#I'm so sorry this is so long

[hcmoeroticisms]

Moiraine Damodred & Rand Al'Thor, The Wheel of Time

[rue-dixon]

Chilchuck's family

Entire timeline headcanons:

This uses what little canon information we do know about his past. And me trying my best to fill in the gabs with other information from my person physical copy of the manga and Adventurers Bible.

His wife will be referred to as Bellana Sams.

Quick background:

Chilchuck's family was quite big. He had 4 siblings, 2 older siblings, a brother and sister whom he didn't see much because they were on their own by the time he was born. He would occasionally see his mother receive letters from them and would see them at holidays but that was about it. Chilchuck's mother was a nice woman, but often too busy working to give him much attention. He was mostly fine with that as a child since he preferred to be alone anyways. His father on the other hand was a drunk, and he rarely saw him smile. Chilchuck often thought he most likely got his sharp tongue from him. Chilchuck has practically no memories of his father being sober. And although he never hit him or his mother or siblings. He was very mean with his words, never missing an opportunity to insult anyone of them. But Chilchuck still found it in his heart to care for his father, mostly due to the stories his mother would tell him when he was young and sober. Chilchuck's two younger brothers came shortly after him. Although they were never close or had much of a relationship. Due to all three of them having to work as soon as physically able to support their family and themselves. They practically worked for what they ate. Since their father "retired". His family often struggled because of this and he remembers being hungry a lot. Which is probably why not eating for 3 days in the dungeons didn't bother him so much when he was an adult. When they did talk however, it was mostly to make fun of each other. His youngest brother often made fun of him and Bellana as kids. Referring to her as "his girl." Which angered Chilchuck and his brother found it hilarious. Overall, Chilchuck's family life was very distant. Everyone just simply existing in the same space. And once Chilchuck's father drank himself to death when he was seven years old, the family seemed to somehow grow more distant. This is most likely the reason Chilchuck struggles with vulnerability and his emotional wellbeing even far into his adulthood.

Bellana's family on the other hand was the exact opposite. They were simple farmers who lived down the street from the Tims family. She had a younger brother whom she loved very much, was very close to, and protective of. And was always secretly touched with how good Chilchuck was with him, and how much her brother seemed to always love him. Her mother was a loving woman, her father a hard worker but good family man. Who was always unnecessarily tough on Chilchuck for no apparent reason. Her brother was always up to mischief. But they were relatively close as siblings. Both her parents were pretty old fashioned, and took their traditions seriously. Their family followed "the old ways", no magic, hard work is good work, etc. Altogether the family had a warm atmosphere to them.

Childhood friends

⁃ Chilchuck Tims and Bellana Sams met when they were little kids. Went to school together and were neighbors.

- They met under an apple tree where Bellana made fun of Chilchuck reading, who was studying different languages. Bellana had been climbing the tree, trying to get the better apples at the top when Chilchuck sat down at the foot of it. Not realizing she was there, he started to study. Bellana watched him for a few minutes. Before taking an apple and tossed it at his head. "Ow! What the- who are you?!" "What are you doing?" "I'm teaching myself another language, duh!" "... what a loser."

- They didn't get along at first, they found each other annoying. Bellana constantly teasing him and annoying him. While Chilchuck would scoff and say she's just a dramatic girl. But the more time they would spent together in school and just in close proximity, and the older they got they got along better. Bellana got bored of teasing him. While Chilchuck started to feel more empathy for Bellana instead of finding her annoying. So they became friends. Getting closer and closer the older they got. Until they were practically spending every day together.

⁃ Chilchuck was always well mannered and mature. But had a sharp tongue and quick temper. While Bellana was passionate and easily moved, with a heavy attitude and a quick fuse. But upheld her and her families reputation and traditions. Always finding her image always important.

⁃ as kids, Chilchuck would tell Bellana his dream of exploring dungeons. He'd fantasize about being an adventurer. Making more money than most halfings and living a life most people only dreamed of. She'd say that he's being silly and no way a half-foot could do that. He'd get frustrated with her, and she'd tease him. Eventually he stopped talking about it and she assumed he grew out of it. "One day.. I'm gonna be an adventurer. And lead people through dungeons..!"

⁃ Chilchuck thinks he first unconsciously started to fall in love with her around age seven, when his father had passed away. And although he wasn't close with him, and he was no model father, he was still his father. With the way his family dynamic was, no comfort or solidarity was provided to anyone. During the funeral, as he was being buried, Chilchuck stood and watched. Everything seemed blurry to him, his mother's sobs in the background as his older sister held her. His older brother burying him. As his two younger brothers trembled with anger on his other side. He wasn't sure how he felt. If he should be sad? Relieved? The death happened so fast. That was until he felt from behind, a small hand gently grabbed his. He didn't need to look back to see it was Bellana's. She got closer to him when he didn't push her away and gently hugged his arm. Showing her silent support. For whatever reason, this made Chilchuck realized this was real. And began to cry. Bellana held him. And helped him through the rest of the grieving period. He felt that this was the first time someone cared for him like that.

⁃ around the age of ten, Chilchuck realized he had feelings for Bellana. He denied it for awhile. Hitting himself when he'd catch himself admiring her. Saying that it's normal, that he was a boy so obviously he would find her attractive! It was normal and didn't mean anything! They were just friends. Bellana realized around age eleven. Realizing how her cheeks would heat up when he stood so close to her that she'd have to look up to meet his eyes. And how everything she does seems to be better if he's by her side.

⁃ one night when they were both eleven, their village held a big party to celebrate the new year. It was a big banquet outside. Starting at sundown. First they'd eat then dance until sunrise. On an outdoor dance floor decorated with banners, balloons, candles and fire lights. The village had them every year. But this one seemed special to them.

⁃ Bellana was talking with her girl friends on the dance floor about who they hoped would ask them to dance tonight. When Bellana was asked, she bashfully said Chilchuck. Her friends criticized her, saying Chilchuck was very shy and seemed rude to most. But some said they see the appeal (saying they liked that he was tall.)

⁃ That same night, Chilchuck couldn't keep his eyes off her. She was wearing a new blue sun dress her mother made for her. And he thought she looked beautiful. Thinking about how the low lights with the light blue dress seemed to make her glow. That's when one of his brothers noticed this, caught on quickly, and tried to get him to ask her to dance. He refused, saying he couldn't. This caused his brother to get annoyed and shoved Chilchuck into Bellana.

⁃ Chilchuck was of course a mess, and basically the convo went like this. "B-Bel..! You- uh.. would you- I mean- uh you wanna- (cursing in a different tongue.)" "Are you... asking me to dance, Chil..?" "Uh.. yeah...?"

⁃ About a year later and a half later, another party/festival was thrown. Their village often had stuff like this, and the two would go to every one of them together. Drinking and dancing had become their thing. And it wasn't long until the whole village new of the young love birds. People were now just making bets of when they would get married. but they had been doing that since they were kids.

⁃ this time, Chilchuck walked her there, brought her a flower, she wore a brand new yellow dress with her nicer jewelry. Since it was a special holiday for the half-foots.

⁃ the two did a lot more drinking this time; being thirteen, so close to adults no one really cared. They both got pretty drunk by the end of the night. And danced until morning. But even when the party shut down, they still wanted some more time together. So they went for a walk. Finding their way to Bellana family's barn. They had laid on the hayloft. Looking at the stars through a hole in the roof and talking. where the alcohol got the better of them. And ended up making love in the hayloft out of wedlock. Which is l considered very taboo for their hometown.

⁃ Bellana noticed her period was late about three weeks later. And was already experiencing symptoms since half-foot pregnancies only last 4 months. Such as vomiting and fatigue. She told Chilchuck right away. Who was shocked but slightly (extremely) panicked.

⁃ Bellana was extremely upset, she cried and was convinced her parents would kick her out. And that they'd be shamed, and their child would be shunned from the village. So Chilchuck said they should just get married. if they got married now people wouldn't find out. Bellana didn't really like this, since she always wanted a nice wedding and not a rushed one, even if it was Chilchuck. And wanted Chilchuck to propose to her properly because he loved her, not because they had to out of obligation. But Chilchuck reassured her he always wanted to marry her anyways. And might as well do it now rather than later.

⁃ so they had a very quick wedding which was basically the papers and I dos with the witnesses being her parents and his mother.

⁃ Bellana's parents were suspicious of the sudden quick wedding. Especially since they weren't even fourteen yet. But they didn't want to think their daughter would do something like that. Meanwhile Chilchuck's mother didn't really care, having five kids and all, two of which were married and living in on their own.

⁃ a couple weeks later when it was clear Bellana couldn't hide her pregnancy anymore she told both families. Her mother was happy, but her father was suspicious. He had always been not so approving of Chilchuck to begin with. Thinking his daughter deserved better than an emotionally distant locksmith who already had drinking problems before fifteen. This caused many fights between Bellana and her father.

Meijack

⁃ Since she was pregnant, Bellana's parents let Chilchuck stay with them for awhile.

⁃ one night when just the two of them were eating. Bellana said she wanted to move out of the village when they were both fourteen. Chilchuck was surprised, and asked if she was sure. She said despite the wedding the villagers caught on and weren't happy. That she wanted a fresh start, and her parents being so overbearing was hard on her too.

⁃ Chilchuck always wanted to leave and explore dungeons as his dream job. So he agreed, he brought the idea up to Bellana, but she said she didn't like it. She said that it was no time to chase his silly childhood dream. So he didn't bring it up again. Being a locksmith was fine for now.

⁃ Bellana was on the shorter side while Chilchuck is quite tall. Meijack got his genes and was a bigger baby. That made the first pregnancy harder on Bellana. By the 4th month she found it hard to move and breathe. Chilchuck took off work just so he could stay home and take care of her during these times. Despite her strong protests against it saying she's fine.

⁃ when he was finally aloud to see his daughter he cried a bit. Bellana was sleeping. When she woke up she asked if he was disappointed it wasn't a son. Chilchuck said no, that having a son or daughter meant nothing to him. Bellana felt touched, and loved how Meijack looked like him. She came up with the name Mei, Chilchuck picked Jack. So there came Meijack Chils.

Flertom

⁃ Two months later, being parents was a lot harder for them than they were expecting. one night when her parents were gone, And Meijack was finally in bed. They sat down and drank together for the first time in a very long time. They had too much to drink.

⁃ Flertom was conceived that night.

⁃ when Bellana realized she was pregnant again she was pissed at Chilchuck for several days. Who felt bad, saying he really tried to pull out in time but in his drunken state had totally forgotten.

⁃ when they told her parents, her father got upset. Saying they were going too fast for not even being adults yet. Bellana and her father argued at the dinner table. He brought up Chilchuck's job and saying he couldn't support her or their kids financially or emotionally. Causing Bellana to storm out.

⁃ Chilchuck stayed, nervous. That's when her father talked some sense into him. Saying that if he wanted to be a good husband and father, he needed to get his issues with being emotionally vulnerable and open under control. Which actually helped Chilchuck. And along his wife's second pregnancy, he worked on himself for his new family.

⁃ Chilchuck and Bellana talk, and decided that they'll wait until the second baby is born until they move. They're from the northern continent in small village in a half-foot territory. They decided to move to the eastern continent, where a decent sized half-foot city was. And they figured it wasn't too far from home. Since their children deserved to see their grandparents at least on some holidays. And there were many dungeons in the eastern continent, which is why Chilchuck agreed but he didn't tell Bellana this.

⁃ Bellana's second pregnancy was a bit more draining since her body hadn't fully recovered from the first one. One night, she woke up with an intense fever. This caught Chilchuck's attention, he cooled her off with some cold rags. She went back to sleep, but he stayed up all night watching her. She still had a fever in the morning so he tried to get her to go to the doctor. She refused saying she's fine, after some back and forth she gave in. They went to the doctors, and were told that she would be more likely to get sick than last time. Being her immune system was still down from the first pregnancy.

⁃ this pregnancy wasn't as hard on her body physically as last time. But she got more frequent and intense fevers and sickness, and it was harder to eat than with Meijack.

⁃ Bellana felt very insecure this pregnancy. Chilchuck could see this, but didn't really know how to handle it. He wanted to tell her how beautiful he thought she still was, but was often too shy and awkward to do so. So instead he'd bring her flowers and candies when he came home from work everyday. And held her closer to him at night.

⁃ Chilchuck turned fourteen while she was pregnant with Flertom. Bellana is a couple months older than him, she turned 14 in the two month gap between pregnancies.

⁃ bellana felt bad she couldn't do more for his birthday being so pregnant. But she made him a cake, and his signature gloves that he always wears. Chilchuck loved them obviously and wore them almost everyday he worked for years.

⁃ the two bickered a lot during the second pregnancy. Although Bellana doesn't remember them very well due to exhaustion. Chilchuck however did, but tried not to hold a grudge. Which was very hard for him, being his character to often do so. But he made an effort for her and their marriage. They were never serious arguments, just petty disagreements about small things.

⁃ her birth was like the last one. But this time Chilchuck argued to stay in the room with bellana. Which made her mother's opinion on him turn sour. But Bellana got him to leave finally saying he needed to take care of Meijack.

Moving

⁃ Bellana's parents didn't take the news that they were moving well. Chilchuck's mother was hurt but accepted it and wished him well.

⁃ bellana and her father got into a big argument. Where it was revealed they knew the whole time of the premarital sex and marrying out of obligation and they were trying to ignore it. Which is why they were not very supportive throughout the pregnancies or marriage.

⁃ her father actually said that he didn't believe they married out of love, and that they would be divorced in two years and she'll come back to them with both of the kids. (Which is actually part of the reason Bellana lived with Flertom during their estranged period. Because she didn't want to prove her parents right. It was also a reason she didn't get a full on divorce as well and it was more of a break if anything. Besides the obvious, that she still loved Chilchuck and wanted things to work. But her father's words did have some influence lol)

⁃ Their moving day got sped up because of that. And ended up catching a merchant in the early morning that would bring them to the harbor, which they took a ship to the eastern continent. They had a long talk on the ride there. Where they both admitted they didn't regret the girls or getting married, they just wished it came later in life.

⁃ They moved to a more populated area towards the west. It was closer to mixed race territories, but where they actually settled down was in a half-foot town. Since it was a bigger and more populated area, they could purchase a house instead of building one. They bought a decent sized one with the money Chilchuck saved up. But it only had two bedrooms. So the girls would have to share.

⁃ for a few years when the girls were young he just worked as a simple lock smith. It was hard, but some days it barely got the family of four by. This is when he habits of not eating as much as he should started. Wanting more for his girls and wife. Bellana often protested but he would put his foot down. Eventually it became clear he needed more than what he was bringing to the table. So he started dungeon work, very much against Bellana's wishes.

⁃ When he first brought it up it was a huge fight. Her throwing at him "you have two daughters to think about?! You're going to just go off and die and leave them fatherless, and me, a widow to raise them on my own?!" But soon she couldn't protest any longer. They're not many jobs he could do since they lived in a more mixed race area. Not many jobs paid good for half-foots. So she agreed. But he'd only do light work. Which is what he did for awhile. He'd tag with adventures on small dungeons, lock pic, translate, and be a better pair of eyes and ears. It was on these small trips that he learned about traps. Almost getting caught a couple times had scared him enough to read up heavily on them. And when he went out again he could put these things he learned into practice. Being the fast learner that he is he picked it up in no time.

Puckpatti

⁃ funny enough Puckpatti was also unplanned and more or less an accident. But just as welcomed and loved as the other two girls.

⁃ they were doing good for awhile. It wasn't until Puckpatti was born a year after they moved that he started to really panic.

⁃ although since they were away from the village and away from her mother. Chilchuck not only finally got to be in the room for his daughters birth but was actually the one to deliver her this time. He was nervous as hell and was panicking like crazy when her water broke. But soon he went into full serious dad/husband mode. Putting the girls up in their room with toys and snacks telling them not to leave unless they had to. As he stayed with his wife. It was easier obviously because by this time Bellana was a pro at this.

⁃ as much as Bellana being pregnant made him want to work more. He knew he had to cut back to take care of his wife and young children. He cut back in work more and more the later into her pregnancy. But the second the baby was born went to working much more to make up for lost time.

⁃ he was horrified of the thought that his girls would go hungry. Or that his children would have to get jobs young like he did to feed and clothe themselves. He started going into work alcoholic mode. He was going deeper and deeper into dungeons everyday. Staying later and later, longer and longer. To where he was no longer coming home to his family every night, but instead every few days. But he would leave almost immediately the next day or two days.

⁃ this greatly effected bellana of course. Causing her a lot of stress and anxiety. Not to mention the girls missed him more and more everyday. As did she. So once night she sat him down and had a talk. She discussed how it was hard doing this alone. Especially that he was never around. He understood, and started taking longer breaks in between jobs. This was good for everyone, and was nice for awhile. But in order to do this, Chilchuck had to go deeper into the dungeons for more money quicker so he could take these longer breaks.

Raising the girls/dungeon work

⁃ Because he was going deeper into dungeons more quickly. It was harder and harder each day. But he never died on these small dungeons, since they weren't like Thistle's where they had a spell on it. And weren't as dangerous either.

⁃ it was around this time he started drinking again. It was slow, and only really did it after jobs and when the girls were asleep. It was more like a hobby for him at this time. Since he's not actually an alcoholic like his father is. Alcoholism is partly a genetic trait, and he wasn't sure if he had inherited it from his father or not. But since he seemed to be able to control himself, and was able to think and look forward to other things throughout the day. He assumed he was in the clear.

⁃ When he spent his time at home, he spent most of his time with his girls. The first day he would come back he'd spend all day sleeping. Where Bellana would tell the girls not to bother their father, because he needs his rest. They always whine but understand. Because the next day he'll spend the whole day with his family. He'd also help around the house with chores and anything else while he was there. Which Bellana would also tell him he didn't need to do and it was her job, his job was to provide. But he'd always argue that he couldn't just sit there while everyone else was working. Despite her protests, she's always happy he's willing to help. Sometimes she does have to have certain jobs that she holds for him, because she'd rather he do it.

⁃ Meijack caused her parents a lot of worry when she was younger. She was always a shy kid, hiding behind her parent's legs when meeting new people. But that was normal for some children. When she was a baby she rarely cried and rarely made noise. Even as a toddler, while Flertom was babbling nonsense away at a young age, Meijack was quiet. If she wanted something she'd hum and point, drag her parents to what she wanted, or put something in their hand to communicate. This greatly worried them, especially Bellana who would cry to Chilchuck at night wondering why her daughter wasn't talking. Chilchuck would comfort her, saying she was probably just a late bloomer. And if not, and she really was mute. They'd get through it together, and figure out what they'd need to do for her. Finally, when she was about three, she said her first words. Which were "more please" durning dinner. Bellana was so happy she almost cried. As Meijack grew older she got more confident with her speech with her family. But was very quiet in public and basically never talked in wide social situations. Finally at four they took her to a doctor where she was diagnosed to have selective mutism.

⁃ When Puckpatti was younger, she got bullied a lot. Mostly for being small and what other kids considered "dumb" because of her carefree, airhead like attitude. This really hurt her self esteem for awhile. Meijack being the over protective sister she was, would defend her, tell the kids off especially if they were older. And would start walking with her to school. Flertom was less confrontational. But if she saw it happening she would step in. Normally though she'd just comfort her little sister. This obviously upset her parents. Chilchuck would be angry and Bellana upset. She'd tell Puckpatti that the kids were just jealous, and that's what kids do and they're cruel. Chilchuck would want to talk to their parents, but Bellana would worry that it could disrupt the peace. Luckily it never got physical, and it only lasted when she was really little. It was gone by the time she was in her teens. Which reminds me of this dialogue: "Dad, am I ugly?" "Of course not. You're the most beautiful girl in the world."

⁃ Chilchuck would tell the girls lots of folklore from their homeland when he was home. Although most of them wouldn't have happy endings, and would end up scaring the girl. Bellana would fuss at him to go easier on them. But he would argue that fear is how they learn and it would keep them safe. He would tell stories of trolls that would take kids that wandered too far in the woods. Fairies that steal your sweets if you don't eat your vegetables. Mermaids that would drown you if you swam too far in the sea or lakes even. But, he would also tell them stories of the dungeons with the purpose of keeping them away from the dungeons. Stories of an adventurer who thought exploring dungeons would be fun, and him never comes home. Obviously that terrified them, because he goes in dungeons. And for awhile they were more clingy and terrified of him not coming home one day. Where he has to give them the talk; "I've always come home before haven't I? And I'll always come home after."

⁃ Chilchuck had a bad habit of yelling and losing his temper quickly. Mostly when they would do something that could've gotten them hurt, and he got angry out of worry. But after he calmed down, he'd always apologize to them, and calmly explained that he just worried about them because he loved them. And didn't want to see them get hurt, then tell them what they did was wrong or dangerous and why they shouldn't do it again.

⁃ when they were only babes, Bellana discussed with Chilchuck how she'd like him to teach them some of the other languages he spoke. Since he knew seven whole languages and her only three. So growing up he'd talk to them in multiple languages, Meijack learned three fluently and parts of two. Flertom also learned three and parts of one other, (and ended up learning dwarfish herself later on.) but Puckpatti only learned one extra one since she never took her father's lessons seriously.

⁃ when Meijack and Flertom were young. One night they couldn't sleep because Bellana and Chilchuck were arguing in the next room. Flertom earlier that day had learned that they were both born the same year their parents got married. Meijack had memorized their wedding date due to a previous conversation. Being a bit older, they did the math with Meijack's birthday and the wedding. And revealed she was probably conceived about a month before than. Flertom made the comment of "you made them get married before they were ready. No wonder they fight all the time." Not thinking anything of it. Because of this, Meijack has actually blamed herself as a child (irrationally of course) for her parents issues for awhile. When they could fight she secretly wished she wasn't born, thinking it was her fault.

⁃ at ages four and two ish, Flertom had found a black, orange and white calico kitty. She brought it home and begged her mother to let her keep it. Meijack and Puckpatti saw this as well and joined in. Also wanting the kitty. Chilchuck was on a job at the time. So Bellana said it was up to their father, since his money would ultimately be the one paying for it. But she made it clear she wouldn't be taking care of the cat, and it would be the girls' collective responsibility. They agreed and waited for their father to return. Letting the cat stay with them til' then. When Chilchuck finally came home the very first thing he saw was a cat being shoved in his face and all three of his daughters' big puppy eyes. With a "daddy can we keep him. Pleeeeeeeease." Chilchuck wanted to say no at first, but seeing them all beg him like that wore him down. And he reluctantly agreed. He was the stereotypical dad who didn't want the cat but ended up loving the cat. The girls argued on a name, but eventually settled on Pebbles.

⁃ the girls favorite toys growing up were, a lock box and a few spinners for Meijack. A red dragon plush that had dried rice in it for Flertom. And a doll with button eyes and yarn hair for Puckpatti. Which Chilchuck all kept in a box in his workshop when they got older. Filled with more of their toys and some baby clothes and blankets they liked as well.

