you more than cared for feisty boy. 

You reached out and grabbed him by the collar, forcing him to look into your eyes. The tangerine color of the sunset couldn’t hide the pinkish hue that was plastered on his cheeks. Funny as it was, a part of you wanted to scoff. The Bakugo Katsuki likes someone. 

With that, a small part of you shattered. The remaining bits of pieces tied together by a string hanging loosely in anticipation, was it you? 

“Who is it?”  You whispered.

You were far from being a pessimist and you held on to that hope so tightly. Please give me a chance, please don’t break it. In that matter of seconds before his answer, you prayed ever so gently. 

And when he breathed out a name that clearly was not yours, all hope died. 

(and you with it. if you had just kept your mouth shut.)

bridge. 

Her name came up more often than you thought; and to your dismay, you noticed the growing grin that came along with it.  Bakugo sported a different kind of vibe the moment any conversation stirred towards the object of his affections. 

And more often than you liked; the feelings of anguish mixed with the bitterness twisted ever so constantly in your chest. Like a weighing anchor falling into the sea, an endless rope diving deep into its waters. 

As cheesy as it was, you  but feel... hurt? For what reason? You hardly knew yourself. Though a deep part of you truly hoped, maybe, even a tiny little bit, that he liked you. 

Seemingly, your fondness for the boy must have clouded your senses by the time Kirishima showed up at the library one afternoon. With all knowing look, he sat down opposite of you and mumbled:

“You know, for a guy that’s pretty smart. He can be real dense sometimes.”

Your heart leapt. You took a deep breath and counted. One, he couldn’t know. Two, he shouldn’t know. Three, was it that obvious? Four, does he know? You flipped the pages of your textbook, pretending to be so immersed in the subject that—

“He’s never going to know if you don’t speak up.” Was he reading your mind now? 

“How’d you find out?” You sighed, dropping your head into your palms.

“You’re not the only observant one.” 

Of course. Besides the dense Bakugo, there were four other sets of eyes in your group. One of them must have noticed how stiff, or how unusual (more like miserable) you’ve been acting. You gotta hand it to them though, they work fast. 

“It shouldn’t be like this. Why am I so miserable?”

A pause, then two, then three. Kirishima weighed your options, and like the supportive friend he was, he gave you an answer. 

“You should talk it out. Let him know. Because at the end, you’ll be the one who suffers the most. Just try.”

outro.

And by some interference of faith, more like some intervention from Mina and coaxing from Kaminari, you waited outside the 3-A homeroom for the so-called love of your life. You’d prefer to stop the cheesy antics, yet your nerves were all over the place. You needed something to calm you down. 

Earlier that day, you sent a message to Bakugo asking him to meet you halfway. 6 PM. Outside 3-A. Don’t be late, stupid. Minutes pass and there was no sign of the guy. Figures. 

Just as you were about to call quits the man of the hour finally showed up, sporting a look of annoyance. 

“You finally decide to text me back, extra.” 

Of course he was mad, you ignored his texts the past week. Avoiding him like the plague.

“Hm. You missed me?” You heart beats frantically in your chest. 

“Who would miss you, ugly.”

And there it was, the whomper. Giggles erupted from your mouth and you wiped the almost tears in your eyes. Although his words seemed derogatory, the way he looked refuted his words. He was visibly upset at your attempts of ignoring him. 

“I’m sorry. The exams were really difficult.” You consoled. “I missed you too, Katsuki.”

With that, you saw the cogs twisting and turning in his head. His face showing a definite ‘what the fuck just happened’ expression. Of course he did, this was the first time you’ve ever called him by his first name. 

You hoped for the best that was enough for you to get your message across. He was pretty smart, but pretty stupid. Oh well. 

You sort of realized that even the words pass by his ears and he barely understood a thing, you were happy. Yes, you were still miserable. Yes, you wanted him to love you the same way you did. But, sometimes the best way of loving someone was to let them go. 

You didn’t want to burden him with your problems, or even add more to his. So you decided to keep your feelings to yourself. Kirishima must be berating you right now. You laughed. 

The journey to moving on would be tough. You knew it. Telling him the truth would be so much easier. You knew it too. Just like your mother said, sometimes the hardest kind of love is the one you left behind. 

And no way in hell were you leaving Bakugo Katsuki. 

end note: so that’s the end aaaaaa i wanted to keep it as a oneshot but for some reason... part two??? bakugo’s pov??? AAAAAAAAA okay yes reader chan kept her feelings to her self. it’s a bit sad, but you know... that’s life and you don’t always get what you deserve :<

thank you for reading!!

[lookwhatilost]

"The Power of Positive Thinking" (self delusion) can be insanely powerful. it gives you an increased willingness to take risks, a willfull ignorance of negative potentials. 99% of the time it gets you in trouble, 1% of the time you become kanye west. this is why ppl believe in it. success and fame, beyond just hereditary wealth, kinda self-select for these sorts of people, because if you don't have this trait, this belief, you'll just leave it to the realm of fantasy and get a normal job, and not end up like bulletball guy.

bulletball is a good example of what happens to the 99% of people who, whether some combination of ideology and innate nature, embrace this form of delusion, this Positivity Cult, Ideological Optimism, whatever we want to call it. bulletball is objectively stupid. any rational person would either never do it, or at least, pack it in a year in rather than give it decades of their life, wealth, and sacrifice their marriage. that's why he's a funny, fascinating guy, and became a meme. he made weird choices. yet you gotta have at least some of that same way of thinking in order to become... well probably a majority of anyone you ever heard of, whether a great athlete, artist, or world historical figure. but if you have that brain, you risk blinding yourself to reality. and also being a colossal asshole.

a lot of us around this corner of online seem like the opposite - absolute pessimists, depressives, people even if we believe in larger things, absolutely do not believe in ourselves. we tend to focus on what could go wrong. and it probably keeps us out of a lot of trouble. there's so many fucking scams and possibly attempted murders I've not fallen for because I doubted myself, my impulses, my luck, my skill, appearances, other people's motivations, etc... etc... and I've gotten hurt when I didn't. and yet, we'll also never accomplish any of the things we seek to accomplish, personally, politically, whatever, if we can't take a longshot once in a while, and either get lucky or discover we where wrong about the odds in the first place.

I guess this all seems obvious but I'm fascinated by the conundrum, if in some sense we need to embrace some kind of self-delusion, or at least, act of faith or meaning making, but not at the cost of reason, skepticism, and keeping our fucking egos in check. how you can convince yourself to take risks and challenge the odds and be, in a certain kinda neoclassical sense "irrational", without becoming bullet ball guy, or worse?

fanatical belief in the self, in your goodness, and ultimate goodness of the universe, is central to liberalism and capitalism, and the venal narcissism it fosters in it's subjects. it’s what allows the whipholder to smile as they snap their wrist, and whipped to smile in turn. so it naturally becomes something we reject and scorn, as symbolic of the terrible rulers of the world and the means by which they rule, and that's not wrong. it adds another complicating factor into how we look at this issue of positivity/optimism/benign self delusion. ideology has constructed an artifical reality, fisher's capitalist realism, that shapes our sense of what is possible. to find what is really not possible, and what are mere false walls, what is stone & what is plaster, we need a willingness to throw ourselves at it & get bruised

and that's where I don't really have an answer or conclusion, just going in circles like Wallace Shawn trying to figure out which cup of wine has Iocaine powder in it. of course, both cups are poisoned.

[waterdeepp]

Travis Bickle Handwriting Analysis

Because I really love Taxi Driver 

Okay. We see many notes written by Travis and Scorsese gives us pretty clear shots.

First, Travis has really messy handwriting. Much like a messy room, messy handwriting shows high intelligence. Travis is smart and aware of the world around him. While socially stunted, Travis isn’t stupid. Messy writing indicates emotional hostility. Travis IS a hostile person as the film progresses. 

Messy writing shows someone doesn’t fit into society. Travis doesn’t fit into any box, he breaks the confines of society because he is disgusted by it. Yet he desires it at the same time. 

Let’s talk about writing slant. Left, right, or straight across. Look at your own and figure out where you stand. 

What they mean:

Left Slant: Meaning a person is very introspective, usually dealing with emotional stress, trauma, or depression. They keep to themselves more often than not. 

Right Slant: Meaning a person sociable, reactive, and enjoys meeting others 

Straight Across: Very logical, practical, very guarded with their emotions. 

Let’s focus on Dear Iris, 

Travis writes slanting to the right, which really came to a surprise until I thought about it. Travis isn’t a loner by choice, he isn’t someone who desires to be isolated and away from society. In fact, he yearns for it. He wants to fit in, he wants a friend, a lover. He wants someone. A companion. Those who slant to the left tend to the loners by choice. The spacing is average, if a little close together. Funny enough, this means a person enjoys the company of others. Travis seemed to enjoy the company of Betsy and Iris. 

Moving on to HER. Look at the E. The small loop. This indicates Travis is cynical. He is highly cynical as the movie progresses. He loses faith in people. He loses hope in women and black people, a deep hatred builds within him.  

Let’s talk pen pressure. While Travis has a mix of both light and heavy, my eye goes to how delicate and softly he writes her. His writing seems to be mostly light pressure. Light pressure indicates a lack of empathy or enthusiasm. But get this: it’s a sign of sensitivity. Travis is deeply bothered by Iris and her dangerous night walking life. Travis shows empathy to her yet brutally shoots a man in front of her later on. Does Travis has low or high empathy? I can’t make heads or tails of it. While in some cases, he shows a complete lack of empathy when killing people, then a high amount when he tries to save Iris. 

Moving on to individual letters. Remember when Betsy told Travis he was a walking contradiction? The way he crosses his T’s is very contradictory because this shows a person HAS enthusiasm. His light pressure shows he lacks enthusiasm and his T crosses show he has it. He shows some enthusiasm but it’s stomped out by his cynical and pessimistic behavior. He was enthusiastic about taking Betsy and Iris out but was in the end - met with rejection.

