#The Project September 2017

[on-this-day-mcr]

On this day, September 22

In 2017: Frank Iero released the EP "Keep the Coffins Coming", his first and only EP with "Frank Iero and the Patience". (🖤)

Stream "Keep the Coffins Coming" here!

[ev3rm0re-q]

everything i didn't say ﾟ ⋆ ﾟ ☂︎ ⋆

synopsis: This camping trip was supposed to be a relaxing getaway—just a few days in the woods, swapping scary ghost stories, roasting s'mores by the campfire, maybe even squeezing in some late-night cabin sleepovers. It all sounded so perfect, right? Wrong.

Y/N ends up stuck sharing a cabin with the one person she can't stand. Fucking Choi Soobin—the guy who spent all of high school turning every assignment and exam into some stupid competition to see who's the smartest, who flashed his cocky, infuriating smirk when he beat her at their in-school debate competition she'd spent countless nights preparing for. The same guy who gave her every reason to believe he felt something for her, who blurred all the lines during their senior project—only to ghost her like none of it ever meant a thing. This has to be some kind of joke, right?

pairing: ex-academic rival!soobin x fem!reader

genre: enemies-to-lovers trope, ex-academic rivals to lovers, only one bed trope, forced proximity, angst romance filled with tension, college AU-ish, unresolved feelings

warning/s: lots of swearing, suggestive-ish

wc: 10.1K

September 2017

It had been three hours since I lugged all my stuff into Soobin’s house—project printouts, art supplies, notebooks, and my heavy-ass laptop—all piled into a chaotic mess around me.

The clock on his study desk ticked past 10 PM. I sat cross-legged on a cushion on the bedroom floor, leaning against a small wooden table, surrounded by scattered papers. Some notes were marked up with pink highlighter, others crumpled or stuck with colorful post-its.

Even the little doodles Soobin had drawn on the post-its were pinned around the table here and there, giving the chaos a strange kind of charm.

Our laptops sat perpendicular to each other, their screens casting a soft glow across the clutter. I tapped my red pen lightly against the table, eyes skimming the printed script beside me—covered in scribbles, arrows, and margin notes I could barely even read anymore.

The words were starting to blur together, familiar in that way things get when you’ve stared at them too long.

“Your part on slide nine feels a little rushed.” I said, after a stretch of quiet.

To my right, Soobin sat on a cushion of his own, sleeves of his hoodie pushed up, glasses reflecting the glow of his screen as his eyes flicked over the same PowerPoint slide.

His expression was calm—too calm for someone who was going to have his final presentation the next morning. Then he stretched, arms reaching overhead as he let out a quiet yawn, eyes half-lidded but still focused.

“You were talking too fast in other parts too,” I reminded him, not even looking up.

He let out a quiet groan. “You’ve timed me, what, three times already?”

“I’m just saying,” I replied. “You’re hitting the marks, yeah—but you’re hitting them like a robot.”

He turned to me with a raised brow. “The script’s too long for me not to talk fast, you know.”

“You’re basically rapping through the script, Soobin,” I gave him an unimpressed look.

“I read it aloud earlier. The timing was just right—You’re just the one who keeps starting the timer too early." He argued.

I raised a brow, unimpressed. “I’m not early on anything. You always leave a few seconds on the timer.”

His eyes found mine—and stayed there, just a second too long.

“So,” he said slowly, “you want me to slow down, then?”

“Just this part,” I murmured, pointing to a line with the tip of my pen. He leaned in slowly, just enough for his shoulder to brush mine, eyes following the point of my pen.

I glanced at him without thinking. His hair hung messily over his forehead, brushing the tops of his glasses. He was fiddling with the end of his hoodie string again, fingers curling around it before slipping it between his teeth, chewing on it like he didn’t even notice. All of a sudden, I realized how close our faces had gotten.

“Where?” he asked quietly, the words slightly muffled, the hoodie string still tugged between his lips.

“H-here…” I managed, barely above a whisper. I pointed with my pen to the line he needed to read. He leaned in even closer, eyes narrowing in on the script.

I instinctively pulled back, creating space between us as casually as I could manage, eyes flicking to my laptop screen like it suddenly demanded all of my attention. But I could still feel the heat blooming across my cheeks, spreading too fast to ignore.

“Yeah, these notes are good,” he said after a moment, voice quieter than before. I glanced sideways, then down at the hoodie string still hanging from his mouth.

“Do you really have to chew on that?” I asked, raising a brow, trying for playful but landing somewhere between disbelief and mild concern.

I fiddled with the cap of my pen, letting the soft sound fill the space between us as my other hand hovered over my keyboard, feigning concentration. Instead of snapping back like I expected, he paused.

His eyes flicked toward mine as he slowly let the hoodie string slip from his mouth, the fabric falling softly against his chest. For a moment, he just looked at me—head tilted slightly, like he was trying to piece something together.Then came the smallest twitch of a smile.

“You always pick the smallest fights with me when you’re nervous,” he said, voice low and even.

Not teasing—just stating it, like it was something he’d known for a while. My pen stilled mid-air.

“I’m not nervous,” I muttered, eyes fixed on my screen.

There was a pause. Then, softer, "You are. But it's okay... I'm nervous about it too."

That made me glance at him, and this time, I didn't look away. He leaned back slightly, posture relaxed, like he’d peeled something back—something he didn’t usually let show.

Oh. He was talking about the presentation.

Right.

But there was something in the way he said it. Gentle. Almost like a secret passed between us. It landed in my chest like a held breath I didn’t know I was keeping.

“I’m fine,” I assured him, trying to shake off the weird flutter in my chest.

I turned back to my laptop, leaving my pen resting on the script as I switched to the PowerPoint tab, brows furrowing while I scrolled through the slides for what felt like the hundredth time tonight.

"You’re overthinking again,” Soobin said, voice low and teasing.

I didn’t look at him. “Says the guy who helped me color-code our outline and triple-checked our citations.”

“Yeah, but I hide it better,” he replied, the smirk already audible in his tone.

“I just don’t want it to suck,” I sighed.

He let out a soft laugh. “It doesn’t. We’re fine.”

“You always say that.”

“Because it’s always true.”

He smiled—genuine this time—and reached across the table to tug my notebook toward him. Our fingers brushed for a moment. Just a graze. Nothing major. But neither of us pulled away right away.

“I don’t get why you stress so much,” he said softly, leaning forward to jot a quick note on the script with my pen.

“You always make everything better.”

I blinked, caught off guard. “What?”

He handed the pen back without looking away. “The slides. The project. You just… care more than anyone else I’ve worked with.”

It wasn’t exactly a compliment.

Not really.

But it made something twist inside me anyway.

I looked at him—really looked at him. The way his hair fell into his eyes, the way he always tilted his head when he was thinking, the subtle twitch of a smile he tried to hide whenever I got too worked up over formatting.

He was calm. Too calm. Like he wasn’t falling apart inside the way I was. I swallowed the bitterness tightening in my chest.

"You're weirdly nice when you're tired," I muttered, pretending to fix something on the PowerPoint.

“I’m always nice,” he shot back.

I gave him a skeptical look.

“Okay,” he laughed softly. “Sometimes.”

“You know,” I started, before I could catch myself,

“you’re really hard to read sometimes.”

He blinked, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Some moments you’re open—easy to talk to. But then other times, I can’t figure out what you’re thinking at all.”

The room fell silent. He blinked slowly, like he was choosing his words carefully.

“So are you,” he replied, voice quieter now.

“But I try.”

My heart did a stupid flip in my chest.

“Try what?”

He looked at me again, eyes steady. “To make it obvious.”

Then, it hit me,—all the signs I’d buried, the little things I brushed off as me being dramatic or reading too much into nothing.

Every look, every touch, every word.

My mouth went dry.

What the fuck was he trying to say?

I wanted to ask—God, I wanted to ask—but the pounding in my chest felt deafening, like my heart was trying to drown out the moment.

Oh my god, what if he can hear it too? I wondered.

So I said nothing.

I just stared at him, caught in the pull of it all—panic curling at the edges of my thoughts as hope blooms rapidly in my chest, confusion wrapping around it like a knot I couldn’t untangle.

“I—I…” I faltered, my voice barely more than a whisper.

Before I could think to move, he leaned in, eyes locked on mine. His hand rose slowly—hesitant at first—then steadier as his fingers reached for a loose strand of hair near my cheek.

He brushed it back behind my ear, his fingertips grazing my skin with a softness that sent a chill down my spine. But he didn’t pull away.

His hand lingered near my face, close enough that I could feel his warmth, close enough to see the subtle shift in his expression—something careful, something unreadable, something that made my throat go dry. Neither of us said a word.

His words from earlier hung between us like an unfinished sentence suspended in the air, and I was too afraid that if I spoke now, it would all collapse—too real, too raw.

We’d had moments like this before. Subtle ones. The kind that slipped by unspoken, but never unnoticed. Lingering glances in the hallway, the way his hand brushed mine when he passed notes, how his voice always softened when he would call me over to him.

But this? This felt louder. Closer.

"Y/N… I—" he began, voice low, hesitant.

But then, right on cue, his phone buzzed sharply beside us—the alarm he’d set earlier cutting through the quiet like a crack of thunder.

He flinched. So did I.

The moment shattered.

He moved quickly, fumbling for his phone on the floor beside him. The sound cut off with a single tap, but the silence it left behind was deafening. For a moment, he didn’t look at me. His gaze stayed fixed on the now-dark screen, jaw tight.

Then, voice quieter this time—measured, distant—he said,

“You should probably head back.”

My heart dropped.

He still wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Big day tomorrow,” he added, like that explained everything.

“Right…” I murmured. “Big day.”

I nodded, slowly gathering my things. Papers, pens, laptop. Anything to keep my hands busy, to ignore the weight in my chest. He reached toward my notebook beside me, the same one he’d quietly asked to borrow earlier, but his hand paused halfway—as if hesitating—before he finally picked it up.

He stood too, tidying what was left on the table with methodical care. Like if we didn’t speak on it, whatever almost happened would just fold neatly into the mess of crumpled drafts and unfinished thoughts.

Maybe that was safer.

Maybe that was us.

Almost. Always fucking almost.

I left his room without a word, not even sparing him a glance, as the quiet between us was left hanging heavier than ever.

The next morning, it was raining—a steady drizzle that blurred the campus edges and made the air feel thick with calm. He acted like nothing had ever happened.

He greeted me with that same soft smile he always wore before a presentation, handing me a printed copy of our outline. He even cracked a quiet joke about how I’d probably end up rewriting his part mid-way if I got too nervous.

But just like he said the night before—we nailed it.

The presentation went smoothly—clean, confident, every line delivered exactly as we’d rehearsed. Our professor smiled in satisfaction, expecting nothing less than perfection from us.

Our friends gave us friendly pats on the back, and compliments were thrown around—“Whoa, you guys did such a great job!” They stood by us, sharing the buzz of relief like teammates crossing a finish line.

But afterward?

Fucking nothing.

After school that day, it was like something snapped shut. No texts. No awkward small talk in the hallway.

Not even a stupid silly face thrown at me when the professor announced Soobin had gotten the highest score on our English exam.

Nothing.

He stopped showing up where I used to find him—in the library, the park, even the convenience store where we always bumped into each other.

He just stopped replying. Stopped being there.

It was like I’d never mattered beyond that stupid project. And just like that, he was gone—leaving me tangled in everything I didn’t understand.

June 2019

Two years have passed since everything between us quietly fell apart—the electric connection replaced by a silence thick enough to fill a room.

In that time, everything changed. We went from playful teasing and personal competitions to exchanging little more than sharp looks and truly hurtful remarks. It’s not like we don’t cross paths—our worlds still overlap—but somehow, it’s like we don’t really exist to each other anymore.

Standing here now, I can feel the distance—not just the space between us, but all the things left unsaid, the moments we should’ve shared but didn’t, and the memories that don’t feel warm anymore.

The rain falls in a steady downpour, tapping rhythmically against the wooden porch roof where we stand. The ground grows muddier by the second, as the trees and plants eagerly soak up the long-awaited water they craved. The air is thick with the scent of damp earth and pine as tall forest trees towering above us, casting shadows over the clearing.

"I can't believe I managed to get stuck with you," I mutter, groaning at the sight of the tall, raven-haired boy in front of me.

His head is bowed, fingers gliding across his phone screen with quiet concentration.

He doesn’t even look up. "Trust me, the feeling’s mutual."

I roll my eyes at his comment, letting my bag and umbrella drop against the wall with a heavy thump. Digging my hands into my pockets, I glance back at Soobin.

"Do you have the key?"

He sighs annoyingly at the question before reaching into his right pocket, and silently holds out the key to me. I shoot him a pointed look before taking it from his hand and unlocking the door.

It swings open to reveal a small but cozy cabin bedroom—just enough space for two. I step inside with Soobin, opening the door to the only bathroom near the entrance and nodding in satisfaction at the sight. Behind me, I hear him move forward to inspect the rest of the room, followed by the faint sound of a complaint.

"This is a joke, right?" I hear him say.

I step out of the bathroom and find him standing in front of the queen-sized bed, staring at it like it personally offended him. He looks back at me with a disbelief expression. I shrug, casually leaning against the doorframe.

“It was the cheaper option. They were gonna charge way more if we booked each room with double single beds.” He exhales sharply, running a hand down his face. I nod toward the floor.

"The floor's always open, if you want. Though I think the racoon I saw outside might appreciate some company too."

"Haha, funny," he deadpans.

I drop my bag at the foot of the bed and sink down onto the mattress with a sigh, my mind drifting to the conversation I had with Beomgyu earlier today.

“Come on, can’t you switch with me, Gyu? You guys were roommates before, right?”

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” Beomgyu said, tone apologetic but firm. “but I already talked to Kai earlier. I promised I’d play Cookie Run with him when we got to the room—he’s pretty excited to have me as his roommate.” I stared at him for a second, hoping he would change his mind. He didn't.

I exhale sharply, jaw tight. Of course this shit would happen.

This whole arrangement happened because someone thought it'd be a genius idea to assign roommates by picking straws—completely random, they said. An equal chance for everyone, they said. I rolled my eyes at the thought.

Yeah. Sure.

I had only agreed because, honestly, I mean what are the odds that I'd end up with Choi Soobin? The same boy who’s spent every semester of high school trying to one-up me on test scores and presentations.

The one who ran against me for class representative and won by just a few votes—probably thanks to his crowd of fangirls who couldn’t stop staring at him in class.

The boy kept sending me mixed signals the entire time we worked together on that final major project, only to shut me out right after without a single word.

It was a miracle we were even caught in the same room. Despite having mutual friends and going to the same university, our paths rarely crossed—only seeing each other at social events or the occasional group hangout.

Of course, only Yunjin knew about the mixed signals part. She was the only person I trusted enough to vent to—the poor girl was forced to sit through rants over lunch about how confusing and frustrating he was. But, unbeknownst to me, that same 'poor girl' was actually in on a plan—one orchestrated by none other than Choi Yeonjun himself.

Everyone was in on it except for Soobin and me.

The plan? To finally put an end to all the bickering, snarky remarks, and this endless tension between us.

I remember hearing Yeonjun calling from the living room earlier, telling everyone we’d be picking straws to decide who’d room with whom. Meanwhile, I was in my bedroom, too busy stuffing one last hoodie into my already full backpack.

There were two sets of colored straws—each set pairing two people together.

Taehyun managed to distract Soobin with some 'new workout tip' he was eager to share, flashing his phone in front of him. Soobin's eyes were glued to the screen, interested at this new advice his friend had given him, that he carelessly grabbed a random colored straw from Yeonjun's hand without even sparing a glance at it.

When Soobin held it up, the two boys exchanged a knowing glance. Soobin got the orange straw.

