#When I exist near mosquitoes in summer

[catiuskaa]

audio creak file.mp3 [1:07]

PAIRING! pervy?Chan x roomate!reader

SUMMARY: Chan struggles to make music, and you, his friend and roommate, try to help him when you can. Say, Chan also struggles to keep his cool whenever you’re near… what will you do to help him feel better?

WC: 3.2k

CW: convenient minsung because I say so, angsty(?) (reader is just kinda dense and Minho screams the truth to her), smut: mentions of soft dom!chan, mentions of panty stealing, Chan’s a pervy simp (he’s just soooo down bad), and I just really got carried away writing on my notes thinking about when Channie smiles hearing the creaks in heyday...

A/N: basically, if being inocent was a crime, i’d be imprisioned for tax evasion, lmao. kinda perv!chan thoughts to soothe the iching that the mosquito bites give. have fun!

[☆☆★☆☆]

He let out a frustrated groan, fingers digging into his curly locks in a sign of desperation. He had listened to every single audio sample Changbin had found. Twice. But no, nothing screamed “This is it” to his perfectionist self. And it was getting him fucking desperate.

He wasn’t wearing headphones because of the company he had been with not too long ago since Changbin and Han tried to help him —keyword: try—, and also knowing that you wouldn’t be home for a while meant that there was no one he could disturb, the sounds coming from his laptop not nearly loud enough to reach to the neighbours. He scrolled down the same folders again, wondering when you would be home in the back of his mind.

You and Chan had been roommates for a bunch of years now. You two had met at Han’s birthday party thanks to Minho, as he introduced you, one of the first people he had ever danced with and even won competitions with to the leader of the Korean boyband.

You clicked almost instantly, sharing anecdotes from each side of the industry. He, a famous idol, and you, a backup dancer for many groups in different companies.

It was unknown to both of you that Han and his cat-like soulmate had tried to matchmake you that day, as you just stayed like close friends. Minho laughed at Jisung as they both returned from your shared apartment the day you moved in, like two years after. Now that you’d split the rent, considering neither of you spent that much time home to pay a large amount, you paired up.

“At least they like each other, silly,” he mentioned, his tone of voice sounding soft, a smug smile on his face. He was so winning the bet.

“Nooo!” Han whined, much like a toddler would when toys were taken away. “Those two are meant to be, Hyung. They are literally each other’s type!”

“Well, I don’t think they’ve noticed,” he chuckled, thinking about what he would buy with the ten bucks Han would owe him. And Minho would’ve been right.

But then, the sex dreams started.

“Chan, I’m back!”

He blushed, quickly shoving those thoughts into a bottomless pit in his mind.

“How you doin’?” You grinned, your head popping inside his room, leaving your bag on your own, next to his, before coming back and leaning on the door frame.

Your wet hair made the top of your summer dress fabric somewhat sheer, his eyes trailing your figure before clearing his throat.

“I’m stuck,” he admitted, dimples on display as he smiled sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. “I’ve been looking for a sample I thought existed, but maybe I just made it up in my head.”

“That does sound like shit,” you mentioned, leaning down just enough to rest your forearms on the back of his chair. He felt tiny droplets falling from your hair onto his shoulders and back, making goosebumps trail all over his body.

“But how… how was the… the swimming pool?” He quivered, trying to hide the flustered quiver in his voice. And failing, hoping you wouldn’t notice.

“It was good! It felt sooo nice.” You stretched, whining as you extended your arms, making a mess in Chan’s head, who struggled to hide it. “I’ll go get changed, and then I can help you. Sounds ok?”

“Yeah.” He leaned into your touch when you ruffled his hair, leaving his room.

He sighed as he rested on the back of the chair, arms thrown over his eyes, and swallowed dry. He felt like such a perv, his insides churning and turning whenever you were near, making him feel like a horny teenager.

It all started one night when he woke up in a sweat, hard-on nearly hurting underneath his boxers. Pictures of you still reeling in his mind, legs wide open for him, eyes pleading, begging for release.

Then, two nights after, dreaming about your body pressed on top of him as you straddled him, clenching on him, fighting for dominance in a sloppy kiss.

Later that week, you in that cute summer dress you bought with him, letting him fuck you and manhandle you in his car, the apartment too far, and your bodies too horny that the drive home felt impossible.

Seeing you every day with those thoughts in mind was difficult, sometimes having to escape your sight so you wouldn’t see him getting hard just by you doing the slightest things that weirdly turned him on.

“The one you dream about is back,” you teased, now wearing an oversized shirt and a towel over your shoulders. He gulped as he looked at you, not only for what you had said unknowingly but also because of your shirt, long enough to cover your thighs, giving the illusion that you were almost naked. In his room. Sitting crisscrossed. On his bed.

He felt blood on his cheeks and some running down, headed south. He giggled halfheartedly, the sentence ‘don’t get hard’ echoing in his head.

After playing the samples again, tricking himself into thinking he might have skipped one just so he would keep searching, he started getting frustrated again. But nuh-uh. Nothing.

“Ok, this is trash,” you blurted out.

With a smile on your face, before he could even ask you what was wrong, you grabbed his chair from behind, pushing him far from the computer, saving the files and then closed it with a slap.

“Break time, Mr Producer. We both need a coffee.” He snickered, shaking his head sideways as you both went to the kitchen.

“Can’t say no to that, can I?”

You laughed. “No. Too late, anyways.”

He started getting the milk from the fridge, pouring it on the mugs you handed him, and settling them in the microwave, a small smile on his features accenting his dimples.

“Audio sample related, can’t you just make your own?” You asked Chan, not entirely curious, question directed to find a solution for his issue rather than learning that piece of info.

“I mean, yeah, sure, but it’s simpler this way,” he shrugged, eyes confused about where to look, not daring to stare at you for too long. “If not, I just have to keep recording random stuff, hoping to find something that sounds like what I want.”

“Isn’t that easier? Not like it’s something you can brag about, but there’s a ton of creaking shit in this place,” you pointed out thoughtfully. “Like… that!”

In the blink of an eye, you crossed your way until you were directly in front of Chan, and you turned around, leaning on the counter before you as you opened and closed the cabinet's door on the wall.

“See? It creaks,” you said from above your shoulder.

But just when you stood back on your feet, you realised how close you were to each other. And it hadn’t helped that when you leaned towards the cabinet, your shirt had followed along with your body, letting Chan see your lack of pyjama pants, instead being welcomed by some cute cotton panties. Ones he knew well because, uhm… he uh… may have used them for a wrong purpose.

Yeah, fuck, he had come on those.

You hadn’t realised how little space had been between him and the counter and attributed that to your head, not knowing that Chan had unconsciously moved towards you, like metal to a magnet. You wiggled on your place, your personal space suddenly far away from you, caged in Chan’s presence. He stopped your tiny motion by gripping your waist, letting out a gasp, blushing. He turned you around so you wouldn’t feel his hardening cock on your upper thighs.

When you both locked eyes on the contrary, the tense atmosphere shot up, turning even thicker when he rested his arms on the counter, at your sides, thumbs casually stroking short lines on your waist.

No words were said as you got lost in his brown eyes, deep chocolate-coloured orbs, not needing any kind of golden or honey stripes on them as they drew you in, gorgeous eyes so raven that it was hard to distinguish where the iris was. Then, your eyes trailed off at his mouth, your breath hitched, rose-coloured plush lips so enticing. He licked them, and you swore you heard him swallow dry.

You pressed your body on him, getting closer and closer, and suddenly, he let out a small whimper. The sound made you shiver, heat pooling in your lower belly. He blushed furiously, not daring to move from his place. You could feel it, feel him.

The sound of your phone chiming in your room made you both aware of the situation —and position— you were in. You got shy, quickly letting him have his personal space back, both of you missing the other’s warmth on your skin as you blurted out something that sounded like “gotta go walk my fish” as you run to your room, slamming the door close, frowning as soon as you were alone.

“Fuck.” Both of you said at the same time, having the same thoughts.

“I fucked up.” Chan stared at the hot mugs on the counter, both waiting for someone who had run away.

[☆☆★☆☆]

“He’s just scared, girl,” Han said through the phone after letting you ramble and blurt about what had happened barely twenty minutes ago. “I promise, if you make him feel safe, like he won’t lose you, he’ll melt on your hands.”

"...I don't think so," you mumbled, picking on your nails.

"You called me because he got hard," he sighed, not bringing his statement to a conclusion just because it was so painfully obvious. "I know you're the only one who thinks otherwise."

You were about to reply with a snarky comment about how he should just 'stick simping about Minho' when you started to hear said man speaking to Jisung, and then with all the calm in the world, ignored him when he went straight to the phone.

"...Minho?"

"Leave my boyfriend alone and go fetch yours," he replied as you heard Han groan in the back. It was almost as if you could feel him deadpanning from the other side of the phone.

You frowned even if you had a smile on your features, not taking the comment completely seriously. "Ok, rude. What a meanie."

"Jokes aside." You heard him breathe in from the other side of the phone. Oh boy. "The interminable teasing and bickering between you and Chan were amusing at first, but it's getting very stale and surprise, fucker, you live together!" He paused, clicking his tongue. "So, why don't you two cut the bullshit and admit your sexual and non-sexual feelings for each other?"

"My what?!"

"This is getting old really quick, goddamnit." You could feel him getting worked up, not just because of his tone but because he kept ignoring Han, whose comments echoed at the back of the phone call.

But Minho was serious. He was not gonna get cockblocked for ten bucks. Not tonight.

"You're getting kinda off-base, buddy!"

"Oh, it's almost one o'clock, fucking spare me!" He grumbled, getting slightly angrier. "Yeah, I get it. It's Chan. He can be a dick sometimes because of his severe self-esteem issues and how he doesn't know how to communicate his feelings all that well. But I kinda think he reminds you about that other guy you dated in our dance team, who was an absolute son of a bitch, and we can agree that you deserve to be with someone who's not that complicated or whatever, but still, you can't get Chan out of your head, can you? Don't answer. We know it." He interrupted you, unable to speak as you were just getting bombarded with facts you didn't want to deal with.

"But you? I've known you for years, yet you're still being a dumbass. You're behaving like a baby who'd rather act tough than show her true feelings 'cause last time, you got hurt! Owie," he cooed, tone still angrily mocking. "And now you're just dancing around the other in this pathetic act you're tryna put up to hide your pent-up feelings, SO, AGAIN, for my sake, either deal with it and stop bitching my man about it, or get over with it already!"

"Minho, I-!" You turned silent as you heard a beeping sound coming from your phone.

He hung up.

You stared at the screen, eyes almost out of place, as you muted the device, letting it vibrate with the unread texts Jisung sent, apologising in every way he knew.

"A baby?" You muttered, the word almost sickening in your mouth. "I am not a baby!"

You laid back down on your bed, rolling on your sides, Minho's words echoing in your mind as you cursed under your breath. Almost unconsciously, you stood up, left your room and approached Chan's as if wanting to enter just to get his confirmation regarding his allegedly existing feelings for you.

He startled you when he closed his door, meeting you in the hallway, his eyes glued to yours as soon as he saw you.

"Oh. Hey." You mentioned awkwardly.

"Hey," he said, tensed-up shoulders visible due to the lack of sleeves on his shirt. "I just... uh..."

"I... wanted to say that, uh..."

"I am sorry if I... uh..."

"It's ok... I uh... don't... I mean... I know that you can't really uh... control... it?"

You could almost hear Minho's laugh in your mind.

"Right," he sighed. You smiled reassuringly, and he did the same in an uneasy stance.

"Right. I mean, for all I know, it could happen for whatever reason."

"I uh, kinda, I guess."

"But never mind. I uh... 'm glad we feel the same way."

You both smiled sheepishly and headed to your respective rooms.

Chan sighed, hurriedly getting back to bed, wishing to get weird ideas out of his mind, not bothering to check his computer again. He rolled in bed, hand anxiously travelling through his hair so frequently that it was starting to get greasy.

He frowned, passing his hands through his face, the scene in the kitchen crossing his mind again, his already weak excuse for not being so clearly attracted to you crumbling when he remembered the eagerness he thought he had seen in your eyes.

He stood up again and went to open the door just to go check, because what if he hadn't just made it up in his mind?

But then, he met you right in front of his room.

Before you could escape or come up with anything, he approached you and pecked your lips, feeling his heart skip ten beats when you pushed him away.

His eyes locked into yours, a sight of contentment leaving his lips as you grabbed his shirt and pulled him back in, smiling in the kiss. It heated very quickly, a sloppy kiss with all tongues and teeth, both fighting for dominance. You went to get the edge of his shirt, but instead, he gave you a light smack on your thighs, and you jumped, legs crossing around his waist, arms around his neck as he guided both of you into his room, closing the door with a kick.

The two of you breathed heavily, the air thick with anticipation and lust. He pinned you up against the closed door and kissed hard, feeling the heat rising as your bodies tightened against one another. Your tongues met, mingling in an intense way that drove you wild. You let out soft sounds of pleasure, suddenly changing sides, pulling him away just enough so you could have access to his neck, your teeth trailing from his jaw, trying to find a sensitive spot.

He whined, barely moving away, trying to calm himself down, the sudden blow of emotions too intense for him. He then panted, and you quickly went back to that spot you had found, nibbling on it. "What are we- fuck- what are we doing?"

You set a finger on his lips, your face going back to his. "Shhh. Let's just... enjoy it," you whispered, leaving a small chaste kiss at the corner of his lips, tempting him. You then flinched, moving away "Unless you don't want..."

He let out a groan, deep and enticing, hungrily going back to your mouth. You wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed him back, your lips pressing firmly against his.

"No... I want you."

"And I want you too, Chris." You admitted, doe eyes trailing down to his lips, licking your own. "Now."

[☆☆★☆☆]

Your schedule had gotten filled up to the brim, chances of meeting Chan reserved for the ungodly hours of the night, which were used to get some well deserved sleep. Rehearsing over and over left your body exhausted, your mind clouded in the remaining work you had left, only the most sinful parts of it replaying the encounter that had happened barely three nights ago.

It was obvious that he was awake, the light in his room shining from underneath the door, knowning that he’d probably be working on his samples.

And he had tried, looking for one of the files he had recorded that delicious night. But something felt wrong. He frowned, looking at how long the audio was.

He played it before using it, at first just hearing random noises he was recording. Then he heard himself groaning, the sound of the bed sheets moving with his body, and then, after some loud steps, the door creaked open.

And those voices were you and him, that was no doubt. He blushed, the sound of the door slamming close getting his mind back to three nights ago.

“Ah, fuck, Chan!” You moaned through his headphones.

The bed creaked under both of you in rythmic beats, matching each thrust, your moans decorating the purple-lit room.

As both an idol and a producer, Chan had listened to many voices and samples for a long time, ears used to the constant stimulation, but the sound of your needy whines as he slowed down in hopes of not coming too soon made the task even more difficult.

“Don’t- ugh, fuck-,” he whined, hearing the heavy breathing through the recording. “Let me hear you, baby, please.”

Chan tried to pause the recording, a flustered mess, but instead accidentally unplugged his headphones, the sound of creaks and moans filling his room once again.

He paused it, mortified. Where you home? Fuck, he didn’t want you to think he was recording you in secret.

He turned around slowly when the door creaked open.

“What's going on here?” You walked in with an oversized top on, the cut of the sleeves made so that your body could be seen through the sides of the tank top.

“I-i uh…”

“Don’t have too much fun without me.”

“Chan? Are you listening?” Changbin questioned, frowning.

“Uh?”

He remembered that he wasn’t inside his room, like the night before, your thighs straddling his, but in the studio, showing his friends the audio he had put together. He couldn’t help but smile and get lost in his thoughts when certain creaks came out.

“We like it,” Han repeated. “We can get to writting lyrics soon enough.”

Chan’s phone chimed next to him, his eyes trailing it with no thoughts to it.

Let’s have fun again tonight.

He bit his lip, turning his phone off.

“I’ll call it Heyday,” he mentioned to his friends, renaming the new audio file.

He’d keep the other one a secret.

[☆☆★☆☆]

[hard hours]

~Kats, who came up with this idea on the beach and has had it stuck in her head since day one.

[supernaturalfreakout]

— I love you, I'm sorry (Sam x fem!reader)

Summary: Sam regrets ever letting you slip away. Based on the song "I love you, I'm sorry" by Gracie Abrams. Notes: This was a request, and again, something that never would have existed if it wasn't requested. When I first received this ask, I have to admit my immediate thought was, No. I looked at the lyrics and had no idea how I would make it fit the kind of stories I like to tell. But then I had an idea, and just ran with it. Featuring Sam's POV again, and his incredibly messed up feelings. Thanks @mehartoor for the challenge ✨ PS. I've never written a songfic before this, so any feedback is welcome! CWs: Angst and regret, heartbreak, ?second chance romance, intentionally ambiguous.

Apologies have always come naturally to Sam, “I’m sorry” slipping from his lips as inevitably as dying leaves abandoning their branches in the fall—or is the tree the one that lets go? All his life he’s had something to regret, whether by the actions of his own hands or that of the universe, so he’s had plenty of practice, and this is nothing new. Regardless of how often he whispers those two, savage words, however, they never get any easier. And it's never been harder than the day he’d had to say those words to you …

Late Kansan summer. Lazy day by the lake celebrating your two-year anniversary. Sam remembers that day as clear as his conscience had been when you’d lain under the sun that afternoon: golden rays on your back, hands entwined in constant companion. Drinking champagne neither of you could afford from a flask to keep it cool. Feeding each other strawberries, juice dripping down lips and over chins. Backtracked by the distant splash of water and the laughter of families making the most of their summer vacations. Overseen by the clouds: stoned, and drifting fluffy and hypnotic in a crystal-blue sky.

By sunset, you were both sunburnt and tipsy, heads muzzy in their collective daze from the bubbles and humidity, and the constant buzzing of the lake flies that left a dizzying static in your ears, and that made Sam feel he was observing someone else’s life rather than his own. But that didn’t stop either of you from making the most of the night.

Pictures flash in Sam’s memory. Movie-reels in faded sepia. Haunting melancholies encoded in his skin. Images of you on your knees, grass-stains that persisted until morning. Pleasure coursing through his veins. The feel of your hair in his hands as he plastered his lips shut and prayed no one was exploring near where you had set up camp for the night. Luminescent bellies of fireflies that emerged at dusk and swept his mind to a distant shore.

Then you on your back, his head between your legs. The salt on your skin as he sucked on your thighs, leaving mottled red patches in his wake, and the itchy mosquito bites on your calves that he later soothed with lotion—because Sam always packed lotion (that was one of many things you’d loved to tease him about).

The softness of your stomach against his as he entered you softly, and the scent of your tears as you made love in the muggy, august air. The sweat you’d shared, bodies dewy and glistening in the moonlight. And, later on, the sparkle in your wet eyes when, tangled under the stars in your love-drunk state, you’d promised him “forever.”

A sharp pang shoots through Sam’s chest whenever he thinks about that. A rod lodging its way in his windpipe. The fear that overtook him that night led to him saying some truths the following morning that he probably should have kept to himself. Stupid things he didn’t mean. Things he wishes he could take back.

But he can’t. And he couldn’t then.

It was too late the moment he said them, his words too hurtful—too honest—and you had left. 

You had left, and for what?

To confirm his suspicions that he was never destined for happiness?

That everything he touches eventually turns to ash?

That he is doomed to end up loveless and alone?

Sam shakes his head, the memories too painful to bare, the ‘what ifs’ too hopeful to fathom.

He hadn’t wanted to hurt you, but Sam knew better than to promise forever. Because forever wasn’t his to claim. For what does forever even mean? Until the end of the world? No. He’s lived through several. Til the end of his days? That might not be that far away. Until the end of yours…? Sam didn’t want to even contemplate that. Because forever wasn’t real; it was a cruel joke people told themselves to make the fall hurt less.

And then he’d found himself panicking, ruminating about how he’d be condemning you—that he already was—just by existing.

He knew then that he had to let you go, because he loved you too much to watch you die slowly in his arms. Because that’s what would happen if you’d stayed, lest you burn up in a blaze of agony like everyone else he’s ever loved. He couldn’t chain you to him; you had a future ahead of you, one that promised wealth and happiness and connections. A Mercedes Benz. First-class flights. Shit neither of you cared about but had let infiltrate your dreams nonetheless.

Sam could see it now: you, years from now, laughing in a sunlit kitchen, someone else’s arms around your waist, another man's child in your belly. It made bile rise to his throat, thinking of anyone else being with you like that, and touching you as he does. He wanted to scream that he'd loved you first, that it should have been him there with you. But he also couldn’t deny that it was the safest option: a life without him, free from darkness.

A life you deserved. A future you’d trained and charmed for. One that promised status and would satisfy your parents’ shallow sense of self-worth, something Sam himself would never be able to satiate. One that offered opportunity and adventure, without the constant threat of damnation. He had to slam the door closed before it knocked both of you out. It was inevitable, after all. That’s just the way life goes.

So he’d been a dick; he needed you to hate him, and had pushed you away. It was the easiest way.

Two years down the road, thinking enough time had passed to anesthetize the pain, Sam tries to make amends, which results in you exchanging several messages. Surprisingly, you seem cool about it, and Sam doesn’t know how to take it. He thought he would be able to deal with it, that he was over what had happened, and that it would put his mind at rest. But he is wrong again, and it only brings up unresolved feelings. This shit never ends.

Joyriding on the back of those memories, Sam realizes that loving you is his greatest regret; you are simultaneously the best and worst thing that has ever happened to him. Because there’s no way in hell or on earth that he will ever get over you.

It's a car crash, yet he still can’t look away. So he sighs, fumbles in his pocket, pulls out his phone, and types out a message, because one last text can’t hurt, can it? As his fingers hover over ‘send,’ he looks up at the sky, and wonders whether you are up there, in that plane passing by.

His belly lights up with hope, fireflies flickering inside him, battering him from the inside out. A self-destructive habit, an age-old curse that will surely kill him one day if you don’t send someone to do it instead.