He is contradictory by nature and his writing shows this perfectly - if you know what to look for. 

In conclusion, 

I really adore Travis Bickle and I hope my analysis did him a little justice. I feel greatly for him, I wished a happy ending for him but sadly never got it. He is such a deep, fascinating character. Thank you Scorsese <3 

You talking to me? Well I’m the only one standing here.

[rctribvtns]

 ok  so,  i’ve  never  done  one  of  these  before  so  bear  with  me.  under  the  cut  are  a  few  wanted  connections  i’ve  come  up  with,  as  well  as  the  connections  that  nova’s  already  filled  for  other  muses  so  i  can  keep  track  of  them.

  PSA.   they’re  first  come  first  serve  (  and  i’ll  try  to  keep  it  updated  )  so  if  you  like  it  then  you  shoulda  put  a  ring  on  it  !!   also  if  none  of  these  tickle  your  fancy,  i’m  100%  on  board  to  brainstorm  a  few  different  ideas.  

PLATONIC.

(  the  “ twin  sister ”  )  :  see  wanted  connection  on  the  main.  [0/1]

(  the  ‘  bad  dads  club ’  connection  )  :  this  character  is  also  a  resident  of  hades  cabin.   they  both  have  some  abandonment  issues  when  it  comes  to  dads  and  over  time  they  became  confidantes.  they’re  not  the  kind  of  people  who’d  come  right  and  say  hey  i’ve  got  your  back,  but  if  someone  was  messing  with  the  other  they’d  step  up  and  square  up.  [  1/1  taken  by  tam. ]

(  the  '  best  friends ’  )  :   inspiration:  the  golden  trio.    muse  a  is  someone  nova  clicked  with  almost  instantly  upon  arriving  at  camp  half-blood.  preferably  this  person  would  have  been  in  hermes  cabin  approx.  5  years  ago.  whether  they  were  the  claimed  child  of  a  god  with  no  cabin,  or  an  unclaimed  half-blood,  they  bonded  over  shared  interests  and  compatible  personalities.   when  nova  wants  to  get  into  a  little  trouble,  or  do  something  stupid,  this  person  isn’t  far  behind.   muse  b  is  someone  they  initially  clashed  with  —  maybe  over  their  differences,  or  something  petty  like  cutting  their  favorite  shirt  with  a  blade  during  weapons  training.   whatever  the  reason,  it  was  petty,  and  they  remained  at  odds  with  each  other  until  they  all  went  on  a  quest  together.   this  bonded  them  all  instantly  and  they’ve  been  near-inseparable  ever  since.   this  person  also   tries  to  be  the  logical  one  and  keep  muse  a  and  nova  from  running  their  lives  into  the  ground.  [ 1/2  muse  b  taken  by  zach. ]

(  the  ‘  tentative  friends ’  )  :  when  they  first  met,  they  did  not  get  along.  he  was  very  angry,  finding  it  unfair  that  he  was  shoved  into  hermes  cabin  without  a  place  he  really  belonged,  and  they  argued  about  this.   in  fact,  they  argued  a  lot.   so  much  so  that  it  eventually  culminated  in  a  big  fight  where  he  got  his  ass  handed  to  him.  ever  since,  he’s  pulled  his  head  out  of  his  ass  a  little  and  they’ve  become  tentative  friends.   there’s  mutual  respect  there,  though  it’s  unclear  what  else,  and  their  friendship  is  probably  best  described  as  friends  adjacent.   that  all  might  change  though  if  she  goes  through  with  their  dare  from  her  cabin  mates  to  make  him  fall  for  her.   [  filling  lily’s  wanted  connection.  ]

(  the  ‘  tour  guide ’  )  :   when  he  arrived  at  camp  half-blood,  he  had  quite  the  chip  on  his  shoulder.  he  was  on  the  outs  with  his  family,  recently  claimed,  and  feeling  the  sting  of  rejection  to  find  out  that  hades  kids  were  lumped  into  the  other  cabin.   he  was  probably  a  brat  at  first,  kind  of  impossible  to  be  around,  but  this  person  somehow  looked  past  it  and  helped  him  adjust  to  life  at  camp  which  he  did  appreciate  —  even  if  he  sucked  at  showing  it.  [0/1]

(  the  ‘  competitive  friends ’  )  :  nova  has  filled  this  connection  for  jesse. competitive  friends .   they’re  rivals ,  in  every  sense  of  the  word .  equal  in  fighting  prowess  and  in  shit - talking  abilities ,  the  only  place  they  can  seem  to  get  some  really  good  competition  is  in  the  other .  as  a  result ,  they  spend  a  lot  of  time  going  head  to  head  in  the  arena  or  debating  over  something  stupid  in  the  mess  hall  at  dinner .  neither  of  them  hate  each  other ,  though  it  might  look  like  that  sometimes .

(  the  ‘  sparring  partner  ’  )  :   nova  has  filled  this  connection  for  finn.   finn   isn’t   the   best   at   fighting   hand - to - hand   combat   ,   but   they’re   partners   during   practices   !   maybe   they   teach   him   a  bit   of    what   they   know   and   he   returns   the   favor   somehow   . 

(  the  '  salt  bae ’  )  :   these  two  gravitate  towards  each  other  when  they  want  to  be  shady,  or  pessimistic,  and  aren’t  looking  to  hear  empty  platitudes  to  try  and  make  them  feel  better.  they’re  both  a  little  emo,  jaded  about  the  world  around  them,  and  there’s  a  quiet  kind  of  kinship  shared  between  them  as  a  result.  [  1/1  taken  by  autumn.  ]

(  the  ‘  slow  burn  friend ’  )  :   this  character  was  also  in  hermes  cabin.  they  bonded  over  mutual  annoyances  at  being  grouped  in  with  the  others,  among  other  things.  stargazing  on  the  roof  of  their  cabin  was  something  they  shared  together,  and  continued  to  even  after  they  were  claimed  and  nova  remained  in  the  hermes  cabin.  over  time  they  became  friends,  though  nova  couldn’t  point  to  one  specific  moment  to  identify  when  it  actually  happened.   [ 1/1  taken  by  min. ]

ROMANTIC.

(  the  ‘  will  they  /  won’t  they ’  )  :   for  two  years,  nova  and  this  person  danced  around  each  other.  maybe  they  went  out  once  or  twice,  or  maybe  they  just  talked  about  doing  it  and  it  never  happened,  but  it  was  probably  well  known  that  these  two  had  a  thing  for  each  other  and  it  just  never  panned  out.  [0/1]

(  the  ‘  unlikely  crush ’  )  :   on  paper,  these  two  people  have  nothing  in  common.   this  other  muse  is  a  kind  person,  the  kind  of  person  who  you’d  think  would  get  under  nova’s  skin  and  irritate  him  with  their  goodness,  but  instead  he  started  to  crush  on  them.   in  turn,  it  probably  made  him  more  of  a  jerk  towards  them.   whether  they’re  on  good  terms  or  not  now  is  undetermined.  [  2/2  taken  by  avalon  and  fernanda.  ]

(  the  ‘  first  kiss ’  )  :    they  meet  at  a  carnival.  his  mother’s  working  her  stand  and  he  decides  to  play  hooky  for  the  day.   he  meets  this  other  muse,  they  spend  the  day  together,  and  sparks  fly.   on  the  ferris  wheel,  at  the  end  of  a  day  well-spent,  they  kiss.   it’s  his  very  first  and  it’s  kind  of  a  perfect  one.  they  exchange  numbers  but  he  accidentally  washes  it  off  his  hand.   he  hopes  to  see  her  again,  to  make  contact,  but  the  carnival  picks  up  and  moves  the  next  day  and  they  never  see  each  other  again.   until  now.   [ 1/1  taken  by  harper. ]

(  the  ‘  exploited  crush ’  )  :   this  muse  is  someone  that  nova  realized,  pretty  early  on,  had  a  crush  on  him.  they  weren’t  very  subtle  but  they  sure  thought  they  were.  the  other  muse  never  made  a  move  —  and  nova,  admittedly,  wasn’t  really  interested  —  but  he  never  said  anything  because  he  liked  the  attention.   maybe  your  muse  has  finally  worked  up  the  courage  to  say  something,  or  has  started  to  pick  up  on  signs  that  he  knows.   [0/1]

(  the  ‘  hook-ups  ’  )  :  this  one  goes  without  explanation.  brief  flings,  no  real  commitments,  just  teen  hearts  beating  faster,  faster.  we  can  flesh  out  whether  it  was  a  one-time  thing,  or  a  friends  with  benefits  situation,  but  real  feelings  were  never  factored  into  the  equation.  [ 1/5  taken  by  delia.  ]

(  the  ‘  unrequited  crushee  ’  )  :  nova  has  filled  this  connection  for  abel. unrequited  crush  a .   abel  is  absolutely  obsessed  with  them ,  but  they  barely  know  he  exists .  he  isn’t  even  a  blip  on  their  radar ,  despite  the  fact  that  he  goes  out  of  his  way  to  be  where  they  are  most  of  the  time . 