⁃ Meijack had some more problems too growing up. As Chilchuck slowly started to spend more and more time in the dungeons. Leaving for weeks and weeks at a time. Rumors around their town started to circle. The other parents would talk. Gossiping, saying he must not love his wife. And dungeon work must be an excuse to stay away from home. That Bellana must be a mean wife. That he must find his children irritating. Etc etc. which of course trickled down to the children. Who would make fun of Meijack and Flertom. Laughing at them saying their father doesn't really love them and is avoiding them. Flertom would just cry, saying they're wrong. While Meijack would get angry and violent. Ending up getting into fights with other half-foot children. If it was another race child, she'd end up throwing rocks or sticks at them. She would get badly hurt, and of course in a lot of trouble. Bellana was furious with her when she was first dragged in by one of the parents. That is until Meijack broke down sobbing, telling her everything that had been happening. Meijack being Meijack, she didn't tell her parents about any of this til now. This caught Bellana by surprise since she never acts like this, causing her to be softer. But the one that talked to Meijack most about this was of course Chilchuck, her having always been a daddy's girl after all. He would hold her, calm her down after her fits of rage, clean her up. When the parents finally got together to talk about what was happening. Chilchuck made it very clear that "his situation. His family, and his marriage were not a topic of gossip. And they should be ashamed of themselves for getting the children involved."

⁃ once they were old enough he tired to teach all of them trades and skills he knew. Such as lock picking, how to tailor clothing, haggling prices down, repairing things like that. Meijack obviously picked up lock picking very well. So as she grew older he continued to teach her the trade. Flertom surprisingly really took to haggling and bargaining. So much so that when her mother moved in with her as an adult, she ended up doing all the shopping because she could always get the seller to bring the price down. And Puckpatti, somehow learned from her father's lessons is how to have a good poker face and become a convincing liar. Chilchuck still isn't sure how that happened.

⁃ Flertom was a sensitive girl. She'd cry the most, was the most affectionate, and wanted to spend the most time with the parents. Chilchuck and Bellana referred to her as, "the little sweetheart." But said she had her mother's temper and father's sharp tongue when it came to it.

⁃ Puckpatti was always the baby. She gave them the most trouble growing up. Having the most tantrums as a child. If she didn't get her way she'd simply start screaming. She was especially hard on poor Chilchuck when he was taking care of her by himself. Sometimes even holding her breath until she got her way. When she would throw her tantrums, Bellana would deal with it by talking her down. And Chilchuck would simply ignore her til she tired herself out, then talk to her about what happened and what made her upset like his wife does.

⁃ when Meijack was eleven she told her parents she was feeling attraction to other woman, and not men. Flertom always had been a bit boy crazy. So it scared her that she never felt the things her sister did. But instead, seemed to get flustered when the pretty elf girls or half-foots would compliment her freckles and long, ginger hair. She told Chilchuck first, who was more excepting immediately with his more world and people experience. She was more scared to tell her mother. Bellana didn't get it at first, not understanding. But she wasn't prejudiced. Just didn't quite understand, not hearing something like that often. But after some time, and some talking with Chilchuck. She understood one simple thing, she loved her daughter and just wanted her to be happy.

⁃ as the girls got older and more independent. he didn't necessarily need to spend as much time at home. So he started moving back to doing longer dungeon work. Staying out longer, going deeper, not staying home as much anymore. It bothered Bellana at first but she kept quiet. Knowing they needed the money.

⁃ Meijack moved out a few weeks after she turned fourteen. Getting employed as a locksmith under a larger company. Chilchuck gave all his girls a sum of money to get them on their feet when they moved out. Flertom moved out a few months after her fourteenth birthday. Staying close to home, she got a job at a local tavern as a waitress. In an area popular among dwarves. Puckpatti stayed about a year after her sisters. But left when she was only twelve. Both Chilchuck and Bellana heavily protested, saying she should wait til she's an adult like her sisters and they did. But she argued saying they got married before they were adults so she should be aloud to move out. So despite her parent's wishes, she left. Neither of them really knew what she did, since she barely kept in touch the first year which heavily worried them. but soon she started sending letters, saying she was traveling with a group and she was okay. Later Chilchuck would run into her at a market where she was selling dragon dung. He was a little disappointed this is what she decided to do, but knew he couldn't stop her. In his own words, "it'll burn her someday." So he just reminded her that she will always have a place to come back to if (when) needed.

The island

⁃ About a year later Chilchuck wanted to retired and open up his own locksmith shop as a way to continue to support him and his wife, keep himself busy, and to save money to pass onto his girls when they both pass. But he was no where near the goal he needed to reach. This was around the time of the rumor of the island with a huge dungeon under it where you couldn't die had been going around local adventurers. So after a very, very, very long and hard talk with Bellana. She agreed to move to the island with him. Only really agreeing to it because apparently he wouldn't die. So they moved, more temporarily if anything, Flertom took over their old home.

⁃ One of the first jobs was where he was tricked to be used as bait for a succubus. This is the first time he went home and Bellana saw him truly terrified, and on the verge of tears. She tried to comfort him but he was practically inconsolable. She saw a noticeable change that night with him.

⁃ After that, he dove harder into work, and alcohol. He started the guild to protect half-foots. And started to be a bigger advocate for them, even though he had always been very outspoken against the harsh treatment towards his people. He became even more so.

⁃ so Bellana began to see less and less of her beloved husband. And every time he'd come home, he seemed different every time. Every time he came back from a job his attitude got worse and worse. He drank more and more. Where it went from just a hobby before to now a coping mechanism. Although he never ever laid a hand on her, and never insulted her or had violent outbursts of any kind. He was noticeably more cold and distant. Seemingly always something on his mind. He never shared what happened when he was away, which he did before hand as well. It didn't bother her much back then since he always seemed fine and came back with a smile. But now he was coming home with injuries she'd never seen before. And he was never home. He'd be gone for weeks, come home for only two days before he was gone again on average. Leaving Bellana alone in the house, on an island where she knew no one. Their affection of course dropped, they had barely made love since they moved there. And would barely be affectionate when he was home. Bellana quickly grew tired. Beginning to think that maybe he was finally growing bored of her, moving on or falling out of love even. The thoughts of another woman also crossed her mind.

⁃ along the way, Chilchuck met a group whom he quickly grew rather fond of. He told them happily about his beautiful wife and three daughters who were already all independent and living on their own.

⁃ one particular trip, they ran into a group of succubus. Two succubus had gone after Chilchuck, both blond beauties with long hair, light eyes and tall slender yet curvy figures. The group saves him, and immediately assumes that must be what his wife looks like! Chilchuck on the other hand is horrified, his wife looks absolutely nothing like that! But he figured they'd drop it. He questions his subconscious loyalty to his wife for awhile. Until he comes to the conclusion that they were just showing a sexual fantasy he had and nothing more. He still loves Bellana and she is still the most beautiful woman in the world to him. She is his wife and mother of his three kids. They were just a horny thought. Nothing more.

⁃ this isn't brought up again until the night the party meet Bellana. The party insisted they meet her, very curious about their young looking member's family. Eventually he agrees, seeing no harm in it. Bellana is delighted when he invites her to dinner with his coworkers. She thinks this could be the start for things to look up with them. That maybe this was him letting her into this part of his life. she gets herself all dressed up. A little bit extra to hope maybe she'll catch his attention and maybe even make love again that night afterwards. They hadn't in months at this point. But Chilchuck grumbles at her, saying it's not that big of a deal and it's just casual. It hurts her a bit but she pushes it away. Trying to understand where he was coming from.

⁃ Chilchuck was grumpy in the beginning of the night. But loosened up when he started drinking and talking to his friends. Bellana saw how happy he was smiling with his companions and even other woman that it hurt her. It made her feel insignificant, and that he was falling out of love with her. The attention she got from the men of the party, and how Chilchuck barely bothered to tell them to "fuck off she's taken." Hurt as well, but she felt she was being nit-picky. Until finally, one of the party members spoke up. Saying that she was nothing what they all thought she'd look like, since she looks nothing like his fantasy. Confused, Bellana asked them to explain. Whole Chilchuck's face dropped, he immediately aggressively shook his head, waving his arms wildly to tell them to shut it. But soon the whole party started to join in, finding it funny. They explained what a succubus was. And what they do, they explained, in great detail, how his succubus turned into naked woman with long, curly blond hair and blue or green eyes with model type bodies. Some, not even being half-foots. That absolutely broke Bellana, and in her mind confirmed it. Chilchuck had completely fallen out of love with her. He didn't even find her physically attractive anymore. And that maybe the succubus had even turned into his mistress.

⁃ Chilchuck tried to explain, saying it was nothing more than a fantasy he's had since a child. Soon the party laughed it off, and the conversation moved on. Chilchuck tried to forget about it and moved on himself shortly afterwards. But Bellana didn't say anything much for the rest of the dinner.

⁃ on their way home they night, she had completely shut down. Refusing to take his arm when he offered, barely looking at him, and answering in a short blunt tone as they walked home. Which Chilchuck remembered as her just being "moody." He thought maybe the party members had said something to upset her. Or she was just tired. So he let it go. Which hurt Bellana even more that he never even bothered to ask what was wrong.

- the next morning he was gone. That party had ended up planning another run, it was much shorter so he saw no harm in not waking Bellana up to say goodbye this time.

⁃ Bellana woke up to an empty bed. And the first thing she did was cry. She sobbed alone in an empty house all morning. Until finally pulling herself together. She made her decision. She was going to get off the island. She would go to Flertom, since she was closest. If Chilchuck didn't love her anymore like she suspected then fine. But if he did, then surely he'd come find her right? He'd come and they'd talk and they'd be able to work out their problems and be happy again like they use to be. Bellana didn't pack much, mostly just clothes, but by night fall she was on a ship towards the eastern continent.

⁃ a few days later she arrived at Flertom's aka her old door step in the rain. Tears streaming down her cheeks. Flertom was shocked, letting her in. Her mind went to the worse. Dad was dead. He either drank himself to death or was killed in the dungeons. But once Bellana explained Flertom felt sad. As a kid they seemed so in love. She had no idea they've had so many problems for years. The last year being the absolute worst. She didn't remember all the fights they had when she and Mei were young. (Meijack did however. Being very perceptive. But never mentioned it in typical Meijack fashion.) Flertom let her mother stay there again of course. Asking what the plan is. Bellana said she'd wait. For her husband? She didn't know. For her to move on. For Chilchuck to come find her. For another man to sweep her off her feet and make her feel young again. She had no clue. But she was just going to wait and see.

⁃ when Chilchuck came home to an empty home he immediately panicked. Freaking out thinking the worse, he looked all over until he found the letter on his doorstep. Opening it, half expecting some sort of ransom letter. He was relieved but confused. Once he read that his wife had, in Flertom's words, "needed some air". He felt angry, betrayed and confused. He didn't know what to do, so of course, he drank himself until he was black out drunk.

⁃ For months he was too angry with her to do anything but seethe at every passing thought of her. To him this was a complete betrayal. As time passed, he subconsciously realized that he probably was all his fault. That he pushed her away in hindsight. But he had too much pride and anger to ever admit that to himself. So instead of dealing with it like an adult, he just fully threw himself into work. Never home. He eventually cleared out the house of all personal belongings. Barely standing to stay in it. He rented it out, moved all the stuff down in the basement where he stayed. The most frequent person he rented it too was actually Bellana's younger brother. "Gotta say Chil.. I really thought you and my big sis would last. You always seemed like quite the love birds when we were kids." "For the last time.. we're not divorced. Just estranged. We're still married. There's a clear difference. Now let's stop talking about this." "Uh huh..."

⁃ meanwhile Bellana had tried to date a man again mostly due to the daughters influence. But it felt wrong, and she ended up ghosting the poor green-eyed bartender after three dates.

Retirement

⁃ Then a year later he met Laios. He was planning to retire when Laios came to the guild wanting to hire a half-foot. Of course the obvious answer was for Chilchuck to go. But hearing that Laios wanted to go deeper, it seemed like a perfect excuse to get his mind off his marital problems. And we all know how most of that went. Three years later Falin got eaten and yada yada.

⁃ MANGA SPOILERS: after the kingdom rose from the sea. Chilchuck made it his job to help the half-foots get back on their feet. Partly another distraction. He started up the union again, to help put the half-foots back in work. It didn't take long with the new kingdom forming. So soon he was able to open up his shop like he wanted. Figuring it was still something to do and not just sit around in his misery. He decided to open it up in the kingdom instead since it was growing bigger by the day. And he would be the first locksmith shop. And also due to marcille's begging. He didn't bother seeing his wife again until Meijack had moved into the kingdom to work with Chilchuck.

⁃ Chilchuck had matured a lot since then. And mellowed out with the new quiet life. One night, he had invited all his girls to dinner at the castle. Heavily from Marcille's influence. But the other party members were curious about his daughters as well. Most of the night consisted of chasing Puckpatti away from Laios. Dragging Flertom away from Senshi. And removing Meijack from both Falin and Marcille. Marcille at dinner asked if he had talked to any of his other family members often. He had dinner with Flertom a few times and exchanged letters with Puckpatti, and seen her in passing once. She then popped the question about his wife, where he kinda shut down again. She scolded him, saying he said he would apologize to her after it was over. And it's been a year. He sighed and says she's right. He accidentally makes eye contact with Meijack. Who's staring at him intensely with a hopeful look in her eyes. He gets nervous and looks to the other side of him. Where Puckpatti and Flertom were both looking at him. Flertom with wide, teary eyes. And Puckpatti's bottom lip quivering. Those looks from his girls broke his heart.

⁃ that night he was up all night thinking everything over. He knew it was his fault. He knew he drove her away. He knew he had changed, and she didn't like it. He was finally able to admit it to himself. And he finally admitted to himself, that he did in fact, miss Bellana dearly.

⁃ within the next week. He traveled to their old home. He stood at the doorstep for at least ten minutes before finally knocking. Flertom was already home, so she answered. She was confused at first. Asking if he had sent a letter and she just missed it. He said no, and he was sorry for showing up unannounced. But he wanted to talk to her mother. Flertom looked shocked and like she was about to cry. She said of course and said she needed to go run some errands anyways (which was a lie) and she left. Despite Chilchuck saying she didn't need to. But he still appreciated the privacy.

⁃ Bellana was angry at first, not angry that he came. But angry it took him four years. The first words out of Chilchuck's mouth were. "I'm so sorry, Bel.." bellana asked what he wanted and he said to talk, but more importantly to apologize. She said fine, but she wanted to speak first. And she explained how she felt all those years. And explained what happened that night. He listened, her pointing out things he hadn't even thought of. And she apologized for not being the best wife at times. For starting fights when they were younger, and expecting more when he already did more than he could handle some days. He tried to tell her she had nothing to apologize for but she insisted she did. Then it was his turn. He explained what was happening, why he changed so much, and why it took him so long to find her again. And apologized for all of it. They fell into silence, when Bellana asked, "did you still love me..?" Which made Chilchuck felt like he was going to cry. Saying of course he did, he never stopped loving her and that even now he still does. Even during the years he was so angry with her and tried to convince himself he was better off, he knew deep down he still loved her.

⁃ she began to cry, and Chilchuck took her in his arms for the first time in years. They stood there and just cried with each other for awhile. Eventually asking what this meant for them. Chilchuck said he wanted to try again, but it was all up to her. She said she did too, but she wanted to take things slow. He agreed.

⁃ they started off seeing each other everyday. Going on little dates and outings. Chilchuck (eventually) introduced her to everyone at the party. Although he was very embarrassed, even more so as Bellana went out of her way to let them know how affectionate and "romantic" he was when they were younger. and telling them embarrassing stories about him and the girls as well. They also started having dinner as a whole family. Which was an adjustment for everyone. Affection was a little weird a first, not so much awkward as it was not knowing. Neither wanting to go too fast or make the other uncomfortable. They didn't sleep together again until about three months in. After about nine months of this things got back to almost how it was before. They moved into a one room cottage together a little ways away from his shop with a nice plot of land around it. Complete with a little white fence and everything.

⁃ about a year or two years. Chilchuck's prediction about Puck became true. Puckpatti's unserious attitude had gotten her into trouble. She got scammed out of all her money by people she had been traveling with, and robbed by a precious "business partner." And when trying to get back on her feet again, a group of fisherman she tried to get a job with tried to use her as bait for sea beasts. She managed to escape. And immediately went to her parents' home.

⁃ she collapsed into her mothers arms crying. Chilchuck was at work when this happened. Coming home to seeing Puckpatti wrapped up in a blanket as Bellana made dinner. He asked what she was doing here, and through tears she explained the situation. He sighed, he said he had warned her about all this. Not surprised but still sorry for her. Bellana scolded him gently, saying she needed comfort and empathy right now and not a lecture. He sighed and apologized. Then gave Puckpatti a hug. Saying she was welcomed in the home as long as she needed. Puckpatti stayed with them for a few months. Eventually finding a job at a flower shop. And moved out a few more months after working.

⁃ Meijack inherited Chilchuck's shop when he fully retired at forty-eight . She also met a big eyed, curly haired half-foot girl later in her life. Although they were never publicly affectionate, and were never married or even official courted. It was clear they were in a romantic relationship. They lived together above Meijack's shop. And really the only people who knew they were romantic was family. Everyone else in town thought they were simply friends and roommates. And really the only reason Meijack's family knew is because she was brought to family events and they were together for every holiday. And who brings their roommate to that stuff? Meijack took on an Puckpatti's son as an apprentice and would pass the shop onto him when she retired.

⁃ Flertom down the road eventually did meet a half-foot boy whom she quickly fell for. They had a very fast and messy relationship, and she ended up getting pregnant. They had a son, but he was unwilling to marry her. He said he just wanted to wait until he had more money. Chilchuck warned her, saying how he never liked the guy because he seemed to childish and not serious about her. That he thought her and her baby deserved better. and not marrying her was a red flag and she should be careful. Flertom got defensive, saying that he just wanted to provide for them. And that just because him and mom had a shotgun wedding doesn't mean she should. Chilchuck felt hurt but understood she was a grown adult. Flertom continued to work with the baby, Bellana baby sitting during the day. It was a boy named Kamkate, with the nickname Kammy. It wasn't until about a year later when Flertom got pregnant yet again that things went wrong. Her man still refused to marry her. So being done, and already having plenty or problems with him, (including suspects of him cheating,) she said he either marry her and start taking being a father for their children seriously. Or get out of her life. Fed up, he turned and walked out the door. Never to be seen again. Flertom struggled for awhile. Not able to keep up with everything as a now single mom of two, with a new baby girl named Starlea. Chilchuck decided to fund her money, enough the she wouldn't need to work and could raise her babies. Flertom was grateful, crying to him. Apologizing for their fight and saying he was doing too much. He told her to stop crying and that he would be a sad excuse for a father if he didn't held his daughter at her lowest point in life. Bellana also helped, going over almost everyday. Helping take care of the babies and teaching her all the things she's learned. Originally they had the last name of their father. But to be petty and since he clearly wasn't going to be apart of their lives, she gave their family names Chils instead. Chilchuck acted like he didn't care, but secretly he was flattered. (And proud because he knew he oneuped the shitty asshole that hurt his baby.) Once they were old enough for school Flertom was able to work again. About 2 years later she met a young dwarf man who was impressed that she was a single mother of two and was able to keep her and her babies afloat. Although it wasn't rich like her original fantasy he was a successful blacksmith. They fell in love, married, and later her children both learned the blacksmith trade. Able to make some pretty intricate stuff with their small hands. But despite getting married finally, Flertom kept their family names as Chils.

⁃ Puckpatti went through a lot of relationships through her life. With half-foots, tall men and even elves. Which caused her parents to be very worried for her. But despite this she never got pregnant. She took any get-rich-quick opportunity she could find. Constantly changing who she was traveling with and always moving. She didn't have a real job or even home for a long time. It wasn't until eveything went down and she moved back with her parents that she got her life together. As I said before she got a job as a florist. Very later in her life she met a grey-eyed tall man. It was nice for a while and they even got engaged. But it was broke off when he realized how badly he wanted children. It devastated her for awhile but she got back on her feet. She got a second job part time in a local book store, hired by an elderly gnome woman who was getting too old to run the shop. Eventually she took over when the gnome retired. 6 months later she met a blue eyes half foot who was a traveler from the north selling potions. He fell instantly for her, but she was cautious. But soon fell for him too. They got married about a year later and almost immediately had a son named Pepermac. Everyone was very relieved that she finally settled down to say the least.

[nyxsealia]

When I was 17 and trying to figure out what the heck my sexuality was, the main, if not only, piece of advice I found online, even when I directly asked people, was to go out and experiment sexually with various people and see what gender I enjoyed sex with most. And years later, that still seems to be the advice most of us give when someone is trying to figure out their sexuality. And there's nothing wrong with doing that, and if that's what helped you, great. But I do think there's issues with this being the most prevalent advice.

There are a lot of reasons someone may not want to do this, various personal or religious reasons, comfort levels, a lack of interest in sex, not experiencing much or any sexual attraction, or simply being too young for this to be applicable.

I found the advice unhelpful for many of the reasons I just mentioned, and it left me feeling lost on how I was supposed to find out what my orientation was. It also left me with thoughts like how can I be a part of queer culture if I don't want to experiment sexually or be sexually active? Even looking at articles with advice on dating as a queer woman I saw bullet points like "It's okay to have sex on the first date!" there was so much emphasis on how it's okay to have very active sex lives that it left me feeling like if I didn't want that, I'd never be able to have relationships because there'd be an expectation of sex right off the bat. Don't get me wrong, sex positivity is important and we shouldn't shame people for their sex lives. But I feel like we don't don't talk about not being into that kind of thing enough.

I also didn't know at the time that I was asexual, and while I'm sex neutral and open to the idea of sex with a trusted partner, I don't have any desire to seek out sexual relationships. Not experiencing sexual attraction made figuring out my attraction a thousand times harder. I still don't know if I'm bi/pan or lesbian. I do refer to myself as gay or lesbian in some instances, but sometimes I say queer or just shrug and say "I like girls" or "I'm not straight" and some days I'm okay with the vagueness of that, but other days I feel the stress and pressure of having to pick an identity in order to have a community to belong to and be accepted. That stress and pressure doesn't get better when all the advice I can find on the subject just tells me to have sex and that'll clear everything up.

We put a lot of focus on finding out exactly "what" you are. And I don't think sex is the best way to do that. Lots of people have varying interest in sexual or physical intimacy, not just queers. My cishet friend told me she got a boyfriend but she wasn't entirely sure if what she was feeling was romantic, and that the idea of kissing made her uncomfortable. She doesn't identify as ace or aro, and she shouldn't have to. People can have a lack of interest in these things without a lack of attraction.

Another issue with this advice is that sexual and romantic attraction doesn't always line up for everyone. You may enjoy sex with all genders, but find you only have a desire to date one. So sexual experimenting wouldn't necessarily answer the question for you. Orientation is really complicated. I did mostly consider myself lesbian, but I occasionally find men aesthetically attractive, and I'm honestly starting to wonder if I'm actually bi but still feel uncomfortable using the term.

