#Painted Skin 2 Resurrection

[yurigoggles]

Vid - My Name [Painted Skin II]

Vid - The Fox & The Princess | PAINTED SKIN II RESURRECTION

DOWNLOAD later Don’t try to think! I just love beautiful thing! And this movie is beautiful! Forget about everything else, okay? Ja

[mhearaithedreamer]

I just cannot stop myself from repeatedly watching this movie. Especially the subtle way the director said ' Yeah, they are in love. The guy is just here.'

Still working on this one, but considering I started yesterday, I feel like I'll have fun.

[ziseviolet]

Hi! I have a question. Im not entirely sure if these belong to chinese fashion because I only ever saw them in uncredited pictures. Theyre very intricate "eye patches", seemingly made from like gold or metal? they cover only one eye and I was wondering if they have a name or if its something made up? thank you for all your work!

Hi, thanks for the question, and sorry for taking ages to reply! (x)

The intricate gold/metal "eye patches" covering only one eye that you see are most likely based on "半面妆/Ban Mian Zhuang" ("Half Face Makeup"), a popular Chinese novel written by 萧十一狼/Xiao Shi Yi Lang and published in 2015. Well-known Chinese gufeng-style illustrator 古戈力/Gu Ge Li provided beautiful artwork for the novel, as seen below (1, 2):

Gu Ge Li's artwork inspired many hanfu photoshoots with ornate eyemasks (1, 2, 3, 4, 5):

These eyemasks are essentially made-up fantasy masks with Chinese elements incorporated into the design. They are not based on historical Chinese masks, which look very different. Thus you can just call them 面具/mianju, which is the general Chinese term for masks.

On a related note, similar types of fantasy masks also appear frequently in Chinese guzhuang (period costume) films & dramas, especially in the wuxia and xianxia genres. As @audreydoeskaren touched on in this post, these masks are typically not historically accurate, but are included for aesthetic effect (like many other elements in guzhuang media).

Below - fantasy masks in Chinese film/dramas. Clockwise from top left: women - Painted Skin: The Resurrection, Legend of Nine Tails Fox, The Empress of China, The Blue Whisper; men - Love and Redemption, Xuan-Yuan Sword: Scar of Sky, The Untamed, Battle Through the Heavens:

Deriving inspiration from art and television, fantasy masks have become a popular accessory for hanfu photoshoots.

For more examples of Chinese masks (both historical & fantasy), please see my masks and eyemask tags.

Hope this helps! ^^

[bluejaysandblackbats]

A Stone's Throw

Fandom: DC Comics, Batfam

Summary: The night Jason wakes up in the convalescent home, he's accompanied by his favorite nurse (Nurse Kathy). Nurse Kathy follows her instincts and decides to foster him in the nearby city of Blüdhaven. Soon, her partner and roommates become Jason's new family despite hopes that he'll regain his memories.

Chapters: 2/?

Characters: Jason Todd, Original Characters, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon

Additional Tags: Disabled Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne Doesn't Know Jason Todd is Alive, Angst, Fluff, Found Family, Jason Todd Has a Foster Family AU, Jason Todd Moves to Blüdhaven, Original Asexual Characters, Original Lesbian Characters, Amnesiac Jason Todd, "Missed Him By That Much" Trope, Hurt/Comfort, Resurrected Jason Todd

Chapter Two: To Blüdhaven

Boxes piled high by the front door of Kathy’s apartment usually would’ve made her sad, but these boxes signaled a warmer beginning and not an end. She tightened her scarf as she dusted the mantle and ceiling fan, standing on a stepping stool to complete her task. “You’re in good spirits this morning,” her male roommate smiled. He kissed her cheek and sat at the piano, warming up before playing Raindrops by Clifford Borg. “Moving day is upon us!”

Kathy grinned and stepped down. “Daniel, I made lunch for the movers… Do you think that’s a bit much?” Kathy questioned. 

“Oh no… Everyone makes paper bag lunches for movers,” Daniel teased her. She stuck her tongue out at him. “You’re a doll, Katherine. They’ll love it. You make the most beautiful lunches. If only you’d do it for yourself. What’s on your mind, Mummy?” 

“I won’t be his mother… He probably has a mother out there somewhere,” Kathy mumbled. Daniel walked over and wrapped his arms around her. 

“You’ll be his mother in the meantime… And who knows? He might choose you even after he remembers,” Daniel smiled, “How’s he been?” 

Kathy frowned, freeing herself from his comforting embrace to move boxes from the bedroom to the living room. “He’s always crying when I see him… And my supervisor isn’t there all the time to look out for him. I didn’t want to say anything because—.” 

“You didn’t want to think about it because we can’t speed up the moving date… Katherine… I’m sorry—.” 

“You didn’t know. The move to Blüdhaven should be a good thing, though. Shouldn’t it?” Kathy questioned. 

“You worry too much—.” 

“No, but what if he’s from Gotham and—. Maybe I’ll drive him out every weekend to take him on walks through the city,” said Kathy. Daniel took a large box from her, setting it aside. 

“The house in Blüdhaven is more accessible and much larger than anything we’d get here,” Daniel replied, “And Gotham isn’t the safest place for a kid like him. Blüdhaven isn’t much safer, but hey… Maybe the schools are better.” 

“School! Oh, god, Daniel… I have a meeting with his school tomorrow—.” 

“You rescheduled for Monday… Remember?” Daniel whispered. Kathy relaxed, pressing her forehead into Daniel’s shoulder. 

“Daniel, has anyone ever told you how important you are?” Kathy asked.

“Only from you, which means Lover and I have to talk,” Daniel half-joked. Kathy’s nose crinkled as she closed-eye smiled at him. Daniel kissed her cheek. They lugged the remaining boxes to the truck, and Daniel opened the car door for her. 

“I’m so nervous. Are you nervous?” Kathy questioned. 

Daniel gestured for Kathy to calm down, taking two hands with his palms facing down the length of his chest. “Breathe, Katherine. It’ll be alright soon. Once he’s with us, you’ll be fine. You’ve been that way since we were children,” Daniel questioned. The sun peeked through the clouds as a gust of wind blew past, rustling through the trees. The sky looked yellowish grey, painted by the smoke of the nearby factory. 

“I won’t miss the sulfur smell. I know that,” Daniel whispered. Kathy chuckled and nodded, trying to mask the persisting anxiety that buzzed beneath her skin. She slipped her shaking hands under her legs. “It’ll be nice to have a little fellow around.”

“He’s not so little anymore. I don’t think he’s realized that yet. A lot of time passed while he was comatose. He’s getting his balance back. His glasses have helped a lot,” Kathy replied. 

Daniel glanced at her as he followed the moving truck. Daniel popped a CD in and drummed on the dashboard. “Dodie called last night. I think he’s ready to talk about everything,” Daniel whispered. Kathy tensed. 

“Did we mess up, Daniel?” Kathy asked. 

“No, I think we were good parents… But—. I think it’ll take a while for it to sink in that we lied to protect him. This is a long drive, Katherine… You should call him. Let’s talk to him,” Daniel replied. Kathy nodded and frowned. “Together.” 

Kathy dialed the number, and let it ring twice before Dodie answered. “Hi, Ma,” Dodie mumbled. 

“Are you busy Dodie? I—. Dodie, I’m sorry, honey,” Kathy apologized. 

“Ma, I was mad at both of—. Is Dad there?” Dodie questioned. 

“I’m here, Dodie. Hi, Kiddo,” Daniel answered. 

“Good… Because I kinda owe you guys an apology. I know coming out to me was a big deal. I just—. No matter what was going on, you guys always put me first. I can’t begin to imagine what it was like for either of you. I guess I was upset because I felt like I never got the real Mom and Dad. I don’t know. I—. We all would’ve been different if you guys told me earlier. 

“Maybe—. I—. There’s so much I don’t know. How did I even—? I don’t—. Do I even want to know?” Dodie asked. 

“We were young, and we were curious. We realized almost immediately afterward that we’d mistaken our friendship for romance. We tried to move on, and we decided to keep pretending to be a couple. It seemed easier than coming out… And—.” 

“I told Daniel I was pregnant. We knew what we wanted to do. There was no question. We knew we’d love you… And to this day, you’re a testament to our friendship and how much we do love each other. Nothing has to change, Dodie,” Kathy added. 

“Well… Everything is a little different. Aren’t you guys dating people now?” Dodie questioned. 

“Well… Yes,” Daniel answered. 

“I want to meet them,” Dodie sternly replied. 

“Okay… Well, Walter’s in Blüdhaven. We won’t be there for a few hours but the house is pretty close to yours,” Daniel announced, “If you stop by and tell him who you are, he’ll let you in. I don’t when Sibyl—. Katherine, honey, when is Sibyl coming?”

“Oh… Um, she’s coming tonight. She’s done all the grocery shopping, so I’ll be able to make dinner. Oh! Dodie, sweetheart, can you stay for dinner?” Kathy replied. Dodie made a soft noise. “Dinner. Let’s do dinner. It’ll be good. We can all—. We can talk. You know about the little guy from the hospital? He’s coming home soon.”

“I’ll stay for dinner, Ma. I can’t stay over because I have work tomorrow morning, but I’d—. I’d like that… And I can take the day off with you to pick up the kid if you want me to,” Dodie offered. 

Daniel tapped her arm and nodded. “Oh, Dodie, that’s so sweet. I’d love that. I’m picking him up on Sunday. Can you do Sunday?” Kathy asked. 

“I can do Sunday. And Ma? Dad? I love you no matter what. You’re my parents, and I can’t stay mad at either of you. I want you to be happy if that counts for anything. I’m sorry I blew up when you guys came out,” Dodie apologized. 

“We—.”

“We—.” Kathy laughed and touched Daniel’s arm. 

“We love you, Dodie,” Daniel grinned. Kathy made a soft noise. She unwrapped a sandwich in her lunch box and held it up to Daniel’s mouth. He took a bite. Their intimacies outlasted their sham relationship. Things that were once pretend persisted as a declaration of love transcendent of romance while devoid of attraction. Their intimacy was platonic and unending.

[dangermousie]

In support of Hot General Summer (tm)

I realized that my recent poll not only lacked visual support but also left out a lot of my fave cdrama generals. So, in support of my Hot General Summer agenda:

Xiao Qi, Rebel Princess

Wei Wu Ji, Sound of the Desert

Ling Buyi, Love Like the Galaxy

Zhousheng Chen, One and Only

Zhao Yun, God of War Zhao Yun

Sima Yi, Secret of Three Kingdoms

Han De Rang, The Legend of Xiao Chuo

Zhan Beiye, Legend of Fuyao

Gao Chang Gong, Lan Ling Wang

Xiang Yu, Story of Han Dynasty

Cao Pi, The Advisors’ Alliance

Meng Tiang Fang, Ancient Terracotta War Situation

Chu Bei Jie, General and I

Zhu Zan, Jin Jiu Ling

Wolfie, The Wolf

Xiang Yu, Legend of Chu and Han

Cheng Yi, The Promise of Chang’an

Liu Xiu, Singing All Along

Huo Xin, Painted Skin the Resurrection

Meng Qi You, Glamorous Imperial Concubine

Yang Bros, The Young Warriors

Weng Gui, Princess Jieyou

Xiao Ping Zhang, Nirvana in Fire 2

Pei Zhao, Maiden Holmes

Ji Ye, Novoland Eagle Flag

Zhu Qi Zhen, Imperial Doctress (it’s a reach he’s an emperor. But he leads his force in battle and I wanted Wallace Huo there so...)

Yuan Ling, Lost Love in Times

Yi Xiao Chuan, The Myth

Gu Tingye, The Story of Ming Lan

Lu Bu, Three Kingdoms 2010

Xu Lingyi, The Sword and the Brocade

Yue Fei, Patriot Yue Fei

Xiang Yu, The Myth

Ping Zhang, Nirvana in Fire 2

Guo Jing, Legend of Condor Heroes 2008

Xiang Yu, The Legend of Qin

[loisfreakinglane]

@queenofattolia OOOOH MY FAVORITE THROUPLES!!!!!!!!! SMASH THAT READ MORE BUTTON

ben/maddie/ryn ~ siren (never forgive never forget that breakup, they were PERFECT. that show ended with season 2 and i will NEVER EVER EVER forgive season 3's crimes)

kala/rajan/wolfgang ~ sense8 (we were denied a full series arc of them getting together, but frankly i didn't feel it was rushed in the finale. it still felt organic TO ME, largely bc the chemistry between rajan and wolfgang was impeccable immediately)

eliot/hardison/parker ~ leverage (can you believe there's people who watch leverage that don't ship this?!!?!?! there are human beings out there who ship eliot/parker with zero hardison involvement. BAFFLED, FRIENDS)

angel/buffy/cordy ~ btvs/ats (i'm sorry this is based on my own brain falling into the depths of madness when s6/s3 were airing and i was banned from watching buffy so i was reading the transcripts on buffyworld and left to stew over how much i wanted buffy and dawn and tara to flee to la and never look back, while also falling in love with cangel and thinking about how much those three would fit perfectly together, buffy and cordy as two sides of the same coin, just always out of step with the others parallel heroic journey, how much bangel would work so much more for me when it's damaged adults coming together and also raising their impossible blue eyed kids together also connors never kidnapped also also faith moves into the hyperion too and gunn and fred never break up the end okay i'll stop now)

the princess, the prince, and the mermaid ~ the little mermaid (i was infected by the novel mermaid: a twist on the classic tail (heh) in my youth- christopher, lenia, and margrethe had a fascinating relationship i fell in love with. and now!!!!!!!! watching older adaptations of tlm, seeing the interactions between the three of them always intrigue me so hard. pre-disney the princess is allowed to be sweet and kind to the mermaid, if somewhat patronizing to the mute young girl. and when the mermaid fades away, her body in foam and her soul off to heaven, she lays a kiss on the grieving princess's head AND I DIE)

elizabeth/neal/peter ~ white collar (IT WAS SUCH A FUN TRIO I STAND BY THIS CHOICE! also at the time it was extraordinarily refreshing of fandom to not immediately despise and vilify the woman standing between their slash ship. and i adored the canon and the fanon so tbh! this will always stick out as a classique ot3 to me!)

