#I’m v busy and at this point have zero time to draw for myself so might as well share scrappy old stuff

[nutmargaret]

hello everynyan

[ddaenggtan]

forever rain | knj | m

Being dead isn't anything exciting. Just a lot of walking the same halls of the same apartment day after day after day. Things change when the new tennant arrives, though. Kim Namjoon isn't anything you could have expected; not the way he's so careful and gentle with his plants because he breaks so many other things, not the way his friends joke that he's psychic because you refuse to let him get in the face one time, and certainly not the way he comes home after literal months spent moving things away from table edges for him and announces that he knows he's being haunted and he has some questions for you. You didn't know ghosts could fall in love, but he makes you feel alive again, like you're standing in the rain while thunder crashes around you. You should've known nothing good would come of falling in love with someone living, though. You should've known that heartbreak was the only way this could end...that the rain doesn't last forever. 

part of the Love Yourself Collab, please please please go check out the other fics. Everyone involved is so freaking talented and I have been vibrating out of my skin with how excited I’ve been to read all of these. 

pairing | kim namjoon x reader (unspecified gender, even!)

word count | 18.8k | cross posted to ao3

genre/warnings | ghost!reader, slight fluff, hard angst, literally the most angst ever it gets fluffy for a bit but litERALLY this is an angst fic, major character death, unprotected sex (idk what the etiquette for ghost sex is but you should still wrap it before you tap it fam), depictions of terminal illness (v mild), mentions of blood (several, but not graphic), major character death, allusions to violence, namjoon is a klutz whats new, depictions of terminal illness, major character death, i added that tag three times pls dont read this if you aren’t comf with mcd bc i literally tagged it three times so y’all would definitely see it, also probably have some tissues ready bc i cried while writing it so 

a/n | this is, to date, the saddest thing i have ever written in my entire fucking life. formal apologies to this joon bc oh my god you poor soul. i’m not kidding when i say you might cry, because i’m a big baby wuss and cried while writing the fucking outline when i first decided to write this for the collab so like......rip my own heart. i was really honored when i was approached about the LYA collab, bc like,,,,,mE? WHAT? and i was really nervous because i’ve never been part of any collabs in any fandom ever, and to have to do something like forever rain and mono as a whole justice, like,,,,,,, *screaming* y’know?? so i went on mono lockdown and just had the whole thing on repeat and was like “alright. what emotions does this make me feel.” and i eventually settled on the loneliness and isolation that he expresses, and feeling like no one understands what you’re going through, but that ultimately the album as a whole and forever rain give off this feeling of like. things get better, you’re not as alone as you feel, and you just gotta get through the bad stuff to find the good stuff. basically i just got really in my feels about it and was like ‘lets make myself cry ahahaha’ and,,,i dID i cried several times while planning and writing and editing bc im a Soft Bitch and don’t read much angst for that exact reason lmao. so buckle tf up y’all, this a helluva ride!! 

Of all the things you'd heard about death, all the different possibilities that existed in the world, the one thing you hadn't been prepared for was the boredom. You hadn't been prepared for any of it, really, too surprised by your own demise to plan at all, but even if you'd been able to, you don't think that this is what you would've counted on. An eternity - or however long ghosts existed - of being stuck in the same studio apartment you'd lived in when you died. The same walls, the same floor, the same view out the only window of the alley beside the building. It's boring and lonely and boring.

You've found more creative ways to entertain yourself as time passes. First, you started by figuring out just what being a ghost meant. You can't really communicate with anyone, haven't figured out how to make sure everything you say is heard, but you can manipulate objects pretty easily these days. The most difficult thing is becoming fully corporeal - completely visible and able to interact with things at the same time. It's hard enough to be visible, and you aren't really sure what the point of it would be when it would just scare whoever's living in your apartment; that's the last thing you want to do, run them off when they're the best source of amusement you've found.

You won't lie, you were a little offended when the first tenants moved in after you. It was difficult to watch your things get packed up and moved out by your friends, hard to lose all of the little things you loved in your apartment, like the shitty bead curtain you'd gotten as a gag gift or the photo collage of all of your loved ones. It's frustrating to not know how they're all doing these days; the one time you got brave enough to fuck with a laptop to check on them, you nearly broke the thing, and you haven't tried since. Still, it seemed cathartic for them to clear out your apartment, and it was a bittersweet sight, but you tried to focus on the positive side of it.

And then the couple moved in.

Not only did they fuck like rabbits - which is something you're going to stay pissed about, because there's no satisfaction to be had by you anymore, and it's the one thing you can think of that would be endlessly entertaining - but the couple was also grossly obnoxious. They had zero respect for your apartment , or you, and while one could argue that they didn't actually know you were there, it still made the sting of losing your entire life that much worse. You spent you don't know how many nights hovering awkwardly in the bathroom while they fucked, would constantly wander in to see them going at it on the kitchen counter at ass o'clock in the morning, and once you came in to see them tossing actual literal eggs at the ceiling like the absolute fucking weirdos they were.

So, naturally, you got a little mad. How dare they treat your apartment like that? They had no respect, but they were going to learn it real quick if they were going to live there with you, whether they wanted to or not.

They didn't last long after the first night of slamming cabinets and squealing hinges, but the thrown picture frame of their family was the conclusive end to their stay.

There have been others, since then. They haven't all been terrible, not like that first couple, but most of them have been sub-par roommates, and if you decided early on that if the rest of your immortal life is going to be locked in one shitty apartment with the absolute worst view in the city - because no one wants to see the drunken hookups and potential body dumps that take place in that alley - then you're at least going to share said apartment with someone nice to exist with.

You release a heavy sigh, staring at where your hand disappears through the shower wall. You've taken to testing the boundaries of the apartment again; you already know what the result will be, learned in the first few hours that you're stuck here, but you can't help trying when you get really bored. You just got distracted fucking around with the pipes in the meantime, because you're literally too bored to even focus. It's part of why you miss the last tenants so much, because you weren't ever really bored with them around.

A single mother and her two kids, crammed into a much-too-small apartment because it was all they could afford, and they were the light of your un-life. One a budding teenager that wrote angsty poetry who loved your trick of making things float around, and one an adorable toddler who adored playing peekaboo with you and coloring, and a mom that was too busy to notice anything out of the ordinary. It was like having a family again, made you feel useful when you could pull the meat out of the freezer for her to make dinner with or scratch a quick 'do your homework' on a steamy bathroom mirror. It was fun and it made being dead that much more bearable.

You really should've known that letting the toddler draw the two of you would be a bad idea, especially since there were several artistic liberties taken. It's not your fault the kid thought you'd look cool with fangs and bloody holes instead of eyes and claws that reached the floor. It was art, it was supposed to be a little different from reality. Still, you can't blame her for seeing the picture of her kid and 'my new best friend' and immediately calling the landlord. And a priest.

So, perhaps you gave the apartment a bit of a reputation. Maybe it's been a couple of months since the mom moved out and took your two buds with her. There might be the possibility that you've been the slightest bit salty about losing your friends and you've been extra-ghost-y whenever someone comes by to view the place in an attempt to make yourself feel a little better. Can you really be blamed for that? You just want a decent damn roommate for your life after death, and if that means putting the potentials through a little bit of a test, then so be it. You only feel a little bit bad for the landlord.

The creak of the front door pulls you from your thoughts, and the echo of a voice makes you narrow your eyes. Your first instinct is to slam some windows to scare off whoever's in your apartment, but you repress the urge. You'd die of boredom if you could die again, and whoever this is could provide a few hours' entertainment at the least.

You pop your head through the bathroom wall to see what's going on, and wow , who let an actual giant into your apartment? Fucking with the pipes could definitely wait for this guy.

"I know it's last minute, yeah," He says into the phone that's held carefully between his cheek and shoulder. His arms are loaded down with boxes and he's angled away from you just enough that you can't see his face, but he's tall and broad and wearing what looks like the world's comfiest sweater, and you want to badly to wrap yourself up in him. "But you know Joon needs the help. Don't pretend you aren't constantly willing to put off your thesis, I know for a fact that you went out to look at stationery with Tae last week, and everyone knows that's the most boring thing on the planet."

He's quiet, listening to the soft crackle of a voice from the other end. You slide through the wall completely, hovering as close as you dare to try and hear what the other person is saying. Tall, Broad, and Comfy scoffs.

"He can stare at one sheet of paper for at least ten minutes, Yoongi. Do I need to remind you of the time he spent an entire fucking hour debating which set of holiday scrapbook to buy because, and I quote, 'this one has the really nice rose pattern on it that would look great with the invitations, but, oh, look at the pinstripes in this one!'" His voice morphs into what you guess is an approximation of whoever Tae is, and you laugh at the high-pitched, nasally tone.

Tall and Broad spins, eyes narrowing as he looks around the room, and fuck , he's literally gorgeous. You've never seen someone more attractive in your life or your death and it would probably knock the wind out of you if you actually had breath. Comfy McGorgeous turns back around and sets the stack of boxes in the corner, continuing his tirade about Tae and stationery while simultaneously trying to talk Yoongi into coming, you assume, to help Joon move. You don't know who any of these people are, but they're already proving to be the most entertaining bunch that's ever graced these walls.

The door to your apartment flies open, making both you and Boyfriend Material whip your head around.

"Christ, Jin, you couldn't hold the fucking door open for us?" Someone grunts. Beauty Von Softness - or, Jin, as you should probably refer to him - winces and strides over to do just that as two more guys stagger in with a couch suspended between them. The second they're in the door they drop it to the ground and flop onto it, panting and sweaty.

"Listen, I was busy trying to get our resident hermit out of his cave to help us carry some of this shit," Jin spits back. "And you all know what it's like getting him out and about."

"Did you tell him that there's pizza after we're done? Because I've found that food is the best motivator for him," the guy closest to the door says. His hair is soft-looking and long and you wish you could pet it.

The other guy, the one who cursed Jin out and has the softest pink hair you've ever seen, laughs. "Jeongguk, you always think the best motivator is food."

"Well, yeah, because it is."

"For you, maybe. Other people require actual rewards."

"But food is a reward," Jeongguk mutters into the fabric of the couch. Jin tsks and smacks As Yet Unnamed on the back of the head.

"You're lucky I hung up on him when you bombarded your way into this place, or he'd definitely not come help us," Jin says as he leans against the back of the couch.

Unnamed starts to say something else but is cut off by someone running straight into the end of the couch. They all shoot to their feet, spouting apologies as the three of them maneuver the couch into the apartment properly.

"Sorry, sorry, Jimin distracted us from properly finishing our job," Jeongguk says quickly. He looks to the stranger with a small apologetic smile, and you're pretty sure if it were humanly possible, there would be actual literal stars in his eyes.

"Oh, it's okay, Jeonggukkie. I should've been looking where I was going." New Challenger walks straight towards where you stand, and you realize seconds before it's too late that he is not aware there is a massive stack of boxes in his path. Instinctively, you shove them to the side with your foot. Tall And Oblivious sets his boxes down without any trouble, none the wiser about any of it, and the three near the couch are too busy bickering in hushed whispers to have noticed you doing anything.

The newcomer straightens and turns to look at them all with a bright smile, and you think you might actually see The Light in the way his cheeks dimple. If you thought the other three were beautiful - which they are, no doubt about that, you're seriously wondering why the hell a bunch of supermodels are moving stuff into your apartment - then this guy is easily an Actual Fucking God or something. His brown hair is soft and shiny, his smile is warmer than the sun, and you're fairly positive that for the first time since you died, you feel goosebumps along your arms.

"Seriously, Namjoon, we should've realized you'd be up soon. You stay, start unpacking while we go get the rest of the furniture." Jimin shoves Jeongguk out the door while he's speaking, ignoring the taller's complaints, and Jin just shakes his head at the sight.

"Yoongi'll be here soon, he's finishing up another draft of his thesis. Hobi and Tae are stopping to get the pizzas and then they'll be here, too." Jin's voice is calmer than it was Jimin and Jeongguk, more soothing, and it makes you curious. Not only because of the tone change, but because you know Hobi, he owns the building and is the one who rented you the apartment when you first moved in. One of your favorite things to do is scare him when he comes by to make sure everything’s ready for a viewing.

"What? No, I said I was gonna pay for pizzas!" Namjoon looks distinctly more upset about this than someone should over not having to pay for pizza, at least in your mind, and it only makes you more curious.

"Yeah, but you also just moved out of your old apartment because it was too expensive, and had like an hour to load everything into a truck, so you're gonna let their trust fund asses pay for pizzas. We're seven adult men, and Guk could eat an entire horse and still be hungry. I'm not letting you pay for that."

Silence hangs in the apartment for a while before Namjoon gives a soft thanks to Jin. They share a smile before Jin makes his way back out. You follow each step, shadowing him all the way to the door before you're stopped. You lean your entire body forward, struggling against the invisible barrier keeping you inside, and the force of it nearly slams you back into the wall when you sag in defeat.

You aren't sure why you try anymore, but you know yourself well enough to admit that you're not going to stop until you can at least make it to the hallway.

Whatever you expected Namjoon to be like as a roommate, however unknowing he is about the situation, you don't think you could've guessed what he's actually like.

Out of the seven boys you saw the day he moved in, he's the only one living there. Not a complete surprise, considering it's a studio apartment, but you remember when there were nine people living there at one point, and there was barely room for anyone to breathe even if it had been pretty consistently amusing. Still, for one person, he's got a ton of stuff, and it's a shock it all fits. His bed is massive and comfortable and the best place to lay during the day because it's shoved between the brick half-wall and the large windows that take up one wall. The area's supposed to be for a dining table, you think, but you'd had your bed there, too, and the familiarity is nice.

His couch is small and old but manages to fit five of them, and it's a pleasantly jarring difference from the coffee table that looks like - and might actually be - an old steamer trunk. The exposed brick wall you love holds his mounted TV, a feat that took Jeongguk and Yoongi a solid hour and a half because they kept stripping the screws, and it's got one of those 8-cubicle bookshelf things under it that stores a frankly obnoxious amount of books.

He's got mugs for days, an adorable if odd collection of figurines and mini-statues scattered around the apartment, a strange obsession with some reclaimed wood shelf he's got hanging above his bed, but the absolute highlight of it all is The Wall.

It took them three hours to get it installed and set up the way he wanted, between the placements and the thick wooden shelf they’re perched on with supports and a small safety bar along the edge to keep them from falling off, but along the entire windowed wall and partway after it turns the corner runs a long shelf absolutely covered in plants. There are some elsewhere, like the one he keeps hanging from the bathroom ceiling and the couple in the kitchen, but most are on The Wall. Each one is in its own special pot, each a unique color with a name painted carefully along it, and most of them look half-dead. They're all distinct and unique from each other and they all surely have different needs and ideal conditions, but you'd never guess because Namjoon is so wholly committed to them all. He takes time every day to water them and prune them if he needs to, he checks on them constantly. He even reinforced the safety bar for the ones that sit beside his bed, so there was less chance he'd accidentally knock them around while sleeping.

It's fascinating, watching him tend to them. He's so careful and gentle, with absolute precision in every moment. He cares for his plants the way some people would care for a pet or a child. He doesn’t believe any of them are past caring for, slowly nurses all of them back to health and frequently turns up with more he’s saved from some department store. The most endearing thing, though, you decide as you sit curled among the haphazard blankets of his bed and watch, is the talking. It's every day, for as long as it takes him to care for the plants, and it's the cutest thing in the world. He's talking to some succulent as you just stare at him, filling the comfortable silence of the apartment with his soft, soothing voice, and you wish he could hear you when you talk back to him.

"I know they mean well, but at some point, I've just gotta live my own life, y'know? I can't study something just because everyone expects me to, and I can't pursue some dream just because people think I'd be good at it. I've gotta do what's right for me, don't I?" His tone is positive and bright, a contrast to the gloomy sky that casts shadows across the apartment.

You float over, hovering beside him to look at the plant he's lovingly stroking with his thumb. It's in a pretty periwinkle pot, with the name 'Mang' painted in careful but shaky black handwriting. It's not your favorite - that's the one in the bathroom that hangs over its light blue bowl, a quickly scrawled 'Koya' on the bottom - but it seems to be one of Namjoon's personal favorites based on how often he talks to it specifically.

"I think it's nice you do things for yourself," You tell him. He doesn't react, unable to hear you, but it's nice to hear your own voice after so long. You slide one of the plants - Chim, in a small yellow bowl - to the side and away from his elbow, and he doesn't notice. "You know yourself better than they do. You should trust yourself."

He keeps mumbling to Mang, something about everyone following their own dreams and doing what they need over what people want or expect, when you lay your hand over his.

Thunder cracks through the sky and the first raindrops hits the window as your non-existent skin hits his, and it's the most real thing you've felt in a long time. It's as if the scent of ozone and electricity is in the apartment itself, crackling in your hair and filling your nose with the overpowering scent of the sweet summer rain. You can almost feel the water hit your skin, the way the wind whips at your hair, and it's so intoxicating that you almost miss the sharp inhale from the man beside you.

He's not looking at his plant when you look up, but instead at the window in front of the two of you. You glance at it, and for a fraction of a second, you can see yourself in the reflection. The glimpse has you jerking towards it before you can stop yourself, desperate to know if something has changed. You haven't seen your reflection since you died, not in the mirror or the window or the toaster, and maybe, just maybe, it means something's changed.

Your hand stops against the glass of the window as you reach forward. You can't feel the cool of it under your palm, but it's no less a barrier for you as it would be for Namjoon. Something in you breaks as you watch the raindrops race each other to the ground.

"Ah, I forgot the forecast called for rain today," he mutters, eyes focused on the lightning that streaks by. He doesn't react when your fist slams against the glass, nor when you let out the scream that's been building in you for however long it's been since you died. You're so close, not even a hair's breadth from feeling something new yet familiar for the first time in so long, and you can't. You're still stuck in these four walls, unable to even reach the air outside.

You just want to feel the rain again.

You move dejectedly away from the window, ignoring the way Namjoon shivers as you pass. The temperature in the apartment has dropped considerably, you think, between the storm and your own mood. You can't tell, really. You haven't felt warm or cold or hungry or anything since you died that isn't the oppressive loneliness of life after death.

A dry sob tears itself from your throat and you hurry to hide in the bathroom as Namjoon turns to look around him. He mumbles something you can't hear and after a few minutes, he returns to tending to his plants, leaving you to your tear-less cries in peace.

It becomes quickly apparent to you that Namjoon should really have a roommate, if only to save him from himself. It takes a few weeks for you to realize this, but luckily he seems to narrate his life as he goes through it - which is overwhelmingly adorable to you, and you refuse to acknowledge that - and that means that you hear it every time he goes, "Ah, Namjoon, be more careful next time," or "Oh, shoot, that's not, fuck, I gotta buy more eggs now." It's painful to watch, even for you, and at some point, you just couldn't take it anymore. No one else is around to help, but someone needs to you, and clearly the universe means for you to be that someone.

It's a full-time job, protecting him from himself. You've saved countless mugs, pushing them farther away from the edges of counters and tables, and been just in time to shove bowls or vases an inch over so that his elbows glide harmlessly past them. It's almost exhausting, if you could get tired you would, but it's worth it, you think, as you catch the bookshelf under the TV as it tilts. You slide it gently to the floor, glad that Namjoon is distracted by how close he came to losing a toe to notice.

Because that's the other thing about this tree of a man: he's the most oblivious person you've ever fucking seen. It doesn't matter what it is you do, whether it's bouncing his spray bottle of water so it doesn't break on the hard floor or shake the counters so that the knife he's about to drop on his fucking hand falls the other way, he doesn't see a single fucking thing. You'd think he was blind if he wasn't so attentive to the way his plants grow. He notices nothing and you're glad for it because you really aren't sure what he would do if he knew you were going around haunting him just to keep him alive. You just want to help, want to keep the soft smile he wears more often around for as long as possible.

You don't dare to look into why you want that, too afraid of what you might find there.

It's also just fun to watch him and his friends, relaxed and unreserved. You never had many friends when you were alive, just a small handful that you really truly loved and whom you miss every day. Watching these seven boys fills you with nostalgia and a strange sense of joy because they really are some of the funniest people you've ever been around.

Like now, with four of them sprawled on the couch while Jeongguk and Hoseok make themselves comfortable leaning against the bookshelf under the TV - which has been bolted to the wall since it almost broke Namjoon's foot - and Namjoon watches them all from his bed since it's the only other place to sit. There are beer bottles scattered around and decorating the half-wall that separates the bed from the room proper, everyone is varying levels of drunk, and you're curled up close to Namjoon, leaning against the wall so you can stop him from knocking over any of the bottles nearby because you know him too well at this point.

"I'm just saying, I don't understand why they made him so over-powered in the new movies, because he's supposed to be some kid from Brooklyn! Giving him the high-tech suit essentially strips him of the friendly neighborhood persona that he's always relied on!" Jeongguk has been ranting for a while about the newest release in the Spiderman franchise - apparently, he's part of the actual Avengers now, which is a shock to you since the last thing you heard before you died was that the franchise was canceled until further notice or something.

"And I'm saying that if they didn't give him the suit then it would've made no sense how he was able to do those things," Yoongi responds. You're pretty sure he's just arguing to be contrary at this point, because you remember him telling Namjoon the other day that he prefers DC over Marvel.

"Garfield's Spiderman could do those things," you mutter, "And he didn't have a fancy suit."

"Okay, then how do you explain Andrew Garfield's version being able to do that stuff? He doesn't need the suit, he never has!" You preen at the way Jeongguk echoes your thoughts. "I'm telling you, I don't care how good the relationship with Holland's Spidey and Iron Man is, by giving him the tech and the advancements they did, they've undermined everything that Spiderman is supposed to be about."

"Jeongguk come off it, everyone knows Garfield's Spidey was just all bad writing. I mean, what kind of person can do all that stuff, realistically? He's the one that really needed the Stark suit." Taehyung's voice is slurred and quiet, definitely as drunk as the rest of them. 

"What-! No! I could do half of that without being bitten by a weird science spider!" Jin scoffs at Jeongguk's words. 

"Yeah, sure, Guk. The same way you can do that bottlecap challenge."

"Bottle cap challenge, and yeah, I could!" The youngest stands and you don't bother to hide your grimace. 

"This isn't going to end well, is it?" You ask. No one acknowledges you, too busy finding something Jeongguk can kick the cap off of as the boy readies himself. He's steady on his feet but his face is red and he can't seem to stop giggling. 

"If I do this, you gotta call me SpiderGuk from now on, okay?" He says. No one agrees, but it doesn't stop him from laughing again and doing a couple of roundhouse kicks to warm up. 

"Okay, okay, Joonie doesn't have any regular water bottles, but we found a screw-top beer in the fridge so ya gotta use that," Jimin says as he stumbles over with said bottle. Jeongguk just nods, an adorable focused expression on his face. Jimin holds the bottle in the air, and you can already tell his grip isn't tight enough to keep the bottle still when Jeongguk kicks it. 

The next ten seconds happen in slow-motion. Jeongguk's leg flies out to kick but his drunken body isn't able to handle the sudden shift in balance, and he slips. His foot hits the bottle slightly too low, and it goes flying out of Jimin's weak grip into the air. Everyone in the room watches as it hurtles straight towards Namjoon's face, and you react out of habit and instinct, catching it in one hand before you even realize you've moved. 

Everyone freezes, staring at where the bottle hovers in front of Namjoon's face. You're the only one able to see your fingers wrapped around it. A shock jolts through you at the realization of what you've done and you drop the bottle as if it burned you. Fuck, they were all going to freak, then Namjoon would move out and you'd be stuck alone once more. You should've just shoved him out of the way, what were you thinking, you're so fucking stupid-

"Dude," Hoseok mutters from where he's perched on the arm of the couch. "Holy shit, Joon, you're fucking telepathic." 

Yoongi rolls his eyes and smacks his chest. "Telekinetic, you fucking-"

"Holy shit, you've got fucking superpowers!" Jeongguk squeaks. "Do it again!"

Namjoon isn't even able to get a word out before there's a book flying at his face, and you panic. You can't catch it, too rushed, but you manage to deflect it so it hits the bed with a soft thump instead of braining Namjoon straight in the nose. 

"Woah, you really do have superpowers," Jimin whispers. He lobs a bottlecap at Namjoon, and you catch it in your palm before letting it drop onto the half-wall. 

"I don't have...what the fuck you guys," Namjoon insists. His eyes are as wide as saucers behind the thick glasses he has on. He looks freaked out and you want nothing more than to hug him. Your hand reaches out of its own accord, halfway closing the distance to stroke his hair before you catch yourself. 

"Hey, levitate your plants," Jin demands. Namjoon looks panicked as he glances at the wall of plants, and you heave a sigh. With any luck, they're so drunk that they'll remember this as a strange fever dream, but you can't just let them keep throwing things at him. You crawl over to the wall, avoiding Namjoon as you do, and grasp one of the plants tight. It's a white pot with red polka dots, a simple RJ on the side, and it's fucking heavy. You only get it a few inches off the shelf before you're forced to put it down.

"Oh my god, catch this!" Taehyung throws a coffee mug straight at Namjoon's head and you panic again. You catch it, and you've decided you're fucking sick of them throwing things at him, so you lob it back and dart across the room to bounce it safely to the counter before it can break. 

Everyone in the room stares at the mug and then looks back at Namjoon, who hasn't moved from his spot on the bed. 

"Oh my god, you're a superhero," Jeongguk whispers, awe in his eyes. 

"That's fucked up," Yoongi mutters, wincing when Hoseok elbows him. 

"Maybe we should get some sleep," Namjoon says quietly. The others look like they want to disagree with him, and you have no doubt they want to explore the newfound 'abilities' of their friend, but they still start gathering trash together before they head out. 

Namjoon lays awake for a long time that night, glasses folded and sitting atop the half-wall beside you. He's oblivious to the way you watch him, too lost in thought to feel the weight of your stare or the chill in the air. 

"I don't understand," He says after a while. "I really don't, but there's got to be a reason for it." He doesn't elaborate, merely turns over and evens his breathing out until he starts snoring, but you watch him for most of the night. He's fascinating, this human, and you wonder what makes him so different from the others you've met. 

He apparently decides to experiment. You've known Namjoon is intelligent since he first moved in and you saw his collectible encyclopedias, but you hadn't realized just what it would be like in actuality. 

It starts simple. He'll toss something in the air and let it clatter to the ground. Nothing big, just little things like pencils or bottlecaps, and not far, just enough that his eyes narrow as he apparently tries to use his telekinetic abilities to manipulate them. 

It slowly graduates from there. Next comes the way he stares at something across the room, hyper-focused on whatever it is until you notice and move it around for him. It's a guessing game, sometimes, trying to figure out just what he wants to move or how he wants to move it, but each time you're successful, he smiles so brightly, dimples on full display. Who wouldn't want to make him smile like that?

It's hit or miss, sometimes. You're only so strong, and while you've had a lot of practice, you still get tired. You lifted his bookshelf almost a full inch before blacking out. Next thing you knew, a couple of days had passed and Namjoon was staring at a coffee mug. That was a significantly less fun day; between losing time and having to catch coffee mug after coffee mug, you were exhausted and a little shaken. 

So when he stops staring at things for extended periods of time, when he starts to go back to reading and scrolling the internet and bingeing all the completed shows that Netflix and Amazon had to offer, you're grateful for it. He still occasionally tests it out; he's always subtle about it, choosing to stare quietly until you notice and make whatever it is float around for a minute. Once you wandered around looking for him - a feat in a studio apartment - and found him just sitting on the bathroom floor, staring at a shampoo bottle.

You'd like to say that you don't move things entirely because he wants you to. It's a good test of your abilities and how far you can push yourself until it becomes too much, and it's always nice to have actual evidence that you still exist - in some form, at least - in the world. The validation that comes from seeing him smile every time you lift a pencil or slide a coffee mug to the side, it's not for any reason but the satisfaction of knowing that you have some kind of existence. Some kind of impact on the world, even if you can't be seen and can't leave the apartment.

It's part of why you start moving things around yourself more often; you're hoping he just blames it on his overactive 'abilities' if he notices because you really aren't sure what he would think otherwise. But you also know for a fact that just seeing that you have some kind of sway over the world still - over the things inside this tiny apartment - makes you feel just that bit better about being dead.

Which is why it's such a fucking shock when the door to the apartment slams open one evening just for Namjoon to slam it closed again and announce into the air, "So I know you're haunting me, please don't try to deny it, I only want to talk to you."

You freeze where you are, halfway through the closet door from where you were reorganizing his clothes because they made no sense and you were bored. He's looking around the apartment, almost desperate in the way he's searching, and you can't bring yourself to move. It's obvious he can't see you, and you aren't even sure if he's being serious, but the way he huffs and clenches his jaw before moving into the kitchen tells you that he probably is.