All this needlessly long and ramble-y text to say, this advice is simply useless to a lot of people. And while I can't speak personally for this part, I'd bet at least some people who enjoy sexual experimentation still weren't sure of their orientation at the end of it. This advice shouldn't be presented as the one size fits all solution.

If you're uncomfortable or uninterested in figuring out your identity this way, there's nothing wrong with that. There's also nothing wrong with not knowing. You don't have to know right now, or ever if you'd prefer that. It's okay to use vague terms. It's also okay to use whatever label feels closest even if it's not perfect. And remember, you're not locked into anything. You can always change labels.

There is no right way to determine your orientation. Everyone discovers themself in different ways and at different ages. It's not a race or a checklist. The most important thing is to be kind and patient with yourself and whatever you do to figure yourself out, be safe.

[bunnakit]

Since you were looking for asks I was wondering what you thought about Hush-Hush since I don't think I've seen you mention it yet since it came out? I'm usually skeptical of collabs but when it was announced I went back and watched a bunch of Be:first's stuff to see what kind of stuff they did and I hit Mainframe and Masterplan and, like, obviously they're commentary on Japanese salaryman culture on the face of them. But from a loretiny-lens I was like 'ohhhhhhhh these would fit seamlessly into the Z universe'. And then Hush-Hush itself came out and I was absolutely delighted by it. I was sitting there vibing along with the song, knowing that there were always supposed to be more members of the resistance than just the the Black Pirates and I was like 'ok, if Be:First wants to be part of the Japanese wing of the resistance in the Z universe, I am actually completely cool with this'. I also thought the connection to Wonderland with the Escher Stairs, and the (potential) tie in to whatever event fractured off the Halazia universe with the strong use of the eclipse distortions effecting gravity were super interesting. All the line references in the song to being undercover which could potentially tie into Work and its one mention of hiding from (android) guardians. I'd be really interested to hear what you thought about it.

hey anon sorry it took me a bit to get to this, my health has been in the shitter.

for my basic lizard brain thoughts on hush-hush:

i find your lore theories fascinating. i can absolutely see the direction and think it's such a fun idea to play with. personally, i don't tend to apply collabs to lore just because i don't want to take away from the other group's message or whatever theme they run with (this is my first exposure to BE:FIRST but i'll def be looking into them more.)

i'm also very much one of those people that doesn't think all of ATEEZ's MVs apply to lore - some may have nods to the lore but don't really progress the narrative (Youth, IT's you, Everything, MATZ) so i don't dwell on them too much story-wise. Hush-Hush is a bit like that for me, i think they did what Chung Ha did and applied some homages to ATEEZ lore as a little respectful nod but i don't know that it was anything so intentional as to tie into lore - but again, i really like your thoughts on it and think that's such a fun take on it and such a fun playground to play in!

i do think your mention of Wonderland is also very very interesting because i noticed a few things as well - i'm so sorry, i'm about to be so pretentious and annoying. i haven't commented on this a lot publicly because i feel like it's very much me being overly analytical and all of it could be a coincidence but i'm starting to think it's absolutely not.

(more thoughts below the read more, just trying to keep from clogging people's dashes too much lol - i'm also sorry if the photos don't load side by side, tumblr sure likes to fuck me on formatting sometimes)

Hush-Hush is very, very similar to Wonderland in the way that it uses shape language to back up the message conveyed by the lyrics and overall theme.

'the fuck is shape language?' okay so shapes in media actually hold symbolic meaning - there are different interpretations based on culture, themes, etc. but here are the themes and meanings i generally look out for.

you'll see a lot of use of squares/rectangles throughout both Wonderland and Hush-Hush ↴

squares/rectangles can be used to represent oppression, imprisonment, control, and similar ideas. you'll see it rather blatantly in Hush-Hush as they directly say 'too late to notice, you can't capture us' while framed in a square train cart and going so far as Sota making a square gesture with his fingers. an overt message conveyed in Wonderland is Wooyoung quite literally chained and confined on a square pedestal.

another shape that links the MVs is the use of triangles ↴

in a stark contrast to squares, triangles can represent rebellion, dissent, strength (tho this is shared with several other shapes,) and truth (which will tie into the final shape i'll address.) it's pretty obvious how this ties in with almost everything both BE:FIRST and ATEEZ represent and in my personal opinion it is very fun to keep an eye out for triangles throughout ATEEZ's media.

the final shape i've noticed a lot of is circles ↴

circles can be used to symbolize unity, truth, wholeness, harmony, enlightenment. this is obviously apparent in Wonderland where the lyrics repeatedly reference finding the truth, the door to the truth, etc.

all these shapes used in conjunction with each other create a blueprint narrative of ATEEZ's lore - overcoming oppression and control through rebellion and strength of self in the pursuit of truth and harmony. i imagine you can apply the same theory to many of BE:FIRST's videos (it'll be very fun for me to look through later and see if this is true) but Hush-Hush definitely has very obvious nods to this message.

this symbol is also shown in the beginning of the MV and i'm not entirely sure what it's supposed to be, if it's something related to BE:FIRST, a map of this metaphysical city, or something else entirely, but you'll see it incorporates all of these shapes as well.

if we want to touch on the hexagon in the center hexagons can be used to convey coherence, cooperation, connection, and balance.

the message of cooperation and connection is very interesting when applied to Hush-Hush as there are a few gestures throughout the MV that nod to a connection and cooperation between BE:FIRST and ATEEZ (which lends even more credit to your own theory anon!)

you'll see in this screenshot BE:FIRST holds their hands out, palms down, towards ATEEZ while the ATEEZ boys hold their hands palms up, as if to meet BE:FIRST's in unity.

here you can see Ryuhei??? and Mingi nearly forming a direct connection through touch (and perhaps a very loose 'Creation of Adam' reference if we want to squint and tilt our head 90 degrees?)

there are also continual references to escape and freedom which is backed with the visuals of several modes of transportation; cars, planes, the train, etc. this combined with the lyric 'we're living in a metafiction' (artificiality, parody, imitation) really solidifies the desire for escape and freedom from whatever force is oppressing them and keeping them in this warped reality.

and then we have the Escher stairs you mentioned being a theme between the two ↴

the sharp angles can also be a reference to shapes, especially in the case of Wonderland, but to me the stairs have always represented the uphill battle in front of them. sometimes following the truth, pursuing your goals, and holding to your own personal morals can be a struggle that seems insurmountable.

there's no one definitive meaning to Escher's 'Relativity" but many sources mention an altered or warped perspective, a loss of gravity (as you mentioned,) and an infinite labyrinth. regardless of the meaning, i do think they're also a great visual used in conjunction with the idea of a metafiction or warped reality.

if you wanted you could maybe also attribute ATEEZ's break through the glass as an escape from this reality or a separate reality that kept them isolated from BE:FIRST.

idk these are all just my own reads and interpretation of things, i truly think all takes are valid and i think that's the beauty of ATEEZ and videos like this. we all have different ideas and theories but at the end of the day they almost always lead us to the same conclusion, the journey there just looks a little different.

if you read this far i'm kissing your head. please anyone ALWAYS feel free to ask my thoughts on MVs, even old ones. i'm always looking to babble about lore and symbolism and shit.

[ash-muses]

How do they talk to small kids? Is their tone demeaning? Do they go down to their level? Do they feel at ease? (Loki. u know i had to send it)

♡ Question from Minor Details About The Muse ♡ Additional tags: @mythical-muses (I thought you might find this interesting since we've been discussing Loki's reactions + relationships with kids, too) ♡ Notes: I'm excluding Avengers-era Loki because of Thanos' influence over him at the time (all debates about whether Loki was tortured by Thanos aside, we already know he was at least influenced by the Mind Stone). Also, no, I haven't watched The Office (I know, it's blasphemy, especially using a GIF from it *sobs*).

Ahhh, thanks for sending this in, Ghosts! ♡ Just a heads up, this post will probably be a bit long~

Most of you know how I am already when it comes to talking about my favorite little beans. ♡ For those of you who don't, I'm so sorry in advance and good luck.

Firstly, his own children would be an entirely different story than some random child(ren), so we'll focus on kids in general.

Secondly, I have to start with a short analysis (well, shorter than what I would like, because I could write for days and in-depth about this topic).

If you don't want to read the character analysis, that's totally fine! Feel free to skip down to the next banner under the cut ("BREAKDOWN").

Lately, I've received more questions about Loki and how he would interact with kids (his own or otherwise), which is really interesting to me. He has such a versatile nature, but something consistent I and many others have noticed is that Loki tends to put others before himself, although maybe not in the ways we would expect or consider to be in that vein. There are a few posts that I absolutely love that go into more detail about that (here and here; future ones will be posted under this tag for anyone curious).

SIDE NOTES (you can skip this, it's just my ramblings & other observations) While the second post talks more about how Loki didn't want the throne, I'd also like to point out that he was trying to do what he thought was best for Asgard and its people by protecting them from Thor's reckless and impulsive, albeit mostly well-meaning, behavior at that time (excluding his attempts at Jotun genocide, despite their realms having a truce at the time, as @mythical-muses and I have previously discussed). A lot of people will point out how Loki did this to further his own agenda. While that certainly may be a part of it, that post also mentions an important piece: Loki looks shocked that he was handed Gungnir, indicating it was an after thought (if it was ever considered to begin with). Mostly, it appears that his goal was to prove that Thor might endanger Asgard — as well as the rest of the Nine Realms — by being hotheaded. Ultimately, this gives leverage to Loki genuinely being concerned about his home and its people, even if his actions lead us to believe he was doing it selfishly; this is a pattern he displays frequently throughout the MCU, although in my experience, tends to be overlooked (I can't speak on the comics since I'm not well versed in those yet, so this is mainly for MCU).

Anyway, my point is that we already know Loki does that for adults. So for children, who are tiny beings that potentially (if not explicitly) feel more intensely, aren't as experienced, struggle expressing themselves, might feel insecure (whether it's about their appearance, skills, heritage, etc.), and may not have decent coping mechanisms yet?

I think that Loki would very much try to meet them on their level, down to the most minute detail and most respectful way that he could manage. I believe that he would want to be better than Odin, better than Laufey — really, better than whatever other adults in his own life seemingly, or flat out, failed him.

SIDE NOTES That isn't to say that the God of Mischief wouldn't occasionally blow a fuse or that he's perfect or that he could handle every situation with grace. There are probably times when he's embarrassed himself with an angry outburst or times when he's played a 'mean' (subjective) joke on them for not listening. I'm thinking about when he summoned that snake with the guard in the deleted scene in Thor 1 (something tells me that children wouldn't be immune to him pulling something like that, particularly if they were rude or ill-mannered).

So, with that character analysis out of the way, we know that...

♡ He's cunning and observant (that's a given, considering who he is) ♡ One established pattern is that he shows concern for others (despite his actions sometimes appearing as selfish) ♡ He tries to handle things diplomatically and/or respectfully (we see this numerous times: when he tries to gently tell Thor they should leave Jotunheim in Thor 1; when he approaches Laufey privately later on - this is debatable because of his intent, but ultimately, he approached Laufey with respect unlike Thor had previously done; when Loki tries to talk to Thor about getting on the Grandmaster's good side; when Loki meets Valkyrie; etc.) ♡ He's still a morally grey character (and will probably play 'mean' jokes on children who are rude, obnoxious, ill-mannered, etc.) ♡ He's understanding, to an extent (remember that he's motivated by various means and highly analytical, so he's probably already mapped out why others choose certain actions, speech, etc.)

Applying this to Loki...

Mostly, I'm talking about my version of Loki for my roleplays. However, this is also a general take I have from the character analysis I've done on MCU Loki since 2011.

He's been taught to be a Prince, so he's keen on manners, discipline, bartering/negotiations, etc. This also includes carrying himself in a certain way in public (this plays a bit into the next question below). With that being said, he has a sort of complex already built that has become a main part of his personality. Frigga has also played a huge role in building said complex, teaching him compassion, kindness, respect, that he doesn't have to be what others make him out to be, that it's okay to be different (fun fact: Seidr magic is typically used by women, whereas Loki learns it from Frigga), etc. Additionally, Loki seems like the type that would show respect until he had a reason not to (even when it comes to the Warriors Three, we still see him addressing them respectfully, despite them mocking him, threatening him, etc. so I feel like this would still apply with children or other adults; it seems like a part of that complex I mentioned above).

Do they feel at ease?

Generally when it comes to children, he's probably going to feel a bit uncertain yet maintain a steady confidence and/or an air of sophistication, although probably diluted or softer compared to his typical demeanor. After all, an adult typically knows who they're addressing (with some exceptions), including royalty/status, name, etc. while a child might not have all the information.

How do they talk to small kids? Is their tone demeaning?

I think he would address them as slightly lesser beings, but not unkindly and, for the most part, not carrying a sense of superiority. I think the superiority part really only comes into play when he's dealing with adults, particularly people who might challenge or threaten the amount of respect he's already earned, especially because he's had to fight for almost every ounce of it. His usual tone would most likely have a steadiness to it, yet an underlying gentleness. I feel like he would try to withhold his annoyance (if he had any; again something that's situational) because it could make it worse. For situations that require discipline, he may use a stricter tone or carry an air of authority (depending on severity, relationship with said child, etc.).

Do they go down to their level?

If the child is one he's unfamiliar with, he's probably not going to physically put himself on the same level. However, I think there's a few exceptions, such as if they're scared, hurt, crying, etc. Then, in order to hold their attention and make a sort of connection, he would probably kneel on one knee and make light contact (one hand on their arm/shoulder, holding out a hand to see if they're comfortable to take it, etc.) — something that provides comfort, support, and/or reassurance (that trait would, undoubtedly, come from Frigga).

[jula483]

I'm new to Randl and was wondering what the context is behind Rhett and fanfiction? It seemed people were annoyed he brought it up on that recent podcast, is this a reoccuring thing? Thanks

Okay. I had to dig a little bit and refresh my memory of how it all went down because it's been two years ago lol

but basically the main catalyst was Ear Biscuits episode 348 from September 2022. at the end of the episode Rhett throws a comment about "what are those people on tumblr are gonna do about this (rhett using a butt plug and not telling link about it)".

important note: audio ear biscuits episode used to come out on monday and video version on sunday.

and in the audio version after adding this random comments he goes on and says "(shipping) it's like a religion, people who believe certain thing, regardless of evidence" and in the same sentence compares shippers to flat earthers.

in the video version - that whole part was suddenly gone. all that was left was rhett asking "what are those people gonna do" and link answering "i don't think about those people". they cut rhett calling shippers flat earthers.

and since back then more people would listen to the audio version than wait for the video version of EB, some of us listened on monday and immediately had some thoughts about what rhett said. I found some good posts that happened in the middle of that discourse: here and here

I was always wondering if they cut that from the episode because they got some feedback? the discourse happened mainly here on tumblr and we know mythical or r&l don't really touch this place (or do they?), but I also remember seeing maybe 2 or 3 tweets about that directed at them when it happened.

So yeah, that comment Rhett said about shippers just left a bad taste in everyone's mouths, especially since at the same time they kept mentioning fanfics and kept doing the craziest rhinky things on the show.

Since then Rhett kinda changed the way he talks about shippers, it's more of a - if they keep watching, then I can't say a bad word and might even encourage them to stay engaged. And that's why that comment he said in the Bert Kreischer video was so odd. To me it just seemed he wanted to "impress" the host with some crazy fact like - I have fanfiction written about me 😂

[claudiajcregg]

s5pAU (a folder with many “Chapter XX” inside) for the WIP ask meme?

Welp, I forgot I hadn't answered these! Apologies! (These are from this WIP ask meme.)

s5pAU is my short way of referring to “S5 Pregnancy AU,” and it's… what it says on the tin! Sort of. Basically, the entire ridiculous concept is “what if CJ got pregnant at the end of S4?��� (Around Zoey's kidnapping, in this case.) It's 11 chapters so far, with only a bit of 12 written… And it was my main WIP for the better part of 2023, even if I took months here and there.

(I had written a lot of unneccesary backstory that I've tried my best to summarize into the important parts. It's still long, sorry. It's just been the WIP, for most of 2023. It's sitting at over 76k words already!)

I have a note on my phone with a list of most ideas I kept having while rewatching the show last year. This one was part of it, and it jumped at me for how ridiculous it is. I recall having a mental image of a scene that was too OOC, but could work, around late February? Early March? It's definitely not a realistic idea, but there was something about some of her moments in S5 that I felt would be interesting (and not that different) to explore under new circumstances.

Before I started writing it properly in June, I did a few outlines (two detailed ones, in March and April), with the idea of having 1-2 chapters per semester, maybe some interludes here and there. I also started a playlist with ✨ vibes ✨, but though I thought a lot about it… I wasn't really writing it. Until I just needed to get so much stuff out of my head.

If I had to say, I think it is following the outline, but also not… Because I am being far more detailed than I intended to be, the show's actual timeline is a mess (not that the one I tried to create is better, but at least I know what month it is), and some story beats happened differently, hopefully still organically.

Anyway. This is boring. It still doesn't have a proper title, not that I'd change the folder's name (not really); it's not done (haven't written anything new since November, and it goes for everything); I could see this becoming some sort of series/universe by the nature of it.

Snippet! The part I always feel most self-conscious about. (Can't remember if this is the snippet I posted on the server, forever ago.)

“What’s up, Daniel? I was about to… Can’t it wait?” “It could,” he conceded with a dejected expression. One that told her this was hard to broach. “I didn’t even notice the time.” C.J. didn’t move, awaiting whatever it was that he was going to say. “And well?” She moved a stray strand of hair from her eyes. She couldn’t wait until her hair finally grew out, that was for sure. “You planning to stand there all night?” “I have to go, C.J. I have to go back to my post.” Whatever retort she had thought up for the first part died on her lips when she heard the second part. Her heart sank, and she chided herself. The second she had believed this day to be ordinary had been her first mistake: once you perceived anything as ordinary, you should know the universe would make it so it was anything but.

[boopiddyboop]

I knew you were joking, but if I'm being honest, I get the vibes too, BUT I'm also always told that people think that I'm gay and I'm like *bitch where 😀* and I have a venus in virgo and Mars in scorpio (opposite of hongjoong) so I wondered if it had something to do with that??

To comment on your placements, Mars in Scorpio might lead you to giving off masculine ~energy~ if it's in your 1st house, ruling a Sun in Scorpio, or combined with a stellium of Scorpio placements. But even Scorpio is a water sign, and doesn't necessarily scream "Rawr, I am man". For example of this, Katy Perry: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Saturn, and Rising in Scorpio. Yet her image is very hyper-feminine to the point of camp.

(As far as her sexuality goes, while being very LGBTQIA supportive, Katy has basically said "I experimented a bit" and describes sexuality as not black and white while maintaining almost exclusively heterosexual relationships *shrug*)

Venus in Virgo, while being a Mercurial sign, is actually the more feminine of the signs ruled by Mercury, Gemini being considered the more masculine. So while depending on how that Mars in interacting in your chart, you might be described as intense, nothing about those two placements indicate strongly anything one way or the other on how your energy reads in the first place, nevertheless who you like.

On the grander scale of things, a lot of times, our ability to read the sexuality of others is based on acknowledging when people are stepping out out of heteronormative behaviors. But is that a critique of who we like, or who we are? Am I gay simply because I couldn't cater to the male gaze if I tried? Personally, my energy is very Saturnian and heavy, but I've very much has enjoyed a sausage in my time. Yet a lot of my research from yesterday was like "Aquarius placements are very indicative of LGBTQIA+ placements." To which I respond that while there are many ways I scorn society's standards, my sexuality really isn't one of them

Especially when it comes to K-Pop celebrities, foreigners (and specifically Western fans) base their perception of an idols sexuality and personality on factors that may or may not exist in Korea. I've seen many people claim XYZ idol video as proof of a ship or a sexuality, that, after having lived in Korea, when I watch it I'm like "...that's a heterosexual, your honor."

Inversely, that video of Hongjoong on the first response was very "pan-coded" if you will, but still is hardly proof xD But yeah, nothing in the chart as I see it specifies.

...Wow, this response got long. I read my inbox in the middle of the night and dreamed about my response for hours before waking up and writing this during my morning coffee... Is this even coherent?

[constantineshots]

hey f slur post anon again.

okay I understand what you mean now - I think your thoughts on that are really interesting!

I think probably at the time they didn't tintend to say that John himself was explicitly queer, but they definitely did intend to comment on homophobia.

It's really interesting to me how John was queer-coded before Smith canonised his bisexuality.

Reading later comics, I often feel like there was more to show his bisexuality before it was canon than after (in the hellblazer comics at least).

Delano and the artists in those books really put a lot of queer coding in.

If we imagine an alternate history where that "boyfriends" line was never written, you could say that the version of John portrayed at the time was a man who was not (necesarily) queer himself, but who was the type of man who is victimized by homophobia as someone who is percieved 'not masculine enough' by heteropatriachal society.

This relates to his punk background. Subcultures often deliberately subvert traditional heteropatriarchal norms, and therefore are criticised for non-conformism.

Queer people are victims of this same system which demonises those who refuse to conform.

I think that's what they were going for at the time. I think they also wanted to criticise homophobia as part of the political messaging throughout the comics.

They show John witnessing and experiencing homophobic violence as a way to criticise it. However, the queer coding of the character's style and experiences made him ripe to be read as a queer character.

And Smith confirmed it! Personally I think that makes these themes cut deeper in retrospect. When we know that John is a queer man, I think the homophobia of the world reads as more dangerous and impactful.

yeah, that's a good point too- the political messaging throughout the series is very prominent, so i wouldn't be surprised if those panels were designed to call light to it. this was also probably one of the few instances in hellblazer itself ( though! we do see a lot of homophobia in lucifer as well, starting right from the beginning issues. not relevant here exactly, but something to note in relation to vertigo not being afraid to delve into these topics ) where we see homophobic tones prior to john's confirmed bisexuality.

this turned out being a lot longer than i intended.

there is more homophobia explored- in the horrorist, which i believe was also written by delano- in reference to john as well. john doesn't explicitly say he's bisexual, but the comments he makes in retort ( for example, "you don't know where my mouth's been" and so on, in his own style ) suggest that he is. though the horrorist was written after the confirmation of his bisexuality, so i like to think that john's always meant to be queer-coded regardless.

with john being who he is and having the history he does, i think he was always queer-coded. it's just that some writers didn't have the guts in the rest of the series to explore it, or that when it was explored, it was... not in the best light. at all.

then, in the new 52, we do explore more of his relationships with men- and i do think there is this misconception where you have to date someone of the opposing gender on screen or you're just straight when it comes to bi people and people also like their biphobia, but that won't be talked about here- but some people have noted that, in one run, john was drawn as more "twinkish" ( the people who dislike the run's words, but i can say he doesn't really give that rugged look ) and some people found it off-putting. i'll reread the run and explore that, but there is that. and at one point, someone decided to write in that john had a crush on dick grayson. then there was the joke relationship between him and king shark- and i could go on.

i think as dc handles his character more in the light of "look, representation" whenever pride month rolls around then shoves him in zatanna's direction the whole time- again, not that there is anything wrong about a bisexual person dating someone ( or whatever it is with zatanna. i'm so confused. just let her date wonder woman and be done with this back and forth. ) of the opposite gender, but it's more what dc is trying to sell him as and then not doing it in the long run. it doesn't make much sense to me, where they play this "see? look! he's not straight, he'll date this guy" as if dating a guy has to prove that he's bisexual, but they killed off oliver ( i believe his name was? ) and then after that... we're stuck with the fact they can't write him right in general. there's no political undertones. there isn't much reference to any homophobia that he might face- he's a political character, and politically, if they're cramming him in the united states to work with the jld, they could explore that more. but they don't.

sure, hellblazer didn't have. much. on his bisexuality, but at least it was referenced. there's a newer run of hellblazer where he mentions having an ex boyfriend who was mute, i believe, and that's how he learned some of his sign language. and otherwise, john is single the whole run. i don't have a problem with john being single. but in most dc-aligned run, there's some need for him to have a romance, but they won't touch on anything regarding his bisexuality. there is nothing political underneath his character at all. they don't really explore homophobia- not that they have to, exactly, but john's a political character and now he's been deprived of that.

this is a long rant i am so sorry. point is, yes, i agree with what you are saying and it's a wonderful point to make, and it is SUCH a shame that this is something that is integral to john's character as a whole and not one person who currently works for dc comics at this very moment will explore this. let me work for dc comics. please.