irma/marion/miranda ~ picnic at hanging rock (why aren't we frolicking in oz, wearing white gowns and eating picnic treats RIGHT NOW? anyway they're in love, they're so in love they fell into an alternate dimension)

ann/ben/leslie ~ parks and recreation (am I the only person who was tearing my hair out during ann's search for a sperm donor bc why did leslie never offer up ben's specimen!?!?! she is OBSESSED with ann and way too invasive and beyond controlling and I think way too much about that episode where ben and ann are fighting over the wafflemaker for one of leslie's insane random holidays, then end it off by coming together to make leslie STOP with the incessant celebrations and presents? anyway they should have all wound up together. and not just bc chris was terrible)

huoxin/jing/xiaowei ~ painted skin the resurrection (the lady demon, the princess, and the bodyguard. this trio was EVERYTHING. the demon fixated on the princess and her heart, the princess desperately in love with her bodyguard turned general but clinging to shame over her facial scars, the general who runs from his failure to protect her. ADD IN BODYSWAP SHENANIGANS AND I LOSE MY MIND EVERY TIME.)

ezra/jules/richie ~ imposters (possibly partially queerplatonic bc i'm not exactly sure where jules lies on ye olde kinsey scale, but even if it's platonic on her part i'm incredibly in love with this trio and i SO see it as a working throuple LEAVE ME ALONE)

elizabeth/olive/william ~ professor marston and the wonder women (whether you believe the historical accuracy of this movie or not, this throuple is fucking awesome and i adooooooore them)

gwen/mj/peter ~ marvel comics (i'm so sick of thinking about spider-man rn bc *waves hand at mcu* HOWEVER it would feel disingenous to leave this off my list. i love these three, i love them together so much.)

alex/hal/tom ~ being human uk (the way these characters brought new life to this era of bhuk. these three are in LOVE)

chel/miguel/tulio ~ the road to el dorado (baby's first ot3)

kirk/spock/uhura ~ star trek (THE KELVIN TIMELINE!!!!!!!!!!! THEY'RE SO MUCH. still mourning a fic that was deleted off ao3....... sad bean bear city)

art/patrick/tashi ~ challengers (THEEEEEEEEEEEE PINNACLE! there are ppl who cast tashi as the villain of the story and think art and patrick will flee her when the credits roll, and i am so glad i am not surrounded by those types. this is a love story where every person is desperately needed to complete the triad. they just don't work without all 3 of them)

clark/lana/lex ~ smallville (LOOK LOOK LOOK. SHUT UP. anyway i rewatched this show with my father at the height of the pandemic and lana/lex hit hard in a way it never had before, so now i'm p equally obsessed with every side of this triangle and now i want to smash them all together so bad. THIS IS HOW TO FIX EVERYTHING.)

gaby/ilya/napoleon ~ the man from uncle (ready made ot3, i can't be mad)

mylene/shaolin/zeke ~ the get down (did mylene and shaolin hate each other? uhhhhhhh yep. HOWEVER. THAT ALLOWED FOR SOME FUCKING GREAT TENSION. and they were both equally in love with zeke so like............ i wanted it so bad

i'm SURE i'm missing very important ones, but these are my broad strokes 💗💗💗

ALSO LOOK AT THEM!!!!!!!!! TELL ME YOU DON'T SHIP THEM IMMEDIATELY

[threadcountart]

“She looks cooler than I thought!”

Image ID below 🧵

[Image ID: 5 panel comic with a plain pink background depicting the first time Critical Role character Maeve of the Air Ashari meets Laudna and is awed by her appearance. In Panel 1, Maeve listens to her sister Leeta retell the hanging at the sun tree and the resurrection of Laudna carrying the spirit of Delilah Briarwood. Leeta’s back is turned to the viewer. She wears a dark blue cape, brown leather armor, and a light blue robe underneath. She’s fair skinned with pointed ears and short curly blond hair that ends in teal. Maeve wears the same blue robe and leather armor and has the same blond hair, but it’s completely blonde and is longer, tied in a chunky braid with red flowers woven throughout. Maeve faces Leeta, a cartoonish shocked expression on her face with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. With her downward squished eyebrows, it almost looks like she’s angry, but a subtle blush on her cheek instead reveals her rapt disbelieving attention on her sister’s wild tale. Panel 2 shows the sun and clouds implying passage of time. Panel 3 shows a zoomed out depiction of Orym introducing a smiling Maeve to the rest of Bell’s Hells. Orym is a fair skinned halfling with short brown hair, green shirt and pants, and the same leather armor. Panel 4 reveals Laudna from Maeve’s point of view. A bony, grey-skinned woman with sunken dark eyes stands with a soft smile and a cocked head. Her black and white hair is done up in a messy bun wrapped in red ribbon with some hair strands falling around her face. She wears a fancy purple and grey dress with black tree branch imagery on the upper chest and the skirt’s part. Laudna wears a black corset embroidered with red and orange flowers and wrapped with red ribbon all around the waist. Attached to the ribbon are bits of bone and a pair of scissors dangling at her hip. A wooden bird house is strapped to her like a backpack and her right arm is gently raised. On her wrist stands a plump rat with a bird’s skull for a head Her ears have golden cuffs in the shape of elf ears. The last panel is Maeve’s expression of pure awe and admiration. It’s the same cartoonish face, but with a bigger blush, more intense eyebrows, and a glitter in both eyes. Two huge exclamation marks stamp themselves by Maeve’s expression. Watermark on painting reads “@ThreadcountArt” and “Do not repost/edit/trace” End ID]

[intoloopin-archive]

A CHAPTER: THE SHARP AND THE BLUNT (PART 1/2).

tw(s): panic attack. dubious consent (haruki is very weird and forward about initiating sex!). alcohol abuse & alcoholism. semi-smut? (there is making out). miscommunication (a warning because I personally think it's constant and frustrating). insinuation and direct discussions of sexual trauma, abuse by a past partner, abuse of workplace power and stalking. internalized homophobia (in part one, a hint). If I missed anything, please tell me! starring: Lee Hanjae. Fukunaga Haruki. featuring: Dylan Hwang / Hwang Chihoon. Their fellow LOOPiN members (old OT10, no Gyujin, a lot of Beomseok). Delilah Franco. Oh Sunyoung. Choi Sangwon. Blonde Bob Piss Girl (a serious character).

timeline: quick flashback to 2018 | early to the end of mid 2022.

word count: 13,405 words. author's notes: welcome everyone to hanruki fuckery part 1 a.k.a the most frustrating and life draining four months in Hanjae's whole entire life a.k.a big sadness, the piece split into two. this one is over 23K long, and was originally intended to be read in one go but! It Got Too Big. The conclusion will be coming out later this week! prepare for a Haruki all in par with the one in the prologue, which falls in between this mess on the timeline. this is a work of a whole month, but it's also a work of two years: a whole central plot, planned and done. title's from this song! give it a listen once you get trought the bigger picture, maybe, for catharsis purposes. stay safe! remember you deserve to be safe, always!

November 12, 2018.

Hanjae had vowed not to cry anymore when he got this job – in the same vehement way he had promised at twelve that he would no longer make a sound if he wailed after school, face buried under piles and piles of unfinished homework, to medium success, just the right amount of it to call it success.

He could still tear up once in a while, if things got though, and that was it; a clause added after his first exhausting week as a trainee. The number escalated to once every two business days after he was shoved to debut on LOOPiN, out of all the upcoming boy groups there were.

There was a story taunting the New Wave Music corridors back then. Someone did something unspeakable to someone else, and it caused an expulsion, followed by the immediate need for a new rapper, a new dancer. And there was Hanjae; a BBC trainee for three months, far removed from the Boy Of The Week gossip, who couldn’t exactly sing but had great enunciation, and had been dancing before he was even walking…

He cried now, openly, defeated. It had been an awful day for LOOPiN 2on1.

Their short lived promotions had played out like a sunset: a big golden start – so much press, so much momentum, so many views on the ‘Baby Don’t Stop’ dance practice video, where he and Haruki were using plain shirts and even plainer jeans – quickly diluting into the darkest of times – the controversies, LOOPiN first ones, and exclusively about them.

A resurrected Facebook photo of Hanjae on his graduation with a bandage around his hand, matched with the lingering traces of his poorly removed tattoo there painted him as a school delinquent; Haruki’s drop out stories reintroduced him as the big drunken failure of KArts’s international program.

They were going to stop going to music shows, the company had decided that day, and Sangwon told them on the drive back that they had just done their last one. They had gone up on stage as a duo for the last last time.

With a strong sniff, Hanjae unburied his face from in between his knees and looked at his hand, at the faint shape of a badly drawn rose on his skin. His dad had been adamant about getting it out the moment he took a look at it, still involved in protective plastic. He used the little money off his college safe to arrange a laser session that Hanjae skipped. A year later, Hanjae managed to schedule another one with the partial sponsor of MBN, the company he was stuck on before BBC. He had to do it in a shady place, at a bigger cost: bad skin scarring.

His mom had been relieved to see it fade even more nonetheless, up until the black tattoo turned into something that almost looked like a peculiar and old scar, if you didn’t give it a second glance; and no one was ever giving Hanjae a second glance.

“Let that be a lesson,” she told him, nose turned up and away from him. “Don’t jump head on into things again, Lee Hanjae. That’s no way to live. Watch yourself, watch your company. You’re not a kid anymore. Do you have no goals? Do you want nothing for yourself? Are you that selfish? Can’t you think, for once, about something that isn’t–”

Haruki was the one who found him, sitting on the floor, small and tense against the laundry machine, waiting for everyone’s clothes to be cleaned – the member’s, Sangwon’s, the cleaning auntie's aprons she had forgotten on top of the dinner table last week. Cleaning was always his scapegoat way of attending to something, even if very small.

Maybe if the company decided to drop him, he thought, Hanjae could still be around as the dorm’s janitor.

“So you’re not from Seoul,” Haruki said, leaning against the door frame with an air of mischief around him, something light on his step despite it all.

It was a statement, not an ask, because he knew this. It was one of the few trivia points they had exchanged during pauses on music shows or water breaks in between choreography practice – ‘What’s your age? What’s your blood type? How many siblings? Oh, none? You’re so lucky, Hanjae, so lucky. All siblings are demons. You aren’t missing a thing.’

Hanjae didn’t even startle; Haruki often popped up at places like that, picking up conversations from days, weeks ago like they were merely put on pause.

Without uttering a word and barely looking up, he still nodded his head no.

Haruki nodded back, a pacifying smile showing up on his face, said, “Cool. Great. How about I show you a place?”

‘The place’, he informed Hanjae, was not all that nice, or clean, and he really shouldn’t wear nice shoes or nice clothes tonight, but at least it wasn’t far, at least they had permission.

“Who’s permission?” Hanjae asked, taking the pile of clothes to the dryer, smoothing wrinkles off them just for something to do.

Haruki waved manager Choi’s front keys in his hand, and Sangwon’s horrendous keychains clanked against each other: a green pine tree and a colorful ball. “The one that matters. What do you say, uh? You’re in? Can I count you in?”

He could count Hanjae in.

[...]

They stopped by a convenience store on the way, some couple of blocks down the dorm, and by then night had already conquered all of Seoul. Inside, the middle aged lady behind the counter rushed to give Haruki a hug, a paper bag and a discount.

“He’s a street cat I found,” she leaned in to explain when she caught Hanjae anxiously looking at him going straight to the back of the store, near the freezers, near the alcohol, with the ease of someone who could do so with his eyes shut. “He’s a good foreign friend.”

“I’m not!” Haruki shouted back, but he was grinning. “Are you not watching the news?”

The noona playfully rolled her eyes, joked back, “What news? You’re not on the news!”

She hushed Hanjae to go catch up with him with an enerved wave, told him to take a look around. “It’s on the house,” she winked. “You’re both so skinny, and you must be working hard, so just take something tasty and leave quickly.”

Trailing a couple feet behind Haruki on the aisle, Hanjae picked up a package of noodles and a modest four-set of Terra cans to accompany his endless Heineken bottles, light green on light green. While Hanjae bagged everything with caution, Haruki slipped a red won note on the balcony when the owner stopped paying attention to them, and off they went again.

Haruki made them walk ten more minutes to the left, and the left, the left again, coming to an abrupt stop in front of an abandoned lot, pure dirt and weeds, the sort that seemed to have turned into an open dump for the neighborhood. It looked no different or less disgusting than the million of others around less central Jungnang; it didn’t look like it could be a spot.

Yet Haruki kept braving straight through the grass without stopping, guiding Hanjae behind him to only step where he was stepping, to keep his eyes glued to the floor and watch out for broken glass. He settled when they were deep into the lot, mere feet away from a big hill. There was a clean view of an uneven street if you looked down, he said, filled with houses that were almost all pretty. Hanjae chose to just trust Haruki’s word on that; he couldn’t dare to come close enough to the drop to peek and see.

Haruki standed the bag of drinks for him to hold, and Hanjae had to do so with both hands. From a spot behind them, he pushed two retriable chairs out of a bulk set against a moldy tree, the metal in them corrupted by rust on the edges, and set them up, sat down, tapped at the other seat with his foot in invitation.

Hanjae took a long and anxious moment to comply. Under him, the chair dangled sideways even if he stayed very, very still.

With the convenience bag back in his domain, Haruki cracked three beers open, and handed Hanjae one, kept the other two: one in each hand, a Heineken and a Terra.

“Never had this one. I heard they’re the same thing,” he said, taking a sip from each and frowning, analyzing them. Hanjae stayed quiet.

He had only drank with his dad and uncles one time, at last year’s Chuseok, and hadn’t been much of a fan of anything. Still, he took a sip of beer.

Haruki at least had grace enough to let him swallow and contain a grimace before asking, with a strange edge to it, “So are you? A bully. A problem child. Part of a gang.”

“No,” Hanjae said, too quickly, too eager. He cleared his throat. “I’m really not, hyung, no.”

“How did it get there, then?” Haruki's look was razor sharp on Hanjae’s once tattooed hand, hard enough to make him freeze. “And why did you remove it? Just to be a trainee?”

Hanjae opened his mouth, but only to take a shaky breath in, swallow a bit more of bitter alcohol. In front of his fleeting eyes, Haruki eased just as quickly as he had hardened.

“Hanjae, we’re teammates now,” he told him. “I showed you my good spot. You can’t give me one word sentences anymore. You can’t lie.”

Hanjae considered this, and considered him from the corner of his eyes. Haruki was the LOOPiN member that Hanjae had come to know best, mostly because they didn’t have a choice, but still, he made an effort, he talked to him; he didn’t let Hanjae fall adrift. And he could have easily turned into an island: from the moment he had been transferred to New Wave, he had been an outsider, a last minute solution to a problem no one would explain to him – who left? Why? Was he worse than them? Was he better?