Taehyun gave Yeonjun a slight nod, and Yeonjun then strolled over to the others, quietly whispering which colors to pick to avoid the dreaded orange. Finally, Yeonjun made his way over to me, one last straw pinched between his fingers.

"You're the last one, Y/N. Orange was the only one that was left," he said, holding it out.

"Oh, that's fine. I think the orange is pretty cute anyway," I shrugged, more relieved to be done forcefully shoving that hoodie into my already overflowing backpack than anything else.

He grinned, eyes flicking to the straw in my hand. "Yeah? I think it suits you."

I flashed a quick smile in return. "Thanks, I've always wanted to match with a traffic cone."

Yeonjun chuckled under his breath and nodded toward the living room.

"C’mon, let’s see who fate paired you up with."

I slung my bag over my shoulder and followed him down the hall, completely unaware of the setup I had just walked straight into. We stepped into the living room. Everyone is raising their straws in the air, scanning the room for their partners, and others already finding theirs.

I couldn't help but smile at the sight, catching the moment Yunjin excitedly rushed over to Nari. They shrieked and jumped together with joy as they realized they both pulled the green straws.

On the couch, Beomgyu and Kai compared their blue straws, already deep in conversation about some game Kai insisted on playing in the cabin tonight. Yeonjun scanned the room before casually walking over to Taehyun. He lifted his red straw with a knowing grin before exchanging a 'bro' handshake with him.

Then it hit me. Oh fuck, no.

Then that means... I slowly turned my head, already dreading what I know I would see.

And there he was—Choi Soobin, standing a few feet away with the same orange straw in hand, staring straight at me.

I fucking hate orange.

My phone dings, and I glance down to see a text from Yunjin and Yeonjun.

Yunjin: Sorry about the roommate situation again, babe. Wish it could’ve been the three of us here. We miss you <3 sent at 20:17 pm.

Me: It's okay, it wasn't your fault. Miss you guys too! sent at 20:18 pm.

Yunjin: Think you’ll survive? sent at 20:18 pm.

Me: Yeah, just hoping I make it through the night and the rest of the trip without committing a felony sent at 20:19 pm.

Yunjin: Sending prayers and snacks! Good luck, babe <3 sent at 20:20 pm.

I smile softly at her texts before switching over to my chat with Yeonjun.

Yeonjun: How's orange going for ya right now ;) sent at 20:16 pm.

Me: Die. sent at 20:21 pm.

I glance over at Soobin, who’s already sprawled out on the right side of bed, phone still in hand.

“So, you’re taking the bed?” I ask, arms crossed.

“Yeah,” he replies without looking up. Then, with a perfectly fake smile, he adds, “Just try not to kick me in your sleep, yeah?”

The sass practically oozes from his voice.

"No promises," I mutter under my breath, kicking off my shoes a little more aggressive than necessary—just to piss him off. "Accidents happen."

He snorts quietly, still glued to his phone. “That tends to happen a lot when you’re around.”

I roll my eyes at his comment, "You've chosen the right side of the bed, then?"

“Figured it made sense. You didn’t seem in a rush to claim it.”

"Oh, I didn't realize it was a race."

He lets out a small breath, not quite a laugh. "With you? It usually is."

“Chivalry isn’t dead, after all.” I mumble, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Wow. It's just like high school all over again.

A beat passes. No one says anything and neither of us smiles. The room feels tense but somehow warmer than it did a minute ago. I can't tell if its because he turned on the heater—or because this is the first proper conversation we’ve had in a year. Well, sorta proper.

It was tense, but it felt all too familiar to the both of us. It felt almost too easy to fall back into this rhythm. I don't respond right away, I just sit at the foot of the bed, unzipping my bag—only to find my clothes soaked from the heavy downpour.

I pull out the thick hoodie I had shoved in earlier, raising it in the air as it drips water onto the wooden floor.

"Fuck me."

I hold out the wet hoodie and hurry into the bathroom, draping it over the sink. I walk back into the bedroom again, digging into my bag for clothes that somehow escaped the rain. Luckily, I find some dry jeans, pajama shorts, and t-shirts, though a few items are damp.

Unfortunately, the other sweater I had packed for the trip is completely soaked as well, leaving me with only an oversized tee to keep me warm for the night.

A notification pops up from the group chat. It was Kai sending a blurry selfie with a face mask on, while Beomgyu flips off the camera, green glob smeared across both cheeks. I shake my head at the message, before pulling off my sweatshirt and heading to the bathroom for a quick shower.

I set my things down and peel off the rest of my clothes as the water takes a moment to heat up. When it’s finally hot enough, I step in, letting the steady stream wash over me—washing away the stress of the day: the rain, the long travel, him.

For a moment, everything feels still.

The sound of the shower mixes with the quiet hum of my thoughts and the steam rising from the hot water. I try not to psych myself out about being alone in the same room as Soobin again.

It literally feels like I’m trapped in some strange purgatory of old, burning tension and mountains of unfinished business

Okay, don't overreact.

When I finally step out, towel wrapped around me and hair dripping onto the bathroom tiles, I feel a little calmer than before—like I’m myself again. Or at least a version of me that doesn’t want to peel layers of skin off because of the sweat and rain clinging to me.

A version of me that might actually make it through this trip.

I dry off quickly and throw on some clothes—a loose, oversized shirt and the driest pair of pajama shorts I can find. Not great for warmth, but better than sleeping in damp, smelly jeans.

A small smile tugs at the corner of my lips. Clean feels good.

I open the bathroom door to the soft, warm glow of the bedroom light. Soobin is still there, now sitting on the edge of his side of the bed, phone casting a pale glow on his face. I quietly make my way to my side, keeping my back facing him as I start organizing the rest of my things without a word.

Behind me, the bathroom door clicks shut again, and the sound of the shower starts up. After a few minutes, the water stops, and the door opens once more—Soobin steps out.

“You done sulking yet?” I hear him ask.

“Not even close,” I reply, still facing away.

“Knew you’d say that.” He smirks.

I raise an eyebrow, pausing mid-rummage through my bag. Then I turn around—only to be met with a sight I wasn’t quite prepared for.

"What? You would've done the same if—Jesus, Soobin.”

My words halt as my eyes catch the sight of him standing by the bed. The boy only had a towel slung loosely around his waist and his chest still glistening with droplets from the shower.

His raven hair is tousled, carelessly swept back just enough to keep it from falling into his eyes as beads of water slowly trail down his neck and disappearing beneath the edge of the towel.

"You seriously couldn't have gotten dressed up inside the bathroom?" I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.

He looks up, a t-shirt hanging from one hand, completely unfazed. He shrugs. "Didn't realize it was a crime to dry off in my own room."

I scoff, tearing my gaze away, and forcing myself not to notice the faint flush creeping up my cheeks. This definitely wasn’t the same boy who used to trip over his words just asking to borrow a pen.

No—this version walks around like he owns the fucking air we breathe. I hate that I still notice the difference.

“Idiot,” I mumble, barely audible under my breath.

The rain continues to patter against the windowpane, its steady rhythm growing louder as the storm outside intensifies. He runs a hand through his damp hair, tousling it further, then pulls the clean shirt over his head. The cotton fabric stretches slightly, damp patches from the shower leaving faint gray marks on the white shirt.

I adjust my own shirt, making sure it sits right, before trying to my bury my attention on the mundane task instead of the half-naked—honestly, basically naked, considering it was just a damn towel—boy behind me.

The quiet stretches on, the sound of rain filling the room as I work. Once I'm finally done, I stand, glancing over my shoulder to find him now wearing a hoodie over his shirt, paired with loose pajama pants. I let out sigh in relief and, a tiny bit of disappointment before walking over to the bed.

I pull back the covers and settle into my side, leaning against the headboard. For a moment, I let my eyes fall shut, trying to quiet the mixed nerves and lingering tension still humming under my skin. A few minutes pass before I feel the mattress dip beside me.

I open my eyes slowly and reach for my phone, letting the screen light up my face as I begin scrolling through social media. I come across a few dumb videos that make me snort under my breath, one of them pulling out a soft chuckle.

We don’t look at each other for a while. We don’t need to. There’s an unspoken agreement hanging in the air—we’ll just try to get through this the best we can.

The bedside lamps illuminating the room with warm lighting, cutting through the dimness as the storm outside grows even stronger.

Suddenly, the lights start to flicker abruptly.

My eyes slightly widen as uneasiness starts creeping in just as Soobin and I finally exchange glances at one another.

Then, everything goes black—the power cuts out and the heater falls silent. Now, only the glow from our phone screens lights up the space between us. I softly gasp at the sudden blackout, fingers instinctively tightening around the blanket as I pull it closer to me, attempting to hide the fluttering fear building in my chest.

I watch as Soobin turns on the flashlight on his phone, then standing up from his spot to try flicking the lights on and off again.

"That won't work, you know," I tell him.

"Not bad to try, is it?"

I shift my gaze toward the window, watching the rain clash against the glass as the tree branches sway in the gusts of the storm. Suddenly, a sharp alarm rings from Soobin's phone, making the both of us jump. He scans his device, slowly taking his time to read the alert before looking back at me.

“Heavy rainfall. The power’s out in other parts of the area too. They say it won’t come back until the storm calms down.” I sigh, turning my phone’s flashlight on and sinking into the sounds of rain filling the room.

"Just when it couldn't get any worse" he comments, sitting back down on the bed.

"Right," I say quietly, not looking up. "Because sharing a room with me is clearly the end of the world."

He tilts his head slightly, glancing over. "Didn’t say that."

"You didn’t have to." I exhale, keeping my voice even. "You’re not exactly subtle."

I glance down at my phone, the soft light of the screen casting a faint light across the sheets. After a moment, I move to place it on the bedside table, flashlight facing up to push back some of the dimness hanging in the room.

The silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable—just... suspended. Like we’re both waiting to see what the other will do, but not in a hurry to break the stillness.

"How do you think the others are doing?" he asks eventually, voice lower than before.

I pause to think for a moment.

"Beomgyu and Kai are probably trying to see who can scare the other first with stupid ghost stories... or maybe watching some random movie Kai downloaded on his laptop before the trip."

He lets out a quiet laugh. "Yeonjun and Tae are probably having those deep conversations—catching up on life, figuring stuff out."

We share a quick look—something unspoken passing between us, a brief moment of shared understanding.

"Yunjin and Nari are probably the same," I add.

"Except Nari’s definitely curled up next to Yunjin by now, too scared of the thunder and lightning outside to care about the blackout."

I chuckle softly at the thought of my friends using this time to connect with each other better. It’s oddly comforting to think about them all, finding little moments like this despite everything.

A sudden flash of lightning briefly illuminates the window, casting sharp shadows across the room as the rain pounds harder against the glass. My bottom lip trembles ever so slightly, the roaring thunder outside and the blackout still gnawing at my nerves.

I bite down gently, trying to steady myself—trying to keep the spiraling thoughts from dragging me too deep into the what-ifs. Soobin notices. He doesn’t say anything, just quietly gets back into bed, pulling the covers over himself. I can feel his gaze linger as he turns to face me, his eyes settling on the faint shiver I can’t quite hide.

I force myself to stay still, pretending I don’t feel the weight of his gaze. I fix my eyes on the wall ahead, silently counting the seconds between flashes of lightning and the low rumble that follows.

Then, his voice breaks the silence—low, even, careful. "You okay?"

It's simple. Unassuming. But the question makes my chest tighten a little. I nod, almost instinctively.

"Yeah. I’m usually fine with this kind of thing. Just... this one feels different.”

A pause. Then, "You always did hate the dark."

HIs tone isn't teasing. It’s just a memory, held between his words—gentle and matter-of-fact. I glance over at him. He continues to hold his gaze at me—watching, really—not in a way that demands anything. Just... present. Like he's trying to recall a memory too.

"I didn't think you'd remember that." I murmur.

And suddenly I’m brought back to a moment during one of our late project nights, two years ago. I’d mentioned it without much thought, embarrassed as I admitted to keeping a nightlight on before I fell sleep well into high school. I’d expected him to laugh, maybe even tease and poke fun at me for it. But he didn't.

He’d just listened.

This moment feels like that version of him again. Before everything got so messy.

Soobin shifts slightly under the blanket, his voice softer when it returns. “I didn’t forget much, you know. Even when it felt like I did.”

He doesn’t elaborate, but he doesn’t need to. A moment of silence lingers between us.

"You can borrow my hoodie, if you want." he suddenly offers, already tugging at the sleeve like he’s ready to hand it over. "Might help you warm up a bit."

“No, it’s fine. I’m not that cold,” I say, trying to wave it off.

He shakes his head lightly, already starting to pull the hoodie over his head. “I don’t mind. I was next to the heater earlier, so I'm still warm anyway.”

“No, really. I’m okay,” I insist, even as I curl the blanket a little tighter around myself.

He gives me an unimpressed look. “Y/N, you’re literally shivering.”

"So?" I ask. He rolls his eyes before siting up from his previous position, slipping the hoodie over his head. The fabric shifts with the motion, briefly lifting his shirt and revealing a glimpse of his waist before settling into place again.

“Stop.”

He smirks slightly, holding the hoodie out again.

“Stop what?” he replies, raising an eyebrow.

“Being nice to me,” He shakes his head with an amused expression on his face, like he couldn't believe I was still thinking about that right now.

He tosses the hoodie toward me, the fabric landing softly on the bed between us before I can argue again. I can’t help but smile, feeling that familiar push-pull between us again—the unspoken acknowledgment that beneath the bickering, there’s something... softer.

“Just take it,” he says casually, settling back into his side of the bed like the conversation’s over.

“Don’t make me regret being nice.”

I stare at the hoodie for a second before slowly picking it up. It’s still warm. I hesitate—less because of pride now, more because it smells like him, familiar and oddly comforting. Like something I didn’t know I missed.

“Thanks,” I murmur, slipping it on. The sleeves are long, brushing against my fingertips, and the fabric is soft from too many washes.

But even as I settle into it, a little voice in my head starts nagging. What are you doing? Don’t let yourself fall for his bullshit again.

I try to play it cool, pushing that voice to the deepest part of my mind. But I can’t help the way I slow down just a little as I pull the hoodie tighter around me. I know to myself I shouldn't be letting it matter this much. But here I am, sitting in a dark room, wrapped in Soobin’s sweatshirt like it’s some kind of fragile, borrowed comfort, trying to make up for the years of unfinished business.

The same guy I’d been quietly pining over for years back in high school—the one who stood up for me whenever someone made dumb comments about me, the one who—

Okay, we get it.

Holy shit, I need to get a grip.

“You know, this reminds me of that time in junior year—when the power went out during finals week?” He cuts off my train of thought.

I blink, thrown for a second by the sudden shift. “What, in the middle of exam prep?”

He nods, a small laugh slipping out. “Yeah. You were freaking out because your notes got soaked in the rain, and the library shut early. You barged into the classroom like you were ready to fight someone.”

I let out a quiet groan, covering my face with one hand. “God, don’t remind me.”

“I remember you made the whole friend group take turns sharing notes with you. Bossed everyone around like it was your birthright.”

I peek through my fingers at him, trying not to smile. “Well, I was desperate. And it worked, didn’t it?”

“I mean, yeah. I didn’t mind.” He shrugs. His tone shifts slightly—quieter, softer. And something about it makes me glance up again.

“You never really did know how many people wanted to help you,” he adds. “I don’t think you let yourself see it.”

My throat tightens a little at that. I don’t have anything clever to say back. So I just look at him. And for a second, there’s nothing but the sound of the rain and something quietly settling between us. Something that’s been there for a long time.

"I remember when you used to ‘borrow’ my notes during our study sessions, and somehow they’d never make it back to me.” I say, a teasing edge in my voice.

Soobin casts me a glance I can’t quite read, then shifts his eyes upward to the ceiling. “They made it back… eventually.”