You follow him, curious, and watch as he pulls a small package out of his bag and starts ripping it open. You float the remains of what looks like gift wrap over to the trashcan, because you know Namjoon will forget, before going back to watching him. He's only a little careful as he cracks something in his hands and then slaps it onto the fridge, and you peek around him to see that it's some kind of words or something. There’s a wide variety, with no clear theme to them, as well as at least one of each letter of the alphabet. It's then you remember the throwaway comment Yoongi made during that night - "You need, like, poetry stuff, like those magnets that go on the fridge that people write that deep shit with, y'know? I'm gonna buy you one," - and realize that he'd followed through on his vow. 

"Alright," Namjoon says, leaning against his kitchen counter and staring at the magnets. "First and foremost, am I really being haunted or is this some kind of hallucination?" His gaze never falters, doesn’t ever drift from the magnetic words now spread across his fridge doors. It takes several minutes to build up the energy and the courage to move closer to the fridge.

You don't look at him as you move the words around, but you can hear the sharp intake of breath. That's likely all the confirmation that he needs, but still you clear a spot and let the words ' I am here ' sit where he can see them clearly. You wrinkle your nose, disliking how formal it sounds, but you have to make do, you suppose.

"Okay," Namjoon breathes. "Okay, prove it. My brain could work this into a hallucination. How do I know you're really a ghost?"

"Seriously?" You huff. "What the fuck am I supposed to do that wouldn't work into a hallucination, dude?"

He gets fidgety in the few minutes that you spend wondering how the fuck you're going to prove that you're a real actual ghost to someone who clearly doesn't believe in them. His foot taps at the floor and he scratches at his hand, which only makes you want to wrap your own hands around his until he stops, much like your best friend used to lay her legs across your lap to get you to stop shaking your knee.

The realization comes in a flash, and you're moving letters around before you can stop yourself.

Face book, Park Jihyo, best friend.

Namjoon stares at it for a long while before he brings his phone out of his pocket and begins to tap at the screen. You don't get too close; you've got a history with shorting out electronics, and you aren't sure you want to know what your best friend is up to without you there with her.

"Okay," Namjoon says. "Okay, I've never seen her before, so I don't think my brain could work her into a hallucination. Okay. Alright. I'm being haunted. This is fine."

"Calm down, I'm haunting the apartment, not you." He doesn't react to your words, as usual, but it still makes you feel the slightest bit better. He stares at his phone for a little longer, and the curiosity burns under your skin, but you resist. You know from experience that if you try to get too close, his phone will stop working. Just like TV, the stereo, the laptops, everything. You've had enough experience with that kind of thing to know what will happen.

"Okay, Casper," Namjoon huffs out after several minutes of waiting. He looks up and his eyes dart around the apartment, and you wonder if he's just nervous or if he's trying to spot you. "Where are you right now? Can you make yourself visible? I mean, I know you're a ghost, but it feels rude not talking to you to your face."

You huff a laugh but reach for a coffee cup. You know you can't just make yourself visible at will; you've only done it a couple of times, to your knowledge, and none of them have been on purpose. It's even more difficult to make yourself corporeal and physical, harder than just manipulating objects, but you did it once. Back when the single mom still lived here, when her toddler was falling and you had no way to cushion the fall except with your own body; you still aren't sure how it happened, but you remember being able to feel the floor against your back and the warmth of the baby on top of you for a split second before you were gone again. You won't forget that any time soon.

You float the mug towards where you stand, holding it in front of your face long enough that when you pull it away, Namjoon's eyes don't follow it. It's a strange feeling; you know he can't see you, can tell by the way his brow furrows and his eyes slide around the space, but it feels like he's looking straight at you. It feels like you're being seen for the first time since you died.

"So, where are you from, Casper?" His tone is forcibly conversational, as if he's trying his best to keep himself calm. You roll your eyes and move the magnets to show ' here ' and he nods. "You're not gonna try to possess me, or kill me, or run me off, are you? No offense or anything. I figure you would've already at this point, but...cover my bases."

No. Am nice. I think.

"You think? You don't know if you're a nice ghost?"

Does anyone truly know if they are nice? You frown, trying to figure out how to say what you want to say with the limited words available. I can only try. It's still not perfect; there's more that you want to say, more that you want to be heard, but this has to do for now.

"I can accept that. Alright. Just talking to a ghost in my kitchen. Okay. This is totally normal." He rubs a hand over his face, and you're a little impressed. Everyone else that's lived here has freaked when presented with the knowledge that you're a ghost. Namjoon looks very much like his world is exploding, but he doesn't have the same fear and apprehension in his eyes. He's certainly coping better than the single mom.

"Are you the only ghost? Here, I mean, are you the only ghost here?" He breathes a sigh of relief at your 'yes.’ "Can you see other ghosts? Do you know any other ghosts?" The 'don't know, no' that you move around on your fridge seems to unsettle him a little, but there's a curiosity burning behind it that makes your skin tingle.

Can't leave, is what you say next, cutting off whatever question he was about to ask.

"You can't leave at all? The building, or the apartment?"

The second.

"Wow. You're really stuck here?" He looks around the apartment as if seeing it for the first time and sucks in a breath. "What do you do all day?"

Watch. He cocks a brow. You are... You hesitate. The word you need isn't there, everything that comes to you is too poetic or corny for you to actually say, but the weight of his eyes is heavy on your hands. Fun is what you settle on, but it's not right either. 'Interesting' isn't there, nor is 'fascinating' or 'lovely,' and you don't want to scare him off by telling him that part of the reason you watch him so much is that he's so full of life that you feel less dead when he's around.

He laughs at your words though and shakes his head ever so slightly. "Alright, well, I'm gonna shower, so just, don't...watch that?" You squawk at the insinuation that you would, quickly rearranging the letters to spell ' privacy' and making a large angry face out of the rest of the words. He's already turned away, though, and it makes you angrier.

You don't want him thinking that you would peep at him. You already make sure that you're facing the windows when he finishes showering, you've been determined to not be creepy since the day he moved in, and to have him think otherwise is like a slap in the face. You slam the mug against the counter and he startles, turning to gape at it. You carry it to where your words and make-do emoji sit waiting for him to notice them.

"Okay," He says quickly. "Okay, privacy, yeah, got it. You respect my privacy. Appreciated."

"How fucking rude," You mutter as you set the mug back down. You don't adjust the magnets as he disappears into the bathroom. You want him to see them, want him to be reminded of the fact that being dead doesn't mean you don't have basic decency.

You can't get him to shut up now that he knows you're there. He still forgets sometimes, mostly when he's talking to his plants or narrating the way he carefully constructs some origami creation, but more often than not, he's talking to thin air. He spends a lot of time perched on his counter, watching you move magnets around his fridge through the thick lenses of his glasses before he spouts off some other question for you to answer. 

He covers the basics first: how old you were when you died, when your birthday is, your favorite color, what you were studying in school, and of course your name, though he insists on calling you Casper. You aren't sure why but you also don't get a chance to question it, because he hits you with more and more questions every day. Sometimes you don't answer because you can't, too limited by the poetry magnets to be able to really converse; sometimes you just don't have the energy to move the magnets around, but those are days are rare. The only times you use the tired magnet are when you find your limbs too heavy to move, weighed down with the memories of what it meant to be alive. 

Those are the bad days, but his questions make them just a little easier.

"How do you move around? Do you just float everywhere?" Walking, but different. No weight. Soft.

"How are you able to manipulate things in my world? Are they different from things in your world?" Focus. Takes time. Same.

"Do you sleep at all? Do ghosts dream?" No sleep. Just existing.

"You don't eat, do you? Should I be stocking up on snacks for you?" No. Save your sustenance. "What was the last thing you ate?" Don't remember. "Huh. I hope it was something good." Same.

"Were you ever in a relationship?" Once. A long time before. "Do you miss them?" Not anymore.

"What did you do while you were alive?" School. "Oh, really? Do you remember what you studied?" Boring. Important then, but it made me forget to live. Not important now. Namjoon goes quiet for a long moment after this one, staring out the window at something you can't see. He nods but doesn't ask any more questions, and he reads for the rest of the night.

It only takes a couple of weeks for both you and Namjoon to get tired of standing in his kitchen fucking around on the fridge. His legs get tired and he gets distracted by his thoughts, and you can barely keep up with the rapid-fire questions you get.

So Namjoon buys one of those cheap cookie sheets with the slightest lip at the edge and dumps the magnets on that. He leaves it on the coffee table, usually, there for you to pick up if he asks something but out of the way for when he stretches out to nap lazily in the afternoon sun.

You like the cookie sheet more than the fridge. He watches you as you work out your responses, can see the way you start to move one word before moving another instead; it makes it feel more like a conversation.

It becomes a favorite pass-time of Namjoon's, curling on the couch and putting some sort of music on in the background and just talking to you. A lot of nights his questions stop with a lingering silence from one or both of you; yours because you don't have the ability to share the words running rampant through your mind, and his for reasons still unknown to you. Still, you've missed it. You've missed talking to someone, being heard when you speak, having someone ask how you are at the end of the day.

It's the little things.

"You said you can't leave, right, Casper?" Namjoon's curled up on his couch, tucked into the arm with a blanket thrown over his lap, a mug of something warm in his hands to combat the chill of the season, and some R&B track playing lightly from his phone. You knock your fist against the cookie once - a sign for yes that you'd both agreed on. "So, are you just always here then? You don't go anywhere else?"

"Fuck, how do I explain this?" You mutter. You stare at the magnets in front of you for a long time before rearranging them. Not always. Tired sometimes, disappear.

"Disappear?" He reads. "What do you mean? You just, what, stop existing?"

Don't know, you respond. Only happens when tired. When used too much of me. He hums an acknowledgment, eyes focused on where the cookie sheet sits on the couch between you. You? What entertains you?

"Everything," he answers without hesitation. "I'm trying to work through my stack of books I want to read and finish all the shows I'm interested in, but the guys would have my head if I didn't get out and do things like a normal person."

That's where you leave to?

"Yeah." He sets his mug - now empty - on the coffee table and settles into the blankets. He looks cozy and soft and you would wrap yourself up with him if you could. "I take a lot of walks, and bike rides. I like to see the river, the trees, all the animals that live there. The beach is always fun, I get to see all the crabs and whatnot that wander in and out of the ocean."

"I wish I could go with you," you whisper.

Fun is what you spell on your sheet.

"I guess," he mutters. "It's enjoyable, at least. I'll bring you some souvenirs, or pictures next time."

You let the sheet settle on the couch as he turns the TV on, setting up a drama that he's on recently. He doesn't say anything else for a few hours, waits until the sound of rain hits the windows and stifles the apartment in an otherworldly haze.

"How long have you been dead?" His voice lingers in the air. You've been expecting these questions, and you're honestly impressed he's held them back for as long as he has. That angsty teen hadn't hesitated a single second to start asking you questions.

A while. Years. I think .

"Do you ever get tired of being a ghost?" There's something in his voice that you can't place, something that tells you this is more than just his usual morbid curiosity. Every part of your soul - whatever's left of it, anyway - is screaming at you to lie to him, to tell him that no, being a ghost is great. You've never wished he could hear you more than this moment, when all you want to is wrap your arms around him and ask him why he looks so much older than he is.

Sometimes, you tell him. It is lonely here, and boring. Fun to be unseen, but unable to do much more.

He nods like that makes all the sense in the world to him, and he brings the blanket up around his shoulders. "Do you ever miss your friends, or your family?"

Would you not? He huffs out an unamused chuckle, nodding again.

"Yeah," He says softly. "Yeah, I would. Do you want me to help you check on them? See what they're up to?" The single knock that echoes in the room is deafening to you, filled with a hope that you haven't felt in years. You've never let yourself think about them for long; if you did, you don't think you'd be able to come back from whatever that place is that you disappear to when things become Too Much.

Namjoon pulls his phone closer and starts fiddling with it. He doesn't hesitate when he types in your name, and you feel an emotional blush fill you when you see that he doesn't even have to finish typing for your profile to pop up. You glance at him, the way his brows are furrowed behind his glasses and his tongue pokes into his cheek just a little while he concentrates, and you wonder how many times he's looked at the pictures of you when you were alive. How many times has he scrolled through, reading the words people shared after you were gone, scrolling through the grief and loss to get to the words you posted yourself, the little snippets of your daily life that you would give anything to be able to relive?

"Do I still look like that?" You wonder aloud. As expected, he doesn't react, just continues tapping at his phone.

You two spend the rest of the night like that, each curled at opposite ends of the couch while Namjoon slowly looks up your friends and family and updates you on each of them. Jihyo got married, to someone she'd gone on a date with a few weeks before you passed, and she's apparently trying to start having kids; Your mother and father aren't very active, but they never were. They both share pictures of you when you were a baby each year on your birthday, and more recent photos of you on the anniversary. They have a dog now. It's cute. You wonder if it helps them cope with the loss.

Your other friends are doing well, too; most of them are still figuring out their lives, but it seems like all of them are settling in their skin and finding comfort in who they are. They're out there, navigating the world and doing things they enjoy, meeting new friends and making new memories.

You stand by the window for a long time, cookie sheet of magnetized words pressed against your chest as if you can feel the cool of the metal against your skin, and watch rain drip down the panes as you imagine what your life could have been.

You can always hear Namjoon before you see him. He whistles as he walks down the sidewalk, his small way of letting you know he's on his way back from wherever he's gone that day, and today isn't an exception. Relief sags through you and you move away from the windows, let your fingers trail against the ceramic of the newest succulent he'd bought, and head towards the kitchen. The kettle is turned on and heating a few moments later while you pull a mug down from your cabinet and set it carefully on the counter where Namjoon will see it.

It's a regular routine, for the two of you. He heads out, usually in the early morning after turning on some music or a show for you, and when he comes back, you make sure there's hot water for his tea or cocoa or whatever he feels like drinking that day. The sound of his whistling gets louder the closer he gets, a simple way to let you know he's safe and he's home. You glance through the cabinets and quickly make a note on the fridge that he needs to buy more of his special tea blend soon.

The lock turns and you smile, waiting patiently as Namjoon saunters into the apartment. He sets something down on the kitchen counter just as the kettle starts to scream, and you wait while he pours the water and gets it ready.

"The cherry blossoms bloomed," He says. You grin. "They look great. I got some really nice pictures while I was there, I'll show you tonight. I was thinking we could try to finish Voltron tonight if you want. We'll have to go back an episode though, I think I fell asleep during the last one." You knock once against the counter beside you, and he turns with a wide grin to glance at the spot where you stand.

It's ridiculous for your heart to speed up in your chest, for the hair on the back of your neck to rise, for breath to catch in your throat; you don't have a heartbeat, you don't have breath, you're a shadow of the person you used to be, and yet...

And yet, seeing his dimpled smile focused so naturally on where you are, as if it's just second-nature, is like a breath of fresh air after years underwater. It smells like flowers, like dirt and earth and a new beginning. It feels like you're alive again, and you don't want it to end, but too soon he's turning away to finish steeping the tea. Something lingers in the air for a moment after but it's gone too soon for you to place it.

You both settle on the couch, Namjoon tucking whatever he brought home with him under his arm, between his body and the arm of his ratty old couch. Your cookie sheet is in its place on the coffee table, unneeded at the moment. You can't help the glare that you give it; the things you would give to be able to just speak and be heard are endless.

It rattles a little and you look away.

Namjoon is quiet as the show plays. He doesn't react when you move to turn the oven on, but he does laugh quietly and thank you for it when he goes to put his dinner in. He eats and you don't bother him, though the way he keeps his little package hidden away makes curiosity burn through you. Eventually, once he's eaten and washed his dishes and laughed at the way you rubbed them dry before setting them carefully in their places, he settles back into his blankets and turns on the music he loves so much.

He's got a book balanced in his hands and your cookie sheet rests on the coffee table, and you both just sit like that for a long while, enjoying existing.

"You remember your life, right Casper?" You thump lazily against the wall in response, eyes drawn from where you watch the gloomy sky slowly get lighter with the dawn. He isn't looking at his book anymore; he probably hasn't been for a while, based on the way the pages have migrated around his thumb, too busy staring at the wall across from him. "Do you remember your death?"

You hesitate. You've tiptoed around the subject before. He's always been too afraid to ask directly, and it's too painful for you to offer it freely. You thump against the wall once more, and he nods like he already knew the answer.

"Are they very different?" His glasses are falling down his nose and your fingers itch to push them up. Instead, you reach for your cookie sheet. He makes a sound in the back of his throat when he sees it moving, reaching under him for his package. "I forgot, I got you this. Thought it might be easier."

He sets it down and you slide the contents out of the wrapping easily. Inside is a small dry-erase board, complete with markers and eraser, small things that should be easy for you to manipulate. You beam at him; he can't see it, but you think he might be able to feel it because he perks up and smiles a little.

"You don't have to answer," He adds. "I was just curious to know if being dead is really as different as everyone makes it out to be." You nod and thump once against the board before you uncap a marker and start writing.

It's a bizarre feeling, after so long. The muscles in your hand don't ache, no matter how much you write, and you can't feel the smooth surface of the board under your fingers or the weight of the marker in your palm, but it glides against it cleanly and leaves a thick black streak behind.

It takes you a minute to write everything out, get it worded how you want. Namjoon doesn't interrupt you, just watches the marker move against the board and smiles every time you go to erase something that isn't right. Eventually you show it to him.

There are similarities. I'm still me, I still enjoy TV and music and books. Things are duller now, like there's a filter over them, and it's harder to do things. Like when you're in water, or mud, like that. Resistance.

"Oh," Namjoon replies, "That's not what I expected. It makes sense though I guess." His hand moves against his chest, rubbing lightly as he looks over your words again. "Is there anything you actually like about being a ghost?"

"Well, being invisible is pretty cool," You say, writing the words as you do. "And it's actually really fun being able to walk through walls and stuff, even if I can't go anywhere outside of the apartment."

"I'm sorry you're stuck here," Namjoon says. You startle a little, looking up at him. You think he actually heard you for a split second, but his eyes are locked on where you're writing your words out on the dry erase board.

"Yeah, me too," You tell him. He stares at the board for a long moment, chewing nervously on his bottom lip as he does. "Ask what you want to ask, Joon," You write as you say it.

"How did you die?" He blurts. You sigh and he jumps a little, looking fully at where you sit. You're shocked; you know that sometimes little noises cross over, like when Jin heard you laughing, but it's still rare. You can't figure out how it works, but you want to.

You write for a long time, letters small so they fit on the board. The whole thing is crowded together, looks like one long string of letters instead of the story it is.

There's a lot of violence in this neighborhood. You probably know that by now. People are always getting robbed or mugged or something around here. Someone tried to break into my apartment by banging the door down. It didn't work, luckily, but I got really paranoid afterwards. One night I was cooking, and someone's door slammed really hard. I spilled the water I was boiling, slipped. Blacked out after a while, and when I came to, there were police everywhere. I guess I hit my head harder than I thought, because they carted me away, and I couldn’t follow.

"I'm sorry," Namjoon says softly. "You deserved more time."

Yeah. The universe had a different plan, I guess. He smiles at that, and it settles the anxiety thrumming under your skin. Wouldn't have met you, so I guess that's a bonus. He rolls his eyes at you but he laughs softly, so you consider it a win. You doodle on the board then, simple little designs that don't mean anything beyond being able to see your effect on the world.

Namjoon sucks in a breath beside you and you look up at him. He's always been good about looking towards where you are, doing his best to make eye contact with someone he can't see, but he still always tends to look through you.

Not this time.

This time, electricity sings through the air as your eyes meet his. You don't know how, but you know he can see you. His eyes roam over you, taking in the crumpled sweater you were wearing with the stain you like to think is pasta sauce on the arm, the hair you can't ever really tame, the way you sit cross-legged on his old thread-bare couch with a dry erase board in your hands.

Neither of you moves. He looks torn between fear and amazement, every emotion in between flitting quickly over his features, and you're terrified that if you move, whatever spell that's been cast will fade. It had been so long since you talked to anyone when Namjoon slammed those magnets on the fridge, and the conversation has been a reprieve, but to be seen for the first time in years...

It's invigorating.

Watching Namjoon just look at you is something you won't ever forget, not for as long as you exist in the world. He looks at you like he's memorizing every detail, every hair and wrinkle and pore, and just knowing that he can see you fills you with something new.

"Namjoon...?" You call hesitantly. His eyes fall on your lips.

"Again," He says. Your brows must furrow, maybe you frown, you don't know because it's been so long since you've needed to pay attention to your facial expressions, but he notices your confusion. "Will you say something again?"

Breath you don't have catches in your throat, wraps itself around a heart that doesn't beat, but you smile a little. "I'm glad I met you."

Namjoon smiles. It's big and blinding and knocks everything out of you except for that emotion that's been sitting in your chest since the first time you watched him talk to his plants. You lean forward, and you can tell the exact moment you disappear, because his smile falls and his eyes unfocus. A whimper leaves your throat, but he doesn't react, and that may be the most painful thing that's ever happened to you.

"Can I feel you?" His voice is hushed but the words reverberate in your head. His eyes dart around, looking for any glimpse of you, and your hand trembles as you reach out.

Goosebumps raise on his cheek where your hand touches him and his breath stops for a moment, but he smiles again and leans into the chill. You bring your other hand up to cup his other cheek, your dry erase board lying forgotten on the ground, and Namjoon's eyes flutter closed.

"I think I might love you," You say quietly just before you press your lips to his. He doesn't react to your words, but he lets out a soft sigh at your kiss. Thunder cracks through the apartment, a torrent of rain unleashed on the windows, but you don't move.

The two of you sit like that for hours, until he starts shivering and his nose turns red, like it does when he forgets his scarf on the cold days, and his breath puffs in the air. When you finally pull away from him, he smiles, and the blush on his cheeks has nothing to do with the cold air that makes up your form.

"Yeah," He says softly, voice nearly drowned out by the storm raging outside. "Yeah, I can feel you."

If you expected things to change much after that, you were wrong. At least a little. Namjoon still disappears to go on his walks, you still start the kettle the second his whistles drift up to the apartment. He still asks you a million questions, but they're more normal now. Your favorite music, color, what you wished you'd done with your life, if you've been able to corporealize again recently, what you wanted to watch that night.

"Come on, Casper," Namjoon groans. "I promise you can do it." You huff and he smiles, clearly having heard it. You're tempted to just disappear somewhere, rattle some pipes in the bathroom or the kitchen so he thinks you're in there and leaves you alone, but he smiles at you again and you're weak for that dimple.

You grip the watering can again, doing your best to lift it and manipulate it the way you need to. It's heavy, and something about the metal makes your skin itch, but the more you struggle the more you're able to pour the slightest bit of water where RJ - a giant plant that you don't even know the name of - sits in the corner of the room across from Namjoon's bed. It's the twentieth-something time you've tried this today, and you're ten seconds from just giving up completely, but you can tell this is important to Namjoon.

He's been talking all week, between the late nights where you lay over his blanket-wrapped form and the mornings where he ducks out with a soft goodbye. He's told you everything about his plants that you think he possibly could, teaching you about them and showing you how to care for them. It's interesting, you won't lie, and it's always fun to see him light up when you recall something he's told you, but you're exhausted and every part of you is shaky, and you're more than a little worried of what might happen if you push too far again.

Still, Joon hasn't looked great lately, like he might be getting the flu, and you want to be able to help him with all the things he does in the house. You've already started doing the dishes and folding laundry, since those were the two things he was the absolute worst at, but you feel like you should be doing more.

"Good job, baby, I'm proud of you!" You grunt and let the watering can fall back to the ground with a loud thump that almost definitely has the downstairs neighbors cursing Namjoon's name. "See, and now we're done for the day! C'mon, we can put on Sens8 and cuddle."

He's on the couch before you can stop him, wrapping himself in blankets except for one lone hand that sticks out, expectant. You roll your eyes and sit beside him, close enough that if you had a body you would be cuddling instead of just sitting awkwardly beside him.

You know that this is just going to make your hand all pink and gross, right?

He just smiles when the board flips around to reveal itself and wiggles his fingers. "It's worth it," He says. "I'd rather be pink and gross than never get to hold your hand at all."

You can't even feel my hand, Joon, there's literally no point to this. He huffs and wraps his hand around the marker in your hand, shivering at the chill that runs through him when he does. He grins and gestures down to where the tips of his fingers are already turning red.

"Clearly I can feel it, Casper."

You're glad he can't see you, that you don't have a heart that beats or blood that runs, because if you did, your face would no doubt be red. You have no doubts that Namjoon would tease you about it.

He's quiet as you both watch the show; he makes the odd comment here or there, but his mood seems to have calmed some. When he first got back from whatever place he visited that day, he'd been anxious and jumpy and entirely too on edge.

"Hey, Casper?" He asks quietly. You slide a hand against his cheek to let him know you're there, and he leans into the chill again. "What do you think about me?"

You don't move for several seconds, hand still poised around his cheek.

"Like, your feelings. What are they? Will you tell me?" You knock once on the wall behind the couch. Your hand stays poised over your board for long enough that Namjoon starts to get a little restless. Words refuse to come to you. Every time you start to think you have a way to describe to him what he means to you, they disappear as quick as fog on a summer's afternoon. Frustrated, you let the board fall to the couch and scrawl a quick 'hold on' so he knows you aren't just ignoring him.

It's been weeks since you've seen what you're looking for, your cookie sheet with the word magnets having been basically forgotten in lieu of the more personal and convenient dry-erase board, but right now you know that if words won't come to you, you'll have to go to them.

You finally find it, shoved under several encyclopedias and magazines, and the noise you make is so triumphant that even Namjoon hears it. You curl back up beside him, careful to make sure the blanket is wrapped tight around him, and make sure he can see the words as you move them. It still takes a long time, constantly changing and rearranging and stacking to make sure it conveys the things you need it to convey.

You are like music. A symphony of summer days and peach skies with soft rain. You are a storm in the moonlight. I'm not lonely when I have you pouring around me. You make me feel alive again.

Namjoon is silent for a long time, and you wonder if you've gone too far. It's more poetic than you'd like, too frilly and fancy and emotional than you usually are, but they're the only words you have.

After too long, he exhales. It's heavy and deep and it feels like he's trying to expel more than just air from his body.

"You make me feel alive, too," is all he says, whispered into the softness of his blanket in a voice too small for his long limbs. He shivers, and you hear him choke down a cough, and then he disappears into the bathroom for a long time. When he comes back out, he doesn't say anything, just slides into the mass of blankets on his bed and lays his arm out across the mattress. You spread out across from him, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he looks through you and out the window where the rain is letting up.

"Looks like the rainy season is gonna last longer than everyone thought." You slide your hands around one of his large ones and just hold them like that. His eyes sink closed and something like relief stands on his face for a moment before it's gone, swept away by the peace of sleep.

You wonder what it is that he sees when he looks out the window. If it's the plain brick wall and windows of the building next door, or something more.

You aren't sure you want to know.

Namjoon's flu only seems to get worse. He leaves early in the mornings, as if he thinks you might not notice the way he coughs into his scarf just because the sun hasn't risen fully yet. He stays gone most of the days, and even when he apologizes quietly during the twilight when he slinks back in to the sound of the kettle screeching on the stove and his tea already waiting to be steeped, he still doesn't stop.

You've taken to playing blues while he's gone, mostly the old school stuff, digging out the vintage record player he has buried in the closet and setting it up on the coffee table. It’s the only technology you can use without shorting it out. You don’t know why, but it makes you grateful the record collection Namjoon keeps tucked away inside the coffee table that you’ve learned is in fact an actual steamer trunk that he salvaged and restored himself.

The music fills the apartment, distracts you from the oppressive weight of his absence. He knows you wait at the window for him, you told him that back when the two of you were first getting to know each other.

You're so fragile, you had told him. He had laughed at you, quiet and fond, and waited for you to explain further. You're so full of life and breath and possibility, and the world is so big and so dangerous. I'm scared you won't come back.

"Of course I'm going to come back," he told you. You didn't even need to tell him that you're afraid of what being alone might do to you, now that you're so used to his presence. You're being heard again, sometimes even seen, and you don't know if you can go back to the stagnant depression of solitude. "I'll always come back to you."

That was the first time you thought you might love Namjoon. The feeling has only gotten stronger, and now that you wait at the window with your eyes focused on that tiny section of sidewalk you can see at the end of the alley, it threatens to consume you whole.

You wait at the window for hours. You know because you glance at the clock every minute and a half, mocking you with every tick as it hangs limply on the bathroom door. The sun sinks below the horizon, the moon rises to take its place, and they switch again while you wait. The dawn paints the sky in beautiful shades of pink and red and orange and the faintest purple, but you can't appreciate any of it, because you're too anxious.

He could be hurt. He could be gone, and you wouldn't ever know until his friends came to pack his things. He could have left, too; maybe he finally decided that living with a ghost was just too much for him and just ran. Maybe he figured out that you love him, that you would move heaven and earth if it meant he was safe forever if only you could leave this apartment, and it was too much for him.