“You’re better,” Haruki had said, when Hanjae brought it up, late at night while they had dinner alone, in the practice room, sweating and panting – a week until their debut happened. He was the only one who had bothered to tell him so. He sounded like he meant it, too. Hanjae remembers catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror over his shoulder, hair bright brown and unfamiliar, thinking even for a fleeting moment: I’m doing enough.

It was fair for him to be the first to know – the first for Hanjae to disappoint.

“I got it removed before,” he heard himself say. It was a secret, so it came out like one: whispered, slow. “Before I wanted to train. I got it with friends– my dance crew friends. It was our logo, or at least, it was going to be, one day. But I… I did a bad thing, and it stopped making sense. It didn’t fit. I didn’t fit, so. It had to go.”

The vagueness did nothing but pique Haruki’s interest. He seated more properly, then less properly; ended up putting his feet on the seat of the chair, slouching with his head supported on his knee, the exact body language of, ‘Tell me, tell me, tell me.’

“My friend– my best friend, from childhood, our team captain. He used to have a girlfriend. A girl from our class, a dancer too, someone he had been in love with forever. Later she became part of the group, and we got close, we turned into friends, and then not. Not quite that. They broke up and one hour later we got together, on the same day. We got caught. It was a mess. Everyone thought it was a shitty thing to do, that it was cheating, cheating on everyone. But I just wanted her to be my girlfriend, back then– Back then, I wanted a girlfriend more than I wanted anything...”

Hanjae felt it coming, again: the desire to recoil a bit more on himself in shame. How pathetic he had been, then; how miserable, how sad, how lonely.

He took a timid peek to the side, ready to see an irk of dismay on Haruki’s face, some justified disgust, and was surprised to not see any of that. Haruki had grown passionate and invested in the whole story, something new in his eyes, a third bottle halfway drained in his hand.

He moved his chin up, as if saying, ‘Go on’, but Hanjae couldn’t. He drained the rest of the beer.

Haruki clicked his tongue like that wouldn’t do. He shoved his chair a few inches closer so he could grab at Hanjae's arm and said, all at once, “We can not– Hanjae, look, listen, we can not be blamed for all the things, the crazy things we do when love…!” He didn't finish the sentence, just amended it into another one: “You were a teenager, you both were, and very, very brave. Very brave to tell her and date her and keep dating her even if. They were just– bad friends. Just bad friends.”

They weren’t bad friends, Hanjae knew; they weren’t the ones in the wrong. But it hurted to say it out loud, to admit what he knew was still true: how easily he burned bridges for attention, for affection, so he never did. He just knew – looked at his reflection on surfaces and knew.

He rolled and rolled the tap of the Terra until it fell off, into the can. “Did you really quit college, hyung?” Was what he asked the wind.

Haruki shifted on his seat; Hanjae could only tell because of the way it creaked. “More like college quit me,” he said, with a sad huff of air that might have been a laugh, and dropped Hanjae’s arm, drank from his bottle too.

Sadness fell over them like a veil from then on. The Terras ended and Haruki didn’t mind sharing all the other stuff he had, and the longer it went on the less shy Hanjae felt about asking. At some point Haruki said, “I guess we really fucked up, uh – with 2on1,” and Hanjae, whipping a foam mustache off his face, “Minwoo’s not talking to me,” and Haruki, almost falling over with laugher, “Oh, my, I bet not! Ha. I bet not…”, and turned reticent, fell quiet.

His eyes, Hanjae had noticed, kept darting to a spot ahead in between conversation, beyond the drop of the hill, dazed. He violently shook his head sideways everytime he caught himself drifting too far away, and ran a hand over his face, rubbing at it in a way that made Hanjae look at him in worry.

Haruki found it hilarious each time. “What is it,” he eventually said, slower than normal, harder to understand, “With you, your face?”

He got up from his chair, a sudden move that sent it falling to the floor, a loud squeak, and walked even closer.

In front of Hanjae, right in front of him, he leaned forward until he got both his hands on his face, and said, pushing the corners of his mouth up, “The mood is so– Bad! So bad! Smile! Big smile! C’mon, give me a big smile!”

There had been dirt on Haruki’s hand, and Hanjae could vaguely taste it, with how close to his lips he was pressing. He still wore his inner braces back then; he kept cutting his tongue on the same spot, never healing, never telling, and he could feel the inside of his cheeks pressing onto that sharp place, about to be pierced through.

For a moment, they stayed quiet, looking at each other head on. Hanjae was not smiling. His heart had picked up a quick pace inside his chest, was drumming – Haruki was so close, and he was so beautiful, a true magazine type beauty, all symmetry, and Hanjae knew this, but not with this much conviction, not with so much emotion.

“Ah, you know what? I like you. I decided. I do like you, now…” Haruki said, and then he grinned, bringing his face even nearer. He took a breath and Hanjae felt it on his own nose, and didn’t know what to do about it; his mind, for a moment, went static. “Nothing will happen to you, friend. I promise it. ‘Will not let it.”

Hanjae’s held breath was a painful thing to let out of his chest. “Was something– Was something going to…?”

Haruki huffed a laugh and gave his cheeks two playful taps, said, with a new found determination, “Handsome guy. Do not get sad. I will fix this for you,” and let Hanjae’s face go.

He straightened his back up and swayed slightly to the side, running a hand over his hair, fixing his bangs back into place. Haruki told him, “Late. No booze. Night over”, and extended that same hand for Hanjae to take – Hanjae who still felt like his face had gone numb, blood rushing to it.

He took the hand, and they made their way back to the dorm that way, hanging close; Like magnets, Hanjae remembers thinking, idly, and then not idly at all. Haruki’s hands were leaving behind a pressure everywhere they touched, a heat that Hanjae couldn’t shake off – he just couldn’t shake it off.

Later, when Hanjae layed in bed, sheet drawn over his entire body, he could still feel it. When he woke up the morning after, nauseated but still in the group, still safe, he could still feel it.

If he closes his eyes now, right now, he can still feel it – the sad sort of burn of a premonition misread.

January 13, 2022.

Los Angeles is sunny in a way Haegon would love to see and pretend to hate – a saddening thought Hanjae had since they landed, and that comes back to haunt him while he looks at the city passing by on the van’s window, sidewalks all golden.

Haegon’s not a loud person in his eyes, but his absence is a loud thing, pouring the life out of everyone, mostly because of the way it had been forced on them.

It had been a horrifying way to open the year: having to come forward right on the first day of 2022 to the press, headlining Haegon’s mugging and the accident, his follow up hiatus and excuse out of their ‘We Do’ promotions in the USA. And then there was having to deal with Haegon in private, angry and disappointed, not wanting to take his pain medicine, shoving his room’s door in everyone's faces, dismissing every checkup attempt with an annoyed, “It’s just a minor concussion, what the Hell! I’m not fucking dying! Get the fuck off me, I’m fine, get off, just fuck off already to the States without me! Go on! Just– just leave me already!”

They’re driving out of some media company studio around the center of Los Angeles, where they filmed two twenty minute videos in a roll, more embarrassing games than actual interviews, and Hanjae has already spent all of his ability to mend English words together.

It could have been more fun, one of their staff said, but they had to pass on the puppy interview format because of Taesong’s allergies, and Jiahang’s been dead set on pretending to be sad about it during the entire ride back to the hotel; crocodile tears and all.

Hanjae has to deal with him from the last seat on the far opposite side of the van, resting his fried blonde head against his shoulder, sighing loudly, because Dylan is also not here to amuse him – he took a bus home to Santa Monica and will stay home until they leave in two days time.

Hanjae doesn’t like provoking Taesong, doesn’t like to spoil Jiahang, but that means very little in the grand escape of the group, that goes about poking fun of Taeng like it’s a sport, that’s stuck in a position where they really can’t say no to J.J, who owns company shares; he shoots the meek figure of Taesong an apologetic look as Jiahang’s act carries on, trying to tell him: ‘I’m not a part of this, I just don’t know how to stop it.’

Thankfully, the hotel isn’t that far away, and it’s a quick torture – up until things takes a turn for the worse.

As they park and start to step out, Beomseok’s long arm blocks the door before he and Jiahang can put a single leg outside of the car.

“Stop,” he tells J.J, harsh enough to make Hanjae stumble a step back. Beomseok points a finger right at Jiahang’s face, and inch from touching his nose, says, “Stop being a fucking problem. Stop.”

It makes Jiahang livid, turns his ears bright red. He takes long stomps to the elevator, and Hanjae has to jog to keep up with him – Jiahang really has the longest legs Hanjae has ever seen on a person.

“He’s got such a stick up his ass!” He keeps on saying, barging into the room they’re both sharing with Dylan and Zhiming – angrily tossing his bag into his ‘cheap dollar store bed with the cheap dollar store sheets’ that made him go into a very similar rant last night. “He thinks he’s the only one who cares about Gon, the only one who can bother. He’s so wrong. I’m fucking worried too! I’m calling him too! I miss him! I’m more of a friend to him than that weirdo is. He’s so weird. He thinks he owns Haegon and everyone and everything, just because he’s older, just because he trained for like, one billion years! Like it’s my fault Starship thought he was too ugly to join NO.MERCY!”

“You were being annoying, Jiahang,” O.z deadpans from the corner he’s tucked in, without looking up from his manhwa.

Jiahang grunts louder. “Yeah, that was the point. Taesong knows I’m just joking around! Everyone knows!”

Zhiming lowers the comic from his face, flipping a page. His eyes have deep dark circles behind his thick glasses, marks that never go away. “Unnecessary.”

Jiahang rolls his eyes, putting his hair up on an ugly bun. He turns his back to Zhiming’s bed and mouths at Hanjae, mocking, ‘Unnecessary’.

Hanjae shrugs at him, and that annoys J.J too. He angrily puts on a movie on the tiny TV, gets a hold of his bed’s pillow and wraps himself around it, mumbling something under his breath still. The tags on the streaming app read comedy, musical. He chews on a poor nail while humming along the first song, and Hanjae tries to humor him with a tiny, “Is that Ariana Grande sunbaenim?”

It doesn’t work. Jiahang shoves his face into his pillow and says, miserable and muffled, “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t hang around with you, you’re so lame. I miss Dylan so much.”

“He invited you to go with him,” Hanjae says, helplessly. “You said you didn’t want to.”

“Of course I didn’t want to! I would have to sleep on the floor. In a bag, on the floor. And I don’t think his grandma would like me – I don’t think anyone in his family would like me,” he turns his face around, off the pillow. Hanjae can hear clearly when he says, “He needs time alone with them. For the anxieties.”

“The anxieties?” Hanjae asks him, very slowly.

Jiahang presses his mouth shut tight, straights himself up again. He undoes his ponytail, tosses his long, long hair from one side to the other, behind his ears.

He takes a quick look at Zhiming, and Hanjae does too, and they go by uncaught; O.z’s got his big headphones in now, eyes glued to his comic book.

Jiahang is still careful to whisper, “The rest of you don’t get what it's like, when you’re away from your home every day, when you know all the people you’re going to see aren’t all the ones you know – when you got family that’s like, old, and you know that time’s passing. You’re losing days with them. It gets scary, after a while. Dylan’s grandad will be 82 this year, hyung – that’s a terrifying number, that’s a maybe. That’s the anxiety. Mine, his– Zhiming’s, too. Foreign member anxiety.”

Hanjae nods, sharp. Jiahang makes a face at him, brighter – smiles, says like a tease, “Not Haruki’s, though. Haruki doesn’t miss Japan at all, if that’s what you’re wondering. He’s not anxious about that.”

Hanjae blinks. Opens his mouth, closes it, blinks again. “I wasn’t going to ask–” 

“Sure thing. Suuuuure,” J.J says slyly, and goes back to watching TV, and Hanjae does too. Gulps, keeps looking at the movie, tries to pay attention.

Jiahang put on korean subtitles for him, yet he keeps talking – explaining everything. It’s a nice enough movie, he says. Good songs, nice enough movie.

They’re reaching the end of it, seeing every main character gather in a protest around town, when Haruki barges into their room.

“Are any of you not gonna rot inside this hotel?” He asks, loudly, quickly. “Is anyone going to do anything? Catch some sun?”

“Hanjae’s supposed to be going out,” Zhiming tells him. He’s also watching the movie now, has Jiahang by his side, explaining to him what he missed.

“Oh?” Haruki says, and looks around the room, eyes a little clouded, until they land on Hanjae. He smiles, and it stretches across his face quick and big, like he’s actually glad to see him, like the effect is instantaneous. Hanjae can’t for the life of him look at it head on. “Perfect. That’s just perfect, I’m going with you, Hanhan, just wait for me to get changed!”

“Okay,” Hanjae says, and hops off the bed too quickly, sits back down. “I– Waiting.”

Immediately after Haruki leaves Jiahang gives him a long look over Zhiming’s shoulder, and Hanjae pretends not to see it.

“You’re too easy,” he says, with a disapproving nod of his head, and Hanjae pretends he doesn’t hear it, pretends it doesn’t sting.

It’s humiliating, being reminded that people know – that they look at him and know, and he’s reminded of it constantly.

“Hanjae’s sad, sad bisexual awakening,” was how Jiahang put it, sing-a-song in the studio, while making this very single they’re promoting now. “Worse, worse than Minwoo’s– Is that a verse? Can we put that on a song, on the album?”

Minwoo said, for the two of them, “Fuck you.”

And there that one time, the one he remembers clearly, when Seo CEO said he wanted to sit down to watch them practicing ‘Love Me Right’ before the big release, and Taesong pushed Hanjae aside, told him, “Hanjae, you– if you need to check the choreo, please look at the instruction video. Don’t look at Haruki like that, there’s no need to look like you–”

There had to be a separation, he realized; he had to get it under control.

So Hanjae made friends with the people Haruki seemed to not stand, which sometimes meant everyone, but mostly meant J.J and Beomseok – two extremes of very opposite lines. He’s built a line of separation, wrapped himself up in Haruki repellent, and he tries to live by it.

It’s a frail line, a shitty line, and it comes crashing down all the time, with the little moments; single minutes where things feel kind between them, different. A bottle of water and a perfectly folded towel passed to him backstage, a group conversation where Haruki eventually says, like clockwork, “And you, Hanjae? What do you think?”; no one else says that. There’s this lingering nearness coming from him, like there's always something Haruki wants to say or do but can’t, something he wants to check.