I raise an eyebrow. “After like two months. They were all crumpled by the time they came back to me, especially that one time you spilled banana milk on the cover of my notebook.”

“It was still readable.” He chuckles, unbothered.

"Barely. My color coded notes and neat handwriting deserved better."

Soobin smiles a little at that. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have let me sit next to you in class. That’s on you.”

I shake my head, lips twitching. “Unbelievable.”

“Resourceful,” he corrects, tapping his fingers lightly on the blanket.

I shift my body to completely face him, "You're still the same, Choi Soobin.." I chuckle softly.

Soobin mirrors my movement, turning just enough so we’re facing each other now, the space between us dim and quiet except for the rain outside and the faint hush of our breaths.

After a beat, he asks quietly, his voice softer than before, almost careful. “So… what are you thinking right now? Just between us.”

I offer a small, almost shy smile—less teasing, more real. “And what makes you think I’d just spill everything that easily?”

“Maybe because it’s just the two of us here, might as well keep things peaceful instead of turning this into another argument.”" He says, his voice soft but steady.

I’m not even sure when it all started—this endless back-and-forth between us, like kids fighting over the last piece of cake. What began as silent, resentful looks slowly turned into quiet digs, and now it’s just occasional sharp remarks whenever we cross paths.

It’s feels almost automatic now—like a reflex to sink into that sour mood when he’s around, the weight of all those old grudges clouding, filling me with disgust at the thought of Choi Soobin. But tonight, I'll take a slow breath and try to let it all go. I want to focus on staying civil, pushing all those unspoken frustrations aside, pretending for now that the tension between us doesn’t exist.

I let out a sigh. “Honestly? I’m just counting down the minutes ‘til the storm lets up and the power come back on.”

"Really?"

"Really." I lift an eyebrow, giving him a look.

"That’s all that’s on your mind?"

"What, were you expecting a secret confession or something?"

Fuck.

He lets out a quiet chuckle. “I don’t know... it just looked like your brain was running a marathon.” His voice is gentle, but there’s something curious laced in it—like he’s hoping I’ll prove him right.

I offer a small smile. “Well, I was also trying to figure out how we’re supposed to survive the next few days without driving each other insane.”

He laughs under his breath, shaking his head slightly. “That’s fair.”

A quiet moment stretches between us, the steady tap of rain against the window filling the space.

“But so far… I think we’re doing okay,” he says, voice thoughtful.

Then he glances over, meeting my eyes with a hint of hesitation. "Right?"

I hold his gaze for a moment, surprised by the softness in his voice—genuine, almost unsure. The kind of tone I wasn’t used to hearing from him anymore. A small part of me wants to scoff, to brush it off with another sarcastic remark. But instead, I find myself nodding—just barely.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I think we are.”

We both exchange soft smiles before breaking eye contact, the moment passing like a quiet truce.

"How about you?" I ask, voice softer now.

"Hm?" he responds, barely turning his head.

"What’s on your mind, right now?" I press gently, tilting my head slightly as I study his profile.

He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Thinking about..." he trails on.

"How many points I lost in my game when the blackout kicked me out mid-match.”

I laugh softly, playfully smacking his arm. “I’m serious!”

“I am too! Do you know how hard it was to build up that streak?” He winces dramatically, rubbing the imaginary spot I hit. I roll my eyes, a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.

“Yeah, I’m sure your streak is definitely the top priority right now" He chuckles at my comment, the corners of his mouth twitching in that familiar, slightly smug way.

I glance up at him, locking eyes—steady, deliberate. His expression shifts just slightly, something unreadable passing through, but I don’t look away. Not this time.

"Really." I murmur.

He pauses for a moment, just long enough to stir my curiosity. Something about the hesitation feels deliberate—but I don’t push. I stay quiet, waiting.

"I guess...” he starts, eyes fixed on the ceiling instead of me. “I was just thinking about how this feels a little like... high school again.”

I feel his words like a pang in my chest, old memories stirring just beneath the surface—unwelcome but familiar.

“Yeah,” I murmur, my voice barely above a whisper. “It does feel like that.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then, more carefully, “Do you… still think about that time?”

“Sometimes,” I admit, eyes fixed on some spot beyond him.

“When I start missing how easy everything used to be. Before college got... complicated”

Before it got complicated between us, too.

"I think about it sometimes too, you know.."

"Yeah?"

“Yeah. I mean, I probably shouldn’t admit it, but part of me did enjoy the whole back-and-forth thing between us." he says quietly, almost sheepishly.

"Don't go soft on me now, Choi." I say, a teasing edge in my voice.

He grins, amusement flickering in his eyes. "Me? Never."

"Yeah. Keep telling yourself that, buddy."

We both let out quiet chuckles, the tension between us easing just a little. Before I can stop myself, the words slip out,

“Do you think about what happened between us?”

He freezes, just slightly. It’s quick—almost like a flinch—but I catch it. He doesn’t look at me right away. Instead, his gaze drops to the blanket, fingers absently tugging at a loose thread on the blanket.

“…I-I don’t know.” His voice is low, uncertain.

“I haven’t really thought about it in a while.”

It’s not cruel, not even cold—just distant in a way that feels practiced. Like he’s been telling himself that for so long it’s starting to sound like the truth.

“Right.” I nod slowly, even if it feels like something inside me just cracked a little.

“Seems like forgetting stuff like that doesn’t take much for you.” I try to keep my voice even.

That finally makes him look at me. His eyes search mine like he wants to argue—but doesn’t know how to without proving my point.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, quietly.

“Then what did you mean?”

He hesitates.

I can see him trying to come up with the right thing to say—something that won’t make this worse—but he doesn’t land on anything.

So I say it for him. “Don’t do that.”

His brows draw together, confused. “Do what?”

"I don't know... Be nice to me, and when you finally let me in, you just shut me out again."

“I.. I don’t really know what you want me to say.”

“I just want you to…” I trail off, frustration tightening in my chest. “I just want you to tell the truth. For once.”

I sit up from where I was lying, the weight of the moment pressing down on me.

“I am telling the truth,” he says, sitting up as well, his voice firm.

I shake my head. “Bullshit.”

His lips part, but I cut him off before he can say anything. I don’t want to hear the excuses.

“I get it. It’s easier to pretend nothing ever happened, right? Like we can just go back to how things were.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean, exactly?”

He looks at me—really looks at me. His eyes trace my face like he’s trying to make sense of me.

“Do you want me to say you didn’t mean anything to me?” I freeze. I want to meet his gaze, but I can’t bring myself to look at him.

“Is that what you think?”

He doesn’t answer. The silence between us feels heavy, like we’re underwater. I finally look up, meeting his eyes—and there it is: a flicker of something, maybe pain.

"Don't act like you know what's going on inside my head" he mumbles.

"Then just fucking tell me."

He hesitates, jaw tightening. For a long moment, nothing but the sound of our breathing fills the space between us. Then he exhales, looking away as his voice drops, rough around the edges.

“You act like you’re the only one who got hurt.”

That throws me. My shoulders tense, heart stuttering.“What are you talking about?”

He laughs once, a bitter sound that only makes my irritation flare hotter.

“You’re really going to play dumb now?” he asks, turning back to me, eyes sharp and unrelenting.

I don’t back down, my voice shaking with frustration. “No, Soobin. Fuck—I don't even know what you're talking about right now.”

He narrows his eyes, voice sharp and cutting through the tension.“What? You think I was just some asshole who ghosted you because I felt like it? That I woke up one day and decided to cut you out for no reason?”

“Yes!” I snap, louder than I mean to. “That’s exactly what it looked like! You shut me out—no call, no text, nothing. You left me to figure it out on my own.”

His face hardens, but something flickers beneath the anger—something that looks a lot like hurt.

“Stop acting so damn oblivious about it, Y/N!” he snaps, the anger bubbling beneath his tone.

“Oblivious about what?” I demand, my voice rising.

“The fucking letter!” he spits out, voice raw and desperate.

I blink, caught off guard.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, my heart pounding.

His expression tightens, confusion mixing with disbelief.

“The note I left in your notebook—the one where I tried to tell you that I…” His voice falters, trailing off before he can finish.

I look at him, confusion twisting in my chest, my heart pounding louder. He didn't even need to say it. We both knew what he meant. Silence falls—long and suffocating—like the calm before a storm. Neither of us moves or speaks. It feels like the air itself is holding its breath, waiting for something to break the tension. I could hear my heart thump in my chest so loudly I’m sure he can hear it too. Then, like a spark to dry tinder, the tension ignites.

“So you thought I was just supposed to know?” I burst out, voice sharp and trembling.

“That I’d just magically find your stupid note and feel the same—when you never even gave it to me?”

“I did give it to you, Y/N!” he snaps.

“I left the damn notebook on top of your locker before our final presentation that morning. You can’t tell me you didn’t see it.” he explains.

I go quiet, trying to pull the memory from the haze of that day. It was raining—I remember that. I was soaked, rushing through the hallway, trying to dry myself off. I’d thrown my umbrella carelessly on top of the locker… never even looked. His voice cuts in again, bitter.

“I found it the next day,” he says quietly, “In the trash bin. Not just the note—the whole damn notebook. Like you were trying to erase everything I said in that stupid letter, like I never mattered to you.”

He continues, "And you never said a damn thing! How was I supposed to read your mind? You shut me out just as much as I did!” His eyes flashing with anger again.

What?

“Shut you out?” I scoff, stepping closer. “You fucking disappeared! Left me in the dark. And now you act like I’m the villain?”

He scoffs back, voice low and bitter. “Maybe you threw everything away the moment you decided I wasn’t worth your fucking time.”

The air between us grows tighter, heavy with resentment and repressed frustrations. The heavy pressure building in my chest is matched with the rising intensity of the rainstorm outside. The atmosphere feels even more heated, caused by the swirling mixed emotions of hurt, frustration, and something else—something electric.

Without a second thought, my hand grips the collar of his shirt, yanking him toward me. His eyes widen in surprise for just a second—then I crash my lips onto his. His hand immediately finds my face, the other wrapping itself around my waist, pulling me even closer against him like he was afraid I'd disappear. The kiss felt raw, unfiltered, like the argument had just shifted into rougher means of showing our anger toward one another.

The taste of his minty toothpaste still lingers on his lips, breathing in the familiar scent of his shampoo, silently begging to let it drown out every logical thought as we pour all our frustrations we had been dragging for too long into the kiss. I move instinctively, sliding into his lap, my fingers tangling in his hair.

It all felt so messy, so chaotic.

I can almost hear a tiny voice in the back of my head saying we should talk this out like rational adults—that we shouldn’t be tearing into each other like this.

Fuck that.

I don’t stop. I know I don’t want to. Not when he's kissing me like this.

His hand slides from my waist to grip one of my thighs, anchoring me to him as I shift deeper into his lap, craving the friction. He catches my bottom lip gently between his teeth, and I gasp—just enough for him to deepen the kiss, his tongue slipping into my mouth. My whole body reacts, heat pooling in my chest as my heart thunders louder than the storm outside. When we finally pull apart, breathless, neither of us moves.

Our foreheads pressed against each other, our breathing uneven, as our eyes lock into one another like we were trying our best to make sense of the situation I had pulled both of us into, not uttering a single word. Maybe we were both too afraid to break whatever this is—to say something that would snap us back into reality. A reality where we call this a mistake and pretend like this never happened, like we’ll be switching rooms tomorrow and going back to whatever we were before.

Quiet. Resentful. Or maybe.. we just don't know what the hell to say at all.

His fingers twitch slightly against my thigh before slowly loosening their grip. A flicker of disappointment stirs in me, my thoughts racing at the possibility that he might actually pull away. His eyes search mine, like he’s trying to find the right version of me—one that isn’t clouded by all the assumptions he’s built up over time.

"I… I didn't know you didn't get it," he finally says, voice low and hoarse. "The letter."

I nod gently, swallowing hard. "I didn't. I would've said something if I had."

"Would you?" he asks with no accusation in his tone. Just uncertainty. His voice is wrapped in hesitation, like he's bracing himself for something.

"Yeah," I whisper. "I would've."

He exhales sharply, eyes closing for a second like something inside him just gave way. The tension hadn't disappeared. It was just softer now. Everything between us feeling a little more fragile now, like we’re standing at the edge of something that could finally make sense.

“You really didn’t know,” he says, more to himself than to me.

I shake my head. "No. I think it got tossed before I even noticed it was there."

A beat passes as we continue to hold onto each other, like we're soaking in each other's presence for the first time without all the static.

“Then everything I thought… all this time…” His voice fades, but I know what he means. I feel it too.

All the distance, the biting remarks, the resentment (as much as they were all bullshit)—it wasn’t for nothing. It was built on misunderstandings we never cleared up. Feelings we were too scared to admit out loud, even to ourselves. We’d been stuck in denial, hiding behind the label of rivals—enemies, even—just to bury whatever this was… whatever it’s always really been.

“I thought you didn’t feel the same. That you never would,” he admits quietly.

“And I thought you never cared at all,” I say. The silence returns, but it’s different now. Warmer. Less hostile. There’s a tenderness in the space between us that wasn’t there before.

I start to feel a strange warm fuzziness blooming in my chest, unfamiliar but not unwelcome. His dark brown eyes lock onto mine as he brushes a loose strand of hair from my face, his fingers barely grazing my skin.

“I always did,” he whispers. My heart flutters at his confession.

This time, when I lean in, it’s slower. Softer. Soon, our lips meet again, it’s not rushed or angry. It’s quiet. Vulnerable. It’s everything we never said, everything we were too afraid to feel, poured into something that finally makes sense.

We hold each other tightly—like we’re learning how to, for the first time.

The next morning, the rain finally lets up. The air is crisp, the ground outside still damp and dark beneath the trees. Inside the cabin, the quiet is soft and unfamiliar, broken only by the rustle of clothes and the occasional creak of the floorboards.

I stir at the sound, blinking against the pale gray light filtering through the curtains. Soobin’s already up—half-dressed, moving carefully around the room like he’s trying not to wake me. Or maybe like he doesn’t know what to say if I do.

He doesn’t say anything. Neither do I.

There’s no bitterness in the silence—just a heaviness. Like the weight of everything we let slip last night hasn’t quite settled. He moves around the room quietly, slipping on a shirt, brushing his fingers through his hair. I watch him from the bed, the blanket pulled loosely around my waist, heart still beating slower than usual—like it’s unsure what rhythm to follow now.

He doesn’t meet my eyes. Not once.

Something about the way he avoids my gaze makes my chest tighten. Last night had felt like something cracked open. But now, in the soft gray light of morning, I’m not sure either of us knows what to do with the pieces.

Soon, we both step out of the cabin together, walking in silence toward the shared dining area. But the silence isn’t biting today—it’s just… tense. Like we both said too much last night and didn’t say nearly enough.

When we arrive, the others are already gathered around the long wooden table. Kai is in the middle of attempting to roll a grape down from his forehead into his mouth, much to Nari’s delight. She sits beside him, another grape pinched between her fingers, cheering him on like it was a sport.

The table erupts with laughter and exaggerated complaints about who snores the loudest. I smile at the sight.

“Look who finally made it,” Beomgyu grins, raising his cup of coffee. I roll my eyes, grabbing a seat beside Yeonjun. Soobin wordlessly takes the one across from me.

“Did you guys sleep in, or were you just avoiding us?” he adds.

I force a tired smile and settle into my seat. Soobin just nods. “Yeah. Just tired.”

"Last night’s storm kept us up pretty late.” I add.

“We didn’t sleep much either!” Yunjin jumps in. “Nari wouldn’t stop talking about the possibility of the lightning hitting one of the cabins that it got me fearing for my life too."

“I was being realistic,” Nari protests, and the table erupts again.