His fingers fly back over the screen, messages spilling from his gut, bursting forth in staccato rhythm.

He presses send again. And again. And holds his breath as his words float into the abyss. The feelings they contain no longer obscured by blurry nostalgia, but the painful, hopeful reality of the present.

“I love you,” the first one reads, in crisp, clear letters. But that’s not all.

“I love you,” the second repeats, because one statement is not enough; Sam always has to twist the knife deeper.

“I love you,” comes the third.

And the fourth.

The fifth …

"I love you

   I love you

     I love you

       I love you

         I love you

           I can’t stop

             I’ve always loved you and I always will

             I was wrong

           So, so wrong

         And I’m sorry

       So deeply sorry

     About what I said

   About that night

For everything.”

There’s not enough oxygen in the universe to supply Sam’s lungs as he waits for your reply. And when he sees the read receipt, followed by three little dots appearing and disappearing repeatedly at the bottom of his screen, that tumultuous swarm of hope threatens to choke him.

In his mind, he is already back beside that lake, tangled beneath the stars. He is dirty, and dishonest, but he is happy, and so are you.

This time, he doesn’t hesitate, or laugh, or brush of your remark with some snide and self-destructive statement about how the future doesn’t exist.

This time, he is ready and willing to give up forever, whatever that means.

[kittykitts]

[ONE SHOT]

I could eat you that night.

[AU! Werewolf Max; Summer Camping]

TW: Blood, visual description of animal corpse

A group of kids playing hide and seek. It was a summer camp, with apple juice and sandwiches. Everyone is happy... Except little Max...

- It's my turn! - say Alex starting the count.

Lando, George, Charles and Max starts to find a place to hide theirselves. Max runs to a far place, far enough to his friends do not see him. A small deer with your mom was near him. The grayish blue eyes locks on them. His breath speeds, his steps starts slowly, his moves goes smooth as possible.

- Max! Where are you!? - screams Alex - We can't play too far!

Max gets anxious: his friends can't see him now... What he can do? A small cookie in his pocket was a solution.

...

- Sorry guys! I got distracted with a frog! - Max appears with a frog in hands making everyone laugh.

- A frog? You kissed it? - asks Charles.

- Ha ha... Funny, Leclerc. Kiss you! - Max put the frog in Charles lips, who makes a disgusting face.

- Kids, it's getting dark. Time to enter in the tents. Max, leave the frog, you can't take home with you. - the camp instructor says for the group.

- When you started to like frogs, Max? - asks Lando.

- Since... Today!

- Today?

- Yeah! I think they are cool and I can put somes in Leclerc bag.

- Eww! That's gross... But I like it!

...

When the night started, everyone was in your sleepbags talking scary stories. Lando remembers a story about a werewolf kid who was in love. The tale were told for him by his mom, to warn him about people who can transforms theirselves into wild animals like wolves, bears and even wild cats The werewolve is a witch who sold your sould to gain a special hability, but it can be also a family curse. Everynight he sleeps scared because of this. George tries to calm his friend saying monsters do not exists and it was a folklore tale to scare youngs. Alex says about the nothing was scarier than Enma, the underworld ruler of Buddhist myths. Max stays quiet only looking to your friends making funny faces and screaming.

- Let's go sleep. Tomorrow we'll learn what to do if we get lost in the forest. Also, we'll make fried fish and toast some marshmallows! - George was looking for tomorrow with his big eyes shinning.

- Fish!? Why fish!? - Lando cries.

- Because we can't hunt hamburgers in the forest, Lando! Let's sleep now. I am tired. - Max finish the talk turning off his lighs. Everyone starts to sleep.

...

Few hours after, Charles wakes up with a mosquito noisy in his eats. He shakes to avoid the insect, but fails. He catch a light near him but something was wrong: Max wasn't there! How? When? Where? He could not call his friends or even walks without an adult with him. Wild passes, like from a big wild animal could be heard. Charles hides himself in the bag, turn off the light and cover his mouth with hands. The shadow wasn't big, but the growls are strong and scary. The bloody smell makes the poor Monegasque kid cry. "I don't wanna be eaten! I don't wanna die!" thinks the small Charles. The creature nose sniffs the tents, one by one. The growls get violent when one of the instructors hunts the beast to protect the kids. Lando, George and Alex wake up with the screams.

- What is happening!? - screams George.

- WEREWOLF! WEREWOLF! - cries Charles.

- What!? You sure!? How you know!? - Lando asks but Charles was too much nervous to answer him.

- Where is Max!? - Alex tries to find any clue of the Dutch kid. - He is not sleeping!

- We can't go out! - Lando and his friends starts to hug each other. Everyone is affraid.

The instructors expell the creature using torches and riffles. When their tent was open, they cried loud. Charles hides his face. When people noticed Max wasn't there, they started to search. The small Dutch could not be so far from the camp. They found a blood trail to a deer carcass, with the belly open. The animal was ripped off, the neck was broken just like the ribbs. The searches ends when no one found any hair or piece of clothing. By luck, Max is found behind a bush, without any marks. His friends were happy he was safe and fine. The small Dutch said he was only looking for the stars, and hide himself in the bush when the attacks happened. He apologizes for that. With eveyone of, the kids could sleep again.

...

In the last day of the camp, they enjoyed eat fried fish and marshmallows, except Lando because he dislikes fish. The group could learn about the nature, the stars and how to use the compass. Lando get near Charles and whispers in his ear.

- Charles... I think Max is a werewolf.

- Why? He was behind the bushes when the beast was there.

- Did you saw his nails?

- No. What with them?

- Look at them quickly. - that moment Charles notices under Max's nails are reddish brown, like if he did a scrach in a body. The Monegasque turns to Lando surprised.

- But... It wasn't fullmoon! How...

- This only happens in movies! He left something in the tent when he was out!

- Yes, I left. - Max listened and the other youngs chills when are noticed. - And I could eat you that night.

[irismfrost]

August 6 - Boat Ride, Tree House, Confucian Temple, Hayashi Department Store

We had some free time in the morning so after breakfast I went to a coffee shop and started working on my independent excursion project (see previous post). I had a caramel macchiato and it looked good and tasted good. However, there were no outlets near my seat, and there weren't many at the place in general. It was a cute shop though.

We had some awesome karaoke on the bus and it felt like we got to our first destination in no time. We did a fun boat ride through the mangroves. There were some mosquitoes out and there were some very low branches. We had to duck at certain spots and this one girl in our group who was getting seasick wasn't looking and got hit right in the head by a branch. It looked pretty painful. There were some graves and it was near a war zone back in the day. There was a Buddhist temple built on top after the fact. The lady doing to boat tour was speaking in Chinese but our amazing tour guide Peter translated some parts. We saw some mangrove crabs, an egret, and another bird that I didn't know. They gave us cool hats too but I was already wearing one so I did not participate in that part.

Next, we went to the Anping Tree House that used to be a warehouse for Tait and Co (a British company), but then it was abandoned and overgrown with fig trees. It was pretty and I got a cute post card. I also got a cinnamon roll because I was hungry and unfortunately, it took a long time to come out and was also burnt on the top. Another girl got the sundae which was soooo awesome and she donated some ice cream to make my cinnamon roll less dry and burnt. It helped tremendously.

Next, we went to a Confucius temple established in 1665 by the Qing Dynasty. It served as the first school of Taiwan. There is a "Dismount Monument" at the front of the temple that states you have to dismount your horse before you enter. This also applies to cars and scooters. It is meant to show respect. There were posts to honor all the 72 disciples of Confucian on the sides, a main hall in the middle, and more relic type things in the back.

Next we visited the Hayashi Department Store. It opened in 1932 in the business district and was an icon for modernization (Japanese origins, hence the name) - it had 5 floors and one of the first elevators in the city. To this day, the same elevator exists. It was very small and slow and could only hold up to 5 people at a time, but it was cool that it still worked. We walked through all the floors and on the roof (technically 6th floor), there was a shrine and apparently you could see damage from the US when we attacked Taiwan, but I could not figure out what the said damage was. Everything there was a little too expensive for me, but they had a lot of interesting things from hand made bags to pottery to jewelry to snacks.

Reflection

The climate and wildlife here is very similar to Florida, especially south Florida. Riding through the mangroves reminded me of all the times I've ridden through mangroves back home, especially at different summer camps or kayaking with my family. Even the weather here is similar, except it's a little more humid here (which is why Supau is so awesome). We've also gotten a bit lucky that it hasn't rained as much as I expected. In Florida, we have the daily afternoon showers and we haven't really gotten that here but maybe the Typhoon threw a wrench in that after we got to the south part of Taiwan. The plants are also eerily similar. I know that most of the palm trees in Florida are non natives, but they are native here and it looks the same. The ferns look the same. The only difference is that the trees are a little bit bigger and there are mountains. I've realized that there are also a lot of banyan trees/ fig trees here. Everything is very green. Florida has pine trees and oak trees which Taiwan doesn't have but most of the other stuff is the same. I even saw some Melaleuca trees, aka paper trees, at the Chen Chiang Shen house. When we first moved into our house in South Florida, there were so many and we had to take all of them out because they were non native and causing issues. According to Google, they disturb native wildlife, disrupt water flow, and alter soil conditions because they don't belong in Florida, and they technically don't belong in Taiwan either. They were brought into the island during the Japanese colonial era.

Another interesting finding is the power of the Confucian family. Throughout the rise and fall of different dynasties in China, the Confucian family has always remained in power and been protected because of the importance of Confucianism as a state religion. There are probably so many decendents at this point but I'm sure that those who really go into the faith have a lot of respect. Confucianism really was the backbone of the power structure of China for a long time because it taught the importance of respecting your leaders and built a very stable and rule following society. The fact that it was a state ordinated faith is no coincidence- they work together.

[priestessofspiders]

Old Man Stickbones

I grew up in a small town called Pinewood Grove. It’s a tiny little community, its population couldn’t have exceeded more than a couple thousand souls at the most, and it’s surrounded on all sides by untold miles of dense forest. I remember it as a beautiful place, with trees as far as the eye could see, a veritable sea of greenery stretching out to the horizon. The air was cleaner there than it is in the city, and the sun seemed the shine brighter in the clear blue sky. But something has forever tainted that town for me, and I fear that until I die I shall be unable to look back upon my otherwise pleasant childhood without feeling a twinge of horror at the tragedy which ended my time living there.

I was always something of a tomboy as a child, feeling more comfortable playing outside with the boys than spending time with the other girls on the awkward playdates my somewhat anxious mother tried to set up for me. It’s really rather silly looking back on it now, how worried she was that I wasn’t going to get a “normal” childhood, but times were different back then. I had much more fun coming home with torn jeans and dirty hands anyway.

I was lucky enough to have many friends, but chief among them were a pair of boys by the names of Myles and Antonio. We first met by a creek in the woods where we had both been hoping to catch crayfish, and from that day forward we were practically inseparable. Despite the long stretch of years, I can still remember them both quite clearly, though I admit that perhaps this is only because of the terrible thing which occurred at the end of our friendship.

Myles was short and blond, with a freckle covered face that I sometimes (perhaps cruelly) joked looked as though it were covered in mosquito bites. In my defense, given how much time we spent near streams and creeks, it very often was. He fancied himself something of an explorer, and I swear that the khaki safari hat he wore may as well have been permanently glued to his head. He never went anywhere without a Swiss army knife and a compass that had been given to him by his grandfather. I must say I was somewhat jealous of the compass, it was quite the fancy piece of kit, perhaps some military surplus, with a shiny metal lid. He took great joy in closing it one handed with a satisfying snap. He often referred to our little woodland excursions as “expeditions”, and sometimes would put on a faux British accent and pretend to twirl a nonexistent mustache in imitation of the two fisted heroes from the pulp adventure novels he read.

Antonio was a bit taller than Myles, with slightly messy black hair and big round spectacles that led Myles to often refer to him as “the professor”. He seemed to take on the moniker with pride, and carried around a pocket guide to insects and arachnids which he used to identify the various creepy crawlies we found during our sylvan ramblings. He would note them down by their scientific names in a little journal, with surprisingly well-drawn sketches alongside them. I wonder if he ever became an entomologist when he grew up, or perhaps an illustrator. He always seemed a little bit shyer than Myles, but in retrospect I think it’s possible he may have just had a crush on me, something that I would have been utterly oblivious to at the time. I was young, and didn’t have time to think about romance, all that existed to me was the forest, my friends, and long summer days that felt as though they would last forever.

We’d often come up with little objectives for our excursions, and Myles would write them down in a small leather bound notebook he carried in his fanny pack. This would range from simple things like “follow the creek till the end” to elaborate fantasies such as “search for the forgotten temple of the forest gods”. We rarely ever actually achieved any of these goals, but it added to the immersion of being globetrotting adventurers, so we played into it. Out of all of the missions we found ourselves embarking upon, however, the one we most frequently repeated was searching as deep in the woods as we could for a very particular cabin.

You see, there was something of a legend in Pinewood Grove, one passed on for as long as anyone could remember, perhaps from the very founding of the town itself. I heard it from my uncle, Antonio from his grandmother, and Myles was told it by his father. The details changed from telling to telling, but the core of the story always stayed the same. They say that deep, deep in the woods, past any sign of civilization, there lives a very old man. Ancient, in fact, older than the forest itself, from when the world was young and nothing was quite finished yet. They say that when he was born, people didn’t yet know how to die, and in all his long years of existence, he still hasn’t managed to figure it out. He could age though, and the cruel years have warped his body almost beyond recognizability as anything that could have once been considered human. In his impossible decrepitude, every movement makes his joints creak and crack with a sound like branches snapping in half. He lives alone, making strange little shapes out of tied together sticks which he litters near his cabin as a warning to keep away. Antonio told me his grandmother actually showed him one of these objects, a strange little figure, like a doll made by someone who didn’t quite understand what humans were supposed to look like, held together with sinew and bits of hair. He said that just looking at it felt wrong.

Nobody knows the old man’s real name, if he ever had one to begin with, but his creaking joints and gaunt, aged figure have earned him a number of nicknames. The Snapstick Man. Old Stickbug. Grandfather Brittleback.

To me though, he will always be Old Man Stickbones. That’s what Myles, Antonio, and I always called him. We joked sometimes about finding the old man and bringing him back to civilization, putting him on display as the 8th wonder of the world and charging admission to see him at 5 dollars a peek. It wasn’t serious of course. I don’t think we actually believed in Old Man Stickbones, but it was a good enough excuse to pass the time in each other’s company, and frankly the story had an air of authentic woodsy horror about it which made the morbid parts of our imagination run wild with delight.

I remember once that the three of us were having a sleepover at Myles’ house, and I managed to sneak away while the others were watching some scary movie that we were all too young for. I hid just outside the light of the television set and began snapping in half some sticks that I’d smuggled in my jacket pockets. It took only a couple snaps before Antonio and Myles paused the movie and started looking around with absolute terror in their eyes. When I jumped out and yelled “Boo”, I swear to God I thought the two of them were going to wet themselves. Antonio actually started to cry, which made me feel a little bad.

There’s no point in beating around the bush any further. As pleasant as it is to remember those bygone days of my youth, all of my recollections invariably end with the same, terrible memory. Perhaps putting it down in words will provide me with some sort of closure. One can only hope.

It was nearing the end of the summer break, and the three of us knew that fairly soon our woodland romps would be once again limited to weekends and the occasional holiday. So, we decided to try and go deeper into the woods than we had ever gone before. “Right up to Old Man Stickbones’ front door!” as Myles put it, something which made Antonio seem slightly nervous. We left earlier than usual, choosing to head off in the late morning rather than the early afternoon, and made sure to bring enough snacks (or “rations” as Myles insisted upon calling them) to last us till the evening.

I don’t remember exactly which route we were taking, but it was somewhat meandering. Myles had the compass so he was the one who led the way. Antonio and I, as always, followed behind, though frankly with our longer legs it was sometimes a tad bit annoying to deal with Myles’ slower pace. Antonio frequently found himself accidentally kicking the back of Myles’ shoes before sheepishly apologizing. This had always been the case, and usually nothing worse came of it than an annoyed comment, but this time, Antonio’s accidental treading of Myles’ heel caused our fearless leader to trip on an exposed tree root, falling to the ground in a heap.

It feels awful in retrospect, but I did laugh. Myles had been in the middle of singing a marching tune, and the song was cut off with a sudden “Aurgh!” followed by a clattering of metal which was frankly comical.

What was less comical was the realization that the loud clattering sound was that of poor Myles’ compass, the one given to him by his grandfather, being dashed to pieces on a protruding rock as it fell.

Though largely unhurt, Myles’ bravado had been deflated once he realized what had happened, and he was beginning to sniffle a bit. I’ve always felt awkward comforting my friends as they cry. I never know quite what to say. Myles adored that compass, and I felt genuinely terrible for laughing when it broke. Antonio apologized profusely, and in a display of maturity that was frankly uncommon for someone of such a young age, Myles told him it was alright, and that he knew Antonio didn’t mean any harm.

“It’s my fault,” he said, “I know I should’ve been in the back of the group, I’m the slowest. I just like being the leader is all.”

We helped Myles up to his feet and gathered up the broken remnants of the compass. I tried to reassure him that we could maybe get it fixed when we got back to town, and that did seem to cheer Myles up a bit. We realized that it was starting to get a little late in the day for exploring anyway, and that we should probably turn around. It was then that Antonio remarked “Um, sorry, but… which way did we come from?”

It was with dawning horror that we realized we had no idea which direction was the way back to Pinewood Grove. We had been relying on Myles and his compass to get back home, and frankly none of us properly had any real sense of direction. For a moment we all stood in silence, trying desperately to think of some way to navigate. We knew that we had headed South initially, and so we needed to find out which way was North in order to reach town.

“We could use the setting sun to figure out which direction to go, maybe?” suggested Antonio.

“That’s a great idea,” I agreed, “it rises in the East and sets in the West, right?”

“No no, it’s the other way around,” insisted Myles, “that’s why they call Japan ‘the land of the setting sun.’”

“I thought it was the ‘land of the rising sun,'” said Antonio, sounding a little unsure of himself.

The discussion went round and round in circles for what must have been at least half an hour, Myles and I arguing over which way the sun rose and set. Antonio, meanwhile, kept switching sides anxiously, desperate just for someone to decide upon something we could use to get home. In the end, we were so worried about getting back before dark that we just decided to set off in a random direction that we all hoped was North and prayed that we could find some recognizable landmarks.

We had successfully managed at least one thing; we had gone deeper into the forest than ever before. As the light grew dimmer, I’m certain that each of us felt that the surrounding woods were becoming less and less recognizable, but none of us said anything. I think we were all secretly hoping that the others knew where they were going.

The trees were taller, the foliage thicker, and the air seemed almost imperceptibly fouler, like the stale smell you get from opening a long-closed cupboard, but tinged with the musty scent of soil and damp leaves. As the minutes turned to hours, eventually it grew so dark that we had to pull out the flashlights we had brought with us in our backpacks, just in case of emergencies. I didn’t know how long the batteries would last, so I insisted upon keeping mine in reserve, letting the boys use theirs for the time being.

It was Antonio who spotted the first one. He had stopped marching and was simply staring upwards at one of the trees, flashlight shining high up at an angle. His mouth was open slightly, and he was trembling.

“What is it?” I asked, looking up at where the beam pointed. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary at first, even with the flashlight, as it was difficult to see well in the dark. Antonio pointed with one shaking hand, and I looked closer, squinting slightly. When I saw what he was staring at, I immediately understood why Antonio was afraid.

Dangling from a string of some sort, suspended in the air, was a strange bundle of sticks. It was arranged in some sort of star-like pattern, but with too many points, maybe seven or eight in total. It was small, and blended in well among the leaves, so it wasn’t particularly surprising that I hadn’t been able to see it at first. Frankly it was a miracle that Antonio had.

“Guys, c’mon!” shouted Myles from up ahead. He hadn’t stopped his march while Antonio and I were looking at the strange star.

“Should we, y’know, tell him?” asked Antonio, voice quavering.

“No, it’s probably just, I dunno, some guy doing a prank or something. Trying to scare people. If anything it probably means we’re closer to town,” I said. Antonio nodded, and we hurried to follow Myles, shouting for him to wait up.

As time went on, both Antonio and I began to notice more and more of the strange shapes crafted from sticks hanging from the trees. They came in a wide variety of shapes and sizes; vaguely humanoid outlines, triangles, crosses, stars, jagged spirals, and even stranger designs which we couldn’t quite find the words for, but made us uncomfortable to look at nonetheless. If Myles noticed them, he didn’t show any sign of it. He simply kept marching on, tired and upset to the extent to which he no longer was paying any attention to his surroundings.

Every so often Antonio would get an odd look and slow his pace for a second or two, looking about nervously. After he had done so four or five times, I asked him in a whisper what he was doing.

“Listening,” he said in reply, “I keep thinking I hear something, like, well…” his voice shrunk to a low mutter, “like sticks snapping.”

I was about to try and come up with some sort of rational explanation when we heard Myles call us from up ahead. We hurried towards him and quickly saw what had gotten his attention. Myles was pointing towards a distant light shining through the trees. It was admittedly quite faint, but decidedly a sign of civilization. We could also smell the faint scent of something burning.

“A campfire maybe?” I asked.

“It’s gotta be”, said Myles, picking up the pace as he headed towards the light. Antonio and I followed, but there was a hesitance to our movements. With every step I took, I began to get increasingly uncomfortable, and I could tell that Antonio felt the same.

After a few minutes we were greeted with the source of the light. It was a rough cabin, built from logs and crudely mortared stone, with a faint wisp of smoke emanating out from its chimney. Despite its relatively simple construction, it seemed quite large, at least the size of a typical suburban home. It seemed oddly crooked, all the angles subtly off, like something out of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Its windows were made from cloudy, cracked glass, very roughly set high in the walls of the building with some sort of rudimentary cement. From behind the translucent glass there came the warm glow of a fire.

“Let’s knock on the door and see if whoever lives here can point us back to Pinewood Grove,” said Myles excitedly.