It makes Hanjae wonder – makes him come back to that one friendly night, hang on to it. The way Haruki had been so near, his exact tone of voice when he said that he liked him, considered him a friend, thought he was handsome, was going to fix whatever was wrong.

[...]

“So what are we doing?” Haruki asks when they step onto the sidewalk.

“Just filming my Loop Log,” Hanjae responds. “Deadline’s tonight.”

“Shit, that,” Haruki groans, taking his cap off to push hair out of his eyes, putting it on again. “I forgot all about that. ‘Haven’t filmed mine either. ‘Think I lost my camera.”

“I can help you look,” Hanjae offers. “When we get home.”

“Well, thank you,” Haruki says, and steps closer, slides an arm over Hanjae’s shoulder, tells him, “For now, I guess we’ll just have to stick tight. LOOPiN 2on1, reunited in L.A…!”

At Hanjae’s timid request, Chihoon made him a list of what he should get to ‘live his best tourist life’, what the fans might want to see him try: pancakes, bacon and eggs, ice cream, anything in the menu that looks like it could have come off a cartoon, any ‘house specials’.

They go into the nearest place listed with the camera on hand, and have to explain with their Frankenstein English that they want to make a vlog, can they make a vlog? They can, a waiter says, but only in a specific area; they get taken there.

Hanjae orders the house special, and it's a crazy looking Banana Split. Haruki settles for waffles, and they decide to start filming when the food arrives.

Any chance of small talk between them goes fully stall when Hanjae asks, right at their waiter steps away, as the opening topic: “Have you talked to Haegon?”

Haruki’s dangling hand on the table stills. He smiles weird, notices it looks weird, drops it: “Ah, no. No…” and goes silent, makes Hanjae go silent too.

The food comes, they start filming. Hanjae’s meticulously trying to extract a tiny piece of strawberry from a block of ice cream, all while only looking through the camera’s lens, when Haruki’s phone jumps to life, ringing.

He takes it out of his pocket, places it screen flat on the table without looking at the receiver once, mutes it with one hand, adds a mountain of maple syrup to his food with the other.

“Not important,” Haruki reassures Hanjae when he catches him looking at the buzzing phone, an inch away from falling off the edge. He forks the food and stands his hand across the table, says, with his Idol voice, “Wanna try?”

It’s good sweet food, all of it. The camera goes back and forth between them, hand to hand. Haruki makes him pretend they’re shooting a commercial, at some point, makes him do a different pose with every bite, and Hanjae tries to not lose control of his face with all the wooing, all the praise.

It’s fanservice, and Haruki’s good at it. It makes for good content. Everything: good.

Outside, bill paid, they take shelter from the sun and check the recording; thirty raw minutes of footage.

“Hanjae,” Haruki says, looking up after skimming the video, solemn. Hanjae leans a bit forward, eyes a little wide.“The Log will turn out very boring if this is all we do.”

It is, indeed, not the best vlog Hanjae’s ever made. Not that he’s ever been any good at them, or at anything on the media side of the job outside of music covers or choreography making. He’s seen the views on his solo variety content, Sangwon walked him through them all last month, said: nothing special.

They barely talked in 30 minutes – Hanjae didn't initiate a single conversation with him.

Quickly, Haruki’s eyes narrow as he scans the area around them, and Hanjae tries to keep up. He looks for a long moment at the barracks of food, at a man selling balloons, and finally lands far ahead, on a group of kids running on the sand. The leading one trips on air and falls face first on the ground, immediately wails, and they let out matching startled, horrified laughs.

Haruki jogs until he’s in front of him, and turns to walk backwards, closer to where the sidewalk gives into the beach.

“You wanna do that?” He arches a perfect eyebrow. “Run around on the beach with me. Like we’re in a movie.”

Hanjae steps on a stone, lands his other feet on the ground wrong. “I– No.”

“No? Well, I’m doing it! It’s what the vlog’s missing! Trust me, if we do this, it’ll fix everything,” he says, and before Hanjae can even think of what to reply, turns around and starts running on the sand, straight ahead.

Haruki’s already bent over near the ocean when Hanjae catches up with him, folding his jeans until they stop at his knees, barefoot. He insists: “Let’s go, let’s do it, you’re already here, it’s going to be fun, the fans will like it, let’s do it, let’s do it!”

With a resigned sigh, Hanjae unties his sneakers.

Haruki approaches a family nearby and asks for a beach chair, gets a yes. They place the camera cautiously on it, set it with a big zoom ahead. Haruki leaves his phone there, too, with a careless toss, and Hanjae can hear it announcing another call as he steps away, trailing exactly behind him – footprint over footprint, back near the ocean and then on the ocean.

“I thought– Hyung, I thought we were going to just walk,” Hanjae says, stopping. The salt water is a chill foam around his foot.

“Yeah,” Haruki flashes him a smile over his shoulder. He’s about to be knees deep, is taking his Hawaiian shirt off, Hanjae realizes now, with a flush. “We’re walking. Into the water.”

Hanjae catches the shirt when he throws it over his shoulder, looks at it, up at him. He takes a step closer. “Manager Choi’s– Haruki, he’s going to complain!”

“Fuck him!” Haruki tells him with a laugh. He says, with meaning: “Fuck him, fuck New Wave, let them complain, I’m going for a dive and no one can stop me!”

And then he dives, swims, disappears under the water for a long moment. Hanjae stays planted where he is, at a loss of words. When Haruki reemerges, pushing a curtain off black hair off his eyes, and walks back splashing water at him. By the time they’re side by side again, it looks like Hanjae took a dive, too.

“Are you…” He starts to say, eyeing Haruki worryingly, but then the family from before calls back to them, says they’re leaving, they need the chair back, and Haruki claps him on the shoulder, smiles widely, races him to reach them.

“Look,” Haruki says when they’re checking the footage, back on the sidewalk, showing Hanjae a clip: the two of them, a little blurry, walking. “We even got your good smile.”

“My good smile?” Hanjae echoes.

“Not to imply you have a bad one, because you don’t have a bad one,” Haruki says, and bumps their shoulders together. He has just put his shirt back on, is wearing it unbuttoned. “You just have one that’s relaxed, easy. A rare one.”

“Hm,” Hanjae responds, looking away, rolling a rock under his feet.

The walk back to the hotel is calm, windy. The sky’s cotton candy pink and it all looks like a movie, Hanjae thinks. He looks down, and their hands are loose, hanging close, like it would be in a movie.

The end credits roll when they get in the hotel’s lobby, and find Sangwon there – just right there. He catches sight of them immediately, like an alert dog; a quick jump off his seat, a stall near.

He seems to consider them like an equation, frowning: he takes in their wet hair, the wet clothes, the leftover traces of sand, solves it, fumes.

“Do you have any idea,” he says, and he’s struggling to look at the two of them, to not just gawk at Haruki – to not bare his teeth to Haruki only. “Any idea, you two, of how irresponsible this whole stunt was? You’re out on a foreign land. You know no one – no one. When I– The company, if the company calls, you pick your phone. It’s how it works. Pick your phone, immediately.”

Hanjae checks his own phone, a quick glance: no calls.

“Choi-nim,” he says, not looking directly at him, because he lost the ability over the years. Sangwon’s gaze now makes him incredibly anxious. He takes the camera out of where its hanging around his neck, stands it. “I notified– On the calendar, I added– We were just filming–”

“No need to explain, Hanjae,” Haruki interrupts, and puts a hand on Hanjae’s shoulder, steps in front of him, puts himself between him and Sangwon. “Go up. You did nothing wrong. It’s okay. Hyung’s going to solve this with the manager.” He turns straight to Choi-nim and bows, so pristine, so polite: “I take full responsibility for today. It was all me. I’m really sorry if I caused you stress.”

Sangwon considers him for a long moment, taking in the bend of his elbows, like he’s trying to measure his sincerity – there’s almost none of it, Hanjae can tell. He sighs, and then he adjusts his shirt, picks at the cufflinks of his uniform, breaths – his nostrils taking over his entire face.

“You’re dismissed,” Sangwon tells Hanjae, icely, with a corner of the eye glance.

“Sir, I–”

“Dismissed.”

“Go on,” Haruki encourages him, giving Hanjae’s shoulder a firm tap. And then he runs a hand over Hanjae’s hair, messes it up until his wet bangs are glued to his forehead, which he’s never done before; not with him, not with anyone, as far as Hanjae’s aware.

Hesitantly, Hanjae steps away, goes to take the elevator. He keeps looking at them over his shoulder, watching them trail away with growing uneasiness. Haruki keeps looking back at him until he can’t: Sangwon gets the door of the hotel open, shoves him by the shoulder out.

Up in his hotel room, Hanjae showers for a long time. There’s sand on a spot on his elbow where Haruki gave him a tap, and it takes him a while to notice.

He comes off the shower and goes straight to laying down. Zhiming, who had been awake when he came in, is also in his bed now, fully still.

He turns over once, and then again, goes back on his side. “Zhiming hyung?” Hanjae whispers. “You’re awake?”

When Zhiming finally responds, it’s with a minimal grunt, a tiny quick of his socked foot. “What.”

“Do you,” Hanjae chews on the words, “Do you think I have a good smile?”

A pause, a loud sigh. “You’re an Idol. You should hope so.”

“Okay. Okay, so what about– What about me do you think, what looks bad?”

Slowly, very slowly, Zhiming raises his upper body on his elbows. His air is a mess, recently dyed from gray to black too quickly. Without his glasses, he’s forced to squint at Hanjae, even this close, with their beds separated by a very narrow space.

“What the fuck are you even talking about?”

Hanjae takes in a sharp breath, and nods – puts a hand over his eyes, nods again. Stupid, so stupid.

“Nothing,” He says. “Nothing, just– Forget it. I’m sorry, just– Sorry.”

Zhiming goes back to laying down with a loud ‘oof’. He says, a crude whisper, “Don’t go out alone with him if it’ll make you come back like that.”

And with that Hanjae decides he must sleep, immediately, and end this day already.

It was just a day, he tells himself, rubbing at the scarred spot on his hand; a flower in eternal bloom, once. Just one good day. Drop it, forget it, erase it.

February 15, 2022.

“C’mon, you guys, c’moooon! On a scale of one to ten–”

“Na Seungsoo,” Minwoo’s voice rings out like a warning; an elastic pulled far above its limit, about to snap back into place, hard. “Shut your goddamn mouth.”

“She’s right there,” Haegon adds, equally as ultraged. “Are you dumb? Do you want to die?”

“Light up, you two. We’re just talking hypotheticals. I’m not actually gonna fuck our mananger,” Seungsoo says, crossing his arms, raising his chin high – his posture the embodiment of a practical joke about to take action. “That would be desperate and unprofessional, and I am none of these things.”

“You’re extremely unprofessional,” Jiahang laughs at him, a little mean – all his laughs have something a little mean about them, Hanjae can’t help but notice, when Seungsoo’s involved. “And extremely desperate. You just fucked our sound assistant. We no longer have a sound assistant, because you fucked her.”

“So did Jimin!”

“A fluke,” Zhiming defends himself. “Not happening again.”

“It’s never a fluke with you, Seungsoo. You’re such a man whore. A man whore for staff. Even Sangwon could have pulled you when he was around if he had a pair of tits,” Haegon notes, and Seungsoo gasps, mutters, scandalized, ‘You bastard!’, raises a fist up as if he’s going to hit him, and everyone’s laughing. Hanjae contributes with a grimace. “You’re that gross, you’re really that disgusting, all it would take–”

Behind them, Dylan begins to violently choke on a bite out of his granola bar, hard enough for the whole photo studio to freeze.

Taesong stands up immediately to check on him, and so does Jungwha, their three day old manager, Choi Sangwon’s definitive substitute and the topic of Seungsoo’s most recent infatuation: she rushes forward to aid alongside an assistant, a cup of water materialized out of thin air on her hand, like a trained lifeguard.

It’s too early for any of them to get a good read on her, but Hanjae has working eyes, so he will admit Junghwa is good looking in a mature sort of way, a bit above the ‘K-Pop staff adequate’. She’s not far from Seungsoo’s type, given the fact that he pretty much doesn’t have one. Hanjae has seen him flirt with Seo CEO’s third ex-wife, the second ex-wife, all of Minwoo’s half sisters and, in a disastrous attempt, Dylan’s mom. ("She's just so young, Chihoon! I thought she was your cousin!"

"I don't have a single cousin and you know that! You went for my mom, you animal, the least you can do is own it!")

“Holy shit, Chihoon,” Seungsoo says, tapping him on the back with one hand, fanning him with the other. “You’re alright?”

“My bad– False alarm, guys, my bad–!”, Dylan mutters, still coughing, watery eyes quick in their attempt to scan the room for something, someone.

Hanjae follows their frantic trail until they land on the quiet figure of Haruki by the coffee machine, his back to them, shoulders rigid and on display – wearing the same suit outfit Hanjae has been put on, his in a shade more close to purple than blue.

It fits Haruki splendidly, as must things do.

“Alright, boys, hey, boys!” Jungwha calls out when Dylan’s lungs go back to normal, clapping her hands one loud time. “Break’s over! It’s the real deal, now! So let’s try to have a good day at work today! Fighting!”

They’re set to scatter in trios and duos, the old unit formations, except for Haegon, who’s still on hiatus, still has stitches all over the crown of his head. He only made it because Haruki insisted, and he’s always insisting, lately: “How can we do well without our cheerleader,” he told Haegon in the morning, “Our cute, adorable cheerleader, my very favorite little brother–!”

“Hi,” Hanjae mutters, tapping Haruki gently in the shoulder. Haruki jumps, catching his breath, and Hanjae drops his hand, shoves it behind his own back. “Ah, sorry, if I– I was just going to say we should–”

But Haruki is turning and splinting in front of him before all the words are out, growing out of earshot, out of hold, entering a hallway on the left.

Hanjae, embarrassed, follows.

They’re supposed to go to room 4, but Haruki walks right past it. Hanjae calls back to him from the door, says, “Hyung, that’s not the–”, and then his voice falters, dies out.

Haruki’s already quick pace has grown even quicker, and he’s now running towards the door at the end of the corridor, the one with a red sign written ‘TERRACE’ over it – really running, to the point his body almost slams against the metal when he stops. The door handle makes a loud noise as he tries to push it open, can’t make it, tries again, harder – manages to step out with a strong shove. Hanjae goes after him, frowning, worried.

Outside, the terrace is a gray space, almost the same tone as the sky – rain’s a strong promise on the horizon, a reasonable fear.