ADVERSARIAL

(  the  ‘  mess  of  an  ex  ’  )  :  this  muse  isn’t  necessarily  a  mess,  but  their  relationship  definitely  was.  it  was  nova’s  first  and  only  serious  relationship  and  it  didn’t  go  well.  he  was  allergic  to  commitment,  constantly  throwing  himself  in  quickly  and  then  getting  cold  feet  and  being  wishy  washy  about  where  they  stood,  which  led  to  the  inevitable  dissolution  of  the  relationship.   this  muse  wasn’t  very  patient  with  him,  irritated  by  his  behavior,  and  when  they  split  it  was  very  ugly.   we’re  talking  screaming  at  each  other  out  by  the  lake,  a  capsized  canoe,  and  probably  people  taking  bets  on  which  one  of  them  was  going  to  make  it  back  alive.  there’s  love  there,  there  always  was,  but  their  problems  outweighed  any  of  the  good  times.  [ 1/1  taken  by  dromeda. ]

(  the  ‘  anything  you  can  do,  i  can  do  better ’  )  :   these  two  muses  have  been  at  each  other’s  throats  for  years.  instead  of  just  being  competitive,  challenging  each  other  to  be  better,  they’ve  made  it  their  personal  goals  to  best  the  other  person.   possibly  to  their  own  detriment,  or  sanity.   why  they  hate  each  other  doesn’t  even  matter  at  this  point,  bonus  points  if  they  can’t  even  remember,  but  the  petty  rivalry  runs  rampant  and  they  argue  and  compete  over  everything.   literally  everything,  big  or  small.  [ 1/1 taken  by  brooklyn. ]

[purplesurveys]

698

3 words that describe...

Your personality: (A bit) aloof, sensitive, and shy.

Your friends: Loud, laidback, cheeky.

Your family: Emotionally distant, (mostly) religious. I’m cheating so much on this looooool.

Your life: Right now? Put on hold. Thanks, coronavirus.

Your current mood: Hungry, and irritated eyes.

Your dreams/goals in life: Ok three words will be too short for this so I’ll just enumerate three whole phrases: I’d like to have a job that pays well, get a house that doesn’t have to be huge, but it has to come with features I’ve always wanted like cove lights and a yard for the kids and dog to play in, and get settled.

Your partner/boyfriend/girlfriend (if you have one): Funny, intelligent, courageous.

The person you last talked to: Brave, considerate, responsible.

The room that you are currently in: Comfortable, well-lit, homey.

The world in your perspective: Many stupid humans.

Yes/No questions...

Are you creative? Absolutely not. I like doing the logical/rational side of things... I let others take care of creative aspects, if they have to be present.

Do you like spending a sunny day outdoors? NO, unless I’m at the beach then sunny is the only way to go. Otherwise I’d rather be indoors or somewhere air-conditioned thx.

Do you get upset easily or over the littlest things? I can be. It’s usually when I’m already stressed/antsy enough, or if I’m on my period.

Do you dislike any of the people in charge of you (i.e: teachers, bosses)? I don’t particularly dislike my prof in my Rizal course but he sure teaches like he doesn’t want to be there. I just haven’t been getting the enthusiasm off of him, and that’s really important to me when it comes to being interested in my subjects. Oh but my PE coach this sem is a bitch - one time I forgot to wear the shirt color she demands us to follow and she ignored me for the entire period. Quickest way to make me feel shitty. So yeah. Probably her.

Do you like to read books/magazines/newspapers? I like books only if they’re non-fiction. I...don’t really read magazines anymore, and I kinda have to check into newspapers from time to time because I take up journalism.

Are you family-oriented? Towards my girlfriend’s family, yeah. I don’t really care about being family-oriented for my own.

Have you ever been friends with someone in the past out of sympathy? Yeah, this girl named MJ in Grade 7. She was a new-ish student then and no one was approaching her, so Gab and I tried to befriend her for a time. Didn’t really pan out that well - we just didn’t mesh - so we stopped talking not long after.

Do/did you ever get nervous around people you are/were crushing on? I still do.

Do you believe in global warming? Duh.

Are you happy with the way society/the world in general is? I’m typically pessimistic when it comes to people, so no not really. I just feel like the bad news always overweigh the good these days - and while good news can serve as rays of sunshine sometimes, I’d rather face reality than live in my own bubble and choose to be oblivious to all the shitstorms happening around me.

Do you ever question your own religion/beliefs? I did, as early as when I was 10. The Bible just didn’t make sense to me to my frustration, and I’ve always felt disgusted with my school guilt-tripping us to be good people because a man got crowned with thorns and nailed to a giant cross. I figured I can be good simply because I choose to, so I let go of my Catholic roots quickly after. Having no friends that time surely forced me to think hahahahahahaha jk 1/2

This/That...

Do you prefer today's trends/styles, or ones from the past? Both have awesome stuff, there’s no need to pick. I’m really into the mom jeans of the 90s, but I also like the yellow trend that’s been going on recently.

Being too cold or too hot? I’d rather be shivering but be comforted with a thick blanket, than sweat bullets and have absolutely no way to cool myself down.

Uploading music to your iPod, or buying CDs? Depends. I used to buy the CDs of my favorite artists then just download the other music I’m not as passionate about.

Fruits or vegitables? VEGETABLESSSSSSSSSSSS. I hate fruits.

Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate, for the most part. Vanilla tastes like nothing to me. Baseball or football? I don’t watch either and I probably won’t enjoy either either lmao, but I have a bias towards football because my girlfriend’s sisters play the sport. The mall with a bunch of little stores, or one single, big store? Malls kinda work differently here... they’re all one big building with a bunch of restaurants, clothing shops, sports shops, novelty stores, etc. Rap music or rock and roll? Not a big fan of either but I’d go with rock and roll I guess. I like some rap but none of them make me feel things, which rock can sometimes do for me. Roller skates or roller blades? I owned a pair of roller blades when I was 10 and had fun memories with it even though I never did learn how to do it properly. Horror movies that give you nightmares, or romance that makes you vomit? Horror for sure. I don’t even like romance-only movies; they have to be laced with a lot of comedy in between for me to enjoy them. Making more friends or making more money? Making more money sorry LMAOOOOOO Living it up and being stupid, or being safe and never pay the price? I’d always rather be safe. I hate getting reprimanded or caught doing something bad or being punished. Doing more of the talking, or more of the listening in a conversation? Listening, please. I don’t like having the attention on me for too long. Giving or receiving? Giving I guess? I always have a pretty good sense of what my loved ones need, and it’s always nice to see how good they feel when I give it to them. Cats or dogs? Dogs. Playing on the swingsets or the slides (as a kid)? Swings. I was traumatized by one slide when I was 6 because it was apparently blistering hot when I slid down from it, and it almost burned my butt off lmao.

Would you rather...

Bolding these because I’m lazy.

Live off of just food for 2 days, or just beverage for 2 days?

Tell a lie and be believable, or tell the truth and still be blamed?

Die at 65 with the love of your life, or live to 85 being single?

Fart and be heard from far away or fart and be smelled from far away?

Be tickled for an hour straight or be woken up by a bucket of cold water?

Have a cabel snap while bunjee jumping or have the bar go up on a coaster?

Have a deadly plague or a nuclear bomb hit your country? (Don't get ideas!) < This is a sick question to ask these days lol. I’m not answering.

Lick a frozen telephone pole or stick your hand in dry ice? Be rejected by your favorite celebrity or by someone you secretly admire? Give up your favorite food for eternity or eat a bowl of dead spiders? Make a lot of money at a job you hate or little money at a job you love? Jump off a bridge or from a moving car? < Another sick question.

Favorites...

Color(s): Pink, sky blue, off-white.

Song(s): I don’t have one at the moment. I haven’t listened to any music in a while, save for lo-fi.

Artist(s): Beyoncé if we’re talking solo, Paramore if you mean bands.

Music genre: I don’t have a favorite one; my taste is pretty scattered.

Movie: Two for the Road or Good Will Hunting

TV show: Breaking Bad, Friends, BoJack Horseman, Queer Eye

Actor and actress: Gregory Peck; Audrey Hepburn or Kristen Stewart

Movie/TV genre: Romantic comedy or drama lmao, I’m a sappy bitch. Suspense and psychological horror are also cool.

Restarant: Yabu, Mendokoro Ramenba, or Silantro

Food: Sushi

Dessert: Macarons

Hobby: Going to museums! Or reading about the history of anything.

Activity to do out of boredom: Scroll my social media feeds orrrrrr do surveys, or watch cooking videos on YouTube heh.

Type of weather: Bleak, rainy, and chilly.

Book: I don’t have a favorite.

Subject in school: History

Item that you own: My car hahahaha

Pastime: Eating out and window shopping. Maybe I’m just saying these because I haven’t been to a mall in a while :/

Site: Palawan

Tourist attraction: I’ve always wanted to go to those towers that lets you go to the top floor and the floor is just literal glass. If I’m gonna be a tourist-y tourist, that’s the first place I’d go to haha.

Random questions in your own words...

If you could have any desired superpower, what would it be?

The history nerd in me would take up time travel in an instant. And I won’t even be using it as a superpower lmao, it’d be like a research pastime for me.

What would be your dream job?

If I wasn’t such an introvert and if I were a lot better in handling crowds, I really would have wanted to be a pro wrestler.

Descibe your dream date:

Museum in the day, cute dinner at night.

What was the best day of your life like?

I don’t know if that has happened yet.

What was the worst day of your life like?

So far my worst day was when I wasn’t accepted into my school paper in high school and I spent like 18 hours crying my eyes out. I liked writing and was accepted for my portfolio, but people thought I was too shy to fit the group’s dynamic and ended up getting booted. There are quiet writers too, assholes.

If you ever have kids one day, what you you name them?

Too early for this lol I’ve only had name picked out - Olivia.

What's one thing that will bring you out of your worst mood no matter what?

My dog. FOR SURE.

Who's the most annoying person you've ever encountered?

Jem, someone from my college who thinks she’s close with me but I really do not like her at all.

If you could grow up to be like anybody, who would it be?

I don’t believe in having role models. I just want to be the best version of myself.

If you could change something about yourself, what would it be?

My mental health could be mental healthier.