I laugh softly, eyes flicking to Soobin without thinking. The memory of our conversation the night before lingered at the edge of my thoughts.

I knew I made the right guess.

“We were talking about the storm earlier too,” Kai says, reaching for a slice of toast. “What did you two end up doing when the power went out?”

I see Beomgyu wiggle his eyebrows from the corner of my eye.

“Soobin lost his mind for a bit,” I say, voice light. "He got disconnected mid-game and wouldn’t shut up about some ranked streak,”

“And Y/N kept hogging the blanket,” Soobin adds, not missing a beat. “I don’t even know how she managed to wrestle with me while dead asleep.”

Groans erupt around us—dramatic and exaggerated. But underneath the teasing, something subtle lingers. A shift. They’re watching us now.

Not the way they usually do. Like they’re waiting for something. Like they know something’s changed—and they’re waiting for us to confirm it. Soobin stands abruptly and brushes crumbs off his shirt. “I’m gonna get some orange juice. You want anything?”

It’s casual. But the silence that follows isn’t. I glance up, just in time to catch how heads turn—slight, slow, like they’re trying not to make it obvious. But it is. Too fucking obvious.

They weren’t expecting that.

“Apple juice,” I reply, voice even. He nods once and walks off.

Taehyun leans in just enough to lower his voice. “You two okay?”

“Yeah. Just tired,” I repeat, too fast. Too practiced.

"Riiight," The boy hums, unimpressed, dragging the word out a little. His gaze lingers longer than it should. I don’t meet it.

I busy myself with the glass of water in front of me, pretending not to notice how the table feels quieter around me. Even Hueningkai, who’s usually the first to fill silences, pauses mid-bite to glance back and forth between us. It’s subtle, but they can tell. Everyone can.

The air between me and Soobin is heavier, different—like something broke open last night and we haven’t figured out how to patch it up again.

We don’t bicker. We don’t talk.

We were just stuck in this strange, unspoken truce, careful not to look too long or say too much.

Nari cheers suddenly, loud and triumphant.

“I did it! It actually landed in my mouth!” She beams, holding her hands in the air like she’d won a medal. Everyone laughs and claps, the attention shifting with relief. The tension breaks—but not for me.

Because a second later, I feel someone lean in from my left, too close to be casual. His voice lands soft and deliberate right at my ear.

"Orange does suit you, Y/N." Yeonjun murmurs, his voice low and teasing.

My gaze snaps to him, confused—until I see where he’s looking. Not at me. Not at my face. But at the purple mark hidden just behind my neck. Faint. Barely there. Not invisible, though.

Oh.

My heart skips, and I swallow. Across the table, Soobin sets down the two glasses—one in front of me, the other by his seat. His fingers brush the rim of mine for just a second longer than needed.

When I meet his eyes, he’s already looking at me.

There’s a quiet intensity in his gaze—something unspoken hanging between us. But instead of holding his stare, I look away first.

It feels easier this way.

a/n: heyyyy!! :D uhh im backkk akjsbfjasbf. I want to start posting wayy more like actually, like legit i promise. i'll also start replying to my requests and will open them soon again!!

anywayy, i still don't know how to feel about this fic since this is my first time writing something thats not a research paper in a hot minutee, but i hoped u guys like itt!!

(im also still trying to get comfortable writing a bit more suggestive fics, so this is my first entry on that!!)

also,, the way i kept giggling a bit to myself at the thought of Nari with her head just tilted up, mouth agape, moving around trying to catch that grape while everyone at the table sat in silence HELPP i find her soo cutee!!

[dughole]

radiohead’s complicity in israeli-occupied palestine

my feelings on radiohead are complicated these days, as i’m sure they are for many. i'm using this post as a method of sorting out my own thoughts & to provide sources.

for me, the bottom line is this: radiohead is both a brand & a musical group. the brand of radiohead has always had deep roots in the israeli colonial project - they have played many, many shows there throughout their career. their breakout single - creep, was intially only a hit in israel (x, x) & the personal choices of some of radiohead's members remain just as involved. jonny greenwood met his future wife - the israeli artist, antivaxxer & vehement zionist (x) sharona katan - at a show radiohead played in israel in 1993 (x). jonny consistently collaborated with zionist musician shye ben tzur & his projects continue to tour in tel aviv as recently as last september. as for jonny himself - his only statement in regards to the war on gaza has been in mourning for the israeli concert goers on october 10th - w no such empathy spared to the 100,000 palestinians dead, injured, or missing. as for thom, while he’s thrown a few bitchfits (x) through the years abt criticism of radiohead’s shows in israel, he has imo - only paid lipservice to the criticism, saying “playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government” going against the pleas of his peers & coworkers in the music industry. as well as the pro-palestine activism undertaken by his long term friend micheal stipe (x & x). (note: stipe stood by radiohead’s performance in israel in 2017, but his current political choices suggest his understanding of the situation has evolved). even his own son - noah yorke, a fellow working musician, has voiced his opposition to the genocide in gaza via instagram stories. as for the other members, rhythm guitarist ed o'brien has called for a ceasefire, as well as making a few tweets about "solidarity with palestinians & israeli peacemakers". while bassist colin greenwood reportedly refused to accept letters of dialogue from the fan-run organization radiohead fans for palestine. drummer phillip selway's commentary is similarly brief but defensive, saying radiohead's 2017 tel aviv concert "felt right"

to me, this paints a picture of a band who's members stances on israel range from abhorrent to simply not enough. & as a brand, their particular combination of action & inaction amounts to a fundamentally zionist perspective. you cannot separate radiohead as artists from radiohead as a brand name.

i've loved radiohead since i was 14. i was brought into it by another longtime fan. i cried & danced when i saw them live back in 2017 - it was, & remains, a moment that allowed me to live through the hardest parts of my life. i felt for the longest time, that radiohead's music & political positions encouraged my empathy - my questioning of conservative political authority. & while all celebrities are failures in some sense - it is still heartbreaking to know how wrong i was.

i don't think it's possible to disconnect the decade of connection & love i have for their music - I won't ask that of myself or anyone else. & the idea of scrubbing one's taste of the "morally impure" is useless effort & an inappropriate simplification of both art & our conceptions of what makes someone "bad". but i can say with certainty - i will not be giving them any more of my money, whether that be streaming their music or buying their merch - & i encourage you to do the same. silence is complicity - this is beyond silence.

in the words of nina simone - "an artist's duty, as far as i'm concerned, is to reflect the times. how can you be an artist and not reflect the times? that to me is the definition of an artist."

[autismswagsummit]

Round 2 is ready!

The Wheel of Doom has run its course, so it's time to go back to the main bracket! We have 32 contestants to get through, so this time polls will be handled in 2 waves, splitting the bracket down the middle. All matches will be listed below, as usual. Polls will take place on September 28th, same time as usual.

ROUND 2 SIDE A

Donatello Hamato (Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) v.s Rui Kamishiro (Project Sekai)

Branch (DreamWorks Trolls) v.s Snufkin (Moominvalley)

Gordon Freeman (Half Life) v.s Princess Bubblegum (Adventure Time)

Zane Julien (Lego Ninjago) v.s Tomoko Kuroki (Watamote)

Papyrus (Undertale) v.s Ferb Fletcher (Phineas & Ferb)

Twilight Sparkle (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) v.s Gregory House (House M.D)

Data Soong (Star Trek) v.s Peridot (Steven Universe)

Marcy Wu (Amphibia) v.s Miles Edgeworth (Ace Attorney)

ROUND 2 SIDE B

Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece) v.s Laios Touden (Dungeon Meshi)

Gin Ibushi (Your Turn To Die) v.s Link (The Legend of Zelda)

Luz Noceda (The Owl House) v.s Huey Duck (Ducktales 2017)

Lilo Pelekai (Lilo & Stitch) v.s Miles "Tails" Prower (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Razputin Aquato (Psychonauts) v.s Entrapta (She Ra and the Princesses of Power)

Kieran (Pokemon Scarlet and Violet) v.s Marina Ida (Splatoon)

Hiccup Haddock (How To Train Your Dragon) v.s Abed Nadir (Community)

Bingo Heeler (Bluey) v.s Spongebob Squarepants (Spongebob Squarepants)

[april-is]

April 20, 2025: Poem in the Shape of the Poet Beating Henry Kissinger to Death with Their Bare Hands, Felix Lecocq

Poem in the Shape of the Poet Beating Henry Kissinger to Death with Their Bare Hands Felix Lecocq

--

(Today's poem is shared as an image, and includes a transcription of the poem as alt text. If you're unable to see it, you can also find it transcribed below.)

US-funded projects addressing the ongoing impact of Agent Orange in Viet Nam (toxin cleanup, support for those with congenital disorders like the poet's) were disrupted by the abrupt dismantling of US foreign aid programming this year. Along with many others.

Today in: 2024: blessing the boats, Lucille Clifton 2023: Wound is the Origin of Wonder, Maya C. Popa 2022: When the Fox Comes to the City, Patricia Fargnoli 2021: aubade for the whole hood, Nate Marshall 2020: Keeping Things Whole, Mark Strand 2019: New Year’s Day, Kim Addonizio 2018: I Know You Think I’ve Forgotten, Jane Hirshfield 2017: The Writer, Richard Wilbur 2016: from Seven Skins, Adrienne Rich 2015: I Ask Percy How I Should Live My Life, Mary Oliver 2014: In the Park, Maxine Kumin 2013: To A Sad Daughter, Michael Ondaatje 2012: My Dead Friends, Marie Howe 2011: Staying After, Linda Gregg 2010: Dream Song 14, John Berryman 2009: What We Kept, Megan Alpert 2008: Please Take Back the Sparrows, Suzanne Buffam 2007: It Happens Like This, James Tate 2006: Tantalus in May, Reginald Shepherd 2005: September Song, Geoffrey Hill

A transcript of the poem text follows:

Text is in the shape of a standing person raising a fist in order to punch someone who is lying on the ground holding up their hands in defense. It reads:

hooking up with strange men on edibles is fucking awesome until you’re lying in his bed afterward and you can’t shut up about how much you want to hit henry kissinger over and over until he stops breathing. like, did you know that agent orange is apparently 100,000 times more potent than thalidomide at causing birth defects and to this day vietnamese infants have an elevated incidence of congenital disorders, including heart abnormalities, and like you’re not saying that henry kissinger is the reason you were born with a broken heart but wouldn’t it be so fucked up if he was and wouldn’t you then have every right to press your thumbs into his windpipe until he chokes to death and your hookup is like yeah you’re right that would be fucked up i’m sorry but what did you want to get i’m placing the order now and you say two spicy potato soft tacos please and you let him pay for it because he’s white and you’re too stoned to navigate venmo right now and it’s only like $2 but by the time the food arrives you’ve fallen asleep anyway, hand over your heart monitor, dreaming of kissinger’s blood dribbling out his mouth like hot sauce

[phoenixyfriend]

I think that one of the things I find most frustrating about the tariffs conversation (and I find a lot of it frustrating) is... well, okay, it's two things, which are related:

ONE: MAGA are stealing leftist talking points

TWO: That's not how protectionist tariffs work. (This is probably the more important one.)

So.

ONE: The rhetoric of 'temporary hardship to reach eventual greater collective stability' is something that the left generally says with a little more sincerity, oftentimes with things like taxes for public infrastructure or welfare.

It also generally means that everyone experiences a touch of hardship, but the wealth is reinvested into the economy to boost the collective good; the sincerity is low with centrists, but higher with the far left.

The hardship is also more likely to not be moving money to the wealthy, something that is very much happening here. There are some massive shortfalls in tax income these past few years, some of which have been going on for decades, like the subsidization of the fossil fuel industry or unusually high investment in the military, but a big one recently has been the 2017 tax cuts that Trump introduced for the wealthy in his first term. They are, from articles I've seen, responsible for trillions in lost revenue per year sine their introduction, and while they expire in 2025, Trump and this Republican Congress have made it clear that they intend to extend those tax cuts as long as they can. The tariffs are to cover that gap in the budget, meaning that everyone is paying more in taxes, on goods that are disproportionately consumed by the lower and middle classes, in order to cover the tax breaks that billionaires got.

Very much stealing from the poor to give to the rich! That's what the tariffs are about!

e.g. yes you're paying a few extra dollars in taxes this year, but it's being invested in developing a free and reduced school lunch program; while you won't see any immediate benefits, and you'll be a little strapped for cash for month or two if you're living paycheck to paycheck, but you'll see a huge load off your mind come September. Could also be a few extra dollars for an infrastructure project, which takes ten years to build... but once it's built, your commute is cut in half because of the new bridge, or the electricity is subsidized by some new wind farms, or the landfill has been assessed and built over to be a safe, clean park. This second example about infrastructure is Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which fed money into infrastructure work and other major projects across the country; in many cases, state Senators, congresspeople, and governors who had voted or campaigned against the IRA would then take credit for the benefits their constituents saw.

TWO: You can't use protectionist tariffs to revive local industry without investing in it. High tariffs can minimize damage to the economy if the industry hasn't already left.

If the factories are still around, and the employees are still there and knowledgeable, and the resources haven't been left to diminish on their own, then you protect them with tariffs in the immediate aftermath of a shift in the status quo. You prevent the 'theft of business' with the tariffs, and since it all just seems to be business as usual domestically, it's a blip in the radar for consumers. A bit more complicated if the domestic market has also been exporting the product, as markets abroad will shift to the cheaper product you are protecting against, but you now have a bit more time to innovate a reason to keep market share.

If the industry has been allowed to diminish, or never really existed in the first place (we can't grow coffee or bananas or avocado or mangos at an industry scale, we do not have the weather for it), then a sudden implementation of protectionist tariffs will pass costs along to the consumer until the industry is up and running again.

You know how you fix that? Subsidize the industry you're trying to revive.

In 1910, there were 144,607 people employed in clothing factories in the US (1910 census, employment). This doesn't include people working in shoe factories (181,010), tanneries (33,553), dressmakers and seamstresses (449,342; presumably separated from the first statistic by not being in a factory), dyers (14,050), sewers and sewing machine operatives (291,209), shoemakers and cobblers not in factories (69,570), and the hundreds of thousands of people in the textiles alone (I'm not doing the math, but it's over a million). So we're looking at several million people in the garment industry in the US, in 1910.

In 2020, the combined category of Textile, Apparel, and Furnishing employment contained a total of 16,510 people.

You cannot bring an industry like that back to the US without heavily, heavily subsidizing it to

A. Keep the costs down to where the public can still buy clothing without making it so the people suddenly in this industry are paid pennies on the hour.

B. Train this new generation of people in an industry that barely exists anymore.

C. Build the infrastructure to support the industry, from cotton gins to sewing factories.

You can't bring back an industry that was in the millions in 1910 when there are less than 20,000 people doing it now, in a population that has more than tripled (92mill in 1910, 331mill in 2020).

I just. You have to feed those tariffs into rebuilding the industry. You can't feed them into tax breaks for the wealthy if your stated goal is to rebuild industry. I know that feeding money to his rich friends is the goal for Trump, but I'm so incredibly frustrated that people don't seem to get the basic functions of protectionist tariff application.

Almost forgot to advertize myself since this was just me venting about current events, inspired by a LegalEagle video, but:

Prompt me on ko-fi! I’m trying to move out of my parents’ house.

[louisupdates]

By Ed Power | Sat Nov 30 2024 - 05:15

During the pandemic the songwriter and producer James Vincent McMorrow would rise early, go for a run and write songs for Louis Tomlinson, of One Direction.

“I actually made half of a record for him,” he says. Tomlinson’s team “had a lot of songs but maybe not a lot that he was as into as he wanted to be. I think they were maybe looking for a weirdo. So they reached out to me. I love him. He’s a fascinating human being. I absolutely loved making that album,” adds McMorrow, who is about to start a tour of Ireland.