Haruki’s standing right at the center. He tries to take in a big and loud gulp of air, can’t, makes a choking sound, lets out a hiss. Hanjae can feel the acute panic coming off him like electricity, gluing itself to his very own skin. He reminds himself to breathe.

Haruki stands an arm out and that’s the distance between them, that’s the nearest he’ll let Hanjae get.

“What’s– What’s happening, what’s wrong, what–?”

“Just,” he’s trembling bad. “Leave, I need– Leave.”

“Now?” Hanjae asks, and he’s making himself bite down on the trail of: ‘But the shoot’, ‘But the gig’, ‘But the job’ so hard, he’s actually got his teeth sinking on his lip.

Haruki nods, sharp and final, and Hanjae feels himself nodding back, frenetic. “Okay, stay– stay here, okay, you’ll leave– we’re leaving, just stay here.”

Hanjae walks back into the building with his head very low, tries to not walk too quickly to bring attention to himself, feels like he’s falling; feels like the whole world is looking at him. He holds his breath while sneaking back into the room they’re using as a closet, picks his and Haruki’s things like a thief: pushing everything into their bags without folding, eyes anxiously looking behind his back, flinching at every outside noise coming through the door.

Haruki’s phone is the last thing he grabs. He only becomes aware of it because it starts ringing. He looks at the screen, a quick run of his eyes. The contact name reads: ‘Don’t Answer Don’t Answer Don’t Answer.’

On the roof, Haruki’s sitting on the floor, resting his forehead against the wall. The back half of an air conditioner hangs close to him, and the leftover water pools near his feet, turning the hem of his pants dark.

They put on the yellow raincoats, plastic hood all the way up, and make a clumsy escape out the studio; Hanjae babbles something at the receptionist about there being equipment in the van, and the woman gives them a distracted ‘go ahead’ nod, an empty courtesy smile.

They walk without a plan, enter on the first bus that stops close: Haruki on the lead, completely reticent, Hanjae only following. There’s still a trail of glitter going down his neck, shiny with sweat, red from stress, Hanjae notices when they sit down. He’s still crying, still whipping at his runny nose with the expensive fabric of his shirt.

Hanjae looks down at his own clothes, the suit vest with no shirt under, a design piece New Wave doesn’t own – he’s wearing eyeliner, a strong smokey eye. They look expensive, and to an outsider, probably peculiar, weird. They don’t even have masks on…

Maybe, Hanjae hopes, trying to hold on to any trail of optimism possible, they could pass as very dedicated cover dancers, maybe–

The sound of Hanjae’s phone ringing makes them both jump in their seats. Haruki comes out of his state of anxious inertia to put a hand on his knee, pressing on it to get his attention. He says, through his teeth, “Do not– Hanjae, do not.”

Hanjae lets the phone ring out. He looks at the receiver: Uhm Junghwa (Manager).

Haruki’s peeking at it too. “Off,” he says, and it’s off.

It’s raining when they step out of the bus. They get maybe five feet down the sidewalk when a phone rings again – this time, Haruki’s. He comes to a sudden halt, and Hanjae bumps into his back and gets a close view of how, in an act of blind rage, he throws it hard on the floor.

“Fuck!” Haruki says, and steps on it once, twice, cracks the screen then the whole device in half. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Hanjae looks at him, wide eyed, mouth hanging open, and watches him pace around, a tense moment, until he loses all steam, goes sit by the closest wall.

Haruki stays for a long time there, one hand gripping the fence, the other pressing over his face, being rained on. Cautiously, Hanjae slides his raincoat off, squats down, close to him, and stands it over both their heads. Rain drips directly into his shoulder, makes a cold path down his neck.

“I hope your–,” a hiccup, a sniff, a faint and unconvincing attempt from Haruki of laughing them both off, “your fantasy’s still– still up.”

“My…?”

“Can you not,” Haruki says, a hiss, “Not look.”

Hanjae complies, doesn’t look. Behind them, a car runs close to the sidewalk, splashes a wave of rainwater on their backs.

“Sasaeng?” Hanjae tries, “Is it a sasaeng, or…”

Haruki lets out a bitter snort. “Imja,” he says, and it makes more sense that he means ‘owner’ rather than ‘marriage partner’; Hanjae can’t hear anything else, can’t connect anything else to something he knows and decode it.

His throat has gone dry, sandy. He clears it, and still, his voice comes off clipped. “Your…? Ah. Ah, I didn’t know– Didn’t know you have someone you were–”

“You know him,” Haruki says. “For years. You– you’ve known him. He gave you your job– Made your job happen.”

It takes a long moment for it to click, for the shape of manager Choi to come to Hanjae’s mind. Haruki’s looking at him like he’s expecting Hanjae to do something horrible: mouth set for a fight, eyes so red they look like they’ve been painted over.

“Hyung,” Hanjae breathes. His voice is an even quieter thing, afraid. “Do you mean– Are you being serious?”

“Am I! Am I serious?!”

He’s up again, quick – Hanjae loses his equilibrium and falls back on the street. Haruki doesn’t wait for him to get up to resume stomping.

It takes two street turns for Hanjae to understand they’re detouring from the dorms.

They sit on another bus stop bench, hop on another bus. A quiet and tense drive, this one. Haruki’s no longer crying, just grinding his teeth.

They go to the front gates of a tiny building, their final destination, and Haruki tells the security guard an apartment number, wais to be buzzed in. He does soon, and Hanjae, yet to be told to leave, goes up with him on the stairs.

Delilah gets the door he bangs on, and Hanjae’s stuck blinking at the sight of her, who shouldn’t still be in Korea. Haruki barges into her place like a hurricane: shoes still on, pushing her a little back, closer to the wall.

They both stare at the spot he occupied on the corridor a second ago, a held breath.

She recovers much quicker than he does. Deh tucks a long lock of her caramel hair behind her ear, greets him with an awkward, “Hanjae, hi. Hi...”, and Hanjae gets overwhelmed by too many things at once; how glad he is to see her, the shame of how they had parted. Her sad face when she told everyone she couldn’t stand to work with them anymore.

“You’re back.”

“I am! I am back!” Deh says. “How could I not! Europe’s too gray for me. The food’s too bad, and...” She sucks air through her teeth, takes an anxious look behind her, back inside. “... And all that.”

Hanjae shakes his head, agrees – agrees to all that even though he has no idea what all that is. There’s a pool of spit on his mouth, and he has to concentrate on gulping it down, has to try more than once.

“Hanjae, baby, look– I’ll send him on his way later. Maybe tonight. Or tomorrow morning. Just…” She trials off. “Please don’t tell the others we met, okay? I don’t want Seungsoo looking for me or asking around. I don’t want to see him again, ever.”

Fair, Hanjae thinks. After everything, fair.

Deh flashes him a final grim before closing the door, still awkward, and it doesn’t last. She drops it for a split second, fully drops it, looks instead concerned, anxious.

Hanjae waits a moment, then moves before he knows it. He presses his ear against the shut door, closes his eyes and hopes to catch anything. A creek of wood. A vacuum cleaner being turned off. The sound of someone channel surfing. Deh saying what might be, “Haruki, what do you want me to do? I can’t know, love. I can’t know if you don’t tell me.”

Another sound drowns everything, nearer. Someone from the apartment on the left starts to unlock their door, it’s about to walk out, and it leaves Hanjae panicking, it makes him jog all the way out of the building, nonstop.

He makes the inverse way back home, alone. His own phone is a hot thing in his back pocket. When he gets to the dorm, Chihoon is the first person he bumps into, planted right beside the shoe rack. Hanjae’s seen him in this set of clothes, short shorts and a knockoff Pokemon shirt, more than he’s seen his own dad’s face these last few years.

Dylan grabs at Hanjae when he notices it’s him, pushes him back out quickly. He puts a finger in front of his mouth – quiet.

“I’ve given you some cover,” he whispers. They’re circling the house, Hanjae realizes, going to the backyard. “Said you were not feeling well. It won’t fly with Minwoo or Taesong, so think of something. And you're not gonna get paid this month, because of the clothes. Neither of you will.” He looks around, eyes sharp in a way Hanjae didn’t think they could be. “Where is he?”

“Deh’s,” Hanjae blurts out, and remembers he promised not to speak of her, grows meek.

He’s tired, deep in the bones tired, from all the walking, all the running. The socks inside his sneakers are still wet, his fingers have gone cold.

“Good,” Dylan says, remarkably unsurprised. “That’s good enough.”

There’s a moment of silence between them. In Hanjae’s head, a pinned image every time he blinks: Haruki’s eyes, red like a bruise.

“Chihoon hyung, I think– I think there’s something wrong with–”

Dylan’s grip on his arm is steady, but no longer comforting when he says, “Hanjae, listen, yes. Yes. Something’s wrong. Too many things–” He shakes his head, clicks his tongue once, and again. “No need for you to worry about it, because there’s nothing you can really do, okay? It’s been too long, now. The time for anyone to really do anything, over.”

He looks like he doesn’t want to be saying it, like all those words taste bitter, bad.

“So just keep being nice,” Dylan concludes, and his voice breaks at the end. “Be nice with him right now, alright? And patient, and normal, just like always, and…”

Dylan doesn’t say what else. He looks down, and Hanjae follows. Near their feet, a trail of black nicotine ash and tiny bits of paper; someone’s worry, someone’s wait.Kind, maybe, Hanjae concludes on his own. Maybe kind was what he was going to say.

March 12th & a Bit Of 13th, 2022.

Sunyoung immediately strikes Hanjae as someone who’s never held a small house party before, and it’s a bit painful to see her try.

She greets them at the door, a little overdressed: Chanel earrings, Chanel bag. “Is that everyone?”, she asks, craning her neck to peek behind them, and when they mumble ‘yes’ she visibly withers.

Taesong steps in front of them to give her a gift – a flower vase so yellow Zhiming had to look away from it, rubbing at his eyes.

She stares at it for a minute, frowns hard, then composes herself, says, “Ah! Thank you so much, oppa! This is so– Yeah, thanks! But you didn’t have to! Gon, baby! I said they didn’t have to!”

“I told you they don’t listen to me,” Haegon mutters. There’s a dark cloud over his face and Sunyoung seems to not mind it. She squeezes his arm when he passes her by, smiles at him prettily. 

She checks the corridor one more time, and for a moment Hanjae thinks she looks sad; that she looks angry.

The party is a housewarming party for the brand new double storey apartment in Nine One Hannam she’s sharing with her BombShell leader Yoorim, who strongly opposed herself to throwing anything. Hanjae catches a glimpse of her looking displeased and bothered behind the kitchen aisle, and bows his head a little – she rolls her eyes, turns her back on him, disappears behind a small group of people.

Beomseok refused to come, decided to take the afternoon to go grocery shopping, the night to visit family he can’t take Haegon to see; the side that calls him a parasite. It had been a clear jab, right at Haegon’s face. Even Minwoo thought it was insensitive, and his response to the invite had been nothing but a disgusted face that spelled out ‘no’.

Hanjae watches him move through the living room, greeting some people. Haegon’s been here yesterday, and the day before that, and if Hanjae’s not cautious, he’ll stay over despite their early shooting tomorrow.

“That old man put you on babysitting duty, eh, Hanhan?” Seungsoo leans in to whisper to him, somehow with a drink in hand – white wine. The smell of his cologne is already stuck to the collar of Hanjae’s bottom up by osmosis.

“He’s just concerned. It makes sense to be concerned.”

On their first day back from L.A, Haegon had announced over dinner that he now had a girlfriend: they met last week, and had been dating for three days. The situation had driven Beomseok crazy. Haegon asked if him if wanted to meet her every day for two weeks straight, and he said: no. He eventually got around to meet her and said with even more conviction: no, break up, now.

It’s an age gap, even if very small, but she’s about five years his industry senior, he told Hanjae. And Sunyoung’s from YG Entertainment, the face of too many brands. She’s going to eat him alive, spit him out, leave him heartbroken and Beomseok is going to have to deal with it, and he doesn’t want to have to deal with it.

“She can just like him. People can just like him,” Taesong tried to intervene, high pitched, and Beomseok cutted him off right away, said, “No. No, there’s something– Be serious, Taesong. No.”

The front door dings again, and it takes a long minute for Haegon to untangle his arms from Sunyoung’s waist and let her go get it. Hanjae watches her walk across the house, a firm walk of a supermodel, of someone important, and gets embarrassed with how bad he is at this, how obvious.

Another glimpse her way, and the person with their two feet planted on the ‘welcome home’ carpet is Haruki. He also said he wouldn’t come but gave no excuse, yet: here, dressed nicely. He’s got the same convenience store from years ago under one arm, the one from a memory.

They talk, talk, talk, and he still won’t leave the entrance. Haruki makes her laugh, the most genuine thing Hanjae’s seen Sunyoung do all night. He sees her look at him, look around, then lean closer again: point upstairs and give Haruki a thumbs up as he finally makes his way in, into the stairs and out of sight.

Sunyoung’s back on the couch, to Haegon, and Hanjae makes himself look. They’re fine, they appear very fine, holding hands, he doesn’t have to watch them all night, there’s no need to watch them at all, and–

Hanjae goes up the stairs, which he knows it’s technically off limits. He tries to not let his eyes wander to the photos on the walls, the books on the shelves tucked next to an award behind protective glass, a big shiny plaque framed above it.

There’s only one door with light peeking through, right at the end of the corridor. He taps at it three times, and waits. Another three taps, slightly stronger.

“Occupied,” a voice says from the inside – a tone he knows. “All night.”

Hanjae can’t think of what to say: can’t think of anything at all, for a second. He gives the door another hopeful tap, waits more, and he lets out a sigh of relief when it creeks open. He goes in, closes it quietly behind him, and looks down.

The room’s a bathroom, straight out of a home decoration magazine, all black and white. Haruki seems to be setting up an improv bar on the floor, in the big space between the bathtub and the sink. There’s a bottle of something Hanjae can’t read, blue and half empty, tucked in between his legs like a treasure.

“Ah, you,” he waves at Hanjae’s vague direction, not looking up. “Hello, you. I’m just– Don’t mind the mess. Someone made me something once. ‘Trying to put it together.”

Hanjae hums. He can’t make his hand ease its grip on the doorknob.

It’s been weeks since they abandoned the shoot, and since then Haruki’s been avoiding him constantly. Looks at him from across rooms and seems pained, constantly, and Hanjae hasn’t had the heart to come near.

“What is happening?” Haruki asks, suddenly, and tries to land a smile. He blinks a lot and then not enough looking up at Hanjae. “Down. Down there.”