What's your favorite inspirational/famous quote? I don’t depend on these either. Describe your dream ice cream sundae (unlimited toppings): Meh, I don’t like sundaes. Just scoops would be fine with me. What comes to mind first when you think of your favorite color? I have no idea why this is what I remember, but it was the day I went shopping for school supplies and got myself a pink clipboard, pink pencil case, pink expander, and pink highlighters. I think it’s because it was that day where I had to acknowledge that pink was in fact, unironically, my favorite color HAHAHA What's something in your life that you once hated but came to like? ^ The color pink. And chicken curry. What's something in your life that you once liked but came to hate? Cooked salmon. There was one phase my mom made it almost everyday and I just got sick of it. I refuse to eat salmon to this day unless it’s sashimi or in sushi. If you could stop any chaos/problem in our world today, what would it be? This fucking pandemic. 2020 CAN’T CONTINUE BECAUSE OF YOU. What would be the best way to die, in your opinion? Peacefully, in sleep, with no pain. What would be the worst way to die? Falling off a cliff (or anywhere high) and landing on a boulder EUGH I cringe at it. Also getting impaled. AND plane crashes. If you could give your room a free makeover, what would you do to it? I’d make it look spacier by moving the bed to the wall so there’s a lot of free space in the middle. I’d also add a desk, work chair, and a lamp so I can study there. If you could have an unlimited amount of anything, what would it be? The number of years my dog would live. What's one thing that you like that would probably surprise your friends? They know I like punk rock in general but I haven’t shared any of the music with them. It would definitely surprise them. Out of everything in the world, what holds the most meaning to you? Stability.

[ofthemuses]

True Detective Sentence Meme: Season One (another of my favorites, well, the first season at least.)

WARNING: Triggering content, NSFW content, religion/death/violence/sex/drugs/suicide mentioned. Lots of foul language 

Regular Quotes

I'd consider myself a realist, alright? But in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist...

Oh, just a regular type dude... with a big ass dick.

People out here, it's like they don't even know the outside world exists. Might as well be living on the fucking Moon.

It's all one ghetto man.

Stop saying shit like that. It's unprofessional.

So what's the point of getting out of bed in the morning?

I tell myself I bear witness, but the real answer is that it's obviously my programming. And I lack the constitution for suicide.

Let's make the car a place of silent reflection from now on.

Can I ask you something? You're a Christian, yeah?

I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.

Can you get pills pretty easy?

Listen, when you're at my house, I want you to chill the fuck out.

There's nothing I can do about it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but... I'm gonna have a drink.

Given how long its taken for me to reconcile my nature, I can't figure I'd forgo it on your account.

Hmm. That sounds God-fucking-awful.

Isn't that a beautiful way to go out, painlessly as a happy child?

Trouble with dying later is you've already grown up. The damage is done. It's too late.

I can be hard to live with. I don't mean to, but I can be... critical.

Sometimes I think I'm just not good for people, that it's not good for them to be around me. 

Such holy bullshit from you. It's a woman's body, ain't it? A woman's choice.

Girls walk this Earth all the time screwin' for free. Why is it you add business to the mix and boys like you can't stand the thought? I'll tell you. It's cause suddenly you don't own it the way you thought you did.

Is shitting on any moment of decency part of your job description?

Nothing man, sorry, forget it.

You got some self loathing to do this morning, that's fine, but it ain't worth losing your hands over.

What's your deal?

I don't have "a deal".

You're kinda strange, like you might be dangerous.

Of course I'm dangerous. I'm police. I can do terrible things to people with impunity.

Now what do you mean exactly... these visions you mentioned.

Shiiiiit, just what have you two heard about me?

What the hell good is cake if you can't eat it?

You know, throughout history, I bet every old man probably said the same thing. And old men die, and the world keeps spinnin'.

What do you think the average IQ of this group is, huh?

Just observation and deduction. I see a propensity for obesity. Poverty. A yen for fairy tales.

I think it's safe to say nobody here's gonna be splitting the atom.

You see that. Your fucking attitude. 

 Not everybody wants to sit alone in an empty room beating off to murder manuals.

Yeah, well if the common good's gotta make up fairy tales, then it's not good for anybody.

Well, I don't use ten dollar words as much as you, but for a guy who sees no point in existence, you sure fret about it an awful lot.

I mean, can you imagine if people didn't believe, what things they'd get up to?

Exact same thing they do now. Just out in the open.

Bullshit. It'd be a fucking freak show of murder and debauchery and you know it.

If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of shit; and I'd like to get as many of them out in the open as possible.

Well, I guess your judgment is infallible, piece-of-shit-wise.

You figure it's all a scam, huh? All them folks? They just wrong?

People incapable of guilt usually do have a good time.

Do you wonder ever if you're a bad man?

World needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.

But I think I'm all fucked up.

You don't have to fall in love at first sight, you know.

Every time I think you've hit a ceiling, you, you keep raising the bar. You're like the Michael Jordan of being a son of a bitch.

Fuuuck! Hell of a bedside manner you've got.

Ahh, you know, being stupid is different than going in sick, and this is a bar, not a fuckin' bedside.

All the dick swagger you roll, you can't spot crazy pussy?

So, enough with the self-improvement-penance-hand-wringing shit. Let's go to work.

Oh God damn it, I am so done talking to you like a man.

What the fuck you think I want with you, huh?

I'm sorry. What are you suggesting, exactly?

I will skull-fuck you, you bitch!

This is none of my business... I don't want to hear it.

Do you know the good years when you're in them, or do you just wait for them until you get ass cancer?

What always happens between men and women? Reality.

Someone once told me time is a flat circle.

The newspapers are gonna be tough on you.

No, buddy, without me... there is no you.

Yeah. Fuck this. Fuck this world.

You know, people that give me advice, I reckon they're talking to themselves.

A man's game charges a man's price. Take that away from this, if nothing else.

I'm the person least in the need of counseling in this entire fucking state.

Thought maybe we should talk.

If you get the opportunity, you should kill yourself.

Hey, man, look. Why don't you just get out of here, please? I don't want to get arrested. Just - just get... before I do something to you.

I slept with someone... And you know him/her... You're close.

Oh... Now, what-what are you saying?... What - what are you - what the fuck are you saying to me?

Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.

If you were drowning, I'd throw you a fuckin' barbell.

Why would I ever help you?

Hey. You better get those jumper cables ready, the motherfucker is lying.

Get on out of here, you're classin' the place up.

My family's been here a long, long time.

He ain't gonna talk with you.

I got a car battery and two jumper cables argue different.

A man remembers his debts.

Fuck, I don't like this place... Nothing grows in the right direction.

What happened in my head is not something that gets better.

Well you know what, I just got here; I was gonna leave, but then you woke up - Jesus, what's your fuckin' problem?

Not a care in the world.

I'm not supposed to be here.

Yeah... well, I'll come back by tomorrow, buddy.

Don't ever change, man.

Agh. Ah, fuck. Ah, he got me pretty good...

Do I strike you as a talker or a doer?

You'll rip out your fucking stitches. Stop it.

This is the place.

Everybody's got a choice, ____... Shit, I sure blamed you.

There you go... Everybody's got a choice.

It's hard to find something in a man who rejects people as much as you do, you know that?

Come die with me, little priest.

The DEEP SHIT™

I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution.

There can be a burden in authority, in vigilance, like a father's burden.

I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction - one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal. 

This place is like somebody's memory of a town, and the memory is fading.

I contemplate the moment in the garden; the idea of allowing your own crucifixion.

I don't sleep, I just dream. 

You got kids? I think of the hubris it must take, to yank a sole out of nonexistence into this meat; a force of life into this thresher.

I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.

Yeah, back then, the visions, yeah most of the time I was convinced... Shit... I'd lost it. But there were other times... I thought I was mainlining the secret truth of the universe.

I mean, it's like somethin's got your name on it, like a bullet or a nail in the road...

People... so goddamn frail they'd rather put a coin in the wishing well than buy dinner.

This... This is what I'm talking about. This is what I mean when I'm talkin' about time, and death, and futility.

They welcomed it... not at first, but... right there in the last instant. It's an unmistakable relief. See, cause they were afraid, and now they saw for the very first time how easy it was to just... let go.

All your life--you know, all your love, all your hate, all your memories, all your pain--it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room, a dream about being a person.

And like a lot of dreams, there's a monster at the end of it.

You see, we all got what I call a life trap - a gene deep certainty that things will be different...

Nothing's ever fulfilled, not until the very end. And closure - nothing is ever over.

I have seen the finale of thousands of lives, man. Young, old, each one so sure of their realness. You know that their sensory experience constituted a unique individual with purpose and meaning. So certain that they were more than biological puppet. The truth wills out, and everybody sees. Once the strings are cut, all fall down.

In eternity, where there is no time, nothing can grow. Nothing can become. Nothing changes. So Death created time to grow the things that it would kill.

And you are reborn, but into the same life that you've always been born into. I mean, how many times have we had this conversation? Well, who knows?

When you can't remember your lives, you can't change your lives, and that is the terrible and the secret fate of all life. You're trapped by that nightmare you keep waking up into.

I can see your soul at the edges of your eyes. It's corrosive, like acid. 

Sometimes... this feeling like life has slipped through your fingers... like the future is behind you, like it's always been behind you.

There's a shadow on you, son.

I saw you in my dream. You're in Carcosa now with me... He sees you... You'll do this again... Time is a flat circle.

There's no such thing as forgiveness. People just have short memories.

All my life I wanted to be nearer to God. But the only nearness - silence.

Some people, no matter where they look, they see themselves.

You see, sometimes people... mistake a child as an answer for something, you know, like a way to change their story.

Look, as sentient meat, however illusory our identities are, we craft those identities by making value judgments: everybody judges, all the time. Now, you got a problem with that... You're livin' wrong.

Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light's winning.

[thesoftsoobin]

➳ part: 3/?

➳ pairing: taehyung x yoongi

➳ genre: angst (with a happy ending), hanahaki au

➳ warnings: mention of death, non-kinky choking

➳ word count: 8.2k

Read on AO3 or below the cut.  

yoongi was letting sunflowers overtake his lungs, and taehyung had a hard enough time watching him slowly die instead of telling hoseok his true feelings. but taehyung’s own crush was getting the best of him, and life managed to complicate itself even further when he began coughing up flowers, too. and not just any flowers, either. they had to be cherry blossoms, yoongi’s favorite.