When it comes to potential collaborators with a boy band megastar, McMorrow’s name is not the first that springs to mind. He’s an indie songwriter whose open-veined, falsetto-driven pop has been compared to that of folkies such as Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens. But Tomlinson was a fan of the Dubliner’s beautifully wrought music. He wasn’t alone: Drake famously sampled McMorrow on his 2016 track Hype.

One of the tracks they wrote together, The Greatest, would serve as the opener to Tomlinson’s second LP, Faith in the Future. As is often the way with the music industry, the rest are in a vault somewhere. Still, for McMorrow the opportunity to work with a pop star was about more than simply putting his craft in front of a wider audience. The call from Tomlinson’s team had come at a low point for the Irishman, who had become mired in confusion and doubt after signing to a major label for the first time in his career.

Executives at Columbia Records had recognised potential in McMorrow as an artist who bridged the divide between folk and pop. The fruits of that get-together would see daylight in September 2021 as the excellent Grapefruit Season LP, on which McMorrow teamed up with Paul Epworth, who has also produced Adele and Florence Welch.

The album was a beautifully gauzy rumination on the birth of his daughter and the muggy roller coaster of first-time parenthood. It went top 10 in Ireland and breached the top 100 in the UK. Yet the experience of working within the major-label system was strange for McMorrow, who at that point had been performing and recording for more than a decade. He didn’t hate it. But he knew he didn’t ever want to do it again.

“It was a weird time. I stopped touring in 2017. My daughter was born in 2018. I signed with Columbia Records at the same time and made a record that ... There were moments within it I was proud of. But fundamentally, I think if I was being very honest, I would say that I definitely got lost in the weeds of what the music industry wanted for me rather than what I wanted for myself.”

[…]

McMorrow grew up in Malahide, the well-to-do town in north Co Dublin; as a secondary-school student he suffered debilitating shyness. In 2021 he revealed that he had struggled with an eating disorder at school, ending up in hospital (“Anorexia that progressed into bulimia”). He was naturally retiring, not the sort to crave the spotlight. But he was drawn to music. “It was definitely a difficult journey,” he says. He wasn’t alone in that. “The musicians that tend to cut through and make it ... A lot of my friends, musicians that are successful, they’re not desperate for the stage.”

The Tomlinson collaboration was part of his strange relationship with the mainstream music industry. It went back to McMorrow’s third LP, Rising Water, from 2016. A move away from his earlier folk-pop, the project had featured engineering from Ben Ash, aka Two Inch Punch, a producer who had worked with chart artists such as Jessie Ware, Sia and Wiz Khalifa.

That was followed by the Drake sample in 2016 and by McMorrow writing the song Gone, which was at one point set to be recorded by a huge pop star whom he’d rather not identify.

“Gone is the red herring of red herrings in my entire career. I wrote that song for other people. I didn’t write it for myself. The whole reason I signed to Columbia Records and I had all these deals was because of Gone. I was very happy tipping away in my weird little world. And then I wrote that song, and a lot of bigger artists came in to try to take it,” he says.

“I won’t name names. There were recordings of it done. It got very close to being a single for someone else. I would go in these meetings with all these labels, and I would play it for them – just to play. Not with any sense of ‘This is my song.’ And they were, like, ‘You’re out of your mind if you don’t take this song. This is the song that will make you the thing that is the thing.’ And I was, like, ‘You’re wrong.’ For a year I basically was, like, ‘I disagree.’ And if you go in a room with enough people enough times and they tell you that you’re crazy ... I loved the song, but I did not love it for me. I never felt I fit. There was a little part of me that wanted to believe.”

As he had predicted, Gone wasn’t a hit. He received a lot of other strange advice, including that he cash in on the mercifully short-lived craze for NFTs by putting out an LP as a watermarked internet file. All of that was swirling in his brain when Tomlinson got in touch. To be able to step outside his own career was exactly what McMorrow needed.

“With Louis it was like boot camp. I had a very limited time with him. I had to wake up every morning, go for a run, write a song in my head, go to the studio. We made songs all day long. It lit a fire in my head again. I loved the process. I like sitting and talking to someone like Louis, who’s had this unbelievably fascinating lifestyle – so much tragedy in his life,” he says. Tomlinson’s mother and sister died within three years of each other, and his 1D bandmate Liam Payne died in October. “So many things have happened to him. I chatted to him and then write constantly. That was a lovely process.”

Because life is strange and full of contrasts McMorrow ended up working with Tomlinson around the same time that he was producing the Dublin postpunk “folk-metal” band The Scratch, on their LP Mind Yourself. “Totally different animals,” he says. “The Scratch album was an intense period in the studio of that real old-school nature of making music. A lot of fights. A lot of pushing back against ideas. A lot of different opinions. And you have to respect everybody’s opinions and find the route through.”

During his brief time on a major label, McMorrow was reminded of the music industry’s weakness for short-term thinking. In 2019, the business was obsessed with streaming numbers and hot-wiring the Spotify algorithm so that your music posted the highest possible number of plays.

“Everyone was driven by stats. ‘This song has 200 million streams.’ ‘That song has 400 million streams.’ I went into my meetings with Columbia Records ... the day I had my first big marketing meeting was the day my catalogue passed a billion streams, which, for someone like me, who started where I started, was a day where I should be popping champagne corks. Instead they immediately started talking about how they have artists that have one song that has two billion streams. So by their rule of thumb I was half as successful as one song by one artist on their label.”

Five years later he believes things have changed. He points to Lankum, a group who will never set Spotify alight yet who have carved a career by doing their own thing and not chasing the short-term goal of a place on the playlist. They are an example to other musicians, McMorrow says.

“I was in Brooklyn, doing two nights, a week and a half ago. In the venue across the road from where we were, pretty much, Lankum were doing two nights and had [the Dublin folk artist] John Francis Flynn opening for them. Those are two artists that, if you were to look at their stats, you wouldn’t be, like, ‘These are world-beating musicians.’ You start aggregating to this stat-based norm and you miss bands like Lankum, bands like The Mary Wallopers, people like John Francis Flynn.”

McMorrow is looking forward to his forthcoming Irish tour, which he sees as another leg of his journey to be his best possible self.

“The last two, three years have been a process of building it back to a version of me that actually made me happy rather than making me cry at night-time – a version that was making music because I liked it. Within this industry there’s so much outside noise. It’s quite overwhelming. I was overwhelmed. It’s been nice to reset the clock.”

In November 2022, McMorrow posted this now deleted Instagram post:

Text: late 2021 I got a phone call asking me if I wanted to come to London to meet @louist91 and possibly write some songs. A few years ago he released a statement talking about changing his path musically, instead of the immediate search for hits, he’d start with music he genuinely loved and see where it got him. Seems like a simple and obvious thing to say, but considering the amount of people just chasing hits with little regard for vision or artistry, a statement like that struck me when I read it. So I was excited to meet him and see what he was about. First day we met we all wrote Common People, second day we wrote Lucky Again. In December of last year we went back in again, finished those ones, wrote and produced 3 others that are also on this album. It was the studio line-up of dreams, @mrfredball @jmoon1066, @riley_mac. Shouts to Louis for letting us do our thing, letting a dork like me come write some weird lyrics and weird melodies, trust us to shape the vision that he had. These last few years were dark at times, but it was moments like that where I remembered why I’m obsessed w music and why it’s all I’ve ever understood. incredibly proud of the work, Holding on to Heartache is genuinely one of my most favourite songs I’ve ever been a part of.

Also I was reading something about the album and it mentioned something about the gospel choir on the bridge of that song… nah man thats’s just 200 stacked of me singing super super high in the studio out back of Fred’s house😂]

[shiikiyun]

Hi everypony. Futa is no older than 21. Here's why

1. Twitter interface

In Jihen Joutou we are able to see a 1:1 replica of twitter, and the UI cues show that this cannot be before 2017 when the profile pics went from square to circular, aside from other details like the reply button, or the existence of quotes (added 2015) but not the button bellow the tweets (added 2020)

2. Phone model

But to narrow it down even more: Futa's phone ressembles an IPhone 11 the most, released late 2019. The previous models to this one have different camera placements, meaning it is most likely this model, and making his crime impossible to happen prior September 2019.

Additionally: His twitter account was created in March 2016. This could mean nothing, as animation could've already been on production. But, fyi, this account is currently deactivated. It was still there 3 weeks ago, right before t3 started, and the username is unavailable for new accounts, meaning it hasn't been a month since it's gone. Seems deliberate, so, I'd keep it's creation date in mind.

What is his birth year then? I've got a few options.

If MILGRAM takes them in with the age they had when the crime happened (explaining why Haruka would believe he's a teenager): Crime happens in 2019 or right before April 2020, making his birth year 1999. He'd be 21 in real life right before MILGRAM starts, at the oldest.

If MILGRAM takes them at the age they are by April 2020, start of the project: Birth year is 2000. He is truly 20, but was 19 at the time of the crime.

Making him any older than this would force him to be older than 20 when the crime happens in 2019, and make not only his claim but MILGRAM's profile be nonsensical (why would he say he's 20 and why would MILGRAM not, at least, put it in doubt if he was already older by the time of the crime?)

Let's also remember one thing from the first novel: Dead people and people in a coma can still appear in MILGRAM as completely fine and real, and MILGRAM can tamper with memories. We shouldn't jump the gun to make this make real sense, because it doesn't. It isn't a real facility.

What does this mean for Haruka and the rest then? I think there's a group of prisoners that are of a slightly older time period and another group that are closer to the start of the project (Namely Mikoto, for example, as the train he takes and his phone model are also pretty contemporary. Additionally— he has 4G, introduced in the 2010s, so it could not be earlier than that, and I've read e-cigarettes became more popular in Japan around late 2010s. My guess is also 2019/2018, but I'm not as confident in Mikoto as I am Futa simply because I'd have to dig more to find specific models and stuff. Futa was just too easy lol. Mahiru also cannot be earlier than 2016 because of the Your Name reference). This would not mean they lied about their ages in MILGRAM, not even that they are older in real life. They could've died at the age they are in MILGRAM, or, as I said, are taken as the age they were when the crime happened and truly are and believe the age they claim. Personally, I think Haruka's age being alluded to not be exact comes from the severe neglect starting at 15— His perception of aging blurs after that, he could be 15, he could be 19, but somewhat still a teen. Let's remember he was investigated by the police after killing pets, after the murder of the child, it's almost sure he was caught. I don't think he made it to 23 (probably suicide), but that's my personal speculation.

In conclusion: Don't let the sudden reveal that Haruka was born in 1997 make you catastrophize the rest of the cast or Haruka's age itself. There is a lot of proof that the events in MILGRAM aren't parallel to real life time passage, and even if the prisoners have a different birth year than what you could easily calculate by subtracting (age) to 2020— It doesn't immediately mean their ages in MILGRAM aren't true. Let this be an opportunity to revisit MVs for context clues that could easily reveal the time period the crimes took place in, like I did with this guy! Thanks

[hermitmoss]

Vincent Benítez timeline (book+movie merged)

This is a personal perspective, do your own things, etc. Feel free to use some or all of this if you want.

September 29, 1957 - (age 0) born and baptised as Vincent Benítez in Mexico

1966 - (age 9) family moves to the Philippines. lengthy boat journey

1978 - (age 21, timing directly from book) ordination as priest

1978-1987 - (age 21-30) Santo Niño de Tondo parish

13th of May 1987 - (age 30, timing based on project being dated to around 30 years before the conclave) establishes Project of the Blessed Santa Margherita de Cortona (Manila)

1987-1996 (age 30-39) - Our Lady of the Abandoned Parish (Santa Ana)

1996-2006 - (age 39-49) Ministry in the Congo (probably coincided with being made bishop, since he replaced an assassinated bishop in the book). book states 1996 (outbreak of the first war) as being when he was transferred there.

2003 - (age 45) meets the future Late Pope

2007-2017 - (age 50-60) ministry in Baghdad

2015 - (age 57) Lightly Exploded, appendix punctured. surgery. has his Surprise Internal Organs and Surprise Genetics news. out of "active service" for a few months. after his treating doctor dies, ends up being transferred again

2017 - (age 59) created Monsignor (timing from book), transferred to Kabul.

late 2017 - (age 59) - flies to Vatican to talk to the Late Pope. Geneva almost happens.

January 2018 - (age 59) created Archbishop of Kabul

March 2018 - (age 59, timing based on the fact that Bellini and Lomeli state it would have only been a few months ago) created cardinal in pectore

November/December 2018 - (age 60) attends conclave, leaves (or doesn't) as Innocent XIV

[fanauthorworkshop]

Applications now open!

The Fall 2024 Fanauthor Workshop is a 7-week writing course led by Betts (@bettsfic). The workshop lends a supportive space to writers who identify as fans to receive constructive feedback on fanfiction, original fiction, or creative nonfiction.

Art by @emimayooo 💖

Where & When

We meet weekly over Zoom. You can apply for one of two sessions:

Group A: Wednesdays from Oct. 9 - Nov. 20, 12-2pm EST

Group B: Mondays from Oct. 7 - Nov. 18, 6-8pm EST

What

FAW is a feedback-oriented workshop with the occasional generative session. This means that each week we read 2 pieces submitted by participants, offer written feedback, and discuss them over Zoom. You'll be able to sign up for the week you would like to workshop your own piece, which can be anything under 6k words.

There may be weeks where, in lieu of workshopping, I present external readings and writing exercises. These sessions will be dependent on the number of participants. For example, if we have 10 participants and 6 workshop weeks, that means one week will be devoted to a reading discussion and generative activity.

I developed a workshop model that focuses mostly on affirmations and positivity, as well as descriptive over prescriptive feedback, which is to say, describing one's experience of reading rather than prescribing solutions to perceived problems. We also present improvement-oriented feedback, but avoid negativity, judgment, and pedantry. Week 1 is spent going over the model and how to give feedback.

About FAW

The first FAW was held in 2017 as an independent study in my MFA. I restarted it in 2022 and since then have led 9 sessions with a total of over 50 participants, about half of whom have participated in the workshop more than once.

Participation in the workshop includes entrance into the FAW community, an active Discord server where we host:

Ongoing accountability meetings, where we chat over Zoom about our projects and set goals for ourselves every other week

A monthly longform writing workshop, where writers can workshop any story between 6k and 100k words

A short story club, where we read and chat about original short form works

Events and activities like movie nights and co-op gaming

Scheduled write-ins and impromptu writing sprints

We also chat about writing and craft, offer resources, and share many, many pet photos.

In addition, participants of the workshop receive:

A one-hour consultation with me to go over your workshop feedback, come up with a plan for revision and/or publication, or anything else you’d like to discuss regarding your writing

Open enrollment in future workshops

Priority sign-ups for WTFS (Write the Fucking Story), WIP Cleanout, and other one-off generative sessions

Eligibility

Anyone over the age of 18 who considers themselves a participant of fandom and who is familiar with fanfiction may apply. A stable internet connection is also required.

Cost

The cost of the workshop is "pay what you can" with the recommended amount of $300. To be as inclusive as possible, I don't want money to be a deterrent for anyone interested in participating.

Payment (or notification of nonpayment) will be requested prior to the start of workshop via PayPal, Venmo, or Wise. You can also pay in installments.

Application requirements

To apply, you will need:

An informal cover letter discussing your fan history and goals as a (fan)writer (more specific instructions on submittable)

A short sample of your writing, either original work or fanfiction. This may be previously published/posted

You can apply via submittable. Applications close September 15.

FAQ under the cut

FAQ

Are there any content restrictions to what I can workshop?

The only restriction is word count (max 6k), with the following caveats:

If you workshop a piece in a form other than prose (for example, a script), your peers may not be able to offer constructive feedback on that aspect of the work. Participants are asked only to have a familiarity with prose.