“Nothing much.”

“How is he?”

“Haegon?” Hanjae asks, and Haruki nods at him loosely, mouths the name without making a sound: ‘Haegon’. “He– Uh, he seems alright.”

“Great couple, yes or no? For our maknae, is she great?”

“I– I don’t know.”

Disappointment flashes vividly through Haruki’s face, and it lands on a sad shagrin. “You don’t know,” he says, to himself, and goes back to emptying his bag with a slouch to his shoulders.

‘Be normal’, Dylan had said that day, his only instructions: ‘Be nice.’

Hanjae lets go of the door and goes to sit in front of him, legs crossed like his are. “What’s it supposed to taste like? The drink.”

There’s no humor in Haruki when he says, “Acid.”

He offers a thermo bottle to Hanjae filled with the failed replica. Hanjae takes a tiny sip and can’t swallow it, feels like his tongue is on fire, and it makes Haruki huff a laugh. “More disgusting than that.”

He makes more combinations that demand more tasting, and Hanjae at times struggles, at times doesn’t – Haruki empties a Soju bottle and refills it with Somaek, calls it ‘Hanjae’s palette cleanser’. He also makes Hanjae go downstairs to grab things they don’t have: more cups, ice and fruit juice, if Sunyoung has any, which she does – too many options.

Hanjae comes back from the trip and sets all his findings at Haruki’s feet, then feels weird about it, exposed about it, and pushes some of it closer to himself.

The bottle opener, they notice a minute later, has disappeared. Hanjae thinks he took it with him to the kitchen and abandoned it on the counter. Worry not, Haruki says; worry not!, because he knows how to open them with his front teeth. It’s a hidden skill, a secret talent.

Haruki asks him to hold a bottle close to his face so he can prove it, and Hanjae does so, but it’s a frail grip, not good. Haruki puts a hand over his to make it steadier, makes it worse. Another hand, a shove closer until their knees are touching. Hanjae adds his free hand into the pile, the lonely hand, and Haruki looks straight at him – looks like he’s saying, ‘Bet?’

It takes a second, really. A pop and the lid comes off in the company of an enormous foam eruption. Haruki gets both his hands away, does a smiley flourish: ‘ta-da!’

“But you shook it! Too much, you–!’ He laughs, and can’t stop laughing. Hanjae’s still holding the bottle and tries to hand it to him, but Haruki shakes his head ‘no’. “For you. It is for you.”

It’s bland beer, he takes notice when he drinks it, but somehow it tastes sweeter.

From the corner of his eyes he catches a glimpse of metal in a corner, and it’s Haruki’s new phone, exiled.

Hanjae is surprised to hear himself ask him, “Are the calls– the calls still coming? The ones from–”

“Always,” Haruki responds, eerily nonchalant. “Always will.”

“It’s not over, then? You still–”

“It is. It is over. It is over the way it can be over.”

“What wouldhe,” Hanjae closes his eyes, reiterates, “If it’s over, what would he still want with you?”

“What do you think,” Haruki asks, staring fixedly at the alcohol going from one bottle to the other. A bit of it it’s running straight to the floor. “What do you think people want with me?”

It’s said– weird. Something in his uncaring tone makes a lump of sadness form in Hanjae’s throat.

“Hyung, you know that, if you everneed to talk to anyone about anything. Me and the guys, we all– We all listen. We would listen.”

“Anything?” Haruki pretends to be impressed. “Big. That is big.”

“Seriously. I’m being serious.”

Haruki looks up at him. Even more alcohol spills to the floor.

“Okay. Okay, anything. Anything…” he hums, dropping the bottles, mimicking being in thought with an obnoxious pout. His mouth is now a purple dot, and his eyes a shiny brown daze...

Hanjae often catches himself wondering if he just knows. If he looks into a mirror and just knows that he’s beautiful in a way that looks hand drawn, that looks meticulously planned: a subject of equal envy and admiration. If Sangwon ever told him that, and if so, how many times, had it come close to enough, had he used the right words to say it, did Haruki believe him when he said it, or if he didn’t – what did it make him feel? What exactly did he make him feel?

Hanjae always thought he was so mean, so bitter. He can’t remember ever hearing him say anything nice to anyone about anything.

Hanjae’s staring, he’s realized, and his eyes hurt. He makes them look down to where Haruki’s got a firm hold around the slim of a bottleneck, tapping a weird rhythm into it, impossible to decipher. He has long fingers with hard skin on them, which isn’t something you would expect. He used to paint, used to do calligraphy; used to go to a prestigious arts academy during high school, all boys.

Hanjae’s still starring, and he’s too close to drunk to properly command himself to stop. He hears Haruki huffs an unheard laugh, suddenly, short and maybe frustrated, maybe not that, and Hanjae’s head snaps up to his face to meet it.

He’s being stared at, too – is being analyzed, too.

“I thought of something. Something I want to say, a thing,” Haruki announces. The grin on his face suddenly looks very, very sharp, like there’s something tugging the corners of his mouth up. “I will whisper to you. On your ear. ‘Gimme your ear and I will tell.”

And with that he comes forward, a sudden and ungracious movement, and doesn’t stop when they’re front to front, an inch apart. He climbs Hanjae up – actually climbs him up, his legs around the middle of his body, cageing him in.

Haruki grims again and it’s lazily, in slow motion. He puts a hand on Hanjae’s chin, tips it high, says, “Not your ear.”

He turns his head to the side. His nose rovers near Hanjae’s head, and Hanjae tries to escape it in reflex, but they’re all too slow, drowned in alcohol.

Into his ear, lips touching skin, Haruki says, “I know you like me. For a very long time. Since that one time. Ever since we went out, we got drunk, that one time.”

“Sorry,” Hanjae mutters, hushed.

“‘Sorry’,” Haruki laughs again, like that’s the funniest word there is, like it’s the meanest. It rings so loud, it has an echo. “Now you sorry?”

Hanjae sinks more into the floor, almost laying down, and Haruki follows, saying, “Are you going away? This close? I am this close, and you going away?”

They’re kissing before Hanjae fully processes how, and it’s a weird kiss at a weird angle; Haruki won’t bend his body all the way down, and Hanjae has to keep craning his neck to meet him midway, his elbows pressing against the tiles, hurting.

He feels a hand slide up his shirt almost immediately, and Hanjae understands, with drunken horror, that he’s being undressed – quickly.

“Ah, wait–” He says, and then can’t get out anything else: Haruki shoved a thumb inside his mouth, in between his teeth, as he goes for the spot where Hanjae’s shoulder and neck meet.

“You smell like home here,” he says, a goosebump. He buries his face there, opens his mouth above it, bites and sucks hard enough to make Hanjae jump  – for him to know it’ll leave a pinkish mark, evidence–

It’s exactly then and there that someone bursts in through the door, says a curse loudly, startles the two of them slightly apart, knocks the air out of their lungs.

“Close your eyes! I need to pee right now, right now, close your eyes!”

It’s a tall woman, this one – Hanjae sees her quick rush to the toilet and closes his eyes tight shut.

“If any of you try to act funny and take a single peek, I’ll fucking castrate you both– Hey! Hey, you, back on the floor, don’t come near, I’m fucking serious, I’ll kill you, you fucking–!”

The door clicks shut, and it takes Hanjae a moment to take in the lack of heat above and around him, to correlate the two: Haruki’s gone, walked out, left him.

From the side, he hears an instrident, “Can you at least cover your fucking boner, dude?!”

Hanjae rolls to his side, facing the opposite wall to where the toilet is; he pushes his knuckles into his shut eyes, for good measure. He waits for the girl to finish peeing, and tries not to have an anxiety attack or a heart attack or a nerve attack about everything that happened in the last ten minutes: Haruki on top of him, Haruki no longer on top of him, having to hear a stranger peeing.

“I’m done,” she announces, and he turns back to the same position as before.

There’s little dots of light in his vision, dancing. The girl’s using the sink now, and she has a blonde bob, so blonde and so short. It follows the shape of her mouth and up, even shorter at the back.

“Not a word from you, ever,” she warns, drying her hands on her skirt, pushing it down more, back in place. She gives him a pointed glare that makes Hanjae look down at the state he’s in, at his busted open shirt, a single button in the middle holding it all together. “Not a word from me. Now get the fuck out, please. People need to use the bathroom.”

And she gets going too, without closing the door all the way. The hum of the party downstairs carries over.

Hanjae inhales, looking at the bright ceiling light. His fingers have gone pruney where they were holding him.

[…]

Eventually Hanjae has to get out of the suite, and do a walk of shame back to the housewarming party. He takes down with him all the glass and cups he can manage, not a lot of them, goes straight to the kitchen sink, and begins to wash them, it’s done with them, goes for all of Sunyoung and Yoorim’s dishes.

Around him, the kitchen has emptied out – on the front the living room, mostly emptied out, too, except for little clicks. He spots J.J right in the center of the one installed in the couch, gesticulating enthusiastically, telling someone some story until they make eye contact. He stops, excuses himself, rushes near.

Up close, Jiahang looks at him, up and down, bug eyed, and Hanjae understands he didn’t do a good job of piecing himself back together.

He got a glimpse of his face in the mirror before walking out: lips glossy, bangs far apart and sticking up, somehow, not all the buttons of his shirt tucked in the right cases.

“Hanjae, oh my God. Dylan, Dylan, look!” He calls out, and Hanjae sees Chihoon appear on his left, face slightly dazed. “Oh my God, Dylan! Hanjae!”

“You fucking animal!” Seungsoo, coming out of nowhere, slaps him on the chest hard. “Who? Who who who who?”

They’re all too close, too soon, and Hanjae can’t look anyone in the eyes for too long– he just can’t.

He catches a glimpse of Blonde Bob Piss Girl in a corner, looking bored, on her phone, and stares at her for a moment too long. Everyone follows, looks at her too, and his bandmates erupt into enthusiastic ‘Eeeeeeh!’s. Someone, proprably Seungsoo still, raises his soupy arm up so he can be given high fives, and Hanjae doesn’t know what to do – to let the lie linger or to kill it. What can he even say? What can he say if not that–

Hanjae finds himself grabbing Dylan’s sleeve and tugging at it, leaving behind a damp. He feels like a little kid that broke something, suddenly – overwhelmingly so. “Where ‘d Haruki go?”

“Dude, I didn’t see him. You sure?” Chihoon asks, and Hanjae’s not; he’s not sure.

“Whaaaaat? Haruki came? Haruki’s here?”

“Great. Another one to hunt down. We’re never gonna leave this fucking place in time,” Jiahang whines. “Yoorim noona’s going to delete my number.”

Hanjae asks all of them at once, “We’re leaving?”

“Yeah, you didn’t hear? Sunyoung and Haegon ditched,” Seungsoo says, and Hanjae’s stomach drops. “It’s her house and they ditched, disappeared, poof! Yoorim’s pissed, told everyone to leave. And Taeng’s freaking out! Someone broke his little vase, someone spilled something on him. I think he’s gonna snap. We need to get that freak home.”

“Shit.”

“Yes, Hanjae,” Seungsoo laughs. “Old man was right, after all… Shit.”

[...]

They do a small search around the apartment, the balcony, and conclude: no Haruki anywhere, so they group everyone they have to leave, go wait to be picked up on the sidewalk in front of the Nine One Hannam gates.

“You just dreamed him up, Hanhan! Wouldn’t be the first time,” Seungsoo jokes. It’s a bad joke. O.z shoves him in the chest hard about it, tells him, “Quiet.”

Hanjae looks straight ahead, not at them. In front of him J.J keeps bouncing on the wheel of his feet, saying, ‘I’m going in the front, I’m passenger seat, forget it, it’s me me me me,’ even though no one’s putting up a fight about it.

Minwoo pulls up soon enough on the curve in one of the two black company vans, and downs the window just to give them all an open scowl, then a frown. “I’m only seeing seven of you.”

J.J circles the car to get to the front door, struggles a little to get it open. “Hyung, you’re not gonna believe.”

“I don’t wanna hear it, Jiahang.”

“Shut up, you do. You really really really really do. You were–,” and then he becomes aware of the slouched figure of Hanjae trailing behind him, turns and frowns. “What did I just say!”

“No, I’m…” Hanjae looks at Minwoo looking at him, one eyebrow raised, says, “Sorry.”

Minwoo pinches at his nose, hard. “Just get in the goddamn car, Hanjae, Jesus Christ.”

Hanjae thinks, out of everyone who has a driver’s license, Minwoo drives the shittiest. He needs glasses, he never wears them, he grumbles curses at every slow driver and every rush driver and every driver, in general.

On the way home, he stops the van only once, by popular demand. Taesong steps out to vomit, and spends the rest of the ride jittery about it, cracking his knuckles even when they make no sound.

“We’re so fucked,” Chihoon says when they park inside the dorm’s garage, rubbing his eyes. “It’s 3AM. We’re so fucked.”

While everyone rushes to their rooms to piece pajamas together and form a long row to shower, Hanjae’s elbow to elbow with Dylan, going up the stairs to the second floor as quietly as they can.

He and Haruki have, by far, the best room in the whole house: spacious, with a nice window. It used to be Haruki and Sangwon’s up until he got fired – some excuse about rooming with the manager to learn Korean quicker, about making sure Haruki wouldn’t sneak beer into his room. It makes Hanjae sick now, seeing it, standing so close to it.

Dylan tries the handle once, and the door doesn’t budge, only makes a stubborn click – locked.

Hanjae dries his hand on his jeans, still wet, somehow, asks him, “Is he– He’s in there? Or…?”

Chihoon rests his head against the mahogany and sort of sighs, sort of laughs. “Yeah, definitely home. He’s the only one with the key to lock me out. Classic. Just classic.”

“Get my bed,” Hanjae says – implores. “Use mine, you can– mine, I’ll couch.”

“You’ll couch?” Chihoon looks at him with the trembling smile of someone who’s about to laugh. It falls off his face quickly when he takes in the guilt Hanjae knows he’s wearing openly on his face.

“Hyung, I–” It’s out of his mouth before Hanjae even knows it. “Tonight, something – Something has happened, and I think, think I should– say.”

Dylan’s giving him an analytical once over, and he stops at his moving hands, on his marked neck, looks at the door again – locked. 

“Hanjae,” he says his name like it’s an insult, and for a moment Hanjae feels like it really is – his name, an insult.

He crumbles. “I’m sorry, so, so sorry, we just– I didn’t mean to– It was just, just a kiss, I think, and I– I–”

“You kissed him?! ‘You think’? What does that mean? What do you mean ‘you think’?!”