What if he knows about how you lay beside him every night? How you tuck the blankets tighter around him, cover him in warmth and comfort before settling on top of them and closing your eyes and pretending that you can feel his arm draped over your waist and his breath on the back of your neck. What if he felt you, that night you wandered into the bathroom while he was showering to write on the steam-covered mirror that he needs to buy more eggs soon and got distracted by the way he looked stepping out of the shower? What if he knows your stomach flipped at the long limbs and the hidden muscles and the sheer size of him? What if he knows the real reason you were quiet that night, the way you kept replaying the moment in your mind and wishing you had a body so you could have just touched him, at least.

It's closer to noon than midnight when his whistle echoes up through the window.

"Hey, I'm home," He calls as he enters the empty apartment. You're upset, but you're more filled with relief than anything because at least he's safe and he's here now. He makes a beeline for where the kettle is just starting to whistle, already reaching for the honey and the tea you set out on the counter for him, and you do your best to calm the storm of emotions inside you.

Did you have fun, wherever you were? You ask him, floating the whiteboard in front of his face so he has to acknowledge it.

"Yeah, I did," he responds as he stirs his tea. "Jin invited everyone over for some end of summer thing. I didn't feel too great at the end of it, so I just spent the night there."

Don't party too hard, you might remember how to have fun, you joke. It falls a little flat based on the grim smile Namjoon gives you. Are they gonna come over here again anytime soon? I've missed scaring Hoseok.

He lets out a real laugh at that. "I don't know, maybe. My birthday's coming up, after Jeongguk's, so they could definitely be planning something. I'm heading over to Yoongi's later to help plan for Guk's party. I might stay there tonight, so try not to worry, Casper."

I'll try, you tell him. You both know you'll stand at the window every second he's gone, but you don't want to tell him why. You don't want to tell him that you love him through a dry erase board, or some fancy poetry magnets. It doesn't matter that you may as well have already said so by telling him that he makes you feel alive again; you haven't said the words to him, he hasn't seen 'I love you' in the messy scrawl that is your handwriting on some stupid board, and therefore he doesn't know.

You don't know if you want him to.

He stays gone that night, as he said he might, and reappears the next day to shower and change before he vanishes again. The next time he shows up, he takes a bag with him when he leaves, which only worsens your fears. He stays gone for three days this time, doesn't apologize when he turns up again and just mumbles a soft hello into the air before he makes tea and sags into his couch. He's asleep in seconds, and as much as you want to scream at him, you can't bring yourself to disrupt how peaceful he looks.

When he wakes, he takes a shower and ignores the ' can we talk ' you scrawled in the steam. He packs a bag of fresh clothes and doesn't say goodbye when he leaves, just disappears and leaves you standing at the window with the pail in your hand, caring for the plants he isn't. The slam of the door sounds like nails in a coffin and breaks what little was left of your soul.

He shows back up nearly a week later, and the relief at seeing him again is overridden by the sheer anger at being left in the first place. You don't start the kettle when you hear his whistle, the quiet and hoarse tune of a familiar song barely reaching the window, but there's plenty of noise when he enters.

The cabinet doors are quaking with your fury, the lights flicker and threaten to burst, and Namjoon just leans back against the door. He’s soaked from the storm thundering outside, even his jacket plastered to his skin, and he’s shivering slightly, but you can’t see anything past the rage.

"Where the fuck were you?" You demand; there's no point, it's not like he can hear you, but the way he sighs makes you feel like he can, so you continue anyway. "It's been almost a week, you didn't even think to stop by for ten seconds so I know you're okay? I thought you were dead somewhere, you could've been, like, shot, or something, I don't know, just bleeding out in some ditch, and I wouldn't know! And what about all the plants? I know how to take care of them, sure, but do you know how hard it is for me to do it?"

Namjoon sighs again, the breath catching in his throat and coming out in a cough, but you don't pay much attention to it.

"Why would you act like this, Namjoon? What did I do, is it because of the things I said? Do you not want me to feel like this about you? Because this a damn good way of making sure I don't, I assure you, so by all means, just keep disappearing and leave me alone with the plants you decided to rescue and save!"

His cough gets worse and he just shakes his head, covering his mouth and making his way towards the bathroom.

"If you want me to hate you, it's too fucking late, Joon!" The slam of the bathroom door punctuates your sentence, and you quiet at the sound of continued coughing. You knew his flu was getting worse, but it's never sounded like that. Even when you were alive, you knew that the wet sound that's muffled by the bathroom door isn't what a cough should sound like. The lock of the door clicks, and it shocks you into movement because he's never - never - locked you out of anywhere. He knows it wouldn't stop you, knows it as well as you know that you'd respect that boundary if he set it, and yet here he is, locking you out even as he coughs up what sounds like a lung in the other room.

You hesitate at the door, torn between respecting his boundaries and knowing what’s happening. You want him to trust you, always, and yet you find your hand disappearing through the door before you can stop it. You stand like that for a long moment, just listening to the sounds of his wracking coughs; the sound of a crash echoes through the apartment, though, and you’re through the door completely in the span of a heartbeat. 

Nearly everything that had been on the counter is scattered on the ground, Namjoon himself gripping the sides of the toilet as if he would fall apart otherwise. A single glance tells you that the crash happened as he turned from the sink to the toilet, and if his jolting shoulders didn’t tell you why, the sounds of his retching would. That isn’t what fills you with dread though; the disorientation, the vomiting, all of it comes with being sick sometimes, but the red staining the bathroom sink? 

That’s not normal, and you know with every part of you that it’s the reason he’s been gone so much. 

The temperature in the apartment drops with the sun, but your arms surround Namjoon as best they can. Goosebumps break out on his arms, shivers run down his back, but you don’t move away from him; he doesn’t say anything, just sits there with his forehead pressed against the cool of the porcelain. He stands eventually, ignores the way he passes completely through your body to rinse the sink and brush his teeth. 

You let him stay quiet until you’re both on his bed; you’re pressed up against his side and running your hands along his forearms, idly wondering if you would be able to feel his heartbeat if you were alive. 

“It’s not...it’s not gonna get better,” He says eventually. “There’s not a cure, just some things to draw it out and give me a little bit longer even if they come with more pain. I go once a week to see if it’s gotten worse, check how much longer I have. It’s why Hobi let me move in here rent-free. He pays the bills, says it’s the least he can do. I wanted to be closer to him anyway, so that’s a bonus, I guess.”

“I’m so sorry, Joon,” you whisper. Your board lies forgotten, somewhere on the couch maybe, you aren’t sure and can’t be bothered to pull yourself away from him long enough to find it. You don’t need it right now, though; he knows what you mean by the way the cold presses against his bicep with your palm. 

“I didn’t want you to know.” You’re not exactly surprised at that; you’d figured as much. You just don’t understand his reasoning. “I didn’t want you worrying about me, or anything like that, like the guys do. They always look at me and it’s all they can see. Like they’re already mourning me, even though I’m still here. I didn’t want to feel like that with you.” 

“I know,” you say. You don’t, not really. Your own death was sudden, a shock to everyone you knew; you didn’t get the luxury of saying goodbye, didn’t have the burden of knowing you would be gone soon. 

The two of you sit in silence for a while, until you can feel Namjoon’s chest quivering under your palm. When you look up, he looks at you, really and truly at you , and he has tears in his eyes. 

“I don’t want to die, Casper,” He whispers. You suck in a breath because he can see you, and you don’t even know why, but you don’t want to lose this moment. “I don’t want to leave all of this behind. I don’t want to leave you.” 

“It’ll be okay,” you say softly. His brow furrows and a tear slides down his cheek. “I promise you it will be okay, Namjoon. It gets easier, and people remember but they aren’t stuck forever. And I…” You falter, and it takes his eyes meeting yours to make you realize he can hear you. And there’s only one thing you’ve ever needed him to hear. 

“I love you,” You tell him. “I love you, and I will never forget you.” 

He surges forward, lips meeting yours in a rush of air. You moan at the feeling of him against you, realizing that for the first time since you died, you can feel something under your fingers. His skin is warm against your fingers, his lips soft against your own, and when he reaches up to cup your jaw with his hand, he doesn’t pass through your form. Instead his hand settles heavy against you, and he moves your head to lick into your mouth. 

Tears that won’t fall prickle at the back of your eyes and you climb into his lap before he can stop you. He’s still crying so you wipe away the tears before they can fall, pressing soft kisses to his cheeks, his dimples, his nose, every bit you can reach. A question sits at the back of your mind, and you can see it lingering in his eyes, but neither of you asks it.

“You’re so cold.” His whisper is nearly lost amidst the thunder that shakes the apartment, but it makes you smile a little. 

“Warm me up?” 

His chest is still quivering with unspoken sobs, but he nods. “Always,” he tells you. “I’m always going to be here.” It doesn’t take long to pry him out of his clothes, takes even less time for him to sink into you. It feels just like it did when you were alive, only magnified; you can feel him hot and warm inside you, can feel the beat of his heart in the firm muscle under your hands. His moans are quiet and hoarse but you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

He keeps one hand on your waist and the other on your neck, holding you close enough that he can kiss whenever he wants. “You’re beautiful,” He whispers. “The most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.” You just press another kiss to his chapped lips and let him dig his fingers in hard enough that it would bruise if it could. When he’s close to his peak, he stops thrusting, just sits inside you as he grinds your hips down to his, and presses his forehead against yours. 

“I love you,” He tells you, lightning casting his shadow across the wall for a brief moment. “I love you, I do, I wish-”

“I know,” you tell him before he can continue. “I know, Namjoon, I know, and I do, too. I love you, too.” He comes a few seconds later, the warm seed soaking into his sheets because it has nowhere to go. His warmth disappears from under your hands and his arms fall to his lap when the only thing holding them up is gone. All you can hear is your quiet sobs mixed with his and the rain against the window, and for the first time since you came back, you really, truly, wish you had died. There’s no point in being a ghost when you can still feel your heart breaking in your chest. 

“Casper, are you ever scared?” 

It’s the middle of the afternoon. Namjoon is sprawled across the couch wrapped in blankets while Lucifer plays in the background and you doodle aimlessly on your board. You don’t need it as often now; you’ve gotten better at focusing your energy into being heard, though being corporeal still eludes you. You don’t know how you did it that night, but you’re grateful for it. 

“Of what?” You ask, looking towards him. He’s not looking at you or watching the show, just staring at the ceiling. He focuses at your words, lifts himself up into a sitting position. A shiver runs through him when his legs move through you, and you settle a weightless hand against his knee out of habit. 

“I don’t know,” He replies. “Just...whatever comes next. If there’s something that comes next. Being forgotten. Being stuck here forever.” 

You aren’t stupid; you know why he’s asking. The question lingers in the air, colors all of your conversations now, but the truth is that neither of you has the strength to ask it and neither of you knows the answer. 

“Sometimes,” You tell him. “Sometimes I wonder what Jihyo is doing, if she ever had a baby like she wanted to. I wonder if my parents are still alive, and what they say if they visit my grave, what they tell me now that I can’t respond to them.” 

Namjoon nods like he’s already thought of that, and he probably has. 

“Most of the time I try not to focus on it, though. It’s not helpful, it only upsets me, and I don’t…” You trail off, unsure of how to word your thoughts. “I don’t know what might happen if I only focus on the negative. I don’t know anything about what’s true about ghosts and what isn’t beyond that I exist now, and I can’t risk becoming something bad. So I try not to focus on it. It’s easier when you’re here.”

He grins and blows a kiss in your general direction, and you pretend not to notice the blood on his cracked lips. He’s quiet for the rest of the episode of half of another. 

“Have you ever seen a light?” 

“What?” He doesn’t seem to hear you, and you repeat your question on your board for him. 

“A light,” He echoes. “Like, the light.Y’know, the light at the end of the tunnel, ‘don’t go into the light,’ that thing.” 

You hesitate at that. You knew what he meant, what he actually wants to know here. He’s easier to read now than he was in the beginning. 

You watch him as he watches the space where you sit, curled up beside him on his couch. He can’t see you, of course, but he can see where the board rests in your hands. His gaze is heavier than it was when he first moved in; his cheeks are hollower, skin more gaunt with a grey tint that’s only made worse by the constant rain. The sun is just starting to break through the clouds, a brief reprieve after weeks of the dreary stone-colored clouds. It casts shadows along the walls, reflects off something in the window across the alley, and backlights Namjoon beautifully, casts a halo of light around the brittle brown hair you love. 

Once, you tell him. Just once.

“Why didn’t you go to it?” 

There are so many things you could tell him, so many different ways to answer such a simple question, but you find yourself lingering on the one thing you know is the ultimate truth. 

Because I love you.

September comes with even more rain and a bittersweet atmosphere. Jeongguk spends his birthday at Namjoon’s apartment and then comes back a little over a week later, surrounded by the other guys and carrying enough food to last a few months. You stay curled on the bed, one of the only safe places for you to not mess with anyone or anything. Your board is tucked into the blankets, ready to be used but hidden from view just in case. You watch as Namjoon sits on the couch, tucked between Taehyung and Yoongi with both of them leaning into him as much as possible, Yoongi’s hands wrapped in one of his and Tae’s head on his shoulder. 

The other’s aren’t far, leaning against the back of the couch and on beanbags they’d brought with them, all laughing as Hoseok does his best to act out whatever he’d been given in charades. He’s not bad at it - you’ve guessed the last few he’s done - but he is utterly ridiculous in his mannerisms. You know why; it’s the same reason everyone kept smiling when Namjoon refused all of the food he was offered, why Seokjin would crack a terrible joke whenever it got too quiet for too long, why everyone is resolutely ignoring the growing pile of tissues on the table. 

It keeps a smile on Namjoon’s face, though, and a laugh in his eyes, and you can’t ever be anything but grateful for that. 

Hoseok stumbles, nearly falling and whirling his arms to catch himself before eventually falling anyway. You laugh along with the others, grinning at the way Hobi pouts and rubs at his hip. You’re focused on the way Joon laughs, the way it lights up his face and brightens the entire room, which is why you see it first. 

The tickle at the back of his throat quickly becomes a cough, wet and wheezing and enough to make him throw the blankets from his lap and stumble to the bathroom. 

You’re there before he is, helping him slide the door closed and locking it behind him as he bends over the toilet again. The six of them are quiet in the main room, speaking in hushed whispers that neither you nor Namjoon wants to hear. You turn the knob on the sink, wetting a towel while you drown out the sound of voices, and letting a hand run over Namjoon’s back. 

“I’m okay,” he mutters. You ignore the way his voice shakes, the way his lips are redder than before, the way this happens more often than before. Instead, you just press the damp rag to his neck and watch his eyes close in relief. When he stands and flushes the evidence away, you already have his toothbrush ready and waiting, and you stay as close to him as you can until he takes a deep breath. 

“I’m okay,” He repeats. “I’m okay. It’s my birthday, and I’m okay.” 

He goes back out with a smile on his face and a laugh in his voice, teasing Hoseok about the way he fell and reenacting it, even. When he settles on the couch, he urges the others to continue the game. There’s a brief moment of hesitation before Jimin declares that he’s next and pulls something from the bowl on the table. 

You know you aren’t the only one that notices the way Namjoon’s eyes linger on the six men around him, but you are the only one that notices the way they also linger on his steamer trunk, the shelf with his books, the TV, the record player, the scrapbook of his life that they all worked on and Taehyung pieced together over the months, the plants on the wall that he had cared for. He looks around his apartment as if he’s looking at it for the last time. 

As if he’s already planning who’s going to get what. 

He finally asks the question you both have been thinking about, nearly two months later. His breathing comes in ragged pants, his lips stay chapped, and he keeps several blankets around him at all times to try to hide the shaking of his body. Your soft sobs echo through the apartment constantly; while you reheat the tea he doesn’t drink for the millionth time, while you quietly water and prune the plants he’s saved from death the way you wish you could save him, while you sit curled around him as he sleeps, soothing his coughs with quiet whispers. 

Night has just begun to fall, the rain of the day turning into a soft drizzle, and you stare at him blankly, unsure how to process what you’ve just heard. 

“Do you think I’ll come back?” He asks again, slightly louder. As if you hadn’t heard his shaky voice the first time. It’s not the question that floors you. You’ve been expecting this for weeks, months even. You’ve wondered it yourself as you prepare tea and ignore the sounds of him vomiting blood in the bathroom, as he disappears to the hospital and returns with a worse prognosis than before, as you’ve adjusted to the idea that you are dead and he is dying and you cannot do anything to help him. 

You never would have expected the hope that his words carry though. 

“Why does it sound like you want to?” You ask. Your voice is clear in the air and you’re glad for it, because this isn’t something you want to talk about through your board. 

“Because I do?” His response is delayed and sounds more like a question than a real answer. 

“Why?!” You demand. 

“Are you serious, Casper?” His brow is furrowed as he sits up and lets the blankets fall away to sit haphazardly off the couch. 

“Are you? Joon, why would you want to come back?”

“You’re seriously asking me that question? Why would I not? I’ve got so much I still want to do, I never thought I’d get the chance to after I got the diagnosis and now I might be able to. Why wouldn’t I want that?”

“Because it doesn’t work like that! You don’t get to just wander the world and fuck around, Joon, you’re dead.”

“Yeah, but you can still read and write and everything. I’d have all the time in the world to read the books I want to read, watch the shows I want to watch, write the music and stories and lyrics that I want to write.”

“Yeah, so long as it all stays in this apartment!” The light in the room flickers slightly with the force of your irritation. “You can’t do anything that isn’t in this room, Namjoon, you can’t use any of the electronics, you can’t read a book unless it’s here, you can’t write music unless it’s on actual paper, you can’t do anything.” 

“Yeah, and I could make that work. Why are you so upset about this? I thought you’d be happy.”

“Happy? You think I’d be happy that you’d be stuck in these four walls forever, too? Why would that make me happy?” Namjoon stands, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head. 

“Because I’d be with you! We’d be together, forever! Do you not want to be with me?”

“Of course I want to be with you, Joon, but not at the cost of you being stuck here. I don’t want that for anyone, certainly not the man I love.”

“And what if that’s what I want? What if I want to spend the rest of time with you? I’m already spending the rest of my life with you, I’m in love with you, I don’t want to leave you.”

“And I don’t want you to go, but Joon, why would I want you stuck here, too? This isn’t something fun. This isn’t anything that I enjoy.”

“Oh, so you regret it all then?”

“I didn’t say that, I just don’t want you to be stuck in a shitty studio apartment for who knows how long when you can’t fucking do half of the things you love! You wouldn’t go on walks, Namjoon, you wouldn’t go with Guk and Jimin to the movies, you wouldn’t get visits from Hobi, you wouldn’t get to shop with Taehyung or Jin, you wouldn’t get to drag Yoongi away from his thesis or celebrate with them when he finishes it! It’s not like being alive, Namjoon, you’d be dead and alone and in hell!”

“Whatever,” He mutters, shoving his arms into his coat. “Why can’t you understand for one fucking second that it wouldn’t be like that with you? I’d rather be stuck here forever than have to die in some shitty apartment and not even be able to touch the person I love.”

“Why can’t you understand that it’s still death? You’d be dead, Joon, your friends would go to your funeral and disappear from your life, and you’d be stuck staring out that window at that shitty alley for the rest of time. You don’t get it, you don’t how terrible it is to be stuck here and watch life pass you by.”

“Then why the fuck are you still here?” He asks. The door slams behind him before you can answer him, and your scream shakes everything in the room. You just barely catch one of the plants in the kitchen, a brown-potted one with ‘Shooky’ scrawled in Yoongi’s familiar handwriting, before it crashes to the ground. You return it to its place gently and huff another frustrated groan. 

You wish you could explain it better, but you know he wouldn’t get it even if you could. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to be trapped between four walls and unable to do anything without massive amounts of effort. And he won’t, not unless he experiences it himself. 

You’ve already watched him wither away. You’ve watched him become thin and sallow and a shadow of the Namjoon who first moved in, and you don’t know what you would do if he came back. You wouldn’t be alone anymore, of course, and you’d have him here with you, but at what cost? Namjoon was built for cherry blossoms and sunshine and the riverside. He would hate being trapped here even more than you do.

Still, you could have been more understanding of his view. You can admit that even being stuck in a shitty apartment wasn’t so terrible when you had Namjoon there to make you laugh or watch TV or read to you. It may even get better if he turned into a ghost; maybe you could hold his hands in yours, could feel him wrap his arms around you, could press kisses to his skin again. 

You move to the window and stand there waiting. It’s not good for him to be out, even if the rain had stopped a few days ago and the forecasters promised it was the end of the downpours. He was still weak, you’d be surprised he even went anywhere to begin with but you know he likes to walk to calm himself down. 

You worry for what feels like hours. You can’t focus on anything, not the way the sun starts to set, not the sound of cars passing or the neighbor leaving. You’ve worked yourself into knots by the time you hear his whistle echo up through the streets, nearly lost in the sound of some argument in the alley below you. You catch a brief view of his coat and smile when you see that he’s got some half-dead plant tucked under an arm. There’s the briefest glimpse of what looks like a Ca scrawled onto it, and your heart jumps in your throat.

You make your way to the stove, turning the heat up slightly too high so that it’ll be ready when he comes in. The arguing outside gets louder but you pay it no mind, pulling the honey out and setting it next to his favorite mug. You’re reaching for the tea when you hear something else. It definitely sounds like Namjoon’s voice, but it’s not in the hall or at the door like usual. It’s raised, like he’s yelling at someone, like it was just a while ago when he was fighting with you. A crash startles you and before you can even reach the window to see what’s going on, there’s a deafening bang. 

You slam your fist against the window, watch the red mix with dirt, and the kettle isn't that only thing that screams. 

“I think that’s the last of it,” Jeongguk says. His voice is scratchy and quiet, but it’s deafening in the silence of the apartment. 

“Yeah,” Hoseok replies. His eyes are rimmed with red and his hands shake as he slides the last mug into a box. “Thanks for the help, Guk. I don’t, um.” He sniffles. “I don’t think I could’ve done it myself, y’know?” 

“I know,” Jeongguk agrees. They’re quiet again, adjusting the things they’ve boxed and avoiding finishing what they’re doing. 

“Oh, can you get that?” You don’t have to look to know what Hoseok is talking about. Jeongguk grunts an affirmation and makes his way over. It’s a strange feeling, having someone pass through you again for the first time since. His hands fly into the air as he tries to lift, clearly not having expected it to weigh anything. 

His reflection in the window frowns, and he tries again, tugging on the pot. 

“I can’t get it,” He says. “Do you think he glued these things down or something?” 

“No,” Hoseok replies as he wanders over as well. “He used to pick them up to re-pot them, remember? And the others came up with no problem.” 

“Well it’s stuck or something, you try.”

Hobi takes Jeongguk’s place and pulls hard at the plot, but your grip doesn’t waver. He huffs and disappears. When he returns, he’s got a butter knife in one hand that he does his best to slip under the pot. He tries hard to pry it up, so hard that you almost want to give in. You don’t though. 

The knife clatters to the floor with as much force as Hoseok can put behind it, a curse following quickly behind it. 

“Fuck it,” Hoseok says. His voice is shaky and you know he’s near tears again. “Just fuck it.” 

“But that was-”

“You can try if you want, Guk, but I just-” He chokes back a sob, shaking his head and moving to pick up the boxes he’d set down. “I just can’t, okay?” He disappears out the door in a hurry, and you wish you could follow after him. 

Jeongguk looks down at the small plant, with its painted periwinkle pot and soft leaves. He runs a quivering finger over the leaf and sniffles. He doesn’t try to lift it again, just stands and lets his tear soak into the soil.

“I wish you could come back to us,” He whispers. “We thought...we expected more time. It’s not...it’s not really fair, y’know? So if you can hear me, if you can come back to us, please do. Please.” 

He turns and leaves, the apartment door slamming behind him like the lid of a casket. Your grip on Mang loosens now that you know no one’s going to try to take it. You’d watched them pack everything else up; you’d let them take the steamer trunk full of records, the shelf full of books and movies, the collection of mugs, the soft blankets, the ratty couch, the rest of the plants he’d cared for so tenderly. 

Piece by piece they had packed Namjoon up and walked him out of the apartment, but this was the one piece they couldn’t have. This was his favorite and none of them knew how to care for it like you did, and you had to. You owed it to him. He deserved to come back to at least one familiar thing, never mind that you woke up not even a day later and it’s now been weeks. If there was one thing you wanted him to see when he got back, it was his favorite of his plants. 

The sun glares into your eyes from where it shines down on the city. It reflects off something in the window from across the alley, would be blinding if you actually had eyes. You pay it no mind, focused instead on the remains of the broken brown pot down in the alley, the way you’ve pieced them together in your head a thousand times just to trace the word Casper with your eyes. You can almost hear his voice saying it, even now.

You whip around, eyes darting through the empty space of the apartment as your hands tighten around Mang.

All that rests there is empty space, mocking in its loneliness. You remember when he moved in, remember how it felt to test the boundaries of the apartment and wish you were free. The want is still there, to leave and never think of it again, never think of him. You know better, though. You could never escape the memory of him, the way he laughed and smiled and spoke. You could never abandon Mang. Not when he said he’d always come back to you. 

You turn back to the window, cursing the sunlight with every other breath. It fades, slowly, into the black of night, before returning again, and again, and again. Days pass, each one feeling like years. Hoseok doesn’t appear to show the apartment, no one comes to collect the small periwinkle pot between your palms, and the ghost of his laugh echoes around you. 

The sun blinds you again. You don’t even know how long it’s been, just that you’ve yet to move. Light glints off whatever hangs in the window across the alley. That's when you see it, a vague reflection in the weathered glass of a dimple and a grin, and warmth surrounds you.

“I told you I’d always come back, Casper.”

[kcatta-wodahs]

Hey there :3 May I request a matchup🙈? I'm a 5'6 tall, queer, chin long dyed red haired girl(she/her) and you can call me Karo if you need a name :p I don't really care if it's a single pairing or a poly one as well as the kind of relationship (platonic/romantic/sexual), but maybe a romantic one would be sweet🤔 I'm a INFP and was born under the sign of Pisces and I think the stereotype fits me pretty well lol. I don't think I would describe myself as clingy, I definetely need my space (part1)

and me-time, but sometimes it's also nice to have someone who will drag me outside to do stuff or socialize if I'm isolating myself too much or another depressive episode seems to creep up on me. I think they need to understand, doesn't matter if it's a platonic or romantic relationship, that sometimes I can't give them much(time etc) and that that's nothing personal and that they're still very important to me. Hmmm I think I would prefer my relationship like I like my fanfics hehe, slow burning, like first get to know each other, (enemies to) friends to lovers is just *chefs kiss* for me <3 I really love to draw and sing, to dance too, I like to spend time in nature and with animals, help them too. But I also like adrenaline rushes, like rollercoasters, cave exploring, bungee jumping, exploring lost places etc, I would say I'm almost up to anything if it's exciting or interesting, but I definetely like just chilling and watching netflix, playing games or watching Vine compilations or crackhead satire twilight tiktoks(which is tbh the things I do most of the time until someone drags me out). I love making others laugh with just random outbursts(thats pretty much my humour, just randomness and gen z memes). I try not to judge anyone for anything and be open for all kinds of stuff, except for like non-negotiable things for me like racism, homophobia, sexism etc, like, full offense but I have absolutely a zero tolerance for that. I also get very emotional very easily, doesn't matter if it's something not so important like a touching movie scene(so many things make me cry so easily haha) or like in an argument. I really have a hard time argueing, I hate it SO much, I either try to avoid conflict(and run away like a coward lol) or if it's really something we have to discuss I sometimes need time and space in between(not the best under stress talker/thinker), but if the other side is being calm and considerate then I think I would be fine too Oh almost forgot,I love cuddling(definetely also platonic)and am not afraid to just throw myself at my friends/lover/s I am getting better at not caring about what others think, but sometimes I'm still pretty insecure about everything(my actions,my future,my appearence..),but my motto is fake it till you make it,so feck other people,I can do whatever the hell I like and nobody's gonna stop me hehe😈🙈 Soo yes,I think that will be enough😂Thank you for your time and effort👐💕👐

A/N: I promise you fake it til you make it is 100000% good strategy and also i see feck are you from ireland

I pair you with.... The Attic Sandwich!

Beel and Belphie would be perfect partners for you. The two of them balance each other out in many ways, and you fit right into that. They value the connection between them and because of it they don't expect to always be around each other. This connection extends to you. Beel takes you out to all sorts of places (usually ones where there's unique food) and would definitely have fun with some adrenaline rushes. It makes him forget about his hunger for a bit. Belphie is absolutely there for your sense of humor and he's very good at watching your depression and arranging something to cheer you up.

More Below the Cut!

