#a million flowers to the stylists

[minisugakoobies]

losing my mind over fluffy mingyu 🥹🫠💕

[seren1tyhaze]

poison in my mind

PAIRING: idol!jisung x afab older stylist reader

WORD COUNT: 5.8k

SUMMARY: he has been your poison for years - Jisung with his innocent looking face, steely gaze, and wicked tongue. you do your best to keep a professional relationship with him during your work as a stylist for NCT Dream but his calls of "Noona" on set continue to test your patience.

AUTHOR NOTE: A VERY belated happy birthday to Andy Park and a big thank you to SM for letting us have that Poison live performance at the end of the year. This has been half written ever since the Poison track video behind vlog went up a million years ago but fueled even more by the dance intro at MMA. His more recent lives may have also served as inspiration. I hope you all enjoy this very self indulgent fic made especially for all my friends who also love Jisung <3

WARNINGS: explicit smut, idolverse, pet names (including Noona kink I'm so sorry)

PLAYLIST: Poison by NCT Dream, Quiet Down by NCT Dream, OK! by NCT U

dreaming 'bout you, dreaming 'bout you

~~ The set is buzzing with nervous energy in the dimly lit space, dark blue light cascading over the stage area dressed with large floral arrangements that almost make it look like the ocean floor. Renjun is talking to the camera filming their behind vlog footage and you look up from the shirt you are steaming when you hear his voice. 

“Dream will try for the sexy vibe for the first time,” with a sly smirk.

You can’t help but chuckle as the makeup artist next to you elbows your side and you tut at her, waving the steamer to quiet her. It wasn’t a secret that the Poison track video was going to be beloved by fans because of the concept and the way the members were styled. You had been tasked with pulling some of the key looks for the video, taking an opportunity to incorporate different textures like the metal grommets and fringe on the leather jacket Renjun currently was wearing. You watch proudly as he stretches his arms over his head in the center of the flowers, torso muscles rippling under the sheer mesh shirt.

You hadn’t been on staff for very long, a couple years of working under the main stylist under your belt. They had been hesitant to give you bigger opportunities due to your young age and lack of experience, but your boss saw that you had a great eye. It didn’t hurt that you were always the first one to volunteer for less than desirable tasks and always arrived early to shoots and stayed late.

“Sorry, this one’s a little too small, did you have others?” comes a voice behind you and you turn to see Mark, holding out one of the large metal rings you had laid out for him in his dressing room.

“Oh sorry, yes, of course,” you reply, smiling softly at him before kneeling down to dig in your bag for the small pouch holding the extra accessories. He was always so polite to the staff, greeting everyone and even when he was clearly exhausted, doing as many takes as the director needed.

“This one might work better and it’s adjustable,” you reply, taking his hand and sliding the ring on his pointer finger. You squeeze his hand gently before he inspects the rings, holding it out in front of him.

“Noona,” comes a harsh and low voice suddenly, causing you to move your head to the side of Mark’s leather clad legs to see an annoyed looking Jisung with crossed arms, shirtless and barefoot.

“Jisung, where is your shirt?” Mark replies, half laughing as he turns to face him, scratching at the back of his neck.

Ignoring him, Jisung returns his gaze to you and glares at your crouched position on the floor in front of Mark. A curious Renjun walks up at this moment, peeling a tangerine and flicking narrowed eyes between the three of you. Mark shrugs at him before walking away, answering a message on his phone.

“You tailored the crotch of these pants wrong, it feels weird,” Jisung continues, voice even and tinged with frustration.

Your face flushes at this, dropping the pouch back in your bag and grabbing your pins, suddenly on your feet and in front of Jisung.

“How do you know it’s wrong?” you ask, knitting your brows together as you look up at him. 

He looks good and you know he knows it. Something has shifted in Jisung in the past year - especially since they returned from tour. He carries himself differently, with a different level of confidence and wears it well. Today is no different and the fact that he just barged onto set without a shirt on is evidence. His dark blue hair is styled perfectly, long strands dangling in his eyes and contrasting beautifully with his sharp jawline.

“Here, feel,” he tells you simply, pulling your hand to his crotch and you almost let yourself palm him through the tight denim until you snap back to reality and pull your arm back. His eyes hold no emotion, dark and still, long eyelashes blinking at you temptingly. His lips are soft and plump and you want nothing more than to close the distance between the two of you and taste the glossy lip mask.