“I uh, don’t think that’s a good idea Myles,” Antonio whispered, starting to take steps back away from the cabin.

“What are you talking about? This could be our best bet to get out of the forest! Do you want to get eaten by a bear or something? Besides maybe they’ve got a telephone. I’m sure our parents are all worried about us by now, they’ve probably called the police,” replied Myles, a hint of frustration in his voice.

“I think Antonio has a point, Myles, I mean, doesn’t this all seem a little… I don’t know, creepy?” I said, trying to choose my words carefully.

Myles stared at me bleary eyed like I just told him I was from the planet Mars.

“Myles, we didn’t tell you because, y’know, you already seemed kind of upset, but…” Antonio trailed off.

“We’ve been seeing these weird stick sculptures, in the trees. We thought maybe it was someone doing a prank, y’know? But, c’mon, look at this place. Don’t you think it kind of looks like-” I started to say, before Myles cut me off.

“Are you seriously trying to tell me you want to stay out here, in the dark, alone in the woods, because you’re scared of Old Man Stickbones? Come on.” Myles huffed, rolling his eyes.

Antonio and I looked down at the ground, embarrassed a little bit by Myles’ tone. We knew it sounded stupid, being afraid of a campfire story like that, but it didn’t make us any less afraid. Our silence started to make Myles angry.

“Are you serious? Are you both babies? There’s no such thing as Old Man Stickbones, he’s made up, he’s a fairy tale! Are you gonna tell me you believe in Santa Claus next? It’s just a stupid game. Did you think that when we went looking for secret treasure last week that there was actually hidden gold out here too?” Myles was starting to yell, getting angrier and angrier. I understood we were all tired, stressed, and afraid, but I’d never seen him act like this before, and frankly I was starting to get pissed off.

“We wouldn’t even be out here if you didn’t drop your stupid compass,” I muttered, mostly to myself, but just loud enough that Myles could hear.

“Well maybe I wouldn’t have dropped it if this moron,” Myles said, pointing an accusing finger at Antonio, “could watch here he was going! Or maybe, y’know, if you’d just agreed with me about which direction the freaking sun sets.”

Antonio looked like he was about to cry, and my hands tightened into fists. It was then that I said something I will forever regret.

“Well Myles, if you’re so brave, why don’t you go knock on that creepy cabin door yourself.”

To this day, I still cannot forgive myself. I shouldn’t have said it. I don’t know what else I should have said, what I could have done to prevent what happened, but I can’t help but blame myself. I told him to go knock on the door, it’s my fault.

Myles grew slightly pale, and I could tell he was afraid. But he didn’t say anything. He just turned around and started marching towards the front of the cabin. I stood there, watching him go, while Antonio tried to whisper for him to come back, that I didn’t mean it.

Within a few moments, Myles stood before the wooden door of that strange cabin, trembling slightly. I hadn’t been able to tell from a distance earlier, but now with Myles standing next to it the door seemed huge in comparison to his short stature. It was easily 8 or 9 feet tall, and looked heavy. He looked over to us for reassurance, and Antonio kept shaking his head, trying to get him to come back. I just stared. I wish I had done something, but God help me, I just stared.

Myles turned back to the door and raised a shaking fist, before rapping his knuckles against the wood three times.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Everything went quiet. All the faint sounds of chirping crickets, hooting owls, and rustling leaves seemed to die in an instant. For a few seconds, all was terribly, impossibly silent. Then I heard it.

It was a loud, harsh, crack. First just one, as though a single branch being snapped off a dead tree. Then another, and another, a cacophony of cracks as though of a thousand arthritic joints being popped. Myles seemed paralyzed with fear, and Antonio and I gasped as we saw strange shadows move with stuttering, stop-and-start motions behind the clouded glass of the cabin’s high windows. Then the door began to creak open, the hinges rusty and loud. From our vantage point, we couldn’t see inside, we could just see the light from within illuminate Myles when the door was fully ajar.

Myles’ jaw dropped open in horror as he inhaled, preparing to cry out in abject terror at whatever it was he saw inside the cabin. But he didn’t have time to scream before a gaunt, pallid limb reached out from inside, grabbing him by the waist with fingers as thick as broomsticks and pulling him into the cabin, the door slamming shut in an instant.

Antonio and I both ran, screaming and crying as we fled through the woods at top speed. He dropped his flashlight at some point and we both kept tripping through the dark, I was too afraid to stop to pull my own out of my backpack. We couldn’t be sure that the sounds of crunching underfoot came from fallen leaves or the creaking joints of a monstrous pursuer.

Eventually we both collapsed, unable to flee any more with our burning muscles and countless bruises from stumbling about in the dark. As we sat, catching our breath, I could hear the distant sound of cars. We were near the highway. Finally pulling out my flashlight, I led the still crying Antonio by the hand, following the sounds of the automobiles.

Antonio and I made it back alright, mostly unharmed aside from the bruising and shock. Myles had been right; our parents did call the police, and we had to give our statements as to what happened to some rather skeptical officers when we got back to my house before he was allowed to go home and I was able to go to bed. Of course they didn’t believe us, why on Earth would they? They figured we were too scared to properly remember what had really happened, and that maybe some animal or homeless person had frightened us. They sent out search parties the following day.

They didn’t find Myles, nor did they find the cabin that Antonio and I described. Myles’ parents blamed us of course, and accused us of taking their son out into the woods to murder him. Antonio’s family moved away not long after in the wake of Myles’ disappearance, and when school started up again I became a subject of ostracization and bullying, which frankly I felt that I deserved. I blamed myself, and still do, for what happened to poor Myles.

Nevertheless, I tried to persevere, and despite the alternating shunning and taunting from my classmates and teachers alike, I stuck around in Pinewood Grove for about a month after my final expedition into the woods. The straw that broke the camel’s back, however, was the object that was left on the front porch of Myles’ parents’ house. After that, my parents became so concerned for our safety at the hands of small town “vigilante justice” that they decided it would be best to move away.

You see, one morning Myles’ father was getting ready to go to work, when he almost tripped upon something left right at the front door. It was roughly pyramidal in structure, with three sides leading up to a point at the top, constructed from sticks and twigs, tied together with leather cords. There was a little gap, a window of sorts, cut into one of the sides. Dangling in the center, strung up with some knotted hair, was Myles’ broken compass.

Forensic analysis revealed that the leather and hair used in the construction of this object was human tissue.

I grew up in a small town called Pinewood Grove. It’s a tiny little community, its population couldn’t have exceeded more than a couple thousand souls at the most, and it’s surrounded on all sides by untold miles of dense forest. I remember it as a beautiful place, with trees as far as the eye could see, a veritable sea of greenery stretching out to the horizon. The air was cleaner there than it is in the city, and the sun seemed the shine brighter in the clear blue sky. But something has forever tainted that town for me, and I fear that until I die I shall be unable to look back upon my otherwise pleasant childhood without feeling a twinge of horror at the tragedy which ended my time living there.

I was always something of a tomboy as a child, feeling more comfortable playing outside with the boys than spending time with the other girls on the awkward playdates my somewhat anxious mother tried to set up for me. It’s really rather silly looking back on it now, how worried she was that I wasn’t going to get a “normal” childhood, but times were different back then. I had much more fun coming home with torn jeans and dirty hands anyway.

I was lucky enough to have many friends, but chief among them were a pair of boys by the names of Myles and Antonio. We first met by a creek in the woods where we had both been hoping to catch crayfish, and from that day forward we were practically inseparable. Despite the long stretch of years, I can still remember them both quite clearly, though I admit that perhaps this is only because of the terrible thing which occurred at the end of our friendship.

Myles was short and blond, with a freckle covered face that I sometimes (perhaps cruelly) joked looked as though it were covered in mosquito bites. In my defense, given how much time we spent near streams and creeks, it very often was. He fancied himself something of an explorer, and I swear that the khaki safari hat he wore may as well have been permanently glued to his head. He never went anywhere without a Swiss army knife and a compass that had been given to him by his grandfather. I must say I was somewhat jealous of the compass, it was quite the fancy piece of kit, perhaps some military surplus, with a shiny metal lid. He took great joy in closing it one handed with a satisfying snap. He often referred to our little woodland excursions as “expeditions”, and sometimes would put on a faux British accent and pretend to twirl a nonexistent mustache in imitation of the two fisted heroes from the pulp adventure novels he read.

Antonio was a bit taller than Myles, with slightly messy black hair and big round spectacles that led Myles to often refer to him as “the professor”. He seemed to take on the moniker with pride, and carried around a pocket guide to insects and arachnids which he used to identify the various creepy crawlies we found during our sylvan ramblings. He would note them down by their scientific names in a little journal, with surprisingly well-drawn sketches alongside them. I wonder if he ever became an entomologist when he grew up, or perhaps an illustrator. He always seemed a little bit shyer than Myles, but in retrospect I think it’s possible he may have just had a crush on me, something that I would have been utterly oblivious to at the time. I was young, and didn’t have time to think about romance, all that existed to me was the forest, my friends, and long summer days that felt as though they would last forever.

We’d often come up with little objectives for our excursions, and Myles would write them down in a small leather bound notebook he carried in his fanny pack. This would range from simple things like “follow the creek till the end” to elaborate fantasies such as “search for the forgotten temple of the forest gods”. We rarely ever actually achieved any of these goals, but it added to the immersion of being globetrotting adventurers, so we played into it. Out of all of the missions we found ourselves embarking upon, however, the one we most frequently repeated was searching as deep in the woods as we could for a very particular cabin.

You see, there was something of a legend in Pinewood Grove, one passed on for as long as anyone could remember, perhaps from the very founding of the town itself. I heard it from my uncle, Antonio from his grandmother, and Myles was told it by his father. The details changed from telling to telling, but the core of the story always stayed the same. They say that deep, deep in the woods, past any sign of civilization, there lives a very old man. Ancient, in fact, older than the forest itself, from when the world was young and nothing was quite finished yet. They say that when he was born, people didn’t yet know how to die, and in all his long years of existence, he still hasn’t managed to figure it out. He could age though, and the cruel years have warped his body almost beyond recognizability as anything that could have once been considered human. In his impossible decrepitude, every movement makes his joints creak and crack with a sound like branches snapping in half. He lives alone, making strange little shapes out of tied together sticks which he litters near his cabin as a warning to keep away. Antonio told me his grandmother actually showed him one of these objects, a strange little figure, like a doll made by someone who didn’t quite understand what humans were supposed to look like, held together with sinew and bits of hair. He said that just looking at it felt wrong.

Nobody knows the old man’s real name, if he ever had one to begin with, but his creaking joints and gaunt, aged figure have earned him a number of nicknames. The Snapstick Man. Old Stickbug. Grandfather Brittleback.

To me though, he will always be Old Man Stickbones. That’s what Myles, Antonio, and I always called him. We joked sometimes about finding the old man and bringing him back to civilization, putting him on display as the 8th wonder of the world and charging admission to see him at 5 dollars a peek. It wasn’t serious of course. I don’t think we actually believed in Old Man Stickbones, but it was a good enough excuse to pass the time in each other’s company, and frankly the story had an air of authentic woodsy horror about it which made the morbid parts of our imagination run wild with delight.

I remember once that the three of us were having a sleepover at Myles’ house, and I managed to sneak away while the others were watching some scary movie that we were all too young for. I hid just outside the light of the television set and began snapping in half some sticks that I’d smuggled in my jacket pockets. It took only a couple snaps before Antonio and Myles paused the movie and started looking around with absolute terror in their eyes. When I jumped out and yelled “Boo”, I swear to God I thought the two of them were going to wet themselves. Antonio actually started to cry, which made me feel a little bad.

There’s no point in beating around the bush any further. As pleasant as it is to remember those bygone days of my youth, all of my recollections invariably end with the same, terrible memory. Perhaps putting it down in words will provide me with some sort of closure. One can only hope.

It was nearing the end of the summer break, and the three of us knew that fairly soon our woodland romps would be once again limited to weekends and the occasional holiday. So, we decided to try and go deeper into the woods than we had ever gone before. “Right up to Old Man Stickbones’ front door!” as Myles put it, something which made Antonio seem slightly nervous. We left earlier than usual, choosing to head off in the late morning rather than the early afternoon, and made sure to bring enough snacks (or “rations” as Myles insisted upon calling them) to last us till the evening.

I don’t remember exactly which route we were taking, but it was somewhat meandering. Myles had the compass so he was the one who led the way. Antonio and I, as always, followed behind, though frankly with our longer legs it was sometimes a tad bit annoying to deal with Myles’ slower pace. Antonio frequently found himself accidentally kicking the back of Myles’ shoes before sheepishly apologizing. This had always been the case, and usually nothing worse came of it than an annoyed comment, but this time, Antonio’s accidental treading of Myles’ heel caused our fearless leader to trip on an exposed tree root, falling to the ground in a heap.

It feels awful in retrospect, but I did laugh. Myles had been in the middle of singing a marching tune, and the song was cut off with a sudden “Aurgh!” followed by a clattering of metal which was frankly comical.

What was less comical was the realization that the loud clattering sound was that of poor Myles’ compass, the one given to him by his grandfather, being dashed to pieces on a protruding rock as it fell.

Though largely unhurt, Myles’ bravado had been deflated once he realized what had happened, and he was beginning to sniffle a bit. I’ve always felt awkward comforting my friends as they cry. I never know quite what to say. Myles adored that compass, and I felt genuinely terrible for laughing when it broke. Antonio apologized profusely, and in a display of maturity that was frankly uncommon for someone of such a young age, Myles told him it was alright, and that he knew Antonio didn’t mean any harm.

“It’s my fault,” he said, “I know I should’ve been in the back of the group, I’m the slowest. I just like being the leader is all.”

We helped Myles up to his feet and gathered up the broken remnants of the compass. I tried to reassure him that we could maybe get it fixed when we got back to town, and that did seem to cheer Myles up a bit. We realized that it was starting to get a little late in the day for exploring anyway, and that we should probably turn around. It was then that Antonio remarked “Um, sorry, but… which way did we come from?”

It was with dawning horror that we realized we had no idea which direction was the way back to Pinewood Grove. We had been relying on Myles and his compass to get back home, and frankly none of us properly had any real sense of direction. For a moment we all stood in silence, trying desperately to think of some way to navigate. We knew that we had headed South initially, and so we needed to find out which way was North in order to reach town.

“We could use the setting sun to figure out which direction to go, maybe?” suggested Antonio.

“That’s a great idea,” I agreed, “it rises in the East and sets in the West, right?”

“No no, it’s the other way around,” insisted Myles, “that’s why they call Japan ‘the land of the setting sun.’”

“I thought it was the ‘land of the rising sun,'” said Antonio, sounding a little unsure of himself.

The discussion went round and round in circles for what must have been at least half an hour, Myles and I arguing over which way the sun rose and set. Antonio, meanwhile, kept switching sides anxiously, desperate just for someone to decide upon something we could use to get home. In the end, we were so worried about getting back before dark that we just decided to set off in a random direction that we all hoped was North and prayed that we could find some recognizable landmarks.

We had successfully managed at least one thing; we had gone deeper into the forest than ever before. As the light grew dimmer, I’m certain that each of us felt that the surrounding woods were becoming less and less recognizable, but none of us said anything. I think we were all secretly hoping that the others knew where they were going.

The trees were taller, the foliage thicker, and the air seemed almost imperceptibly fouler, like the stale smell you get from opening a long-closed cupboard, but tinged with the musty scent of soil and damp leaves. As the minutes turned to hours, eventually it grew so dark that we had to pull out the flashlights we had brought with us in our backpacks, just in case of emergencies. I didn’t know how long the batteries would last, so I insisted upon keeping mine in reserve, letting the boys use theirs for the time being.

It was Antonio who spotted the first one. He had stopped marching and was simply staring upwards at one of the trees, flashlight shining high up at an angle. His mouth was open slightly, and he was trembling.

“What is it?” I asked, looking up at where the beam pointed. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary at first, even with the flashlight, as it was difficult to see well in the dark. Antonio pointed with one shaking hand, and I looked closer, squinting slightly. When I saw what he was staring at, I immediately understood why Antonio was afraid.

Dangling from a string of some sort, suspended in the air, was a strange bundle of sticks. It was arranged in some sort of star-like pattern, but with too many points, maybe seven or eight in total. It was small, and blended in well among the leaves, so it wasn’t particularly surprising that I hadn’t been able to see it at first. Frankly it was a miracle that Antonio had.

“Guys, c’mon!” shouted Myles from up ahead. He hadn’t stopped his march while Antonio and I were looking at the strange star.

“Should we, y’know, tell him?” asked Antonio, voice quavering.

“No, it’s probably just, I dunno, some guy doing a prank or something. Trying to scare people. If anything it probably means we’re closer to town,” I said. Antonio nodded, and we hurried to follow Myles, shouting for him to wait up.

As time went on, both Antonio and I began to notice more and more of the strange shapes crafted from sticks hanging from the trees. They came in a wide variety of shapes and sizes; vaguely humanoid outlines, triangles, crosses, stars, jagged spirals, and even stranger designs which we couldn’t quite find the words for, but made us uncomfortable to look at nonetheless. If Myles noticed them, he didn’t show any sign of it. He simply kept marching on, tired and upset to the extent to which he no longer was paying any attention to his surroundings.

Every so often Antonio would get an odd look and slow his pace for a second or two, looking about nervously. After he had done so four or five times, I asked him in a whisper what he was doing.

“Listening,” he said in reply, “I keep thinking I hear something, like, well…” his voice shrunk to a low mutter, “like sticks snapping.”

I was about to try and come up with some sort of rational explanation when we heard Myles call us from up ahead. We hurried towards him and quickly saw what had gotten his attention. Myles was pointing towards a distant light shining through the trees. It was admittedly quite faint, but decidedly a sign of civilization. We could also smell the faint scent of something burning.

“A campfire maybe?” I asked.

“It’s gotta be”, said Myles, picking up the pace as he headed towards the light. Antonio and I followed, but there was a hesitance to our movements. With every step I took, I began to get increasingly uncomfortable, and I could tell that Antonio felt the same.

After a few minutes we were greeted with the source of the light. It was a rough cabin, built from logs and crudely mortared stone, with a faint wisp of smoke emanating out from its chimney. Despite its relatively simple construction, it seemed quite large, at least the size of a typical suburban home. It seemed oddly crooked, all the angles subtly off, like something out of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Its windows were made from cloudy, cracked glass, very roughly set high in the walls of the building with some sort of rudimentary cement. From behind the translucent glass there came the warm glow of a fire.

“Let’s knock on the door and see if whoever lives here can point us back to Pinewood Grove,” said Myles excitedly.

“I uh, don’t think that’s a good idea Myles,” Antonio whispered, starting to take steps back away from the cabin.

“What are you talking about? This could be our best bet to get out of the forest! Do you want to get eaten by a bear or something? Besides maybe they’ve got a telephone. I’m sure our parents are all worried about us by now, they’ve probably called the police,” replied Myles, a hint of frustration in his voice.

“I think Antonio has a point, Myles, I mean, doesn’t this all seem a little… I don’t know, creepy?” I said, trying to choose my words carefully.

Myles stared at me bleary eyed like I just told him I was from the planet Mars.

“Myles, we didn’t tell you because, y’know, you already seemed kind of upset, but…” Antonio trailed off.

“We’ve been seeing these weird stick sculptures, in the trees. We thought maybe it was someone doing a prank, y’know? But, c’mon, look at this place. Don’t you think it kind of looks like-” I started to say, before Myles cut me off.

“Are you seriously trying to tell me you want to stay out here, in the dark, alone in the woods, because you’re scared of Old Man Stickbones? Come on.” Myles huffed, rolling his eyes.

Antonio and I looked down at the ground, embarrassed a little bit by Myles’ tone. We knew it sounded stupid, being afraid of a campfire story like that, but it didn’t make us any less afraid. Our silence started to make Myles angry.

“Are you serious? Are you both babies? There’s no such thing as Old Man Stickbones, he’s made up, he’s a fairy tale! Are you gonna tell me you believe in Santa Claus next? It’s just a stupid game. Did you think that when we went looking for secret treasure last week that there was actually hidden gold out here too?” Myles was starting to yell, getting angrier and angrier. I understood we were all tired, stressed, and afraid, but I’d never seen him act like this before, and frankly I was starting to get pissed off.

“We wouldn’t even be out here if you didn’t drop your stupid compass,” I muttered, mostly to myself, but just loud enough that Myles could hear.

“Well maybe I wouldn’t have dropped it if this moron,” Myles said, pointing an accusing finger at Antonio, “could watch here he was going! Or maybe, y’know, if you’d just agreed with me about which direction the freaking sun sets.”

Antonio looked like he was about to cry, and my hands tightened into fists. It was then that I said something I will forever regret.

“Well Myles, if you’re so brave, why don’t you go knock on that creepy cabin door yourself.”

To this day, I still cannot forgive myself. I shouldn’t have said it. I don’t know what else I should have said, what I could have done to prevent what happened, but I can’t help but blame myself. I told him to go knock on the door, it’s my fault.

Myles grew slightly pale, and I could tell he was afraid. But he didn’t say anything. He just turned around and started marching towards the front of the cabin. I stood there, watching him go, while Antonio tried to whisper for him to come back, that I didn’t mean it.

Within a few moments, Myles stood before the wooden door of that strange cabin, trembling slightly. I hadn’t been able to tell from a distance earlier, but now with Myles standing next to it the door seemed huge in comparison to his short stature. It was easily 8 or 9 feet tall, and looked heavy. He looked over to us for reassurance, and Antonio kept shaking his head, trying to get him to come back. I just stared. I wish I had done something, but God help me, I just stared.

Myles turned back to the door and raised a shaking fist, before rapping his knuckles against the wood three times.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Everything went quiet. All the faint sounds of chirping crickets, hooting owls, and rustling leaves seemed to die in an instant. For a few seconds, all was terribly, impossibly silent. Then I heard it.