The plot of the first 20 chapters is what really gets you close to these two. (Spoilers for that follow and in the last three bullet points) Beel opens up more and more to you, and just absolutely falls for you. Belphie gives us that sweet, sweet enemies to lovers trope. He becomes curious about you, especially with how smitten Beel is, and ends up falling along the way.

THIS is the cuddliest group to ever cuddle oh my goodness when you want snuggles you will have them

They adore just relaxing with you. The three of you become a pile on the couch while watching movies or other videos.

Beel will watch you scroll through tumblr while he engulfs you with his arms. Belphie somehow worms his way into yours and alternates between sleeping against your chest and watching your screen as well. You hear an occasional snort of laughter from him.

Beel is very emotionally intelligent, so he can quickly determine your mood and what he can do to help.

Belphie encourages you to break out of your shell and be yourself. He's very blunt about his opinion of other people lol

He finds himself staying awake longer with you just so he can hear you. He thinks you're hilarious, honestly, and loves talking with you.

When you throw yourself at Beel he catches you. He big and strong and loves affection from you. but also this happens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIhl1cW9Me8

Belphie thinks its the funniest shit he can't breathe

If you do it to Belphie honestly he just stands there - either to let you fall or cling to him like a koala. He looks so Done but I promise he loves it. He laughs at you either way. He saves hugs and cuddling for when laying in bed or sitting. Too tired to hold you.

They both understand needing space, and will often just go off and do their own thing. They have complete faith in your feelings for each other, and will never doubt that you love them.

At least not for needing alone time - Belphie has lingering guilt over plot but he tries to make up for it by protecting you.

The others in the house can't help but be reminded of the trio they were with Lilith as angels.

While it still hurts to remember, Beel and Belphie feel almost as if they've come home around you. A part of them that was lost is found again. 

Snippet!

Cleaning day is nobody's favorite, but least of all Belphie's. Too much work. Just don't take ou your stuff and then you don't have to clean it later, right? The problem to him seems to be all the time people spend awake and he shouldn't have to deal with it!

But cleaning day is a little better with Beel and Karo. With their laughs and energy. Usually seeing other people so active drained him, but not with those two. He watched as Karo danced around the room to the music she had put on, while she and Beel tidied up. It was frankly adorable, and best of all: Belphie wasn't expected to join.

He was happy to watch. He watched as Karo spun into Beel's side, surprising him and causing him to stumble before he laughed and swept her up into a spin together. He watched as Beel picked Karo up with ease to put something on the top shelves of the room. He watched Karo find pillows in all the nooks and crannies of the room, and he huffed and whined when she threw each one at him on the bed.

Belphie was on snack duty. In exchange for the two helping him with cleaning day, he was expected to provide the rewards. This was not a small feat when Beel was involved, but it was far better than cleaning.

"Hah! The closet is done!" Karo declared, brandishing her feather duster. "Snack us, Belphie!"

He couldn't help but chuckle. It was an awful phrase. Silly and stupid, but Karo's enthusiasm was just so contagious. 

"Good job. C'mere," he told them, reaching to his hoard of treats.

Karo practically jumped onto the bed, grinning at him, while Beel was close behind looking very expectant. Belphie hid the curling smile of his lips by lifting up a large bag. "The closet is the biggest monster of them all - so for defeating it, you two get this."

Karo gasped and Beel's eyes gleamed. "Oh, those are my favorite..." he said, already reaching out.

"Ah-ah," Belphie pulled the bag back, to be met with a pout from Beel. "You'll eat them too fast for Karo to get any, so we're gonna do something different."

"Different?" Karo asked. 

Belphie smirked and opened the bag, which led to a very audible tummy rumble from Beel. He and Karo couldn't help but laugh. He pulled out a snack - just one - and held it up. "Karo, say 'aaah'." 

She beamed at him and opened her mouth. "Aaah!" Belphie tried really hard to keep his blush down as he dropped the snack in her mouth. She was so darn cute about everything. 

"Now you give one to Beel."

"Just one?" 

"Just one," Belphie agreed, smirking at the pout.

It didn't last long though, as Karo held up the snack and said "aaah" to Beel. He eagerly opened his mouth for the treat, but shocked himself by blushing heavily once she leaned over to feed him. Karo didn't comment, but seemd to be rather proud of the fact.

Belphie fed her another, and she followed up with Beel - but Beel took her hand after stealing the snack from her fingertips. He couldn't help but kiss the palm of her hand. "You're... so cute," he mumbled. "I like this."

"I thought you would," Belphie said, pleased with himself. "Karo?" he held up another. 

She went for the treat, but instead he pulled it away, holding it above his head. "Beel gave you a kiss, don't I get one too?"

Karo paused and blinked before laughing and leaning in. "You're adding new rules," she told him. 

"Never said I couldn't," he answered, giving her a light peck on the lips before presenting her with the treat. The look of satisfaction in her eyes made his heart pound, and he could tell that Beel's was just as busy.

"My turn," Beel said quickly. Whether he meant for a snack or for a kiss... well. We shall see.

[renlimotroll]

Everything’s alright (when you’re with me)

Warnings: Personification/ Imagination/ Out of Character

Summary: Five times Siruko-san took care of others, and one time they took care of him

AU where Bintroll are living together! Siruko SickFic since our lovely Bintroll leader tweeted yesterday that he was sick :(

A/N: Hello, Ren here! 🌻 I’ve been stressed again, and at this point I think people are purposely pissing me off so I could produce something good out of it. Sigh. Just a warning, there might be a Mintosu-Siruko moment there, but it really is platonic, I swear. Enjoy!

This story is dedicated to Rin-chan. Rin-chan, I hope you feel better!

(Story continues below)

I

“For goodness' sake Minben-san! Just get in the car! We have a dentist appointment in 15 minutes!” Siruko shouted. “No way! I told you I don’t need it! I”m f—-” “See! You can barely even speak! If it was hard to understand you before, now I have ZERO idea of what you’re saying! Get in the car!” “I want to play!” Mintosu whined. “Get in--” Siruko’s eyes narrowed threateningly, his tone taking a dangerous note.  “--the car.” Mintosu gulped and obeyed. Siruko-san rarely got angry, but when he did, no one won against him. It was a rule in the house never to make him really angry... The guy’s patience was very long and he was so kind, so making him angry means you’ve really pushed all his buttons. It was an impressive feat to make Siruko angry, but unless you want people hating you and shoving pointy things at your throat, no one made Siruko angry. Everyone loves Siruko-san and would die for him. You’d have to be a really horrible person to make Siruko-san angry.

After the dentist appointment, Siruko was driving them home. Mintosu was clutching his swollen cheeks, rambling meaninglessly again. He was high on anaesthesia. “I’m cooking rice porridge for you, then you’re sleeping. Does it still hurt?” “Yadaaa, it tassstesss wike cawvvoard, A dun wanna eat Hakowtarow…” Mintosu complained. Siruko rolled his eyes and sighed.

Later, as he was cooking, he found out that Minben-san was trying to turn on his PC. “What are you doing?! Are you nuts?! You are not streaming! What if you get an infection??” “But I wanna APEX..” “And I wanna play Lost Ark but here I am taking care of you!” If Minben-san was already a pain-in-the-ass when he was healthy, he was ten times more difficult when he’s in pain or sick. Siruko prayed to all gods to give him more patience, and pulled out the plug of Min-san’s PC. The berseker streamer sulked.

Much later, Minben-san comes down with a fever as expected. Siruko stayed up all night, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth, making sure he rested well. He gave him his pain medicine and water. He felt sorry for the guy, knowing how wisdom tooth extractions are painful. “Siruko-san…” “Nani?” “Thank you…” A small smile formed at the purple head’s lips. “You’re welcome.” “Are you gonna leave?”  Even though this man is stubborn as heck, he can be quite clingy when sick. Siruko-san thought it was cute. “Of course not. Sleep, Minben-san, I’ll be here.” He brushed the man’s sweaty hair and kissed it innocently, small smile staying on his face.

II

When Siruko-san passed by Jiraichan’s door, he heard some groaning. He dashed inside and didn’t even knock. “Jiraichan, are you okay?!” He saw the man in a fetal position, curled up on his bed, clutching his stomach in pain. Siruko-san hurried to his side, worriedly checking. “You have a stomachache?” “Un..” “What did you eat?” “I... I think I ate too much oysters yesterday.” Siruko shook his head disapprovingly. He warned the pink guy to be careful last night, when he went out with Quartetchi and Ichihachi-kun. Jiraichan likes eating out, and despite being the smallest in Bintroll, he might have the biggest appetite among them.  “Hang on, I’ll get some medicine.”  “Siruko-saaan… I feel…” Immediately Siruko grabbed the trash bin, barely making it as Jiraichan puked his guts out. He rubbed the guy’s back soothingly, holding back his hair as the guy heaved his insides out. “I’ll get some water.”

When he came back, he found Jiraichan listless on the bed, clutching weakly the big teddy bear Quartet gave him. Siruko helped him sit up, forcing him to drink water and the medicine. He also tried to make him eat the broth he warmed. "Yada Siruko-san… I’ll just vomit it…” “You have to Jiraichan, it’s better to have something to puke, plus you haven’t eaten anything all day. Please?” Siruko used his pien eyes, which was effective every time. Soon, after 6 spoonfuls, he let Jiraichan go to sleep, running his fingers through Jiraichan’s hair the way he knew Jiraichan liked. “Get well soon,” He whispered, kissing Jiraichan’s hair, not minding that Jiraichan hadn’t showered and probably smelled like puke. “Love you Siruko-san,” Jiraichan replied sleepily, surprising Siruko-san, because he thought the pink guy was asleep. That earned a soft smile on his lips, humming a lullaby so the pink fairy can rest.

III

Ichihachi was in-charge of dinner tonight, and he felt like making mapo tofu. He already went to the grocery to buy the ingredients and was now in the kitchen preparing everything. Siruko-chan dropped by with a grin, “Need any help?” “Sure! Thanks!” Siruko went to grate the ginger as Ichihachi got the knife to slice the leeks.

“AH!” Siruko looked up instantly, startled at the sound of pain. Blood was dripping from Ichihachi’s finger as the man stood there in shock. Siruko quickly grabbed a towel and Ichihachi’s hand, placing it under the running water in the sink. Ichihachi grimaced and whimpered in pain. The purple head tried squeezing the blood out a little, making Ichihachi wince.

After a few seconds, Siruko washed it with soap and dried it gently. He fetched the first-aid kit and took out the bandage, wrapping the finger with as much care as he can. “Thank goodness it wasn’t deep enough that you’d need stitches.” Siruko commented, making Ichihachi a little pale. After he was done, Siruko placed a soft peck on the wound, making Ichihachi’s face red. “Thanks Siruko-chan,” he mumbled, clearing his throat out of embarrassment. “No problem! Why don’t you let me handle the slicing part and you can just make the sauce.” Ichihachi nodded in agreement, his ears still red from what Siruko did for him. Siruko continued slicing the leeks, a playful smile on his lips.

IV

A knock on his door was heard, and Quartet groaned. With heavy footsteps, he trudged his way over, opening it to find Siruko-san. “Hey, are you okay? You haven’t been out there for a while, and usually it’s me or Minben-san you guys have to drag out of the room.” “I’m fine, just busy working.” Quartet answered, massaging his temples. Siruko didn’t fail to notice that. “Hmm… well, don’t forget to eat, okay?” “Sure.”

Hours passed, and Quartet didn’t notice his stomach complaining. He had a deadline to finish, and he needed to meet it so that he can finally play with the guys and shoot for a video. Someone knocked on his door again, and Quartet sighed, hoping he didn’t look that annoyed. “Tada!” Siruko-san was there, holding a tray of what looks like pasta. It did smell delicious, and his stomach rumbled on sight. Quartet rubbed his neck sheepishly. “Thanks, Siruko-san,” he mumbled, taking the tray from him. Siruko followed him inside his room, picking up the pieces of clothes Quartetchi had always meant to put to the hamper. “Once you’re done with work, you should totally rest. You’re having a bad migraine, Quartetchi.” He did? Quartet-san didn’t notice. He gobbled up the food quickly in his hunger. Siruko scolded him to slow down. “Here, I grabbed some medicine. Drink it and rest, okay?” “But–” “The video can wait, Quartetchi.” Siruko pointedly remarked. “Rest, or you’ll make Ichihachi-kun and Jiraichan worry. Do you really want them coming over here and fussing over you?” Quartet made a face. Nope, he loves them, but the two combined would make his migraine worse. Siruko-san was good at blackmailing. “Fine. I promise.” “Yeah, like I’ll believe you. Take the medicine, I’ll stay here until you finish working.” Siruko pulled out his Switch from his pocket and settled on the yankee’s futon. Quartet sighed, he’s too tired to argue and just let him be. He took the pill and washed it down with the juice, then started typing again.

A few hours later, he felt himself being gently shook. “Quartetchi, Quartetchi,” Only one person called him that. The gray head blinked a few times to clear his vision to see Siruko-san standing over him. “You fell asleep for a couple hours, actually. Sorry, I wanted to let you sleep in more but I know you need to finish that deadline.” Eh? He fell asleep? Oh, there was a blanket on his shoulders. “Thanks, Siruko-san,” he smiled gratefully, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He did feel better, and his head didn’t feel like it was being chainsaw-ed open anymore. Siruko-san was right, he needed rest. But Quartet’s still thankful he woke him up to finish his work. The man really thinks of everything. “I’ll sleep too. Good luck with your project.” Siruko returned Quartet’s smile and dropped a small kiss on the top of his head. Quartet blushed, but he immediately felt loads better. Yosh, he was going to kill this presentation. Siruko left the room and closed the door silently, the gentle smile still on his lips.

V

“You don’t need to do this Niisan, I can take care of myself.” Siruko fluffed the pillow while his younger brother stood behind him. Hakotaro's arm was in a cast; he fell down the stairs and his arm received the consequence. Thankfully it wasn’t the arm he used to draw, but it was still an inconvenience. Siruko himself rushed to the hospital after learning the news, worried sick about his brother.

Thankfully, it didn’t need surgery. Hakotaro had to be in a cast for a couple of weeks though, and his Niisan was, of course, fussing over him more than usual. Hakotaro was usually the one mother-henning his older brother, so he wasn’t used to this. Being a worrywart apparently runs in the family, as Siruko was perfectly capable of displaying at the moment. “I know you can, but once in a while, let your Niisan take care of you.” Hakotaro flustered, but let him be. When Niisan sets his mind on something, he’s unstoppable. Siruko may be bad at taking care of himself, but his Niisan is really good at taking care of others.

Hakotaro let himself be tucked into bed and took the pain relievers his Niisan gave him. Siruko sat down beside him, lips turned up wistfully. “Remember when we were kids and you got sick that one time? You never get sick so we all got worried.” Hakotaro snorted playfully. “I do. You cried that time.” “I didn’t!” Siruko mock-scowled. He then started to brush Hakotaro’s hair, humming softly. Hakotaro closed his eyes, feeling like a child again, safe and comfortable with his Niisan promising to protect him. “Thanks Niisan.” “Hmmmm. Get well soon, my baby brother.” He felt a warm kiss on his forehead, and Hakotaro sighed contentedly. “Love you.” ”Love you too.” Siruko continued humming and stroking his brother’s blonde hair until he was sure he was asleep. The smile on his face was fond.

+1

“Dakara… I’m not… ACHOOO!” Siruko sneezed like his soul left his body. His brother handed him a handkerchief to wipe his nose. “-- sick. I'm not sick." The rest of the Bintroll members around the dining table looked at each other in concern, then everyone stood up and moved. Siruko whipped his head back and forth wondering what they were doing all of a sudden, but that movement made him dizzier and he felt like throwing up. “Hai hai, get up Siruko-san.” Mintosu gently but firmly lifted him out of his chair, hands on his shoulder steering him towards his room. “Minben-san,” Siruko sniffled. “I’m not sick.” “Of course you’re not, who told you you’re sick…” Mintosu opened the door then fluffed his pillows and bed. He successfully manhandled Siruko towards the bed, Siruko’s protests and struggles too weak to be even considered as protests and struggles. "You totally don’t look like you’ve been run over by a truck, your eyes aren’t bloodshot red, you’re not sniffing every second, and you don’t feel as if you’re burning in hell right now.” Mintosu tucked him in perfectly. He took a quick peck on the purple head’s forehead, and yep, he didn’t need a thermometer to know that the purple head was burning up real bad. “You’re totally not sick.” “I need to… check the replies and comments…” “I can totally do that, you know,” Quartet came in with a thermometer discreetly tucked in his pockets. He roamed around the room, secretly pocketing Siruko-san’s Switch and cellphone. He would have to look around later for other gadgets Siruko might possess, because if Siruko-san finds those, he’s never gonna rest. “Want me to write you a report?” He snickered. A few moments later, Jiraichan and Ichihachi came in, the latter carrying a bowl of what seems like soup. “Here Siruko-chan, eat this. It’ll make you feel better.”  “But I’m not—” “Yep, you’re not sick.” Ichihachi nodded seriously. “But I made this, won’t you eat it?” No one can really say no to Ichihachi’s persuasion, and Siruko is helpless. He can’t really taste the soup, but the warmth is making his stomach settle. “Siruko-san.” “Nani?” He turned to Jiraichan. “Gomen, can you open your mouth?” “Wh-aaaaii!!” Jiraichan quickly shoved a pill in, covering Siruko’s mouth until the poor guy was forced to swallow the pill. When Jiraichan let him go, he was coughing and hacking his lungs out. “Sorrryyy,” Jiraichan smiled cutely, turning on his charm. Siruko glared at him weakly, choking from the pill. “I told you guys, I’m not…” “Hai hai, you’re not sick, we get it.” Hakotaro came in, Mintosu opening the door for him. He was carrying a small wash basin with a damp cloth on it. “You’re not sick, and we’re not taking care of you.” Hakotaro placed the damp cloth on his brother’s sweaty forehead. “You guys don’t have to do this.” Siruko whispered weakly. “Yeah, and you totally didn’t have to take care of me when I broke my arm, but you did.” Hakotaro placed a kiss on his arm shyly. “You didn’t have to stay as I worked just to make sure my migraine doesn’t get worse.” Quartet kissed his temple. “You didn’t have to bandage my sliced finger. Really, it wasn’t even that bad.” Ichihachi kissed the back of his hand. “You didn’t have to watch me throw up but you rubbed my back and I really liked that.” Jiraichan was about to kiss his stomach, but Quartet stopped him. Jiraichan sighed and kissed Siruko’s cheek. “And you didn’t have to take me to the dentist, force-feed me my pain meds, and put up with my stubborn, difficult ass, but you did.” Mintosu smirked, then suddenly he swooped in and kissed Siruko’s lips chastely in a second. “So no, we don’t have to take care of you, but we want to.” Hakotaro declared. “Because you always take care of us.” Siruko felt like crying, and maybe a few tears did escape. He never realized it, but now he feels so loved and appreciated. He chuckled softly, a warm smile on his lips. “Thanks minna. Love you all.” “We love you too,” they replied softly. Siruko closed his eyes, feeling warm and safe with his family beside him.

Owari!

A/N: Hope you guys like it! This is unedited, so there might be errors, gomen. Please take care of yourselves minna, and make sure to not overwork yourselves like me and Siruko-san! Siruko-san please get well soon T^T Have a nice day! 🌻

[laughingpinecone]

Yuletide letter

I am laughingpineapple on AO3  

Hello dear author! I hope you’ll have fun with our match. Feel free to draw from general or fandom-specific likes, past letters, and/or follow your heart.

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic (when in doubt, tell me what’s happening to them five, ten, twenty years in the future!), hurt/comfort, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, tropey plots that are already close enough to characters/canon, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploring the ~deep lore, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played entirely straight, sensory details, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships), emphasis on inhuman traits of characters who were human once and have sort of shed it all behind

Cool with: any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, unrequested characters popping up.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay!), canon retellings, consent issues, actual covid (fantasy plagues are okay)

Les Cités Obscures: any

This is a very general “please, anything in the style of canon, just maybe with less thoughtless sexism” request. I want to lose myself in these cities again, and in the strange lands that connect them. I’d be happy to follow any of the known characters and/or OCs, or eschew characters altogether and write about the cities themselves. What caught your imagination in Brüsel, Xhystos, Taxandria, Alaxis...? The history of some cool building that was only marginally featured in one of the stories? Or an OC city! If you’ve got a favourite European city that doesn’t already have its obscure counterpart, please tell me all about it! Go big, go wild! What strange and classically surrealist happenings take place within its walls? Or even... outside Europe... Nerding out about architecture is of course very welcome. I would also love to read a story based on any Schuiten illustration, contextualizing it as if it were part of this ‘verse. Here’s a bunch of them, for example!

Ghost Trick: Cabanela

You know.. him. Dazzlingly OTT, untiring, rock-solid self-esteem, loyal to a fault, following a rhythm of his own, flawless intuition until it fails and it all burns down… him. I just want to see more of him doing stuff! The way he’s chill and open toward new people (like Sissel and Missile in ch15) makes him perfect to throw at most other characters and see how they react to the sparkles… I’d love some focus on how ridiculous his aesthetic is, half Saturday Night Fever half hardboiled detective half bubbly preteen (for a total of 150%) and yet he makes it work. Or how ruthless he can be, possibly for the sake of the people he cares for. The quote “The intimacy of big parties”. Him and Alma in the new timeline bonding over knowing (once Jowd has spilled the beans) but not remembering that terrible timeline. Some tropey scenario on the job. Snark-offs with Pigeon Man, by which I mean PM snarks and it bounces off him like water off a spotless white goose’s back.

Ship-wise it’s only Cabanela/Jowd whenever it’s not infidelity, Cabanela/Alma in what-ifs also if it’s not infidelity and Cabanela/Alma/Jowd for me (and Lynne/Memry and Yomiel/fianSissel on the side). There are a bunch of shippy prompts in all my past letters - I would however reiterate here that Jowd. is. the worst tease. always. Like, just saying, but assume he’s pining big time and Jowd and Alma figure it out - they’d make a national sport out of excruciatingly protracted teasing.

Conversely, Cabanela/Lynne and Cabanela/Yomiel are NOTPs especially from Cabanela’s side. So while I appreciate the thick tension of a good Yomiel VS Cabanela confrontation like everyone and their cat, and also really appreciate a roughed-up Cabanela, and I do love Yomiel in his own right… I don’t want Cabanela being into it. Adrenaline junkie he may be but this hurts and his coat’s a mess and there’s no perfect winning scenario so he hates every second of it. (JOWD being super into Cabanela being roughed up is another matter altogether and he should probably mind his own business. ...incompatible kinks, truly tragic. they’ll have to find some other common ground. they’re smart, resourceful, playful fellows, I’m sure they’ll manage)

Kentucky Route Zero: Donald kentuckyroutezero

I love everyone in the cast, all acts and interludes, and I am extremely into all the themes this incredible work of art ended up exploring. Agreeing with the overall doom and gloom up to Act IV, I was blown away by Act V’s strong affirmation of the importance of the arts and of the bonds we make and of carving up spaces for ourselves in capitalism’s wake. Donald was, indeed, not a part of any of that. Even the final interlude updates us on Lula and mentions Joseph, but the big guy is nowhere to be seen. So, you know, there’s fanfiction! He’s so static, defeated. I am fascinated by the chain of metaphysical spaces that goes surface -> Zero -> Echo -> Dogwood and even within that framework, the hall of the mountain king is like a hopeless dead end. Dude’s terminally stuck. So - once again, in the spirit of transformative works, how could he get... you know... unstuck? Did Lula’s momentous appearance in Act III shake him? Having a functioning Xanadu again, perhaps? How could he interrogate that oracle, what recursive wonders would it show him? If he decides to leave, what does it feel to be on the surface again after so long, or on the river perhaps? Maybe he is forced to leave by the flood, if not this one, the next... Having him meet any other character would be amazing. Past or future time spent with Weaver... seeing Conway again, changed... programmer guy chatting up musician androids... did he know Carrington from his college days or was Carrington only a friend of Lula’s?

As for Lula herself and Joseph too: “Flipping through the pages, Conway is able to gather that it’s a story about three characters: Joseph, Donald, and Lula. It’s something like a tragic love triangle, but much more complex. Some kind of tangled, painfully concave love polygon.” 😔 I ship them as a full triad, if you can nudge them in that direction, good. But I’m very open to non-romantic resolutions as well, going past their messy feelings to find each other as friends after so many years maybe. Or... a start. idk.

I’d be interested in fic that leans on the game’s adjacent genres: wanna go full-on American Gothic? Dip into surrealism? Take a leaf from Twin Peaks with tulpa / split narratives to explore the characters’ issues? I’m also open to AUs, real or through Xanadu. This also feels like a good place to stress that I really, really like caves.

And now for something completely different: FAQ:  The “Snake Fight” Portion of Your Thesis Defense is in the tagset this year. I’d say that the crossover with the snake portion of Here and there along the Echo writes itself, but it would not be correct, as in fact I would like you to write it for me. Feel free to not feature Donald if you focus on this crossover instead!

Uru would be a fun crossover too, for Donald specifically. He’s very DRC-shaped in how he tilts at doomed projects which just so happen to be deep underground.

Pyre: Volfred Sandalwood

This is a Volfred solo, Volfred&literally anyone or Volfred/Tariq, /Oralech or /Tariq/Oralech request. I adore everyone in that Blackwagon+Dalbert+Celeste, so if you want to add a Nightwing or two to any prompt, please do! I also love all the Scribes and find Erisa a compelling tragic figure, while out of the other triumvirates, I’m “love to hate them” for Manley, Brighton, Udmildhe and Deluge and would not like to see them featured in sympathetic roles. fwiw I also enjoy Jodi/Celeste and Bertrude/Pamitha a lot!

I feel deeply for all of Pyre’s main themes - literacy, degrees of freedom, the fragile time that is the end of a historical cycle, nobodies rising up to the occasion, building a better society, and of course found family, “distance cannot separate our spirits” and all that jazz, and Volfred is squarely rooted at the center of all of them. I really really love everything he stands for, even if he’s overbearingly smug in standing for it. Just please tell me things about my fave. His relationship to the Scribes (as a historian, a some kind of vision, via *ae or once he’s a star himself)? A ‘forced vacay’ Downside ending where he looks at the Union from afar and keeps living in this strange transformational place? Life in a cramped Blackwagon that was meant for like 5 people tops and is currently eight Nightwings, a herald and an orb? Since he picked him for the job to begin with, does he respect and cherish Hedwyn as he dang well should? What does it feel like to try and Read a herald? Was he ever in danger, in the Commonwealth or in the Downside? What daring act of resistance did he and Bertrude pull off at some point in their past? It’d be cool if one of his old pamphlets came up at some point. Does he puff up as prime minister because he’s nervous, and who can see past his hyper-professionalism and lend a hand? Please roast him big time about the votes he assigns to the various Nightwings in his planner? What’s his attitude toward the flame’s purification (what with being a tree but mostly like, as a general concept. He did nothing wrong!) (well he definitely said some things wrong and sometimes oftentimes the ego jumps out, but his intentions did nothing wrong)? When did his calculating approach fail him? Something with Pamitha along the lines of that edit that goes “Can we talk, one ten to another?“/"I am an eleven, my girl, but continue”? Dude could easily be voted sexiest voice in the Downside - how much is he aware of it? Does he sing? I love how he bears his ‘reader’ brand proudly. And speaking of scars, I have to wonder, looking at Manley for comparison, if the shape of his head, with that massive crack, isn’t also due to injuries.

As a refrain from my general likes: emphatically yes xeno to both shippy interactions at all ratings and to gen explorations of what a Sap is like… I’d love to read all your headcanons.

Ship-wise, I enjoy him with Tariq as this kind of esoteric connection of minds, guarded words full of secret meanings, long contemplative walks together (is any external pov watching...?), Volfred’s Reader powers brushing against Tariq’s mind and getting weak in the knees at the starlit expanse he finds there, so unlike mortal thoughts. Tariq finds his individuality learning from him; Volfred presumably gets a transcendent glimpse of the Scribes. And I enjoy him with Oralech as pretty much the opposite of that, Oralech is so very mortal compared to him, such a precious, fleeting, burning life especially after his fall. Oralech’s idealism is very dear to me, it was their plan, their shared revolutionary spirit, I find it deeply moving. And I am very interested in seeing them rebuild their connection now that Oralech is back, changed, and in some ways he can learn to let go of his misconceptions and slowly open himself to Volfred’s love again, but in other ways that’s who he is now, with this deep-set anger, and what does it even feel to realize that you’re the symbol of the end of an era (the end of the Rites, the fading of the Scribes). I’m interested in both topside and downside endings for all of them, as long as they end up on the same side, the revolution was peaceful and they don’t angst too much about the side they ended in. Tariq can ‘find his way home’ in the near post-canon somehow or even be summoned again, as a different aspect of the same ���moonlit vision’ that once inspired Soliam Murr.