“Oh my god,” Taehyung gasped. Jeongguk unlocked the door, and the dorm swirled around Taehyung as he stumbled in after him. With his hands on his frozen cheeks, he squeezed his eyes shut and repeated, “Oh my god.”

He felt numb, partially from the cold air they just spent fifteen minutes running in, but mostly from the panic stabbing its way through him. His chest was tightening by the second, and the flowers weren’t helping any.

“Hey,” Jeongguk turned to face him, placing a hand on his arm and giving it a squeeze through his winter coat. But all Taehyung could focus on was the gym bag hanging off of Jeongguk’s shoulder. “It’s okay. We did a good thing, right? It’ll help him.”

Taehyung nodded and looked away from him, down at his own gloved hands. He tried to hold them still, but they wouldn’t stop shaking.

“Uh…Gguk?” Jimin asked. Jeongguk spun around and immediately turned sheepish.

Jeongguk and Jimin had pushed both of their beds together to make one full-sized bed, fairy lights strung around the headboard, and Jimin was sitting with his legs crossed in the middle of it. He sat up straight as soon as they burst in and was watching them closely.

“I thought you went to the dance studio on Wednesdays.”

“I do,” Jimin said. “But I had to study for the math final. It’s tomorrow, remember?”

The words of Jeongguk’s response blended together, and Taehyung’s heart was still hammering in his chest. He used the opportunity to try to even his breathing while the attention was off of him, tapping his fingers on his thigh and counting back from 20.

Everything was fine, they didn’t get caught, and he was going to help Yoongi live longer.

“Seriously, what’s going on?” he thought he heard Jimin whisper, and he opened his eyes. Jimin was tiptoeing over to them, his concerned eyes set on Taehyung before they flitted back to Jeongguk. “You stole the oxygen tank, didn’t you?”

Taehyung’s heart rate picked back up. It was that obvious?  

“No, of course not,” Jeongguk said.

“So, if I looked in that gym bag, I wouldn’t find an oxygen tank?”

“Okay, fine. Listen, babe,” Jeongguk said, and Jimin lifted his eyebrows, “you guys said doing the surgery would be a bad idea, which, you know, fair. But Tae said he was down for this, so,” he slipped his hands into his coat pockets and shrugged, “yeah, there’s a stolen oxygen tank in my bag, along with a regulator and a few cannulas.”

“Jeon Jeongguk,” Jimin said, reaching behind Taehyung to slam the door shut. The sound made Taehyung jump, and he sucked in another breath and covered his face with his hands again as if breathing into his gloves would make it easier. “You might want to stop talking so loud.”

“Park Jimin,” Jeongguk said. “You said it first.”

Their voices still sounded like faint echoes, and Jimin’s arm wrapping around Taehyung’s shoulders only made him startle again.

“I whispered it,” he said. “Also, you’re an idiot. Tae, everything’s okay. Alright? You’re safe.”

Taehyung nodded into his hands, but the panic was disrupting the cherry blossoms in his lungs, and he had to lift his head to start coughing. At the very least, the room was beginning to stop swirling as he alternated between the gasps of a panic attack and the coughs of yet another episode of his disease.

“I’ll get him water,” Jeongguk said, dropping the gym bag onto the bed before slipping out into the hallway. Jimin led Taehyung to sit down at his desk chair and gave him a garbage can to start spitting blood-stained pink petals into.

“Were you really down for it?” Jimin asked. “Or did he talk you into it like he usually does?”

“It was—” Taehyung cleared his throat, coughing once more and producing three more petals. He shook his head. “I wa-wanted to do it. I had the idea before he even brought it up.”

He sighed, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He was starting to sweat through his jacket, but he hardly had the time to talk before he started coughing again, let alone unzip and shrug off his winter coat.

“I just didn’t—I’ve never done anything like that.”

“Did an alarm go off or anything?” Taehyung shook his head. “Try not to worry, then. Everything you got can’t cost more than thirty thousand won.”

“Mm,” Taehyung mumbled with his head in the trash can. “I guess.”

He felt Jimin poke him in his shoulder, “And at least invite me next time, especially if the next step is grand theft auto.”

Taehyung lifted his head to see Jimin giving him a playful grin, the one he always used to try to make Taehyung laugh. And he tried to laugh, he really did, but it ended up sounding more like another sigh.

“I just want Yoongi—” More coughs, more petals. “I want him to be okay. Why doesn’t he get to be happy? Why don’t I—”    

And he was cut off yet again by the floral arrangement in his lungs. There was the click of the door opening and closing and Jeongguk tossed a water bottle over to Jimin, who placed it delicately on the desk beside Taehyung.

“Have you thought any more about telling him?” Jimin asked, and Taehyung couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

He understood now why Yoongi got so annoyed with him. It really was pointless to let yourself get rejected when you knew that’s what the outcome would be, and having others try to get your hopes up about it only made it worse.

Maybe resigning himself to death without doing anything about it seemed stupid or pessimistic from the outside, but if that was the only possible end to all of this, why would he even bother?

He let himself be sent into another fit of coughs, rough and tortured enough to hopefully make Jimin forget his question.

Once his lungs finally stopped seizing some 20 minutes later, he uncapped the water bottle and let the cold water burn the back of its throat on its way down. It was best he got back to his dorm before, well, before the whole theft was rendered pointless.

The thought made him choke again, and another flower petal found its way into his lap. He tried to stand but found himself falling right into Jimin, who hadn’t left his side. Jimin gripped his shoulders tightly as he staggered backward.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and Taehyung nodded with his eyes closed. Even so, he felt Jimin’s worried gaze on him. “You should stay a while and relax. We could catch up on One Piece since we’re like five seasons behind.”

“No, I…I should get going,” Taehyung opened his eyes and tried to stand up straight. “Yoongi’s been really depressed since everything with Hoseok. I don’t want to leave him much longer.”

Jimin watched him for another moment before letting out a sigh. “I’ll walk you, then.”

He bundled up in his bomber jacket and sat beside Jeongguk on their bed to pull his boots on, and Jeongguk leaned back on his hands to frown at Taehyung. “If anything happens, I’ll take the blame. We don’t want you dying in prison.”

He let out an ‘oof’ as Jimin smacked him in the chest with the back of his hand, but Taehyung cracked a small smile. “Thanks, Gguk,” he said, holding out his palm. Jeongguk glanced at it and up at Taehyung before, for the first time in a year, they did their secret handshake.

“I’ll text you when I’m on my way back,” Jimin pulled the gym bag up on his shoulder and gave Jeongguk a quick kiss on the cheek. Jeongguk leaned into it and looked up at Jimin with a soft fondness that Taehyung couldn’t help but feel bitter about. Even with his feelings for Jimin gone forever, his longing for love remained, and it was a wish that was going to die with him. “Be ready to be quizzed on statistics formulas.”

“Aye aye,” Jeongguk saluted playfully, but even he had worry in his eyes as he watched them leave.

The walk to Taehyung and Yoongi’s dorm was quiet, save for Taehyung clearing his throat every so often. It was perpetually sore at this point, but he mostly did it as an awkward way of filling the silence.

As he leaned against Jimin, arm hooked in his, he knew Jimin wanted to press the matter further. Tell Yoongi, he could hear him thinking. You never know what could happen.

But he didn’t say a word until they stopped outside of the dorm and he passed the bag to Taehyung, who bowed under its weight. Jimin brought his hands up to warm Taehyung’s cheeks, his own cheeks flushed under his fluffy white hat, and Taehyung looked down at his feet.

“You’re my best friend, Tae,” he said, and everything Taehyung knew he was thinking was behind those five words. Do something. Don’t make me miss you, was among them most of all.

The light was on when Taehyung unlocked the door to his dorm, and Yoongi was surprisingly awake. He sat up in his bed with a comic book in his lap, and his tired eyes followed Taehyung as he shook his boots off in the doorway.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked, voice hoarse. It was dark out, and the twenty minutes Taehyung was coughing up flowers may have been more like 45, now that he’s looking at the clock.

“Art studio,” he lied. “My portrait for painting and drawing is due Friday.”

He didn’t know why he said it. He was about to pull out the very oxygen tank he and Jeongguk stole and present it to Yoongi like a gift, anyway. But he looked at Yoongi, at his pale skin and dark circles, at his thin frame beneath the sheets, and he wondered if maybe he could pass it off as something they got by more honest means. He didn’t want to stress him out any more than he already was.

“Did, um,” he started, setting the bag down gently on his bed. His entire body, still weak from before, sighed in relief once the weight was lifted. “Has Hobi talked to you yet?”

“Not since I told him,” Yoongi said, and he groaned a bit as he shifted in his bed. “Joonie said Hoseok thinks if he keeps his distance, I have more of a chance of getting better.”

“Is he right?”

“Does it look like it?”

In the past couple of weeks, Yoongi had only gotten worse. He’d longed for Hoseok to break the distance and talk to him again, the sudden radio silence from his best friend keeping him awake at night. He choked up whole sunflower after whole sunflower into the trash, and his throat was too raw to eat much more than beef broth. Some days, it was a wonder how he was still alive.

Taehyung averted his eyes, and Yoongi quickly changed the subject.

“Since when do you go to the gym, Taehyungie?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s,” Taehyung glanced at the bag on the bed behind him, “it’s Jeongguk’s. He let me borrow it.”

“You’re only starting to make sense,” Yoongi said, a small playful grin on his face despite his condition, despite the entire situation at large.

Taehyung met his expectant gaze and was out of time to come up with a lie. The question about Hoseok was a way to gauge Yoongi’s mood and to see how he might react to more stress, but the difference in the way he responded to that and the way he was teasing Taehyung now only made it harder for Taehyung to think. He had no clue where else he could have gotten an oxygen tank without going to the doctor.