It was a loud, harsh, crack. First just one, as though a single branch being snapped off a dead tree. Then another, and another, a cacophony of cracks as though of a thousand arthritic joints being popped. Myles seemed paralyzed with fear, and Antonio and I gasped as we saw strange shadows move with stuttering, stop-and-start motions behind the clouded glass of the cabin’s high windows. Then the door began to creak open, the hinges rusty and loud. From our vantage point, we couldn’t see inside, we could just see the light from within illuminate Myles when the door was fully ajar.

Myles’ jaw dropped open in horror as he inhaled, preparing to cry out in abject terror at whatever it was he saw inside the cabin. But he didn’t have time to scream before a gaunt, pallid limb reached out from inside, grabbing him by the waist with fingers as thick as broomsticks and pulling him into the cabin, the door slamming shut in an instant.

Antonio and I both ran, screaming and crying as we fled through the woods at top speed. He dropped his flashlight at some point and we both kept tripping through the dark, I was too afraid to stop to pull my own out of my backpack. We couldn’t be sure that the sounds of crunching underfoot came from fallen leaves or the creaking joints of a monstrous pursuer.

Eventually we both collapsed, unable to flee any more with our burning muscles and countless bruises from stumbling about in the dark. As we sat, catching our breath, I could hear the distant sound of cars. We were near the highway. Finally pulling out my flashlight, I led the still crying Antonio by the hand, following the sounds of the automobiles.

Antonio and I made it back alright, mostly unharmed aside from the bruising and shock. Myles had been right; our parents did call the police, and we had to give our statements as to what happened to some rather skeptical officers when we got back to my house before he was allowed to go home and I was able to go to bed. Of course they didn’t believe us, why on Earth would they? They figured we were too scared to properly remember what had really happened, and that maybe some animal or homeless person had frightened us. They sent out search parties the following day.

They didn’t find Myles, nor did they find the cabin that Antonio and I described. Myles’ parents blamed us of course, and accused us of taking their son out into the woods to murder him. Antonio’s family moved away not long after in the wake of Myles’ disappearance, and when school started up again I became a subject of ostracization and bullying, which frankly I felt that I deserved. I blamed myself, and still do, for what happened to poor Myles.

Nevertheless, I tried to persevere, and despite the alternating shunning and taunting from my classmates and teachers alike, I stuck around in Pinewood Grove for about a month after my final expedition into the woods. The straw that broke the camel’s back, however, was the object that was left on the front porch of Myles’ parents’ house. After that, my parents became so concerned for our safety at the hands of small town “vigilante justice” that they decided it would be best to move away.

You see, one morning Myles’ father was getting ready to go to work, when he almost tripped upon something left right at the front door. It was roughly pyramidal in structure, with three sides leading up to a point at the top, constructed from sticks and twigs, tied together with leather cords. There was a little gap, a window of sorts, cut into one of the sides. Dangling in the center, strung up with some knotted hair, was Myles’ broken compass.

Forensic analysis revealed that the leather and hair used in the construction of this object was human tissue.

[hrenvs3000w24]

Symphony in the Wild: A Night of Natural Music

Even as we huddled near the campfire, the mosquitoes were relentless. It was a humid summer midnight in Murphy’s Provincial Park, and we had run out of repellent spray. My friends and I collectively acknowledged defeat to the mosquitoes and decided to retreat to our tent for the night, after dousing the campfire.

**(This photo of the Milky Way was taken by my friend late midnight during our camping trimp)

I've always been both fascinated and envious of my friend’s ability to fall asleep the instant their head touched the pillow – why was I not blessed with this remarkable ability? My usual annoyance with insomnia however, turned into a rare opportunity on this occasion.

An hour into my restless night, the sounds of the wilderness came alive in a way I had never noticed before. Instead of the anticipated occasional coyote howl or the unnerving snap of a twig nearby, my ears tuned into a vivid concert of natural sounds. Winds roared, toads croaked, crickets chirped, owls hooted, and a pack of coyotes howled in the distance. These sounds weren’t merely random; rather, they seemed to follow a structure, a pattern that hinted at an underlying order. The elements that define a musical piece in the traditional sense – pitch, rhythm, dynamics, along with the qualities of timbre and texture – were all present (Sarrazin, 2016). It was as though I was the sole audience member of a symphony orchestrated by nature itself. If music is defined as patterns of sound varying in pitch and duration created for a specific purpose, then what I was experiencing surely qualified as music (Gray et al., 2001). Music is omnipresent in nature – we just need to listen more mindfully. To put this into perspective, let’s consider two of nature’s distinct natural composers – birds and whales.

**(This audio is as close to the symphony I herd that night)

Recent advancements in audio technology have revealed that birds use many of the same musical principles as humans when they compose their songs, such as rhythmic variations and pitch relationships to name a few (Gray et al., 2001). Birds like the wood thrush and the ruby-crowned kinglet sing in scales and intervals that closely match those used in Western music (Gray et al., 2001). The aquatic songs of humpback whales share a structurally similarity to bird and human songs. Their songs have rhythm, themes, and structures that resemble human music, such as repeating phrases, using musical intervals familiar to humans, mixing percussive and tonal elements, and even incorporating rhymes as mnemonic devices (Gray et al., 2001).

It is undeniable that the elements characterizing music are universal. While we as humans have managed to identify and anthropomorphize these elements, they predate our existence, woven into the very fabric of nature itself. We didn't invent these components; instead, we recognized and assimilated them into our understanding and definition of music. Thus, at its core, nature is the foundation of music; or, to put it another way, music is inherently a manifestation of nature.

For this discussion, I'm sharing a nostalgic Canadian folksong from my elementary school days. This was the first song to spark my wonder for nature with its captivating lyrical imagery, marking a significant moment of discovery through music.

References:

Gray, P. M., Krause, B., Atema, J., Payne, R., Krumhansl, C., & Baptista, L. (2001). The music of nature and the nature of music. Science, 291(5501), 52–54. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.10.1126/science.1056960

Sarrazin, N. (2016, June 15). Chapter 2: Music: Fundamentals and educational roots in the U.S. Music and the Child. https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/music-and-the-child/chapter/chapter-2/

YouTube. (2011, October 18). Land of the silver birch - michael mitchell. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zDTdKRqZ9g&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fsafe.txmblr.com%2F&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fsafe.txmblr.com&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ&feature=emb_imp_woyt

YouTube. (2022, December 1). 10 hours - crickets - bullfrogs - green frogs - whippoorwill - nature sounds - creek - pond - stream. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3mu1NmWSbE

[lomfenny]

I wrote a thing.

Day 1

First foot over the threshold, and I already want to set the place on fire.

It's nothing wrong with the house. It's a fine house. Small, cozy, close to work. And free too, as it is an inheritance. From my uncle who isn't dead. Yet. He's in jail, but not in death row. It's just that he won't last. I know him like that.

This is his summer home, up here on a hill, just a scooch over from the rest of civilisation. I wonder if the people here knew him. If they remember him. If they've heard.

Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the burden of living in a space that a life-taker inhabited. Maybe it's the burden of knowing that I'll think about it later on, likely on a bad day.

Well, nothing to be done about that. It's a fine house after all. Small, cozy, close to work. And free too, as it is an inheritance. It'll just take some cleaning up. Remove some cobwebs, some dust bunnies.

And that ant hill near the door.

Day 3

Maybe the sun will set the place on fire for me. I didn't know this place got so hot.

I have a soda, long since warmed by the weather and my hands. I hate my hands now. I also have mango cubes. I got them from my closest neighbours. They brought a fruit basket over yesterday, wanted to welcome me. They're nice. They're new. They never knew my uncle.

My sister hasn't called yet. She said she would.

I've taken down the cobwebs because I don't like spiders. They come into my spaces, build their own little webs, spin their little lives. They don't discriminate in how they catch the flies and the mosquitoes and the butterflies. The pests, the parasites and the proper.

A mango slice falls out of my hand, lands next to the ant hill. I should remove that. But it's hot, I'm lazy, so later.

Later.

Day 7

I don't hate my job. It's at a convenience store, and the owner is nice. Mr Gates have me a free chocolate today.

I don't hate the town, either. These people don't know me beyond "new person". They haven't asked where I live, so I don't have to lie. I like not having to lie.

There's a community college in the town. I don't go to school anymore, but I tip my hat to those who are willing to die for 4, 5, 6 more years. Sometimes, students come to the store. Some older than me, some younger, but all within my age range. Makes them talk to me. Think we'll relate with each other just because we're all from the same generation and none of us has died yet

I talk to them. Don't give them discounts, though, even when they ask. I've only had this job for five days, can't do that. Won't.

When I get home, I look at the ant hill. There are ants there, as always. I think of removing it, as always.

I go in, as always.

Day 16

I've made a friend. He says we're friends, my sister says the things we've done are things friends do. She didn't call, I did.

His name is Terrence, says I should call him Terry. Thank goodness, Terrence is too many sounds, releases more air than saying Terry does. This is the true way you measure word length. Not with letters or syllables. With how much breath and energy you need to refer to another human being, to acknowledge another existence besides your own. Everyone has a limited number of breaths. Save yours for shit that matters.

Terry goes to the community college. He came in and started talking. Didn't shut up. Didn't ask for a discount, though, so I didn't write him off. Gave me a cookie, even.

He took me to a park, we fed ducks, domestic shit.

It's good shit.

Day 20

Mr Gates have me a free orange. Says I should stay healthy.

It's juicy.

Day 21

I met some old ladies at the park. They have tiny dogs. They're cute and tiny. The women call me cute and tiny.

But I'm not.

Day 29

I don't hate this town.

Terry and I are dating? I think? Kissing is what you do with someone if you're dating them, right? Unless you're married. Then, it's just to remind yourself that you own someone.

He invited me to a party at his friend's house. I don't know anyone there. I don't remember anyone there, afterwards. Everyone's a little drunk, a tad stupid, and a smidge less stressed.

Good shit.

Day 33

My sister comes to visit. It's a long drive, I didn't expect her to come. She has a new car, red like barbeque pit embers. It burns my hand under the sun.

"How are you liking it?" She asks me.

"I'm liking it."

"Better than home?"

"..."

"Okay."

We share melting ice-pops that Mr Gates gave me.

"That's so ew!"

She's pointing at the ant hill near my door. It's bigger now, and a couple of ants have come to lick at the drops from from our ice-pops.

"Lets go inside." I tell her. Wouldn't do to fight the ants over leftovers. Not in this heat.

Day 42

My neighbours invite me over for dinner. Say a young person like myself should have people with them around dinner time. They don't ask about why that is not the case for me.

I like them.

They're nice.

Day 58

My mailman doesn't feel nice. He doesn't sound nice, or smell nice, or look nice or look at me nice, but this is too much to explain, and I can't just say he ain't nice based on these few observations, so I say he doesn't feel nice.

I catch him as he's about to drop some letters in my mailbox, so he just gives them to me instead.

"How you like the house?" He asks out of the blue.

"Fine." I hope to escape conversation with him. He doesn't feel nice after all.

"Your uncle said the same thing. Never stayed long, though. Thank God."

Under the sweltering heat, I freeze, unable to move as the mailman walks away. Only when I can't see him anymore do I start to speedwalk back to my house, flipping through letters as I go.

I pass by the ant hill, dismissing it and the letter from my cousin, asking if I want to visit her anytime soon.

I go up the stairs, dropping the rejection letter from the university I applied to and refusing to pick it up.

I burst through my room door, holding the damning one.

"Your Uncle, Weston." It says on the front.

Like I don't know the fucker's name.

Day 61

Everybody knows. This town is a small one, the mailman is popular. Thus, everybody knows. And everything changes.

Like it usually is every time juicy news gets revealed, it starts with whispers. In the store, at the park, on the way home. People on the streets who recognize me whisper about me and shuffle away when I get too close to them. Close being within four feet. The old ladies won't let me pet their dogs anymore.

But I don't hate this town. It's still a nice town. It's no one's fault that my uncle abducted, abused, and annihilated several, several people in his life.

No one's fault, I think.

My fault, the people think.

Day 70

Terry comes over to my house for the first time. Ever.

"You live here alone?" He asks after he's done inspecting my ground floor.

"I have ants."

Terry laughs like he thinks I'm joking.

We watch a movie, eat some cookies. He puts a hand on my thigh sometime around nine pm and says he hasn't seen upstairs yet.

I'm not dumb.

We go upstairs.

He leaves the next morning.

Day 80

It feels like days are simultaneously longer and shorter now. As temperatures climb higher, tempers grow shorter.

A customer snaps at me, tells me to watch myself, lest he call the police on me. For what? I don't now. But I know it's meant as a threat, so I watch myself.

Terry doesn't invite me to anymore parties. I get the feeling it's less of his own choice. But we still hang out.

My neighbours still invite me for dinner.

I don't hate this town.

Day 87

My uncle sends more letters. I don't read them, I don't need to. The contents fall from the lips of residents who seem to care less about me overhearing their conversations.

The mailman is reading my letters. He's not even bothering to be careful or discreet about it. Such audacity is a mildly respectable.

I pass by a couple and the man tells his partner that "Weston Fisher had other properties. Maybe other bodies are there."

"Old Mr Fisher says he'll never talk to the police, never tell them where all the bodies are! My cousin told me this!" Is what I hear at the park from some eleven year olds.

"Are you going to see your uncle?" Is what an older woman outright asks me at work.

I don't act like it doesn't gaze me because I can't act to save my life. I'm not a theatre kid. It shakes me and quakes me and throws me to the ground to get tossed around like salad.

But it's not like I can just move. Moving is expensive! I still have my job, and my dating friend Terry, and my house with it's stupid ant hill so I can't move yet.

Day 90

Some of the college kids come by, try to follow me home. I lose them by heading towards the police station.

They smelt like drugs.

I change course after they're gone, go straight home with my grocery bag. Mr Gates gave me a discount and I bought food and toiletries and a can of bug spray.

It sits in my kitchen, unused because I'm lazy.

But, I find a single ant wandering my floor as I come out of the bathroom.

Ants have great smell, great sight, great strength and great speed.

None of this stops my shoe, though.

Day 103

My neighbours very politely asked that I don't come by anymore. They never say anything about my uncle.

I don't like them.

They're nice.

Day 118

"Why you never answer him, huh?" The mailman asks me as he hands me my unsealed, read letter.

"Guess." I respond.

He watches me go inside.

He isn't nice.

Day 130

"Should I — should I ask about your uncle?"

I look at Terry, wondering what to say here. "Do you want to ask?"

"Not particularly, no."

"Then don't. Or do. Do whatever pleases you, dude."

"You please me."

"That line is three words too long."

"I'm three too long, but you never complain."

"Shut up."

Endearing. Charming. Handsome. Unchanged. Terrence is longer than Terry.

It's worth the breath to say.

Day 150

Terrence is out of town for a month. His aunt had a baby and the timing matched up with a family reunion. He worries about leaving me, because Terrence is sweet. I tell him to get out.

Mr Gates also has to leave town for a bit. He's visiting his daughter in university. Funny enough, it's the same one I applied to. He makes me promise to look after the shop, saying he'll being me a souvenir from his trip. I tell him everything will be fine.

Day 151

Some of the college boys jump me on my way home. Drag me to an alley, ask unnecessary questions about my uncle and whether I'm a murderer like him, get nothing in reply, beat me up and make it home in time for dinner while I begin a long trek uphill, made that much harder with bruised legs.

Day 152

It happens again.

Day 154

Terrence calls. He asks whether I'm fine. I say yes while holding an ice pack to my stomach.

Day 155

I order tasers and pen knives and other self defence tools.

But I can't bring myself to use them. Frustration makes me curves the bullies taunt me.

Criminals only cry when guilty, they say.

I think of my uncle, teary eyed and droopy the last time I saw him.

I stop crying.

Day 160

I'm woken up in the middle of the night. I don't know what it is yet until I throw off my bed covers and discover ants, the tens of them, crawling over my legs and sheets. I

It's not disgust that fills me, or discomfort or irritation. It's a rage that can only be defined as pure.

How dare they?

How. Dare. They!

Because I haven't bothered to clean up my crumbs, crumbs that they sustain themselves with.

Because I haven't used my insecticides to decimate their home.

Because I haven't paid them much mind, because I've ignored them this long, they dare to come attack me! To disturb me!

How dare they mistake my negligence for benevolence?!

Day 161

I message Terrence and Mr Gates, ask them when they'll be coming back to town. Terrence says in two days, Mr Gates says in four.

Good.

My house is finally on fire. I predicted this, don't know why I bothered putting it off for so long.

The flames eat at the structure, pieces crumble down to ashes. It's beautiful.

It's the starter.

I walk away from the house, my body coated in flames. Squirrels and insects flee from my blazing form.

What? did they think I was normal? Did they the I was mortal? Because I catered to the whims and followed the general rules of society.

I am the incarnation of Iphrit, the son of hell.

I am beyond these ants.

Day 162

I don't hate this town. Hatred is such a tiring emotion. It is a finite fuel, an ignition point.

I dislike the town. This is my fuel. It is infinite and will last.

The entire town is on fire. The police station, the suburbs, the park. Everything.

Except for Terrence's house, Mr Gates' house, and the store. I like those two, I won't destroy them.

I stand at the top of the ant hill that once was this town. I have doused it in my fury.

They wanted my attention.

God help them, they have it.

[jeannereames]

Persian Capitals and Roving Kingship

4. Does Arrian's record mean that Alexander hadn't been on official business for two months or so because of his mourning? Was it also because of mourning that he didn't leave Ecbatana until the winter, or it's because he was resting his army? 5.(not question) I just want to say that I really love your Kampaspe and Kleopatra and really hope to see them more!!! They were both very attractive and, in my opinion, quite rational, unlike many of the stereotypes of women that still exist in literature today. Thank you very much

First, thank you, for #5. I really wanted to present a more (to my mind) realistic view of women in ancient Macedonia, including their own agency.

And yes, both Kampaspe and Kleopatra have major roles going forward.

As for #4, I’m not entirely sure what record in Arrian you mean? But Alexander had gone to Ekbatana for “down time,” to rest his army and provide games, as he did periodically on campaign.

The Persian kings already had a tradition of a mobile court, and three/four capitals.

Persepolis/Parsagadai was largely religious and ceremonial. Kings went there for particular rites and, of course, to be crowned. Otherwise, it wasn’t a proper city, with only a skeleton crew when the king wasn’t in residence.

Susa was the old capital of a Bronze Age empire, taken over by the Persians, and it became the administrative capital of their empire with current records and treasury, whereas Persepolis was largely an archive plus additional treasury. Thus when ATG captured both, he controlled enormous funds.

Ekbatana was the traditional capital of the Medes (cousins to the Persians). So when Cyrus conjoined the two peoples and conquered what would become the Persian empire, he set up a tradition of “roving” king and capital. Hence that ginormous tent ATG captured after the Battle of Issos was effectively a mobile throne room/palace.

Cyrus also added Babylon, the “New York” or “Paris” if you will, of the ancient near east. Culturally, it was distinct, not Persian, but it became a defacto 4th capital. Ergo, when Alexander conquered it all, it made a certain sense for him to choose Babylon as his new capital, rather than continue one of the Persian capitals. It signified a shift in ethnic leadership.

So, Persian kings moved around. They wintered in Susa (and Babylon), then summered in Ekbatana, due to the heat (and mosquitoes) on the rivers. Ekbatana was a better climate, on the piedmont. So that’s why ATG went up there, although he did so rather late in the season, arriving at the end of summer. Hephaistion’s death probably delayed his return south, but it wouldn’t be typical for a Persian king to winter in Ekbatana, if not necessary. It’s cold.

Of course, Alexander didn’t intend to stay in Asia that long anyway, so these usual patterns of movement wouldn’t have applied much to him. Nonetheless, that’s why he left Ekbatana as winter set in. If anything, he was late on the move back to Babylon/Susa.

[el-michoacano]

I Saw the Dead, Small and Great

It’s finally posting day for the @tltbb and I couldn’t possibly be more excited! What a great time this has been! Shout out to the event hosts, and also to @queensabriel and @melli4uhbees, who have been the best artists a girl could ask for! 

Summary: Once upon a time, many, many years ago, Harrowhark's great-great-grandmother, who had herself lived an unnaturally long life, told her that their family was descended from that one wicked snake that haunted the Garden of Eden, that the family Nonigesimus were more serpent than man. At the time, Harrow had thought she was joking, just a senile old woman weaving mindless tales. She knows better now.

Trigger warnings: Suicidal thoughts, lots of talk of death.

READ ON AO3

1 Is your soul prepared?

Harrow isn't sure how the sign got onto her property. It's been there for years and years, the nails rusting, the white paint chipping, the wood rotting beneath it. The sign is as tall as she is, and double as wide as she can stretch her arms. It's sinking into the mud, though, like everything else in this damned place, standing crooked enough that it might just topple over in a strong breeze.

Is your soul prepared?

The words were wrought in bright, angry red once, but they're an ugly brown now, the color of old blood. It's oddly fitting.

Hooligans, Harrow thinks, but she can't be sure. The sign is large, and its post is set deep into the soft earth. Would just any rowdy local boys be able to do such a thing? Would they have any inclination to pass on such a message? She'd been the target of their little pranks before, but such an effort from boys who hadn't the cleverness to not wet the front of their trousers when they took a piss? It seems unlikely. They’ve always been more the type to leave dead animals hanging on the gates. The sign is too civil.

It was the church that planted the sign, she's sure. The Ascension Parish Southern Baptist Church had been after her for years, all the way up until it had caught fire and burned to the ground in 1912. Fingers had pointed at her for that, too, and even now, she occasionally wakes to find God is watching or Repent now! or Open your heart to God! painted across the front gates.

Removing the paint gives her something to do, she supposes. Is it really so bad?

Is your soul prepared?

Harrow has considered removing the sign more times than she can count, but it's not as though any other living soul sees it. Why bother? It's not as if her family's sinking home is the only site of such signs. There are others like it scattered all over the bayou, ones of this seemingly standard size, smaller ones tacked to chain link fences, even huge billboards. God sees all, they proclaim. Jesus saves. Hell is real.

Of course Hell is real, Harrow thinks with a roll of her eyes. She lives there, after all.