Strandbeest: any

https://www.strandbeest.com/

I would just like words to go with these, please and thank you so very much. Worldbuild to your heart’s content! Specifically: I’m fascinated by the premise that the strandbeest are living creatures that evolve and adapt to their ecosystem. A world where life is just wind stomachs and sandy joints, and the tide that can catch you unaware. I would like a story that feels distinctly inorganic. The wonder that is the existence of these creatures. Their unique struggles. Weird and experimental if you like. With a mechanical focus, maybe?

I nominated four critters as a selection of the different cool things they can do - Percipiere Excelsus is huge and has the hammer mechanism, Suspendisse’s tail senses the hardness of the sand, Uminami is my fave caterpillar and the caterpillars overall feel like a new paradigm after a mass extinction event, Ader straight-up flies... but they’re all wonderful. If you want to focus on different strandbeest, please do!

Twin Peaks: Lucy Moran

Case fic but they don’t find out jack shit, someone disappears, David Bowie was there, it’s complicated. Fragmented, shifted, mirrored identities. New Lodge spaces. The risks of staring into the void for too long. Gentle illusions. Transcendence. The moon. Static buzzing. Any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt, actually. Whatever goes on on Blue Pine mountain or the even more mysterious things that go on on White Tail mountain where exactly zero canon locations are found. Twin Peaks is all about the mystery to me, the awe of mystery and unknowability and the human drive to look beyond and the risks of getting a peek, and about shared consciousness and trauma taking physical form in an uncaring world. Go wild with the ethereal whooshing! But I also love the human warmth at the heart of it all, and sometimes it’s enough to anchor these characters and let them have a nice day. A fic entirely focused on some instance of coziness against the cold chaotic background of canon would be great too.

For Lucy specifically, a big draw for me is how canon (...s2 need not apply) empathizes with her way of processing the world. Not just Peaks, but On the Air’s protag who is basically a Lucy expy also gets the narrative completely on her side and that’s great. And I love how in s3, her focus on the small things around her is always echoed by bigger, climactic events beyond her horizon (bunnies / Jack Rabbit’s palace, chair order / Garland’s chair, her first scene talking about the two sheriffs / doubles everywhere...). It feels to me like some kind of off-kilter mindfulness and I love it. She’s also got a loving husband and an amazing son, which, in this economy and also this canon? Damn. The one functional family, imagine that. I am not interested in focus on family dynamics, but singularly, either Lucy/Andy or Lucy&Wally are great - in particular, I’m interested in how strange they are and yet they make it work. With the ruthless critique of traditional family structure that’s all over canon, maybe they make it work specifically because they’re not doing any of that. A bit like the Addams family... but... not goth...? Anyway. I’d love to see Lucy interact with and maybe strike a friendship with any character she’s never shared a scene with in canon! In the tagset, there’s Diane for some secretaries bonding, Audrey because??? why not?, Albert because it’d be an epic enemies to friends slowburn, some version of Laura in the future, if we’re feeling really daring maybe even some version of Coop in the future, still fragmented... or anyone you want! Outside the tagset I’d be curious about Hawk, Margaret and maybe Doris in particular, I think, and Phil, and Nadine and the Invitation to Love fandom in general (Frost says it still airs - did it get as weird as TP s3 did?), but if you have an idea with someone else, absolutely go for it!

Canon-specific DNWs: any singular Dreamer being the ‘source’ of canon, BOB (let alone Judy) being forever defeated in the finale, Judy being an active malevolent presence in the characters’ lives, clear explanations for canonical ambiguities, ‘Odessaverse’ being the reality layer, the Fireman’s House by the Sea being the White Lodge, whatever Twin Perfect’s on about, Cooper/Audrey, Cooper/Laura

[polar-stars]

Shigeo Eizan, Erina, Eizan Etsuya, Chigeo, Kimiko and Hayama for the character thing please?

Ohh, I didn’t think anyone would ask for my own characters but ;v; !!! Sure !

Shigeo

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life [Shigeo is a character I’m really proud of haha ; 7 ; But I’m glad he’s actually well-received. I can only repeat, that I did not expect that]

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang [Honestly, I feel a bit weird over commenting on the looks of my OCs ahdhd but, I gotta admit Shigeo is much of my type...but I mean, apparently I’m not alone on that? dshdfjFGJ So many have complimented Shigeo’s appearance now and I’m screaming. Y’all are making his ego grow.]

hogwarts house: gryffindor | S L Y T H E R I N, Shigeo’s a full-fledged snake...what do u think? | ravenclaw | hufflepuff 

best quality: I said it once already, but I would actually say his loyalty is his best quality. Now, the number of people that Shigeo is loyal to is extremely slim but...well, it is a very strong loyalty. It’s just, again, it’s only few who earn that loyalty.

worst quality:  lol. I could name numerous things in that regard. But as I also said once already, I guess his most fatal flaw is that he swallows up his fears, his trauma and a lot of other things in himself and never works through it. 

ship them with:  ShigeChi >; Chieko had multiple ship-options at a certain point, but Shigeo’s only ship options always Chieko and welp ahdh The moment I started fleshing Shigeo out more, their dynamic grew more and more onto me and she also sneaked her way into his character-arc so. 

brotp them with: There’s Moe & Kiyoko, who are really close friends of his and I really love their relationships. But I also gotta bring up Suzume here. Suzume’s and Shigeo’s relationship makes me so happy, despite it not being exactly friendly ahdhd. It’s a lot of fun to think of their banter and interactions to me. Also well, Umino & Yamada deserve their mention as well, so here they go ahdh.

needs to stay away from: Ai Kabutoyama. Pls, don’t ship them. 

misc. thoughts: If “Shokugeki no Kimiko” was animated and had it’s own soundtrack, Shigeo deserves to be having a jazzy theme for himself. 

Erina

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life  

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang 

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff 

best quality: I really love how much of a Boss Bitch Erina really is, she steps into a place and she owns it and she knows it. But at the same time, her social awkwardness and also obvious care for Hisako, the PSD later on etc. also make her a cutie at the same time.

worst quality: This is really more on Tsukuda’s part, but I do not like how she’s written in BLUE Arc at all, and how she honestly keeps pushing Soma away while he goes out of his way for her multiple times...

ship them with:  Soma is my favorite choice for her

brotp them with: Hisako !!

needs to stay away from: HER DAD. AND ASAHI. AND HER MOM MAYBE- IDK, give her a better family. 

misc. thoughts: Takumi said in his match against her that if she’d be on the Elite Council “She’d be the zero seat”. And honestly, I kinda found myself wishing for Tsukuda just having run with that instead. Just establish a new seat extra for Erina because she’s that good. It still sounds kinda dumb yes, but not as dumb as making her actual headmistress. With 16. What also bothers me about her being headmistress is that it’s a very busy job, I’d imagine....Let Erina be a normal teen, could you? She was already robbed off a childhood, geez. 

Eizan

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life  [ Or more of: An Angry Opposum, I found in the trash and that I decided to adopt]

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot [without bangs] | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang [wiTH BANGS]

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin [...duh] | ravenclaw | hufflepuff 

best quality: Eizan is SO entertaining to me, you all have no idea. He’s so god-damn funny at times and I’m just ahdhd I love him. Meep, he’s intelligent and tactical and I like that in characters? I wish, we could have seen more of him being smart instead of having him being blinded more and more by rage and vengeance ;v; 

worst quality:  Lmao, do you want a list? His obsession for money? His unscrupulousness? His disregard of fucking...decency?? ahdh I could go on.

ship them with:  //takes out megaphone// nENE KINOKUNI, LADIES AND GENTS. In my eyes, he legit seems to hold some sort-off respect for her and I hold the headcanon that Eizan is actually crushing on her a little ver since middle school. Come on, I do think it’s plausible that he’d find himself attracted to a person like Nene: She’s smart, she’s no pushover, she murders people with just a glance, her hair is green. One of the meanings attributed to the color green is actually...finances, profit, banks, moNEY- 

brotp them with: The few interactions Eizan had with Somei legit cracked me up so...hdhd yeah, Somei. But also...Momo, being real. And of course, Isshiki & Kuga. Can’t forget them.

needs to stay away from: PSD, lol. I’d say Azami, but honestly Eizan seems to handle Azami fine? Azami just shows up at his work and is like: “What u doing owo?” and Eizan replies with “Are you bored or something????” like ahdhd WOW

misc. thoughts: Honestly...Is it plausible to assume that Eizan and Nene actually had a Shokugeki?...A Shokugeki which he won? I mean, somehow he had to earn that seat above her’s......right? (Would have been nice, if Tsukuda could have explained the new Elite 10 Ranking or show what got them there but nOPE)

Chieko

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life [She’s the first fanchild I ever made. I love her so much]

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang [It would break my heart to say anything else...She has insecurities]

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff 

best quality: I do love Chieko for how feisty she can be. The girl will mouth off multiple times to one of the most dangerous people at her school and I think it’s neat. 

worst quality: She does take longer to make her moves at times though, sometimes she’s just too careful and overthinking instead of stepping into battle. 

ship them with: Shigeo Eizan. Both of them succeed mainly through intellect, booth in cooking and other areas of life. It’s kind off natural, that they’d get eventually interested in each other. 

brotp them with: Yasu, Hideyoshi & Daisuke mainly, but the rest of PSD as well.

needs to stay away from: Shigeo, according to Yasu.  I don’t know as of right now honestly ahdh

misc. thoughts: Funfact, but her wearing a hairband once she’s a 2nd Year is kinda inspired by Disney’s Cinderella haha 

Kimiko

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life 

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang 

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff 

best quality: Kimiko is brave and also most definitely an actor!! And as someone, who’s neither of those, I always admire these qualities ahdh. 

worst quality: Kimiko pretends that she can’t feel feelings like sadness for a good chunk of the story. She plasters a wide smile on her face, even if she’s really not okay and that’s not a good thing...I’m saying this from very strong personal experience.

ship them with: Hiroshi! It was a thing for me from the beginning on!

brotp them with: Mika and later on Kaori, mainly.

needs to stay away from: her brother, okay no ahdhd but well, the nasty part of her family she does not know too well to begin with I’d say

misc. thoughts: I’d LOVE to draw Kimiko more, you gotta believe me on that but her hair is super exhausting to draw ahdhd I love your twin tails Kimi, but they’re suffering. 

Hayama

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life  

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang 

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin(?) | ravenclaw | hufflepuff [I can also picture him win Ravenclaw]

best quality: I kind off love how he’s the straight man in every group of friends he’s in? Someone give the poor man a break ahdhd. But I also really love how determined and ambitious he is, it’s inspiring to see (Which is why I kind off hate, that his shown that he refused to go to BLUE, because he didn’t feel strong enough? Idk, I feel the Akira I met in the Autumn Election wouldn’t have passed out on such a chance)

worst quality: not.....Not a big fan of the Central!Hayama/Soma-Shokugeki being real. I did not really enjoy his performance during that ; 7 ; But that’s just how I personally feel ;v; I don’t really dislike the idea of him joining Central, I just think it could have been done better

ship them with: Hisako!

brotp them with: Alice and Ryo of course 😤!!

needs to stay away from: Azami, haha. (Also...Not into shipping him romantically with Jun. At all. It does kinda creep me out, ngl since I do see her as a sort-off mother-figure in his life...)

misc. thoughts: It’s kinda crime, how he basically triggered the bit of Character development Hisako had, yet they never truly interacted with each other again afterwards ever again?? Like...Why? Why would you do something like this?

HISAKO AND HAYAMA REMATCH, SOMEONE GIVE IT TO ME

[sinfullystanning]

V is for Voler Part 1: An American in Paris

Bucky Barnes x Darcy Lewis (Wintershock)

A/N: Welcome to the new, UPDATED, version of Part 1 or “V is for Voler.” IF you were here before, some things, but not many, have changed. The biggest change is that I’ve decided to change the fic from a Bucky x OC to a Wintershock fic. I recently discovered Wintershock and after some careful consideration and help from the lovely, @cchellacat I decided to take the fic back to the drawing board and turn it into a Wintershock fic as I could easily see Darcy as the character of V. While at the moment, V is still V, she will be revealed to be Darcy in the future. Thank you for all the support as I transitioned this fic and please continue to support the fic.

Bucky hated traveling. He’d seen the world many a time through the vacant eyes of the soldier that Hydra had created and that had been enough. He was content to stay in New York City for the rest of his life, the city was constantly changing anyway. Unfortunately, his job had other plans. Sure, being an Avenger came with a steady job that made use of his many skillsets, but it also came with zero control of where he’d be on any given day of the week. Add on the fact that thanks to his Winter Soldier days he now spoke over thirty different languages, and the UN was tossing him back and forth across the globe almost constantly.

Tonight he was in Paris, trapped in a constricting tuxedo and a room of foreign dignitaries he’d never met. He was supposed to be observing, and if anyone asked? He was the estranged nephew of some Russian dignitary he supposedly resembled who couldn’t attend due to illness. Somewhere about an hour ago, someone had discretely passed him an envelope. What was in it? None of his business according to the sharp-spoken man who had briefed him prior to the mission. Bucky was disgusted. He hadn’t joined the Avengers to be someone old crone’s glorified carrier pigeon.

Needing a change of scenery, Bucky wove his way through the crowd of black-tie individuals speaking in the silky smooth native tongue that slid over his ears as he combed through the conversations while he made his way to an open French door at the far side of the room. He stepped out onto a small balcony, clearly designed for clandestine midnight forays away from the prying eyes of partygoers. Alone, however, it was comfortably cozy and Bucky unbuttoned his jacket for the first time all night, leaning his forearms on the cool stone railing, gazing across the twinkling city lights leading to the iconic pinnacle of the city, glowing against the inky black sky.

Suddenly a clatter broke the silence and Bucky jerked around to see a sniper rifle laying on the ground beside him that had been previously unoccupied. He couldn’t help his curiosity as he squatted down to observe the weapon and was impressed by the workmanship of the clearly custom-made gun. As a sniper himself, he felt subconsciously jealous of the mysterious owner. Just as his brain caught up with his eyes and he realized that the owner must be nearby, he heard the click of the safety of a gun. A gun that was most definitely pointed at his head. It wasn’t like him to let his guard down like that. But then again, it wasn’t every day that a man’s dream weapon quite literally fell from the sky.

“I think you dropped something.” He said cooly, ears pricked to find out exactly where his invisible assailant was.

“Then why don’t you be a good boy and give it back. I’m sure your mother taught you not to touch other people’s toys.” The voice that answered made him start. It was distinctly feminine and he turned his head a barely perceptible fraction of an inch to see a pair of red heels come into view. If Steve and Sam could see him now, first distracted by a gun and now practically pinned to the ground by a classic femme fatale. His mind drew an image of his assailant as he answered,

“I’m going to need to be able to stand up to do that, Doll.” He heard her snort as the cold metal of the previously-invisible gun pressed against his temple.

“So stand up.” Her voice amused yet ice cold. He reached down, wrapping a hand around the barrel of the rifle, as she spoke again. “Try anything funny and I’ll blow your brains out.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Bucky tossed back teasingly as he slowly stood to his feet, the gun at his temple backing up, but clearly still pointed at him by the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. “I’m going to turn around, now.” He announced so she wouldn’t accidentally blow a hole in his head before slowly turning to face the mystery woman.

She was the definition of your mind deceiving you. Where his mind had pictured a tall, willowy woman straight out of a Bond film, she was short, almost laughably so for the femme fatale vibe she was clearly trying to exude. The red heels he’d glimpsed earlier added a few inches, but he still towered over her. Without them, she’d probably be a foot shorter than him. Angry blue inquisitive eyes hacked away at the ice of his own. The blood-red dress she wore hugged her body in all the right places and a tastefully placed slit up one side teased a glimpse at the thigh holster that was home to the gun that he was currently looking in the eye.

“Rifle.” She said through bright red lips that commanded attention that he was more than glad to give them. Ruefully, he extended the arm holding the beauty, and she jerked her head, motioning for him to lean it against the railing. He stepped closer as he did so, bending down to set the gun down, meeting her eyes as he straightened up again.

“Beautiful rifle.” He said, gesturing to the gun with his eyes. “More beautiful girl.” He added, eyes dancing with mischief as she didn’t even flinch at the flirtation. Instead, she rolled her eyes, returning the gun she was holding to the thigh holster, Bucky’s eyes drawn to the sliver of thigh that flashed by in the process. She turned away from him, attention clearly now on the larger weapon, inspecting it for damage or tampering before she squatted down, setting the rifle on the stone, eye at the scope, clearly looking for something or, more likely, someone.

Bucky leaned against the glass window, watching silently, assessing every small movement she was making until she finally turned to him, face finally showing early signs of irritation. “Get lost.” She snapped, eyes threatening to incinerate him on the spot.

“What’s the problem, Doll, I’m just watching.” He pushed his hands into his pockets, nonchalantly as he watched her brows twitch with frustration before she straightened, placing a hand on a device on her wrist resembling a smartwatch, she swiped across the screen several times before turning back to the scope of the rifle. Before Bucky could ask any questions, she pulled the trigger three times. Clean straight shots, three identical flexes of fingers crowned with perfectly manicured red nails. The loud music inside must have drowned out the sound since he didn’t hear any reactions to the gunshots coming from the balcony. She stood up, clicking the safety back on, swinging the strap of the rifle across her chest so the gun lay across her back.

Before she could do anything else, however, the door to the balcony swung open and a clearly drunken couple, absorbed in each other stumbled out into the night air. Bucky moved fast, grabbing her hand, and swinging her around, pinning her against the window, rifle hidden behind you as he pressed against her, doing his best to resemble a convincing couple. As the other couple broke apart, the woman noticed them and muttering something to her partner, headed back inside. The moment the door swung shut behind them, firm hands shoved his chest hard and he stumbled backward as the woman glared at him, clearly furious.

“What the hell was that?” She snapped, her voice trembling with rage.

“What, no thank you, Doll?” Bucky drawled back. The next moment his neck snapped suddenly as fire exploded on his cheek. She’d hit him. She’d HIT him. He reached out, grabbing her wrist as she drew her hand back, face red with rage as she struggled to free herself from his grip. “Listen, darling, I’ve been all over the world, and I’ve never been anywhere where a slap means thank you for saving my life, so what the hell was that for?” Bucky growled at her.

“Thank you for saving my life? That’s what you call what just happened?” She scoffed. “I can save myself just fine, thank you.”

“How? You just going to put a bullet in their heads?” It was Bucky’s turn to scoff. She glared at him, free hand going to her thigh but Bucky was faster, flipping their positions and pressing her back against the stone railing, metal hand gripping the wrist that had been holding the gun, as the sudden movement causing her to lose her grip and the weapon fell, clattering onto the roof of a smaller building below. “I think that’s enough shooting for one night, don’t you think?” She spat in his face and he swore, backing up, metal hand releasing her right one, to wipe at his face and she brought her legs up to kick him in the stomach, using the rail as leverage, freeing her other hand as Bucky stumbled backward from the unexpected blow. Then, she backflipped over the railing falling off the balcony.

Bucky caught his breath and raced to the edge just in time to see her disappear off the edge of the roof below where her gun had fallen before, into the darkness of the night. As he shoved a frustrated hand through his hair, he knew one thing for sure. He was looking forward to staying in Paris because now he had a new mission. He needed to see her again.

Taglist:

@gamorarogers @callie-bear15 @spacemansam @vulgarvalyrian @cchellacat

[ongfreestyle]

Coffee and College

A Jaehyun college coffee bullet au that ZERO people asked for

So anyway, you're in your second year of college and you're in the groove of things (kinda) and all is well

You're on your way to your 9am French I class on the first day and you feel your phone vibrating

It's your bf and you smile thinking "aaww it's our 3yr anniversary n he's calling already to say good morning"

More like... goodbye

Yep. 8:45am he calls you to dump you in the driest most uncool way

"listen. I just ... I know this is random, but....I don't wanna do this anymore."

"oh. Uh. What? Sorry I didn't hear you?"

"I'm sorry, I just can't do this anymore I want to break up with you. I'm sorry."

"oh. Ok. Fine. Sure. Umm...if you wanna talk about it later. Then...yeah..I have French class now bye."

End of call and start of class

Yep you're third row from the back and you plan to pay attention to the syllabus talk and following lesson but

You're definitely tearing up

Like literally WHO DOES THAT?? Just dumps you at 8am no explanation??

So anyways there are teardrops on your notes now and ink isn't tear proof so...rip

Anyways thirty minutes in and your head in kinda just down and you're kinda just crying quietly

And then this kid slides into the seat next to you

He's v late

And v cute even through the tears

And he's smiling really big even though the teacher just scolded him

He sets his coffee down and looks at you wiping snot and tears away and he hands you a napkin from his bag

You take it and mutter a "thanks"

And a moment later he slides his coffee to you too

"I didn't drink it yet"

"it's an espresso, extra caffeine"

"I made it myself"

And he's back to taking notes

And you're still kinda pouting, but it's been 45+ mins so you try to at least write down the homework assignment

And you decide to sip the stupid espresso it's actually pretty good

The next day you find yourself at the school cafeteria and guess who it is??

Espresso boy!!

And it turns out that he's even cuter in uniform!

You go to order some food and he greets you with a big smile

"feeling better today?"

"kinda"

"rough day yesterday, huh?"

"yeah. Can I have a breakfast burrito?"

"no coffee?"

"no, but thanks for the free coffee yesterday. It helped. I owe you one"

"no you don't, it's on the house. And so the one I'm about to make you next. It's today's special!"

Who are you to deny another free coffee? So you take his offer and a few minutes later you're at your table eating your breakfast and doing your French homework

And the special coffee is really good

Then one of your friends comes by and is giving you a weird look

"are you drinking the nasty coffee from the cafeteria??"

"yep. Its actually really good"

And your friend's like ??? "It's usually bitter and gross tho ?? Like 10 times outta 10"

And you shrug and get back to work and your friend grabs some food and starts doing their work too

The day goes on and finally you get some time to yourself to think about yesterday

Your ex hasn't called or texted. Nothing. And it just hits you like wow. I'm. Single.

Cool.

Except not cool because you got no closure or explanation and ouch.

So you hate it but just like yesterday, you're crying again. Just. Uglier crying.

And your roommate comes back and is like "awww sweetie, fuck him"

And she says if you wipe your face she'll take you out for ice cream

So fuck the snot and tears, you want some damn ice cream

And out you go!!

Free ice cream you two stop at a park on campus and there's a basket game going on

And your roommate is like SKSSKDJS "LOOK IT'S JOHNNY SKSJDJ"

English??

"that means holy shit it's the hottest tallest nicest guy in school and he's playing basketball look at his ARMS BITCH"

So guess who's watching a pickup game of bball while eating ice cream?

You two!

Oh and guess who else is playing and is red and sweaty and had a nice jump shot?

Coffee boy.

Yup and you might not be interested in the Score, but dammit the view was nice

The game ends and Johnny is the first to come over to the side lines n greet your roommate

She's batting her eyelashes and telling him he did amazing even tho they lost

And he's smiling and chugging water as he goes on talking and coffee boy and a few of his friends are on the sidelines now looking at you

Coffee Boy is the first to say hi and all you can do is say hi back

And thank him for the coffee again

He shrugs, "no problem. Coffee fixes almost everything in college"

Almost everything. And there's an awkward silence

"see you around." He says and he walks away

Like that you never find out his name and life moves on

French class is going well and you sit in the front now and coffee boy is always late and sits in the back

You really don't do anything except exchange glances

Then midterms are coming up and you are a bit panicked bc u definitely neglected French studies

So like any good college student you cram like hell

In the library at midnight you're trying to learn vocabulary, conjugations, grammar points

You look insane by 1am bit you can't stop then you hear someone coming I'm the library

It's (literally if you can guess by now) coffee boy

And he's got 4 coffee cups in a holder with him and a huge backpack

He spots you and waves

"mind if I sit with you?"

"mind if I claim two of the coffees?"

"there all yours" and he sits next to you and slides the holder to you just like when you first met

"I made them myself"

"so you make these awesome brews?"

"yeah the schools coffee recipe is shitty."

"well maybe you should major in business and open a coffee shop. They're really good."

"maybe I will"

And you two study quietly and you peek over to see him going over French vocab

"let's quiz each other?"

"sure"

And it's 2am and you guys realize you're both fukced

Like. No vocab is sticking and the coffee had you two literally SHAKING

And by 3am you guys are just cracking up

"I never learned your name coffee boy"

"Jaehyun. Jung Jaehyun."

"well. Good luck with the test tomorrow because I. Give. Up."

And you get up to leave and he offers to walk you home and you accept for safety reasons

"I'm glad to see you so happy. You're pretty like that."

"I'm an ugly crier, huh"

"kinda."

"okay, not the gentleman answer, but I admire your honesty"

"thanks. I hope you have a good night"

Yeah the walk back was not long at all. Too bad because you really were enjoying your time

But 9am French !!!

Midterms are over after a week and it's back to the daily grind

But days are way better when you have French now bc Jaehyun sits next to you (when he's on time and the seats open) and you guys joke around alot during speaking practice

He's brings you a new coffee everyday and asks you how it tastes and what he should add or take away

And you kinda hang out at the cafeteria now so you can talk to him while he's working

Ooppsss you have developed a small™ crush on Jaehyun and it's not going away anytime soon

You even open up to him about why you crying the day you met (tho u vowed to NVR speak of it again)

Yeah now the crush is nvr dying :)))

Bc your friends notice that you always go watch him play b-ball even tho it's not a REAL game

And he always has a coffee for you

And you two are always studying French

But like...you guys are making questionable grades...so...what's up??

NOTHING

French I finals are coming and you and Jaehyun are at your usual spot in the library, except this time YOU bought HIM coffee

"what brand ?"

"gross school brand that you didn't make, but is LOADED with caffeine"

"gross. Hand me one"

"cheers!"

And it's study time

But he's not focused

Like he never is and neither are you, but it's really off now

"is it that bad?"

"the coffee? Yeah. And my French grade? It's even worse. I won't make French 2."

And you're like WTF WTF NO FRENCH 2 WITH JAEHYUN YOUR CRUSH WHO LITERALLY GOT YOU THRU THIS SEMESTER ????

"Jaehyun. We are going to fix your grade with this final. I SWEAR."

You're like REAL STUDY MODE: ON

And he has this small smile on his face.

Sly....

"what?"

"you WANT me in your French 2 class don't you?"

"uuhhh-duhh free coffee to keep me up during le snooze fest"

"you know it's not free. It comes outta my pay check"

"okay, then I owe it to you to get you to pass this class and get to French 2"

"I guess."

Yeah. You're DRILLING info into ur heads ,,,, but Jaehyun is like ____ blank.

So you kinda snap

"yo do u wanna fail??? At least TRY!"

"I can't focus. I'm confused about something."

"past tense conjugations?"

"you."

Pause.

"I can't tell if you're over your ex. You took it hard and I'm trying to wait, but..."

???????????

"my ex? My ex is my ex...I'm over that"

"you never really brought it up much. I wouldn't know."

"Past tense."

"and also. The coffee."

"your coffee is good! I'm serious, Jaehyun!"

"yeah, but do like me...? Or my coffee?"

"both?"

Jaehyun is not making this easy for you okay

"I mean, if I didn't bring you coffee, would you still hang with me? Teach me French n stuff?"

"of course."

"so you...........like......me?"

HELL YES, but you settle for a simple yep

Then he just looks at you seriously

"you LIKE me LIKE me..like....LIKE LIKE?"

"uuhh...if I understood all of the likes right, then....yeah. I do like you."

OH AND THAT DOES IT

He is so reeeeeedddd

Like this boy GONE

You. His crush. Likes. Him. Wtf

Yeah he cannot quit grinning

And when you move on from the topic he can't focus on a single word you're saying

Finals day comes and you feel okay about your score and Jaehyun said he wants to leave it in the past

And you two go hang out at the cafeteria

And he's looking at you across the table

Randomly he just smiles at you

"I..wanna be your boyfriend...."

bc y'all nvr because s/o's officially soooo

Your heart rate

Lemme draw it

/\/\/\/\_______💀

Wow

He said it so cutely

Damn that's crazy bc you would love if he was your bf

And when you say that!!

Reference to drawing

After becoming official you two are like the cutest couple ever

And you go to French 2 and he's back in French 1

He got a 58 on the final :/

But OH WELL you're his tutor now

And you guys actually study

And he doesn't feel like he has to bribe you with coffee to make you like him

So with some hard work you both kick your caffeine addictions

And you guys spend the days making stupid jokes and playing basketball together

Cramming for French while high on 4 coffees each

(old habits die hard)

And you two tease each other so much

It's a miracle you get any work done really

Jaehyun passes his French 1 class with an A+ and he literally runs to your dorm to tell you

You crash into each other

He holds you to steady you

And hes like "babe I passed"

"that's great!"