Hanjae looks around and then down, behind him. “Dylan…” he manages, airy, and doesn’t know what he wants the rest of the phrase to be, where he’s trying to take it.

Chihoon’s mouth hangs open, a painful disbelief, and then slowly shuts.

“You know what,” he says harshly, but not angrily – he sounds more disappointed than anything, more tired than anything. “I don’t want to know. Not now. I’ll know, just– Not now. But fucking Hell, Hanjae, you. You just had to, didn’t you? You saw an opportunity and you just had to.”

Hanjae’s breath catches. Dylan is a figure in his eyes, growing blurry.

“I’m taking your bed,” he announces. ”Eveytime he kicks me out from this day on, I’m sleeping on your bed.”

He storms off, his bare feet on the floor a sound until it isn’t anymore.

Hanjae knocks on the door, a small tap. Nothing.

He thinks of saying it again: sorry. But no one’s around to hear it, no one’s around to accept it. There’s no point.

[darkwingsnark]

‘So what if Mario died?’

A Bowsario AU idea.

Step 1.) kill the man. Pick your poison, could be as simple as Mario dying during a more routine kidnapping or even one of the more random and evil villains. Point is, at the end of the day, you need a body-- so no King Boo trapping him in paintings just to rip it up.

Step 2.) Bowser can’t let it go. He doesn’t exactly know why, his own feelings mixed up with emptiness and anger from Mario having the gull to DIE. Real rude, man. Well Bowser isn’t going to just sit there and let the man be dead. It isn’t in the cards, at least not the ones he’s playing with-- Bowser always stacking things in his favor. So he waits for some time after the funeral so as to not having witnesses as he sends peeps off to steal a whole Mario. Just snatched him from the ground-- free dead man.

Step 3.) Resurrection. You’ve heard of Dry Bones and Dry Bowser, now lets see how you deal with Dry Mario. That’s right, Bowser has Kamek do some necromancy. Mario wakes in a gasp-- despite not having lungs-- not having memories of his death. He probably thinks it’s still mid adventure. He realizes he’s in Bowser’s castle, and of course he’s just going to break out. No kidnapping good ol’ Mario. Not today!

Step 4.) Mario fights his way out only to be confronted by Bowser. Bowser is relieved to see him alive and moving. He’s missed him far more than he realized. Of course, this jubilation is kind of put on hold as Mario goes on a whole spiel about how Bowser can’t kidnap him. He has things to do! He was in the middle of a mission! It is then Bowser realizes Mario doesn’t KNOW. Bowser tries to calmly explain to him that he died. He brought him back. Mario doesn’t believe him because, why would he? Bowser tries to convince him while they fight through the castle, only for one point Bowser finds a reflective object or rips a mirror off a wall to show him. Mario stop mid-attack to look at himself in horror.

Step 5.) Bowser... what have you done? It’s a lot, maybe too much to the point Mario’s unable to keep himself together as he literally falls apart. It is later that Mario wakes up again, this time in a different room altogether. It’s a room with accommodations like bed, separate bathroom, closet, bookshelf. And so on. Mario remembers what happened before fading to black, and looks at his arms. In shock he goes to the bathroom and looks in the mirror to take himself in. What he sees is this:

He is alone as he tries to do his best to evaluate the situation. First thing he needs to somewhat feel like himself. He is immensely relieved when he sees the closet has his trademark outfit-- down to the gloves, shoes, and even a hat. Mario gets dressed just to see less of himself, as well as the fact he feels naked. I mean, the guy is all bones, not even skin to make him naked. But it’s the principle of it! Step 6.) At some point he is visited by Bowser and gets more information out of him. He finds out what happened to him, how long he’s been dead. His instinct is to go back to Luigi, to make sure he’s okay. But Bowser and Kamek are able to convince him that woah woah woah... Green Stache? He was hurt the most from all of this, maybe don’t go over there and traumatize the guy more? It’s actually sound logic, and that surprises Mario. Enough that he’s able to listen out what Bowser’s plan is. They brought him back from the dead, sure easy enough. They do it all the time. But they’ve never turned people back into full on flesh people before. But there are theories that it can be done. They’re working on trying to restore him fully so that everything can go back to normal.

Mario essentially ends up staying with Bowser as they’re trying to figure things out. He at least makes Bowser promise to have people watch Luigi so that he doesn’t get worse. And to keep an eye on the Mushroom Kingdom in general. But meanwhile it’s Mario just... hanging. Trying to make himself useful, asking to go on mission to find herbs and stuff that Kamek needs to restore him. Lots of bonding with Bowser. And through it Mario finally asks ‘why did you do all of this?’ Only for Bowser to tell him ‘because the thought of having to act like things were normal without you being around scared me’. Mario learns just how important they are to each other’s lives, and during the journey/event fall in love.

[ramblingoak]

My Husband Is Now Bones

Chapter 5: Zombie Queen

Omega’s plan was simple:

Escape Hell

Grab Terzo’s Body

????

Happily Ever After

Previous Chapters:   1 / 2 / 3 / 4

Terzo x Omega

This is for the Ghost Creative Challenge put on by @petrifyingpapas . The first week’s theme is “Resurrection”.  Thank you to @kissingghouls​ for helping me with this story and for cheering Zerzo on.

Warnings: major character death, murder, horror themes, decapitation, blood, zombie violence/gore, once more for the people in the back: ZOMBIE VIOLENCE/GORE, ZOMBIES DOING ZOMBIE THINGS, NSFW, 18+ only MDNI  

“Hold still or I’ll have to start over.”

Terzo huffed, but obliged, settling back against the wall.  They were still in the catacombs but Omega didn’t plan on being there much longer.  Terzo was getting antsy being stuck in the dark and Omega didn’t blame him.  He belonged upstairs walking the halls of his abbey.  He deserved to feel the sun shining on his face.

Omega just needed to finish his damn paint first.

He smoothed the brush along the bridge of Terzo’s nose, laughing when the man’s eyes crossed trying to follow the movement.  Terzo reached up and attempted to grab at the brush, clinging to Omega’s hand for a moment before bringing the back of it to his lips and mouthing along the skin there.  Omega brought his other hand up and slid his fingers through Terzo’s hair, laughing when Terzo nearly purred as he scratched his nails along his scalp.

It wasn’t that long ago they were doing this very same thing in Terzo’s bed and the thought made his heart ache.  He planned on devoting the rest of his life to making sure they could continue to enjoy moments like that, like this.  So much had happened since that day, so much had changed.  The feel of Terzo’s tongue on his skin brought his thoughts back to the present and he looked down to see a playful smile on Terzo’s face.

Well, not that much had changed.

“Omega!”

He tensed at the voice, shushing Terzo when he started growling.  He had just gotten him calmed down after all the excitement when he got back from upstairs.  Terzo had been having a hard time sitting still after eating and Omega needed to get him cleaned up so he could bring him back there.  

So he could bring him home.

It had taken longer than he had thought it would for Copia to come find them.  Omega had expected some more of his Ghouls at first but there hadn’t been any sign of them.  He liked to think that maybe they were scared after seeing what Omega had done to Aether and Swiss.  At how he had made sure their blood decorated the walls of Terzo’s room. 

Omega hadn’t wanted to kill them, he had considered them his friends at one point.  But they had made their choice and Omega couldn’t forgive them.  Terzo wouldn’t have wanted them to live anyway.  The look of glee on his face when Omega had brought the parts of them he had decided to gift his Papa with had been beautiful, but it was nothing compared to the look on his face when he gave Terzo Imperator’s head.

Terzo had cooed and reached shaking hands out for it, his gloves covered in gore from Mary and the Ghouls.  Omega would need to figure out how much Terzo needed to eat to sustain himself, to keep him alive.  Right now he didn’t seem to want to slow down, pulling the Sister’s head into his lap and gazing into her face.

“Omega!  Omega wh-what’s happening?!”

He ignored the Cardinal and knelt down in front of Terzo, Imperator’s head still in his lap.  Terzo had refused to let go of it, snarling at Omega when he had tried to take it.  When Terzo didn’t look at him right away he ignored the mess on his chin and gently gripped it so they could look into each other’s eyes.  Terzo tried to say something so Omega shushed him and leaned forward so their foreheads met.

“This is all for you, Papa.  You know that, right?”  He felt Terzo’s head move up and down against him and Omega smiled.  When he let go of his chin and moved away Terzo’s head tried to follow him for a moment, his mouth opening and closing like he wanted to say something.  “It’ll be ok.  I’ll take care of you.”

They both turned when they heard Copia shout again, much closer than before.  Omega pressed a quick kiss onto Terzo’s forehead and stood up, accidentally knocking into one of the piles of teeth Terzo had made.  Once he had finished eating everyone he had started making piles of bones and such around him.  He hissed at Omega and reached a hand out to scrape them back together, the nails of his gloves scratching against the stone.  When Terzo pouted up at him Omega gave him a wink and headed towards the door.

“Don’t worry, Papa.  I’ll bring you back some more.”

His Papa looked as handsome as ever.

Omega had gotten him into a clean set of papal robes. Ones free of blood and gore, of the smell of death.  They sparkled in the moonlight streaming in through the chapel windows.  His eyes sparkled too as Papa glanced around the room, but they rarely left Omega.

There weren’t many that stayed after word had gotten out about Imperator and Copia. Omega hadn’t let himself be bothered with it. He had been busy helping Terzo settle back into his room, back into his role as Papa.  There had been Ghouls to banish, ones he didn’t trust to be loyal to the church. To the new Church of Emeritus.

(It wasn’t going to be called the Church of Zerzo no matter how much Cowbell begged.)

Obviously he had summoned Cowbell back. Most of the older Ghouls actually, those that were with Primo and Secondo.  Special was probably the most important as according to Cowbell he had the most experience with resurrection magic.  There had been a few that hadn't wanted to, a few that decided to stay behind but Omega respected their choice.  He respected anyone’s choice.  The atmosphere in the abbey was definitely different than before and no one needed to stay who didn’t want to be there.

Omega’s next goal was to bring Terzo’s brothers back.  Cowbell thankfully seemed to know a number of occult practitioners besides Mary and he had been working to contact them.  They hadn’t deserved what Imperator had done to them either and he wanted Terzo to have his family back.  Cowbell was confident he’d be able to find someone to get the job done.

The Ghoul had learned not to bring up fixing Terzo though.  For Omega there was nothing to fix, despite what he had demanded of Mary at first.  As the days had worn on all Omega could see was his Papa, his lover, his husband.  Terzo was perfect the way he was and Omega didn’t want anything to change.

Terzo reached a hand out his way, almost like he knew Omega was thinking about him. The bones that he had sewn onto the back of Terzo’s gloves clicked together as his fingers stretched out towards him. He let Papa take a hold of his hand and Omega reached up to smooth some of his hair back behind his ear.

While his white eye was as striking as always the green one had taken on an almost purple hue.  Jagged red streaks ran along from the pupil across the rest of his eye. He had seen a few siblings flinch away from it but Omega thought it was beautiful. A purple eye to match his own purple gaze.  It was just another sign they were meant to be together.

Terzo‘s hand squeezed his and Omega smiled at him. The necklace of bones that he had made Terzo rattled as he fidgeted in his seat.  The bones and teeth of Copia and Imperator seemed like a fitting thing to use for his Papa.  Omega reached over and straightened it for him, smiling as the teeth rattled together.  Terzo leaned back and purred, always pleased when Omega fussed over him.  

Maybe he’d make him a crown of bones next.

The chapel doors swung open then and he helped Terzo stand up to welcome their congregation.  He heard Terzo start to sniff the air and growl so he shushed him, ignoring the snarl he got in return.

“You just ate before this, Papa.  Remember?”  

He was still getting the hang of how much Terzo needed to eat.  Too much and he would get irritated easily, snapping at even Omega for the smallest thing.  It was worse when he ate too little though and Cowbell was already whining about having to summon more Ghouls so soon. 

When Terzo continued to growl and fidget Omega helped Terzo sit back down and then looked over to where Special was waiting and nodded.  The Ghoul walked behind the pulpit and brought out what still always seemed to calm his Papa down.  Omega ignored the murmurs building in the crowd and just watched as Terzo clutched Imperator’s head to his chest, smoothing a glove covered in her own bones over her hair.

He motioned for Special to get the items for communion and raised his hands towards the rest of the chapel, pleased when they all stood.  Terzo’s eyes were on them as they filed into the aisle and prepared to accept His body and blood.  Omega could smell the fear in the air, but if any were too scared they were welcome to leave.  Cowbell had been worried someone might try to hurt Papa, but that was one thing Omega wasn’t concerned about.  

He had promised Terzo that he wouldn’t leave his side.  He’d promised him that he would protect him from anything and anyone.  Omega meant to keep that promise no matter the cost.  His Papa could also hold his own now though, better than before at least.  And if anyone did try something and Omega wasn’t close enough…well...

Terzo was always hungry.

Thank you again to @rabidghoul for the lovely Zerzo

Next part in the series:  A Gift Of Bones

If you'd like to be added/removed from the tag list (or if I accidentally left your name off) of this fic or any of my others please leave a comment or send me a dm! Thank you 💙

My Masterlist ~ My Archive of our Own ~ My Ko-Fi Tip Jar

[kamweek2023]

Prompts and Guidelines

September 7: First Date

September 8: College/Roommates

September 9: Exes/Breakup

September 10: Cowboy

September 11: Soulmates

September 12: Artist/Musician

September 13: Free Day

Guidelines:

Kam Week will take place from September 7th to September 13th! If you need extra time, submissions will be accepted up to months after the week ends, so long as it was intended for this week!

Tag @kamweek2023, @when-wax-wings-melt, and @did-i-say-you-could-get-up (aka @/honey-the-dinosaur-ate-our kid) and also tag your post with #kamweek2023

These creations can include any medium, including art, writing, moodboards, playlists, aesthetics, animatics, gifsets, edits, anything else you can imagine! We can't wait to see the creativity and excitement all the participants will pour into this week!

Feel free to post the prompts out of order as well! Whatever works best for you!

Send in asks if you have questions, clarifications, or just need to share your process!

[id: a series of images with tan backgrounds with black smoky wisps, with words in cursive reading "Kam Week Prompts:" the transcripts are listed in plain text below the cut /end id]

In plain text below the cut:

Kam Week Prompts:

1. First Date

This is a good day for beginnings. Perhaps they're asking each other out instead of actually being on the date. A blind date set up by friends, dating apps. Matchmaking, or meet-cute, or childhood rivals finally trying something new. Restaurants, movies, walks on the beach, arcade something unconventional; this can be sweet or end in disaster!