Hell's End is the name of this area, a name given by her great-great-grandmother when the family had first arrived in the States all the way from New Zealand. It was to be the end of their long and dangerous journey west, the start of their Heaven on Earth. How wrong she had been. How wrong they had all been.

Harrow is one of the very few who dare to come near this part of the swamp now. The brackish waters part around her feet, and the heels of her elegant boots leave no prints in the mud. The gators go scurrying away at her approach, and high in the moss-draped trees, the cicadas fall silent.

The snakes, though, make no move to flee. They watch her with their bright, slitted eyes, and they bow as best as they can. She is one of them. She offered an apple to Gideon, and another to Alecto, apples of forbidden, carnal knowledge. She is the snake in the Garden of Eden given human form, and she is the mistress of this particular bayou.

Once upon a time, her great-great-grandmother, who had herself lived an unnaturally long life, had told Harrow that their family was descended from that one wicked snake, that they were more serpent than man. At the time, Harrow had thought she was joking, just a senile old woman weaving mindless tales.

She knows better now.

This wickedness is in her blood. Her parents had tried to fight it, but Harrow has long since given in. There's no use in trying to deny who she is.

The wickedness is as much a part of who she is as the swamp is.

The Nonagesimus family have always been the masters of this bayou, back since the 1750s when the house and its great iron gate had sprung seemingly overnight from the mud. That was centuries ago. Harrow isn't sure of the year anymore, but she is certain that it's high summer now. The children should be catching fireflies and the old biddies should be sipping sweet tea on the porch while their husbands talk about the weather, but Harrow is the only Nonagesiumus left in all the world, and the sinking mansion sits quietly in its watery grave, waiting to claim her as it has all the others.

Her family is long gone.

Harrow, with her twisted magic and her unnatural tastes, is all that remains of her once-great, once-powerful family.

The irony of it is enough to choke her, to send her hundreds of dead relations a-spinning in their graves. Or spinning in their coffins, at least. There are no graves here.

2

Though the closest towns are lively and New Orleans isn't terribly far away, there is no music in Hell's End.

There was, once upon a time, a lovely harpsichord in the parlor, but Harrow used it as firewood ages ago. Her mother had been an accomplished player, and she had taught Harrow to play, too, but Harrow couldn't bear the sound. Even in dreams, it breaks her heart.

There was an old gramophone once, too, but it met a similar fate. One too many times, it had come alive in the night, likely by Pelleamena's hand, and Harrow had thrown it from the top gallery. She still steps on its splinters from time to time.

The closest thing Harrow can bear to a song now is Ortus's low humming, though she's not sure it's a hum at all. It's a purr, almost, like that of a cat, a soft, comforting sound. It's the sound of his aura, she thinks, gentler than ever in death.

On occasion, she joins in on the hum, letting it rattle its way up her throat and down through her chest. It's a tender, deep sound, and she worries sometimes that it will shake her apart if she lets it.

Sometimes she thinks she wouldn't mind shaking apart. She could sift her way down through the warped floorboards, down into the manor's sunken foundation and even lower, drifting down, down, down.

Maybe she'll sink all the way into Hell. Maybe Alecto will be waiting for her there, her dark, dark eyes full of longing and anger. Gideon won't be there, though, Harrow knows. Hell is the last place Gideon belongs.

Harrow, though, belongs there. A witch, a homosexual, a murderer. Where else would she belong?

3

The wicker chairs set out behind the house are sinking and rotten, but the ghosts don't favor the back, and so Harrow often finds herself sitting there in the low evening light. Her legs are crossed at the ankle, her wide-brimmed hat pulled low, a book resting open in her lap, though it's too dark to read it now.

The mosquitos are a choking cloud this time of year, buzzing thick in the air, carrying diseases on the wind. They have taken too many of Harrow's kind already. She swats at them with her lace-gloved hands, but they're never deterred. Stubborn things, she thinks. They're the only swamp creatures that don't seem to fear her.

It has to do with her blood, she's sure. There was wicked magic in her veins from the day she was born, and they can smell it, even now, long after she's been bled dry. Though they hover around her like a plague, there's nothing left in her for them to drink. She used it all up trying to bring back her parents, her family name, her old life, her dead lovers.

But they're all gone now, and her magic can't bring them back. Not in any way that matters.

Her parents are gone, interred in the grand white marble mausoleum out behind the house. It's sinking into the swamp, like everything else is, a few centimeters every year. The doors can barely be opened now. When Harrow dies, there will be no way for her to join them in the tomb. Maybe that's for the best. Maybe she doesn't deserve to be with them. They certainly wouldn't welcome her, not after all her disastrous attempts to bring them back.

She doesn't deserve to be with Gideon in death, either, though no one to this day seems to know exactly what became of her. For all Harrow knows, Gideon is in some gator's belly. Had been, anyway. No one has seen her in decades. No one is even looking anymore. Not even Aiglamene is looking anymore. Gideon was murdered, Harrow is certain, likely by the church itself. The worst things always happen to the best people.

And then there was Alecto. A predator, yes, but Harrow's predator. There isn't a day Harrow doesn't regret drowning her, but there was nothing else to be done about her. She was mad. She was inhuman. She was everything Gideon wasn't, and Harrow had taken comfort in that for a while. But Alecto had ripped poor, sweet Ortus limb from limb in a fit of rage, and her drowning was a far easier death than she had deserved.

Alecto sits on the fence at the edge of the property most days, her dark, empty eyes staring off into the distance.

On particularly gloomy days, Ortus joins her. Even dead, he can't bear to be alone. He's more a great mass of shadow than a true figure, weak even in death, but Harrow would know him anywhere. Her heart aches when she sees him. The sad, tremulous smile he gives her makes her want to die.

But after all she's been through, is there anything that doesn't make her want to die?

Is there anything in the great, wide world that makes her want to live?

If there is, she hasn't found it.

At this point, she doubts it exists at all.

She doesn't live now, anyway. She just survives.

4

Slowly but surely, the Nonagesimus house is sinking into the mud.

It's been sinking for years, of course. It started the day Harrow's parents died.

Died.

It's too gentle a term. They didn't pass away in their beds, old as the hills, their souls well-prepared, as parents should. They didn't go peacefully. They didn't just die.

Pelleamena and Priamhark hung themselves from the high branches of the cypress tree that had been growing just inside the gates since before the gates had even been erected. Harrow had been the one to find the bodies, the one to cut them down, the one to lay them to rest in the family mausoleum.

Her being the one to read their note was by far the worst of it.

You bring shame on us, it had said. It had been scrawled in her mother's elegant handwriting, and her father hadn't even bothered to sign it. Harrow often finds herself wondering if he even read it, or if he had found Pelleamena's body before Harrow had and followed his wife to the grave of his own volition.

It was Harrow's fault either way, and to this day, after all these decades, she carries the weight of it on her back. It weighs so much that she can barely stand upright, hunched like an old woman in her wanderings. She would be an old woman, were it not for her magic. This eternal life is her punishment, and she deserves every single second alone.

Her parents were ashamed of her, and probably had been for most of her life. Even as a child, there was something wrong about her. They had tried and tried for more children, but alas, she was the only one to make it to birth. Their only daughter, they whispered, the blood witch. Their only daughter, the necrophiliac. Their only daughter, the homosexual. Their shame had driven them into the arms of Death, and their precious child had played witness to it.

She should have seen it coming from a country mile away, but she hadn't. She had been too busy trying to resurrect Gideon and kill Alecto to notice their downcast eyes and trembling mouths. She hadn't noticed how they had wasted away until she was cutting them down from their twin nooses.

Harrow supposes it doesn't matter. Even dead, her parents are with her now.

They stand silent most days, pacing the sinking house's top gallery, staring out over the swamp with their dark, sunken eyes and their sewn-shut mouths. Dead men, after all, tell no tales. She's made certain of that.

Though they can't reply, not in words, she does talk to them sometimes.

Today, though, she's more focused on the foxfire darting through the trees. This is no swamp gas, she's sure. She's intimately familiar with that particular sight. Instead of the usual blue, this light is violet, and it moves slowly, ambling through the trees without a care in the world.

There's someone down there, Harrow realizes.

The question is, is this person living or dead?

5

It isn't alive.

Harrow isn't sure if it's human, but certainly is not alive.

She meets it outside the iron gate, her hand resting against the metal, as if its narrow bars can somehow protect her from this strange half-dead girl.

"Hello," it says. Its smile is sharp and fanged, its voice a rasping whine, like dead tree branches scraping a window during a storm. It takes Harrow's hand in its golden right one, presses its soft, bluing mouth to her knuckles, and Harrow can feel the coolness of it through the lace of her gloves. It's prettier than it has any right to be, despite its wasted appearance and its pallid skin and the deep, dark shadows beneath its eyes. "Have you been waiting long?" it asks, catching her eyes with its own.

Waiting? Harrow doesn't wait. She takes. The only thing she's waiting for is death. Perhaps, she thinks, this is Death. "Who are you?" she asks, slowly, stupidly. Her voice is rough from lack of use, the croak of a frog more than the voice of a witch. It's oddly fitting.

The other woman, tall and pale as a ghost, laughs at her, and the sound is the knell of church bells ringing on a foggy morning. They're funeral bells.

Hear the tolling of the bells -- Iron bells! Harrow thinks. She pulls her hand away, wraps her arms around herself. What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

It asks, its voice low and seductive, "Who do you want me to be, Harrowhark?"

Harrow bristles. No one has called her by her name in years. She doubts anyone even knows her name anymore. Only old Aiglamene would remember, if she even remembers anything. This time, Harrow asks, "What are you?"

The eyes roll. They're a ludicrous shade of purple, striped with blue and brown, deep-set and heavy-lidded. They're inhuman. "I'm no one," it says, then approaches her, reaching a hand toward her face. Harrow doesn't flinch, even when the soft fingertips and sharp claws brush her cheek. "And yet everyone knows me." It moves closer, and Harrow can smell it: Musty, powdery, with something sweet underneath. Something terribly, deathly sweet. "Everyone faces me."

It's the smell of rot, Harrow realizes. "You really are Death."

It leans closer, brushes its mouth against hers. It agrees in a voice like shattering ice, "I really am."

6

"I've been waiting for you for years." Harrow feels strange saying it, but she can't take it back now. She feels stranger still letting this creature into her home, but she can't take that back, either. Why would she want to? Death is the first physical guest she's had for decades. It's been all ghosts and vermin for far too long. "Where have you been?"

"Around," Death says, its eyes roving as it steps into the manor, stepping gingerly through the puddles in the foyer, its feet bare. It's dressed all in white, its long skirt trailing on the floor, the hem damp and muddy. It wears only a camisole on top, the straps thin and hanging off its bony shoulders, short enough that it leaves a few inches of its midriff enticingly bare. Harrow startles at that: She hasn't been enticed in decades. She startles again when she realizes how utterly human it is to feel enticed. Perhaps she's still human after all. "I keep a very busy schedule."

Harrow has the distinct feeling that that isn't true, but she doesn't dare say so.

Death itself has come to her.

It's hard not to feel special in the wake of it, and she swallows down a wave of pride. Pride. She hasn't felt that in ages, either.

"You really live like this?" Death asks as it steps into the parlor, the damp rug squelching obscenely under its bare feet.

This room had once been grand, but now, it's little more than a shadow of its former self. A ghost of itself, like its mistress. The walls are lined in ceiling-high shelves full of moldering books and pretty little treasures, the Persian rug unwinding at its edges, the lovely chaise discolored and misshapen from years of sweat and sitting. All the furniture in the house is in such a state. Harrow can't find it in herself to be embarrassed by it anymore.

Death takes a seat on the chaise, kicking its bare feet up onto the far end, its delicate ankles crossed one over the other. Its skin is so pale that the worn navy velvet makes its veins all but glow.

It's otherworldly, and Harrow comes to sit in front of it on the warped wood of the floor. She arranges her skirts carefully, keeping her tattered slippers hidden under her equally tattered hem. Had she known Death was finally coming for her, she would have dressed better. "Why are you only here now?" she asks, an unfamiliar desperation in her voice. Of course she's desperate, she thinks. She's been waiting since before the turn of the century. She's been waiting longer than most people get to live.

"I told you," Death says, picking at a loose string on the arm of the chaise. A bit of the piping comes off with it. "I've been busy." It glances up with its ludicrous eyes, meets Harrow's gaze, holds it fast. Harrow feels caught in their depths, like a fly in a glass of sweet tea. Sweet it is, though. "And I thought you would have come to me on your own by now."

7

The following morning, Harrow wakes alone, still dressed and still exhausted.

She's disappointed, but she can't bring herself to be surprised. She's poison, after all. Even Death itself can't bear to be around her. She can't say she blames it.

She's still on the floor in the parlor, the chaise empty, but it still has that smell clinging to it: Musty and cloyingly sweet. Like violets, Harrow thinks again. Death has eyes like violets. Who would have guessed? Certainly not her.

She had always imagined Death as a skeleton wrapped in a black robe, a scythe at its side, its eyes empty black pits in its skeleton face. Death didn't look like a girl, but an ancient being, rotting away from the inside. She had had a nightmare, once, that Death had come to her in the guise of her long-dead aunt, Glaurica. In the dream, Harrow had very nearly taken its hand.

She had never feared Death. Even now, having met it in person, she doesn't fear it.

Death was the first real companionship she had felt in ages.

She thinks this even as her mother crosses the room. Pelleamena is dressed in the same long, trailing black dress she wore on the eve of her death, her long black hair pulled into a braid that hangs heavy down her back. It looks eerily like a rope. She's reaching for a book on the ceiling-high shelf, but her hand goes right through the spine, and she pulls back, staring through her transparent fingers as if it hasn't happened a thousand times over.

Harrow watches her, silent as a stone.

Even in death, they barely acknowledge each other.

Priamhark, as much as the ghostly thing that wanders the house is Priamhark, is less dead. When Harrow watches him, he watches her right back.

"Father," Harrow says to him as he paces the gallery.

He doesn't speak, Harrow has made certain of that with her postmortem sewing, but he looks at her, and his dark, dark eyes are gentle.

They stand together, his lighter-than-air hand over hers on the gallery's splintered railing, and this night, the swamp is dark.

8

When her parents killed themselves, Harrow called the police.

Hours passed.

No one came.

Pigs, Harrow had thought.

She's been alone ever since, save Death and the ghosts. Even Aiglamene has stopped visiting.

Harrow doesn't mind being alone most of the time. It's the peaceful nights that get her.

In the quiet, under the singing of crickets and the rumbling of the gators, she can hear Gideon's voice. Gideon, asking, You really gonna wear that? Gideon, calling her baby. Gideon, begging for her touch.

From time to time, it's Alecto's voice in her head, whispering songs and poetry and utter nonsense. Too much of her voice, and Harrow is certain she'll go mad. For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee, Alecto sings in her whispery, water-logged voice, and the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

Now, though, it's Gideon's voice nor Alecto's she hears.

The air is hot around her, humid, and Harrow loses herself in the fantasy, her black eyes slipping closed. Her chewed-down nails rake against her skin, and she imagines a golden hand in their place. She imagines bluing lips at her neck, too-sharp white teeth sinking into her neck. She imagines the cool, meager weight of Death above her. It's Death's voice she hears, and in its creaking hanging-tree voice, it whispers, Come.

Harrow does.

9

You bring shame on us.

Though her mother hasn't spoken in half a century, Harrow can still hear the words in her voice. She had a lovely voice, Harrow's mother. It was elegant and soft, almost musical. Her words always came slowly, carefully selected before they passed her lips. The note was probably exceptionally well selected. Short and sweet.

The note is tucked into the neckline of Harrow's gown, the paper tucked against her heart and tinged yellow from years of sweat and tears.

Harrow can't bear to be without it.

It's her cross to bear, and she must bear it alone.

10

It's a full week before Death shows itself again. Harrow finds it in her room, stretched out on the molding canopy bed. The canopy is less lace now than Spanish moss, the covers mildewed and practically falling apart. Death doesn't seem to mind. It looks perfectly at ease, its hands joined behind its head, its right leg bent, the other tossed over its knee. It was humming to itself, its pale foot bouncing along to the rhythm.

Harrow can hardly believe that it's back.

Death's voice is an undignified whine when it asks, "Did you forget about me, Harrowhark?"

How could I? Harrow doesn't say. She does say, "I tried to." It's not entirely true. "I thought you'd abandoned me again."

"Abandoned you?" Death looks almost offended, its golden hand coming to its chest, clutching invisible pearls, but its laughter is high and sweet, bouncing off the crumbling walls like birdsong. Harrow represses a pleasant shiver at the sound of it. "Harry, my love," Death says, smiling with blue lips and too-sharp animal teeth, "I have been beside you since the day you were born."

My love? Harrow's cheeks go warm, but she ignores it, asking, "Since I was born?" It seems impossible. It also seems impossible that Death exists as a person at all. She's been surrounded by impossibility for as long as she can remember. This shouldn't be so surprising. "How could you possibly have time for that?"

"There are half a million Deaths," says Death with a wave of its hand. It wears lacy, threadbare gloves, and its cuticles are bluish, its nails chewed short. "This is just the area I chose to cover," it's saying, though it doesn't sound at all interested. Harrow wonders if it's even capable of interest. "There are fewer people here, less work. I can just hover most of the time."

The dark cloud of Death follows us, Harrow's grandmother had once told her. It seems she was right. Harrow can't quite believe it, even now. It's a curse, her grandmother had told her, and we deserve it. "Why me?" she asks.

"Why not?" Death shoots back. It holds out its arms, and against her better judgment, Harrow climbs into bed beside it, letting it enfold her. The gold of its skeletal right arm is chilly through the worn lace of her dress. "You Nonagesimus types are my favorite. You always come to me so willingly."

Harrow props herself up on her elbow, meeting Death's eyes with her own. "You know my family?"

"All the dead ones," Death says with a shrug that sends the strap of its camisole slipping off its shoulder. The veins just beneath its icy-pale skin are especially visible there, and Harrow lifts a hand to trace them. They have a green tint to them, and she wonders if there's blood in them at all, or if this iteration of Death has algae and swamp moss in its veins. "I gave the kiss of death to your father, and to your mother, and to Glaurica, and to sweet Ortus." Death ticks off each name off on its spidery fingers. Then it looks down at Harrow, one colorless brow lifting. "And then there was Alecto." Harrow feels the blood drain from her face, the breath fleeing her lungs in a single second. "She wasn't one of you, was she?"

"She could have been," Harrow says, softly, "eventually."

"You sent her to me gift-wrapped, didn't you?" Death doesn't sound at all bothered, and it slips its fingers beneath Harrow's chin, forcing her to look it in the eye. "It had been so long since I received a sacrifice like that. Your people don't offer tribute like they used to."

"Our magic isn't what it used to be," Harrow says.

"I wonder why," Death says. Its smile fades, though, when it asks, "You're how old? I'd say your magic is working just fine."

Harrow's lips threaten to smile, but it never comes. She says, "It's impolite to ask a lady's age."

Death itself laughs at her, songbird-sweet. "All you want is to die," it says, sounding bemused, one brow lifted in a match to the corner of its mouth, "and yet you'll live forever."

"For far too long, anyway," Harrow agrees, shivering when Death's golden hand slides into her hair, carding carefully through choppy black locks.

The silence that falls then isn't silence at all. Outside, the wind is in the trees and in the water. The cicadas are singing. Birds call to one another. Harrow's heart is beating a mile a minute, pounding in her ears. Death's heart isn't beating at all.

Softly, its voice almost a purr, Death says, "Did you know you've been dying your whole life?"

Harrow scoffed. "Isn't everyone?"

11

"Where did you go?" Harrow's voice is soft and plaintive, and she hates it. She's straddling Death's waist on her bed, its pointy hip bones pressing into the backs of her thighs. It feels like too much too soon, and it's far too intimate, but she has no intention of pulling away. She could stay like this forever.

Death presses its fingertips, both the flesh ones and the golden ones, into Harrow's hips. "Someone needed transporting," it said with a shrug of its narrow shoulders.

"You do that?" Harrow asks. Her hands are resting against the flat plane of Death's stomach, her fingertips tucked just beneath the hem of its camisole. "Transport people?"

"I transport souls," Death says. Its eyes are on Harrow's, searching for something in her black gaze. "This one was the last one in the area, save you."

Harrow's unkempt eyebrows draw together, her eyes flittering off to one side. As far as she knows, she's the only person still living in the area. She asks, "Who was it?"

Death, strangely, hesitates. "An old woman called Aiglamene," it says, and there's a strange weight in its voice, as if it knows how much Aiglamene meant to Harrow once upon a time. "Must have been a hundred and twenty years old." Its hands slide down to Harrow's thighs, its thumbs coming to rest in the creases of her knees. "Maybe even older than you."

"By a bit," Harrow agrees, doing her best to keep the sudden numbness out of her voice. "I didn't know she was still here."

"Keeping an eye on you," Death says, "from what I can gather."

And now she's gone, Harrow doesn't say, but the words fill her chest. It hurts.

"You should have seen her automobile," Death is saying, sounding almost mystified. Its hands are joined behind its head now, its eyes distant. "Such an incredible machine!"

More to herself than to Death, Harrow says, faintly, "I've never seen an automobile." Gideon had one that she was immensely fond of, but she hadn't trusted it on the marshy roads of the swamp. Alecto, old-fashioned thing that she was, chose to simply walk. It had made her disappearance so much easier.

"You're so behind the times, Harry," Death chides, though there's amusement clear in its voice. "You should come to town with me." It gives her a sly grin, looking very much like the fox that managed to break into the chicken coop. They're both foxes, Harrow realizes. "The things I could show you..."

"No." Harrow says it far too quickly, and her eyes dart off to the side, embarrassed. "No, I belong here. My magic ends here. I would age fifty years if I ever left the swamp."

"Shame, that." Death doesn't sound particularly bothered. Instead, its hands come to Harrow's thighs again, pushing the fabric of her skirt immodestly high, up past the tops of her stockings. It takes everything Harrow has to keep from pushing her hips into the touch. "But there are so many things I can show you right here."