"it's all thanks to you I could kiss you, but I have coffee breath and-"

"that's nothing new"

Okay and cue the totally cheesy kiss

Where Jaehyun's like "you're right, but our first kiss should be special"

Valentine Boy is a ROMANTIC okay

But it doesn't matter

You can't resist leaning in

And he lets out a fake groan like he hasn't been dying to kiss you since he first saw u snotting all over your notes

Yep he liked you then.

And the lean in was so slow, but when your lips met it was worth it

And the coffee taste.... wasn't so bad anyway

[randomnoteforfuturereference]

It’s the Little Things: IV

ForFutureReference

Words: 2275

Summary:  It’s common knowledge that Dex has a multitude of skills tucked away. That doesn’t mean there aren’t times when he brings out a skill that catches Nursey off-guard. Especially when Dex helps Nursey with said skill.

Also on AO3.

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

Author’s Note: I’d like to thank @kleeklutch for not just the beta-ing, but suggesting this prompt in the first place.

Where is it? Shit. WHERE THE FUCK IS IT?

This has been my fourth rummage-through.

But no matter how many times I feel through and turn out my pockets… no matter how many times I remove all the contents of my messenger bag… no matter how much I try to regulate my breathing and block out the pounding of blood in my ears… there’s little denying that that I’m missing the most important item for tonight — even more than my phone, which is also missing — and there’s nothing I can do about it.

*CRACK!*

At least, if my inkling about it being back at the Haus is true, nothing I can do without getting completely soaked to the bone. The explosive crash of lightning and thunder — close enough to rattle the old windows to the café and make the many of the patrons jump — mocks me with that fact. The rolling din is loud enough that I don’t even have to look outside to know that there are sheets of rain obscuring the view of anything across the street.  

Sam, the café’s owner and emcee who’s still in the process of drafting the schedule for tonight’s open mic night, knows me well enough to offer an understanding grimace. And I know them well enough to know I’m going to be placed in a later time slot, which the part of me that isn’t freaking out is thankful for.  

Some look down on reciting via reading and say that it ruins the performance. I don’t deny that someone just staring at their paper is poor presentation as they aren’t interacting with the audience. However, I rebuke any inflexible “memorization or GTFO” mentality.  

Having the words in front of me helps to focus my thoughts and tempo, especially when it’s one of the longer poems. I don’t need, or want for that matter, to read line by line. Instead, an occasional glance is all I need, and I feel it helps my own performance when I use the reading material itself to gesture with.

Anyways, whatever. It’s chill. While it’s not ideal, it’s not a full loss either. I do have poems memorized. I just need to—  

*CRACK!*

This time, the meteorological clash is loud and unmuffled enough to make me join everyone else in jolting up and looking towards the front of the café.

You know those scenes in the movies where a crack of lightning and thunder draws everybody’s attention to an ominous figure looming in a doorway?

Well that’s playing out right now — with the added bonus of a cold raindrop-laden gust blowing through the café — and considering the figure in question, I’m not even sure that he’s aware of the imagery being created.

But we are.

I mean, when someone barges in from a storm… it’s bound to be a sight. Especially when that someone is six-foot-plus ginger — who has never shown his face in any poetry event before — clad unironically in work jeans, flannel, and a Carhartt.

Unaware of the focus on him, he wastes no time in slamming the door shut, blocking out the cold and muffling the sounds of the tempest in the process. One hand wipes at his face while the other clutches tightly around his abdomen as if he’s in pain, which I don’t doubt considering the intensity of his panting and blushing. Only after his heaving breaths subside, does Dex notice the attention he’s drawn. The reaction is immediate, and he demonstrates that it’s possible to have a blush over a blush.

Despite his mounting mortification — at this point, I don’t doubt that he can dry himself with his own blush — Dex still scans the crowd until his eyes meet mine, heaves a clear sigh of relief, and walks in my direction.  

Okay, it’s more of a waddle. A squishy, puddle-tracking, clothes-plastered waddle that progresses as a collective set of eyes silently tracks his movement.

Clear the schedule. Here’s the star of the show.

Sam, who’s standing right next to me, whispers, “Is that your—”

“Yep.”

"He's…"

"Yep."

“… Wow.”

“Yep.”

When Dex gets close enough for me to feel the humid heat of embarrassment radiating off of him, I don’t hesitate in getting the first word in: “The fuck, Poindexter?”

Instead of answering me straight up, Dex mutters a curse-laden comment about how difficult it was to find the joint as he methodically wipes his hand. Hand mostly dry, he rapidly extracts two phones from his pockets and all-but shoves them into my hands.

One of the damp-but-working phones is mine.

I try to come up with a response — not sure whether to thank him for the phone or question the surrealism of this moment — but my words die as he lifts his shirt to reveals a small leather-bound booklet.  

My poem booklet.

“Sorry for carrying it like this,” he mumbles while extracting my booklet with his fingertips from the waist of his jeans.

When he holds the booklet out to me, I almost drop the phones in my hands and barely have enough wits to set them on the table. The booklet is still warm to the touch. Any spot of water that made it through is small and isolated enough for me remove with a single wipe of my sleeve, and none of the pages have been marred.

“How did you—”  

“It was on the kitchen counter.”

“Oh.”

Sam, after staring at the booklet with probably the same amount of wide-eyed shock that I feel, coughs and whispers, “So… Derek, does this mean you’re fine with the schedule being the original plan?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Great,” they note with a jotting down on their tablet. “And, um, Dex? Is that right?”

Dex’s whips his head towards Sam in surprise that they know his name. “Yeah it is.”

“Do you want to dry off?”

It’s only then that Dex notices the stream of water that he’s tracked inside, and he reddens once more while letting off another string of curses wrapped around apologies.

“It’s okay! It’s okay!” Sam assures him. “There are towels, dry clothes, and a room here you can change in.” To punctuate that statement, they rummage for a t-shirt from the merch counter and a pair of jeans from the donations bin before pointing Dex to the backroom.

I don’t think anything of it besides it being nice that Dex won’t be a dripping mess for the whole night.

When he emerges a few minutes later from the back room, I realize the grave error of taking the action at face value

Now despite all the jokes about ears, freckles, and the fact that his hands aren’t going to win any beauty contest, Dex has a… nicely proportioned body.

That doesn’t mean I want it highlighted in front of me in the form of a black neon-designed t-shirt that’s at least one size smaller than his usual, or ripped jeans that are more than a bit on the form-fitting side. Dex holds those jeans — not to mention their wearers — in so much contempt, but I find myself unable to revel in the irony playing out.

I mean, if you hate an outfit so much, how can you make it look so good on yourself? How? I have zero clue, but somehow Dex pulls off the look as he shuffles over to us.

And judging from the not-so-subtle glances by others in the crowd, I’m not the only one aware of that fact.  

I turn to Sam with narrowed eyes. “You’re evil.”

“Hey,” they rebuke, “I’m just keeping things safe.”

“And those were the only sizes available?” My question is rhetorical.

Sam just smirks before greeting Dex, “Hey, I hope everything fits well.”

Like I said: evil.

Dex scowls at no one in particular. “I don’t know how anyone can wear these,” he grumbles while attempting to tug those jeans up more as if they are made to sit close to the waist like he prefers.

It doesn’t matter that I know his fashion preferences. What matters is that those jeans can’t go any higher — if he was a citizen of this decade, he’d know that — and his only success is making them more… snug. A quick glance around reveals that others notice, and I try not to think about the fact that Dex’s whole body is in everyone's line of sight. Or that the shirt leaves none of his upper-body musculature to the imagination as it tenses, relaxes, shifts, and ripples with the slightest movement. Or that the Swallow's editors are present in the crowd.  

“Chill,” I mutter out of hope that I can rile and distract Dex from his obscene exercise in futility. All it does is make him focus his scowl at me as he continues his attempts. Stop it!

Maybe it’s exhaustion, or maybe he has learned the errors of his way. Whatever the reason, Dex finally stops with a frustrated toss of his hands. Still, despite his clear disdain for the attire, he turns to Sam with an appreciative nod. “Thanks for the dry clothes, and sorry about the mess.”

They wave him off with a grin. “Don’t worry about that. And you don’t have to return the jeans tonight.”

The nature of that statement makes me continue my side-eye.

Dex, being Dex, completely misses that. “I’ll give them back after washing,” he says before picking at the shirt. “What about this?”

“Oh that’s yours!” declares Sam. “And don’t worry about paying. After what you just did, it’s on the house.”

What.

Dex freezes. “What?”

“If you hadn’t come here, the scheduling would have been messed up, which would have been a hassle for us.”

I can see the scales balancing in Dex’s mind before he fiddles with the sleeve. “The fabric is nice…” Nonononono— “Thanks.”

Sam makes sure eye contact is maintained between me and them. “Think nothing of it.”

Evil.

“Welp, I best get this thing rolling. T’was good meeting you,” Sam states while shaking Dex’s hand before turning to me. “We’ll be live in thirty.”

Despite my current disgruntlement with Sam, I still order dinner and drinks — Dex’s clearly hungry and his wallet’s busy drying, so I don’t even have to exert myself much to justify buying this round — once we take our seats in the ever-crowding space.

“Lots of people,” Dex mutters as his eyes dart around. By now, everyone’s attention has turned elsewhere, so there’s that at least.

“Chyeah. Premier monthly poetry event in Norfolk County.” There are even key figures, critics, and academics from Boston, Cambridge, and Providence in attendance. Thankfully, they tend to arrive late, and I don’t think any were here to witness Dex’s arrival and… fashion debut.

I can tell he feels completely out of his depth here. Despite that, and despite the weather having cleared up outside, he stays by my side.

It’s probably because the food and shakes are great.

Still… “I want to thank you getting this,” I say while patting my booklet.

Dex fiddles with a sweet potato fry. “We’re supposed to have each other’s backs, yeah? I know this whole poetry thing means a lot to you. I don’t get it, but…”

But he helped out anyways. I… fuck.

Well, if he’s going to be here… “Um, would you mind if I read a piece that’s a bit based on you?”

Dex tenses with a scowl. Not a hostile scowl. Just surprised and a bit pensive. “It’s not an ode to lobsters, is it.”

A chuckle bubbles up from me at that. “Don’t worry, it’s not.” I open my booklet to the relevant page and slide it over to him. “I bet most of the guys at the Haus wouldn’t know it’s you without me spelling it out.”

As Dex’s eyes flit over the words, his scowl scrunches in concentration. Then it dissipates with a raise of his eyebrows and widening of his eyes.

When it’s clear that he’s done, I note, “If you’re not comfortable, I won’t read it. I wasn’t even planning to originally—”

“No, it’s okay!”

Any incoming explanation dies on my lips and is replaced with a simple, “… It’s okay?”

“It’s just a bit surprising. That’s all. But if that’s what you want…” A patented Poindexter shrug caps his statement.

“And you think it will be alright there?” I ask with a nod to the stage.

Another shrug. “Hell if I know. My opinion means jack shit, but it looks solid to me. So if you feel comfortable with it, I don’t see why not.”

Dex’s opinion matters a lot more than he thinks. Not that he needs to hear that from me. “Thanks.”

His ears redden the slightest. “Like I said. Got your back.”

Few minutes till curtain, Ford rushes in panting with breathless apologies for being late until I assure her that we haven’t even started yet. She does a double-take at the sight of Dex, but to her credit doesn’t comment on his appearance. Instead she simply expresses her happiness at seeing another friendly face, a sentiment that he reciprocates with a grin and a sliding of the fries basket to her. I ignore the inscrutable glance she give me.  

Finally, Sam comes up to the stage, welcomes everyone, and calls me up as the first performer.

With pats on the back from Dex and Ford, and a chorus of snapping from the crowd, I make my way up to the stage, slide on my reading glasses, and open up the booklet.

“Yo, I’m Derek, and my piece for this evening is Threads…”

Continue to Part V

[rose-of-pollux]

The Jack o’ the Lantern Affair (MFU fic), part 5/5

Title: The Jack o’ the Lantern Affair Rating: PG13 (for action/danger) Chapter summary: Things come to a head as dawn draws near, but Napoleon has a few surprises in store for everyone. Notes: This version of the fic (cross-posted to AO3) is light slash; if you prefer reading gen, there is a gen version on ff.net, but I can’t link to it with tumblr’s linking restrictions.

                                   Act V: The Wings of the Night

Napoleon didn’t say anything for a moment; he was glancing at himself, and at his hands, as though trying to see if there was a difference.  He then ran his tongue over his teeth, pausing at the elongated canines, and then glanced at himself in a pocket mirror.

“You…” Jack said, stunned.  “You have a reflection!?”

Napoleon then turned at Jack, glaring at him. Without even waiting for him to say a word, Jack retreated, and the zombies and skeletons fled right behind him.

Illya, on the other hand, hobbled towards his partner.

“Napoleon…” he whispered.  “Forgive me.”

“For what?” Napoleon asked.  “Illya, you saved me.”

“If by ‘save,’ you mean condemned you to a worse fate,” Illya said.  “I wanted to save your life—instead, I have made you one of the undead!”

“I don’t think so…” Napoleon said, and he placed two fingers on his neck.  “Still got a pulse.”

“What…?” Illya asked.  He, too, placed his fingers on Napoleon’s neck, and felt the pulse, as well, and noted that Napoleon’s skin was still warm.  “Then…  You are a vampire, but a living vampire?  Is that why you have a reflection still?”

“I guess so,” Napoleon said, with a shrug. “But we can figure out how it works later; this has thrown Jack for a loop, and we can use this opportunity to get the drop on him.  Here, give me those…”

“Napoleon, a vampire can’t--!” Illya stopped in midsentence as Napoleon took the three vials and the hamsa amulet from him without any negative reaction.  Well, if he had a reflection, why not this, too?

“Jack went towards the house; he’s probably hiding inside,” Napoleon said, not thinking anything about the fact that he, as a vampire, could handle holy objects without any trouble.  Illya stared for a moment before following, paging through the book to search for some sort of an explanation as he ran after Napoleon.

Napoleon was focused on the mission to stop Jack that he barely noticed Zero materializing beside him.

“What are you!?” Zero sputtered, staring at Napoleon as though he was something from another world.  “How is this possible!?  How can a vampire hold holy waters and a hamsa without feeling any pain!?”

Napoleon glared at him and waved the waters and amulet in Zero’s direction, causing him to back off with a curse.

“I see…” Zero hissed, scowling.  “Somehow, your heart is still pure.  But for how long, I wonder?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You are now a vampire.  And vampires fall to darkness eventually.  It is only a matter of time,” Zero smirked.  “All I have to do is wait.  …You know, you haven’t eaten all day.  Aren’t you hungry?  Or thirsty? I am sure that your partner will be a willing blood donor if it means sustaining you.”

Napoleon gave him an absolutely furious look.

“You can look at me like that all you like; you are not above temptation.  And even if you were, what do you think is going to happen to you if you do stop Jack and send him and his ilk to the other dimension?  Might I remind you that you are now a creature of the night like them—pure heart or not, you will end up dragged to this dimension, as well. And I can tell you that a pure heart such as yourself won’t be lasting long there—not without adapting to the ways of darkness.  Of course, I could work things so that you would not have to be banished; you just have to say the word--”

“Get away from me!”  Napoleon snarled, waving the waters and amulet in his direction again. “There’s enough holy water here to deal with you and Jack!  Just try me!”

Zero cursed again and vanished, and Illya caught up.

“What did he say!?”

“Never mind,” Napoleon said, shaking his head. “He’s just doing what he does best; we don’t have time for him right now.”

“Right,” Illya sighed.

The two of them ran to the porch of the house, undisturbed by Jack, Zero, or anyone.  Illya went in first, but Napoleon halted at the threshold.

“Ah…” he said.  “Okay, so the ‘can’t enter places unless invited’ thing apparently applies to living vampires, too…”

“Come on in,” Illya sighed, and Napoleon was able to enter after that.  

The moment gave the American a reason to pause and think about Zero’s warning of him being dragged to the dark dimension if they reversed all that Jack had done.  It was a horrifying thought—and yet, Napoleon knew that Jack could not be allowed to continue his rampage for another year.

“Illya?” he said, as they began to search the house.

“Hmm?”

“We already agreed that the most important thing is to stop Jack, right?”

“Right.”

“No matter what the cost, right?”

Illya looked back at him.

“You have something horrible to tell me.”

“Well, it’s… bad, but it could be worse…”  He briefly explained about the dilemma, only to receive a horrified look from Illya.

“How could things be worse!?”

“Well, even if I end up in this dimension, at least I’ll be alive?  That’s better than the alternative, isn’t it?”

“No!” Illya insisted.  “Napoleon, the entire reason I did not want to get involved in this fight with Jack was because I was afraid of losing you!  I knew this was going to happen!  I lose everyone important to me; why would this have been any different!? Why should Illya Kuryakin keep those who are close to him!?”

Illya almost never got emotional, but this was a very harsh exception; Napoleon was startled to see Illya blinking back tears.

“Everything that I have done these last 24 hours was to try to work things so that I would not lose you,” Illya continued.  “I tried to keep you away from the fight.  I tried to help get these holy waters and the amulet when it was clear we had to fight.  And now you mean to tell me, that after all we have done to gain the upper hand, after I did this to you to save your life… In spite of it all, I still have to lose you!?”

Napoleon drew Illya into a tight embrace, wishing he had something he could say to bring his partner some comfort.

“Tell me one thing, Napoleon,” Illya said, bitterly. “Why does your God allow such things to happen?  I am not even thinking of myself now—though, I am convinced, after losing so much in my life, I feel I should be owed some explanation as to why.  But I am thinking of you.  You, who constantly goes out of your way to help people, who, by the admission of the Devil himself, has a pure soul…  Why does your God treat you like this?”

“I don’t know,” Napoleon admitted.  “And I also don’t know why you’ve had to suffer through so much.  But I guess that part of faith is believing in something even if you don’t know all the answers.”  He exhaled. “You once said that, though you don’t believe in much, you believed in us.”

“Yes.  I meant that. I still do.”

“Then have faith in us,” Napoleon said.  “Have faith that the two of us will somehow make it through this together.  I love you, Illya.  And you know I’m going to do my darndest to make sure that you and I grow old together.”

Illya sighed, but nodded, and Napoleon now took him by the hand and led him up the stairs.  Despite his worries and fears, Illya had to admit that Napoleon’s grip—augmented by his vampire strength, was slightly reassuring.

As they reached the attic, they could hear Jack muttering furiously from the roof of the house.

“Doesn’t make sense, doesn’t make sense…” he fumed. “A vampire with a reflection? How is it possible…?”

Napoleon placed a finger to his lips, and indicated the trapdoor that led to the roof.  Illya stood on a box and opened the trapdoor a crack, and promptly closed it after taking a peek, shaking his head.

“He is not alone; he has a small guard of zombies, skeletons, and ghosts protecting him,” he whispered.

“Then we’re going to have to do this the way we usually do things—with teamwork,” Napoleon said.  He handed the holy waters and amulet back to Illya.  “Use these to protect yourself as you go through the trapdoor.  And then—and this is very important—stall Jack long enough by saying that I’ve run off into the night—turned to the darkness, or something catchy like that, and that you blame him, since it was because of him that you had to turn me into a vampire.”

“I can manage that.  But why?”

“Because I’m going to construct a little something out of all this junk that will give me a boost and let me crash right through that roof directly under the spot where he’s floating.  Hopefully, I’ll have the element of surprise long enough to get the lantern from him.  You be ready with the waters.”

“Very well, I will do as you say,” Illya said. “But after the task is done, you must not question any of the actions I take.”

Napoleon blinked, but nodded.

“Have faith, Tovarisch,” he said.  “And remember, no matter what happens…  I love you.”

He placed his hand gently on Illya’s face, and Illya nodded, touching Napoleon’s hand with his.

“I love you, too.”

Illya leaned in for a kiss, but a scrambling up on the roof caused them to pull apart; Napoleon hid behind an old dresser as Illya threw open the trapdoor and clambered out, waving the vials and the amulet.

“You!” Illya fumed, playing his part well.  “You are the reason my partner turned to the shadows!”

“‘Tisn’t my fault!  You were the one who cast the spell on him!  You should have kept better control of him!”  He pointed to the book.  “Consider yourself lucky that you weren’t bitten!”  Jack now grinned.  “Or… knowing you, you probably would have enjoyed that, wouldn’t you?  Do not deny that is what is in your heart deep down—the thought of being romanced by your vampire lover—to be turned into one by his bite upon your neck as he held you in those strong, vampiric arms…!  I saw you back there—behind your horror was desire! Tee-hee, tee-hee, you are blushing!”

Napoleon, who was busy assembling a makeshift springboard, was trying very hard not to react to the conversation going on—or the fact that Illya didn’t seem averse to the idea of being bitten by him.  …In fact, Napoleon half-suspected that Illya had been considering either that or casting the vampire spell upon himself so that wherever Napoleon ended up, Illya would go, too.

Napoleon shook his head; he’d worry about that later.

“We’ve got to stop Jack first…” he murmured, as he began to climb his contraption.

“Do you, though?” Zero’s voice taunted him.

Napoleon looked down, freezing at the sight of Zero smirking up at him.

“I’m offering you one last chance to accept my help,” Zero said.  “Your plan is grasping at straws—and even then, it punishes you.  Your partner is right, you know—you put up with all sorts of hardships in spite of all the good you attempt to do.  What do you get out of it?  And why do you settle for it when I can give you so much more?”

“I never asked anything from you.”

“But I can give you what you desire most in this world—to be with your lover.  You heard his reaction to the thought of you romancing him as a vampire.  And don’t try to deny that you weren’t going to find the thought pleasant too!  Wouldn’t you want to make your beloved happy?”

“Illya’s happiness is the most important thing in the world to me,” Napoleon agreed.  “I’m not denying that.”

“Then, I take it you’ll sign my deal?” Zero asked eagerly, materializing the contract in his hand.

Napoleon smirked.

“Never.  Because if I did, Illya would never be happy.”

Without saying another word, he leaped from his makeshift springboard, crashing through the roof.  Jack was momentarily distracted and stunned by his appearance, and Napoleon once again grabbed the lantern from him.

“Illya!” he called, holding the lantern in his hand as he sprinted towards him.

“NO!” Jack shrieked, diving for it.

But Illya had already removed the caps of the vials the moment Napoleon had crashed through the roof; the moment Napoleon brought the lantern within reach, he poured the three holy waters on the lantern.

With a furious hiss, the coal was extinguished, and Jack screamed in horror and frustration.

“You can have this back!” Napoleon snarled, tossing the extinguished lantern at him.  “And with that…  We’ve won.”

He snapped his fingers, and the portal appeared in the sky above the old house, and a strange force began to draw the spirits, skeletons, zombies, gargoyles, and other beasties back into it—with the still-screaming Jack being the first to be pulled in.

Illya now threw his arms around Napoleon and pulled him down so that they were lying together on the roof.  Napoleon hesitated for a moment before wrapping his strong, vampire arms around Illya and passionately kissing him.

Illya returned the kiss, wrapping his arms around Napoleon, as though fearing he would be carried away as Zero had taunted. But then, something strange came over him as his grip increased exponentially.

The two of them pulled away, and Napoleon caught a glimpse of Illya feeling newly-grown fangs in his mouth with his tongue. Somehow, Napoleon had succeeded in turning Illya, too—not with a bite, but with True Love’s Kiss.

They kissed again, and this time, it felt as though they were being swept off of their feet, hovering in midair, but their iron grips on each other prevented them from flying off into the portal.

And then, suddenly, it was over.  The strange force stopped, and the portal closed, and the two of them fell back onto the roof of the old house.  The book that had caused all the trouble fell beside them, landing opened, as the first rays of the sunrise appeared on the horizon.

Neither of the two moved for a moment, and when they finally did, they noticed that their arms, though still wrapped around each other, weren’t as strong a grip as they had been moments ago, and as they pulled back from each other, they saw that their upper canine teeth were now back to normal size.

“I’m… not a vampire anymore,” Napoleon realized. “And neither are you.”

“So it would seem…” Illya said.  The two of them sat up as Illya glanced at the book beside them.  “It’s explained here on the page with the spell I used to turn you…” he realized. “‘If a vampire turned by this spell and remaining pure of heart can turn another human with True Love’s Kiss, then the spell on both will be reverse just before sunrise, and the two will live together in bliss.’”

“Is that applicable to any night—not just Halloween?”

“It would seem so.”

“…I see,” Napoleon said.  “Remind me to take a Polaroid of this page when we get the book back to the car.”

“Napoleon…!” Illya chided.

“…Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that.”

Illya paused, but then shrugged.

“Well… just this one page couldn’t hurt…”

They glanced at each other and then burst into giggles—and then into full-out laughter as they both guffawed in sheer relief.

It felt good to laugh again.

                                                       Epilogue

Baba Yaga and Sergei greeted Napoleon and Illya warmly as they made their triumphant return to U.N.C.L.E. HQ.  Not only had they brought back the book, but they had also brought the THRUSH agents that Jack had captured—all of them found in the old house, scared out of their wits.

“You’re both to be congratulated, of course,” Waverly said, as Illya quietly spoke to Baba Yaga as he held her.  “And you’ll be pleased to know that Baba Yaga and Sergei did marvelously in keeping the office safe in your absence.  Even the other cats in the animal facility aided them.”

“We’re glad everything turned out the way it did, Sir,” Napoleon said.

“As we all are,” Waverly agreed.  “And it would seem that adoption rates of cats have exponentially increased in the last 24 hours—a good deal of stray cats in the city have found loving homes just in time for the winter.”

“Now that is good news,” Illya said, sounding pleased to hear that.

“Let’s just hope their services as spirit wranglers won’t be required,” Napoleon mused, quietly.

“Indeed, Mr. Solo,” Waverly said.  “So, it would seem that all’s well that ends well! …Although Victor here is a bit reluctant to part with the book; it seems his cousin is perfectly alright with it staying locked up here in our building, but I do think Victor wanted it back.”

“Well, it is family property…” Marton mumbled.  “Anyway, I’m letting you keep those treacherous agents who stole my book in the first place.”

“Oh, shut up,” Illya muttered.  “Your blasted book is the reason for all of this trouble! There is not one single beneficial thing in that book!”

Napoleon coughed.

“Fine, there is one beneficial thing,” Illya corrected himself.

Waverly cast Napoleon and Illya a suspicious look, but said nothing.

“The book will be locked away, where no one can be tempted to summon anything,” he insisted.  “Now, then, Victor and I have some… other matters to discuss; why don’t the two of you take the rest of the week off.  I do believe you’ve earned it.”

The two of them thanked him, and after leaving Sergei back with George, they took Baba Yaga back to the apartment.  It was only after they saw her curl up in a sunbeam and doze off that they realized that they hadn’t slept in over 24 hours.

The two of them promptly crashed into bed.

“You know,” Napoleon said, holding up the polaroid. “We could sleep all day and use this spell again tonight to be a couple of vampires on the town.”

“Oh, Napoleon,” Illya sighed.  “I think we should reserve that as an insurance policy—for the next time one of us ends up in mortal peril on a mission.”

“…Good thinking,” Napoleon said.  “Now that I think about it, I’m ready to put this whole thing behind me.”

“Is it behind you?” Illya asked.

“Why do you ask?” Napoleon said through a yawn.

“Well, for one thing, you placed the hamsa amulet on the doorknob,” Illya said.  “…You are afraid Zero might try to come back.”

“Yeah,” Napoleon admitted.

Illya exhaled.

“I do not know what it is that drives him to try to claim your soul,” he said.  “But whatever the reason…  I will make sure he doesn’t succeed.”

“You will?”

“Yes.  And the next time something unexplained happens to us…”  Illya sighed.  “I will still despise it.  I will still fear it.  But I will also know that we will get through it, together.”

“Darn right we will,” Napoleon said, squeezing his hand.

The two of them fell asleep in each other’s arms soon after, hopeful for the future ahead.

                                                    The End

[renaroo]

Twisted Legacy (23/25)

Disclaimer: Transformers and related properties belong to Hasbro Warnings: Canon-typical language and violence, Psychological torture and horror, Post-war politics, Canon divergence/Loose canon, Hospitalization and illness, Cultist indoctrination Rating: T Synopsis: [Canon Divergence from MTMTE and exRID #54] The legacy of the Primes has had a tainted past, one that weighs heavily on Optimus, his supporters, and those who seek the legacy for the future. But as they look forward for themselves and for Cybertron, a darkness looms that threatens to further corrupt the unsteady peace of their planet with its curious claim to be the Hand of Primus himself.

It’s up to Optimus, Windblade, Rodimus, and their teams to try and save all Cybertronians from this mysterious threat and, perhaps, change the future for the better if they can.