2. College/Roommates

Whether they've known each other for a long time or just met, whether they're grudging friends or full-on enemies, this is a fabulous pining day! Platonic besties/haters, only one bed, staring at each other in classes-- moodboard the hell out of their shared room and see the difference between their aesthetics! Make them clash in uncomfortable ways and then find the parts that make them work!

3. Exes/Breakup

This is a day for jagged edges and cracked picture frames. A big, explosive fight or a quiet day that ends with what they've seen coming for months, years spent apart, pressure from family, something needed or something wrong. right person wrong time, wrong person wrong everything. Make it dramatic, make it broken, make it red, make it the end or the beginning. This is also a day for second chances.

4. Cowboy

This is a day for fun! Plop them into a Wild West movie as actors, or onto a horse and into your father's barn because somehow you know it ain't the ale he's got a hankering for. They're kids playing pretend and then they grow up and it's not pretend anymore. They're taxed physically and mentally, they're water in each other's desert, this is the worst possible person to be stuck with in the dry heat and dust.

5. Soulmates

There are SO many possibilities for this one. Look up prompts and check them out! Sharing pain, feeling when the other lies, sensory deprivation (colorblind, no music, etc) until they meet, numbers count down until they meet, red/blue string, sharing skies or handwriting, tattoos, matching superpowers, drawings will show up on skin, and so much more! Remember, this doesn't have to be strictly romantic-- mix things up!

6. Artist/Musician

Also included in this prompt is "poet". Keefe is a painter, always having ink or paint splattered on his clothes and hands, colors smeared on his cheek and caught under his fingernails. Tam is a musician and a poet, scribbling lyrics that he will sing with his guitar, or flute, or whatever. They're in a band together, or one is a famous singer that the other styles or writes for, Keefe finds Tam's poetry journal, one teaches piano to the other, anything!

7. Free Day

This is a wonderful day to incorporate your culture and see how that breaks the norms! Make them mermaids and pirates, childhood friends or royalty or vampires. Use nonverbal/sensory overload, death and resurrection, gods or superheroes, mythology or old age, enemies or villains, anything you want.

[mhearaithedreamer]

Xiao Wei and The Princess

Painted Skin: Resurrection

[bunny-hare]

Silly Game Time: Do you often remember your dreams? What's a dream that you do particularly remember?

Myself, I almost never do. But I do remember one where I wandered around an empty, medieval city wearing a tailcoat tuxedo and carrying a yellow rose.

I DO REMEMBER MY DREAMS!

Cutting here for long reply below!

So, as I said, I remember a lot of my dreams, usually, at least one per night/day!

Lately I've been dreaming a lot about mermaids/sirens/selkie/sea creatures.

Today I had 2 dreams about them today, one was about a young widow with a daughter, they left off to have a summer break with the mother's friends since they thought the mom needed to be back on the market since it had been a while since her husband died and she was "wasting her life" mourning her late husband, but when they arrived to the beach, many sea creatures kept harrasing the widow to steal her daughter and take her back to sea as she was the rightful heir to the ocean throne. (The daughter was pretty much like a selkie/skin walker since a porpoise gave the child a skin to go with it into the sea).

My other today's dream was that I was playing a rogue-like game about a mermaid that had been fishnapped by a buff jerk "local hero" that was obsessed with himself and maintaining his title as "the best" (kinda like Gaston from Disney's Beauty and the Beast). The mermaid was put into a bathtub in middle of an abandoned lighthouse that was now kinda far from the sea as the ocean had started to dry up, and now, far away from the sea, her only way to go back was by basically killing herself, dettaching her own spirit from her body with the help of her mermaid magic, and in spirit-only, she'd have to travel thorugh dimensions to go back to her sea (she didn't mind "dying" as she wanted her freedom over anything else, and if she was sucessful in her journey though dimensions, her mortal body would melt into sea foam while her spirit would be rebirthed into the sea).

A couple of days ago (like 2) I also dreamed about a former idol that threw it all away to have a normal life, she left the idol life to be a normal nerdish girl with a deep love for weird RPGs and History. She enjoys a happy normal life with her group of 6 friends (5 girls, and her best friend, a nerd boy), and though there are rumours her former idol band will comeback, and everyone keeps making a fuss about it, she doesn't mind it much and focuses on her normal girl stuff like a final project/exam for her history class which consist in making a thesis on lost cultures/civilizations; she researched along one of her friends about a lost palace that ended underwater as the palace's princess saw their ancient artifacts as a great evil that shouldn't befall the hands of these who would misuse them as the crown had the power to turn anyone into a beautiful being with incredible leadership capabilities that without doubt, could have the world at their mercy.

Fastforwards, it turns out the former Idol's band is, indeed, making a big return, they do interviews and all that, the press being particularly nosey about the former idols' leader (since it's this girl that left it all behind for a normal life), the former idol doesn't have much time to bother with it though as her best friend (the nerd) went missing/was probably murdered and she's no. #1 suspect, though it'd later BECOME a problem since it turns out the new leader of the idols' group is a doppelgänger of herself which is also a mermaid and claims she's the resurrection of the underwater palace's princess, the thing here is that the doppelgänger has the crown of legends and the idol girl suspects her mermaid doppelgänger can have something to do with her best friend going missing.

^- I drew the Idol girl in paint.

As for dreams where I'm more involved with them, I also remember many, but for a time after breaking up with my ex, I had a very recurrent dream in which I was trapped inside a multiple stories high sort-of department with multiple themed rooms filled with monsters, and I couldn't run away from it through the windows nor balconies nor nothing like that because I'd just respawn on the same point prior jumping off, and rooms with a red snapper where the only safe rooms.

This Red Snapper kept insisting he was my best friend, and he gave me life advice and also tips on how to get out of the house (by finding the main door's key).

It was a recurrent dream with many, different parts. The last part I dreamed was when I found the key at the house basement, the Red Snapper was there, but he had been cooked and spiced with herbs. The Red Snapper pressured me to grab the key and run away as someone would soon come. It was my ex and they threw knives at me as if the monsters behind them wasn't enough (note: abusive relationship). The Red Snapper sacrificed itself, becoming a meal for the monsters to let me escape and that's the last time I dreamed with him.

Up until this date, I still have Red Snappers hanging around my Animal Crossing house in honour of my best friend.

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Saturday, August 31

BUFFY: I wanna hear about you and Oz. You saw him, right? WILLOW: I was with him all night. BUFFY: All night? Oh my god. Wait. Last night was a wolf moon, right? WILLOW: Yup. BUFFY: Either you're about to tell me something incredibly kinky, or- WILLOW: No kink. He didn't change, Buffy. He said he was gonna find a cure, and he did. In Tibet.

~~BtVS 4x19 “New Moon Rising”~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

A Little Effort (Spike, Dawn, PG-13) by veronyxk84

the puzzle piece i've been trying to find (Buffy/Giles, G) by Skyson

The ink no longer on her skin (Buffy/Willow, not rated) by Murderpart1

M is for ... (Buffy/Giles, E) by The_Crazy_Knight

Painted Red Upon the Snow (Buffy/Spike, T) by LiraelClayr007

[Collection] Mad Science Flash 2024 (2 BtVS fics + 1 AtS fic) (various ratings) by unrevealed authors

[Chaptered Fiction]

Forty-eight days in L.A., Chapter 1/6 (Buffy/Spike, E) by Blissymbolics

My (love) Kill, Chapter 1/6 (Buffy/Spike, G) by witchywriter3

Night of the Slaywolf, Chapter 1/? (Buffy/Giles, M) by mabus101

Laid, Chapter 5/5 COMPLETE! (Buffy/Spike, E) by HollyDB

Her Eyes All Have the Seeming of a Demon that is Dreaming:, Chapters 1-2/5 (Willow/Tara, E) by TheLightdancer

The Dawn Chronicles (Summer of 1998), Chapter 9/? (Dawn, Ensemble, T) by MGAllan

Supporting Loki (And Thor), Chapter 2/18 (Buffy, Willow, Marvel xover, M) by SomeMeaninglessName

Double Date, Chapter 2/? (Buffy/Giles, E) by Rippertish

Meow, Chapters 7-11/13 (Buffy/Spike, E) by CheekyKitten

Lindsey's Pride, Chapter 11 (Angel, Lindsey, T) by TinyDancer96

[French Language] Do as Romans do, Chapter 43 (Dawn/Spike, T) by OldGirl-NoraArlani

Forty-eight days in L.A., Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Blissymbolics

Stiff Pole, Chapter 5 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by scratchmeout

Little Light, Chapter 5 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Melme1325

What It Means to Be a REAL Savior, Chapter 2 (Buffy, TWD xover, FR15) by Buffyworldbuilder

Stiff Pole, Chapter 5 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by scratchmeout

What the Drabble? Vol. 2, Chapter 65 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by VeroNyxK84

[Images, Audio & Video]

Gifset: now, i’m gone but you’re still laying; next to me, one degree of separation (Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Spike, worksafe) by clarkgriffon

Gifset: Every Tara look: S4E15 This Year’s Girl (worksafe) by lovebvffys

Artwork: Collage #116 (Buffy, worksafe) by thedecadentraven

Artwork: my spike and darla dynamic vision (Drusilla/Spike, Darla, worksafe) by artsying-ifer

Artwork: Faith Lehane - Bad Child Mood Board (worksafe) by theoverlookedoneedits1997

Icons: Charisma Carpenter in Buffy - 1x11 (Out of Mind, Out of Sight) (Cordelia, worksafe) by nostalgc

Icons: Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy - 1x11 (Out of Mind, Out of Sight) (Buffy, worksafe) by nostalgc

Fanvid: [Spike fanvid] (worksafe) by bananabeans88

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fashion crimes against humanity (90s fashion slayage) by Lisa Fevral

[Reviews & Recaps]

Teacher's Pet by Slayin It with Juliet Landau

Interview with Musetta Vander [the teacher] - Teacher's Pet part 2 by Slayin It with Juliet Landau

PODCAST: A Big, Bursting, Poltergasm (S4E18) by It Stakes Two

[Recs & In Search Of]

The Closing Distance (Buffy/Angel, T) by fluffernutter8 recced by iwillrememberyoumarathon

[Community Announcements]

Fanged Four Family Bingo 2024 collection opens TOMORROW by runsintheblood

[Fandom Discussions]

Sexual intimacy in seasons 1-3 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer - continued by secretsofthewilde, girl4music

a moment in btvs that a lot of people love but that i absolutely despise by moistvonlipwig

I really liked Rm w/a Vu! by agirlinsearchof

What Do You Think Is Overrated On BTVS/AtS? by hoponlilmama, multiple posters

Does anyone else think the dynamics of the characters ages are a bit off sometimes? by LightBlueSky55

I'm still amazed this place is so active for a show that ended in 2003! by precita

The [AtS] finale... by FloydLady

Angel vs Buffy [the shows] by Piratedking12

Random Buffy Aging/Resurrection Question by Edkm90p

How has the Buffyverse helped you through hard times? by controlxoxo

Cordelia's purifying light by illvria

What's an opinion that you have that separates you from majority of the Buffyverse fandom? by PristineSituation498

Dawn’s Introduction by fableSimmer

Spike: The Vampire Who Turned Chaos and Charm into an Art Form by Randy_Giles1880

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[angel-with-paper-wings]

Ten First Lines Game

Rules: Share the first line of ten of your most recent fanfics and then tag ten people. Don't have ten? Not to worry, just share what you have.

Thank you so much @sadeyedlady-writes for tagging me in this game!!! I do not have anywhere near ten published fics, so instead I chose some of my favorite first lines of chapters from my two multi-chapter works and my one-shot. All fics are about Phantom of the Opera.

Live As You’ve Never Lived Before

Chapter 1: Little Lotte Thought of Everything and Nothing

Turquoise waves crashed steadily onto the rocky shore.

2. Chapter 6: Let Your Spirit Start to Soar

A young rosy-faced ballerina scurried into the corps’ dressing room. She quickly found a friend and tugged on her arm. “Did you hear? Someone saw the Phantom!”

3. Chapter 7: Promise Me You’ll Try

The Opera Populaire stood cloaked in shadow, every room inside completely silent as its workers and dancers slept peacefully. Every room, that is, except for one.

4. Chapter 13: Threaten and Adore

For what felt like the hundredth time that day, Christine sneezed.

5. Chapter 20: Anywhere You Go, Let Me Go Too

Three weeks. Never before had Christine realized how long such a time actually was. She seemed to feel each second passing, every moment seeping by as if time moved through thick honey.

An Eternity of Bliss

6. Chapter 1: What Followed

The Rue de Rivoli was quiet and cloaked in nighttime shadows, broken intermittently by the glow of a street lamp.

7. Chapter 8: Resurrection

As nighttime fell upon the small seaside village, the newlywed couple and their friend exited the church with a collective sigh.

8. Chapter 9: The Happiest of Woman (and Men)

Morning light seeped into the room past the half-drawn curtains, gentle and promising. It was not what Erik was accustomed to.

9. Chapter 12: You Will Understand In Time

“Good morning, my Angel.” The musical rumble of Erik’s voice against her skin pulled Christine from her dreamless sleep.

10. The Siren’s Song (one-shot)

The sun dipped just below the west horizon, painting the Mazenderan sky a bright blood-red.

No-pressure tags: @iseedeadsneeeple, @a-partofthenarrative, @maze-zen, @garnet-xx-rose, @emotionalmotionsicknessxx, @erik-carierre, @eriksdreamery, @shinyfire-0, @patron-minette, @granhairdo and of course anyone else who sees this post and wants to participate!!

[romanceyourdemons]

That post about brotherhood is really interesting, and makes a lot of sense. Are there any books/movies with female characters having a "brotherhood" style relationship, in wuxia or otherwise? I suspect those relationships, much like the male ones, get read as homoerotic potentially (the first that comes to mind is Sayaka and Kyoko from Madoka Magica).

i’d say crouching tiger, hidden dragon (2000) is the best (and certainly best-known) example of the wuxia dynamic of brotherhood transposed onto female characters, but yu jiaolong and yu xiulian’s relationship doesn’t read as particularly homoerotic to me, not least because they both have nuanced and plot-significant relationships with well-fleshed-out love interests (something you rarely see in standard machismo stories). however that is not the case in painted skin 2: the resurrection (2012), that film is lesbian as HELL