12

The next time Harrow wakes, she isn't alone.

She's on the great bed in her room, Death's arms wound tight around her and holding her close. Her chest is pressed to Death's side, its skin bare and cool to the touch, devoid of breath or a heartbeat. It's eerily still. It's not Harrow's first time in such close contact with a corpse.

Outside, through the thin curtains over the balcony doors and the windows, the light is thin and greyish, either dusk or dawn, but certainly overcast. There's a storm coming. Harrow wonders if Death will simply sleep through it.

Death, unsurprisingly, sleeps like the dead. All through the night, it didn't move even once.

Was it only all night? It could have been years, for all Harrow knows.

As she lays quiet in Death's arms, she's surprised to find that she doesn't mind that idea. Let her dream her life away in the arms of Death. There are worse fates.

13

Just inside the door of the sinking manor is an antique dark wood table. On top of it is a crystal vase filled with flame-orange roses.

They were a gift of Aiglamene, given shortly after Gideon vanished in a rare gesture of comfort.

They are the single thing in the house that isn't rotting.

Harrow stands before them, staring, willing life through them.

Death stands beside her, watching quietly, its arms crossed over its chest, its head tipped curiously to the side. "I can feel their age," it says, its voice soft and thoughtful. "How long have you had these?"

"Decades," Harrow says. She plucks one from the crystal vase and tucks it behind Death's ear. Immediately, the life leaves the petals, and even when Harrow touches the petals, she can't revive it.

Death says, softly, "Are you afraid, Harrowhark?"

"No," Harrow says, and is surprised to realize that she means it.

"Good." Death steps behind her, wrapping its arms around Harrow's waist, resting its pointed chin on her shoulder. Its skin is soft and chilled. "With old Aiglamene gone, my attention is all yours."

The smell of violets mingles with the scent of roses, and Harrow realizes there's nothing she wants more.

14

"How do you do it?" There's something like awe in Death's voice, its head tipped to the side, a chipped tumbler half-full of decades-old scotch in its golden hand. "I'd lose my mind if I had to stay here all the time."

There's no derision in its tone, and Harrow says, "Maybe I have."

"Suppose you wouldn't know if you had," Death says, taking a long sip. "You could be dead right now, couldn't you? Would you even know the difference?"

She isn't dead. She may be dead inside, but she still feels. Harrow feels the chair she's sitting on, threadbare and creaky as it is, feels the warped wood beneath her bare feet, feels the coolness of Death sitting beside her. She would know, she tells herself.

She doesn't quite believe it.

15

Death goes out sometimes, wandering through the swamp and into the towns.

Harrow watches it leave from the iron gate, Ortus at her right, Alecto at her left. Her parents keep close, too, sewn-lipped and sullen.

Even with the ghosts, Harrow is alone, waiting.

Her life has become a waiting game, and she finds she doesn't mind, because she knows she'll never be alone for long.

Death always returns to her, sometimes with a man to sacrifice or a woman to seduce, sometimes with a butchered gator or a pot of jambalaya it found God-knows-where. It rarely comes to the manor empty-handed.

Death is courting her, Harrow realizes, and for the first time in decades, she smiles.

16

The courting is gentle. Death often is, isn't it?

It comes softly, like sleep, darkening the edges of the world and drawing it all in close.

Death steals the very breath from Harrow's lungs, pinning her flat against the wall. Its blue lips are pressed to her nape, its golden hand resting lightly around her throat, its spidery flesh hand at her hip.

Its voice is soft when it says, "You were made for this."

Made to be used by Death itself? Made to cater to Death itself? Made to be a lover to Death itself? The answer is obvious. "I was," Harrow agrees, her voice nearly lost in her heavy breathing. "I am."

17

Harrow spends her time in the arms of Death itself, now. But is that any different from how she lived before?

At the end of a long day, she waits beside the rusting gate, waiting for her deathly love to return to her.

The branches of the too-familiar cypress shake above her, Spanish moss swaying in the breeze. She presses a hand to its rough bark and wills it to live. Like the roses, it must live. It's a monument now. This tree is her old friend, known all her life.

As is Death, approaching through evening fog, violet eyes shining in the dark.

Being in the company of Death is better than being alone, Harrow supposes as Death's arms wind around her, pulling her close. Death's lips are blue and chilled against hers, but she melts into the feeling of it, as she always does.

As they walk back toward the sinking manor, they pass the old sign. Is your soul prepared?

Death trails its golden, skeletal fingertips along the top of the sign as they pass, and the wood is immediately overtaken by mold and mushrooms, the paint flaking off in great chunks.

"Is my soul prepared?" Harrow asks as they walk in the dark.

"Oh, Harry," Death laughs. Its glowing eyes turn to her, hypnotic and bright as lightning bugs. "Your soul has been ready for me since you were born."

[jewwyfeesh]

Firefly’s Night - Things That Gradually Drift Away 2

Writer: Mitsuki

Characters: Kanzaki Souma, Otogari Adonis

Translated by: jewwyfeesh

Special thanks: Zed for minor corrections

Summary: Souma and Adonis rendevous in the garden, ready to depart for ‘firefly appreciation’[1]. Akehoshi had drawn up a map for firefly viewing, handing it over to Adonis. After the both of them studied it for some time, they finally understood that the most suitable place to view fireflies was on the mountain near the school.

Souma: Um… well. Adonis-dono, are- are you sure this really is a ‘map’?

Season: Summer

Location: Park

Souma: Adonis-dono, I’ve completed the preparations for the ‘firefly appreciation’.

Adonis: Mm. The mosquitoes in Japan are much weaker than those from my hometown, so I’ll only have to protect Kanzaki.

Souma: ‘Protect’… Adonis-dono, the two of us are of the same age, and we are both males.

While I am very grateful to you for training with me on a regular basis, I do wish that you don’t converse with me in a tone of voice that is reserved for talking to women or children.

I’ll cut down anything that gets in my way with this katana.

Then again, Adonis-dono has an enviable physique. Comparatively, it seems that I still lack exercise.

Adonis: Sorry, it was not my intention to look down on Kanzaki.

My body is not all the result of exercise. The environment I grew up in is different from yours.

In my home country, the types of insects we see during the summer are bigger and in larger numbers than that of Japan.

You must hone your skills in dealing with not only large animals, but large insects as well in order to survive.

Some bugs are more threatening than large animals. One needs to be careful not to get infected by them. Even if the damage is not immediate, like an injury from a large animal.

The after effects could be even more painful, almost unbearable… and life threatening.

Therefore I was surprised when Akehoshi mentioned that Japan still has a custom of watching insects… or rather, ‘watching fireflies’.

Souma: Ohhh, so that’s the reason why Adonis-dono had been dumbfounded.

Akehoshi-dono is right. The custom of ‘firefly appreciation’ is something that has existed since the ancient times.

It is said that people would wear bath robes and gather by the shore to watch the fireflies. In some places, festivals, singing and or dancing performances are also held.

Unfortunately, my understanding of ‘firefly appreciation’ events are limited to words.

My family is busy preparing for the festival every summer, so I never had the opportunity to attend.

I would also like to ‘watch the fireflies’ together with like-minded friends. Hasumi-dono and Kiryuu-dono from Akatsuki are very busy during this summer vacation, and I cannot trouble them out of my own willfulness.

Moreover, rather than ‘companions’… I always felt that those two felt more like ‘seniors’…?

In short, I am very happy to receive Adonis-dono’s invitation! Without further ado, let’s go now! I intend to catch all of the fireflies…☆

Adonis: Wait a moment. I heard that you are not allowed to catch the fireflies during ‘firefly appreciation’, Kanzaki.

Though, this makes me very happy. If Kanzaki did not attend, I would not be able to ‘appreciate the fireflies’ alone.

Adonis: Earlier, Akehoshi had drawn up a map for ‘firefly appreciation’ and handed it to me, but I don’t quite understand it. Could you take a look at it for me?

Souma: Is it a hand-drawn map by Akehoshi-dono? He is rather enthusiastic… give it to me ♪

Um… well. Adonis-dono, are- are you sure this really is a ‘map’?

The lines are extremely messy, much like a child’s doodle; it’s hard to tell where is where. The word ‘fireflies’ is not written on this either, so I am also unable to discern where exactly is the intended destination.

There are some wavy lines here, with a ‘the treasure is here~☆’ written next to it. I don’t understand what it means at all.

Could it be that it’s some pitfall or trap, Adonis-dono…?

Adonis: Akehoshi is so lively that at times, I do not understand what he intends to say. Though, he did make it clear that the place he painted is the one with the most fireflies in this area.

Souma: Hmm, so that’s how it is. Even though Akehoshi-dono is a little unconventional, he’s not a bad guy who likes to tease his classmates, neither is he the kind of person to do meaningless things.

This is the only place on the picture that words are written; an arrow is drawn as well. This must be the place Akehoshi-dono wants us to go.

Assuming that is the premise… ah, that’s for sure. These rectangles… these rectangles are representative of Yumenosaki Academy. I think Akehoshi-dono used them to represent the school’s buildings.

Therefore, these three large triangles are the mountains near the school.

The place we need to go is one of the rivers on that mountain. As for the exact location… the hillside halfway up the west-facing mountain.

This is a map that has to be understood backwards. First, one must ascertain the location, then determine the route based on that. It is a map that only people who want to see the fireflies will be able to understand.

As expected of Akehoshi-dono! What an interesting, enigmatic idea ♪

Adonis: Kanzaki. Are ‘fireflies’ really such rare and precious things? Is it because they glow? Why did Akehoshi call them ‘treasures’?

Souma: Hm. I don’t think it is because they ‘glow’… they are common during the summertime, and there are many creatures that emit light too.

Our Marine Life Club’s Club President-dono also kept some glowing fish ♪

Speaking of which, the elders in my family have also spoken of a few firefly related legends. The performances that are conducted during ‘firefly appreciation’ all over Japan are usually related to these legends.

But those legends aren’t bad… it’s just that none of them have any relation to ‘treasures’.

Adonis: …?

Souma: Adonis-dono, I think we will be able to better understand Akehoshi-dono after this.

If I tell you now, it might affect your judgement. Instead of coming to me with questions every time, I hope that you will be able to experience and understand them on your own.

In short, let’s not stand here idly and talk, but set off as soon as possible. It’s getting late.

The terms ‘firefly appreciation’, ‘firefly watching’ or ‘watching the fireflies’, ‘firefly viewing’ are used interchangeably, and all refer to the custom of… well, watching fireflies. I tried to keep it constant throughout the text but uh... already failed spectacularly during the summary (lol).

[ginkgomoon]

Finding a Real Life Ginkgo Tree

“Life was a ginkgo tree and it bent right to your wind.”

This February, the ginkgo tree was named “Plant of the Month” by the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney, Australia. I’ve wanted to visit one ever since and today I finally had the opportunity!

Let’s go ginkgo tree hunting with me!

Royal Botanical Gardens’ Ginkgo Information

Common Name: Maiden Hair Tree

Scientific Name: Ginkgo biloba L.

Family: Ginkgoaceae

My Understanding: Gavin’s Ginkgo

Ginkgo biloba, sometimes referred to as a ‘living fossil’, is the only surviving member of an ancient order (Ginkgoales) of seed bearing plants around 270 million years old. Individual trees and populations of trees are renowned and revered for their longevity. They have been cultivated for thousands of years in China and many examples of planted and wild trees thought to be over one thousand years old exist, including a penjing (bonsai) specimen said to be 1,300 years old. Plants were brought to Japan with Buddhism in the 6th CE and the oldest specimen in Europe, planted in Utrecht Botanic Gardens in 1730 still survives as does the specimen at Kew Garden planted in 1762. Their longevity is due in part to their resistance to insect attack and ability to regrow vegetatively.

Description Tall, usually broad domed deciduous tree to 40 m. Unique fan shaped (bilobed) leaves that resemble the leaves of the maidenhair fern. Trees are prized for their autumn foliage when leaves turn a beautiful butter yellow.

Distribution Two small areas in Zhejiang province in eastern China, in the Tianmushan Reserve. Populations in the Dalou Mountains, southwestern China may also be natural populations.

Such beautiful weather today. I had to catch a train to the City area where our landmarks and the gardens were!

And there’s our famous Sydney Harbour Bridge!

It’s Autumn now, and that’s when the ginkgo leaves start to turn yellow. It was previously green in the Summer, so I had to wait a while for this season. 

The Royal Botanical Gardens is just right behind the Opera House! That’s where we will find our ginkgo trees. And plus, the sky and clouds are amazing here.

After I entered, I walked around for three hours trying to find ONE ginkgo tree. There were several in the area and I GOT LOST. 

I had to go Bed 32 but I ended up from Bed 53 to Bed 112? Like what?

But finally in the end, I had made it, and there stood the tree in all its glory. 

It wasn’t what I expected. I thought I was getting a one-on-one bonding moment with the tree but I ended up having it with mosquitos and spiders in the area. 

Most of the tree was still green, but a smaller section had luckily turned just in time for me to pick some out. Most had fallen on the floor or in other surrounding bed areas. 

I was still so happy though, because seeing a ginkgo tree in real life had unknowingly become one of my life goals. 

People in the area where looking at me weirdly like, “why was this girl smiling and jumping around at a tree?” 

BUT I DON’T CARE LOL.

SO BEAUTIFUL. 

Most were out of my reach, unfortunately.

How the heck does Gavin manage to jump onto a ginkgo tree like damn, they’re so tall. 

But then again, he jumped out a window to get on the tree so...

RARE SIGHTING OF GAVIN IN HIS STF UNIFORM NEAR A GINKGO TREE?!!

Jokes, it’s just me in my Gavin outfit. 

YES, THIS IS HOW SERIOUS I AM. 

Took a “selfie”. 

That’s it! I had to say goodbye to the tree :(

Unfortunately, I had no time to look for others in the rest of the gardens. Maybe next time, I can look for a camphor tree for all the Lucien stans! And a rose bush for Victor. And maybe a daisy patch for Kiro?

I came back with two mosquito bites and survived an eating attempt from the spiders. Glad to know that Gavin isn’t afraid of spiders or mosquitos. (LIKE, THEY WERE AS BIG AS THE ONES IN CHINA. But it was a super hot day, so of course, they had to come to feast.) 

However, I did manage to find some beautiful stray ginkgo leaves! I can’t post a photo otherwise I’d go over my photo limit but I’ll post them later, haha. 

Overall, it was such a cool experience, seeing how this tree that came all the way from China is growing so well in here. I hope to visit the tree again soon!

[your-very-rude-neighborhood-ace]

If yall want to know what living in modernized Texas is; (tw guns, bugs, and murder)

Hometown very normal except the fact that we have a cattle drive through the streets every year. And there are like skyscrapers near the place where we drive the cattle so I don't know anymore.

No one has a horse. We can smell rain though.

Gays don't exist (Lol I am the gay one)

You have to say the Texas pledge in elementary school every single day, and for some reason we had patriotic Wednesdays where the announcements would play a patriotic song over the loudspeakers.

saying howdy at a McDonald's drive through for no reason

Mosquitoes and cicadas. 1 bites 1 screems

This might not be for everybody in Texas, I have a vivid memory of our very Southern PE coach playing southern songs. So kids playing tag as song says "All My Exes Live in Texas so I hang my head in Tennessee" or "I Could Have Been a Cowboy running around the ranch" is seared into my mind ( he also yelled at us about our running times and we were in like fourth grade when he said they were sh*t, so he had issues)

I did not know gay people existed until 5th grade. It didn't ever show up in Texas.

There are 5 gays at my middle school and its huge

Our school had a theme song, and it was to tune of Deep in the Heart of Texas. it was a bop tho

No one likes Tr^mp

All the schools are so freaking competitive

We straight up have coyotes that nobody talks about. Like my dad saw one less than 4 feet away from him, and like nobody ever acknowledge that we have them.

Snake warning signs

Summer is spent at the community pool unless you want to burn up

Nobody has guns, except for that one really rich white family with this girl in my class that I hate. Honestly she is just like white tomboy meets Class Clown which equals assh•le. Yeah we have a poster white family that funds the school they suck.

Yall'd've probably have this but OLD CREEPY WHITE GYM TEACHER

Our ex mayor straight up m♤rdered her child and then k!lled herself, and my town has it covered so well its honestly creepy

9000000 churches most abandoned (if you want a story about 1 just tell me, I'll anon it)

We have a huge Forest oh, and a river that goes through it. There's some Loki creepy things about that but it's mostly fine, other than the fact that there deadly snakes in there. We still have a walking path throught it. A deadly snake did bite my dog on said path.

I could go on forever about the lo key cursed parts of my town, but yeah Texas isn't that bad.

i’d like to know the small town texas secrets👀

[thiswasinevitableid]

11. Centaur Indruck (maybe specifically Duck) rating up to you

Here you go! I went with SFW, and a western theme just for fun.

It’s only May, but the desert air is hot and dry, will only get more so as the summer spreads across the mountains. The sun drives Duck to the stream running down the hill, it’s banks shaded by cottonwoods. Pa Newton sent him in search of flowers for the table; it’s Ma Newton’s birthday, and her husband is determined to make it perfect. 

“I only get so much time away from the mines, best make the most of it.”

Duck knows just what to pick. Lupines and Daisies will make the perfect bouquet. He spies a clump of daisies, lowers himself to the ground, taking care not to crush too many as he sits. There’s a scuff of rock as grey-brown dust lands on his shoulder. He looks up, expecting a jackrabbit or maybe even a deer, and finds a human staring down at him. 

The boy must be about his age, his pale hair falling about a face that’s as skinny as the rest of him. His clothes look fancy, which is at odds with the tear in the knee and smudges on his cheeks. Brown eyes are watery as they stare back at Duck, and he suspects his hands are over his mouth because he was crying and didn’t want Duck to hear him. 

“Uh, howdy.” He waves. Instead of waving back, the boy seems more alarmed. 

Maybe he’s never seen a centaur before?

Duck tries again, “You lost? I’m goin back up to town real soon, and if I can’t help you, my folks can.”

The boy sniffs, “I’m not lost. I’m hiding.”

“From what?” Duck gathers up his daisies, spots lupine near the rock where the boy is perching. 

“Other boys in town. I hate it here, hate how hard it is to breathe, hate the dust, hate how there’s odd things like centaurs and cactus cats out here-”

“Hey!”

The boy winces so intensely Duck regrets yelling, “Apologies. I just, I wish we’d never left the city.”

That explains the clothes. Duck, at eleven years old, knows very little about the town economy. But he knows that while the silver is found in the mines around his home, the money runs down hill to Carson City.

“How come you did?”

“Father got a new job at the bank. Why are you here?” He cocks his head. 

“‘Cause my family’s lived in these parts for six generations.”

“No, I meant by the water.”

“Oh. Uh, pickin flowers for my mama.”

“Don’t let the other boys see you. If they broke my glasses for drawing flowers, I don’t think they’ll be too kind to you.”

Duck shrugs, “I ain’t scared of them. And there ain’t nothin wrong with drawin flowers.” Bouquet finished, he stands, the boy’s eyes widening as he registers the differences in their shapes. 

“You wanna walk up the hill with me?”

“Yes, please.” 

As the trek back to the dusty streets of Virginia City, he learns the human is called Indrid, and that he’s much more talkative than his initial reticence implied. They’re mid discussion of the caterpillars Indrid is raising when they reach a fine, three story house. Indrid bids Duck good afternoon. Duck asks him to wait, takes a lupine from the bouquet, and tucks it safely into the buttonhole on his jacket. 

------------------------------------------------

“Want some?” Duck holds out a biscuit from his lunch pail. Indrid takes it, scarfing it down in one go.

“Hungry?” Duck teases, sipping from his canteen. 

“Enough to eat a horse.” Indrid grins as his friend clutches his sides, laughing. He’d used the turn of phrase accidentally two weeks ago, then tried to cover it with a joke about only if the horse was willing, which only made his friend guffaw and wheeze harder. Now, whenever one of them needs to crack the other up, they mention eating horses.

They’re fourteen, and have spent the better part of the summer working on the Newton Ranch. Duck’s father, after a very close call in the silver mines, decided to extend his time above ground by running an egg and dairy supply for the town. Indrid convinced his father that it was good for a young man to earn a living with his hands during his youth, as it would make him strong and healthy. Mr. Cold, with a little assurance from Mrs. Newton that she would make sure the boys didn’t loaf about, agreed.Mrs. Newton is a woman of her word. Here he is wind-burnt and tan, sweat running down his back and callouses forming on his hands. 

He’d do double the work if it meant staying near Duck. Duck’s parents seem to suspect this, and some combination of them wanting their son to be happy and wanting to earn the good graces of a wealthy family leads them to give the boys time to rest or wander about the farm after dinner before sending Indrid on his way. 

It’s during one such evening circuit, on the far edge of the property, that Indrid finds a chipmunk burrow with his foot. The pain in his ankle sends him to the ground. 

“Ow.”

“Shit. Can you stand at all?”

Indrid tries it and sits right back down, “No. I guess we’ll have to go very, very slow on the way back so I can hobble, and pray another hole doesn’t take out my left foot as well.”

Duck flicks his tail, “I mean, if you wanna take all night, sure. But, uh, what if I give you a ride?”

Indrid blinks at him in the twilight. Riding a centaur is Not Done; the centaurs find it insulting, and humans view it as scandalous. 

“You won’t get in trouble, I promise, and I’ll go slow.”

He nods and the centaur kneels, the human clambering awkwardly onto his back. 

“Duck? Where do I put my hands?”

“Huh. Around my shoulders, maybe? Yeah, that don’t mess up my balance none.”

Indrid presses himself to Duck’s back, marveling at the strength in the muscles moving beneath him.

“You know” he murmurs into Duck’s hair, “I’m awfully tempted to say giddyup or some such nonsense.”

“You do and I’ll buck you off and leave you for the coyotes.”

“You can buck me anytime.”

Duck calls his bluff by giving the world’s smallest buck. Indrid yelps, then cackles into his shoulders as Duck trots forward, the two of them laughing into the desert night. 