[hxntresses]

@unlockthestars asked:

“Are you lost?” [Ren for An? ^^]

Lost was an understatement - An was completely out of her element. Before Kuroyuri was destroyed, she had barely travelled beyond its borders. Since then, she had mainly stuck to the village that took her in and nursed her back to health. She'd had nowhere else to go - nobody to return to - and so she had stayed, to repay their kindness and allow herself time to grieve her husband and son.

Eventually, the village's resident huntsman had urged her to take her grief and turn it into strength. To honour her family's memory by protecting others from the same fate. With him as her mentor, she became a decent huntress - even if it was only in name and with no formal training. For years, she helped to protect the village from Grimm, bandits and wildlife alike. But one day, she heard whispers from travellers about a group of young huntsmen and huntresses - one of whom shared her family name. Ren. She couldn't believe it. Could one - or even both - of her loved ones have survived Kuroyuri? Were they really out there somewhere all this time?

With her mentor's blessing, she had left the village the next day. She had to follow this lead, if there was any chance it would bring her back to her son and perhaps even her husband. She had travelled throughout Anima, trying desperately to track this elusive Ren down, but the last thing she had heard was that his group had now left for Atlas. She had been too late. With no way to get there with the borders closed, she had been heartbroken. It felt like she had lost her little Lie all over again.

Several agonising weeks - perhaps even months - passed before she would find a new lead in the form of an emergency broadcast from Atlas. The young girl, who's name she recognised as one of those who had been traveling with this Ren, dropped all kinds of unbelievable truths before being suddenly cut off. To think of what her son, if it really was him, could be going through in Atlas pained her greatly. The world later found out that Atlas had fallen, but that refugees had somehow found their way to Vacuo. This was her chance. She had to believe that her son had made it there safely with the rest of them.

And so, she had made the journey to a kingdom she never would have visited before, holding fast to her hope that Lie was here and that he was safe. However, no amount of hope could help her find her way around this foreign kingdom, let alone find him within its winding streets - especially at night. As fate would have it however, a voice speaks up from somewhere behind her as she attempts to locate a place to stay. Turning with a smile, she begins to speak.

"Oh! Yes, it would seem I am. I--"

Any words she was about to say are stopped dead in their tracks, and the woman gasps, dropping the map in her hands. Before her stood a boy, taller than her, with long black hair and striking pink eyes. Her eyes. The boy even had a streak of magenta in his hair. Just like her son. There was no mistaking who stood before her. The mother begins to tremble, widened eyes threatening to spill over with tears, and she is barely able to speak.

"Lie?"

[littlcfreaks-archive]

closed starter for @thekoolkat

plot: accidentally swapped phones with someone at a party and don’t realize until their mom calls in the morning and you spend like three hours talking to this hilarious woman about life and when you go to her house to return her kid’s phone wow the kid is the really good kisser from the party last night au

Parties were really not Phoebe's normal 'scene' - you were much more likely to find her sitting in the library or in a cafe. However, her friends were insistent that at 26, she was becoming a 70 year old lady about to end up with 12 cats. So, she went out and had a mediocre time. Except for him. She had no idea who he was, what his name was, or where to find him. It was only one kiss, but she couldn't get it out of her head, even the next morning as she was getting ready for her day. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. "That's weird." Her phone was never off of silent, but she picked it up without thinking about it. An unfamiliar woman's voice was on the other line, "Hello? My son left his phone at a party last night. I think he may have yours." Phoebe looked at the phone again, and confirmed to the woman, "Oh, no. I really need my phone, like soon. I'm waiting on a call about my thesis!" She internally started to panic, but the woman continued, letting her know that she could stop by in a few hours and pick up her phone. She let out a sigh of relief.

The woman on the other end introduced herself and they continued to talk - about Phoebe's concerns with the direction of her life, the pressure her parents put on her to support the entire family after college, and about her fears of ending up single. Before she knew it, they had been chatting for hours like they were old friends, "Well, I guess I'll see you soon. I'm on my way now to drop off your son's phone." They said their goodbyes, looking forward to meeting one another in person. It wasn't long before Phoebe arrived at the house and knocked on the door. Her mouth dropped when the door opened. It was him. "Wh- wha.." Her voice trailed off in shock, "Its you. Well, here's your phone." She held the phone out to him, "I need mine back."

[climbingthefloors]

obsessed with this baby hippo from thailand's khao khew zoo.. she has been so utterly betrayed by the world

[boba-beom]

OMG after so long I am here with my thoughts and review, finally.

First of all, Ashlee. You fucking did it again. I want to start off with saying how much I love this concept, and the way that this could resonate with almost everyone regardless whether they are a creator of some sort or not. However, your opening paragraphs was literally the perfect depiction of how it feels to be so stuck and irritated of yourself, the feelings and emotions are so raw, when you lose that work pace and it hinders you in a way it almost hinders you as a whole, it literally can be so unfortunate.

Okay so it's 4am as I type this out, bear with me as I gather my points together in chronological order and as cohesive as I can get it to be T^T

Firstly, the description in which you used to introduce yeonjun genuinely had me feel that attraction towards him. the intricacy and attention to detail of yeonjun (and in general but I will get to that) sitting there had me excited in anticipation for the moment they would interact with one another. Another thing for me was the fact that this beautiful human and this first observation was the start to mc being inspired again, and this just made me feel so excited for the upcoming interactions between them, literally had to ready myself.

The inclusion of visiting sculptures and just references back to artwork had me feeling so giddy. I miss the days I would travel with my class to different cities around England to visit museums and art galleries. This is feeling so nostalgic for me and it's bringing me that sense of happiness I miss so much, hence I wanted to take my time on reading this one — despite me being several months late :')

After mc and yeonjun passing by each other several times, I couldn't help but feel giddy every time there was a possibility of them interacting. Like at the cloud gate bean yeonjun could have potentially spoken to mc, and then at the club where mc literally walked past him. Just the chances of them gradually interacting had me sitting the same way mc was when yeonjun initiated the interaction and asked to sit with her. A part of me was getting so, agh I'm gonna have to use this tagalog word kilig and the closest translation I can give is when one feels romantic excitement, because that's literally how I was feeling every time they interacted with one another.

The subtle flirting made me melt inside, I kid you not. I was cheesing so hard to the point I could hear my heart beating through my headphones. To me, it was just the simplicity of 'out of nowhere, he asks, “have you had breakfast?”' and then his teasing comment, '‘I think the plaid pants are pretty fashionable’' it may be nothing major, but to me this was like those moments when you know it's the start of something 🤭 It was cute to me ngl.

Also, idk if it's just me, but it's was such a movie moment when they were having dinner and the whole back and forth between the girls asking mc 'is that your boyfriend' 'sounds like a boyfriend situation' AND THEN them wanting to message him on behalf of mc only for him to message her right then and there had me, kilig 🤭 I'm sorry but men who initiate with forwardness >>> even just a simple coffee had me FOLDING.

Keshi's Understand was playing while I read the scene of their coffee date and it just made the exchange so cute. yeonjun showing mc the picture of her as she starts to understand the beauty of herself she never used to see. something about that was so endearing, I couldn't stop smiling to myself at this point, had me sad pouting and all.

Then the part where they went to the botanical gardens. THIS! THIS PART,, when I tell you I didn't know whether to squeal or cry because I genuinely had tears in my eyes when yeonjun asked mc to be his model for the day. not just that, but also the fact he held mc back with his fingers around her wrist, it's so delicate while asking her. it made my heart leap omg. You know what it was, it was this line, "I'm the professional here, and I want you. no one else will do." think that had me tearing up because he's so straight forward, no sense of hesitation anywhere to be found at all. it's such an attractive characteristic, and the fact it's so tailored to him too had me rereading that line,, not without pausing for a second lmaoo

The scene where mc shows yeonjun her drawing of him, this section ashlee omg. as a former art student and a designer graduate, I felt every single feeling mc felt when criticising her drawing, and understood every word yeonjun said about being your own worst critic. This hit super close to home, but it felt nice to see something I could relate to. And I know some, if not most, writers on this platform feels the same way in terms of writers block, or a burnout from writing and not liking how it turned out. I think what was said was something all creators needed to hear. whether it's something that we take as a profession or as a hobby. beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to any form of creative work, there will always be one person out there who may love the piece more than you, yourself. sorry, I rambled on this one.

Can I just mention how much I love you for using this phrase? 'if you are icarus, then he is the sun sending you plummeting down into oblivion.' idek if 'love' is the right term to describe unfortunate phrase, but the way you used this was too beautiful to look past it. it isn't often I hear / see the phrase, but it also reminded me of these two songs; icarus — EDEN and First Burn — from the Hamilton musical :>

I think this is my last paragraph of me screaming about the point in the work where I stopped my bullet point notes and continued to engulf myself in finishing it. But let me squeal about the lines, 'he's staring at you like you hung the stars in the sky, chin supported by his palm. his mouth curves into something serene and fond, hooded eyes scanning your face as you stare back.' this, again, just felt so movie like. it's one of those moments you never thoughts you'd experience irl, but this, just the way you worded that portrayed just how warm and fuzzy I feel inside.

I'm going to bring up the part where yeonjun introduced himself with his given name than his english name, this??? "when i met you, my actual name, my given name, came out instead. call me silly, but i think my heart knew you’d become someone special to me. i wanted you to use my actual name — the one my parents call me. the one my closest friends call me.” this was so precious, a sign of trust and metaphorically letting mc see who he is without having to hide behind his english name. this just does it for me, literally has me grabbing my heart. fun fact! same goes with me and my nickname, but the other way around :> I introduce myself with my birth name and I don't even tell people that my nickname is Smiles unless I've got a close relationship with them hehe, anyway ,,

The roller coaster of emotions I felt from when they almost kissed at the bar WITH THE CLOSE PROXIMITY that really almost took me out. I felt like I was burning up because of that omgggg, and then the whole BEOMGYU SHOWING UP AND THINKING YOU CAN JUST 'catch up' YOUR WAY BACK IN MC'S LIFE UH I THINK NAWT. anyway, I felt awful for yeonjun, bc he had every right to feel that way, mc could have straight up said no T^T but it's okay bc it worked out in the end~

Okay, and now for my general thoughts about the fic as a whole. I am completely in love with the pace you set mc and yeonjun to meet, get to know each other, and the break they had between them when beomgyu showed up. I don't know if this makes sense but just the realism with the timing in this fic is probably what I adore the most. I'm not sure if I ever told you this, but you are so articulate with your writing, and again, your attention to detail to express something to a T is something I admire about you and your works.

The several inclusions of paint/art-related sentences throughout the fic was satisfying to me in a way where I can visualise it clearly. Even the repeated mentions of yeonjun's ears flushing several tones of pink/red. The crimson and referring back to whether mc had that paint with her. And another time where his ears turned a shade of cherry, and finally an opaque red. The way they gradually turn a stronger shade of red was my understanding of his feelings gradually getting stronger throughout the story.

I'm going to briefly mention that the smut. Despite me being sat down, my knees buckled when he called mc 'pretty girl' just reminded me of him confessing and straight up calling her pretty when he was drunk </3 the intimacy between them was so domestic and loving UGH the outpours of petnames? to DIE for. and the way he just chuckles "I can do that." bc yes yeonjun, yes you can 🫠

Apologies for this incredibly long feedback, but I wanted to give you the rundown of my thoughts that I couldn't keep to myself. The cohesiveness throughout the story, the contrast from the start of the story where mc hadn't finished a piece in months, nor tried, to having a few quick art pieces done within the twelve days because of yeonjun. and this line, 'and when you wake up tomorrow, you think that you’re going to start a new painting.' UGH I love it. The open ending of potentially picking herself up again in terms of life and her artworks, and this is all from yeonjun being her muse, just as much as she was his model 😭 and just a quick mention of inyeon, everything about this was beautiful. I love things to do with fate and the invisible red string. The mention of inyeon reminds me that I need to watch Past Lives, I think you'll like it too :>

I wanna say just how amazed and proud I am of you and your efforts with this masterpiece. Keeping this in my reading reviews on my notion hehe I am honestly incredibly happy to have you as a friend, you're so talented and inspiring I just wanna kiss your brain >3< I can't believe I'm gonna have to say it, but this has surpassed that's the spirit! on my favourites from you <3 thank you again for putting so much time on this piece of work, I just know that when I hear the songs from the playlist elsewhere, I will associate them with this story just like how yeonjun and mc associate food and memories with people :> ILYSM ASHLEE YOU DID AMAZING!

ticket to nowhere (but your heart) (m) — cyj

pairing: choi yeonjun x fem!reader

genre: strangers to lovers au, photographer!yeonjun, artist!reader, fluff, angst, smսt

wc: 22.3k

synopsis: twelve days. twelve days is all you have on this godforsaken train to find the spark that will save your dying art career — but you never thought that you would find it in the enigmatic stranger that you can’t seem to stop running into.

warnings: mdni!! ageless + blank blogs dni!!!, mc is bad with feelings, is alluded to have anxiety, and is written as shorter than jjun (i'm sorry to my taller friends, i love you) + the same age as him (24), this takes place in various places across the u.s. (sorry in advance), mentions of food + alcohol, vvvvv brief depiction of potential self-injury when describing a painting, beomgyu + le sserafim's sakura, chaewon, and yunjin (called jennifer here just bc i felt like it) are featured, dom!jjun, sub!mc, soft sex, oral (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), light begging, multiple orgasms, protected sex (hooray!), missionary, praise

note: part of @majestyjun's yeonjun bday event!! REPOSTED bc tumblr decided to not let this show up in the tags (edit: it's now showing up!!) </3 also my longest fic to date, so that's something

*:･playlist･:*

(cross-posted to ao3 here!)

masterlist

everything in your life is bland. gray.

the food that you eat, the people that you become acquainted with, the skyscrapers above you that grasp for the sky and fail to reach it — they have all become so monotone and somber and utterly lifeless. something within you gnaws at itself, aching with pain — though the sharpness of the feeling has been blunted by the passing of time — because you used to adore the city that you call home. you used to find unrivaled beauty in the skyscrapers that spread across manhattan, in the lush green parks scattered amongst the urban landscape that would turn warm and golden as summer metamorphosed into autumn, in the people that would walk by you with their unapologetic, unique fashion and confidence. the very things you used to love have dulled in hue, washes of the vibrancy you once appreciated and took significant inspiration from. 

throughout your apartment lay half-baked paintings and charcoal drawings and pieces with odd compositions from that one month where you went through a mixed media phase, staring at you with their paint-streaked eyes, mocking you. finish us, their fragmentary faces scream. they beg for you to provide them with souls, to be their maker, their creator — but not quite their god. you are not pretentious enough to go that far, to paint yourself as that self-important, that narcissistic. you are far from a god. if you were, you would be in a larger apartment, a penthouse worth millions of dollars in soho or maybe the upper east side. if you were a god, you would purchase the finest art supplies in the world, have your pieces be displayed in major galleries to be auctioned off for hundreds of thousands — no, millions of dollars by pretentious art collectors to be hung up in their gaudy mansions, their own slices of heaven. however, in reality, you fall exceptionally short of a higher being; in truth, you are a rather simple woman who had transplanted herself from her suffocating hometown to brooklyn as soon as you completed your undergraduate degree. a tiny little apartment in brooklyn, new york city, new york — an adumbration of purgatory, floating somewhere between heaven and hell. trapped, trapped, trapped. nowhere to go. 

sitting on your bed, the balls of your feet pressed against the cool wooden floor, you ponder if these thoughts, this density of emotions burrowing into your stomach, are a symptom of burnout. maybe even artist’s block, though in the past you’ve often remarked that the concept doesn’t exist. you had never experienced it, so in your sorely narrow-minded view, it simply couldn’t be possible, and other artists were simply blaming their laziness on this elusive concept. what a fool you were for ever thinking that. shame hangs like a heavy weight within your chest; who are you to criticize the experiences of other artists when you know how difficult a creative’s life can be? how could you be so insolent? 

a raging hypocrite, really, is what you think you must be. a blank, blurry stare scans over your space, the coolness of the floor spreading up into your toes. an easel in the corner, near one of the small windows that allows for a view of mostly red brick, a sliver of blue-brown water where the hudson and east rivers meet, and a few lower manhattan skyscrapers that tower high in the air across the watery expanse. it’s not that far from your bed, which sits on the wall opposite below a second window, the slightest bit larger than the other one. most of your apartment is taken up by supplies rather than actual decor, a jar of paintbrushes on your small, round dining table in the corner near your kitchen instead of a vase of flowers, works-in-progress on the walls rather than posters, pictures. 

you live and breathe art, and your entire apartment reflects that, but the oxygen is getting thinner and thinner.

even then, you’re not quite sure how long you have felt this way — it’s not as if you woke up one day and noticed the change. it wasn’t sudden like a car accident, slamming into you one second and leaving you to cope with the aftermath the next. quite the opposite, really, more akin to the tide slowly coming to shore, washing over more of your body with each incoming wave. soothing, flowing along with each ebb and flow, pulling you further and further away from the beach until you have nowhere else to go but down. 

weak fingers dig into the white comforter below you, curling into the fabric with a surging desperation — for what, you are unsure. comfort? someone to hold you? you haven’t felt the embrace of another, the warm sensation of lips pressed against your own, in an embarrassingly long time. the dating world had slipped from your hands long ago, shattering on the floor like a snow globe, your wants and hopes and desires to love and be loved soaking your lacerated feet and stinging as it enters your wounds. your mind trails to beomgyu, a fellow artist who you had met when you could afford a private studio in a warehouse one burrow over. he was fun, a sappy romantic, and he made you laugh to no end — but he ruined you. he moved across the country without warning and you’d never heard from him again, leaving you heartbroken and with questions you’d never get answers to. you wonder how he’s doing now, if san francisco is treating him well. his number is still in your phone. you should delete it. you need to delete it. you need to make dinner. you need to finish that commission. you need to do a lot of things.

you need to get out of here. 

fuck, you do. the desperation surging within your veins takes the new form of a beast, clawing its way up your throat. you need to leave the city and experience new places and see new things and—

finally, you wrench yourself off of your bed after hours of sitting there. snatching your laptop from the floor, you search. you search and search and search for something that will get you out of this city, albeit temporarily. several different trips to italy — too expensive, and too far away from here. an airbnb in florida — you’ve never been a fan of humidity, and you don’t think only seeing one city will be enough to sate you. come on, come on, there has to be something. 

and then you find it: twelve days on a train, across the country. stops in chicago, denver, san francisco, seattle, and even a national park for half a day before looping back through chicago and back to new york. this sounds…perfect. your eyes grow as wide as saucers at the price as you scroll down. for you, it’s expensive, so fucking expensive, but…

“you need to let go and enjoy life for once,” one of your friends told you at a party a few months ago, when you were experiencing a less incapacitating version of the burnout you currently face, when you had thought it was a mere blip in your unending motivation. of course, you hadn’t listened to jennifer and her sound (and moscato-induced) advice, opting to throw yourself further into your art and ultimately fail at creating anything worthwhile. you regret it now, because you feel stuck. terribly, utterly stuck — but this is your chance to change that. 

you need this; you can make the sacrifice to your already thinning bank account, you think. let go, enjoy life. let go, enjoy life — you repeat those four words over and over again as you type in your card information, as you click the button to book the trip, as you read over the confirmation email that outlines the steps you need to take before you leave. let go, enjoy life, and you will. you will, and you will relight that dimming, nearly extinguished fire within you while you’re at it. you’ll make damn sure of it. 

day one. 

your heart is pounding. the rapid ba-bump ba-bump ba-bump roars in your ears like thunder as people upon people walk past, shoving against both of your shoulders as you stand in front of a board full of green and yellow and red. the sounds of voices and rolling luggage echo across the high, transparent ceilings of the station which allow for a view of the sky above. early mornings and you do not agree with each other, and today is no exception; poorly-veiled dark circles sit beneath your eyes, illuminated by the soft, warm light streaming in from above. looking down at your phone and back up at the screen again, you find that your train is thankfully on time, the bright green letters helping loosen the tightness gathered in your shoulders as you roll them back once, twice. your teeth skirt your bottom lip while you nod to yourself, then scan the spacious building for the escalator that will take you down to the correct platform. 

you hate that you’re nervous. the feeling twists your stomach into knots and flushes your face, cheeks hot as you stand there and wait out the remaining minutes before you can board. it doesn’t even make sense — you should be happy to get out of town, to go places you’ve never been to before, but all you can focus on is the unease creeping up your throat and blooming sour on your tongue. perhaps this is actually excitement that you are feeling. maybe you’re reading it all wrong — jennifer was more than ecstatic when you told her of your impromptu trip, saying “this is what you need! this might be your breakthrough!” 

ever since you met the her, she was always a degree more optimistic than you. looking on the bright side of things, no matter what dire circumstances lay splayed out across the dealer’s table. what’s stopping you from being the same way? several things, but at the same time, jennifer is right: you need this. your hands jitter with an odd combination of excitement and fear — maybe it’s simply the thought of solo travel that is so intimidating. yeah, it has to be. it will pass soon enough — hopefully. you roughly shove your set of headphones onto your head, slipping them over your ears. music will have to do for now, if only to prevent thoughts from racing through your head. 

once you board, you learn that your quarters are…small, though that was expected. it reminds you of your studio apartment, almost; cramped, but lacking the scattered paint tubes and canvases and miscellaneous mediums that you have not laid a single finger upon in months now. the small, travel-size tubes of paint sitting in your backpack weigh your shoulders down, begging to be taken out and spread across the small, flat canvases that are tucked snugly beside them. you muffle their pleas by turning up the music streaming through your headphones. closing the door behind you, you softly hum to the current song in your ears, shoving your suitcase in the corner of the room. 

once the attendant checks your ticket, you decide to take a nap — who cares if it’s early? you barely got enough sleep last night in the first place, too nervous to allow your eyes to shut. collapsing onto your bed, you pull the curtains next to it shut and allow yourself to drift off into a quiet, dreamless sleep.