Content warnings are required for each piece (if applicable), and participants who are uncomfortable reading certain subject matter may abstain from your workshop.

What is the time commitment of the workshop?

As a participant of the workshop, you'll be asked to:

Workshop any piece of your own prose up to 6k words, which will need to be uploaded to the group folder one week before your workshop.

Read 2 pieces per week, write out your individual crit, and attend the workshop itself.

What is the timeline of the workshop?

In week 1, we go over the syllabus and do a writing exercise. Weeks 2 through 7 will be a workshop, a discussion of an external reading, or a writing activity. Prior to the start of workshop, you'll be able to sign up for the week you would like to workshop your piece.

Structure of the sessions:

Question of the day

First workshop

Short break

Second workshop

We'll go over my workshop model and the syllabus in week 1.

Do I have to participate in the Zoom meetings (camera and mic on)?

Attending the workshop itself is required, and everyone is asked to offer at least one note of positive feedback on each piece, so mics are necessary. Cameras are preferred but not required.

You can't asynchronously participate, i.e. read the pieces and offer written feedback without attending the sessions.

Can workshop participants submit to OFIC Magazine?

Yes! Part of the reason I run the workshop is to inspire and promote the original work of fanwriters. You can follow us on tumblr @oficmag.

Who is running the workshop?

@bettsfic! In short, I lived a dreary cubicle life as a banker until I found fanfiction at 24. I loved it so much that I quit my job to get an MFA in creative writing. I loved the MFA so much that I became a writing teacher. I have some publications, awards, an agent, and 2 million words of fic on ao3. I don't have a book out yet but I'm getting there.

Currently I'm a writing coach and freelance editor. I also have a lowkey writing-related newsletter. And I've been answering writing advice asks on my blog for 10 years.

If you want an idea of the kind of writing activities I create, last summer I worked with @books on a workshop series which includes craft essays and some fun prompts.

If you're interested in my original work, my short story "Not If, When" is a good representation of my writing. For something darker, check out "Shut Up and Kill Me."

What is the workshop like?

Check out G's experience of attending the workshop. And here's some feedback from previous participants.

One final note: I'm working on updating the copy about the workshop on my website and move it over to OFIC's website. This post and Submittable has the most updated information on the workshop. If you have questions about discrepancies (or anything at all), you can shoot me an ask, DM me, or add me on Discord (I'm bettsfic there too). Or you can email me at ekweeks@gmail.com.

[digimonarchive]

Digimon in all animated media - Anime, Movies and OVA

1st pic = Digimon Adventure anime (Japan: March 7, 1999 - March 26, 2000; USA: August 14, 1999 - June 24, 2000)

2nd pic = Digimon Adenture 02 anime (Japan: April 2, 2000 - March 25, 2001; USA: August 19, 2000 - May 19, 2001)

3rd pic = Digimon Tamers anime (Japan: April 1, 2001 - March 31, 2002; USA: September 1, 2001 - June 8, 2002)

4th pic = Digimon Frontier anime (Japan: April 7, 2002 - March 30, 2003; USA: September 9, 2002 - July 14, 2003)

5th pic = Digimon Savers / Data Squad anime (Japan: April 2, 2006 – March 25, 2007; USA: October 1, 2007 - November 2, 2008)

6th pic = Digimon Xros Wars / Fusion anime (Japan: July 6, 2010 - March 25, 2012; USA: September 7, 2013 - August 16, 2015)

7th pic = Digimon Xros Wars: The Evil Death Generals and the Seven Kingdoms anime (a.k.a Digimon Xros Wars part 2) (Japan: April 3, 2011 - September 25, 2011; USA: March 8, 2015 - August 16, 2015) **

8th pic = Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time anime (a.k.a Digimon Xros Wars Hunters or Digimon Xros Wars part 3) (Japan: October 2, 2011 - March 25, 2012) ***

9th pic = Digimon Adventure Tri OVA (Japan: November 21, 2015 - May 5, 2018; USA: September 15, 2016 - September 20, 2018)

10th pic = Digimon Universe Appli Monsters anime (a.k.a Appmon) (Japan: October 1, 2016 - September 30, 2017)

11th pic = Digimon Adventure: (a.k.a Digimon Adventure 2020 or Digimon Adventure reboot) (Japan: April 5, 2020 - September 26, 2021; USA: November 19, 2022 - April 13, 2023)

12th pic = Digimon Ghost Game (Japan: October 3, 2021 - March 26, 2023)

13th pic = Digimon Adventure (Movie) short film (Japan: March 6, 1999; USA: October 6, 2000 as the first segment part of Digimon The Movie)

14th pic = Digimon Adventure: Our War Game! movie (Japan: March 4, 2000; USA: October 6 2000 as the second segment part of Digimon The Movie)

15th pic = Digimon Adventure 02: Vol. 1: Digimon Hurricane Landing!/Vol. 2: Transcendent Evolution! The Golden Digimentals movie (a.k.a Digimon Adventure 02 Vol 1 and 2) (Japan: July 8, 2000; USA: October 6, 2000 as the third segment part of Digimon The Movie) ****

16th pic = Digimon Adventure 02: Diablomon Strikes Back / Digimon: Revenge of Diaboromon movie (Japan: March 3, 2001; USA: August 5, 2005)

17th pic = Digimon Tamers: The Adventurers' Battle / Digimon: Battle of Adventurers movie (Japan: July 14, 2001; USA: October 16, 2005)

18th pic = Digimon Tamers: The Runaway Digimon Express / Digimon: Runaway Locomon movie (Japan: March 2, 2002; USA: October 2, 2005)

19th pic = Digimon Frontier: Revival of the Ancient Digimon!! / Digimon: Island of Lost Digimon movie (Japan: July 20, 2002; USA: October 23, 2005)

20th pic = Digital Monster X-evolution movie (Japan: January 3, 2005; USA: August 1, 2020)

21st pic = Digimon Savers The Movie: Ultimate Power! Activate Burst Mode!! movie (Japan: December 9, 2006)

22nd pic = Digimon Adventure 3D: Digimon Grandprix! short film OVA (Japan: July 20, 2000)

23rd pic = Digimon Savers 3D: The Digital World in Imminent Danger! short film OVA (Japan: July 8, 2006)

24th pic = Digimon Adventure 20th Anniversary Memorial Story Project OVA short films (Japan: November 22 2019 - December 25, 2020)

25th pic = Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna movie (Japan: February 21, 2020; USA: September 29, 2020)

26th pic = Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning movie (Japan: October 5, 2023; USA: November 8, 2023)

** This is the 2nd part of Digimon Xros Wars saga with Taiki, Kiriha and Nene on their adventure while Akari and Zenjirou are left out.

*** This is the 3rd part of Digimon Xros Wars saga with Tagiru, Yuu and Taiki as the protagonists. This 3rd part has the overly long title so we fans prefer to call it 'Digimon Xros Wars: Hunters' or 'Digimon Young Hunters'.

**** Yes, this movie has an overly long title. I had a hard time deciding whether to highlight it in bold or not.

Happy Digimon Day!

[eregyrn-falls-art]

My 2024 Art Year in Review!

My main goal this year was to do a bit more than I had in '23, and happily, I did manage that!

24 pieces done, most of them full pieces. 78 individuals. Contributed to several big projects this year (one of which isn't even on here, because we can't show the art yet). As it is, some of these are fudged a little with respect to when I finished them, but largely they correspond to when I did a lot of work on them. I only have one month where I had to put in a photograph instead, as I didn't have a finished drawing for that month; but I think that's because I was working on something else that got completed later.

I hope I can keep the streak going in the coming year, although there's going to be some challenges to my free time; so, we'll see.

Links below the cut.

2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017

January: Stanuary 2024: Week 4, Strangers and Brothers

February: Gravity Falls finale anniversary polaroid redraw

March: Ford by firelight

April: Sea Grunks in orange and blue

May: Photo of the aurora borealis in Massachusetts, May 10

June: Stan and Ford's birthday: canoeing in NJ

July: 2026 Hunkles Calendar, Feb: Stan and Ford in the Mystery Shack kitchen

August: Mabel and Dipper's birthday: hiking with Bigfoot

September: Sea Grunks portraits in teal

October: Halloween: Mystery Trio and Over the Garden Wall crossover

November: Pines and Bigfoot sitting around some scampfires

December: Gravity Falls cryptids sticker sheet for the Mystery Twin Mystery Bags project

Template by @mossygator

[cityofmeliora]

What does terzology know about the overthrow of Papa III? Do we have a hypothesis about the reasons for it?

very topical question. i was just thinking about this, actually.

as we know, Terzo was dragged off the stage while singing 'Monstrance Clock' at his final concert on September 30, 2017 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

it's tempting to think Sister Imperator simply hated Terzo and couldn't wait to get rid of him so she could put Cardi in charge, which i think is at least a tiny bit true, but not entirely true.

i watched the Era 3 lore video series 'The Summoning' with some friends the a while ago, and it was the first time they'd watched it. one of them remarked they were surprised that Sister Imperator seemed to be genuinely hyping up Terzo.

this is true! Sister Imperator did actually hype up Terzo during his first year as Papa. at the beginning of Era 3, she was deeply disappointed with the Nameless Ghouls and The Ghost Project's failure to make significant progress in their mission to convert the world to their cult. she was initially very excited for Terzo's reign and believed that he would be extremely successful.

SISTER IMPERATOR: Brothers and Sisters, you know why you are here tonight. This Ministry is now seven years into The Ghost Project. Seven long years of work. Two Papas, two albums, one gold. These are indeed some respectable numbers, but let me give you some others. Churches opened: zero. Governments toppled: zero. World leaders converted to the cause: zero. You call yourselves salesmen? Masterminds? You have done shit! And don't blame the music. The music is the very manifestation of His Dark Majesty. And don't blame this fine merchandise! It's a disgrace! Papa 2 has been let go. He is a miserable, wounded, and bitter old man, and he is washed up! But let's look forward now. This is a new piece of music. And these are your new masks. And this is Papa 2's brother. He is a full 3 months younger. This man will take the band further than any of us could ever have imagined. I present to you now… Papa Emeritus III! The Summoning (part 1) (May 20, 2015)

Terzo did end up being very successful, even before Meliora released.

SISTER IMPERATOR: It has arrived! Some of you did not believe the new Papa would be able to cast a shadow as wide and as far as his great predecessor. Your faithlessness is now dust in my mouth. You should be on your knees humbling yourselves before what has been accomplished here! All you need to do is look outside. Look at the graffiti on the walls, look at the lights illuminated at night, where once there was only darkness. The Summoning IV: The Arrival || Unholy / Unplugged - Los Angeles, California, USA (August 21, 2015)

Sister Imperator felt she was right to have faith in Terzo. she continued to preach about Terzo's power and demanded that others respect him.

SISTER IMPERATOR: Welcome! Welcome, my faithful brothers and sisters! Your presence here is proof of your commitment. If you are unsure, cast off your doubts now. There is no turning back. The rite you're about to witness is but one small but essential movement in our spiritual revolution. We prayed, and he has arrived! But! But! He will demand more of you! He will need to hear from the abyss of your hearts that you are ready. His is a voice of the pit and the pinnacle! His Nameless Ghouls are the music of the [UNINTELLIGIBLE], but your holy noise is the key! You must cry out his name! Say it with me now: Papa Emeritus! Again! Again! Again! Very good. Shh! Shh! Shhhhhh! Listen. Do you hear it? Do you? It's the terrible sound of the ignorant– the mistrust and anger of the masses. The world is unstable and they have lost their balance. But we, here together, are the new foundation. We are the shape of things to come! There's not much time. We won't be able to do the required incantation. We must let the music do the summoning. My brethren, my brethren, bow your heads and raise your horns to pierce the veil of heaven, so the skies will be torn asunder! And Papa may fall into our midst! Now is the moment. Now, there is no other. Papa Emeritus III! Ghost! Ghost is here! Los Angeles, CA, USA (October 26, 2015)

so what was the turning point? the 2016 Grammy win.

listen. Sister Imperator hated that Grammy so fucking much. this seems weird because she wanted the band to be successful, but here's the thing: Sister Imperator is a zealot. a real religious freak. as shown by her words in The Summoning part 1, she fully believes that the true mission and purpose of The Ghost Project is to serve satan and convert the world to his church. she was happy that Ghost's success meant more people were hearing their message, but she was very, very mad that Terzo and the Nameless Ghouls seemed to be enjoying their success a little too much. she felt like they had lost focus, forgetting their mission for satan and instead focusing on their commercial success. and to her, the Grammy was representative of the establishment / mainstream society, something they should avoid as the leaders of satan's flock of black sheep.

SISTER IMPERATOR: The industry has noted our good works with their trinket. And as a result, our message is carried further and wider. But do we take such trinkets as sacrament and the measure of true accomplishment? No! We don't need their approval. The truth of our work is not measured by awards and nods from the establishment. [...] I have here letters from your followers, demanding that we explain why nothing has changed. They have made their own sacrifices. But what have you done? How will you answer them? By holding up your golden gramophone? Is this the change you promised? Is this the sign of a new age? It is nothing! It is another false idol. The Summoning V: The Square And Hammer (September 13, 2016)

notably, she never said anything negative about Terzo while verbally abusing the Ghouls. she still demanded respect for him and his position.

SISTER IMPERATOR: You are supposed to lead. It is your task. Your task! To lead! I think you're afraid of real change. Let's take a breath. I think I understand the problem. You think Papa's words should be enough. But then you misunderstand the nature of true power. Papa is not a mouthpiece for the Dark Divinity. He is not a pawn. He is a mediator. He is the path. His way is the truth and the darkness! And you– you are his apostles. And yet, you deny, you deny! The Summoning VI: The Proceedings Intensify (Oct 17, 2016)

... but that doesn't mean she wasn't also mad at him, too. we just didn't see it.

Terzo was very proud of his Grammy, and he did like to brag about it a little bit. Sister Imperator would have definitely been mad about that.

PAPA EMERITUS III: Alright! How are you feeling now? Quite good, right? Yeah! Alright, I know you like your hard-rocking shit here in Skåne, right? Enough of those ballads– award-winning ballad, actually. AUDIENCE: [APPLAUSE] PAPA EMERITUS III: Oh, thank you. Malmö, Sweden (February 25, 2016)

PAPA EMERITUS III: Yes! A Grammy award winning song! Right here, right now! That doesn't happen every day. Acoustic performance at 93X Radio - Minneapolis, Minnesota (July 28, 2016)

Sister Imperator had respect for Terzo's position as Papa, but she didn't respect him.

it's not like Terzo didn't care! Terzo is actually described as "less rebellious". and we know from the words of Bishop Necropolitus Cracoviensis II that Terzo had always been very dedicated to his church and the people in it. Terzo was a believer in the dark lord, and he was a very hard worker. the problem is that Terzo genuinely wanted a better and brighter future for the world, while Sister hoped to hasten its demise. (don't forget the original explicitly stated mission statement of Ghost was to promote the apocalypse + human extinction). i think they both knew his vision for the future of the church / the world was not in alignment with hers. i think Sister Imperator turned on Terzo when he started acting too confident in himself.

Sister Imperator started making plans to replace Terzo as early as November 2016, almost an entire year before he was dragged off the stage at his last concert. while i do think Sister Imperator disliked Terzo and was happy to get rid of him, i don't think she felt her decision had anything to do with her personal feelings. Sister Imperator talks directly to satan (as shown in Chapter 5) and receives visions (as stated in The Summoning part 5 and part 7). she had a vision that indicated it would soon be time to replace Papa 3 with Papa 4. she started making arrangements accordingly, and Nihil went along with it.