-------------------------------------------------

“Blasted mosquitos” Indrid waves his sketchbook in the summer air. At sixteen, he’s taken to wearing red spectacles and black clothing. This style, combined with the sharp angles of his face, leads more than a few people in town to say he looks sinister. 

Duck thinks he’s dashing. Not that he spends much time looking, not at all. Indrid is such a constant in his life that he hardly notices the changes as they age. Except when Indrid smiles at him in a secretive way or when, as he did yesterday, he strips down to nothing for a swim in the river. 

“Maybe they’re mad you ain’t drawin them.” Duck reaches into the cool water, picking up several stones just right for skipping. 

“But I have. I used my magnifying glass to make a detailed sketch of one last week.”

“Jesus, ‘Drid, is there anythin you ain’t drawn at this point?” The stone skips five times

“Well….I haven’t drawn you.”

“You’ve drawn me plenty.” Six skips this time, not bad.

“I mean in the, ah, traditional sense.”

Ker-plunk

The stone sinks in one as Duck looks over at his friend. 

“You already have your shirt off. Even with the wrap gone, I, ah, I couldn’t see, that is, only if you want to.” He sighs, “I’m not expressing this well. What I mean is that you have the finest form of any human or centaur I know. I would like to capture it, try to do it justice. If, if you’ll let me?”

Duck stands, grabs the strap of the wrap covering his lower, “You’re hard to say no to, ‘Drid.”

“You can if you...need...to.” Indrid follows the fabrics path to the ground, then fixes his eyes on Duck as he lowers himself into a comfortable position. 

“This good?”

“Extremely.” The human’s gaze fights to stay clinical as it scans him, rough outlines of his body forming on the paper. Soon, Indrid is engrossed in the illustration, though whenever they lock eyes or he glances at Duck’s chest or hindquarters, he goes pink. 

Duck whistles, tracks the songbirds hopping from tree to tree. His friend doffs his jacket, rolls the sleeves of his white shirt up as sunbeams scatter through the trees.

“You really are handsome.” Indrid murmurs, “you know that, right?”

“Heard as much from folks now and then. But you sayin’ it is a, uh, interestin development. Almost like you’re tryin to tell me somethin.” His voice catches between teasing and earnest, afraid moving too far one way or the other will scare his friend away.

“I...I need to get closer, to capture some details.” He slides off the rock to sit on his knees near Duck’s chest. The half-finished drawing peeks out from the paper, it’s perspective too far away for Indrid’s current examination to be of any use to it. 

“What details are you hopin’ to capture?” Duck pushes pale hair out of Indrid’s eyes.

“I, ah, the dapples just here, and this line, oh to hell with it.” He lunges into a kiss, so eager he nearly knocks Duck sideways. The centaur snickers, cups his face as ink-stained fingers thread into his hair. Indrid licks into his mouth, messy and unpracticed. Duck holds him there tames the frantic exploration down to something more refined but no less hungry. By the time they separate, Indrid’s face is bright red and Duck’s lips are sore. 

“‘Drid?” He brushes their noses together, runs his palms soothingly up and down a rumpled white shirt. 

“I’ve wanted that for so long.” Indrid sighs, curling closer in spite of the heat. Holding him like this, able to inhale his sweat and aftershave and feel his heartbeat, Duck understands there’s no going back. There is no pretending not to know, not to see the way Indrid looks at him. Which is fine by Duck; he loves Indrid Cold, and he doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.

-----------------------------------------------

Duck is twenty years old when he learns that joy and heartbreak can exist in one body without ripping it apart. This is a pity, since he’d prefer bifurcation to the sorrow on Indrid’s face. 

“I’m sorry, Duck. I have to stay here and take over the bank, even though following you west is all I want to do.”

Two months ago, a friendly man stopped while Duck was tending the garden outside city hall and chatted with him for the better part of an hour as the centaur worked. The man turned out to be a millionaire with a massive estate mid-way up the California coast, including parts of a forest he wished to maintain but keep wild. He offered Duck the role of head gardener and arborist, and the contract was signed a week ago. The centaur assumed, from his active encouragement and celebration, that Indrid was coming with him on this once-in-a-lifetime chance. 

“I’ll send a wire, tell ‘em I gotta back out.”

“You will do no such thing.”

“Seems to me you don’t get a say in that.” 

“Duck, please” Indrid sets his left hand on his shoulder, right clenched at his side, “please do not cast your future aside on my account. Just because I have to stay here doesn’t mean you do.”

“Why do you have to stay at all?”

“I’ve been groomed to take my fathers’ place for years. I’m not sure there’s a way out of that, not one that I can see. Sometimes, fate is not in our favor.”

“Fuck fate.” He stops his front hoof.

“Here, you might need this out in California” Indrid lifts his fist, intending to give what it contains back to Duck, as the centaur placed the item there not even five minutes ago. 

Duck stops his hand, wraps his own around it, “No. I know the man for me is right here.”

“As do I” Indrids voice is tight. When his face drops against Duck’s chest, it’s damp with tears.

“Then he better write to me to let me know how he’s gettin on. And if he” Duck swallows around the painful possibility in his throat, “if he ever changes his mind, all he’s gotta do is send it back to me in a letter.”

Indrid slips his hand into his pants pocket, “Understood.”

--------------------------------------------------------

“Duck!” Leo, one of Mr. Greenbanks two bodyguards, hails Duck from the mansions’ patio, “come on in a second, someone Mr. G wants you to meet.”

The centaur wipes his hands and trots briskly up the path to the house, droplets of fog strung through his hair. Most days he likes the peace and quiet of his work, but today he’s not in a contemplative mood; Indrid’s last letter was two weeks ago, when they usually come once a week if not more. Illness doesn’t stop him, he simply asks a friend in town to take down and post the letters. 

Once he’s certain he won’t track mud into the house, Duck makes his way towards the voices in the parlor. He must be more heartsick than usual today, because that voice sounds like-

“Ah, Duck, here you are. This is Mr. Indrid Cold, a talented young artist who will be illustrating my various scientific writings. And,” Mr. Greenbank winks, “will have the honor of being in charge of any artistic endeavors at the Academy of Sciences.”

Indrid extends his hand. Duck kisses it out of habit, notes his employers' perplexed expression an instant too late. 

“It’s a, uh, an old, uh, centaur custom--no, fuck, it’s-”

“We are well known to each other.” Indrid smiles his most genteel smile.

“Splendid! I’m hoping to draw up extensive records of my arboretum, so it’s good you two get along.”

“Indeed.” Indrid tips his head, then turns his attention away from Duck, “where would you like me to unpack my things?”

Duck leaves them to their logistics, stunned. Indrid not only being here, but acting distant after six months apart raises so many questions that he wants to lay down in the flowerbeds and holler until someone answers them. 

He busies himself among forest wildflowers instead, wondering why Indrid never mentioned he was applying for that position. 

“I hope this explains the gap in my communication.” Indrid, shivering near a tree-trunk, pulls out a handkerchief and wipes his glasses, “I didn’t want to tell you my plans for fear they’d fall through and make you all the more disappointed. Also, the journey here was rather chaotic due to an attempted train robbery. All that is to say I’m sorry if I caused you any distress.”

“Yeah, you did” Duck sets down his tools, “but it was so fuckin worth it.” He yanks the human into an embrace, kisses him until his glasses are all askew. Indrid moans, slipping his fingers under the hem of his work shirt to stroke the band where skin meets fur. 

“What happened to fate?” Duck nips his jaw.

“As someone I know so eloquently put it: fuck fate.”

“Smart fella.”

“He is.” Indrid pulls back, mapping Ducks’ body with his hands, “And I also have something for him.” The human tucks a sprig of Lupines-- weighed down with a silver engagement ring--into Duck’s shirt pocket.

“You said sending it with a letter meant the end of things. By that same token, delivering it in person signals their beginning, yes?”

“Yeah.” Duck kisses him, soft as the lifting fog, “guess we better tell Mr. Greenbank he can just let you stay in my cottage.”

“Indeed. May I, ah, see this lovely abode?”

“Right this way. You want me to give you a ride.”

Indrid shakes his head, simply takes Duck’s hand and falls into step beside him, “No. I suspect there will be plenty of opportunities for, ah, riding later. After all, I’m here to stay.

[charlieliqueur]

Mark X Camper!Reader (Unus Annus)

Camp Days - Part One

Summary/Warnings: Unus Annus spoilers? Takes place during Camp Unus Annus, includes some of Camp Unus Annus fan stuff like the camp cabins and etc, and some of my own variations. Reader is 18+ years old, and part of cabin Taser Fire, since it seems decreed that Mark is the head counselor for that cabin. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go to the Camp Unus Annus posts and you'll find the stuff pretty quick.

---

You didn't remember signing up for this camp. Probably because you didn't, you couldn't have. Oddly enough, you barely remember anything before waking up on a bus, a bag packed and other 'campers' waiting to arrive. This felt off, the bus ride, the look of it, how isolated and almost abandoned it felt. It had all the wrong feelings.

But you were still here. Almost immediately after stepping off the bus a blond man and brunette woman held out stacks of shirts. One stack white, one black. You carefully picked one, and the woman kindly said "Welcome campers! This isn't our official welcome, but we wanted to make sure you had a uniform for initiation! I'm one of the counselors here, my name is Amy! And this is Evan!" They both waved happily.

What were you doing at a summer camp again?

Why would you be here-

Suddenly you all were being ushered away to a grassy clearing with a bonfire pit. Near a roaring fire were two men, wearing semi-matching black and white clothes. One in white, one in black. They turned towards the group of several, beyond several, dozen campers of varying ages, looks, and personalities.

"Welcome to your first day of Camp Unus Annus! In just a few moments you'll be directed to your cabin!" Said the short haired one. The longer haired man said "Don't forget, Camp Unus Annus and officials are not responsible for any harm or death caused here."

"Death??" Asked a few, they also seemed to have no idea how they ended up here.

"Um, excuse me, but I don't remember signing up for this camp," said one girl.

"Me neither!"

"I don't remember too!"

"Uh, me either!"

They two men looked at one another and began laughing. It seemed almost fake. They looked back at the group of confused people. "Of course you didn't sign up, that's not how Camp works here. Now come on! And-" the man in the white shirt looked to the man in black and they said in unison looking over the group, "Don't forget the Buddy System!!"

---

You had been sorted to your cabin. You stood among a group of confused and concerned campers, as they tried to find buddies before your counselor arrived. You got paired up with a man named Gerald, mainly because he had no one else and seemed distant enough not to bother you too much. Though he seemed a little incompetent.

You all looked at the still-packed collection of supplies, when suddenly a rushing of footsteps and a loud voice boomed, "Heeeeey campeeers!!"

You all looked to see Mark. He adjusted his white shirt briefly before smiling and saying "I bet you're all thrilled to be here, and-- What's this? You don't have your tents up yet?? Well hurry! Nightfall is coming soon and the bears will be out, and the bats, and deer, and snakes-- Just, chop chop!"

The group looked among each other hesitantly. "B-Bears?" Asked a girl.

"Yeah!! And not just the animals. Bear Cabin is... well, we won't talk about them."

"Aren't you betraying the buddy system?" Asked a young man. He seemed rather upset. Probably didn't like being at a summer camp he didn't sign up for. Neither did you.

"Yeah, you've broken your own rule!" Added another boy, the first one's buddy.

"Do you wanna talk to me about rules or do you wanna listen and live??" Mark demanded strongly. Most of the younger teens immediately started opening the tent bags, pulling out the plastic structures and beginning to set them up. Gerald and yourself began setting up your tent as well. The older group members glared and hesitated, before joining in as well.

Soon tents were set up, and as Counselor Mark was inspecting them, a large portion of Taser Fire gathered around a fire pit. "What are we supposed to do?" Asked one boy, his name was Daniel. "What do you mean?" Asked Lizzy, a twenty-something girl.

"Like, the fuck are we supposed to do?? Just play along to this summer camp BS? Hasn't anyone realized we've been kidnapped??"

"Speak for yourselves," said Mickey, a thirteen year old boy. "My home fuckin' sucks, I'd rather be here getting covered in mosquito bites than have another drunk fight with my dad," he said openly. It seemed he felt safe here. What was this place doing to you all? Some now anxious, some now comfortable? And what were you feeling?

"Okay campers, it seems dusk has begun. Why don't we get a fire started for a little meal before night, eh?" Asked Mark, gesturing with an open smile. You all looked around at each other and sheepishly nodded. He gave off vibes. Vibes you weren't sure how to feel about.

"And tomorrow, we start the fun!" He assured, before gathering some wood from a pile and making a firepit. You yawned and looked around. "Hey, where's Gerald?" You asked, when suddenly the man stepped beside you, zipping his fly. "Sorry, just stepped away to-"

Suddenly Mark seized him by the collar of his shirt. "Remember... the buddy system. Nobody leaves the group without their buddy!! Understood??" This was directed at the whole group, who nervously agreed, fearing what their counselor would do if they disobeyed. You stumbled back a bit from the muscles man who practically held your buddy a foot off the ground. He lowered Gerald to the ground and stepped away, refocusing on his fire.

It started up in no time, and the campers gathered around it. You looked off into the distance and could see a few other distant lights. Fires or lanterns. There were five cabins in total.

Thicc Water, near the lake.

Breaking Wind, in a clearing.

Earth Girth, near a river.

The Bears, near a cave system.

Taser Fire, on a rocky area near the forest.

You were studying a map that had come with the supplies. Your fingers traced paths and memorized some bigger details. This place felt off, and you wanted to know where to go if you needed to run somewhere. Either away from something... or someone...

Your nervous eyes glanced up at Counselor Mark, a guitar in his hands while he strummed a tune and hummed a song no one knew. He gave off an ill aura. Ted Bundy mixed with Jigsaw and maybe a cult leader or two. Suddenly Counselor Mark saw you watching, and after your eyes met briefly, you looked back down at the map.

"So tell me all your names," he requested, and you looked up with only your eyes, to see his looking across everyone.

People answered, some more reluctant than others. What worried you most is how some who had been very upset being here were suddenly laughing and sharing past stories and tales. Once more that feeling hit you, a feeling it seemed only a few others realized. This place, these people, it was wrong. At least... at least Mark was...

---

You were lying awake in your tent, your buddy Gerald asleep beside you. He wasn't exceedingly friendly, or strong, or smart, but least he didn't snore. You were propped on your arm, a zippo lighter in your hands, lit to provide enough light to read the map. Then you noticed something in the corner. You brought the lighter closer, and it revealed words, full National Treasure style.

Near the logs whom fell, find the stories they tell. A land of old, of death and cold...

What... the... fuck? What was this about?

You suddenly heard footsteps. You clicked the lighter shut, stuffed the map under your bag, and pulled the covers of the sleeping bag over your head. You were nearly silent, but not suspiciously so. You heard them get close to the tent, and heard whispering, but you couldn't identify who.

"Such a shame..."

"Can't follow the rules, can't stay in camp..."

"It is day one, Annus, give them time."

"Life is not fair, nor is death. Time will march ever forward, my friend. Lessons must be learnt in the time they have. Momento Mori."

"Yes, that is true... which tent was it?"

"This way..."

You covered your mouth, hoping they couldn't hear your ragged and terrified breaths. You listened to the footsteps leave. It took you hours to fall asleep, and even then you were plagued by nightmares. Of two men, one in a white suit, one in black, they were familiar but you couldn't place them, their faces just out of sight.

---

"UNUS ANNUS! UNUS ANNUS! UNUS ANNUS!" A chant erupted through a speaker system you hadn't noticed existed, the sound of distorted male voices. You sprung upright, hearing someone rustle the tents and say "Time to get up campers!"

Counselor Mark.

You groaned, and suddenly went still, remembering last night. You waited for Gerald to step out so you could change. You left the tent as well, seeing a fire already started. A majority of the group was gathered round, laughing and joking and making food.

"Where's Jake?" Asked a voice, one that sounded pained and scared.

"Who?" Asked one girl.

"JAKE!" Said the boy, as if we should know. But you did, you actually remembered. Jake and this boy were the two who pointed out Mark breaking the rules. Mark simply laughed it off and said "Jake has been removed from Camp Unus Annus, should've followed the rules. Now, who wants bacon??"

"Me!!" Cheered some, holding out their plates. You stuck farther back, pulling your map from your pocket. You saw a circle appeared around a spot on the map. You couldn't leave alone. Buddy System. Didn't wanna end up like Jake...

"Hey Gerald?"

"Yeah?"

"We're going somewhere, come on."

"But what about-"

"You'll live. Besides, that bacon seems... off..."

"What do you-"

"Just shut up and follow."

"Okaaaay."

He followed you as the both of you headed towards the marking on the map. "Gonna let me know what this is about?" He asked, walking lazily, not even concerned on wild animals in the woods or poisonous plants and crazy counselors.

You yawned deeply, restless from last night's sleep. You didn't have a lot of time. Then you saw it. Stuck under a log that seemed like it had fallen decades ago, poking out, was a journal. "Help me move this," you demanded of you buddy, trying to force the log to roll.

"Y/n, you sure? It's all damp and rotted, there might be like slugs or-"

"Dammit Gerald push the log!!"

He whined again before pushing against it with you, and it rolled over enough for you to kick the journal free.

"All this way for a notebook? Pfft..."

"Yeah, a notebook. One you won't mention or you'll have more than just Mark to worry about," you warned darkly.

What was wrong with you? Would you normally say that? Yes, no? You couldn't remember. There had to be something about this place. A toxic material waste, brain fucking everyone.

Gerald hesitantly agreed to secrecy, then began his journey back, you following close behind.

"Hey, look, Taser Bitches!" Shouted an unfamiliar voice. You both looked around, before seeing a small group of kids, wearing matching bandanas. Thicc Water.

"Alright guys, pelt 'em!!!" Shouted someone, and they raised water balloons.

"What the fuc-??"

You urged Gerald to run and you both began sprinting, water balloons crashing and splatting all around you, the water seemed oddly thicc.

However you escaped with your lives, and luckily it seemed counselor Mark was gone. Good. You pulled the journal out in front of you and read the first entry.

I don't know what day it is. Not what they say. They think today is tomorrow and is also yesterday. I've been here weeks and they're saying day three. This place is wrong, so fucking wrong. But I can't leave. My buddy started the idea of cabins. He seems to be leaving me. I can't escape without help...

You entered your tent and exhaled shakily. You took a seat on the polyurethane floor. Was this from the beginning of the camp? It had to be a while ago, these cabins and all had been here for a long time, the signs and everything super old. Like, decades old. That's when what you read next horrified you.

Counselor Mark and Ethan are up to something. Kids keep going missing and it's only ones in their cabins. I have to get the fuck out of here...

How old are they? What the fuck was this?? Was this real, what did this even mean, that Counselor Mark and Ethan are-

Suddenly there was a rustling on the tent, like knocking, and a scary familiar voice asked "Hey y/n right?"

To be Continued...

A/N: Woo!! I hope to finish this story, or at least get a good few parts out. What's going on? Spoooooky. Anyways, things will obviously get more dramatic as it continues. Hope you enjoyed!

[slashhinginghasher]

Midnight Star - Chromeskull x OFC - Part 1: Thief In the Night

Listen. I love the "Big Scary is only soft for their SO" as much as the next horny person, but I feel like we as a community have been largely overlooking the fact that Chromeskull canonically tortures and murders people (specifically women) for personal enjoyment. So I'm gonna be the nasty bitch that brings that side of him back up again lol.

You can also read this on my Ao3.

Marena hated a lot of things. But if she had to list them, “summer” would be very fucking near the top, and “summer in the Southern United States” would be right next to it. She hated the way the sun beat down like an anvil. She hated the sticky, suffocating humidity that draped itself over everything until it felt as though the entire world was sweating. She hated the waves of heat that emanated from the ground, even in the dead of night. She hated that even the fucking ocean provided no relief; she’d nearly gagged the first and only time she’d attempted a midnight swim, the water curling around her ankles like tepid bathwater. She wanted to peel off her clothes, shave her head, wriggle out of her skin. She wanted to crawl into a freezer and wait until winter, but that season didn’t seem to exist here in the armpit of the world, so maybe she’d stay there until she was dead.

There were no freezers to be found in the swampy vegetation bordering the empty road she followed. There was, however, an abundance of gnats, flies, mosquitoes, and other nameless biting, flying things so great that Marena was seriously considering setting herself on fire just to kill them off. She’d been on the road for weeks. Her feet were blistered. Her stomach was starting to eat itself. If she had to comb any more spanish moss out of her hair she was going to scream. But she kept going, one foot in front of the other, because it was better than turning back. And she stayed in this stupid sauna of a country because it was better than what lay across the ocean.

Marena walked, and dreamed of snow.

***

The car was a temptation. Shiny and black, it gave off an impression of speed even while sitting still. And it was gloriously unattended. Marena had been watching it for nearly fifteen minutes and had seen neither hide nor hair of the driver.

Her court-appointed therapist in Miami had said that a lot of her problems stemmed from a lack of impulse control. Marena thought that was bullshit. She could control her impulses just fine when she wanted; it was just that she so rarely wanted to. With a mental Fuck You to Dr. Call Me Linda, she pulled the wire hook out of her bag and popped the car’s lock in a matter of seconds.

The rest of the job was not so simple. The car was a newer model; the dashboard alone had enough electronics to power a small rocketship. At first, it resisted her efforts, almost as if it didn’t want to be stolen. Her nerves felt like a live wire as too many minutes stretched past, expecting the owner to return. Two screwdrivers and broken nail later, she resorted to swearing and brute force.

“Come on you piece of shit suka blyat’, START!” she snarled, forcing screwdriver number three into the keyhole with her fist and cranking it as hard as she could. The engine roared to life, the radio blaring a hip hop dance remix she’d heard outside at least half a dozen clubs. She slammed her hand against the power button and froze, the only sounds now the purring of the engine and the incessant insect chatter. Scarcely believing her luck, Marena slid into the leather driver’s seat and carefully shut the door. She tapped the gas pedal and grinned when the engine revved in response. Cranking the air conditioning and easing out onto the road, Marena let out a triumphant whoop and floored it.