A/N: I have been ridiculously busy preparing for my big move and unfortunately that has led to neglecting updates on many of my projects, particularly this one. And I’m more than pleased to turn some of my attention on the last couple of chapters for this fic that I’ve been working on for over a year now. We’re so close to the end! My goal is to finish the whole fic before I move but either way, I definitely want it finished by Thanksgiving. So here’s hoping!

Special thanks to @iamabagfullofcats, @mythicbells-fan-3495, squireofgeekdom, Isame, and a lovely guest on ffn for the feedback!

Part V: The Day the World Caught Fire Chapter 5.3: The Saviors of Cybertron

No one had been more certain of the danger passing than Knock Out himself.

Their species was not particularly well known for being plagued with diseases, let alone an actual plague. The things that he was trained for as a doctor on Velocitron had mostly dealt with injuries from consistent use, or system failures which came due to a combination of personal errors an being negligent of self-care. Disease control was a footnote in his greater studies.

So when the Red Rust had been taken care of by them the first time around, Knock Out lulled himself into a sureness that it was simply the end. That the Error that time was not their own.

And as such, he had diminished and ignored the concerns of his Conjunx.

Breakdown had been affected by the Red Rust originally, kept alive by Knock Out’s vigilance and connections to the government and the research facility. And Knock Out had been very content to put his own and Breakdown’s concerns to rest with a flip of his wrist.

Things were safe again. Breakdown was cured. They didn’t have anything to worry about.

Until Breakdown had been driving with him through the streets of Cybertron, strangely quiet and even slower than his bulk usually caused. Then, when they transformed once more at their destination, there was oil and energon leaking from Breakdown’s every crevice, his metal becoming brittle as the red stains began to mark him in his entirety.

No horror, no fear, had ever gripped Knock Out nearly as terrible as what he felt in those moments.

And despite his credentials, despite his big talk and insider knowledge, he was reduced to sitting beside his husband, clasping his hand in worry as they sustained him.

Sustained him and postponed any further treatment because there was an outright war being waged in the laboratory behind them. As if Knock Out wasn’t there with his Conjunx, as if there wasn’t panic already set in that very room.

As if Knock Out wasn’t right there.

“Are you trying to tell me that for weeks now you have been spending Cybertronian money, resources, and time on absolutely nothing? That even after everything, even after all that I’ve given you, you are somehow still not any closer to giving me a solution to this entire blasted mess!?” Starscream raged at First Aid and Windblade.

“He just talked you through all of his discoveries, Starscream,” the Camien delegate defended fiercely. “Obviously he’s done a lot of work with that time and if you just explained what he learned to the rest of Cybertron—“

“What I heard, Windblade, is a lot of theory and nonsense about how these things were killing Cybertronians! I didn’t hear an iota of news about how First Aid was going to stop them!” the supreme leader snarled.

“I can’t,” First Aid began to say.

“My point exactly!” Starscream screeched.

“Yet,” First Aid finally asserted himself. “I can’t stop it yet, Lord Starscream, but knowing is half the battle. By knowing how the organisms operate and how they communicate I’ll be able to find a way to deactivate them eventually. And more importantly, we know how to prevent them from being reactivated in the rest of the population. We just need a period of time where no one uses their T-Cog until I treat each and every one of them.”

“And how do you plan on keeping an entire planet from using their T-Cogs!?” Starscream snapped.

“First Aid can’t. I can’t,” Windblade answered. “But you can, Starscream. Easily. You can hold a press conference just like you did this morning and explain this to the world, have them hold off until they are treated by First Aid and everyone can be screened and cleared.”

Knock Out cycled his optics off, holding Breakdown’s hand even tighter. He hated it. He hated that his Breakdown was patient zero for the next round of the disease.

Where was the information — where was First Aid’s research — before Breakdown’s fall to illness?

“What I’m hearing is that you are asking me to send all of Cybertron straight into a population-wide panic,” Starscream scoffed. “After weathering disease and terrorism and a war of Combiners, you want to plunge Cybertron into a panic over an illness that has no cure as of yet. Do you realize what kind of hysteria that would cause? Do you realize how terrible of a position that puts me in? Prime and the future time travelers and who knows who else are fighting some battle that is surely going to cause enough explosions to be noticed by the news if not the citizens themselves, there’s still an embargo on mechs coming or leaving the planet that was so close to being lifted, and now this morning I said the big N and S words on global broadcast. Even if it was outlawing it, there’s a stirring panic over the idea that it was being used before.”

“It was being used before!” Windblade snapped.

“Also, mneumosurgery has a silent m,” First Aid corrected.

“There won’t be any press conference!” Starscream screeched definitively.

Having heard more than enough, Knock Out stood up fast enough to send his seat flying backward and clattering loudly against the ground. It was more than enough noise to draw the attention of all three mechs who had been ignoring him to that point.

“I don’t give a damn about the politics of Cybertron or any other games you mouthventers consider to be terrifying for the public or not!” Knock Out glared at them. “My Conjunx was already affected — betrayed by his own transformation. And even if it was a one-in-a-million frequency from the transformation, the effects are here to see. And in a population of millions there are more one-in-a-millions that will be coming our way soon. And panic when the public realizes there was knowledge not shared with them will put to shame any concerns brought to them in warning.”

When Knock Out looked to the others he received quite an array of emotions. First Aid was contemplative, a hand held to his chin in silence. Windblade was empathetic, her looks bleeding concern and responsibility. Starscream was utterly defiant, unmoved as it were.

“Delegate Knock Out, I enjoyed your opinions far more when they were not burdened by emotions,” Starscream finally announced, earning looks of ire from both Windblade and First Aid.

Knock Out snarled. “How dare you—“

“I will not send this world — and the other worlds — into a certain panic that will cause mass chaos, more deaths, and more destruction of what little property we all possess!” Starscream snapped at last. “The public can’t know they’re a T-Cog away from death at any moment because I can barely handle the information! And I’ve been aware of Error and his refuse since the start of these destructive tantrums!”

“We can’t do nothing! There will be deaths!” Windblade argued angrily. “And just like Knock Out said, once bodies start dropping, real panic and mayhem will hit either way. The public deserves to know—“

“The public can’t handle everything. That is why they have leaders elected to keep them safe!” Starscream scoffed. “Honestly, have none of you played this game before?”

“This is not a game to me!” Knock Out roared at last.

“What if,” First Aid began thinking out loud.

“Everything is a game! If you’re not winning you’re dying!” Starscream cried out in anger.

“This is not a zero-sum game for you to power grab more and more, Starscream!” Windblade said bitterly. “This deserves a summons from the Council of Worlds, and if you won’t start it than Knock Out and I will. And we’ll decide, by committee, how or how not to tell the citizens that their very lives are at stake.”

Feeling justified, Knock Out stepped closer to Windblade and crossed his arms. “I couldn’t have imagined saying it better myself.”

“The Council does not rule Cybertron, I do!” Starscream barked.

“All of our worlds are going to be affected!” Knock Out balked.

“Not yet,” First Aid said, a little louder, enough so to make the others realize he was still involved in the conversation. He looked back at them with determination. “None of us seem to know each other personally all that much, but I’’m going to ask everyone in this room to trust me and work with me. The other worlds aren’t affected yet, anyone who is affected isn’t just on Cybertron but lives within this city, correct? Then there’s potential that we could find a cure — the right code at the right frequency — and have it sent out to deactivate all of the nanites at once. We’d cure everyone without alerting them. But we’d obviously have to do it soon. As in done last cycle soon.”

“Brilliant!” Starscream cried out, clapping his hands together.

“You can do that? Just from what little information you have that you’ve already told us?” Knock Out asked skeptically.

“Yes,” First Aid nodded. “Trust me.”

“Okay,” Windblade said almost too readily, stepping toward First Aid. “Tell us what you need all of us to do then.”

Slowly, the little medic turned his head back toward Starscream. “Um. Well. Believe it or not, we still need to call that press conference.”

Knock Out joined Windblade in looking Starscream’s direction as the Cybertronian leader could not have looked more displeased.

As much as the task at hand required his full attention, Optimus found himself growing increasingly concerned with the way that the supposed Rodimus Prime was looking to Megatron almost with a sense of awe. If Ratchet or Megatron himself noticed it, they said nothing, but for Optimus it was an unavoidable sight.

And he could not understand why, with such stakes and how they were rushing toward certain conflict, he felt so unsettled by the time travelers and their interactions with everyone. It was wrong and disconcerting.

“Prime,” Windblade radioed to him from her jet form as she flew overhead. “I was going to scout ahead and see if I can give you all an advantage on what’s coming up…”

“That would be most advantageous, Windblade,” Optimus replied curtly.

“I was but… I can see you’re distracted and…”

“We do not have time for petty distractions,” he affirmed, more for himself than for her.

“I can respect that,” the cityspeaker from the future claimed without wavering. “But all the same, I know that our appearance and our coming to you all this way is, at the least, difficult to fully understand. And at worst it is going to cause irreparable harm to some of these relationships. And I don’t want you to feel that we have somehow come to change the course of things.”

“I am not sure I understand what you are trying to tell me here, Windblade,” Optimus said flatly.

“I am only trying to say that if you are worried about the relationships with those you have in your life now, don’t worry about the idea that Prime— Rodimus and I in any way endanger that. Things are as they should be. And you don’t even have to think of us as the bots you know today if there is anything about us and our appearances you are uncomfortable with. That is not them… yet.”

“What I see is not what the future holds for me but what the present has already presented,” Optimus answered lowly, seeing Rodimus and Megatron starting some sort of repertoire that was so natural even Ratchet didn’t seem particularly concerned by it. “The decisions I have made that have been beneficial for the relationships of others and not for myself and the ones who held me most dear at my most trying of times.”

Windblade did dip in her flight slightly. “Well, the one thing that is beneficial about being in the present and not from the future is that you have decisions you can still make and not regrets you can only feel.”

The words were sound advice, but they felt hollow. There was something permanent and determinative in the way that these future Windblade and Rodimus presented themselves. An inevitability. A fight that was only a losing battle, and Optimus already felt before they reached their destination that he was going to be long since tired of fighting those losing battles.

“Your plan of scouting ahead is solid advice, Windlade,” he said, effectively ending the conversation. “You should move ahead with it.”

The jet seemed hesitant, but just as the Windblade Optimus knew in the present, she was quick to act on his word without protest. She zipped ahead of all the road bound Cybertronians and over the debris fields of Nyon.

“Windblade!?” the future Rodimus called out in obvious concern.

“She is going to scout what is ahead of us,” Optimus assured the group. “We may not have the element of surprise, but we will benefit from knowing what we are getting into.”

No sooner had he said the words, Optimus and the rest of the crew were taken by surprise by a blind white light just ahead of them. He leaped forward, transforming and landing heavily on his feet ahead of the rest before racing to Windblade’s side as she sat on the ground, holding her head. Purple smoke pillowed from her shoulders and head.

“Windblade!” Rodimus Prime cried out, racing up to Optimus’ side as the current Prime kneeled beside Windblade.

“There’s some sort of barrier there — I think it’s temporal energy,” Windblade announced, looking back to the others. “It feels the same as the energy that sent Rodimus and myself here.”

“Are you injured?” Optimus asked her seriously.

“I’ll be fine. I just don’t know how we’ll be getting through this, and that worries me,” Windblade answered.

“There must be a way through,” Megatron said determinedly. He turned his attention toward Rodimus Prime. “What was the way we got through to the other side.”

The future version of Optimus’ friend held up his hands and shook his head. “I have no idea! I don’t remember anything about this at all. I just remember that the three of you showed up and—“

“Just the three of us?” Optimus demanded, rising to stand. “You do not recall seeing yourself at the battle?”

Rodimus Prime squinted and scratched at his chin. “Okay, hold on a second, I have to decipher those tenses.”

“The barrier, whatever it is, is keeping the two of you from doing something you didn’t already do,” Ratchet determined.

Optimus looked at his oldest friend with some surprise. But not nearly as much as Rodimus Prime and Megatron.

“You didn’t go back in time with us, how do you know the rules?” Rodimus Prime asked.

“Because I bothered to pay attention and I’m bothering to use common sense now,” Ratchet declared, pushing past Megatron and Rodimus Prime in order to approach the very wall of energy that was glinting at them after having thrown Windblade back. He stopped only for a moment then pressed forward boldly, phasing right through the energy field.

“Okay. I guess it’s not time to help yet,” Rodimus Prime said, a bit stunned.

“Come on, Megatron,” Optimus ordered, earning a look of ire from his former nemesis.

“A moment, Prime,” Megatron said, looking to the time travelers as Wiindblade got back to her feet with Rodimus’ help. “You know the outcome of this battle. Some things are set in stone.”

“Want us to ruin the ending for you?” Rodimus Prime asked almost jokingly.

“I can assume, given your appearance now,” Megatron said offhandedly. “How will you be?”

Rodimus’ face dropped slightly but he maintained a level gaze at them both. “I’m going to spend the next few years defining who I am for the rest of my life,” he answered cryptically.

Megatron did not look pleased with the vague answer, but Optimus knew they were already losing precious time.

“The outcome won’t matter if we don’t act now, Megatron, let’s go,” Optimus said again. Megatron finally seemed ready to listen to him and together they went through the energy field, stepping straight into a battle which Optimus had not quite seen the likes of before.

“I utterly despise everything about this plan,” Starscream announced with a snarl.

“You agreed to it rather quickly,” Windblade reminded him as she kept in step behind him. There was a hint of amusement in her voice that Starscream desperately wanted to strangle out of her. But they were on a time table as it was.

“That was before I realized I was going to be on the news vamping for however long it takes those medical flakes to figure out how to annoy everyone on Cybertron.”

“I wouldn’t think that more time for you to be center stage on the news would be considered such a difficulty for you, Starscream,” Windblade mocked.

Having had more than enough, the supreme leader quickly turned on his heels and punched his fist into the hallway wall right in front of Windblade’s faceplate. It was more than enough to make her stop walking and face him entirely. There wasn’t any fear, though, nor was there even anger. There was just frustration and annoyance mirroring back to him.

“I am risking my future for a harebrained scheme that, for as much as I can tell, is at least partially the fault of your time traveling counterpart,” Starscream snapped. “Something I could stop from ever happening by making certain that your spark is snuffed out long before you become the time traveling nuisance in my life instead of the ordinary nuisance in my life. It’s an idea that only becomes more desirable the more you remind me of how much you disrespect me and my judgment.”

“It’s not your future at risk, it’s all of our futures at risk,” Windblade reminded him firmly. “What you’re doing is going to determine if there is a future for our entire species — and that isn’t just whether or not you stop this one plague. You hold that power over all of us each and every day as the leader of Cybertron and the head of the Council of Worlds.” Her frown tightened and her bright blue optics almost grew sharper as she stood in complete confidence. “I don’t like you, Starscream. You make it hard for anyone to even entertain the idea of liking you. And it’s not my place nor my interest to assess which one it is. I don’t agree with you most of the time. And I will disobey you for my own conscience even more than that. But it is not because I disrespect you. Respect is the only thing I have for you. For your position, for the games you played in order to get to it practically on your own.”

Starscream searched Windblade’s features for any sign that she was speaking anything less than the truth, but it was an unnecessary practice. He could see rather clearly already that she was precisely as truthful as she had ever been.

A quality he respected no matter how little he could ever stomach or understand it himself.

“Very well,” Starscream said, letting his arm drop back to his side. “That’s all I can ask of you.”

“It’s more than what you can ask of me,” Windblade argued flatly. “But we’re going to save the future today, Starscream. And I am going to be in your debt for it for seemingly a very, very long time. So I hope you can, just this once, be truthful with me.”

He looked at her carefully and tilted his head. “About what?”

“How much did you know before the rest of us?” she asked lowly, as if aware that whatever direction the conversation took, it was best left between the two of them. “I know that you’ve known more since the beginning. I know that Error and you must have been in contact for you to have made some of the maneuvers you have since his arrival. How much did you know? How much damage were you willing to see and to what end?”

Starscream looked back at her dully. “Is that the most you wish to ask? I expected better of you, Cityspeaker,” he said almost sarcastically.

She wasn’t amused. “Starscream—“

“Before everything, when the Lost Light was first approaching with Megatron at its helm, I had contact with Error,” Starscream at last revealed. “He got my attention and offered the opportunity that arcane law and Optimus Prime’s failed judgment did not afford me — the chance for justice to be served and for the planet to be protected from the very mech responsible for bringing it to its knees. Bringing me to my knees.”

Windblade seemed genuinely surprised by the candid response. “You were the first to make contact with Error? Just before the entire planet became hostage to the Red Rust?”

“Yes, I know, my suspicions should have been higher and what not. He spoke cryptically enough that I heard what I wanted to so far as his motivations were concerned,” Starscream answered flippantly. “Now if you’re satisfied then we should be…” He halted, optics concentrating on his counterpart’s suspiciously. “Why are you emphasizing that I was first? That only means I had no way of knowing his true intentions.”

“It… does,” Windblade said hesitantly.

His internal alarm was basically screeching at him, begging him to leave without digging further into Windblade’s sudden turn toward strangeness. He, like she had said before seemingly stalling her processor, was intent on keeping their species from being held hostage by a disease they weren’t even aware that they still had.

“Very well, I will be taking this one on my own then,” he huffed in irritation before turning back and completing his trek down the hallway.

He was in the press room within seconds, his mind still mulling over what he and Windblade had been discussing before, despite his best intentions otherwise.

Why her accusing tone and and words continued to needle him even as he took to the stand before the news cameras and reporters was almost beyond him for a moment. Even as he worked quickly to bury those things deep in his mind, he found them annoyingly conscious still. There, pressing him for the grander realization which Windblade apparently already had.

“Lord Starscream! What is the reason for this briefing? Do you have news on the hunt for the terrorists?” one of the reporters asked, holding up their thumb microphone too close to Starscream’s personal space.

He was forcing an easy smile, some kind of small comfort to his people, knowing that if everything was to go according to plan, First Aid and Knock Out would be invading the airwaves with the siren-like blast to take out all of the nanites from the last to the first when—

Starscream’s stalled, his mouth agape.

“Me,” he realized out loud. “I… was patient zero for the plague.”

No sooner had the words left his slacked jaw than the room, and probably all of civilized Cybertron, exploded into a fury of noise all at once.

The moment he realized what he had just done, Starscream glanced back toward the door and saw Windblade looking at him in complete astonishment. She shrugged her arms at him and tilted his head. Whatever she was trying to get across, he couldn’t really process it over the sounds of reporters and his own spark attempting to pulse out of his chest.

Realizing things were turning quickly, Starscream thought quickly and held up his servos, forcing an easy smile. “Please, everyone calm, there will plenty of time for questions once I have fully completed my statement. I’m certain that you all will want to have all of it, which will require you paying attention rather than overtaking me.”

Slowly, everyone died down, at least enough that Starscream felt he had control of the room yet again. “Cybertron, citizens beyond the stars — in the weeks that unfolded after the initial disease that ravished our species, endangering our very future, it seemed, we began to turn suspicious gazes on our brothers and sisters. We wanted sources and blame even when there were color coded villains set before us. It was an excuse for lines that we had always had drawn to be retraced once more, and it was a cause of pain across our lands.” He paused, a bit for drama, then continued, his audience completely raptured. “I, as your chosen leader, failed to live up to the call of just who the people could blame. It is a shame that I still wear now as much as paint.”

Windblade crossed her arms, unimpressed with the white lies, but everyone else was lapping it up like high grade energon.

“So, in these dark hours, I will tell you what we should always turn toward when it comes to blame,” he pointed at his own chest plate. “I am your leader. I am the first to take responsibility for this disease beyond the cultists and terrorists who we are hunting down for the name of justice as we speak. But no worries, I do not take this cross to bear simply for guilt, but as a call to a new focus for my leadership of our shared and collective people! I, and Delegate Windblade, along with the rest of the Council of Worlds will begin official plans for cross-integration of our worlds and people, to see to it that we see each other as One rather than simply neighbors.”

She was surprised by the callout, but the moment that reporters and cameras made their way to Windblade, she offered a forced smile and a small wave.

“Now, those questions—“ Starscream began to say just before a static filled the air and microphones all around the room began to ring with a screeching, horrible noise. It was enough to make Starscream duck and shutter before holding on to the sides of his head. He calmly walked off stage while the news crews and guards tried to figure out what was going on.

Windblade was waiting on him.

“About damn time,” Starscream huffed as they left through the hallway together.

“You might have had to resort to volunteering us for cleaning the city dump if you’d been up there much longer,” Windblade huffed, holding the sides of her own head. “But… how much of that did you actually mean, Starscream?”

“It doesn’t matter, Windblade,” he assured her, a swarm smirk on his face. “The only thing the history books will note is that this was the defining day where Lord Starscream began our new Golden Age.”

Still, she did not seem impressed, but Starscream found it hard to force himself to feel any dampening on his mood. He had a peek at the acclaim that was to come his way.

[minthearted]

Nose in the Books

For @juminvweek Day 5: School | Bickering

It’s a little late but that’s fine! This also touches on V’s route a little bit so there’s some spoilers!

Words: 1,264

Reading was supposed to be fun, wasn’t it? So just why wasn’t Jihyun having fun?

The book that he currently had resting on his desk was another business related text that he had found in the school’s library just a week ago, but he hadn’t even made it passed the second chapter. Every word and number blurred in his mind as his eyes ran over every sentence. To him it just sounded like a jumbled mess despite his countless studies of the subject. Not that he couldn’t understand it if he truly wanted to, but that was just it. Why did he want to? He was completely bored and he had too much time to kill till the next bell rang for class.

If he could pull out his sketchbook he would, but with other classmates wandering around where he sat he’d feel all too exposed. Not only that but some kids could be snitches and word would surely get to his father, or even his professor, and that thought alone had his stomach churning.

With a soft groan he wanted to slam his face down into the book. His eyes were getting tired at this point and all he wanted was something else to do. Flipping to the next page carelessly he didn’t even bother allowing his eyes to zero in on the words that littered the yellowing pages. Instead he pressed his cheek into the palm of his hand to hold his head up. How did Jumin do this every day?

Speaking of the heir as if on cue he entered the classroom with the same professional air that he always did. Some of the students stiffened, others were glaring, and then a few were even giving heart eyes. It was truly a sight whenever Jumin walked into a room, and in any other situation Jihyun would’ve smiled but with his eyes tired and mind fogged he couldn't even lift his head back up. All he wanted to do was something else, or nap, but he’d be promptly scolded by someone if he tried so he felt that his choices were severely limited.

“Good morning, Jihyun.” Jumin’s voice was the first to break the silence as he set his bag down onto the floor. Taking his seat he wasted no time pulling out the materials that would be needed for their class arranging them neatly onto the surface of the desk. Nothing was short of perfection when it came to the dark haired boy. “That’s an interesting read that you have there. I read it a few months ago.”

“How did you get through it?” Most would be sarcastic but Jihyun’s question was all too genuine. Just how could anyone sit through a book like this let alone enjoy it?

“I read it.” The reply was blunt as Jumin turned his attention back towards his materials for class. All Jihyun could do was let out a sigh at that as he now face planted the book causing the other to look back over at him curiously. “Is everything alright? Are you not feeling well?”

“I think my eyes are going to fall out.” Jihyun mumbled while shaking his head causing the book to scrape back and forth across the desk a bit as he kept his face buried in it.

Silence had fallen over them again as Jumin pressed his lips into a thin line as he contemplated just what to say. He immediately understood why the blue haired boy was acting this way. Jihyun was meant for the arts and his secret meetings with his mother that Jumin was informed of only made that message clearer. This made it obvious that his friend craved a more creative read than something that was just facts and numbers. Unfortunately Jumin also knew the situation that Jihyun was stuck in making the idea of participating in such things a lot harder than they would’ve been. It also didn’t help that Jumin wasn’t knowledgeable in things outside of his own studies so he was at a loss in that department, but that wouldn’t stop him from still being practical and trying to give advice to his friend.

“Why not get a different book from the library and remain in there as you read it? No need to check it out so no one will know.” Relaxing back in his seat, Jumin played with the cuffs of his uniform. “Most people won’t bother you in there and if you keep the book on your lap or a table they might not be able to guess what you’re reading.”

“Do you think that’ll really work?” Now Jihyun’s turning his head as he lifts it up to get a better look at Jumin. His eyes are shining with a bit of hope only for it to crash and burn momentarily. “But what if they do see what I’m reading and tell my father? What then?”

“Tell him that it’s for a project.”

“I…I don’t know. I don’t want to lie…” Biting his lip, Jihyun now just stares back down at the still open book with a look of guilt on his face. “It’s already bad enough that I’m seeing my mother and drawing but if father or the professor finds out about me drifting from my studies…”

“Living in your father’s shadow like this isn’t good for you. We’ve already been over this.” Jumin folds his arms over his chest as brows push themselves together. “I’m not saying lying to them is the best thing to do, but it wouldn’t be bad for you to try branching out and do the things you actually want to do. You’ll end up miserable otherwise.”

There was no doubting that Jumin was right. With all of the changes coming into his life Jihyun’s world only became more tense. The path of where he should go in life and where he actually wants to be weighed heavily on him, but throughout it all it seemed that Jumin would be there to support him. His best friend’s words were somewhat comforting allowing a smile to come to his face just like he wanted it to moments ago.

“Thanks, Jumin. Would you like to go to the library after school, then? I could use some company.” The smile on Jihyun’s face only seemed to brighten with every second that passed and for that Jumin returned the sentiment.

“Sure. I don’t really feel like going home as father is still sorting out stuff with that woman, so it would be for the best. Besides, I’d like to check out a new book myself.”

“Oh? Are you going to try reading something different too?” With a blue brow raised Jihyun tilted his head.

“No. They got in a new stock of books about the latest trends and I think it’d be good to read up on that.”

With a laugh, Jihyun lightly touched his head to Jumin’s shoulder before turning to close the book and shove it into his bag to get ready for class. “Well I guess that was a foolish hope that you’d read something fun with me, but I guess you enjoy those business books more than I do. Either way I’m excited to try something new! Maybe I’ll find something good!”

Now the bell for class was ringing as the teacher went to stand up at the front, and a smile was firmly planted onto Jihyun’s face. He could hardly wait for school to be over so he could actually read something interesting. Finally there would be something fun to read!

[professor-speedweeb-blog]

A manga you should give a chance: “BLACK CLOVER”

- everything BUT a ripp-off! (This text is as low on spoilers as it was possible)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySZeQBhz71E&t=1s

(link to video I made in connection with this entry)

Usually I tell people to “try out” a manga or “pick one up”, but with this specific case I think another choice of words is necessary.  From what I have seen on MyAnimeList, this manga suffers from a fascinating polarization in the reviews, going from catastrophically bad to astoundingly good.

And I think I know why. One of the biggest points of criticism was the point of ripping of other series like Naruto, Fairy Tail, or even Bleach. So we have a shonen series having shonen tropes. In other news: water is wet, fire is hot, and people die when they are killed.

Given how limited yet binding the tropes of the shonen-genre are, it's not exactly surprising to see the same elements resurface at times. And the series it is accused to have ripped off are the ones that have literally re-shaped and dominated the genre in the last decade, so not much of a surprise or scandal here either.

To be truly original as an author in such a genre there are three possibilities, all being equally legit and not exclusive:

total ignorance of the tropes and avoiding them like the plague

Subversion and then breaking with the tropes, especially where it is not expected

Accepting the tropes and expanding from there

Tabata Yuuki goes for the third approach here. However, for something to expand from you have to establish it first, if you want a work that stands up on itself and doesn't just lean on the genre for a proper understanding. You have to set the base first before you start building upwards, that's common sense.

And this is why in the first few chapters you get flooded by a bunch of tropes and scenes that appear like you have kind of seen them before – and this is why most people who only read the early bits gave it such a horrible score: they flunked out before the author was done setting down the baseline for his own work.

So we have a young naive protagonist, Aster, who is untalented (can't use any magic in this case), but has a big dream of becoming the next Emperor, Heavenly Superperson, Hokage, or whatever. At the same time he has a talented stoic rival that he competes with. And here people accuse the author of ripping of Naruto – however, they couldn't be more wrong.

For one, where Sasuke was an emotionless emo-placefiller, Yuno is way more of a likeable character – and their rivalry is NOTHING like the ones usually seen in shonen stories, where the rivals in question at first hate or at least don't respect each other. For those two it is different: they are literally brothers. They respect and love each other like family and keep looking out for each other. Unlike how most rival constellations start, this is a healthy relationship build around friendly competition.

Also, unlike Naruto, our main protagonist is all but lacking. He may be untalented in what the world considers the most important, but then again he might be one of the physically strongest and fastest characters in the cast, save maybe for some adult characters like Yami. And actually, he's not “untalented” either. A lack of talent implies that it could be compensated with hard work for the same results, which is totally wrong: Aster is unable to ever use magic on a genetic level. At some point in the manga he's also called a “defect”. No matter how hard he works, he will never achieve what everyone else has, that's why he has to work his way up in his own way – raw physical power and his personal gimmick. But primarily physical power.