*:･

you awake around noon with a growling stomach. with a sigh, you rub your tired eyes and sit up, smoothing out your rumpled shirt. after a quick look on your camera to make sure none of your mascara has transferred below your eyes, you make your way to the dining car that’s not too far from your own.

it’s nice, quaint; simply decorated like the rest, with large, square windows divided by thin pieces of wood lining each side. smaller tables line the wall to your right, two seats at each, while larger, four-person tables sit to your left. you opt for a two-seater towards the middle, tunnel vision blocking out the rest of the people present. you stare out at the greenery that blurs outside the window, listening to the low rumble of the train, mindlessly thumbing the laminated menu laying on the table. while you wait for the waitress to get to your table, a light, feminine voice knocks you from your own little world.

“excuse me?” the voice asks. you flinch in response, blinking hard as you look to your left and find two women sitting at the four-seater next to you. they’re both pretty, brown-eyed with full lips curved into twin smiles. they don’t look like sisters, though — more so friends. 

“yes?” you politely say, wondering what they could want with you. the shorter-haired one’s smile grows wider once you speak. she has a rounder face than the other girl, her black bangs ending above her eyes that are currently crinkled at the corners. 

“are you waiting for anyone?” the other girl asks, the one with a long wolfcut and wide, hypnotizing eyes. definitely not sisters, you think, they look nothing alike. 

shaking your head, you softly murmur, “i’m not.”

“would you like to join us, then?” the wide-eyed one asks, a hopeful glint shining in her eyes. 

“i...i wouldn’t want to intrude,” you reply. your mouth curls into something apologetic, as if you’re the one burdening them despite them being the ones to ask you. this interaction feels weird, awkward, and a very large part of you wishes you could melt through the floor and disappear forever. 

“you wouldn’t!” straight black bob chimes in, hands clasped together on top of the table as she leans towards you. cheery, excitable. “we wouldn’t mind at all, really.”

you nod with a tiny, somewhat nervous grin as you take the seat closest to you, right next to wide-eyed wolfcut. you offer them your name, unsure what else to give them. your age? your profession? your deep-seated trauma? okay, definitely not that last one. 

“it’s nice to meet you,” straight black bob says, while the other chimes in with a soft hum of affirmation. “i’m chaewon.”

“and i’m sakura,” wolfcut adds with a dip of her chin.

hands placed snugly in your lap, you pick at your thumb nail. your back is stiff in the chair, and you hope they won’t notice. “it’s nice to meet you guys too. are you traveling together?” 

both of them giggle, glancing at each other for a moment before swiveling their eyes back to you. for a moment, you’re confused. why was that so funny? they look to be decent friends, at least from your limited interactions with them thus far.

“we actually just met a few minutes ago,” wolfcut — no, sakura claims. oh, so they’re not friends, then. “we ran into each other— like, quite literally ran into each other.”

“it was…kinda bad,” chaewon laughs before she takes a sip of water. “my ass is still sore.”

you huff a laugh at that, all air and no sound, and the conversation continues with a light-hearted air to it. as the minutes tick by, you learn that chaewon is a graduate student taking a gap semester, while sakura owns her own makeup line, a small business that is beginning to pick up speed thanks to social media. one lives in brooklyn—

“no way,” you gasp at chaewon. “where at?” 

sakura, meanwhile, resides in upper manhattan. even more information about them bombards your brain as all of you begin to eat, but you doubt you’ll remember most of it by tomorrow, even later today — it’s alright, though. the three of you have exchanged numbers (to create a group chat) and have basically promised to be travel buddies for the coming days. your cheeks hurt from smiling so hard, grateful to find kind, welcoming people on this train — you’d think that jennifer would like them. the way they interact with each other is somewhat reminiscent of your and jennifer’s friendship. friends…yeah, you can see the three of you becoming good friends. 

“can we see some of your art?” chaewon asks, bob shifting like a wave around her head as she shakes it. oh, yeah. you had briefly mentioned your profession, though shame barred you from sharing your reasons that led you to this train in the first place. 

you cringe. “oh, well—”

“i’m sure it’s great!” she continues. “c’mon, pleaseee?”

with sparkling doe eyes and hands clasped tightly together, it’s difficult to say no — and you don’t, shaking your head a little as you pull up your instagram account. while you’re proud of the pieces you’ve posted on there, they aren’t your most emotional. those ones are saved in your camera roll, and that is where they will stay, only for your eyes (and a very few select others) to see. they coo and aw as they swipe through, your phone placed on the table between them. heat rushes to your cheeks as you begin to pick at the remnants of your lunch sitting on your plate. deep down, their kind comments cause an unusual sense of guilt to invade your heart. why couldn’t you produce shit like that now? what the hell is wrong with you?

with a polite smile, you thank them and move to excuse yourself before your pathetic sense of self-pity can consume you. they seem a bit surprised by your abrupt exit, but they also take it in stride, offering to text you later for dinner. slipping from your seat, you send them a wave before setting off towards the door from which you initially came. 

*:･

you don’t know what spurred you to make a stop at your room and snatch your sketchbook from your backpack before heading to the observation car, but after a whole lot of sitting and not one speck of sketching, you kind of, sort of have started to hate yourself for that decision. 

the open page in your lap is abysmally blank. no marks, no little trees or lush fields or flowers or anything that you see speeding by outside the window. your pencil has been poised against the page for the longest time, dark gray dots scattered across the page where you would press the point of the pencil to start making a mark and subsequently give up. another hour with no progress ticks by, but you still can’t make it move. move, why won’t your hand just move? 

flipping it shut, you lean back in your seat with a deep sigh. you can’t force these things, you know that much, but that won’t stop you from trying — and failing — to produce something. you’d rather not dwell on that for too long, though. those thoughts are what got you here in the first place. instead, you allow your tense muscles to relax, your eyes to lose focus and blur, blobs of green and blue passing by your vision. soft murmurs from other passengers meld together into a wall of droning noise, soft and soothing. 

that is, until the sound of someone settling into a seat a couple away from your own pops your little bubble like a sharp, pointed pin pressing into the skin of a balloon. blinking your vision back into focus, you take a quick glance to your right and—

holy shit, he’s beautiful. a sloping nose and pink, plush lips, you wouldn’t be surprised if he was a model of some sort with a face like that. his dark, slightly outgrown hair frames his side profile perfectly, sweeping back towards the back of his head where it begins to curl down the back of his neck. there’s this sort of dreamy, ethereal quality to his looks, like the universe took it’s sweet time creating him, lovingly placed tiny little stars in his sable, fox-like eyes and kissed his skin with the sun’s gentle rays, a light pink dusted across his cheeks — or, at least, the one cheek that you can see. bulky headphones sit snugly over his ears as he simply watches the landscapes pass by, one long leg crossed over the other. before you register the movement of your hands, your sketchbook is flipped back open to that very same blank page you’d given up on mere moments ago, fingers gripping your pencil once more. fluid like water is how your hand moves across the page, capturing the unique shape of his eyes, his soft yet defined jawline, the slope of his neck…

for the first time in months, you lose yourself in your work, yet you don’t even register this small breakthrough. peeking back up at the beautiful stranger every once in a while, you slowly carve out his likeness on the page in front of you, begin to add his surroundings and even a background, shading with light, circular strokes as you go, building up the deposit of graphite where it is needed most, defining the shape of his pouty lips and the strong cupid’s bow that connects his top lip to his nose, mapping out the flow and shape of locks of hair with dark, daring strokes, graphite pressing hard into the page. you even add some flyways for good measure. in your frenzied bout of drawing, you have hunched over in your chair, an old habit that is rearing its ugly head now that you don’t have a standing easel to work with. straightening your aching spine, you sit back and observe your sketch, wondering if you have missed any defining details—

and when you move to look up and take in his features again, he is staring right back at you. 

oh.

oh, fuck. 

frozen in your seat, you can’t tear your gaze away from his own, a hint of concern swirling in his irises. his eyebrows raise, eyes slightly wide as he tilts his head. the corners of his pretty lips raise, parting as if about to speak — and he does.

“are you okay?”

his deep voice snaps you out of your stupor, flinching before you quickly flip your notebook shut and sent him a tight smile paired with a nod, eyes darting around to look everywhere but him. your heart just might leap out of your chest at this rate, tear open your sternum and collide with the floor. you almost wish it would. 

he’s frowning now, a wrinkle between his eyebrows. “uh, are you sure—”

without another glance at him, you stand, clutch your notebook and pencil tight enough that it presses marks into your skin, and book it straight out of there with swift and featherlight steps. you don’t look back, far too embarrassed to even consider it, not stopping until you reach your room. the door is slammed shut behind you, but the nerves-induced ache in your chest won’t fade. pressing the cool backs of your hands against your fiery cheeks, you resist the urge to slap yourself. what the fuck is wrong with you? you should’ve just answered him and apologized for staring. he probably thinks you’re some creep now, with your weird little notebook and lack of verbal response — and the way you left. god, if a hole opened up and swallowed you whole, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

“you are so fucking embarrassing,” you hiss, venemous words aimed straight at yourself, your head buried in your hands as you curl up on the bed. day one, day fucking one, and you’ve already made a fool of yourself in front of someone.

maybe you should stay in here for the rest of your trip.

day two.

“...why is it so big?”

chaewon is referring to cloud gate — or, rather, what is more popularly known as the bean — a terribly ugly, silver, oversized, bean-shaped art installation that sits in chicago’s millennium park. an art installation that you, quite frankly, despise mostly due to the artist behind the work. given that anish kapoor is an elitist prick who has shit on the art world with his wealth and hates when people call his piece the bean, you take great, overwhelming satisfaction in calling it that. 

her question — paired with her furrowed eyebrows — causes you and sakura to snicker to yourselves. you’re grateful that they texted you this morning, had forced you out of your room because you actually were going to go through with your staying-in-your-room-forever plan (for today, at least). this park is your first stop of many, but you really want to get this part over with so that you don’t have to see this gargantuan, chrome bean ever again. despite its ugliness, you can admit that the slightly warped, mirrored reflection of the city that it provides is kind of interesting to look at, and it makes for some cool pictures. 

(still, fuck anish kapoor. you refuse to give that man any credit.)

you end up taking a photo of you flipping it off from afar, sending it to jennifer with a smirk before helping the other two girls with some of their own photos. here, there’s no pressure to create, only to enjoy and experience what surrounds you, no matter how tourist-y it may be. 

sakura slings an arm over your shoulder and pulls you closer to her, arm extended out to take a selfie. your hand raises in a peace sign at the camera, smile bright and wide like the sun above. there’s not an inkling of worry in your expression — until you see him. 

the guy from yesterday, standing maybe ten feet away. he dons an unbuttoned striped shirt layered over a tank top which is tucked into baggy, dark wash jeans. a thin, black belt wraps around his waist, a small camera hanging from his neck, and his hair looks as perfect as yesterday, shiny and smooth under the unobstructed sunlight. thankfully, he hasn’t noticed you, but that doesn’t stop your smile from fading, your heart from hammering within your chest as your brain cruelly replays the events of yesterday afternoon in slow motion. you can’t face him right now. what if he comes up to you? what if he confronts you for your odd behavior in front of this crowd? these are worst case scenarios, sure, but they are potential outcomes nonetheless. as he begins to turn in your direction, you whip around, slipping from under sakura’s arm as you face the two girls. 

“you guys ready to go?” you ask, masking your worry with a tight grin. don’t ask why, don’t ask why, please don’t ask why.

“yeah, sure,” chaewon nods. “i think i’ve had enough of the bean.”

“same,” sakura laughs.

“we could grab lunch, then go to the aquarium and planetarium?” you suggest, one foot beginning to tap against the concrete as you look back and forth between them. are there eyes burning into the back of your head right now? you can’t tell, but the prickling on the back of your neck is not a promising sign. they look at each other, then back to you — a phenomenon that has rapidly become a habit for them — and agree. surging forward, your hands loop around their wrists closest to you, and begin to speed walk away. far away.

“uh, girl? this is the wrong way, we’re going deeper into the park,” sakura notes, heels digging into the concrete to slow you down. she’s right, you know she’s right, but you’re not particularly keen on turning around. 

with a sheepish grin, you say, “maybe we could take a walk through the park first?”

as if on cue, chaewon’s stomach emits an audible growl. 

“nevermind, then.”

turning around, you find the stranger facing your way, and for some reason, he’s already looking at you. his eyebrows raise in recognition the moment you make eye contact. all of a sudden, you wish that you could shrivel up and die. despite this, you rip your gaze from his and push forward, turning to speak to sakura so that you aren’t forced to glance in his direction. mission: avoid the stranger who now haunts your life — success!

goodbye, the bean and the guy who you embarrassed yourself in front of. hello, chicago-style pizza. 

*:･

you’re tired.

you’re tired and slightly more broke and your legs and feet ache to hell after the copious amount of walking you’ve done, but your day still isn’t over. no, despite the setting sun and rising moon, you still have one more activity on your itinerary — clubbing, by request of your newfound friends, though even they claim that they don’t often partake in the activity. similar to them, you’re more inclined to small get-togethers with wine, food from that thai place down the street from your apartment, and a good movie, but hey, this trip is all about experiencing new things. hell, maybe you’ll even enjoy it, who knows? at least, you’re going to try to, but the pain radiating in the soles of your feet and calves has worsened due to your high heels. the dress wrapped around your body is tight and flattering in all the right places, yet the hem rides up every few minutes as you walk. 

“the pessimism isn’t cute. quit it,” you hear jennifer’s voice echo inside your head, yet another phrase she’s uttered to you in the past. fine — on the bright side, you haven’t seen that good-looking stranger since the park. bam, positivity, go you.

sakura’s arm loops around yours as you reach the club that you collectively decided on earlier. her excited squeals at the prospect of alcohol (or, rather, more alcohol, since she pregramed a bit prior to leaving the station) and dancing are enough to bring on a weak headache that spreads across your temples. ibuprofen. you desperately need ibuprofen, but vodka will do just fine too — it’s the first thing you order at the bar, a straight shot with no chaser because at this point, you don’t care. let go, enjoy life, you internalize as you toss the sharp liquor down your throat, fatigue melting away as the alcohol enters your veins. 

cheers, jennifer. you still need to text her back.

one more downed shot later, and chaewon is dragging you to the dance floor. the bass pounds in your ears and vibrates the floor as the three of you sway to the upbeat songs. droplets of sweat begin to bead along your hairline, bodies packed so close together that it’s virtually impossible not to be jostled by a stray elbow or shoulder as you dance. if you were completely sober, it would be uncomfortable, but your hazy senses allow for you to overlook the sardine can that is called a club. it’s easy to lose yourself in the warm, heady air, in the way your hips bump between chaewon’s and sakura’s. inhibitions melt away — you’re free; no expectations weighing you down, nowhere to be, no one to be. only music, flashing lights, and the new, fruity drink in your hand, courtesy of sakura. 

“gonna take a breather!” you yell into chaewon’s ear, the alcohol finally catching up to you. she nods, yells words you can’t make out into sakura’s ear, and both of them begin to follow you out of the crowd. you sip at your drink as you push your way through, ducking under swinging arms and avoiding splashing drinks. the crowd thins as you grow closer to the edge of the dance floor until only scattered groups of friends remain.

“you didn’t have to come with me, y’know,” you say as soon as you reach a slightly quieter part of the club, taking a seat in an empty booth. “i can handle myself.”

“it’s better to stick together. less dangerous,” sakura refutes. some of the glitter that sits above her eyes had drafted down to her cheeks, glinting as a beam of bright light travels over the lower half of her face. “you never know what could happen in a club.”

chewing at the neon pink straw in your drink, you nod, “that’s true.” 

as chaewon and sakura fall into conversation, their words not quite reaching your ears, you silently scan the club. the darkness is cut by wild lasers and spotlights that whirl around and catch on the faces of countless strangers, their pearly, grinning teeth glinting and disappearing back into obscurity in a flash. you continue to nibble at your straw, vision hazy around the edges and an airy sensation in your limbs, as if you could float up to the ceiling. you look up at the multicolored lights, flashes of red and green and blue bombarding your vision, then back down towards the crowd.

and yet again, you find him in your sights. 

suddenly, your vision has a crystal clear clarity to it. button-down shirt wide open to reveal his toned torso, he smoothly moves to the beat with an intoxicated smirk painted on his lips, a small glass of amber liquor in his left hand. dark, outgrown hair, plush lips, those dark, dreamy eyes — that’s him. shit, that’s definitely him. 

“you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” you murmur, head collapsing into your arms on top of the cool wooden table. sakura jumps in her seat next to you, before scrambling to place a hand on your shoulder.

“are you okay?” she squeals near your ear, tacking on a worried call of your name when you don’t respond right away. honestly? you’re kind of not okay. you’re tired of encountering him at every turn and being reminded of your humiliating escape from him yesterday. you’re tired of him spotting you and sending you odd looks as if you’re the weirdest person he’s ever crossed paths with. you’re tired, you’re tired, you’re just so tired. 

you decided to go on this trip to get away from the mundanity of your day-to-day routine, to get over your spell of artist’s block and see new things, but maybe you bit off more than you can chew if you were going to allow one random person to ruin that goal for you. a random stranger shouldn’t have this much power over you. 

raising your head, you send them a half-hearted nod. “i’m fine. sorry.”

chaewon frowns, “are you about to throw up? ‘cause you look like you are.”

“you look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” sakura chimes in.

sighing, you shake your head. “i think— i think i need to use the bathroom.”

as you move to get up, they do as well — though you decide not to protest this time. there’s no point, really. your legs wobble a bit as you walk, face dropping once you notice that he is near the men’s restroom now, waiting outside right across from where you aim to go. head down, you scurry past him, ignoring how his eyes widen and his knuckles pale as he grips his drink tighter. chaewon and sakura are hot on your heels as you slip into the quiet bathroom. with the music from outside now muffled, you realize your ears are ringing. reaching a sink, you turn on the faucet and splash some water onto your face. hunched over the sink, your fingers grip the edge of the counter. deep breaths, now. deep breaths. this is likely the quickest you have ever sobered up, and the sensation is rendering you dizzy.

behind you, your friends exchange concerned looks through the mirror. sakura jumps into action first, coming up behind you and placing her hands onto your shoulders. with a gentle squeeze, she murmurs, “let’s get you back to the station.”

day three.

today, the observation car is devoid of life — and so is your body after yesterday. can you overdose by taking too much ibuprofen? you’re pretty sure that you can. 

last night is but a blur in your memory with few spots of clarity, but you do vividly remember panicking in the dimly lit bathroom as the girls fretted over whether you were going to vomit all over the floor or not. you hadn’t slept much once you returned to your room after exchanging drunken hugs with your friends, assuring them that you were, indeed, not going to throw up. after a few hours of restless sleep, you’d completely given up on proper rest — you have never slept all that well with alcohol in your system, so you’re not sure why you thought this time would be any different. 

you take a seat far away from the one you took last time. clad in your pajama bottoms and an oversized t-shirt, you’re grateful that no one else is here to see you at your worst: slightly hungover with dark circles the size of dinner plates. your legs fold up onto the chair so that your knees sit near your chest, your arms looping around your shins, fingers laced together. a deep sigh. a long blink. though the rest of the sky remains an inky black, the horizon morphs into a deep purple, the color of eggplant, almost. perhaps a smidge lighter. 

a door opens, its hinges faintly squeaking, before subsequently clicking shut. figuring it must be someone older, you do not bother with checking who entered; most people your age aren’t up this early, especially not willingly. instead, you keep your eyes trained on the ever-changing sky, chin resting upon your knees.

footsteps near you, and you assume that they will pass, but then they don’t. rather, they stand right in front of you.

“may i sit here?”

you have heard this voice before, just two days ago. unsurprisingly, he stands a mere few feet away, clad in a black tank top and gray sweatpants, a long finger pointed towards a seat. similar to you, small dark circles sit beneath his eyes, but he somehow makes them work. once you nod, one corner of his lips twitches upward before he sits down, a singular seat separating your bodies. his gaze burns the side of your face; your arms wrap around your legs tighter, your unwavering stare pointed out the window. silence envelopes the train car, tense and suffocating. your lungs tighten, prickly thorns sprouting within the thin membranes. your bottom lip may begin to bleed if you keep chewing at it so carelessly.

he breaks it first, shatters it like glass colliding with the floor, with five words:

“i’m really hungover right now.”

your brows furrow. why is he trying to strike up a conversation with you? why do you want to answer him? 

he continues before you can formulate a response, “i saw you at that club last night — you looked a little sick. are you okay?”

“peachy,” you curtly mumble, lips pursing. of course he remembers you; you did pass by him, after all, basically sprinted into the bathroom with the grace of a bull in a china shop. he hasn’t mentioned the park, but you know damn well he remembers that too.

you can sense the frown from his tone, confusion lacing the edges like delicate lace. his question is careful, slowly intonated as if he’s scared of pissing you off. “uh, did i do something wrong?”

you shake your head, not a single glance spared in his direction thus far. he hasn’t. your attitude is a direct result of your own actions, your own rampant anxieties. a pang of guilt punches you in the gut — he does not deserve your bitchiness when he, quite frankly, has done nothing but exist in relative proximity to you. 

“you haven’t,” you reply, voice meek. your eyes trace over the short fibers of the plain carpet below your seat. “i’m just— i’m sorry.”

the low rumble of the train fills the air again, no further words spoken between the two of you. there’s no clear way to explain yourself further, but your apology is sincere; with a brief peek, you find him staring out the window.

“can i ask why you keep running away whenever you see me?” the query lacks an accusatory edge. rather, curiosity and interest cushion his voice. maybe…maybe he doesn’t find you that strange, after all.

and finally, after two days of avoiding his gaze, you swivel your head to face him. you find a tilted head, a single humorous, raised eyebrow. despite yourself, you begin to smile. “honestly?”

“i’d prefer honesty, yes,” he grins.

“i—” you hesitate for a moment, then continue, “i was embarrassed.” a grimace paints your face, dragging your brows down and twisting your lips. “after, y’know…”

“running away the first time?” he supplies.

your mouth flattens into a thin line, a hand moving up to scratch your cheek. “yeah, that.”

laughter reaches your ears, partially nasally. rolling your eyes, your mouth splits into a grin. 

“i get it. i feel like i definitely startled you, so no hard feelings.” he pauses, starry eyes widening in what you believe is realization, “i never got your name.”

easily, you supply it, cheeks flushing with heat when he offhandedly comments that it’s pretty. if he notices your sudden flustered state, he doesn’t comment on it, and despite the warmth now slithering down your neck, you feel yourself relax back into your seat, legs leaving their curled up position to cross at the ankle in front of you. then, he offers his own. yeonjun — at long last, you have put a name to his handsome face. 

out of nowhere, he asks, “have you had breakfast?” 

shaking your head, you gesture to your pajama bottoms. “not yet, i was going to grab some after i changed.”