***

The sky was turning a dusky, pre-dawn blue when the car slowed to a stop.

“What?” The tank was still half full. Marena stomped on the gas. No response. “Chto za khuynya? What the fuck?” She punched the steering column, punched the dashboard, succeeded only in scraping her knuckles. The car shut off. “No no no no…” The cooling engine ticked mockingly at her. “How the fuck…?”

The screen on the dashboard flared to life.

NOT YOURS, PIGGY

Marena’s very heartfelt Fuck! froze in her throat. She had to get out. She had to get out now. Eyes still on the screen, she pulled at the door handle. Locked. When did that happen? And why couldn’t she unlock it? Rage bubbled up in her chest as she yanked at the handle, rage at whatever bastard was controlling the car, and at her own stupid mistake for stealing a goddamned remote control car, of all the dumb fucking…. Marena forced herself to stop before she did something else idiotic, like ripping the handle off the door. Took a slow breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. She scanned the futuristic dashboard. Too many buttons, probably not enough time to push them all, assuming they’d even respond to her touch.

Come on, Masha. You love to break shit. Duh. Marena pulled her only spare shirt out of her bag and quickly wrapped it around her elbow, planning to smash her way through the window.

The guy with the crowbar beat her to it.

***

The first thing Marena noticed when she came to was sweet, blessed cold, the kind one felt in warehouses with industrial AC systems.

The second thing she noticed was that she was chained to a chair. Literally chained; she could feel the links chilling her wrists and ankles. Another chain dug into her hips like a too-tight airplane seatbelt. Whoever tied her up knew what they were doing then; metal couldn’t be frayed or worked loose like fiber rope. And the restraint across her lap prevented her from bucking or contorting into a more favorable fighting position.

Speaking of fighting… all of her knives were still in place. Wrists, boots, back, pockets. Which meant one of three things:

1. This was a rush job. 2. Her mystery abductor was half an idiot and didn’t check her for weapons. 3. Her mystery abductor knew she was armed and didn’t do anything about it because they knew she wouldn’t be able to beat them in a fight anyway.

Marena really hoped it wasn’t the third one.

A quick mental check revealed that she was still fairly intact. Her muscles were stiff, her head ached, and she had a nasty case of dry-mouth, but she’d had hangovers worse than this before. The lack of a massive head injury meant she hadn’t been beaten unconscious, so she must have been drugged. She tried to think past the car window shattering, but couldn’t remember being forced to swallow or inhale anything. A needle, then?

Marena heard heavy footsteps approaching, then the rustle of fabric as someone settled in front of her. She briefly toyed with the idea of playing possum, but the need to face whatever was about to happen head-on won out. Not weak. Not anymore.

She opened her eyes and came face to face with a grinning skull.

Well, it was a mask shaped like a grinning skull, attached to a head that was most probably human. The mask shined in the weak light of… wherever the fuck she was. It was meant to be intimidating, distracting, and Marena forced herself to look away and take in the other details of her captor.

The guy was a beast. Crouched as he was, he was still eye-level with her. He’d dwarf her standing. Shaved head, black tailored suit (why though), black gloves (too thin to be leather, latex maybe?). The red light of a camcorder blinked from a mount on his right shoulder. She caught a glint of metal near his waistband but didn’t let her gaze linger long enough to identify exactly what type of weapon he was packing.

That familiar destructive urge, the need to kick and claw and tear, crept through her veins. Her fingers wanted to twitch. Her teeth wanted to clench. Marena forced herself into stillness. Not yet. Wait for the right time. Patience. The skull stared at her, motionless, expressionless, so she returned the favor. He pulled out a cell phone, typed something, and held it up for her to see.

HELLO PIGGY

Years of practice kept Marena’s face blank while a litany of choice curses flew through her head.

“This is about the car,” she said. It wasn’t a question. The skull nodded anyway, and reached for her.

Fuck it.

Marena lunged.

[theclanscript]

the five keys to lee jooheon

⋈ pairing: jooheon x reader ⋈ word count: 4,058 ⋈ genre: fluff ⋈ notes: i was s t r u g g l i n g with this but finally it’s time for our sugar sugar honey ♥

1.      He doesn’t believe in taking things slow

Behind Lee Jooheon’s soft smile lies a sharp mind.

From the day you had met him, you had known that he was ambitious, confident, focused. His eyes had bent into dark crescents as they had studied your face and your movements without making you feel self-conscious. He had been sitting in a folding chair across from you near the river; the smell of smoke, grilled meat, and summer in the air. He was the friend of a friend – and even then you had thought that he seemed like he had many of those. Jooheon was approachable, easy-going, and so, so fun. It hadn’t felt like you were just getting to know him.

It had felt like you had known him all your life.

And just like old friends you had been far from running out of things to talk about even long after the sun had set and the fire had been reduced to weakly flickering ember. It had felt like you could have easily sat through the night and the rest of the weekend just talking to him. You had no inhibitions about telling him everything from mundane trivia about yourself over very personal anecdotes to long-forgotten memories that seemed to be ignited by his engaging personality and all the little and not so little stories about him he offered you in return – at some point, you had been almost convinced that Lee Jooheon himself was one of those memories; a part of your life that had always kind of been there, even when you hadn’t known it was.

Maybe that was why you hadn’t thought much of it when he had asked you out to dinner the next evening; it hadn’t felt rushed, in fact, it had felt like it would have been unreasonable to put even a single day between your first meeting and your first date. Like any more time spent apart would be time wasted.

And so, you had gone out with him.

He had asked you to make your relationship official one week later.

He had kissed you for the first time three seconds after you had said yes.

It had been two months since then, and every day you were more and more amazed by how well you worked together – and how readily you both worked for your relationship. Jooheon was busy, but he was reliable, devoted, never made you feel like you were not a priority. You had learned to be flexible, patient, and a little more romantic in your text messages than before. It didn’t feel like you were making many concessions, but of course people were people, and people had opinions.

You’re moving too fast.

You barely know the guy.

You’re taking care of his cats again?

You tried not to let it get to you, but unfortunately you were only human, too. Were you moving too fast? Jooheon had free access to your apartment and as for the boys’ dorm, you were welcome to come and go as you pleased – granted, meeting Kihyun and Minhyuk had felt more like FBI vetting rather than a casual first encounter, but apparently you had met their standards. As much as you wanted to remain skeptical and dreaded the idea that you may have been too naïve about this whole thing, try as you might you had not been able to spot any red flags.

It seemed like your relationship defied the laws of dating just like it had defied the laws of time.

The keypad beeped cooperatively before the door opened and you could hear Jooheon’s heavy footsteps in the hallway. You felt almost silly for the way your heart sped up and a smile spread across your face; the way your legs automatically carried you toward him so that he could greet you with a wide grin and a lingering kiss.

“Hey baby,” he mumbled as if he was telling you a secret.

“You’re early,” you replied, standing in the dimness of the unlit hallway.

“Yeah, we’re going to finish recording tomorrow because Kihyun’s having trouble with his throat.” Jooheon set down his bag, hung up his jacket, and kicked the sneakers off his feet. “How was your day?”

“Quiet,” you said and smiled at him. You didn’t mind the quiet, you didn’t mind being alone – but you much preferred Jooheon.

“That’s nice, you deserve some relaxation.” He gently put a hand on top of your head and pressed his lips to your hairline. “Hey, I have a question for you.”

“Then I suggest you ask it.”

“Do you want to meet my mom next week?”

You looked up to stare at him. Suddenly, the walls felt very narrow. Suddenly, his hand felt very heavy.

Suddenly, two months seemed very short.

“Well, you look uncomfortable,” he said nervously, half trying to sound joking, half plainly commenting on your anxious expression. You reached in front of you to knead the hem of his sweater between your fidgety fingers, fixing your eyes on your own hands.

“Don’t you think it’s a little early for that? Wouldn’t that be a little – fast?”

“No,” he shot back so quickly your movements stopped and you raised your gaze again to meet his eyes.

“How can you be so sure?”

“One good thing about meeting tons of people all the time is that you learn to read them pretty well. You meet many people you hate on sight, people you can be civil with, people you like well enough, people you kind of vibe with.” He leaned in a little to look at you intently. “But you do not meet many people that make you forget heat and humidity, mosquitoes and every single person around you – especially not ones that are as goddamn beautiful as you are. Those people are special.” He gave you a tentative peck on the lips. “You are special.”

“Really?” you pressed, your hands now calmly resting on his hips.

“Baby, trust me on this” he grinned and moved even closer to tightly wrap his arms around you. “I will be truly surprised if we don’t end up staying together for a very, very long time.”

And so, you did. You decided to believe in Lee Jooheon’s sharp mind, in his loving words and reassuring touch, and his intuition.

But most of all, you decided to believe in your own.

2.      He is a little jealous (and not afraid to show it)

“Go on, do it.”

“No!”

“Do it, you coward!”

Minhyuk laughed and somehow managed to shoulder you in the arm without losing control of the virtual car he was driving – or rather, the virtual cart.

“Just use the shell, see if it helps,” you kept taunting him, knowing full well that he would most likely overtake you if he gave in to your pestering. But what was a gamble without a good bluff.

You were seated on the floor of the dorm’s living room, your backs resting against the sofa. At first, you had actually sat on it, but soon the heat of the competition had caused you to slide down the leather and closer to the action – that was, the TV on the wall a few feet in front of you.

You had been supposed to meet Jooheon here, but something had come up at the studio and somehow you had found yourself talking to, and shortly after, being challenged by Minhyuk. The stakes were high. The loser would have to go out in the freezing cold to buy pizza for everyone. Delivery services were strictly against the rules.

And both of you were hungry.

“Come on, Minhyuk,” you teased. “Don’t hold back. Come out of your shell.”

“God, I wish I could strangle you with the controller cable.”

“What do you think this is, 2001?”

“How do you think we charge these babies?”

“Point,” you replied and grinned devilishly. “And now, Lee Minhyuk. Farewell.”

You heard a gasp next to you as you released the blue shell Minhyuk hadn’t even noticed you got along the way – apparently, he had been too wrapped up in nerdy murder fantasies. As a result, his cart got launched into the air and you easily won the game, causing him to basically riot.

“What the-“ he yelled, jumping up and putting one foot up on the sofa, his whale tattoo staring you comically in the face. “You distracted me! I demand a rematch!”

“I won fair and square,” you shrugged, smiling up at him innocently. “I like pepperoni. Please.”

“You-“ Minhyuk started, reaching for you with both hands as if to choke you when you heard someone enter the room.

“What are you guys doing?” Jooheon was standing next to the sofa, his frown giving away the fact that he had not picked up on the harmless playfulness of the situation – or maybe that was exactly what had soured his mood. He moved around the short part of the sectional and hovered above the both of you, thinly veiled jealousy and possessiveness clouding his dark eyes.

You deliberate chose a soothing tone. “We just-“ you tried to explain, but Minhyuk cut you off.

“Your wench cheated at Mario Kart.”

Jooheon blinked, confused. By now you were used to his bouts of jealously – it wasn’t that he suspected you of possibly getting romantically involved with anyone else – especially not the other members – or that he didn’t trust you. It was more of a fundamental state of jealousy triggered whenever he was reminded of the fact that he wasn’t able to spend every waking minute with you; that you laughed with and talked to and existed in the world of other people, and that he missed so much of that. He never picked fights or threw a fit over these kinds of situations, but he had yet to learn to control his childish poutiness.

“What?”

“Your girlfriend cheated,” Minhyuk conceded and crossed his arms in front of his chest, his scandalized expression almost making you laugh. You had to give it to him – he knew how to play Jooheon like a fiddle. Nothing could have soothed your boyfriend quite like reassuring him that you were his – and that you had beaten Minhyuk’s ass at Mario Kart.

“I did no such thing!” you protested, looking up at Jooheon from your spectator spot on the floor. “I swear, baby.”

“If you wish to restore her honor, grant me my revanche – mano a mano!”

This time, Minhyuk’s dramatics did make you laugh. You climbed onto the couch to let Jooheon quite literally take your place, placing your legs on either side of him and watching him and his friend battle out who would have to get dinner.

It became obvious very soon that Jooheon was going to lose the race, but he did not care. How could he with your arms around his neck and your laughter in his ears.

Who, he thought, is the real winner here?

3.      He loves rituals

As irregular and busy as his schedule was, there were certain little rituals Jooheon insisted the two of you maintain. Maybe it brought some stability into his whirlwind lifestyle, maybe it was another effort on his part to reinforce the importance of you in his life.

Maybe he simply liked everything that was only yours and his, little things the world didn’t know about or had any part in.

Whatever it was, it had left both of you with a collection of keychains from every place you had gone separately, regardless of whether it was Brazil or Wolmido. It had left you with dozens of airport selfies, hundreds of goodnight texts, and thousands of precious memories, some of which had started to fade away a little, but that would always be there.

And most importantly, it had left you with countless hello and goodbye kisses – Jooheon’s favorite tradition. He made it a point to get in a smooch whenever you met, even if you had already seen each other earlier that day, and he refused to leave without his kiss.

Today, though, he had forgotten. Or you had – you weren’t sure. You had been running late to get to the airport for a trip to Japan and everything had been pure chaos. Your bag had only been half-packed, your passport had been god-knows-where (nightstand drawer under the physical copy of his mixtape Jooheon had made you), and you had been near tears, which in turn had sent Jooheon into caretaker mode. He had pushed you down onto a chair at the kitchen table to get you to eat the sandwich he had made you and drink a cup of coffee while he had finished shoving the clothes you had lain out for the trip into your bag, putting it into the hallway next to the shoes you were going to wear – along with the purse that had your passport on it – and calling a cab for you. Still chewing, you had thanked him and grabbed your things and hurried downstairs when the driver had called to say he was outside.

And so, you had forgotten the kiss.

You had half a mind to jump out of the car and run back upstairs, but the cab was already moving so you just sank back into the seat, feeling like crying all over again.

You had never realized how much those little rituals meant to you. You missed them already.

You missed Jooheon already.

It had been over three years with him, but you were still just as in love with him as ever. Your heart still started beating faster at the thought of him, and your legs still automatically carried you toward him, anywhere, anytime. The thought of him alone was enough to make you smile. Even now, your relationship was still transcending time.

It felt like no time had passed at all. And yet, now more than ever, it felt like you had known him all your life.

You couldn’t imagine a life without Lee Jooheon – past, present, and future.

When the car stopped at a red light, you reached for your phone to call him, but froze when the door was torn open from outside. A panting and grinning Jooheon stuck his head into the cab, wordlessly took your face between his large hands, and kissed you so deeply, the driver awkwardly started playing with the GPS.

“Have a safe trip, baby,” Jooheon mumbled after he had broken the kiss, as if he was telling you a secret. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Lee Jooheon.”

He seemed momentarily confused at the graveness of your voice and you using his full name. Then he beamed at you, quickly kissed you again, and wiggled his body out of the car to close the door. He stood at the side of the street waving until he couldn’t see the taxi anymore.

Then he turned around and set his plan in motion.

4.      He likes to show you off

Jooheon was leaning with his back against a wall, a glass of champagne in his hand, his neck sweating beneath the tight collar of his white dress shirt. In front of him, Kihyun and Minhyuk were bickering about something or other, but he was barely listening. The large venue reminded him of a ballroom from movies; the decoration was delicate and flawless, all the people were dressed to the nines, and the music was fast enough to dance to, but pleasant enough that it didn’t interfere with people’s conversations. It was the perfect setting. The perfect day.

The perfect woman.

You were talking to someone Jooheon didn’t know on the other side of the room. You were more beautiful than all the flowers in the room, more vibrant than all the colorful dresses around you.

Brighter than the sun had been that afternoon when you had said yes.

Three seconds later, Jooheon had kissed his wife for the first time.

The reception was going great. You had been apprehensive about a big wedding at first, but Jooheon had quickly made all your financial, logistic, and personal worries disappear. His reason for wanting a big party was as simple as it was childish – he wanted to make you happy, of course, to make it the best day of your life. But just as much, he wanted to show to as many people as possible, to everyone he knew and everyone you knew, that he was with the most gorgeous, wonderful person on earth.

And that, somehow, he had gotten her to marry him.

Fortunately, everything had worked out and you seemed to be enjoying your special day. Jooheon smirked. He had known two hours into meeting you that you were his forever. Of course, he hadn’t told you then.

Even Lee Jooheon didn’t move that fast.

He had told you three years, two months, and eighteen days later, on a warm day somewhere between summer and fall, over the sound of a crackling BBQ fire near a river; just you and him and a ring he had had custom-made so you would always remember. So his promise would never become a distant thing of the past, a long-forgotten memory.

Forever.

Jooheon stood up straight when he noticed you looking around, scanning, searching. He knew what you were searching. No matter how many people were around, no matter who was around, there was only ever one person you were looking for.

Him.

“I’ll be right back,” he lied to Kihyun and Minhyuk and wedged his body through the small space between the two to walk across the room. As he got closer, he took in the white dress, the artfully styled hair, and the familiar face that he felt he had known all his life.

The face he wanted to wake up next to for the rest of his life.

You smiled when you met his eyes and waited until Jooheon was standing in front of you.

“I was just going to go look for you,” you said.

“I know,” Jooheon answered and took your hand to pull you toward the dancefloor. A slow song had started playing, so he pulled you close; one hand on your back, the other holding onto your left hand. He started moving you to the melody of the song, so naturally, so calmly, so effortlessly.

“You knew?” you teased and gave him a fake scolding look. “Were you surveilling me?”

Jooheon chuckled. “No,” he whispered, as if he was telling you a secret. “It’s just that I can’t take my eyes off of you.”

You blushed a little and moved to slap him on the shoulder, but Jooheon caught your hand again and brought it to his lips, kissing each pad of every finger so slowly, so tenderly, your face started burning with embarrassment and happiness.

“Jooheon,” you hissed. “The people!”

“People?” He pulled you flush against his body, the wicked grin matching the look in his eyes. “What people?”

When he kissed you, it was as if the world around you fell away, vanished, leaving behind only you and Jooheon; and then, you only had each other.

And it was all you really needed.

5.      He loves with more than he’s got

The house was quiet and dark when you stepped through the door. It was only the afternoon, so you figured Jooheon must have gone out. You weren’t supposed to come back for another couple of hours, so maybe he had used the time to get some fresh air.

He had been cooped up in his studio for the better part of three weeks now, although he made sure to be home in time for dinner every day. Sometimes he had to head back right after, sometimes he waited until you had fallen asleep before sneaking out and returning to work. Rarely had you woken up to him next to you in bed during that time.

It had started to wear on you.

Finally, you had snapped; indelicately telling him that you were going insane in the house and that you needed some time outside, some time for yourself. Jooheon had been understanding and apologetic, and you had almost felt bad.

Almost.

It wasn’t his fault that his job was keeping him busy, and in many ways it was a good thing. But soon, a decision on his part would have to be made.

You were a little afraid of how he was going to choose.

Yawning, you walked toward the bedroom to get some more comfortable clothes; you were determined to seem like relaxation personified when Jooheon came home. The truth was, your day off – your day alone – had not quite gone as expected. The Seoul summer was sticky and miserable, your dress was clinging to your sweaty body. But that was not the problem. There was something that you hadn’t been able to anticipate and it had hit you like a blue shell on the subway somewhere between City Hall and Dongdaemun.

You sighed, opened the bedroom door – and almost wept at the sight. Jooheon was lying on his back, passed out on the bed, snoring lightly. One arm was lodged under his head, the other was safely cradling your daughter who was also fast asleep, snuggled into his side. Gingerly, you walked over to the bed and took a few seconds to appreciate the scene, the moment, and your heart soared at the love you felt for your husband.

You thought you had wanted quiet, thought you had wanted to be alone – but you much preferred Jooheon.

Much preferred your family.

You felt a pang of guilt. Jooheon was working so hard for you and his kid every day; he was stressed, exhausted, torn between the two things that meant the world to him. But he had still made the time to stay home for one day so you could get a break. You smiled and snapped a quick photo.

Behind Lee Jooheon’s soft smile lay a sharp mind.

And a little underneath that mind beat the kindest, bravest, most loving heart you had ever known.

Carefully, you lay down next to him and inched toward the side that was not occupied by a three-month-old. You reached out to put your hand on his chest to feel beating of the heart you had fallen in love with many years ago and that you would love until yours stopped forever.

“Baby?” Jooheon mumbled and turned his head to look at you; his arm automatically wrapping around you to pull you close.

“Sshh, it’s okay. Just sleep. I’ll watch her.”

“No, it’s okay, I’ve got her.” He seemed to find his bearings a little, glancing at the sleeping child before pressing a kiss to your forehead. “What time is it? Why are you home already?”

You hid your face in the fabric of his hoodie to hide your blush. “I missed you.”

“Aw, baby,” he chuckled, half teasing, half touched. “I missed you, too. I miss both of you.”

“It’s okay,” you reassured him, your hand still firmly covering the spot where you could feel his heartbeat. “You gotta do what you gotta do, babe.”

There was a brief silence, the only sound being the rhythmic breathing of your daughter as Jooheon idly caressed your arm.

“The album should be done in a couple of weeks,” he finally said. “I’ve already given my notice. I’m going on hiatus.”

You swallowed, letting the words hang in the air between you for a moment. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I need a break. I need my family. I hate missing all this time with you.”

“Yeah,” you replied. “All the Mario Kart we play without you, baby. You’d be furious if you knew.”

“Funny,” he pouted, childishly, a habit he still hadn’t discarded. You tilted your head upward to kiss his jawline.

“We should go somewhere when you’re done. To celebrate. Just the two of us. Only for a day or so.”

“Sounds good,” Jooheon agreed and then lowered his voice, as if he was telling you a secret. “How about BBQ?”

You laughed softly and snuggled deeper into his side, and soon you were drifting off into sleep, enveloped by the happiness of the moment, dreams of the future, and long-forgotten memories of moments of a relationship that had stood the test of time.