SISTER IMPERATOR: Despite your weakness, and your cowardliness, your failures, I still believe in you. And I believe in you because I have seen the future! I have already been witness to three transfigurations, and each time I can see that we are closer to the final glory, and I have seen you rise to the occasion each time. So can you do it again? [...] After all we have been through in these past few days, all the shames laid bare, are you ready to start anew? The new coming is about to begin. Will you take up your instruments? Will you be able to commit to the utter annihilation of all this is false? All that is greed? All that is staid and conformist and empty? Hm? Then rise. RISE!!!! Now! I give you another chance at transformation. But you must beg. You must demand to be sacrificed! You must prostrate your hearts while you stand tall in the dark, for the fourth incarnation of Papa will guide us. The Summoning VII: Believe This (Nov 14, 2016)

i don't know why Sister Imperator and Papa Nihil decided Terzo's reign would end on September 30th, 2017. and i can't fully explain why they chose to humiliate him by having him dragged off the stage. (even Secondo, who they thought was terrible at his job, was allowed a dignified ending.) and i can't explain why they desecrated his body by using his severed head as a prop for a photoshoot. but idk, it kinda seems like maybe they just hated him.

TLDR: Sister Imperator genuinely believed in Terzo, but she turned on him when he started acting in a way she didn't like. Terzo died as he lived– being used and betrayed by the people he dedicated his life to.

[onlydylanobrien]

Live from New York, It’s Dylan O’Brien!

The 33-year-old plays Dan Aykroyd in Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, and he’s not sure he hit it out of the park. But he’s okay with that.

DYLAN O’BRIEN HAS led movies that grossed hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. He’s shared the screen in a thriller with Michael Keaton (2017’s American Assassin), exchanged jokes with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson (in 2013’s The Internship), been a long-running MTV teen heartthrob (in 92 episodes of Teen Wolf), voiced a Transformer (in 2018’s Bumblebee), and, hell, went toe to toe with Larry David while playing himself on Curb Your Enthusiasm. At 33, he’s accomplished a hell of a lot.

By the time we meet at Men’s Health’s New York City offices to chat on an early September Friday, I’ve already seen a lot of his work. I’ve always liked the way his relaxed demeanor on-screen fits with an undeniable movie-star look—and that holds true in his latest project, Saturday Night (in select theaters now and out nationwide on October 11), in which he stars as comedy legend and original Saturday Night Live cast member Dan Aykroyd; the movie is a depiction of the chaotic 90 minutes before the very first episode of SNL. But I wasn’t sold on his sheer determination—the pure conviction in his character—until I learned that, like myself, he’s a long-suffering fan of the New York Jets.

“I get psyched for the Jets,” he tells me, rocking a full beard, a T-shirt, and a pair of comfortable lacrosse shorts. As he finishes his thought, his eyes light up, but they maintain the slightest sense of eternal frustration behind them. “Even though it’s always like, Jesus Christ.”

Misfortunes of past football seasons aside, O’Brien is as hyped as he’s ever been for the season to come—he’s already done all of his fantasy drafts, though he feels better about some than others—but right now he has one potential problem: He’s going to be in Toronto, for the Toronto International Film Festival, on the night of the Jets season opener. But don’t worry, he’s got it figured out. Saturday Night’s premiere is on Tuesday, and his press schedule on Monday (when the Jets are set to play the San Francisco 49ers) concludes at 5:30 p.m.

“I’m like, I’m going to a pub. I’m getting out of the area, and I’m just going to sit and have some beer and watch the Jets on Monday night all by myself,” he says with a huge smile on his face. “It’s going to be awesome.”

It’s a relatable feeling—for most Jets fans, there’s no happier time than before the season starts, before the annual feelings of dread and doom start to set in. (The Jets would wind up losing to the 49ers, 32-19, in their Week 1 MNF matchup.) But, as Jets fans have learned so well to do over the years, we move on.

O’Brien has a long career behind him, but a long career ahead of him, too. In addition to his upcoming role in Saturday Night (which has earned strong reviews in the early goings), he’s also got the M. Night Shyamalan-produced Caddo Lake premiering on Max this month, and Anniversary, in which he stars alongside Diane Lane and Kyle Chandler, coming at some point in the near future. (It doesn’t currently have a release date.) O’Brien is the kind of actor who elevates the project he’s in, even when the project is already really, really good—but if there’s anything being a Jets fan says about someone, it’s that they know how to adjust, adapt, and bounce back. And in an industry as fickle as show business—which is put on full display in Saturday Night—that’s about as important a quality as any to have in your back pocket.

Ahead of the release of several of the biggest and most exciting projects of his career, O’Brien sat down with Men’s Health to discuss how he keeps himself sane and centered, prepping to play a comedy icon, and some of those casting rumors about him out there on the Internet.

MEN’S HEALTH: What kind of routines do you maintain for your mental and physical health?

DYLAN O’BRIEN: I don’t go to the gym. I’m not a gym guy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t exercise or train or anything. I would say I go in and out of that. I’m usually the type who’s either on a pretty consistent routine and trying to hit it hard and take care of myself for a period of time, and then I’ll let it go for a little bit. Some of that’s influenced by my schedule, too. When you go to work, it’s hard to keep up some kind of regimen. But when I’m home and I’m in between jobs, I’ve become a very domesticated individual. I love grocery shopping and cooking my own meals.

MH: What’s your favorite thing to make?

DOB: If I had to pick one thing, I love, to the soul, making a soup. It’s literally the first thing I’ll do when I go anywhere to settle in. Just a homemade chicken soup, with a chicken carcass, and get creative with the veggies.

MH: Do you have a mental health routine?

DOB: That’s typically what drives the eating and the exercising. I always feel best when I’m in a nice routine and taking care of myself. As I’ve gotten into my 30s, sleep is so important, and periods of laying off alcohol are so important. Just treating your body right and getting rest. I like to do a cold plunge session, and that’s very meditative for me. I’ll follow the simple program of “exhaust the body, relax the mind” when I’m going right.

“I was self-conscious that I DIDN’T LOOK LIKE HIM, that I DIDN’T SOUND LIKE HIM, that I thought people wouldn’t think me—Dan Aykroyd.”

MH: I totally understand the concept of using whatever levels us as therapy. Sometimes after work I just need to put the Yankees on and do absolutely nothing in order to fully detox and feel right.

DOB: That’s my soul. The Mets… obviously, baseball is a nearly every day thing. And even when the Mets are not going well, what’s soothed me since I was closely following them when I was a kid is [broadcasters Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling]. Literally, even just throwing the game on in the background while I’m getting dinner ready and just listening to those guys talk baseball—that settles me to my core. I’m totally with you on that.

MH: Is watching sports your main way of decompressing at the end of a long day?

DOB: If it’s baseball season, yeah, nightly Mets is nice. If I’m working, I’ve been known to be on jobs and randomly be bingeing some reality show while I’m on it. It’s such a decompressor at the end of the day. I love reality TV.

MH: What’s your favorite?

DOB: Of all time?

MH: Yeah.

DOB: Well, it’s between Jersey Shore and Vanderpump Rules as far as the all-timers. I’ve been a longtime OG Vanderpump fan, pre-Scandoval, and I just think that show’s a masterpiece. And Jersey Shore is a masterpiece, too. I did a film, Ponyboi, that’s very Jersey-centric, and so I drilled all of the first four seasons of Jersey Shore. My whole routine for that movie, when I needed to decompress, was just working out and watching reality TV. I lost a lot of weight, too, for that movie, and I was just trying to make my little chicken breast, and eat my salad, and work out, and watch Jersey Shore.

MH: Let’s talk about Saturday Night. How would you describe your version of Dan Aykroyd?

DOB: It might be the thing most open to interpretation I’ve ever done. By that, I mean it really was just leaping out of the nest. I’m playing this real person, but [director Jason Reitman] had no intention of just copying the person coming in. He really wanted everyone to have their own spin on the person, which, if you’re overthinking it, can be tough to do because it can be very easy to do. If you’re like, I’m just going to watch my guy’s interviews and sketches, then you can kind of fall into imitation. As far as I know, I was just doing what I thought he was like. But I don’t fucking know. That instinct was that Jason was always telling me what to run with. He was big on not overpreparing, not overwatching things, and not impersonating. I’m curious to hear people’s take, because I don’t really know. I just went with my gut.

MH: Was there one signature quality of Dan you wanted to capture?

DOB: A very earnest intelligence—he’s so quick, it was exhausting. I would always say how exhausted I was, because I’m playing someone who’s way quicker than I am, and so I’m constantly operating at a speed I can’t operate at, because he’s so sharp and fast and he never fumbles and he never curses. He never bides time. You know what I mean?

MH: Absolutely.

DOB: He’s so precise with his improvisation and his comedic skills. I came away with such a larger appreciation than I even had for his genius. And he was so young—he was a kid. He was 23 on that first season of SNL. I never processed him as being too worried about too much, which was a funny contrasting energy to the very tense atmosphere of the film in the hour and a half before showtime. He’s so loose.

MH: It’s interesting you say that, because it’s something I totally clocked, too—Dan is kind of the calm part of a storm that includes people like Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) and John Belushi (Matt Wood). How did you maintain that presence as the movie’s level head?

DOB: My way of achieving that, with permission from Jason, was to embrace this quality in myself that I didn’t originally associate to Dan—that I only then did after Jason pointed it out to me—which was to have an aloofness on set. I feel very relaxed in that space. In a way, I wasn’t too worried. But that comes with the caveat that I entered this process thinking I was so wrong for the part.

MH: Why did you think that?

DOB: I don’t know. I was self-conscious that I didn’t look like him, that I didn’t sound like him, that I thought people wouldn’t think me—Dan Aykroyd. And I guess it was an insecurity that I would be skewered for being miscast or something. But even with that insecurity, again, I’m still so happy to be there and, like, whatever, fuck it. I don’t care if that’s the response. I’m boned, but whatever. It’s great to be here and get to do this, and what a blast of a thing to get to be a part of. So, weirdly enough, that type of aloofness amidst other people having to handle some really tense stuff was what Jason was telling me to embrace.

MH: Have you met Dan?

DOB: No. Not yet. I’m supposed to meet him at TIFF. And apparently that will be both of our first times seeing the movie.

MH: That will be great.

DOB: There was a moment early on, when you go into something like this, you’re playing someone, you imagine that they might want to speak to you. They might be hell-bent on speaking to you, they might be crazy about getting their hands in it, or they might be totally hands off. And to hear that he was so not worried about it, if anything, was the first moment I was like, Oh, maybe we’re right. Because I would’ve met with him, too, but I also didn’t need it. I would have if he insisted. I’d be like, Of course—I’ve got to do that. But I vibe with the fact that he was like, no, let the kid go do it. That’s how I feel like I would react.

MH: What’s your favorite movie of his?

DOB: I was a big Blues Brothers kid. I did the Blues Brothers for my talent show in third grade. I was also a big Tommy Boy kid.

MH: I’ve loved a lot of the comedic stuff that you’ve gotten to do, including your Curb Your Enthusiasm guest appearance. What was working with Larry like?

DOB: Oh, it’s just a blast. He’s a Jets fan, too—I remember that was our first conversation we had. It was like I was just talking to a buddy, at [the popular TriBeCa bar] Walker’s, or something about the Jets. I’ve worked with a lot of comedians, and that space can be weird. The energy can be very overstimulating, and those personalities can tend to be really loud and competing. It can be a very odd atmosphere sometimes. Going to work with a guy like that… I was like, Who knows, he could be a fucking total narcissist tycoon, and he wasn’t. He couldn’t have been more generous, couldn’t have been quicker to laugh at someone else and let someone else have the spotlight. I couldn’t think more of the guy. He’s amazing.

MH: It’s been almost a decade since your accident on the Maze Runner set. When you look back at your recovery, how has that experience most impacted your life?

DOB: It was a life-changing incident. I’ve approached everything differently, you could say, particularly with regards to standing my ground on set. It’s very commonplace in the culture for young actors to be controlled, and the way they strive to do that is by always being like, Oh, don’t become difficult. Don’t be a pain in the ass. Or Are you complaining, are you being difficult? Things like that. I learned after the accident to not conflate taking care of yourself and looking after yourself. Don’t let them manipulate you into thinking that is being difficult, because I can look at that day and know I was a 24-year-old kid who was raising concerns about how we were approaching things, and they were not listened to, they were not respected. And then what happened happened. And by all accounts, it was all pretty gotten away with, I would say, as well. It’s taught me that, at the end of the day, in these spaces, you have your own back, and that’s the most you can rely on. I just turned 33. I’ve been doing this for 15 years. I know the person I am, and the character I bring to set, and the way I treat people and the way that I treat a workspace, and I know I’m not difficult. I know I’m not an asshole. I know I was trying to protect myself that day, and so I’ve just never forgotten that. That’s always rung true as being the thing to hold with me.

“It’s taught me that, at the end of the day, in these spaces, you HAVE YOUR OWN BACK, and that’s the MOST YOU CAN RELY ON.”

MH: And this is something that’s always in the back of your mind, just knowing that you’ve had this experience and it’s shaped where you are now.

DOB: It helps me. It’s a shame. It’s a shame that it had to be that for me. To build this armor for myself of just being like, No, man, I’m going to look after myself, I’m going to take care of myself, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions. There’s nothing wrong with bringing ideas, even if we’re talking creatively. It’s our job to bring ideas. There’s nothing wrong with raising concerns. There’s nothing wrong with being like, “I think we could do this better, I think we could do this differently.” You know what I mean? That’s the process. It’s a collaborative process. It’s a creative process, but also you’re dealing with big dangerous shit sometimes, too.

MH: Throughout the years, you’ve been rumored to become the Flash and Spider-Man. Is there any truth to the rumors?

DOB: No, never.

MH: Nothing?

DOB: No, none of it. Yeah.

MH: Is that of interest if an opportunity ever came up? Are you a comic book person?

DOB: I never have been. But I wouldn’t rule out anything. Certainly, it’s not of interest to me as of now. Maybe when I was 20 and they were rebooting Spider-Man—I was excited about that. But I didn’t even get past the casting pre-call or anything. No, none of those rumors have ever been true. I didn’t even know there were rumors. I just thought they were people just putting it out there.

MH: People put a bunch of stuff out there and then places pick it up and then stuff snowballs.

DOB: None of anything I’ve ever read about myself is true. So, if you want to use that template, that’s my experience.

MH: So what is of interest to you? What’s your dream?

DOB: There are obviously filmmakers I’ve loved since I was a kid who I would love to work with. I always want to challenge myself, and I always want to go with my gut and trust when I respond to something, I’m responding to it for a reason. Trust that when I’m scared of something, maybe that’s a good thing I should lean into. Try to find the new filmmakers, and try to champion them, and be a part of the early parts of the careers of our new wave of filmmakers. Try to champion original things as much as I can, too. I feel like that’s obviously trending so much further and further away, and towards extinction, that I just feel like it’s important to lend yourself to those things when you can, as much as you can.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Source: menshealth.com

[dailyanarchistposts]

From September 20 to 27, tens of thousands will take to the streets to denounce the causes of climate change and call on governments to address what may be the most drastic crisis facing humanity in the 21st century. These mass actions will showcase the growing anger of a new generation that has known nothing but crisis, war, and the threat of environmental collapse. We have prepared the following text as a flier encouraging climate activists to consider how to interrupt the causes of climate change via direct action rather than petitioning the state to solve the problem for us. Please print these out and distribute them at climate protests and everywhere else you can.

Finally, people are filling the streets to call on governments to address the climate crisis, the most serious threat facing humanity in the 21st century. This is long overdue. But what good will it do to petition the same sector of society that created this problem? Time and again, we have learned that the state does not exist to serve our needs but to protect those who are profiting on the causes of this crisis.

The most effective way to pressure politicians and executives to address the climate crisis is to show that whatever they fail to do, we will do ourselves. This means moving beyond symbolic displays of “non-violence” to build the capacity to shut down the fossil fuel economy ourselves. No amount of media attention or progressive rhetoric can substitute for this. If we fail to build this capacity, we can be sure that the timeline for the transition to less destructive technologies will be set by those who profit on the fossil fuel economy.