“i don’t know, i think the plaid pants are pretty fashionable,” he chuckles. you join him. “c’mon, i saw an old guy wearing boxers and a shirt in there yesterday. i’m pretty sure it’ll be fine.”

you giggle, “that’s kinda gross, but alright. let’s go.”

peering out the window again, you find that the sun has just peeked above the horizon, a wash of orange fading into blue, melting together like watercolor. smiling to yourself, you stand and begin to follow yeonjun towards the dining car.

*:･

you and yeonjun had gone your separate ways hours ago, but not without exchanging contact information. since then, he hasn’t stopped texting you, his talent at keeping any conversation going shining in direct contrast to your, well, lack of said talent. however, you do find yourself replying to him with ease — he makes it so easy to do so, mostly due to the fairly unorthodox topics he likes to bring up. currently, you’re talking about the animals that scare you the most. why? because that’s the nature of yeonjun’s conversation skills, you suppose.

another voice message pops up in your chat, about ten seconds long — one of his more obvious quirks. most of his messages are sent in this form, not that you mind. his voice is as pretty as the rest of him. heart-fluttering. okay, stop. you just met this guy. 

(jennifer always does say that you fall too easily. maybe she’s right.)

pressing play, his voice enters your left ear via your single earbud. “no because hear me out: dolphins have fooled you into thinking they’re nice. manipulated you. they literally torture their prey— and they use puffer fishes to get high! i can’t make this shit up. my fear is justified, i swear.”

under your breath, you chuckle, an elbow leaned against the dining table. after a long nap, you had texted the girls to see if they’d like to get dinner with you. of course, they said yes, but you decided to get here a bit early to grab an open table. the car is already packed as it is.

“what’re you laughing at?” unexpectedly, sakura’s head appears over your shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of your phone. out of habit, you lock it, your reflections staring back at you through the black screen. as she sits next to you, chaewon, takes the seat across from you, elbows placed on the table and her hands supporting her chin. she sends you a knowing smile.

“is that your boyfriend?” she prods. the question causes your mouth to fall open for a moment before you snap it shut. 

“no!” you exclaim. “it’s just a friend.”

“sounds like a boyfriend,” sakura surmises, exchanging a conspiratory nod with the other girl. you release a groan, hands shielding your fiery hot face before you drag them up over your hair. 

“he’s not my boyfriend,” you shoot back. “we just met today.” two days ago, actually. if you can count that.

their mouths open in tandem, shock coloring their features. is this a big deal, or something? you aren’t even dating the guy. 

“you met a guy and didn’t tell us?” sakura grasps your arm with both hands, shaking the limb with a strength that shouldn’t be possible to come from her thin body. “you should’ve told us! we can be your wingwomen!”

“wingwomen?” you echo dumbly as you stare at her. wingwomen, as in, like, jennifer-style wingwomen? as in trying too hard to set you up with someone and ultimately embarrassing you in the end wingwomen? your love for jennifer knows no bounds, but she’s ruined the term for you long ago with her terrible luck. a shudder runs down your spine, and you grin nervously. “i don’t think that’s necessary.”

“of course it is! i’ve always wanted to do that for one of my friends, but they’re all taken already,” chaewon pouts, irresistible puppy dog eyes appearing. “c’mon, please?

“i doubt he’d want to date me, though? we’ve literally only talked once, so really, it’s okay.”

“once is enough,” sakura declares, suddenly tilting her body closer to yours. “tell us, is he cute? what’s his name?”

they’re obviously not going to let this go, and you have no power to really stop them. 

sighing, you officially give up, “yeonjun, and yes, i do.” unfortunately. 

chaewon claps her hands together, an audible smack! echoing from her palms. her smile is blinding, a supernova of pearly white teeth and pink, upturned lips. “perfect! we can work with that.” 

“i already have an idea: ask him to hang out tomorrow,” sakura says, and you send her an incredulous look, glancing at chaewon for a moment to find that she’s excitedly nodding along to the idea like an excitable puppy. her round eyes sure make her resemble one.

you shake your head. “i can’t do that, it’s too forward.”

rolling her eyes, sakura tosses her hands up in the air. “too forward my ass! how do you expect to bag him?”

“i don’t!”

chaewon chimes in, an open hand reaching towards you, “alright, give us your phone. we’ll text him for you.”

“absolutely not!”

ding!

it’s comical, how all three of you pivot your wide-eyed gazes to the phone clenched in your fingers. the flash of yeonjun’s name across the screen is enough to send your table into chaos. 

“open it!”

“what did he say—”

“calm down, oh my god!” you shriek, sending an apologetic look to the couple next to you when they look over. fingers fly over your keyboard until you’ve reached his contact. words, this time, no voice message. butterflies burst into your chest.

yeonjun: do you have anything planned for tmrw? 

after scanning over the message herself, sakura pokes at your shoulder. “tell him you don’t.” 

with a deep, heavy sigh, you do as she says.

[6:37 p.m.]: not yet, why?

“that’s too dry,” chaewon comments.

“shut up, i’m trying,” you hiss. it takes him a few minutes to respond, minutes in which you internally panic. was your text really too dry? in the meantime, you place your dinner order with a kind waiter that stops by, a hearty dish that you can drown your sorrows in the not-so-off chance that this goes terribly, terribly wrong. another ping sounds from your phone’s speakers, and time stops once you read what he sent. clocks stop ticking, you stop breathing, everything around you freezes.

yeonjun: do you wanna grab coffee in the morning then? :)

sakura sends you a sharp look. “i doubt he’d want to date me — are you seeing this right now? or do you need me to spell it out for you? this is a date, babe.”

“it’s not,” you counter weakly. you only (officially) met him today, so, “it’s really not.”

day four.

contrary to what sakura claimed, this is very much not a date — but you’re happy about it. 

he keeps a respectful distance between your bodies as you walk, you pay for your own coffee, and you pull your own chair out when you go to sit down. it’s simple, it’s friendly, it’s a bit awkward, but there’s some things you have to sacrifice when making new friends. the croissant you’ve decided on is on the drier side, a little too flaky. you nibble on it anyway in a poor attempt to ignore the silence that has fallen between you once again. this is why you try to meet people through other friends; at least in those situations, you have a buffer, someone who knows you and the other person well enough that they can find connections between you without having to dig. you hate digging — you’re the worst at it, hence the stifling quiet that permeates the air now.

the café is quaint, if a bit moody thanks to the lighting. outside the window, the denver street teems with people, and you decide to survey the passing strangers rather than look at the man sitting across from you. wisps of fluffy white clouds float high above, sometimes passing over the sun. you wish you had your supplies with you — this would make for a wonderful painting. 

click!

turning your head, you find yeonjun holding a camera, the lens pointed at…you? you hadn’t noticed it prior, so you are unsure where he got it from. it looks like the same one he had at the park. a bashful smile appears as soon as he places it on the table. “sorry, the lighting was perfect. can’t ever pass up a nice shot.” you study the camera for a moment, and he takes your lack of response as a sign to continue, “once i edit it, i can definitely send you a copy. do you wanna see it?”

a photographer. yeonjun is a photographer. you’re not sure why it’s taken you this long to realize. maybe because you’ve been avoiding him up until now? you think. shaking the thought away, you smile. “i’d love to see it.”

he presses a few buttons, a focused twist to his plush lips, before he’s sliding it over to your side of the table. he’s right: it was a nice shot, and while you don’t often enjoy how you look in photographs, he’s found an angle that highlights your best features as you gaze outside, a slight part to your lips and your eyes wide open, shining. the sheer amount of contrast between the dark café and your warm-lit face scratches an itch in your brain. you can see it now — the golden pigment wetting your brush before being placed on the canvas, being blended into an umber, almost black, but not quite. a splash of umber here, a hint of red there…

“is this your job?” you decide to ask. 

the sheepish expression returns in full force, but there’s a hint of pride in his eyes. he’s proud of his work. “yeah. i’m not, like, famous or anything, but i enjoy it. my mom said that when i was a baby, they put a stethoscope, a gavel, a camera, a microphone, and a test tube in front of me, and i chose the camera, so it was basically meant to be,” he chuckles, but, realizing that you’re staring at him, he pauses for moment. crimson paints the tips of his ears; it’s a color that you’re pretty sure sits in your travel set. “sorry, was that too much?”

“not at all,” you reply softly. “that’s a lovely story, yeonjun.” 

“thanks.” shyly, he bites down on his bottom lip, sucking it between his teeth before releasing it. a beat of quiet passes, then he’s asking, “how about you? what do you do for work?”

for some reason, the question looms over your head like a storm cloud. it’s unavoidable and dark and heavy. a bitter taste fills your mouth, different from the aftertaste of your coffee, but you try not to let your sudden drop in mood show. 

“i’m an artist, though i don’t think many people would consider me one nowadays,” you snicker, but the self-deprecating edge to your words is not lost on yeonjun. 

wrinkles form in the space between his brows. “what do you mean?” 

“i…” you trail off. you should tell him. you should rip the bandaid off and quit avoiding facing it for what it is. “i haven’t finished a piece in months. i feel stuck, almost? like nothing is resonating with me, if that makes sense. it’s the whole reason i went on this trip. it’s humiliating, not being able to draw a single thing without hating it— sorry, that’s definitely too much.” 

“no, no, you’re fine,” and he’s sincere in his reassurances. he doesn’t look at you like you’re some sort of failure for how you feel. he doesn’t spew out a hollow apology to absolve him of the weight you’ve transferred to his shoulders, nor does he seem to mind that he’s helping you burden it. his hand reaches over the table, hesitant for a moment, before his fingers curl over yours, his warm skin against yours. you stare at his hand, but you don’t move away from his touch, allowing him to give your hand a delicate squeeze. looking back up, you sit frozen under his gaze. it warms your insides, melts the icy shards solidifying in your lungs that make it hard to breathe. “none of that makes you less of an artist. it’s something every artist goes through — hell, i’ve gone through it, and it’s okay to feel that way. it’s real and it sucks to feel like you can’t accomplish anything, but there’s nothing wrong with it. eventually, it will pass on its own, but until then, it’s not a sin to lean on others for support.”

tears almost, almost prick your eyes. however, you push them down; there’s no way you’re going to cry in public, in front of him. absolutely not. he squeezes your hand one more time, his thumb brushing over yours, before pulling away. “and if no one else will listen, i will.”

“thank you,” you croak out, blinking rapidly, taking a long sip of coffee in order to buy yourself a few precious seconds to cloak your emotions. a calm veil falls over your face soon enough, and while you hate to be the one to change the subject, you feel like you should. “do you want to go on a walk? it’s too nice out to stay in here all day.”

he doesn’t question the sudden change, humming in confirmation as he scoots his chair back. “it really is nice out. do you have any other plans?”

“not really,” you say, pushing the door open. the warm breeze caresses your face. “i’m trying to be spontaneous—”

“y/n!”

sakura and chaewon appear to your left, each carrying a couple bags that look to be stuffed with clothes. you vaguely remember them mentioning going thrifting, but you didn’t know that they’d be in the same part of the city as you. chaewon comes in for a hug, whispering into your ear, “he’s cute.”

glancing up at yeonjun, sakura feigns ignorance, “who’s this?” 

thus, your friends meet the one man you’d rather keep them away from, if only to prevent their wingwomen shenanigans. you have zero clue what they have planned, but you’re sure none of it can be good. 

“we were just on our way to the botanical gardens,” chaewon sings. “if you’d like to join usss.”

wordlessly, you and yeonjun communicate, only raised eyebrows and tilted chins. somehow, you understand exactly what he’s trying to convey. do you want to? do you? i don’t mind if you don’t. alright, let’s do it.

when you do arrive at the gardens, yeonjun’s fingers find your wrist, holding you back for a moment. his free hand gestures to the camera hanging around his neck. “mind being my model for the day?”

you blink. you, his model? “oh, um. i think chae and kkura are a bit more qualified—”

“no way,” he laughs. “i’m the professional here, and i want you. no one else will do.”

i want you — god, those three, simple words send a visceral shiver down your spine. a want, a need, an overwhelming desire for…you’re not even sure, but something all-consuming blooms behind your sternum like a moonflower in the night. with a coy dip of your head, you smile to yourself, allowing the feeling to surge through your veins, consume every fiber of your being.

“alright, mr. professional. lead the way.”

*:･

it’s early in the evening when you return to the station in a giddy haze, arm looped around yeonjun’s. the photo session had been a success; by the end, you were drunk on the compliments he aimed your way, on the way he treated you like glass as he directed you into a specific pose, the fleeting sensation of his fingertips pressing into your skin burned into your memory. 

closing the door to your room, you press your back into it, squeal into your palms like you did when you were sixteen and harboring a silly little crush. because that’s all it is right now, really: a foolish crush on a man that you probably won’t see again after this trip. you can fantasize all you want, but in the end, that’s what it is. those invading negative thoughts get drowned out by the movie playing behind your eyelids — a replay of the day. you swear you can feel every touch of his skin against yours, every ray of sunshine that kissed your skin and gifted you its warmth. scurrying over to your bag, you locate your supplies. 

and you begin to paint. 

a flurry of lilacs, a blurry figure among them all, defined only by a flowing white button up and brown, wide leg trousers, black streaks of hair and nothing more. yellow daffodils and vibrant emerald sweetgrass take shape, a cerulean sky, fluffy clouds. it’s messy and you kind of hate it, but it’s something. something is on the canvas, it’s dynamic, it has character.

“okay,” you mumble, staring at the brushstrokes, going over them again and again. “okay.”

day five.

“can i draw you?” 

a spur of the moment question, borne from the golden sunset gracing his cheeks, highlighting strands of his hair. the day has passed quietly today, mostly spent in your room sketching to your heart’s content. though mostly inconsequential doodles paired with terribly cheesy words of prose that even your most romantic friends would scrunch their noses at, these exercises in creating without a specific goal in mind seem to be helping. a part of that gray fog over your world has been wafted away by an invisible hand, and everything is a bit more vibrant, closer to its true hue; while nothing about your creations are particularly special or groundbreaking, going on this trip is now beginning to prove its worth. 

yeonjun’s head tilts, and you shrug. “what? i need practice.”

“okay, as long as you promise to show me afterward,” he challenges, and you immediately shake your head. 

“i’m only going to show it to you if it turns out well,” you decide. you think back to the painting sitting in your room, still a bit wet, the paint overworked to hell. that one is staying a secret. it’s not good enough to be known by anyone else — and certainly not by him.

“then no deal.” when you give him a pleading look, he raises his hands. “i show you my pictures, you show me what’s going on in that sketchbook, it’s only fair.”

“fine,” you hiss, fishing your sketchbook from your bag. “get comfortable, and don’t even think about moving.”

“harsh.”

with a suppressed grin, you take in the planes of his face. he’s shifted to face you, intent eyes trained on you, which makes your job harder. gulping, you raise an arm, mapping out his proportions with a thumb. the process of pressing intentional marks into the page is a slow one, exacerbated by his unwavering stare. you have to look out at the mountains every once in a while to allow oxygen back into your lungs, and even then, the action proves difficult. graphite scratching paper is backed by the low murmur of other passengers in the observation car as you work, capturing the fading light that casts shadows across his face. however, your creative juices quickly run out, likely sapped by your painting escapade that extended far into the night. the shape of his eyes isn’t quite right, and no matter how much you erase and try again, there’s always a slight detail off about it. too narrow, too round, too—

the tip of the pencil snaps, the point rolling across the page and falling onto the floor. you curse under your breath. 

“is it done?” yeonjun asks, leaning forward. his hands gently take your sketchbook from your lap before you can protest, and you watch as his expression shifts from neutral to slack-jawed. 

“that’s…you’re…wow,” he starts, then never finishes. he still hasn’t torn his wide eyes away from the page, flitting around as he drinks in every miniscule detail, while you pinpoint every single thing wrong with the drawing.

“it’s bad,” you deadpan. “give it back, i need to fix it.”

he frowns. you seem to make him do that a lot. “there’s nothing to fix.”

“there’s everything to fix.”

“it’s literally a carbon copy of me,” he counters. “you’re crazy.”

“says the one who can’t see the shape of his eyes right now. the lash line isn’t straight enough at the top, the nose isn’t quite right, the hair lacks form. it’s terrible.”

for the first time since you met him, yeonjun is annoyed. eyes narrowed and dark, he locks his gaze into yours, throws away the key. you can’t move while he tosses the worn sketchbook back into your lap, a hand running through his hair, locks raising with his fingers and flopping back down into his face.

“i know what it’s like to be your own worst critic,” he says, voice soft like a lullaby, standing in direct contrast to his firm expression. “but it’s one thing to be critical of your art, and another to resent it. you’re a wonderful artist, y/n. talented isn’t enough to describe you, but negativity is going to get you nowhere. it holds you back.”

he’s right — you loathe that he is, and you more so hate how he sounds just like jennifer. your nails skirts the fraying edge of the leather cover in your laps, picking at it like you would with skin, peeling cracked flakes off to reveal a soft underbelly of lighter-colored suede. wine red versus warm tan. you feel like you’re being admonished, a child who’s misbehaved. you feel small, but at the same time, you need to hear it. you’ve been coddled enough. 

“i used to hate my stuff too, y’know. never thought it was ever that special, but that’s what made me underestimate myself. that’s what made me settle for less, that’s what made me lock my camera away in my closet for the longest time until i felt i was ‘ready’ to use it — but who was i to say i was ready? how do you know when you are? honestly, you don’t. you won’t ever know. all you can do is create and create and hope that you eventually make something that you’re proud of. until then, you keep trying, you figure out what’s working, what isn’t, and go from there. in the end, everything you create is a reflection of you, and that’s the beautiful thing about art. it bares your soul, it strips you down to the rawest parts of yourself that you may despise right now — but it’s still you. and don’t you think you deserve to give yourself some grace?”

his words strike a place deep within you, an ache beginning in the center of your chest and snaking out like the roots of a tree into your stomach and throat. you do deserve some grace, don’t you? you don’t spew venomous words towards your friends or strangers every day, yet you do it to yourself without a second thought. why? you bring yourself and your skills down any chance that you get. why? your art is merely an extension of yourself — is this how you forever want to feel whenever you are drawing? whenever you’re sculpting a piece? no, not at all. your head raises. 

“have you ever thought about becoming a public speaker?”

he lets out an incredulous scoff, but there’s still an inkling of teasing in his tone, “is that all you got from my mini speech? i thought it was amazing. life-changing, even.”

“no,” you deny with a tight-chested laugh. “but there’s not much more to add. you’ve said it all for me.”

the passing mountains are purple now, the greenery a muted magenta. in this moment, you decide the yeonjun is an enigma; untouchable, unreachable — standing too close to his bright, technicolor world would burn your muted one to the ground. if you are icarus, then he is the sun sending you plummeting down into oblivion.

but you want to touch him, you want to burn.

you want to feel alive again.

“let me draw you again,” and maybe it won’t be your best. maybe the slope of his chin will be crooked, maybe the intrinsic sparkle in his eyes won’t be quite right, but there’s a conviction present in your tone that causes him to smile.

day six.

“are you really trying to have a dick measuring contest with the seals right now?”

san francisco’s iconic pier 39 is abustle with tourists, but you and yeonjun are currently at the very back of the pier, where seals soak in the sun on little wooden docks constructed just for them. at the moment, yeonjun is trying to out-seal the seals with loud barks and hoots, mimicking their distinctive sounds. yeonjun is still making noises, people are starting to stare, and you are beginning to want to climb over the wooden fence and jump straight into the ocean. 

“yeonjun, please stop,” you plead, hands gripping the sleeve of his t-shirt, yet he doesn’t stop, honking back at the seals once they respond. you tug a bit harder. “c’mon, people are staring. the seals don’t care how loud you are, you’re not proving anything.”

“i’m proving a lot of things right now, actually,” he quips before he’s going back to making noises that are unbecoming of a human being. this feels like a cruel form of exposure therapy.

you try pulling at his sleeve again. “c’mon, yeonjun.” and again. “yeonjun!”

“okay, okay, i’ll stop,” he cackles, turning to face you. he’s close — too close to be considered platonic. his hands could come up and hold your waist right now, pull you closer into his chest. it causes you to take a step back, and it’s as if he can sense the heat radiating from your cheeks, leaning down towards you with a smirk. “you embarrassed?”

“of course i’m embarrassed,” you hiss. “how are you not?”

shaking his head, his grin grows impossibly wider. “if i buy you lunch, will you forgive me?” 

pretending to think, you look off to the side, then back to him. of course you will. “maybe.”

“i’ll take that as a yes,” he laughs as he falls into step next to you. the air is much cooler here than at your other stops, a gray blanket of fog rolling in on the horizon that cuts into the clear blue sky. he sends you a hopeful look as he asks, “y’feeling clam chowder?”

with a tiny shrug, you confess that you’ve never had it before. with a dramatic hand placed against his chest, he gasps, “you live in the northeast, and you’ve never tried it? that has to be some sort of crime.”

chowder hut is his restaurant of choice, a circular, well, hut that sits by its lonesome across from the infamous pier. it’s a place he used to go when he lived in san jose and took day trips here with his cousins, he claims. the restaurant holds a lot of fond memories for him, this whole city does. you wonder what those memories entail.

“i got you a small one in case you don’t like it,” yeonjun says as soon as he returns with your food. a tray is placed in front of you: a round sourdough loaf carved into to create a bowl, filled with cream-colored, steaming-hot chowder thick with chunks of potatoes, pieces of bacon, and, of course, clams. digging a spoon in, you take your first bite — clean, briny, slightly sweet, bursting across your taste buds like tiny little firecrackers. your eyes widen at the taste, buzzing in delight against the spoon poised to your lips. he grins. “it’s good, right?” 

you hum in agreement, swallowing another spoonful. you’re crazy for never having tried this before. twenty-four years of living, and you had no idea what you were missing out on. you’ve missed out on a long of things, it seems, but you’re beginning to catch up on them with the help of yeonjun — as well as sakura and chaewon, of course. you could never forget about them.

“you’re forever going to be connected to clam chowder in my mind now, i hope you know that,” you say, tearing into the walls of the bread bowl. the remnants of the salty chowder have soaked into the bowl, mixing perfectly with the tanginess of the bread. yeah, you wouldn’t forget this in a million years; it’s too delicious to forget. 

“you do that too?” he asks. you send him a questioning glance. “like, connect people to food.”

“yeah, i guess i do,” you ponder. “my mom reminds me of this one dish she always made me as a kid. my best friend reminds me of wine, since that’s what we drank when we first met. it’s also her favorite. and now you…remind me of clam chowder.”

he chuckles, “great, i’ll always be the clam chowder guy to you.”

you giggle back. “it’s not a bad title to hold. you could be, i don’t know, the terrible clam chowder guy.”

“fair enough. i’ll take it,” he declares before he shoves the last piece of his bread bowl into his mouth. his cheeks puff out, similar to a chipmunk, and you resist the urge to chuckle at the image in your head. “now that i think about it, i don’t do it with just people — a lot of my fondest memories are connected to food, too. something human about it, y’know? food is its own form of love. or, at least, i think it is.”