So even without his anti-magic sword he's a force to be reckoned with. Which brings me to point two of the accusations of stealing ideas: “having a power that is connected to the evil demons”, which can be said to be trope Bleach has made popular. But: I'd claim that the concept of the personal “inner devil” is something so elemental to human storytelling that you can barely fixate it somewhere, on the other hand we don't exactly know if demons in that world are actually evil.

In Bleach it is simple: Hollows are soul eating beasts that need to be exterminated, and Ichigo using Hollow-Power makes him a freakish outcast, always in danger of getting consumed by his own power. But in Black Clover we know almost nothing about demons or devils, or if they are even truly “evil”, and anti-magic is not automatically brought into relation with them either. Aster is just the “odd one out” for not using normal magic.

Which brings me to the next point: people claiming it's a Fairy Tail knock-off because it uses magic and magic battles. First of all that alone sounds stupid, mostly because the concept of magic in fiction predates the creation of Fairy Tail by several thousand years. But even if Black Clover legitimately stole it, I'm happy with it:

Fairy Tail totally failed on delivering an authentic world AND at interesting designs of magic - so Black Clover taking over and actually getting both aspects right might be for the best.

With Fairy Tail it is always the same uninspired elemental powers or the typical gimmicks of the main cast that barely get elaborated on, and just strapping the name “Dragon Slayer” or “God Slayer” on something doesn't exactly change its mundane nature.

And everything else kind of exists at the sidelines but barely gets any relevance. Remember the Fairy Tail guy with the smoke magic? Well even I forgot that he exists. Meanwhile one of the early villains we meet in Black Clover has “Smoke” as a theme and uses it to a fascinating extent, and he's just one of many examples of a creative use of magic.

So now that we have the accusations of specific series out of the picture, let's clean up with the rest of it: the accusation that it is generic in the typical “friendship wins everything” part that shonen often has.

The fascinating part here: countless manga series have “the power of friendship” as a theme. However, those very same manga end every arc with a dramatic and climatic one-vs-one battle between hero and villain, a fight where friends were never needed apart from moral support or maybe for keeping the low-level-enemies busy.

However, in Black Clover things are slightly different: Given the nature of his powers, Aster NEEDS his friends in combat.

He's extremely close ranged with almost zero means of ranged attacks – and that in a world where absolutely everyone with even a speck of magical power can ride on a broom and get the height advantage on him. He lacks defensive skills apart from simple blocking, as well as healing powers. At the same time he cannot keep up with an enemy that has magic that makes them faster than what Aster can physically achieve. And on top of that his offensive powers are limited to one-vs-one combat.

It's not so weird that the magicians-group he's in has a teleportation mage, as well as someone specializing in long range artillery, and someone specialized in water magic AoE that can also be used for shielding – and that's not even accounting for all of the members. Without his friends, Aster wouldn't even have a chance in most fights.

Also under criticism: the “stupid protagonist” as he is common in shonen manga. Well, while Aster's lack of intelligence is certainly undeniable, he's one of the few characters who's actually aware of how stupid he actually is – what doesn't stop him from trying his best anyways, obviously.

There was a line in a recent fighting-chapter that I really liked: “I'm stupid so I can't afford myself to make any mistakes to begin with!” - when I look at the row of overconfident stupid-yet-likeable protagonists we have had in the last years, such self-awareness is really refreshing.

And another point would be the “power-up-through-emotions-and-dedication” trope.  The author actually goes the smart way with that one: he builds such power-ups directly into the empowerment system. Such plot-developments always appear kind of cheesy, but now it feels less like the author is cheating, especially as it is part of the general system it is available to ALL characters, not just the protagonists. Imagine a villain who is so evil, that when pressured, his hatred and greed create new magic mid-fight, a polar opposite to the “hero-powerup”.

This and several other things make me see a lot of potential in this series, maybe even so much that this will one day be part of what the Big Three were in the past.

Now that I have been countering some negative points for the last pages, let me finish this essay with the positive aspects: the characters are refreshing, the world feels authentic, and I personally really like the art-style. As a writer I'm not exactly good at describing art, but I think you could say it is more a “depiction of aesthetics” than a “portrayal of reality in a certain style”.

How do I explain it...  say you want to draw a character. Now in the style of Fairy Tail you'd have a focus on the body, the muscles and/or curves (also explaining why the two main protagonists of that series, Gray and Natsu, are always half-naked when fighting). In Black Clover the focus is instead on the clothing and the whole appearance, resulting in an entirely different style.

The fact that the style of this manga is less suitable for the primitive variant of fan service also is a bonus point for me, albeit a very subjective one. Don't get me wrong, everything has its time and place, but recently things have gotten slightly out of hand in certain series.

[boney-king-of-nowhere-blog]

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia by Peter Pomerantsev

Recently I’ve had quite a few conversations with friends about Putin’s Russia. I realised that I was really not very informed about the subject, but was finding myself annoyed at hearing what I felt was a complacent apology for a corrupt, murderous oligarch.

In one of many memorable sketches from this book Pomerantsev describes his then colleagues at  the state-controlled Ostankino channels. These producers, when asked how they square their liberal private lives with the fact of working at the state-controlled Ostankino Technical Center, reply that ‘everything is PR’ and reject the author’s ‘Western attachment to such vague notions as ‘human rights’ and ‘freedom’ as a blunder’. Elsewhere Pomerantsev characterises this type of attitude as ‘easy relativism’, referring to a Western journalist’s justification for taking a job at Russia Today.

The conversation with the Ostankino producers falls within the context of a chapter on Putin’s personal adviser, Vladislav Surkov. I’d first heard of him through an Adam Curtis segment included on Charlie Brooker’s end of year Newswipe. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od4MWs7qTr8) The filmmaker later developed these ideas in Bitter Lake and Hypernormalisation, again drawing heavily on Pomerantsev’s work. As Putin’s adviser Surkov has been credited with creating a state of constant confusion in Russian society. By funding the creation of extremist political parties on both the left and right, lending support to conservative and liberal media, and generally stirring up as many competing causes as possible Surkov created an atmosphere in which Putin alone appears as reliable. Moreover, Surkov maintains a similar policy of obfuscation with regard to his own image. Most famously he is thought to have written the satirical novel, Close to Zero, which Pomerantsev describes as ‘the sort of book Surkov’s youth groups burn on Red Square’. Surkov himself teases this dual identity by writing the novel’s preface!

After watching those Adam Curtis documentaries and while browsing follow-up material, I quickly realised that this was a book pitched at my level. (With its 100 page bibliography Putin’s Kleptocracy by Karen Dawisha feels like a step too far at this point). Dizzying and druggy, though held together by a focus on Moscow, the book bounds quickly through its diverse cast of characters. Indeed Pomerantsev gives the shapeshifting Surkov a run for his money in the speed with which his gaze moves from one figure to another. Yet ultimately the book is held together as much by scepticism about Surkov’s brand of unrestrained, postmodern relativism as by its focus on Moscow. This combination of a postmodern style in order to critique postmodernism also underpins Adam Curtis’ Hypernormalisation, which again takes much of its subject matter from Pomerantsev. (Though Curtis places the origins of this postmodern conception of reality within the Soviet era, whereas Pomerantsev seems to regard states like the USSR and Korea as ‘classic’ (modernist?) totalitarian states.)

Of these several vignettes one which seemed particularly revealing of how power is delegated within Putin’s oligarchy was the story of Yana Yakovleva. The head of a drug company importing diethyl ether, an organic compound commonly used as a laboratory solvent, Yana in 2006 was arrested by the Federal Drug Control Service and detained for 7 months while awaiting trial. She was charged with the illegal sale of the diethyl ether without a license. An absurd charge against the head of a company whose entire business had for years hinged upon the sale of this very drug. More terrifying, however, than the Kafkaesque story of the arrest itself, is Pomerantsev’s account of the behind-the-scenes manoeuvring which led to her release.

One of the key themes of the book is the interplay between the actors of Russia’s “liberal” drama and the super-rich stage managers behind the scenes. In Yakovleva’s case it becomes clear that the most important factor in her acquittal was not the bravery of her industrious lawyer Evgeny Chernousov or the inherent ridiculousness of the prosecution’s attempt to prove that diethyl ether was a narcotic. The real battle was not between prosecution and defence, but between two rival factions on ‘the Olympus of the Kremlin’. On either side were Viktor Cherkesov and Nikolaj Patrushev. It became known as ‘the war of the Chekists’ (the KGB men) and arose after a perceived snub to Cherkesov, a close friend of Putin’s who, expecting to become head of the FSB (successor to the KGB) upon Putin’s inauguration as president, instead found himself appointed to the Federal Drug Control Service (considered the least important security organ). Patrushev was chosen as head of the FSB and in retaliation Cherkesov launched an investigation into illegal smuggling at the Chinese border, overseen by the FSB. This in turn prompted Patrushev to make sure that cases such as Yana’s, part of the FDCS’ wider attempt to take control of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, received intensive media coverage and that the police allowed protests to continue against her unjust detainment. Ultimately both men were fired by Putin, who remained silent and inscrutable throughout the battle, but in the chaos of the conflict her lawyer was able to engineer an acquittal.

I hope what I’ve written so far doesn’t sound completely self-satisfied. I started off convinced that Putin’s Russia was a profoundly alienating post-mafia regime in which human rights abuse goes unchecked whilst true democracy remains elusive and I reached for a book which could confirm all of these preconceived notions. (Of course, there was the added sweetener of its fast-paced, picaresque style and a subject matter of shady political puppetry designed to appeal to the same stoner demographic as that of Adam Curtis*). In fact I think that Pomerantsev gives a very even-handed account of the West’s role (or complicity) in Putin’s Russia without ever veering into an apology. In the book’s penultimate chapter ‘Offshore’, he details the way in which areas such as Mayfair, Belgravia, and Knightsbridge have been bought up by Russian money to the extent that the traditional binary of ‘Russia and the West’ might now seem irrelevant.

In light of recent revelations about the poisoning attempt carried out by GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) agents against their one-time colleague Sergei Skripal the question of how to impose sanctions on Putin takes on greater urgency. Any serious retribution should surely include some kind of check on Russian assets in London. To put it in Pomerantsev’s terms, can we really afford to just ‘keep all that bad stuff up in the spare room of our culture’? Jeremy Corbyn, writing in the Guardian in March, voiced support for sanctions of this sort. It remains baffling, however, that he refuses to condemn the Russian state outright for its involvement in the attack. Whilst France, Germany, Canada and the USA pledged to support Britain and its assessment that Russian officers were behind the attack, Jeremy Corbyn still refused to say anything more than that the ‘evidence points strongly’ to Russian involvement.

The parallels with Trump are worrying - it seems that for the hard-right and hard-left alike in 2018 Russia and Putin represent an antidote to the corrupt centrist mainstream. But it is an image which surely says more about Corbyn and Trump’s own projection than it does about the actual functioning of Russian society. It is an extreme isolationist response to the Iraq war which runs that ‘because we intervened hastily and unsuccessfully once, we should never intervene anywhere in any form again.’ The all-or-nothing logic of the grumpy adolescent dominates and transforms Putin into a kind of anti-hero, onto whom the hard left and right can project their own sense of nobility.

In this way they start to look very much like Pomerantsev’s cynical colleagues at Ostankino. Easy relativism provides a justification for political apathy and the truth (in this case that Russian agents were sent to carry out an assassination on British soil) becomes lost, hidden in plain sight amongst countless equally valid, though obviously contradictory, versions of reality.

*I don’t mean to sound so down on Adam Curtis. I really like his use of music and archive footage - I think you can see the way that recently this has influenced more traditionally “objective” documentarians like Ken Burns. I also think he is a provocative and assured speaker. But not long ago I listened to his interview with Adam Buxton, whose podcast I follow religiously, and he came across as a bit of a tosser. Normally on that podcast I’m looking to see a different side to people and an ability to relax into a friendly chat, but he sounded like a prerecording, offering long, humourless lectures often only tangentially related to the question asked and generally sounding like a smug Oxbridge student bullshitting his way through a tutorial after one too many glasses of port the night before. I also think that he, like many journalists, is very good at convincing himself and his audience that he is presenting original research, when in fact his “subjective” style is often a means of avoiding references or bringing in voices other than his own.

[rebeccahpedersen]

Conflicting Opinions?

TorontoRealtyBlog

That’s the truth of it: we’re just about to head into August, and you really can’t tell anything about the overall market by looking at one slow month in the summer.

Same goes for December, save for perhaps the first week to ten days.

But would anybody in their right mind sit down in the first week of January, analyze the December market statistics, and try to use them to predict what lays ahead in January and February?

December just isn’t your typical month in the real estate calendar, and by the same token, neither is August.

I sat down to film my Pick5 video on Wednesday afternoon, and as I searched by area with the MLS mapping tool, there wasn’t a single area in the city in which I could find five quality properties to feature, analyze, and discuss.

Listings are light right now, but that’s to be expected – it’s the summer.

And things are only going to get slower as we move through August.

This is the first time since the start of January that I’ve found myself without a single listing.

I had a listing up until this morning, but we’re taking it off the market.  The listing is a detached house, over $2M, located north of the 401.  So basically one of the toughest properties to sell in the city right now, and there is a lot of competition.

So rather than letting the property sit on the market all summer long, rotting, getting stale, and encouraging lowball bids, we figured we would “put some time in between listings,” as I always say, stop the “days on market” from racking up on MLS, and give the listing a refresh in the second week of September.

Not every seller has that luxury, of course.  Some sellers are selling because they’ve just bought, and they need to sell.

Of course, not every agent has that luxury either.  I’m doing what’s right for the seller in the long run, and I know the business is there down the line.  Most listing agents would n-e-v-e-r terminate a listing before the contract is up, because they’re afraid of losing it.  And dare I say, that like many buyers that use “hope” and “faith,” and are naive when they submit offers of the list price in competition, many listing agents just “hope” a buyer will come along to make an offer on their stale, over-priced listing in the slowest period of the year.

So what can we really learn from the next six weeks in the Toronto real estate market?

Not a whole heck of a lot, at least in terms of what to expect moving forward.

If you’re a buyer, well holy cow – get out there!  New listings are scarce, yes.  But in certain pockets (like the one I mentioned above), there’s a logjam of properties.  And with August typically being a slow month, there just might be deals to be had, in certain market segments.

I’ll still most likely write a blog in the first week of August, analyzing the July-stats, and trying to draw conclusions.  But as you saw last month, even I was willing to suggest that the stats, and what I was experiencing out in the market, didn’t always correspond.

We see this a lot in the media too.

Of course, that can be said of virtually any topic, or industry, or especially when it comes to politics.

Look down south and compare Fox News to CNN.

Now I’m not ignorant, so clearly I don’t watch or support Fox News.  But as big of a fan of CNN as I am (not to mention free speech, humanity, common sense, and everything that goes in the opposite direction of Donald Trump), I will admit that even CNN goes too far in the other direction sometimes.  It almost risks undermining their integrity, at times.

Here in Toronto, we have the Toronto Sun and the Toronto Star, which basically report the same story, with completely different facts and conclusions.  The two newspapers could literally feature a photo of a bug on a windshield on their front covers, and one headline would read “Poor Bug Gets Squashed By Bad Driver,” and the other would read, “Hero Driver Takes Out Nuisance Bug.”

Like I said, we could play this game all day.

And when it comes to real estate, this theme is ever-present.

Take a look at these three headlines:

Now this set of headlines is tremendously ironic, because all of them are from BNN.

But right next to “housing market bottoming out,” we have “home prices set to fall further.”

And this isn’t even a case of The Star vs. The Sun – it’s the same media outlet!

Here’s one I saved from earlier in the month, when the June stats were released:

Global reports negativity – that sales in Canada are down to a 5-year-low, and down 10% since last year.

Financial Post reports positivity – that Toronto represents Canada’s biggest gain in home sales this year.  Using Toronto to lead Canada is a bit of creative story-telling.

And last but not least, Globe & Mail tells us that a 10% drop is actually a plus.

If you’re a buyer or a seller out there, how the hell do you make sense of all this?

So try today’s headline on for size:

“Toronto, Vancouver housing markets still ‘highly vulnerable’: CMHC”

That was written in the Globe & Mail on Wednesday.

And if you read the article in full, you’ll see that even the CMHC doesn’t really know how to view the market, or even how to issue their own warnings, risk assessments, and outlooks.

From the article:

Despite slowing sales, CMHC chief economist Bob Dugan said the warnings about vulnerability have not been adjusted in Toronto and Vancouver because the agency needs long-term evidence that the market is changing.

“Prices can fluctuate and be up one quarter, down the next, and if every quarter we’re reacting to that and changing our message, it becomes a little more confusing what the overall assessment of the market might be,” he said.

CMHC’s assessment of risk in Toronto’s market has been unchanged since October, 2016, while Vancouver’s assessment has been unchanged since July, 2017.

–

So essentially, the CMHC is explaining that market “prices can fluctuate,” which is great, because all this time – I didn’t know that…

But they’re also telling us that they prefer to be behind the market, than in front of it.  They like to make predictions based on what’s happened in the past, and they’re weary of altering those predictions for the future, until they have more past data.

Great.

All this time, I thought they had a crystal ball…

Better Dwelling also picked up the story:

“Canada’s National Housing Agency Thinks Canadian Real Estate Is Overvalued”

Take a look at the chart that dominated their article:

(Source: CMHC & Better Dwelling)

Yeah, well no kidding the CMHC don’t like changing their market outlooks!

There are eighty different assessments in that graph.  Eight-zero.

And only ONE of them has been altered.  Looks like Winnipeg is heating up!

So what then would you make of a headline like this:

“‘Market has bottomed out’: Housing prices in Toronto region set to climb again after brief slump”

Well, if you’re like me, you’re wondering

a) Who said this b) Why c) With what data

Was Albert Einstein’s great-great grandchild interviewed for this piece?

Maybe a few rocket-scientists?

At least an unbiased economist?

Nope.  None of the above, but I’ll draw an analogy for you.  Have you ever seen the owner of a restaurant outside on the street telling everybody “Don’t eat here, the food is awful”?

Well, by the same token, you’re probably not going to see the CEO of one of the largest real estate brokerages in Canada tell people, “The market is going to plummet.  Stock up on bottled water, and stay inside.”

“Based on our analysis the market has bottomed out,” said Phil Soper, the CEO of Royal LePage.

–

Beautiful.

The best was the intro of the article, which made opinion sound like fact:

Housing prices in Greater Toronto Area are expected to reverse course in the second half of the year after a brief slump, according to a Royal LePage forecast, despite the threat of escalating Canada-U.S. trade tensions that could dent the Ontario economy.

–

Yikes.

Now to be fair, points b) and c) above were addressed, and that’s more than can be said with respect to a lot of predictions, and a lot of opinions.  Your average random Internet-dweller loves to make opinions, but never back them up with data or facts.  Of course on TRB, that rarely happens.  Usually the readers provide so many links that the comments get flagged as spam! (PS if you’re ever wondering why your comment didn’t show up on the message board – that’s why).

So let’s look at what Mr. Soper said as to “why” prices are set to rebound:

Soper said recent headwinds for housing prices in the Toronto area will eventually be mopped up by the current under supply of new homes, as Ontario’s population continues to grow and in-migration levels reach their highest in more than 10 years. The province saw a net gain in migration over the first quarter of 2018, a nearly 50 per cent increase from the year earlier.

“We’re nowhere near the kind of housing construction rate that we need to accommodate these people,” he said.

–

Personally, I agree with him on that point.

The net migration in Toronto is likely 3-4 times new housing completions, and that’s a recipe for a massive housing shortage.

While we’re on that topic, here’s an excellent read:

“Toronto has lots of room to grow. It’s time to let that happen”

But perhaps that’s a topic for another day.

For a Friday in the middle of the summer, there are just too many thoughts happening in this one blog…

The post Conflicting Opinions? appeared first on Toronto Realty Blog.

Originated from https://ift.tt/2uP9nJd

[survivorbouvetisland]

Episode #3: “Find out next time on total drama suck my ass” - Andrew

Bodhi

I'm pretending to have been told to vote for Kelsey, but in reality I knew exactly who was leaving, and I just wanted to see what happened. So I called out my old tribe in the swapped tribe chat and Kelsey is explaining what happened to me while I call Trixie and Nehemiah snakes. I quite like those two and I kinda regret calling them out for something they didn't do like that, but it's FUN.

QuilLynn

So im on albatross now and I couldn't be happier! so far everyone seems nice, i've only talked really to shea and roxy but i really like both of them so far. The only person i'm with from skua is austin, but he can go tbh if he needs too, noah fence I just don't really have a relationship with him and im here to win and make some drama!

I tried to get a higher score on this reward challenge than i think the other team will get altogether. I hope it will establish me as a threat and serious player in this game. I'm trying to integrate with Shea, Roxy and Ali, because I know old albatross is going to stick together, I'm hoping i'll be able to work with them but I trust nobody 100% in this game. I told Shea that if I get an idol clue i'd share it with him, that's half true. If i get an Idol clue and find myself in the same situation as i was in at Skua then I'll get his advice with the idol, but if i find that bitch its mine! 

stop spelling my name wrong @hosts it quillynn (two n's like how you all seem to have two 21st chromosomes)  im going to POP OFF..... im jk love you guys <3, but it is two n's 

Roxy's opinions are wrong sorry. Also @my tribe thanks for the all work in the challenge. I really feel like i'm going to be dragging this team through these challenges. At least trixie did something at this point she's the only one i wouldn't be okay with voting out.

I feel like with me on this team there is no way we lose a music video challenege, even though pretty much everyone seems to not want to be involved in it. I wanted to take editing too, but i let trixie take it because she said to me she was really good and i didn't want to come off as a total control freak, although i'm sure i still will... I will probably still help with the editing tbh. I just want to win! 

I tried confiding in shea that I had an idol clue in hopes that he'd be able to give me some info about old albatross and also build trust, but i don't think it really worked. I like shea, but don't trust him. He didn't give me much and said roxy was the best in the scavanger hunt. When I went to roxy and asked her about the same challenege she said she was too busy to do basically any of it. To be fair I don't believe her either, but i might need to talk to one more person before I really can find out which one is lying and who has the first clue for the albatross idol

There is a crack starting to present itself within the old albatross tribe. Shea and roxy clearly don't get along. I believe i could convince roxy to vote shea out if i needed too, i just would need to solidify the rest of the votes which might be hard since i haven't talked much to the other non-albatross members. I also like shea and would want him to stay over roxy but realistically it would be harder to get his vote and I have a gut feeling that we should take him out asap if we get the opportunity. 

We won, DUH. Skua's was shit ours was great, the judges were clearly on crack for lowballing our scores. 

Trixie, Nehe, Austin, and myself might make an "outsiders" alliance amongst our tribe. Based on performance in the the last immunity challenge I'm contemplating throwing the next in order to get shea out. If we have our alliance plus maybe the vote of roxy or ali we'll be able to do it. 

Jacob

Hey look, new tribes! I'm glad to see Bodhi! <3 And now I can get to know some more new people. I'm pretty excited overall, but I guess only time will tell how this turns out in the end.

Welp. That challenge was a bust. At least Regan is asking us to vote her out so we don't have to worry about the vote. I keep forgetting we have to do confessionals through this thing instead of just dropping them in the Host Chat.

Trixie

RIP dana. She had so much to live for. I can't believe she smacked her head and now she's dead. She deserved it for putting me in this tribe. JK everyone is very lovely and I'm trying to snuff out the problematics from the ppl I can trust.

This. Girl. Is. The. Nastiest. Skank. Bitch. I. Have. Ever. Met. Do. Not. Trust. Her. She. Is. A. Fugly. Slut. #Mean-Girl-Dana@notgivingmeareward.com JK!!! <3 

I'M LIVING FOR THIS FIGHT. BUY PRAYING ON ITUNES.

I just finished the music video, I hope everybody likes it!

I'm sorry but can I just fucking say I spent like 2 hours editing that 5 minute music video and not even a single 10/10 by the judges. Get fucked! I know we won but Skua's was less than a minute long and some bitch judges have the audacity to give us lower scores than them. Yikes @ these judges, learn how to judge

I'm thinkin aboot making an alliance with Quillynn and Nehe. Quillynn is up for this and said that maybe we can add Austin to make an alliance of 4 that way we can have half the votes on our team. I'm worried Albatross will just try to pick us off since we're the leftovers of Skua & Adelie

Andrew

Will Jacob ever agree with anything? Find out next time on total drama suck my ass

Regan

MY TRIBE IS FULL OF ANNOYING FUCKS. I hate this tribe swap no one wants to agree on any song we pick which are all bops by the way. 80s songs in general are bops!!!!!

I didnt think it was possible to hate the tribe this much..... its not a music video if youre using like audio clips from random shit thats just a video idk i dont find it creative i hate rupauls drag race so fucking much.  im sorry our tribe is full of weirdos but like????

Nicholas

no offense but why is my entire tribe inbred

Zack

I hope my tribe does well with those music video. I will be in a car for thirteen hours and cannot do lip sync without having to do a long explanation as to why I'm doing it.

Kelsey

Oh my...SO much has happened since the last week lovers, let me catch you all up. So first, tribal. It was quite clear that Trixie and Bodhi were on opposing sides than Ragan and Cole. Trixie really did feel it was best to eliminate Cole from the competition, but Ragan had her doubts as did I. I feel as if Bodhi is not the best...communicator. Cole wasn't either, but he was better. But regardless, I draw up a plan that says that Ragan, Cole, Nehe(who was in the center of all of it) and I vote out Bodhi, therefore keeping Cole around. We all agreed on it and I thought it was sickening...until we get to the vote and myself and Cole are the only ones to vote for Bodhi. Ragan chickened out at the last moment and Nehe said he wanted to force a tie. L U D I C R O U S. Did they HONESTLY think that it would work if it tied? Oh, whatever. Trixie's happy, everyone assumes Ragan was the second vote, I'm still the sweet girl of the tribe. Whatever. And then we tribe swap...oh WHATEVER. I'm going to miss my romance island...especially now that we have to leave it FOREVER. Ragan and Bodhi both end up on the same tribe as me and, while it's nice to have the familiar faces, those two will probably not end up working together. Bodhi has a nice boiling rage for Trixie and Ragan and Ragan herself...is...so much more assertive on this tribe than she was last time. All these new people are also a bit scary to me...I don't think many of them particularly see themselves working with me and I know that's going to be deepened ever more after this challenge. All I can do is hope that I can make people like me like Gwen Stefani and slay...I know I'm not going to participate in this challenge. I have a fake name, I don't feel like revealing anything about myself...and it's tragic. I have to choose between a silly fear and a necessary challenge and I already know I'm picking fear. Not to mention there is a supposed music guru on the other side...I am just preparing myself for the worst. Oh, how I miss the Isles of Romance...no matter how messy it was...

And THAT'S all there is to it~! Can you pay my telephone billz? -Kelsey V Mikaelson

Well...that challenge was a thing. I expected it to be a particularly tough challenge...I did NOT expect to be left with doing the brunt of the work. I never expect editing to be so dificult...but my submission was made and honestly? I'm proud of it. I feel like it's sickening, not because of quality, but because I made it in three hours, odds against and I feel like it's wonderful. It may not be a music video but gosh...I'm proud. If I go home this week, I feel like I made something I can take with me and that's incredible. I do hope I don't leave...some of the reactions to the performance were less the incredible...but my name is Kelsey Mikaelson, darling. A lover's quarrel is nothing more than a love bite to me~! I wish myself the best...for strategy, I know, on my end, these people aren't as welcoming to a romantic such as myself. All I can do is...Pray. *rolls eyes* IT DIDNT EVEN HAVE ALL OF THE TRIBEMATES UGH X'D And THAT'S all there is to it~! Wish me luck, hen-pen-pals~! Yours truly, Kelsey V Mikaelson

Ali

IM LEGIT IN AN AlLIANCE WITH EVERYONE HELP ME!

Austin

OK so I still have zero social game. Apparently I was the last to be picked and that's pretty funny. I'm on a tribe with Nehe and Ali SO I formed an alliance with them and that was literally the first thing I said to them. They know I'm on vacation so I can't really talk much, but Ali seemed to be very into it. I've known Zack just as long as I've known Isaiah/Jay so he's 100% going to be a number for me considering this is his first ORG. I've literally fallen into a position of power without even trying. I told Ali/Nehe that Bodhi and I are a part of a secret twist called "Secret Lovers" and if we make merge then we can decide if we want to give immunity to two other players during round 1 merge. IVE LITERALLY SECURED SAFETY OFF OF BULLSHIT AND BODHI DOESNT EVEN KNOW!! Tbh just get me to merge with Jay, Zack, and Bodhi and I can guarantee final 3....Lmao I haven't even spoken to anyone