So, he stammered, “I got you something,” and turned around to unzip the bag. The zipper snagged, and he let out a heavy sigh, tapping his foot on the tile floor. It was stupid to break the law to get this, especially when he had no clue how to use it. Yoongi was going to think he was so stupid.

“You…got me something?”  

When Taehyung faced Yoongi again, he was sitting up at the edge of his bed and leaning forward to look. “It’s, ah, well,” Taehyung rung his hands and decided to just bite the bullet. Maybe Yoongi wouldn’t ask how he got it. He slid the tank from the bag and set it at his feet. “Since you refuse to go to the doctor.”

He had to physically force himself to look at Yoongi, and when he did, Yoongi was giving the oxygen tank a once-over with that playful grin still on his face.

“Did you steal this?”

Taehyung opened his mouth to deny it but was rendered absolutely speechless. “Wh—Why would you—”

“First of all, I know you, Taehyungie. Better than you think,” Yoongi said, and Taehyung shut his mouth. He did? “Every time we finish arguing about the doctor, you have this look on your face like you’re determined to find alternatives.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Second, I know Jeongguk,” he said. “And he tweeted ‘007 time baby, do do dodo, do do dodo,’ two hours ago. I’m just connecting the dots.”

Taehyung blinked. He should have known Jeongguk would tweet that, with the way he was singing it the entire walk to the nursing building.

“I know it was stupid, but—“ he started, just so he could say it before Yoongi.

Yoongi cut him off, though, voice still light and teasing. “You know you can buy them on Amazon, right? For like 50 thousand won.”

“What?”

“They ship empty, but if Jeongguk is friends with those nursing majors, they’d probably find a way to fill it for him.”

“Okay Detective Min,” Taehyung started to relax. Yoongi wasn’t mad or stressed; he was more resigned if anything, as if this wasn’t actually happening and was one big joke. Taehyung would have liked it to be, so he played along. “If you’re so smart, help me connect the dots on how this thing works.”

“Suddenly the sunflowers have eaten my brain matter,” Yoongi gave a wide, gummy smile this time. He fell backwards into his bed with his legs still hanging off the edge, and he let out a groan that was somewhere in between real and exaggerated.

Taehyung watched the way Yoongi’s shirt rode up and revealed just an inch of his torso, but Yoongi pulled his hand away from his face too quickly. Panicked, Taehyung took the regulator and a cannula from the bag and knelt on the ground beside the oxygen tank.

He did all he knew to do, pulling up YouTube and searching ‘how to use an oxygen tank.’ Somewhere within the course of the 6-minute video, Yoongi ended up on the floor too, hunched over with his chin in his palm, watching Taehyung try to figure it out.

“So, he says this goes--” Taehyung mumbled, sliding the regulator onto the tank. “Wait.” He leaned back over his phone and restarted the video, biting down on his bottom lip and trying to put all his focus into what he was doing and not on the way Yoongi was watching him.

“At this rate,” Yoongi said, shifting his chin into his other hand, “I’m going to die before you get it set up.”

“Don’t say that,” Taehyung breathed out, but Yoongi was laughing at him. “You know random facts about everything. Don’t you know anything about this?”

“Oh, I do,” Yoongi said. “It’s just fun watching you try to figure it out.”

Taehyung cleared his throat, his cheeks burning, and he forced a grin as he shook his head. Yoongi did end up helping him eventually, once he spent ten minutes trying to figure out how to unscrew the tank’s valve. But he mostly did it himself, and as he took the nasal cannula out of its packaging, he made a hasty decision to keep doing it all for Yoongi.

He hooked the tubing up to the tank and fumbled with it, turning it over in his hands. And there, on the tile floor of their tiny dorm room, he scooted over and reached out to put it on Yoongi.

“Ah, so if it’s--um, if it’s anything like the dramas…” he said, pulling his arms back for just a second. “I think it just…”

Yoongi’s shoulders sagged, and he let out an awkward chuckle.  “I can--I mean, you don’t have to--”

He put a light hand on Taehyung’s arm but immediately went still as Taehyung pressed the cannula into his nose. Taehyung brushed his hands over Yoongi’s cheeks and hooked the tubing over his ears, holding his breath the whole way through.

The thing was, Yoongi wasn’t the touching type. He and Taehyung had never hugged or even been this close to each other in the year and a half that they’d known each other. With each second that passed, he fully expected Yoongi to push away and finish putting it on himself.

But he didn’t. He let Taehyung touch him, and for the briefest of moments, Taehyung thought he saw a glimmer of what wasn’t there. They looked at eachother, Yoongi’s eyes heavy-lidded with exhaustion and Taehyung’s hands still on either side of his face, and he thought he saw a glimmer of hope.

But as soon as it was there, it was gone. So fast that Taehyung knew it was his own illness clouding his vision.

He pulled his hands back and jumped up before he could give himself away. He could practically feel the flowers growing in his lungs, his chest getting heavy.

“So, that should be good!” He said, his voice a pitch higher than it should be. “I hope it’s okay. The guy in the video said too much oxygen could be really bad, so I set it on one of the lower flow rates. But, uh, I don’t know. You really should see a doc—“

“It’s fine, Tae,” Yoongi said, gazing up at him from the floor. Even now, with the cannula draping his face and the sickness taking over every inch of his body, he looked so handsome. So cool, like the first day they met. “If I have to die, it’d be kind of cool to die at the hands of the thing meant to keep me alive.”

“Would you stop talking like that?” Taehyung whined. Yoongi held out his hand for him to help him up, and although he winced the entire time it took him to stand, he still chuckled.

“I’m just joking.”

“Well, it’s not funny.”

Yoongi’s smile fell and what looked like confusion overcame his features. He started to pout, and they met eyes, his searching Taehyung’s for some reason. Taehyung could feel him getting ready to ask why it upset him so damn much, and he instantly thought of what Jimin said.

He could easily lean in and kiss Yoongi right then, explain all of the times he had seemingly overreacted or cared far too much. He could take his chances before it was too late, and see if the odds of Yoongi reciprocating before he inevitably died were in his favor.

He just had to work up the nerve.

Before he could make any decision at all, though, Yoongi’s features softened. He shifted his weight and cleared his throat, wincing again. “Agh, sorry,” he mumbled, scratching the back of his head. “Hey, um...you don’t usually go home for winter break, do you?”

Taehyung snapped himself back to reality. “No,” he said. His family had stopped celebrating Christmas after his grandma died, and his parents started taking a long vacation during the holidays when he went to college. “No, I stay here. It’s kind of nice.”

Yoongi glanced down at the oxygen tank and then back up at Taehyung, taking a deep breath. It sent him into another fit of coughs before he could speak again.

“Would you, ah,” he started, voice rough now, “would you mind coming home with me? To Daegu?”

“Oh,” Taehyung let out involuntarily, taking a step back. He was so distracted by his thoughts, he didn’t even consider where Yoongi was going with that.

“It’s just that, well,” Yoongi sighed before he began to stammer, “I have to tell my parents, and it’s stressing me out. Joonie usually stays here too, but he’s going home with Seokjin this year, since they’re apparently dating now. And I’m not even sure I can make it to the train station by myself, if I’m being honest.”

“They’re dating?” Taehyung asked. He could have seen that outcome to Namjoon and Jin’s 7-year-long friendship from a mile away. When he first met them, he thought they were already dating. The question was only to give him more time to process Yoongi’s request.

Jimin asked him to come home with him for Christmas a few days ago, just like he did last year. And just like last year, Taehyung insisted that he’d be fine on campus by himself. He didn’t want to impose, and he needed time alone to process everything that was happening.

But this was...this was Yoongi. And the last time he declined the offer from the person he was growing flowers for, Jimin came back to their dorm with the news that he had a crush on Jeongguk. That they spent the entirety of winter break texting and he thought Jeongguk might have been flirting with him and Wasn’t he just so cute, Taehyungie? He shouldn’t make that mistake again, no matter how slim his chances are.

“Yeah. Namjoon coughed up like two daisy petals before Jin hyung found out and kissed him or whatever,” Yoongi said, and he laughed humorlessly to himself. “I guess I’m the one who drew the short straw in this friend group.”

His weak smile fell again, quickly, before Taehyung could even say anything.

“Well, I guess you did too...with Jimin and everything,” Yoongi shifted again. He plopped down onto his bed and shook his head. “You have a second chance though, you know? A guy in your one of your art classes or something. I’m happy that you get that at least.”

“Hyung…” Taehyung started. This was his opening, as clear as day, to just say it and see what happened. It couldn’t be any worse than what was bound to happen anyway.

Hyung, you are my second chance.

But he couldn’t get himself to speak, not before Yoongi continued, and the opening that was there disappeared in an instant.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” Yoongi said. “I know. I’m being depressing again. Uh...so, will you? Come to Daegu with me?”

Taehyung took a breath, shaking the possibilities out of his mind, and he felt the petals of another cherry blossom creeping their way up his throat.

His own interests aside, this was the only time throughout this whole thing that Yoongi had asked anything of him. He’d been so stubborn, so himself, and now here he was stumbling over his words, asking Taehyung for the support he’d already been trying to give him. So what was he supposed to do, say no?

“Of course, Yoongi hyung,” Taehyung choked out. There was a petal in his mouth now, accompanied by the metallic taste of blood, and he bit down and tried to swallow it back down. “Anything you need. Of course I will.”

“Thanks, Taehyung-ah.”

Taehyung gave a curt nod and side-stepped toward the door. His chest was getting more and more congested, and if he waited any longer, he’d cough a flower up onto Yoongi’s feet.

“I have to pee,” he said. “I’ll, uh, I’ll be right back.”

-

For the rest of finals week, Yoongi continued to crack jokes from his bed, some hilarious but most of them tasteless, while Taehyung studied or worked on projects. Despite being too out of it to take any of his own exams, Yoongi kept a brave face.