“no, i completely agree. there’s something special about sharing food with others — it’s kinda intimate, i guess? especially if you’re cooking for someone, those are some of the most vivid memories for me.” 

nodding along with you, he’s leaning forward, elbows resting against the table. the corners of his lips quirk up. “you get it. the intimacy of it, i mean. my mom has always said that food is the best way to a person’s heart — food brings people together. it’s amazing.”

“yeah,” you beam. “it really is.”

for a moment, conversation ceases, the two of you smiling at each other, leaning forward over the table. your mouth opens to speak, but a loud caw draws your attention away from his hypnotizing eyes. you watch a seagull swoop in to harass a man that sits two tables over, his glasses skewed on his face as he tries to keep the bird from stealing his food. arms wave everywhere while the seagull screeches at him, flapping its wings on top of the man’s head. after a brief second of shock, the sight has you nearly doubling over with laughter, unflattering shrieks sounding from your throat. it takes a minute for your giggles to subside. while you wipe a tear from your lash line, you look back at him — and freeze.

he’s staring at you like you hung the stars in the sky, chin supported by his palm. his mouth curves into something serene and fond, hooded eyes scanning your face as you stare back. you’re no longer smiling, mouth parted as you wait for him to say something, anything. he doesn’t, so you move to break the intense air brewing between you.

“is…is something wrong?” with a flinch, his eyes blink rapidly for a second, coming back into focus. he sits up straighter, leaning into the back of his chair.

“i just— nevermind. sorry, spaced out there for a second,” his chin dips towards his chest before rising again, the tips of his ears flushing cherry. he looks nervous, almost. “um, if you’re up for it later, we could grab dinner at this korean restaurant i used to go to? it reminds me a lot of my parents. i think you’d like it.” 

while you’d rather ask where his head is at right now, what he was going to say before he stopped himself so abruptly, you say, “i’d love that.”

*:･

he was right, you do like it. 

the restaurant is cozy, a little hole-in-the-wall in the heart of the city where less tourists roam. the food is delicious, flavorful meats and fluffy rice and various veggie side dishes that you can’t stop eating. as he snaps some photos of the place, he tells you the decor reminds him of restaurants in seoul, of the mom-and-pop shops he’d frequent there. that at some point or other, some of the owners would start recognizing him when he came in and gave him extra food free of charge. 

“so you lived there for a while? in korea?” you ask as you watch him some meat for the two of you to share. the action is second nature to him, each piece staying on the grill for the same amount of time, flipped only once. you bring a piece to your mouth — it’s perfectly cooked.

“i was born there, in a town near seoul,” he says through a mouthful of rice. “moved around a bit, but i lived in seoul for most of it ‘til i was eighteen. then i moved to new york for college, but dropped out after two semesters to pursue photography. it’s been six years since i moved to the states.”

“you said you lived in san jose for a while earlier.” you tilt your head at him. “when was that?”

“ah,” he starts. “i studied abroad when i was in elementary school and stayed with some family there�� do you want some more meat? i can order more.”

your meat supply has dwindled down to two pieces. there’s still room in your stomach, so you nod. “sure.”

he calls over the sole server on shift, speaking to him rapidly in his native tongue. the server glances over at you for a brief second before focusing back on yeonjun. out of their entire conversation, you recognize one word: friend. it’s a term that jennifer taught you a while ago, one that has stuck with you because she now likes to jokingly call you that every now and then. an inside joke between the two of you.

when the server leaves, yeonjun is left a flustered mess. your eyebrows raise. “why’s your face so red? what’d he say?”

“nothing! it’s just from the kimchi! it’s really spicy here,” he quickly claims before he’s gulping down half a glass of water. you, quite frankly, don’t buy it for a second, but choose not to pry. 

day seven.

of course, at least one thing has to go wrong on a trip like this. mechanical problems with the train has rendered everyone stuck in the golden city until tomorrow morning, at which another train will take over the rest of the trip. the station is across the bay, so amtrak has given every passenger a voucher to pay for a night’s stay at various hotels across the city — customer’s choice, no less. to be safe, you choose the one closest to the bar chaewon and sakura want to check out tonight. once you told yeonjun where you decided to stay, he used his voucher there as well. he wants to stay near you, he says, to make it easy to find each other.

today, the girls join you and yeonjun at pier 39. they partake in bread bowls, they watch yeonjun embarrass himself at the seal docks, they send you knowing looks when he pays for your food. when yeonjun finds a street performer with a dance mat and wastes no time in starting a battle against the guy, they tell you that he’s trying to impress you.

“he’s not,” you whisper to them. “that’s just how he is. i promise.”

night begins to fall, and they suggest going to a bar for dinner, more for the drinks and not the food. you accept, and in turn, so does yeonjun — though you immediately regret not thinking the decision through more. the bar is dangerous. not in an external hazard sense, but in more of a you’re scared of getting drunk and vomiting your blossoming feelings onto his shoes type of sense. you keep your drinking to a minimum, still on your first drink an hour in. next to you, however, yeonjun is starting to collapse in on himself, hunched over the counter of the bar as his third drink kicks in. a giggle bubbles up from your throat. you never pegged him to be a lightweight. 

“let’s get you some water,” you gently suggest, a comforting hand on his shoulder. waving the bartender over, you ask for a glass, helping him sit up and take a sip. his chin falls onto your shoulder this time, eyes hazy as he looks up at you with a dopey smile. 

“you’re really pretty, did y‘know that?” he slurs, leaning further into you as an arm wraps around your waist. his barstool screeches across the floor, shifting closer to yours. you freeze as shock fills your veins, nerve endings beneath his touch on fire. he pokes your warm cheek. “s’pretty.”

you blink. hard. “yeonjun, you’re drunk—”

“no ‘m not. ’m perfectly— ‘m perfectly fine,” the words stumble out of his pouty lips drenched in fatigue, his tone whiny and petulant, as he turns in his seat to wrap his other arm around your waist, forehead now sagging against your shoulder. your body stiffens up, tense muscles frozen in place as he continues his delirious ramblings. 

“i need to go to the bathroom!” you all of sudden exclaim, attempting to pry his arms off of you. he only squeezes you tighter, whining how you can’t leave here alone. you sigh, patting his hair, “you could wait outside?”

he accepts the offer, but doesn’t remove his arm from your waist as both of you stand. despite his almost six foot tall frame, you are forced to support him as he stumbles along towards the bathrooms and pray that you don’t twist an ankle in the process. when you reach the women’s bathroom, he still doesn’t let go. 

“nooo, don’t leave meeee,” he whines, pulling you back into his chest while your hand grips the door handle. calling his name, you slip your hands beneath his and grab them to pull them off of you.

“i’ll be right back, i promise,” you say once you situate him against the wall, his shoulder hunched and his head hanging down towards his chest. you give him a worried pat on his head before disappearing into the bathroom. in reality, you do not have to go. instead, you stand in front of the mirror, taking in your blown out eyes, feeling a scorching heat encase your face and spread down towards your chest. he’s drunk, you remind yourself. he doesn’t know what he’s saying. 

you wash your hands once. twice. three times, allowing the cool water to run over your heated skin. you splash some on the back of your neck. calm down. calm the fuck down. 

you are, indeed, not able to calm the fuck down before a flurry of knocks reverbates against the door. yeonjun’s voice follows soon after, asking if he can come in, if you’re okay. “why have you been gone for so longggg? i miss you!”

“no! don’t come in!” you yell, glad that all of the stalls are vacant. making your way back over to the exit, you wrench open the door and find him standing there, fist raised in the air as if he was going to knock again. 

he blinks once. then, an impossibly wide grin splits his face. “you’re back!”

stepping forward, you allow the door to swing shut behind you. arms wrap around you once again, but this time, you stumble backwards into the wall. when you look up, his face is just above yours. 

oh.

oh, fuck. 

this feels like a repeat of day one all over again, you trapped under his gaze, but this lacks the distance of that day. the unfamiliarity with each other. his hands haven’t left your waist, fingers pressing into your flesh over your thin dress, while the wall presses into your back. you have nowhere to go, but maybe you’re more drunk than you initially thought, because his lips look very inviting right now. you watch his eyes trail down to your parted lips, then back to your eyes, tongue darting out to swipe over his bottom lip. his eyelids hood his dark, hazy pupils. the muscles in his neck contract, his adam’s apple bobbing as he leans closer, an electric attraction between your lips. you tilt your head, eye fluttering shut, moving closer, closer…

“y/n! there you are!” 

yeonjun jumps away from you as chaewon rushes up to you. her hands find your shoulders as she cries, “kkura twisted her ankle really bad! can you help me?”

you turn your head towards yeonjun, then back to chaewon, whose wide, rounded eyes plead you to come with her. “okay,” you say softly. “let’s go.”

yeonjun follows close behind, and all you can think of is what would have happened if chaewon didn’t show up. sakura’s ankle ends up being fine, and getting her back to her hotel room isn’t too difficult given the close proximity of the hotel. 

*:･

four days. four days you have known yeonjun, but it feels like it’s been years since you met each other. that fact strikes fear into your heart, remembering that the last time that this fast burn of feelings in your heart occurred, you ended up a brokenhearted mess for months. if yeonjun is the sun, his overwhelming heat melting you down into a puddle, then beomgyu was a black hole, all-consuming and ripping pieces of you away when he abruptly up and left. you’re unsure if you can go through that again, but at the same time, yeonjun doesn’t give off the impression of a drifter who wouldn’t tell you he’s leaving until after the fact. he’s a constant, a steady fortress. reliable, enduring. 

“good night,” yeonjun murmurs, both of you standing in front of your door. 

“good night,” you parrot back, rocking back on your heels, but you don’t really want him to go. knowing that isn’t realistic, you settle for opening your arms up towards him. for the first time, he hugs you good night, his lithe arms wrapping around your waist while he presses a drunken kiss into the crown of your head, and a feeling of being home washes over you. 

day eight.

he sits closer to you now. no longer is there a gap that separates your bodies, a full chair between the two of you. now, he sits right next to you, thigh brushing against your own. his hand sometimes finds your knee, never too high on your leg, never uncomfortable. just…there, his thumb rubbing soothing circles into the skin. neither of you mention what transpired between you last night, his affectionate words, the mere centimeters that separated your lips before chaewon interrupted. nevertheless, an unspoken barrier between you has broken, its bricks torn down by the hands of intoxication — due to alcohol, but also because of each other.

the almost-kiss replays in your mind in a constant loop; the woody citrus of his cologne is still strong in your nose, the warmth radiating from his flushed cheeks a phantom against your skin. you want to talk about it. you want to rip open the memory like a pomegranate for the two of you to share, but you don’t. you don’t know what you would do if you ruined…whatever this is that you and him have going on. he’s become a sort of constant in your life that you don’t think you can live without. you like him; you can admit it now. what you feel is not just a mere attraction anymore, an artistic appreciation for his unique features. he brings out a brighter part of you, a part that has been buried deep into your soul over the years, beneath layers of grime and dirt and negative experiences that you won’t let go of. the gray film over your eyes has been wiped clean by him, him and his beautiful heart he so easily bares to others. his heart that is so full of love — love for being alive, love for others — you wonder if any of that love could ever be for you one day.

he watches you sketch, you let him snap photos of you doing so. you share a small bag of chips, greasy fingers brushing against each other during those times in which you both reach in tandem. for hours, you sit together in a silence that is no longer awkward, but soft and tender. shoulder against shoulder, skin against skin. words aren’t required, your actions speaking for themselves. you bask in it all.

day nine.

the space needle isn’t that impressive.

you’re sure it’s a much better experience when you’re at the top, but yeonjun shares a fear of heights with you, so there’s no way in hell either of you are going up there. instead, you stand beneath it, amongst an ever-moving sea of seattleites and tourists, and wait for chaewon and sakura to come back down from the tall building. 

at the beginning of this trip, you’d allow for a few feet of space between your bodies, but slowly, it’s diminished to a scant few inches. you don’t really register this gradual change, as natural as it was. every once in a while, his pinky brushes against yours. neither you nor yeonjun move to do anything about it, either by pulling away or linking them together — a state of limbo that is befitting for a pair of strangers falling for each other. to make the dive into the unknown or to stay on the surface where it’s safe, that is the question.

“how much longer do you think they’ll be?” you ask, staring up at the pointed top of the tower. the sky is gray today, a bit chilly, but it’s an expected sight in washington during this time of year. “i’m getting hungry.”

yeonjun huffs a laugh, lightly elbowing your bicep. “maybe we could grab something real quick. i saw this taco truck nearby—”

“y/n? is that you?”

you’d recognize that deep timbre anywhere. the man that dropped your heart on the floor and vanished from the earth before he could watch the aftermath, the man that you never wished to see ever again.

turning around, you find beomgyu.

your phone slips from your hand, clattering against the concrete — but you can’t bring yourself to check if the screen has shattered. instead, yeonjun grabs it for you, rising with it as he anxiously asks if you’re okay. you don’t answer, too busy staring at the man now standing before you. he’s changed; his shorter hair has grown out past his ears, dyed a warm brown, though his black roots are apparent; soft pastel pullovers and light jeans have been swapped out for black slacks and a dark brown leather jacket, clothing choices more mature than when you last saw him. why is he here? you thought he lived in san francisco — you would’ve been less shocked to run into him there, but in seattle? 

“i moved here a few months ago.” shit, did you say that out loud? “i could ask you the same thing.”

“i’m on a trip,” you quickly answer, no further explanation leaving your mouth. 

he nods nonchalantly. you think you see his eyes flit to yeonjun for a second. “cool, cool.” 

“yeah.” why won’t he walk away already? your feet are glued to the cement, jaw tense as you try not to cry. the memory of him texting you that he had left the city and things between you won’t work out come rushing back. why now? how can he show his face to you after all he’s done?

he nods again. “are you here for long?”

“just— just for today.”

“well, i’d love to catch up with you before you leave. i’ve missed you a lot. maybe we could grab dinner tonight?” his smile is soft, hopeful — manipulative, in a way.

“i’m actually pretty busy today,” you begin, but of course, you have no idea how to tell him no. “but maybe if i’m free later.”

“great!” he exclaims, hands now in his trouser pockets. he looks over at yeonjun again, the upward curve of his lips flattening. “i need to get going, but i’ll text you later. you still have my number, right?”

“i think so.”

“cool.” his smile grows excited. “see you later, then.” beomgyu turns to walk away with a confidence in his strut that he didn't have when he lived in new york. when he was dating you. how shameless can he be? soon enough, he disappears into the crowd. blinking, you wonder if that really just happened, turning back toward yeonjun. his jaw is set, eyes still staring at the point where beomgyu vanished. the gray clouds feel suffocating now. the cool air constricts your lungs. you want the cement to open up and swallow you when his hardened eyes turn to you.

“who was that?” yeonjun asks, tone casual, but there’s a…jealous? edge to his question. you’re looking into things too much — there’s no way he’s jealous right now. 

“...my ex,” and it hurts you to admit it. his eyes darken as he utters a soft “oh.” you sigh, “yeah.”

he won’t look at you anymore. why won’t he? you didn’t do anything wrong. you had no control over beomgyu showing up. he purses his lips. “are you gonna meet up with him?”

your head shakes on its own, words escaping before you can think about them. “i don’t know, yeonjun.” 

“okay.” biting his lip, he turns so that he faces the space needle again, stepping away from you. you feel like strangers again, an ocean of distance between you bodies. “yeah, okay.”

*:･

you don’t meet up with beomgyu.

meanwhile, yeonjun is nowhere to be found. after the beomgyu incident, the two of you waited in tense silence for your other friends to return. he then made up some lame excuse to leave, and didn’t turn back when you called his name. you haven’t seen him for the rest of the day, even when you return to the train. he won’t respond to your texts. eventually, you stop sending them; he obviously needs space for whatever reason, so you will give him it. 

the terrible, painful thought of ruining everything you had with him sits in the forefront of your mind, taunting you. the girls try to distract you, showing you silly tiktoks and youtube videos and the like, but you simply offer them a half-hearted huff each time. once you explain what transpired while they were gone, however, their tune changes a bit. 

“y/n, i’m going to be very honest, and i need you not to take it personally,” sakura replies. though your head lays on top of your folded arms, you signal that you are listening with a bob of your head. she continues, “your response wasn’t the best. it probably confused him, and now he doesn’t know if you’re still hung up on this guy or not. if one of his exes came up to him while with you, and he told you he didn’t know if he was going to meet up with them later or not, how would you feel?”

“shitty,” you mumble into your forearm. 

“exactly. so give him space for now, and when he reaches out, explain and apologize. you owe him that much.” sakura sounds just like jennifer — they’d definitely get along. 

“i know. i will.”

the waiter comes around with water, and you order a strong cocktail to go along with your dinner.

day ten.

“has he texted you back yet?” sakura asks for the thousandth time today.

when you shoot her a defeated glare, she gets her answer. no, of course he hasn’t. he hasn’t responded to you since he left. “you said to give him space.”

“yeah, but i didn’t know he’d fall off the face of the earth,” she shoots back. sighing, you tip your head back against the wall next to her bed. a lake passes outside, surrounded by tall grass and trees. small hills rise behind the blue expanse, but you don’t feel the same urge to grab your sketchbook and translate the view onto the page anymore. it’s funny, how easily one person can affect your mood, turn everything upside down with the mere lack of his presence in your life. 

“he just needs time.” chaewon opens a can of soda with a pop! and takes a sip. “maybe it affected him more than we realize.”

“‘cause that makes me feel sooo much better.” sarcasm drips from your voice. “i’m such a fucking idiot.”

there’s a half-day stop in glacier national park tomorrow. will you see him, or is he going to avoid you for the rest of this trip? will you ever see him again? the emotions that swirl within you are reminiscent of how you felt before you met him. that grayness. that sinking sensation festering in your chest that claws it’s way down into your stomach and shreds it apart. you said that you wanted to burn, you wanted it to hurt, but this feels all too fast. too much.

sakura makes a noise in disagreement. “no, it shows that he cares about you. you just have to make sure you clear things up with him, and tell him that you like—”

“if you’re going to tell me that i need to confess my feelings to him, i really don’t think i can do that.”

“why?” chaewon prods. “what’s stopping you? he obviously likes you too.”

beomgyu. beomgyu is the fucking reason why. you can’t bare your heart to someone again, lest you get hurt all over again. after all that has happened, if yeonjun doesn’t reciprocate, it will confirm your worst fears — that you aren’t built to receive love, no matter how hard you try to mold yourself into a person that is deserving. dread churns in your stomach, rises into your throat like bile, acidic and fervid, as thoughts of worst case scenarios where you pour your heart only to hear “sorry, i don’t feel the same way.” you can’t do it. you can’t allow yourself to spiral again. however, you don’t divulge your reasons for holding back, remaining silent as you trace the patterns on the ceiling. 

after a deep, shuddering sigh, you give them a three word explanation: “i don’t know.”

day eleven.

stepping off of the train into fresh air sharpens your dulled senses. the national park is beautiful, for lack of better words; thickets of trees spreading out in all directions as far as the see. the sun is rising over the mountains that stretch high above your head — you’re starting to enjoy this view more than the lifeless skyscrapers that await you back home. the train station looks more like a little lodge than an actual station, but you appreciate its quaint character. reddish-brown wood makes up the majority of the small-scale building. it looks like a place where people would spend the night in, with a warm, cozy fireplace in the wintertime, and wide open windows in the summer to allow the refreshing breeze to waft in.

meandering down the path behind the station into a field of tall grass littered with bunches of tiny, white flowers, you begin to reflect on everything that has happened on this trip. originally, you went on this stupid trip with the goal to find inspiration, and last night you had a very important realization: yeonjun is that something — you started drawing again because of him, you started looking on the bright side of things because of him, and most important of all, you fell for him. you didn’t just fall for him in the way an artist falls for their muse, no. you fell for him as a person. getting to know him has been one of the best parts of your trip, but now all of that has gone down the drain because yeonjun hasn’t responded to you in over twenty-four hours and you have not a clue what to do to try to make things right. if he doesn’t wish to speak to you, then that’s that. it’s over. whatever momentum this fleeting relationship had has been effectively pummeled into the dust that would blow away with even the gentlest of breezes. 

you wish you could appreciate this view more. your paints sit in your backpack back in your room, out of sight so that you don’t have to think about them, nor hear their pleas to be used. although you now know why you lack the drive to paint and draw and generally create once again, no clear-cut solution to your problem comes to mind. instead, you wander through the grass towards a large, squatty boulder, climb on top of it, and plop down. your knees curl up towards your chest while your arms wrap around them, fingers tracing random patterns against your shins. fatigue solidifies in your bones, but the tranquility of the early morning the quiet tucks a blanket of peace over your body, swaddling the edges around you, cocooning you in.

you sit there, taking in the sounds and sights of nature, for hours. the chirping of birds sings a melody over the whisper of trees in the breeze. a deer leaps across the open field, disappearing into the trees, her fawn following close behind. bighorn sheep graze in the distance, their circular horns reminding you of cornucopias. 

the rustle of trees and grass obscure the sound of approaching footsteps from your ears. it’s not until yeonjun begins to climb onto the boulder that you notice him. you hug your legs tighter to your body as he sits next to you, but not too close. an invisible wall separates you. he does not look remotely near your direction, his focus far out in the trees. staring at him, you wonder what to say. i’m sorry? i have feelings for you?

“i never met up with him.”

he still doesn’t spare you a glance. assuming he wants you to continue, you do. “i don’t know why i said what i said, but it was shitty of me to put you in that position, and i wanted to say that i’m sorry. i was just shocked, i guess. to see him. he ruined my perception of a lot of things, jjun.” jjun. that’s a new one. you are quite unsure where it came from, it slipped out before you could think. no matter, he’s looking at you now, and it’s your turn to look out towards the horizon. “trust, commitment, love…”

his gaze burns into your temple. you take a deep breath, fingers clenching the fabric of your jeans. “they’ve all been ruined for me. it’s hard for me to trust anyone after what he did. i’m terrified that the people i grow close to will wake up one day and leave me without a word. i’m scared that i’ll never get the closure i deserve when they do. worst of all, i’ve stopped believing that love is in the cards for me, like there has to be something wrong with me for him to have left me like that—”

“don’t. don’t you dare say that about yourself.” whipping your head around, you finally meet eyes for the first time in nearly two days. they aren't soft like they usually are when they look at you, but hardened, guarded. “there’s nothing wrong with you. you have every right to be hurt, and he’s honestly a piece of shit for doing that to you, but it’s unfair to assume that everyone that comes after him will be just like him.”

“i know, and i’m sorry. i know you’re not like him.” he doesn’t respond, and you begin to chew at the inside of your cheek. you watch an ant crawl its way across the rock beneath you. the small insect disappears over the edge. 

silence. you begin to count the seconds. one, two, three, four—

“i’m sorry for not texting you back. i just needed time to think about things. a lot of things,” he starts. “i felt weird, for some reason. didn’t know how to talk to you about it.”

you offer him a tight-lipped smile. “no, i understand. i forgive you.”

important words remain unspoken, but both of you refuse to address them. instead, his hand finds yours, he links your fingers with his, and both of you peacefully watch the sheep graze across the field.

day twelve.

not everything is fixed yet. 

despite being on speaking terms again, strain pulls your relationship taut. the unspoken words from yesterday hang heavy in the air, but you can’t bring yourself to give them a voice. you want to. your voice won’t work every time you try.

sitting next to yeonjun on his bed, you scroll through various forms of social media, bookmarking work that you find particularly interesting in between catching up on your friends’ posts. jennifer has been thoroughly caught up on what’s been going on after a long overdue apology for not responding to her texts. she understood, of course she did. she’s known you long enough to know how you can shut down whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed. 