Several examples from recent social movements show that we have the power to shut down the economy ourselves.

In 2011–2012, the Occupy Movement demonstrated that tens of thousands of people could make decisions without top-down organization, meeting their needs collectively and carrying out massive demonstrations. On one day of action, participants shut down ports up and down the West Coast, confirming that coordinated blockades can disrupt the global supply chain of energy and commodities.

In 2016, people converged to fight the Dakota Access Pipeline, a corporate project threatening Native land and water. Tens of thousands established a network of camps to block construction, demonstrating a new way to live and fight together. The Obama administration canceled the pipeline, causing many occupiers to go home, but the Trump administration reinstated it—confirming that we must never count on the government to do anything for us.

In France, occupiers blocked the construction of a new airport at la ZAD, the “Zone to Defend.” Farmers teamed up with anarchists and environmentalists, establishing an autonomous village that provided infrastructure for the struggle. After years of struggle, the French government gave up and canceled the airport.

We have seen train blockades in a variety of struggles. In Olympia, Washington, anarchists blocked trains carrying fracking proppants in 2016 and in 2017, forcing the company to stop transporting the commodity. In Harlan County, Kentucky, coal miners have blocked a coal-carrying train after the Black Jewel company refused to pay wages they owed to workers. It only takes a few dozen people to shut down a key node in the supply chains of the global fossil fuel economy. Imagine what we could do on a bigger scale!

Governments serve to protect the economy from those it exploits. The state exists to evict, to police, to wage war, to oppress, and above all to defend the property of the wealthy few. The perils of climate change have been known for years, but governments have done little in response, focusing instead on fighting wars for oil, militarizing their borders to keep out climate refugees, and attacking the social movements that could bring about the sort of systemic change that is our only hope of survival.

The capitalist economy is literally killing us. Let’s begin the process of shutting it down.

Another end of the world is possible!

[atzjieun]

undercover

summary | that time yunho committed identity fraud

circa | september 2017

contains | 2.7k words, fluff, comedy, brief mention of taking medicine

notes | taking a break from all the jiwoo drama lmao. i was gonna wait a bit longer to post this but i received some very great news for something irl so i'm posting it now as a treat 😁

taglist | @teezingsiyeon @moonkyeom @itzynabi

Jieun shifted her weight from foot to foot, anxiously watching the clock above as the hands moved. The pit in her stomach only grew larger with every second that ticked by, dreading the moment the clock struck four.

Maybe she should’ve just called her brother. There was no world in which Jihoon wouldn’t have picked up and dropped everything the moment she said she needed him. 

But that was exactly the issue. She knew how busy he was, and the idea of dragging her brother away from school or work to attend something as insignificant as her parent-teacher meetings would’ve only made her feel worse. She couldn’t keep relying on him for everything, though she knew her teacher wouldn’t be very happy about yet another missed meeting, and Jieun was running out of excuses.

The sound of the classroom door sliding open made her jump. Jieun stood up straight, shoulders tense as her teacher stepped out of the classroom with a notebook in hand.

“Ah, yes, Jieun,” she said, catching sight of the girl. She watched as her teacher’s eyebrows furrowed, looking around the hallway. “You said that your older brother was coming, didn’t you?” 

Jieun stared at her blankly, though quickly broke out of her trance and gave a brief nod. 

“My brother…” she trailed, glancing over her shoulder. “He’s coming. He’s just- uh, he’s running a bit late.”

Her teacher glanced up at the clock, a small sigh escaping him as she flipped through her notebook, writing something down. 

“Do you have a rough idea of when he’ll be arriving?” she asked, a slight sharpness in her tone. “I have many other appointments today.” 

Jieun chewed on her lower lip, eyes moving to the ground. She remained quiet for a short period of time, searching through her mind for any possible excuse she could use to explain her brother’s absence. Finding nothing, she took in a deep breath and closed her eyes, about to confess when a voice behind her sounded first.

“Sorry I’m late! Traffic was heavier than expected.” 

Her head snapped up, looking over her shoulder to the source of the voice. Jieun’s eyes widened as she spotted Yunho’s tall figure making his way down the hall. The boy was fully dressed in a suit, his hair neatly combed and styled, walking in long strides before eventually stopping beside her. 

Yunho smiled at her teacher as he extended his hand. “You must be Ms. Yoon. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” 

For the first time ever, Jieun saw a smile spread across her teacher’s face as she accepted Yunho’s handshake, bowing forward slightly. 

“And you must be Jieun’s older brother,” she greeted. “The pleasure is all mine. Shall we start the meeting?” 

As though he were used to the routine, Yunho immediately followed her teacher into the classroom, Jieun trailing behind after processing what had just happened. She took a seat beside Yunho at the teacher’s desk in silence. While her teacher rummaged through some of her cabinets, Jieun took the opportunity to lean over and whisper into Yunho’s ear, covering her mouth with her hand.

“What are you doing here?”

“What does it look like? I’m here for your parent-teacher meeting.”

The two sat up straight as her teacher opened what was presumably Jieun’s file. Her eyes scanned over the document for a couple seconds before she looked up, turning toward Yunho.

“It’s clear that Jieun is a very strong student. She excels on all of her exams and big projects, typically exceeding expectations and gaining full marks.” 

Jieun’s eyes widened at the sudden praise, heat rising to her cheeks as Yunho glanced over at her with a fond smile, gently nudging the girl with his elbow. Before either of them could say anything, however, her teacher spoke up again. 

“However, Jieun rarely completes her daily homework checks and often turns in her smaller assignments late,” her teacher said. Jieun could practically feel the disappointment radiating off of her. “These small assignments may not be worth as much as exams, but they add up over time. Furthermore, it indicates a lack of consistency in her work habits that may negatively impact her in the future.” 

She could feel the two sets of eyes on her, though Jieun’s gaze remained on her lap as she played with her thumbs. 

“I understand that you are training to be an idol?” She didn’t verbally respond, simply giving a small nod while continuing to avoid her teacher’s gaze. “The information you learn may not pertain to your chosen career path, but the skills and work habits you gain from consistently doing your homework can be transferred into any field, even if it’s not academic. These assignments teach you about discipline and consistent effort. I hope to see improvements in this area in the future, Jieun.”

Jieun continued to stay quiet, glancing up at her teacher for a moment before looking back down and nodding. 

“Is Jieun currently living with you?” her teacher asked, turning her attention to Yunho. The boy nodded seriously. 

“Yes, she is currently living with me.” 

Her teacher quickly wrote something down in her notebook. “It’s really better if Jieun herself takes initiative in her school work, but if there’s any instance where she needs a bit of reminding-” 

“I’ll be sure to be there when she needs me,” Yunho finished, a smile on his face as he gave a reassuring nod. 

Satisfied, her teacher noted one more thing down before placing her pen on the desk, clasping her hands together as she turned her attention back toward Jieun. 

“Jieun, would it be alright if your brother and I talk privately for a little bit?”

The girl nodded as she stood up. She gave a small bow to her teacher, still avoiding eye contact before turning around and walking toward the exit of the classroom. 

Closing the door behind her, Jieun leaned back against the wall and let out a huge exhale. She looked over her shoulder, peering through the window of the classroom to see Yunho and her teacher in the middle of conversation. The boy seemed comfortable, too comfortable considering he was quite literally committing a crime. 

Turning away, Jieun pulled out her phone to check if she’d received any messages. There were a couple from her group chat with the other trainees, one from her mom, though the most recent message came from none other than her actual brother.

Yerin-unnie’s boyfriend: Eun-ah, don’t forget to take your meds

Yerin-unnie’s boyfriend: Yerin says she misses you btw

A soft chuckle escaped Jieun’s lips as she typed out a response. 

Me: tell her i miss her too

Jieun quickly turned her phone off before slipping it back into her pocket. She closed her eyes and crossed her arms, enjoying the peace and quiet of the hallway. A group practice was scheduled right after the meeting was supposed to end, so Jieun took the time she had to relax before she’d be thrust right back into the loud and chaotic environment that the practice room often provided. 

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there, though the sound of the door sliding open broke Jieun out of her relaxed state. Blinking, she turned toward the door to see Yunho stepping back out into the hallway, turning to her with a smile. 

“That went well,” he commented, gesturing toward her. “C’mon, we have to get to practice.” 

Yunho waited for her to catch up before he started walking, the two making their way out of the school together. It wasn’t until they were well away from the classroom and her teacher that Jieun spoke up. 

“How did you find out about my parent-teacher meeting?” she asked curiously. 

The older boy glanced down at her, letting out a small chuckle.

“You left the sign-up form on the kitchen table a couple days ago,” he explained. “There was no name written down, and I remembered you mentioning that Jihoon was busy for the next couple weeks because of an internship he was doing, so I put two and two together.” 

Despite still being dumbfounded by the whole situation, Jieun slowly nodded as they approached the bus stop. 

“And you…bought a suit to make a good impression…?” 

He laughed, shaking his head. 

“I borrowed it from my dad. Told him it was for a performance.” 

“You’re a good actor,” Jieun said, giggling slightly. “I think you made a good impression. I’ve never seen my teacher smile like that.” 

Yunho gave a small side shrug, trying to act nonchalant, though it was clear his ego was ever so slightly boosted by the compliment. 

“We should hurry though,” he said. “Don’t want to keep the others waiting now, do we?” 

Conveniently, the bus pulled up to the stop shortly after he spoke, stopping in front of the two. Jieun boarded first, tapping her bus card before walking toward the middle of the bus and sitting in an empty seat with Yunho following close behind. She stared at her reflection in the window as the bus took off, a small sigh escaping her lips.

Eventually, Jieun’s gaze shifted toward Yunho’s reflection, the boy turned the other way as he watched the moving traffic.

“Oppa?” she spoke softly, though the older boy immediately looked toward her. His eyebrows raised slightly as he gave a small hum. The corners of Jieun’s mouth tilted upward in a small smile. “Thanks.” 

Yunho blinked at her, his mind taking a moment to register what she meant before his own smile spread. He chuckled, ruffling her hair gently. 

“Like I said in the meeting, Eunnie: I’ll be there when you need me.” He shifted to sit slightly closer. “You can take a nap on my shoulder if you want. I’ll wake you up when we’re at our stop.” 

Jieun hesitated for a moment, though after looking up at the boy and seeing his warm gaze, she accepted his offer and rested her head on his shoulder. Closing her eyes, Jieun allowed herself to relax as the bus continued to move, knowing Yunho fully meant everything he said. 

BONUS #1: 

Jieun and Yunho stepped into the practice room together, where the other trainees were already warming up. 

The first to notice them was San, who greeted the two with a smile as he waved from the corner where he was sitting.

“Hi Eunnie, Yunho!” 

Jieun smiled as she waved back at the boy while the other members turned toward the two. One by one, she watched as confused expressions crossed each of their faces as they took in the older boy’s outfit. 

“Sorry for being late-” Yunho attempted to apologize, though was quickly cut off by Mingi.

“Why are you wearing a suit?” 

Without missing a beat, Jieun looked over at Mingi with a completely neutral expression as she spoke.

“Yunho-oppa committed identity theft.” 

The initial confusion from the members mixed with curiosity and questioning as they turned toward the aforementioned boy, who looked toward Jieun with a look of betrayal.

“You did what?” Hongjoong asked, crossing his arms as he looked at the boy with a stern expression. 

“Yunho-oppa came to my school and pretended to be Jihoon for my parent-teacher meetings,” Jieun explained bluntly.

“In my defense, your teacher only asked if I was your older brother,” Yunho said, raising his hands in the air. “I just never specified which one.” 

This earned a few snickers from the younger members, the only person in the room not amused by the story being their leader, who face-palmed as he shook his head.

Seonghwa shrugged, nudging his friend. "You know, he’s technically right.” 

“Please don’t entertain them,” Hongjoong said, rubbing his temples. After a few moments of what seemed to be contemplating his life choices, the older boy eventually let out a sigh. “Just get changed, guys. We’ll start when you’re back.” 

The two nodded as they moved to leave, though before doing so, Yunho reached over and ruffled the girl’s hair for the second time that day. He did it rougher than before, purposefully trying to mess up her hair as she swatted his hands away. 

The other members watched in amusement as Jieun made her escape, running out of the room with Yunho following close behind.  

BONUS #2: 

Yunho glanced over his shoulder, watching as Jieun swiftly exited the room. Once the door was closed, he turned back to her teacher with a serious expression, trying his best to hide his nervousness as she wrote something down. 

After a moment of silence, Jieun’s teacher put the pen down. Her gaze moved to the exit, landing on the small portion of Jieun’s head that could be seen through the classroom windows. She let out a sigh as she turned back to Yunho.

“I know that she’s an idol trainee and doesn’t have much time to connect with her peers outside of school, but even during school hours, I rarely see her with other people.” The boy’s eyebrows raised slightly, though he opted to continue listening. “She’s always off by herself in her own world. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little concerned for her social development.” 

Yunho slowly nodded as he contemplated his response. 

“Jieun has always been a really shy person,” he admitted with a small chuckle. “It took her weeks to start talking to m- her fellow trainees, as I was told.” 

“My apologies if this is too intruding, but would you happen to know what her relationship with the other trainees is like?” Jieun’s teacher asked. “She does lack social interactions at school, but it would ease my worries to know she is at least maintaining healthy friendships amongst people her age elsewhere.” 

Once again, Yunho was slow to respond, carefully picking each word before he answered her question. 

“The other trainees are generally around the same age. Jieun is the youngest, but the age gap is no more than three years from the older members. She was actually the second trainee to join the company and originally had a reputation for being cold and unfriendly.” The corners of his mouth tilted upwards into a small smile. “Though eventually, everyone realized that her reputation didn’t truly represent who she was as a person. She’d help the new trainees when they were learning and quietly cheer everyone on from the sidelines, so it didn’t take long for people to figure out that she wasn’t who they originally thought she was.

She’s one of the trainees who have had the most improvement during her time at the company. Her fellow trainees adore her and they all want her to succeed. If I had to describe her, I would say that she’s the beating heart of the team.”

Realizing he was rambling, Yunho cut himself off as heat rose to his face. He cleared his throat, nodding. 

“But anyways, I don’t think you need to worry about her friendships regarding her fellow trainees.” 

Jieun’s teacher nodded in agreement.

“It’s clear that Jieun receives a lot of love and support in her trainee company,” she said. A smirk crossed the teacher’s face as she leaned back in her chair. “Considering how one of them would go to the lengths of impersonating her brother to attend her parent-teacher conference.”

Yunho’s smile dropped as his eyes widened. He opened his mouth to splutter out a response, though Jieun’s teacher simply raised her hand to silence him. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t report this to administration,” she said, chuckling. “The main goal of these meetings is to give updates about the student’s progress to their closest family, and you clearly seem to be similar enough.” Jieun’s teacher picked up her pen, pointing to Yunho’s chest. “Though next time, maybe don’t forget to take off your ID card, Mr. Jeong.”

Yunho looked down, face flushing when he noticed the card he’d forgotten to take off his jacket, displaying his picture and full name. He quickly pulled the card off, stuffing it inside his pocket. 

“Everything I said about Jieun was true today. She’s a very bright student, but everyone needs help sometimes, and I hope you’ll be there for her when she does.”

Yunho nodded firmly, making direct eye contact with her. “You have my word.”

Jieun’s teacher smiled as she extended her arm, which Yunho instantly accepted as they shook hands. After saying a brief goodbye, he turned and started making his way out of the classroom, the previous words echoing in the back of his mind. His word might not have meant a lot, but he’d do his best regardless to stay true to the promise he’d made and prove he meant what he said.