The vulnerability that made itself known on his face when asking about Daegu didn’t show up again until the day they were supposed to leave.

Yoongi tapped his foot on their dorm floor, his suitcase and oxygen tank on either side of him. “I have to sit down,” he said, taking a few steps to fall onto his mattress. His breathing was loud and heavy as the oxygen flowed through the cannula.

He spent all of his limited energy on making his bed, protesting every time Taehyung offered to do it for him, and spent a whole twenty minutes straightening his comforter. Now that the guys were on their way over, he could barely stand.

“Are you okay?”

“It’s--I’m fine,” Yoongi waved him off, but he was struggling to catch his breath. “Everyone is--” he swallowed, before letting out a few dry coughs. “Everyone is still coming over?”

“Yeah.”

“And you didn’t tell them I’m practically on my deathbed, right? Namjoonie is the only one who knows?”

Taehyung hesitated. “Yes, but hyung, I think it’s pretty obvio--”

“This is going to be like any other goodbye before break, okay?” Yoongi said, voice rising. It was still quiet, his throat too destroyed to even speak normally, but he was getting as loud as he could. “I’m not attending my own fucking funeral, Tae.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung nodded and pulled out his phone. “I said, and I quote. ‘Me and Yoongi hyung are leaving for Daegu soon, please come by the dorm if you can! We want to see all your pretty faces before break.’ And everyone said they’d be on their way soon like a half hour ago.”

Well, everyone except Hoseok. But Taehyung wasn’t going to say it unless Yoongi asked.

While he had his phone out, Taehyung opened up his group chat with Jeongguk and Jimin.

From: Taehyung

In: two soulmates and their child

Sent: 14:34, Dec. 13

please please please please act like you don’t know Yoongi hyung is dying please I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone

He never got a reply, and a light tapping on their dorm door less than a minute later told him exactly why. His eyes fluttered closed as he pulled it open. Great. He was going to upset Yoongi even more.

“Hyung-ah!” Jimin’s voice rang through their room as he bounced inside, Jeongguk trailing in after him.

“Jiminie,” Yoongi pressed his lips into a smile, and Taehyung could tell he was trying not to wince. “How did your finals go?”

“Good, good,” Jimin said. “I think I failed statistics, but that’s for future Jimin to worry about. Did your Ethics exam go okay?”

Jimin sat down beside Yoongi, and when he and Taehyung met eyes, Taehyung was able to let out a breath of relief. He read his text after all.

“I, uh, I think I failed that too,” Yoongi lied, chuckling lowly. “But who needs ethics? Everyone knows anarchy would be superior.”  

“That’s a debate we’ll save for another time, hyung,” Jimin patted Yoongi’s leg, and damn, he was good at this. He paid no mind to the oxygen tank on the floor or the tubing snaking its way up and around Yoongi’s face. As far as he was concerned, it wasn’t there.

Jeongguk, however, was the complete opposite. He pushed his long hair out of his face to reveal bloodshot eyes, hopefully only to Taehyung. His gaze kept flitting to the oxygen tank he stole, and he wasn’t saying a word.

“Gguk,” Taehyung said, and it only served to startle him.

“Huh?”

“Did Namjoon hyung tell you if they were--”

Another knock at their door cut him off before he could finish his question, this one heavy and rhythmic. Taehyung opened it again, hoping Hoseok was accompanying them, but it was just Jin and Namjoon in their winter coats.

Yoongi seemed to have been thinking the same thing, face brightening at the knocking only to darken when he counted two instead of three.

“Is Hobi coming?” he asked, which to be fair, would have been a normal question a few months ago.

“He, uh,” Namjoon was in the middle of taking his coat off, and he looked to Seokjin for help, eyes wide.

“He had to say goodbye to...someone else first,” Jin supplied, and Taehyung could see him squeeze Namjoon’s arm from behind. “But he should be here soon.”

The hush that fell over the room was proof enough that everyone knew what Yoongi desperately didn’t want them to, and they knew enough to guess what it all meant. Hoseok had stopped growing cherry blossoms, while sunflowers continued to take over Yoongi’s lungs.

Namjoon took his phone out and sent a text, hopefully to Hoseok.

“I can’t believe you got Taehyung-ah to come home with you for Christmas!” Jimin was the first to break the silence. “He always tells me he’d rather stay here. Alone. Instead of coming with me. It’s so annoying.”

Yoongi shook off whatever thoughts he had running through his head, and he looked at Taehyung. His expression turned foolish, the way it had been all week every time he’d tease him.

“Yeah, I had to practically beg him,” he said. “He’s so stubborn.”

“What are you talking about?” Taehyung whined. “I said yes right away.”

“Oh,” Jimin leaned back, mocking disdain. “So you’ll say yes right away to him but not me, your platonic soulmate? Okay.”

“I thought I was your platonic soulmate,” Yoongi said, despite Jimin never having said that to him in his life.

“You know what, Yoongi?” Jimin said. “At this point, you just might be.”

“As long as the word platonic is in front of it, I’m cool with whoever,” Jeongguk added despite the frown he was still wearing.

“You guys are so mean.”

Everything started to fall back into normalcy, or at least as normal as it could get with everyone but Hoseok there and the hint of death lingering over them like a shadow.

Jin ended up beside Yoongi, telling him about some American recipe he found on Naver the day before, and how Yoongi will ‘have to help him make it when they get back from break.’ Meanwhile, Namjoon was showing Taehyung photos from a Surrealist art exhibit he went to for his Humanities class and expressively telling him the stories behind each painting and its artist.

Every so often, Yoongi would butt in to say Namjoon was ruining the post-finals vibe with his academic art history talk, which made it easier for Taehyung to focus on Namjoon’s words. If Yoongi was still teasing, that meant he wasn’t folding into himself, and Taehyung didn’t have to keep checking on him.

Jeongguk had his face buried in Jimin’s shoulder, leaning forward so much that they both wavered and stumbled around. Taehyung could hear him sniffling and mumbling sad words, but every third sentence, he’d lift his head and kiss Jimin’s neck or jaw. Jimin was rubbing Jeongguk’s back under his shirt, and to the untrained eye, it would appear to be the same type of PDA they always did when Jeongguk was stressed about grades or petty family drama.

It was normal. As normal as it could be. Until there was another knock at the door.

Hoseok was flushed, with swollen cherry-red lips and a fleece headband over his ears. Yoongi instantly brightened upon seeing him, as though all of his energy was replenished by the mere sight, and Taehyung realized he didn’t stand a chance.

“Sorry I’m so late,” he said, pulling his headband off as he took a step through the door. He managed to look everywhere but Yoongi, from Jimin and Jeongguk’s connected bodies, to Namjoon’s phone, to Taehyung’s heavily rising and falling chest.

“You’re here!” Jimin exclaimed, still playing the nothing-is-wrong part well. He was now hanging off of Jeongguk, who kept his hair in his face and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

But the greeting came a moment too late, just as Hoseok let himself look at Yoongi. He took everything in, seeing what Taehyung saw every day for the first time, and it was like something shattered in him. All brightness left him upon seeing the oxygen tank and Yoongi’s frail body slumped over.

“Hobi,” Yoongi whispered, starting to cough, “I’m--Thanks for--”

“You told me you thought he was getting better,” Hoseok broke his distraught gaze to snap at Namjoon. The thin cloak of normalcy was now gone. “What the hell, Joon-ah? He’s fucking dying.”

“I’m right here,” Yoongi bit out. “I told him to say that. I didn’t want you to--I didn’t want you to w--”

His coughing became more violent, and Hoseok took a step back. As Hoseok’s eyes filled with tears, Yoongi spit out three yellow petals onto his bedspread.

“I-I can’t,” Hoseok took another step back, widened eyes set on the petals. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”

The coughs turned into choking, and Hoseok escaped out the door. With four boys rushing to help Yoongi, Taehyung took after him. He was quick, nearly out of Taehyung’s sight already, and it wasn’t until they reached the stairwell that Taehyung caught up to him.

“What are you doing?” he asked. Their footsteps echoed over the walls as he took two steps at a time to keep up.

“My best friend is dying because of me, Taehyung,” Hoseok finally stopped when they reached the ground floor. “I can’t just watch that happen and pretend like it’s not my fault, or-or like it’s not happening. He’s dying because of me.”

“So you’re just going to leave?” he asked. “You’re just going to keep avoiding him like a coward? Like you’ve been doing for the last week and a half, and let him die without doing anything?”

“What am I supposed to do?” Hoseok asked. “If I could force myself to see him that way, I would. He’s like a brother to me, and I’d do anything for him, but there’s nothing I can do to stop any of this. I can’t handle it.”

A group of girls came cascading down the stairs, talking loudly amongst themselves in their peacoats and earmuffs. Taehyung was getting so frustrated that he hardly noticed the odd looks they gave him as he side-stepped out of their way.

“So you pretend,” Taehyung desperately spat out. “The disease thrives off of your perception. If he thought you loved him like that, it would at least slow the growth, wouldn’t it? You have to do something.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Taehyung, and you know it.”

“You could at least try.”

“I can’t lie to him, and as soon as he realized the flowers weren’t clearing up, he’d know it wasn’t real.” Everything he said made sense, but Taehyung couldn’t help but see it as one excuse after the other. “It would just hurt him more. And besides, I...I’m dating Jackson now.”

Taehyung clenched his fists, and red hot anger started swelling in his gut. His head was spinning.

He had a million feelings: anger toward Hoseok, love for Yoongi, worry for Yoongi, and fear for his own life. Usually, they all swirled around inside of him and he couldn’t pick one out to focus on if he tried.

But now, he threw himself into his anger. It was the one thing that his love and worry and fear came together to be, so he raised his voice and used it as a catharsis.  

“Jackson? Like Jackson Wang?” he asked. “So you’ve been right across the hall this whole time? All week? While he was dying behind our door and waiting for you to text him back.”