“i’m proud of you for telling him. i know it’s hard for you to share, honey,” she cooed to you over the phone last night. “but you need to tell him how you feel before it’s too late.”

you know that. you know damn well that once you get off this train, it may all fall apart, a budding romance distinguished by reality. there’s no security, no safety net for you to fall into if you take the leap, and while he showed you an inkling of how he felt yesterday, who’s to say he’ll feel that way tomorrow? the next day? are you willing to tear your heart open for him to consume if there’s still a chance of him throwing it away when all is said and done? 

you don’t know the answer to that question. honestly, you don’t know the answer to a lot of those questions, stuck in this state of self-imposed purgatory. to rise or fall, what is the best choice? you don’t fucking know.

“is that yours?” he asks from over your shoulder, at a ceramic piece in your feed made by one of jennifer’s acquaintances. his breath snakes warmly over the expanse of your neck due to his proximity, his head so close you could turn and just kiss him— 

stop it. 

“oh, no. um.” you shift away from him slightly. distance. some distance feels more comfortable right now. “i don’t sculpt. i just paint, and draw.”

he makes an ahhh of understanding, leaning back onto his palms, the mattress sinking down with his weight. he’s staring at you like he expects something from you. what shall you give him? when you don’t say anything further, he does. 

“can i see some of yours, then?” it’s an innocent enough request. rather than simply press on your account, your fingers move on their own until you reach your gallery. why? are you really about to bare your soul to him? you guess so, because he’s gently taking your phone from your fingers after gaining quiet permission from you. 

he asks you questions as he pulls up certain pieces. the thought process behind each one, what made you do this, place that color there, how you came up with the composition, what the meaning of it all is. you try your best to explain each one. sometimes, your choices were the product of spontaneity. you thought yellow would look nice at that spot, so you put some there. her nose is crooked because it gives the piece more character. the color of the drapes in the background are blue for no particular reason other than the fact that your reference photo had blue drapes. you continue in a cycle of question, answer, question, answer, and some of your answers are more emotional than others. you remember where you were, both physically and mentally, when making all of these. you remember the ones you made when you were having a bad day, the ones where you felt like you were on the top of the world. 

then, he pulls up one that you wish he didn’t. it was buried so deep into your gallery that you have no idea how he found it — your most dreaded hyperrealism piece: a woman lays on her back, hair fading into the foreboding, void-like background. her face is twisted up into an abject sadness, a deep-seated pain that even now, you have no idea how you captured so vividly. her veiny left hand is splayed next to her head, thin crimson threads tied to each finger so tight that she has begun to bleed. the strings fall limp beside her, severed from their counterparts that meander off of the canvas. more red threads loop their way around her neck, pulled taut as if to choke her — and to her throat, she holds a pair of sharp-pointed scissors, hand gripping the metal tight enough to pale her knuckles. 

it’s dark. it’s terribly dark and you wish he never saw it. why did he have to see it? why did he have to choose that one? the world tilts on its axis as he stares down at the picture of your most soul-baring work, though you think it would be worse if he saw the actual painting in person.

“what’s the story behind this one?” he asks quietly. your lungs expel all air, and you’re left gaping for more. breathe, come on, you have to breathe. your inhale is shaky, shuddered. breathe. say something.

“that one…” your voice trails off into something quiet. scared. “i made it when i was in a really— really dark place mentally, um. i made it mostly because—”

he’s looking at you now, concern shining in his irises, but you push on. 

“because i stopped believing in fate.”

while you could say more, you stop yourself there. you hate digging — digging into your deepest fears and emotions that you keep locked behind a wall so that you never have to feel them. a pandora’s box sits in the center of your heart, wrapped with chains to keep them imprisoned. somehow, though, you think yeonjun knows what you really want to say: you meeting each other wasn’t fate to you, but a gross series of coincidences, and when he asks if you think so, you simply nod.

“but out of everyone on this train, i met you. i got to know you — shouldn’t that mean something? can’t that be considered fate?” he presses. something akin to desperation laces his words, an urgency you’ve never heard from him. 

it sure feels like fate, doesn’t it? after all of those times that you ran into him, how he found you in the observation car when it was just you in there, how your feelings have unfolded like taking apart a paper crane in the short nine days you have known each other — it feels like it should be fate, you want to admit that all of it does seem like the universe’s divine intervention. maybe you running away was really just you trying to deny your fate to meet yeonjun while on this train. maybe him finding you was fate, an apology from whatever is above for what they put you through a year and a half ago.

“i think—” you hesitate. “i think so. it’s hard for it not to when i feel like i’ve known you my entire life.”

and you sit there and he’s smiling at you like you just created the earth with your bare hands. chicago passes outside the window. the sun shines high in the sky over the high rises, glints across glass panes and into his room. all you have is one more day on this train, and most of it will be spent sleeping tonight. he’ll wait for you tomorrow, right? would he wait for you forever?

“you know, i tell most people that my name is daniel.”

tilting your head, you echo, “daniel?” 

he hums as he scoots a bit closer, planting his feet on the floor next to yours and leaning forward. his knees support his elbows as he stares down at the floor. “it’s my english name. i used it when i was in college, i use it for my work, but for some reason, when i met you, my actual name, my given name, came out instead. call me silly, but i think my heart knew you’d become someone special to me. i wanted you to use my actual name — the one my parents call me. the one my closest friends call me.”

“oh.” why does your chest feel so tight right now? 

he sucks his lips behind his teeth for a moment. “yeah.”

sitting there, you wonder how you should respond to that. words expelled like an exhale of air, colliding with each other in front of your eyes, unable to be unscrambled by your mind. this time, it’s you who reaches over, closing the distance between you with a hand over his. his palm flips open to meet your own, your fingers linking together like matching puzzle pieces. you take a deep breath, and squeeze. 

“thank you,” you whisper. thank you for being here. thank you for helping me find myself again.

day twelve (point five). 

“i’m gonna miss you guys so much!” 

chaewon is basically on the verge of tears at this point, constantly blubbering how she is going to miss hanging out with you every day as she pulls you and sakura in for a hug over and over again. sakura laughs as she pulls away for the thousandth time this afternoon. “girl, it’s gonna be okay. we’re gonna meet up for coffee soon, right?”

she looks towards you, and you give an enthusiastic nod. “right. i’ll invite my friend too. she said she’d love to meet you guys.” 

chaewon’s pout doesn’t vanish, but she looks a little less emotional after all of your reassurances. blinking back the remnants of her tears, she nods with a watery “okay.”

you bring her in for one more hug while sakura asks, “have you seen him yet?” 

“no, i haven’t heard from him since last night.” your teeth worry your bottom lip, peeling a piece of raised skin off. the sensation stings. 

her lips purse sympathetically, a hand being placed on your shoulder. “i doubt he’d leave without saying something to you, don’t worry. he has to be around here somewhere.”

“yeah, you’re probably right.” as chaewon pulls away, you check your phone again. no texts or calls yet. doubt ricochets around in your brain, but you know yeonjun; he wouldn’t do that to you. 

“i’d love to wait with you, but my manufacturer is pissed i didn’t call them back yesterday, so i should get going,” sakura admits with an apologetic smile. her fingers squeeze your shoulder one time before her arm drops back to her side. 

“i should go too,” chaewon sadly adds, kicked puppy eyes in full effect. “my cat is waiting for me. my friend said she was a little demon the whole time i was gone.”

“it’s okay,” you laugh, shooing them away jokingly. “you guys can go. i’ll be fine.” 

with a last group hug, they grab their suitcases and head towards the hallway that connects the train station to the subway lines. sakura twirls around, walking backwards as she calls, “keep us updated! we need to know everything,”

“of course!” you yell back, grin widening. chaewon turns back too to wave, and you wave back. eventually, the crowd swallows them up, and you are left alone to wait. a few minutes pass, and you realize that this sea of people will likely make it impossible for either of you to find each other. his contact is pulled up on your phone, your thumb hovering the call button. you look around one more time—

and he’s standing right there, mere feet in front of you, in all of his glory, long hair still flopping into his face, eyes still dreamy and all-consuming. you stand there for a moment, simply staring at each other with stupid, goofy grins overtaking your faces. long legs carry him over to you, and before you know it, you’re wrapped up in his arms and pulled into his strong chest. you bury your head into the side of his neck, inhaling the scent of his cologne.

“thank god,” he murmurs into the crown of your head. “i thought you might have left already.”

pulling back, you fix him with an incredulous stare. “what in the world made you think that? i was waiting for you.”

his ears tint an opaque red, the raised apples of his cheeks flushed a similar hue. he’s bewitching, and despite knowing that since the very first day — the day that you drew him for the first time — there’s so much more to him than looks to you now. he’s beautiful in both body and soul, in heart and head. one hand removes itself from your middle to cup your jaw, steadying your gaze with yours. your heart pounds, knees weak like a newborn doe’s as he stares deep into your eyes. blinding are the emotions swirling in his dark irises, but it doesn’t burn anymore. it’s more like the caress of the sun in the springtime, bright yet gentle in its own right. 

“this feels long overdue for me to say,” he begins, eyes closing as if to steel himself. when he opens them again, resolve has been added to the mix. “but i have feelings for you. i’ve never fallen for someone so quickly. i’ve never met someone like you, and i just— i knew, from the very day that i saw you, that we’d have something to do with each other. and then we kept running into each other, and i just thought wow, this has to be—”

“yeonjun,” you call, interrupting his ramblings. he pauses, eyes wide and anticipatory, as your hand moves up to cover his on your jaw. you can’t help the tremble in your lips as you speak. “i feel the same way.”

his lips purse, hiding a smile, before he surges forward and embraces you for a second time. the pure, unadulterated joy that the action brings you is like nothing you’ve ever felt before, and you’re almost…sad, when he pulls away.

“can i take you out on a date?”

the question throws you off kilter, and you have to catch yourself before you fall face first into his chest. “like, right now? with our suitcases and everything?”

“i’ve done much worse,” he chuckles, ruffling his hair, only for the locks to fall back down into his eyes. “but i meant later today, maybe? around six? i have to go take care of some things i neglected before i left.” 

“that sounds wonderful,” you gush. despite your best efforts in keeping your excitement to a minimum, you bounce up onto your toes for second, heels sinking back onto the floor. you swear he mumbles a quiet “cute” under his breath before he’s slipping his hand into yours.

“perfect,” he beams, before he playfully continues. “shall we be off to the subway then, my lady?”

giggling, you fall into step next to him, your arm swinging with his between you. “we shall.”

*:･

he’s right on time to pick you up, dressed casually but not too casually. a cool beige, short-sleeved button-up is tucked into a pair of straight-legged black jeans that stop at his waist. the chunky converse on his feet cause him to be a bit taller than usual. evidently, he is distracted by his phone, head ducked down as he waits for you to show up.

“yeonjun!” you call out, causing his head to snap up. once he does, you find that he’s somewhat styled his hair back — most of it has been swooped back towards his ears. a few strands fall into his face, but his forehead is fully exposed, and he looks…amazing. sometimes, you wish you were a poet instead, because then you’d have the words describe what you were feeling, what you were seeing. his jaw drops at the sight of you, dolled up in a jean skirt and frilly tank top over a thin long sleeve, your makeup soft and flattering to your features. 

“hi,” he breathes, and you repeat the greeting back to him. “you look…wow.”

“thanks,” you, biting your glossy lip. as his focus flits down to where your teeth dig into the soft flesh, you shyly smile, releasing it. a shock runs through you, new and carnal and it warms your stomach when he bites down on his own lip for a split second. “um, i know we didn’t really talk about where we were going to go, but there’s a thai place down the street from here, if you wanna go there? it’s my favorite.”

“of course,” he accepts, offering his arm to you. you loop your own through, standing close to him with your fingers pressing into the crook of his elbow. “lead the way.”

now that neither of you feel the need to skirt around your feelings, silence no longer lingers between pauses in conversation — both of you are able to pick it back up with ease. you meant it when you said that you feel like you’ve known him your whole life, and it reflects in the way you banter with him without worry or care. it’s…nice, freeing, not having to think too hard about what you’re about to say. natural. everything with him feels so natural. 

when both of you are sated, in both terms of food and conversation, he offers to walk you back to your apartment. the sun is beginning to set, and the sky has faded into a wash of rosy pink. the hue reflects the giddy feeling churning in your chest, rendering you light-headed and dizzy and fuck you just want to kiss him—

and he does. standing in front of your apartment building, he swoops down and captures your lips with his. slow, unhurried, his lips taste sweet like thai tea and are as soft as clouds. no one leads the other, no one moves to deepen the kiss. no, instead, you and yeonjun savor the taste of each other, the syrupy, vertiginous feeling of your first kiss together. when he pulls away, his lips have a slightly swollen quality to them, though you’re sure own look the same. you don’t want him to leave yet. you want more, you want something carnal and irrepressible that, by the way he’s looking at you, he wants too. playing with the locks of hair at the nape of his neck, you pant against his lips. “come inside with me, please?”

soft eyes darken, and he takes your breath away once more with another kiss, hands squeezing your waist. once he separates your lips from his, he rests his forehead against yours. nerves flutter in your stomach. “okay.” 

you find it terribly difficult to keep your hands off of him as you unlock your door, as it shuts behind you. for a minute, you stand there, waiting for something, anything to happen — then he’s crowding you in against your door and his lips are on your again. although there remains an air of softness, urgency fills the gaps where your lips don’t quite meet as they meld together, his tongue slipping into your mouth to curl with your own. your shoulder blades press into the cool wood of your door, the warmth of his body against your front a dizzying contrast to your scattered mind — but you want more. you want him.

when he slips a knee between your legs and knocks them apart, you let him. when he presses that knee into your core, encourages you to grind against it, you let him, you listen. whining into his mouth, you tug at his shirt, at his belt loops, his hair — anything you can get your hands on, you’re pulling at it, grinding down harder as his jeans rub your soaked panties against your aching pearl. a cry rips itself from your throat, mouth leaving as your head is thrown back against the door. “y-yeonjun—”

“patience, love. i’m gonna make you feel good,” he mumbles as he ravages your neck, nipping and sucking at the soft skin. his hands have snuck beneath your shirt and smooth over your stomach up to the cups of your bra, squeezing the flesh over the fabric. as you raise you arms, he helps you pull your top off, the article thrown onto the floor without ceremony or care. his hands loop behind your back, fiddling with your bra clasp. “can i?”

“please,” you keen, and he wastes no time in doing so, expert fingers sliding the straps down your arms until your bra, too, lays on the floor. lips find your right nipple, enveloping the pebbled flesh in a warm wetness that causes your back to arch into him. one hand pulls you into him, while the other tweaks your other tit. his teeth graze it, and the stinging edge of painful pleasure causes you to shiver. he hums, vibrations causing you to moan his name louder, plead for him to do more. leaving your breast, his mouth kisses and laps at the skin of your stomach. down, down, down, until he drops to his knees in front of you, swiftly unzipping your skirt and pulling it off of you. lips find your thighs, biting down lightly, and you squeak, hand finding his hair and pulling. he looks up at your through his lashes, absolutely depraved and almost drooling for more. you gulp, legs almost giving out under you as you smooth your hand over his hair, pushing the strands that have fallen into his face back. “can we— can we move to the bed?”

immediately, he stands, pulling you behind him before he’s placing you onto the edge of your bed with great care. before he can fall to his knees again, you curl your shaking fingers into his shirt. “take this off? i wanna see you.”

with a huff of a chuckle, he does as you ask, revealing a toned stomach, broad shoulders, muscled arms. your tongue darts across your lips as you drink him in, causing him to smirk. “like what you see, pretty?”

“y-yes,” you stutter out, quiet and wanting and full of lecherous need. your thighs attempt to squeeze together in order to provide some relief to your pulsating core, but his legs stop them from fully closing. his fingers find your jaw, squeezing the flesh. your cheeks heat up. 

“so fucking cute.” the praise sends a white hot streak through your stomach and into your center. your face is on absolute fire now, vision growing hazy around the edges as you watch him sink down between your thighs, your panties quickly discarded to reveal your center to his eyes. two fingers trace your folds before dipping beneath them to find your entrance. his eyes widen at what he finds, fingers coming back up coated in your wetness, glinting against his fingertips and knuckles in the light streaming in through your windows. “you’re so wet, baby. this all for me? a little kissing got you this needy?”

“mhm— oh,” you gasp when he brings the fingers to his mouth, sucking on them lewdly as he refuses to tear his gaze from yours. he moans at your taste, hot tongue swiping up the remnants that accidentally smeared onto the corner of his lips once he removes his fingers. his smirk returns, hands sliding under your ass to pull you closer to the edge of the bed, closer to his mouth. you sit up on your elbows to watch him kiss his way up your inner thigh, hands holding you open for him. there’s nowhere for you to hide, as he traces your folds with his tongue, dipping into your entrance and swiping up to your clit. crying out, your fingers find his hair in an ironclad grip. he groans against your pearl, your hips bucking up into his face before his arms snake around each thigh and hold you still. he alternates between circling the bud with his tongue and sucking it between his plush lips, spit pooling at the corners of his mouth as he loses himself in your taste. meanwhile, you’re already so close to the edge, you can feel your walls begin to clench around nothing, your hips jumping up as far as he allows. as he dips down to your entrance, his nose bumps against your clit, but his tongue is back in no time to continue its assault on your poor little clit. “jjun, ‘m gonna, please, ‘m gonna—”

“cum,” he mumbles against you. “cum f’me, pretty girl.”

with his permission, your head falls onto your sheets, eyes rolling into the back of your head as your vision spots white. cries pour from your lips like honey for him to drink, but you never quite come down fully. rather, he keeps circling his tongue against your clit through your high, and as your orgasm subsides, another one already begins to build. tears prick your eyes as you plead, “jjun, no, can’t, i can’t, nonono— i can’t!”

“yes, you can,” he murmurs, removing his arm from your right thigh. his lips don’t leave your clit as you feel two fingers slip into your soaked entrance, smoothly thrusting in and out and curling up into your upper wall until he finds that soft spot inside you that has your voice shattering into shards of moans and staccato wails. he groans against you as he feels your walls clench, the pace of his fingers unforgiving as he coaxes another mind-shattering orgasm from your body. your fingers flutter around his walls, watery hiccups torn from your throat. this time, he slows down, helps you ride out your high, before he removes his fingers, licking his lips of your essence as he does. climbing onto the bed, he hovers over you, taking in your spit-slick lips and tear-lined eyes. he wipes the tears away with gentle motions, cooing when you whine. he sits there until you come back to him, lucidity shining in your eyes as you blink them open. smiling, you pull him in for a languid kiss, tasting yourself on his tongue before he pulls away. 

when he caresses your cheek with his thumb, asking you if you’re okay, you lean into his touch, “mhm, want you to fuck me.”

“i can do that,” he laughs, causing you to reciprocate. standing, he slips his jeans and boxers down his thighs until he’s left in nothing, hardened cock veiny and flushed an angry red. you think it’s an average length, on the thicker side, the girth causing your mouth to water. as he runs his hands up your thighs, he asks, “d’you have any condoms, love?”

while you’d rather him fuck you raw, you know it’s safer this way. you point towards your nightstand. “there.”

as he fetches one, you scoot into the middle of the bed, watching him roll it on before he returns between your thighs, pumping his cock once, twice, lining it up with your entrance. his free hand grips your waist, watching as you move your hips to try to slide him into you. smirking, he presses his hips forward, cockhead dipping past your entrance. both of you moan at the sensation. slowly, he works his cock into you, little rolls of his hips until he’s seated fully within you, hips flush against your pelvis. 

“move,” you whine. “please move.” and that’s all it takes for him to swiftly pull out and slide back in again. as he thrusts into you again and again, his movements grow rougher, the tip of his cock brushing against your g-spot each time. moaning, you reach up towards him, forcing him to lean over you so you can kiss him again, swallowing each other’s sounds. he’s just as loud as you, praises falling naturally between his breathy moans. 

“feel s’good, baby. so fuckin’ tight and wet f’me. so unreal. d’you feel good, too?” he coos against the shell of your ear, warm breath curling against your necks. your walls clench around him at his desperate sounds.

“s-so good, jjunie,” you hum, feeling your third high of the night approaching. the knot in your stomach grows tighter as his thrusts grow sloppy, chasing his high as much as you are. a thumb moves down to rub your sensitive clit, quick little circles against the bud until your limbs are locking up, quaking as you finally cum around him. a few seconds later, his high hits him as well, his hips quivering as he spills into the rubber with a loud groan. 

slowly, he pulls out, ridding himself of the condom and soon returning to the bed to plop down next to you. arms pull you in close as you both pant and grin tiredly at each other, basking in the quiet that permeates the air, and he stares at you, dulcet eyes boring into yours. 

“what’re you thinking about?” you decide to ask, poking the center of his sweat-beaded forehead. taking a moment to respond, he pulls you even closer so that your noses almost touch. 

“it’s just— there’s this concept in korean — inyeon,” the timbre of his voice raises slightly as he switches to his native tongue, and lowers again when he switches back to english. “that, um, it means…”

his cheeks are growing the slightest bit pink, a shade that reflects the cotton candy clouds that float past your windows. squeezing his hand, you silently urge him to continue, soft gaze finding his own. a gentle kiss pressed to his cheek, his jaw, naked skin pressed against naked skin. together, whole, one.

he starts again, “there’s no direct translation, but it basically is fate. strings of fate. i truly believe the universe has connected us in some way, whether it be through some invisible red string or another force. and i know, i know what you said about fate, but i can’t stop thinking about how we found each other. there’s something beautiful about starting off as strangers and getting here. i don’t know, i’m just rambling at this point,” he chuckles, burying his nose into the pillow under his head. “i’ve just never felt this way about someone before. i’m sorry.”

with a gentle hand, you cup the side of his face, forcing him to look back at you. “don’t be sorry, that’s beautiful, and i think—” you sigh, blinking back tears that threaten to fall. “i think you’ve changed my mind about fate. i’ve also never felt this way about someone before. i feel like you know me on some level that no one else does. you just. you just get it, and i—” 

you don’t think this is quite love yet, but you believe what you’re feeling within your chest, tingling all over your body, is as close as you’ve ever gotten to it. he smiles, whispers a small, soft, “i know,” and lips find lips once more. hands find hands, and you feel alive. you feel like everything that you see is now in vivid technicolor, no longer masked by a veil of gray.

and when you wake up tomorrow, you think that you’re going to start a new painting.

© to agustdiv1ne. do not copy, repost, steal, and/or translate.

[thorinds]

1000 Books You May Have Actually Read

[kensatou]

studio trigger understood the assignment. i would let her wreck me.

[cirrus-grey]