And there it is, your poison, Park Jisung. When you had graduated early from your program a few years ago, you had been focused on your career and hadn’t spent much time dating. You had some people you went out on dates with every once and a while and had your fair share of waking up in a stranger’s bed after a long night out. But Jisung had caught you by surprise. Something about the way he was so forward and aggressive with you made your brain turn to mush around him. Your heartbeat would quicken, palms sweat, and filthy thoughts would swirl in your mind until you could indulge in them with your hand pressed between your thighs later that night.

A heavy sigh comes from Renjun, accompanied by a shake of his head, as he walks out a nearby door muttering something about not wanting to see Jisung’s dick.

You flush violently, grabbing at Jisung’s bicep harshly and pulling him to his dressing room, leaving the door propped open intentionally as you take the layered black tank off the hanger and hold it out to him.

“Please put the rest of your outfit on, I think they are going to be ready for you soon,” you sigh as soon as you’re alone, reaching for the box that holds the platform boots you were reusing from a shoot with Haechan a couple months prior.

You both move silently as he pulls the shirt over his head, staring at the long leather cords before lifting his head back up to you. You move behind him, reaching over his broad shoulders to pull the leather cords around his neck and then letting the ends dangle in front of his toned chest. You try to avoid brushing your hands against his bare shoulders as he steps into the boots and ignore that his ass brushes against your stomach when he bends down slightly to zip them up.

“I just don’t know about these pants, are they the right length?” he asks, tugging at the material at his thighs. His tone is whining and defiant, lighter than how he was in front of everyone, but still slightly combative. He knows you’re weak for this very tone, as he can usually get you to do whatever he wants if he just adds it into whatever he says.

You sigh and move around him, dropping to your knees at his feet, slapping his hand away from pulling at the fabric. You pull the pants leg out of his left boot, pulling lightly and examining the hemline. You’re about to correct him when you suddenly feel his hand soft on your hair.

“You look so good from this angle,” he murmurs, voice low and sultry, causing you to jerk your head up and look at him from the floor.

Your lower lip is instantly caught in your teeth, sinking into the flesh deeply as you try to control your breathing, unable to stop yourself from blinking up at him. You feel drawn into his dark eyes and his hand in your hair is almost overwhelming.

He lets out a groan, tightening his fingertips on your scalp, exhaling audibly and clenching his other hand into a fist at his side.

“What am I going to do with you,” he tuts, dropping his hand to your chin and gripping it gently.

You rise from your knees, glancing at the open door just as Jaemin bounces by, screaming at something Haechan is doing. Suddenly aware of where you are, you step forward, adjusting the cords aimlessly.

“What happened to my sweet, innocent Jisung?” you whisper, staring at the soft skin of his collarbone and wishing you could press your lips against it forever.

“Don’t act surprised. You created this monster, Noona, dressing me in all these sexy outfits. How could you think I would stay your bright eyed baby Sungie forever?” he asks back, tucking loose strands of your hair behind your ear. His words are biting, even if they do hold some truth.

Memories of him dozing off on your shoulder during long bus rides and hastily helping him into heavy jackets and necklaces during quick changes on tour come flooding in, mixed with the heavy, lustful stares you feel on you when you wear a low cut shirt or on hot summer days in Thailand when you wore thin athletic shorts in the airport.

He had kissed your lips gently a year ago after many bottles of soju and when the rest of the members were preoccupied by endless rounds of karaoke. You had stopped him then, told him that as much as you wanted to, you couldn’t. Ever since that moment, he had made every effort to get you alone when he could, using every excuse under the sun, today’s outburst nothing new. You still remember how soft his lips felt on yours and the fire under your arm as he held you close after you rejected him.

Back on set, you’re packing up your bag again when you’re called over to check something on the computer from Jeno’s scenes. You give your feedback and suddenly your eyes are drawn up to where Jisung is filming, camera close to his face, light illuminating his beautiful features perfectly.

“Dreaming ‘bout you, dreaming ‘bout you,” echoes across the large soundstage and your heart is pounding in your chest as he plays with the cords at his neck, just as you had earlier, chests pressed up against each other in the dressing room. He makes eye contact with you briefly when the take ends and you look away quickly, embarrassed.