Hoseok pulled his head back, eyebrows coming together.

“He could have heard you! He probably did!” The back of Taehyung’s throat began to tickle, but he went on, unable to stop himself. “No wonder he’s been getting so much worse. You care more about getting laid than doing anything to help him.”

“Wh--no, Taehyung. No, I wouldn’t do that.”

Taehyung crossed his arms and his breathing started to get heavier as he seethed. “Well, I wouldn’t put it past you at this point.”

“What the hell is your problem?” Hoseok asked. “I know you and him are close, but I’m your friend too, and you’re doing nothing but make me feel worse for something completely out of my control.”

Hoseok’s question and the flower petals coming up Taehyung’s throat brought him back down to Earth. He covered his mouth with his arm and tried to hold back, but he started coughing before he got the chance to give Hoseok an excuse for his outburst. And while he turned away from Hobi, so many petals spilled into his hands that he couldn’t possibly hide them.

“Wait,” Hoseok said with caution while Taehyung gagged. “Tae, do you…”

Taehyung shook his head and pushed past him into the dorm lobby to find a trash can. Multiple petals fell out of his cupped hands and onto the carpet behind him, and Hoseok trailed after him.

If he could breathe, he’d be panicking about someone that wasn’t Jimin or Jeongguk knowing about this. But all he could focus on was getting all of the petals out of his lungs before he fainted.

Luckily, or unluckily depending on how he looked at it, he’d already spit up flowers just a few hours earlier. Most of what he had left in him came up in the first few coughs, and he was standing up straight with a clear esophagus in mere minutes.

“Taehyung-ah, were those cherry blossoms?” Hoseok asked. When Taehyung didn’t answer, trying to catch his breath with his eyes squeezed shut, Hoseok reworded his question. “Taehyung-ah, are you...are you in love with Yoongi hyung?”

Taehyung opened his eyes, a blush surely dusting his cheeks and his stomach turning. His secret was exposed, and it was going to be passed along to Namjoon and Seokjin, and eventually to Yoongi himself. He felt like he may actually throw up.

“Just leave it, hyung,” his voice cracked as he muttered. He tried to push past Hoseok again to get back to the stairwell, but he stumbled and Hoseok grabbed his arm. Against his wishes, Taehyung’s eyes welled up with tears.

“Tae, I’m really sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Taehyung said. He pulled his arm from Hoseok’s grip, but lost his balance again and Hoseok placed his hands on either of Taehyung’s shoulders to steady him. “You can’t do anything to stop any of this, remember? So just go invite Jackson to your apartment or whatever you’ve been doing.”

He finally successfully removed himself and took sweeping steps toward the stairs, but Hoseok stayed on his tail.

“I stopped talking to Yoongi because I thought it was the only way to fix it,” Hoseok said. “I thought not seeing me or hearing from me would, I don’t know, help him get over me.”

Taehyung’s feet dragged with each step he took, throat burning from the strain of coughing up petals and holding back his tears, and he squeezed his hand around the railing to start climbing the stairs.

“Ghosting my best friend was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. You have to understand.”

Taehyung sighed, stopping with one foot on the first step. He needed someone to blame, but he knew, even still, that none of this was really Hoseok’s fault. That if put in the same position, he’d probably do the same.

So he turned halfway to face him and said, “So talk to him.”

When they returned to the dorm after Hoseok’s reluctant agreement, the pre-break farewell had turned into exactly what Yoongi didn’t want it to be. The room was overwhelmed with a depressing aroma cocktail of pungent blood, sweet sunflowers, and the stale heat coming from their radiator, and Yoongi lay in his bed with everyone surrounding him.

Jin was propping up his head with another pillow, while Namjoon held his hand and begged him in a high-pitched whisper to make it back for spring semester so that they could write that song they always talked about.

“No shit, Joonie,” Yoongi rasped. “You think I’d die before we wrote the biggest rap song in Korea?”

Jeongguk was completely open with his crying now, and Jimin being the sympathy cryer that he was, was right alongside him. Namjoon forced out a laugh, and his eyes were welling up too.

“Right,” he said. “That was the goal, wasn’t it?”

“You could do it without me, though,” Yoongi said. “I hope--I hope you know that.”

“Don’t say that,” Namjoon said, and tears started to streak his face. “Please.”

Taehyung stayed in the doorway with Hoseok, who watched the whole scene with a faraway expression. He crossed his arms over his chest, shoulders tense, and looked like he was ready to bolt again any second.

“Stop crying,” Yoongi whined at him, then glanced between Jimin and Jeongguk. “All of you. You’ll all be fine...you’ll all be fine.”

“Hyung--” Jeongguk started, but Yoongi cut him off.

“Don’t you all have trains to catch? Have you finished packing?” he asked, clearing his throat. “Hyung will be--I’ll be back, okay? So stop crying unless you want to look--look foolish in January.”

Seokjin frowned and put a hand on Namjoon’s shoulder. “We do need to get going, Joon-ah. My parents are meeting us at the station.”

“Right. Um, right.” Namjoon said, and he gave Yoongi’s hand a squeeze, using his free arm to wipe under his nose. “I’ll see you in January, then?”

“Of course.”

But he, Namjoon, and everyone else knew that wasn’t true.

Seokjin ruffled Yoongi’s hair, and at least he still groaned like always. “Have a good Christmas, Yoongi.”

“Nnnh, yeah, you too.”

On their way out the door, Namjoon took slow steps, and Seokjin stopped in front of Taehyung. “Will you let us know when you guys get to Daegu?”

“Sure,” Taehyung said, but Yoongi groaned again.

“I’ll let you know,” he said. “My fingers still work.”

“Okay, Yoon-ah,” Jin laughed, staring down at his feet. “Have a safe trip, then.”

Jeongguk and Jimin were saying goodbye shortly after, Jimin mumbling something about still having to pack and Jeongguk nodding solemnly in agreement.

“Hyung,” Jeongguk said, pulling an Iron Man comic book from the shelf over Yoongi’s desk. “Can I take this to Busan to read over break?”

“Anything you want, Gguk,” Yoongi said, which only made Jeongguk start sniffling again. He nodded, shoving the book inside his coat to protect it from the snow.

Taehyung didn’t know what he would have done had this been the last time he was going to see Yoongi. There was comfort, at least, in the knowledge that he got him all to himself for a month, and he wouldn’t have to say his goodbyes for a while.

And any thought of how painful that would be was pushed from his mind.

Jimin crawled onto the bed and gave Yoongi the gentlest of hugs, as though worried he might break him. “I love you, hyung-ah.”

Yoongi hesitated. He was never a fan of displays of affection, much less such an open one. But his face softened as he looked at Jimin, and he pulled his lips into a tiny smile.

“Love you too, Jiminie,” he said. “Try not to eat so much at the buffet this year. I don’t need to see another selfie of you and your food baby.”

It made Jimin giggle as he stood back up, blotchy face brightening. “Well, I need more pictures of Holly. So do try to cuddle him as much as last year.”

“I don’t know,” Yoongi’s rough voice teased. “I’ll have Taehyung to cuddle this year.”

Taehyung’s stomach plummeted, and immediately he felt Jimin and Hoseok’s eyes on him. Jimin laughed it off, his eyebrows coming together in some kind of concern that Taehyung could only begin to unravel.

It may have been easier to understand if his brain wasn’t now stuck on the thoughts of spooning Yoongi, their legs intertwined under the thick comforter of his bed that he’d only seen in photos up until this point.

“Photos of Taehyung are good too,” Jimin said.

As he and Jeongguk left, Jimin stopped in front of Taehyung just as Seokjin had. But instead of asking to be informed of when they got to Daegu, he took Taehyung’s face in his hands and gave him a kiss on his forehead.

“You’re my best friend,” he repeated his words from the other day.

“I know,” Taehyung said, and again he knew what Jimin was asking of him. He was going to have to tell Yoongi how he felt before break ended. Even though it was so obviously pointless, he’d try to have hope for Jimin’s sake. “You’re my best friend, too.”

And then it was just Yoongi, Taehyung, and Hoseok. Taehyung shut the door before Hoseok could bolt again, and Yoongi did his best to sit up. He seemed to jump at the sight of Hoseok in front of him, too caught up in everyone’s goodbyes to have seen him return.

“Oh,” he said. “You--you came back.”

Hoseok nodded, gesturing to the spot beside Yoongi. “Can I?”

“Sure,” Yoongi said. “I won’t die just from sitting near you.”

“Oh, um,” Hoseok said, and he left a few inches between him and Yoongi when he sat, “I know.”

Yoongi looked at him, watching his expression change from discomfort to grief to a mix of the two, and he looked as though he was fighting the urge to reach out and touch him. He clasped his hands in his lap and broke his gaze to stare down at them.

Taehyung knew that he should leave them alone, but Yoongi could start choking again any second, and he knew Hoseok would panic again. He had to be there, just in case. So he resigned himself to being a fly on the wall, to letting himself see this and get hurt.

“Sorry,” Yoongi sighed. “I think I’m using humor as a coping mechanism, but most of what I say is just stupid. I’ve...I’ve missed you, Hobi.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Hoseok said, mostly to the ground. “You must hate me.”

“Are you kidding?” Yoongi said. “The whole reason this is happening is because I’m in fucking love with you. I love you, Jung Hoseok, and if that’s going to kill me, then so fucking be it.”

Taehyung took a step back and thanked his lucky stars that he just coughed up what was in his lungs.

Hoseok finally met Yoongi’s eyes. “I wish I could--”

“So you don’t love me,” Yoongi said. “I wouldn’t either.”

Taehyung and Hoseok both frowned in time with each other.

“I do love you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Hyung, I’m sorry,” Hoseok’s voice broke, and tears spilled from his eyes like a dam suddenly burst.

From that point on, that was all he knew how to say.

“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling Yoongi into a tight hug that looked like it could break him. “I’m so, so sorry.”