While you had been released to go for the day, you take your time packing the rest of your stuff, helping the makeup artists clean their station and even rearranging some chairs that barely needed adjustment. You watch the way he moves confidently, take after take, adjusting the jacket so his shoulders show boldly against the dark material. His fingers brush through the cords, pulling them up to his teeth at times before dropping them, leaving plump lips open before cracking a large smile at the reaction of the staff. In between takes he shakes his dark hair, casting his gaze down to the floor until someone asks him a question. You watch as he smiles and winks at the makeup artist powdering his cheek and you feel nervous energy stir in your stomach. You can’t bear to watch much more, so you slip out when he isn’t looking in your direction.

When you finally are home, feet pushed into fluffy slippers and sipping on steaming green tea you had just prepared, you peel the sheet mask off and rub the remaining serum into your cheeks and forehead. You are flipping through a magazine your coworker had given you on set, paying attention to the tabbed pages they had flagged for inspiration when your phone buzzes on the table next to you. A message from the head stylist fills your screen as you tap into it.

Jisung left his street shoes at set, did you take them home? He said he “needs them” for tomorrow. 

You sigh and go to the shoebox by your door to find his Nike sneakers tucked neatly, laces wrapped nicely. You quickly reply to your boss, saying you don’t mind bringing them to the dorm since you know the managers had a late night meeting tonight. Running a brush through your hair, you dot some perfume on your wrists and behind your ear before grabbing your keys.

You fiddle with the edge of your oversized sweater in the elevator as you climb the floors to his dorm, feeling a nervous pit grow in your stomach. Finally outside, you knock quickly before dropping it down to hold the box with both hands.

The door swings open and Jisung is standing tall in front of you, grey sweatpants hanging low on his hips, hair damp. A dark zip-up hoodie covers his chest and it’s unzipped just enough that you can tell he isn’t wearing a shirt underneath. You can’t help but let your mind wander back to shirtless Jisung pulling your hand to his crotch earlier and wonder if he was just lounging in his room in the sweatpants. Or worse, just his boxers.

“Hi baby,” he slurs out, lips curving up at the edge into a mischievous smile as he props his arm up on the door, leaning down as if he might kiss you. His sweatshirt hikes up on his waist when he does this, revealing a large swath of skin.

You shove the box at him, pushing him back into the room with it, letting it drop into his hands. You fling your bag on the table near the door and step out of your shoes.

“Don’t hi baby me, Park Jisung. I know you left these there so you could see me tonight. Did it really take you multiple hours to realize you weren’t wearing the shoes you came in?” you reply with a huff, picking up a sealed water bottle on the kitchen counter and taking a long sip.

Sweat is pricking at your hairline and you are starting to regret not texting one of the assistant managers or drivers to come get the shoes instead.

Jisung chuckles and sets the shoebox on a chair, reaching out to take the water bottle from you and gulping down the rest.

“Don’t be mad, baby,” he replies, leaving heavy emphasis on the pet name, stepping closer to you and wrapping strong arms around your waist, thumbs instantly finding the hem of your sweater and travelling across your lower back.

You can’t help how your body reacts to his touch, feeling your chest meet his, nipples hardening under the knit fabric now tugged down and exposing your cleavage. Your breath catches in your throat as you try to speak, looking up at him through your eyelashes for the second time today.

“Come on, I’m catching up on our show,” he says softly, lips grazing across your cheek gently. You had been watching the same show for the past few months, texting each other during episodes here and there, and chatting about it whenever you saw each other. He had complained none of the other members would watch it with him and while you would never let him know this, you had lied and said you were also planning to watch it.

Against your better judgement, you let him guide you to his small room, where his large tv is paused on the latest episode of the space docuseries.

“Oh, I haven’t watched this one yet,” you admit, dropping down to sit at the edge of his bed.

He clicks to restart the episode and unzips the sweatshirt, moving to remove it and reveal his bare chest.

“Jisung,” you say sternly and he chuckles, zipping it back up halfway, and plopping down on the bed next to you. He pulls the hood up over his dark hair for good measure before propping himself up against the pillows he has leaned against the wall. You settle back, leaving some space between the two of you and pulling a hamster plushie into your lap to nervously fiddle with.

While your eyes had started to get heavy back at your apartment, you are now wired, your body coursing with electricity and hypersensitive to every movement from the man next to you. He reaches for his phone occasionally, letting out light chuckles at messages from Chenle and even daring to post a couple Bubble messages. You thank whatever higher power exists that your phone was still tucked in your bag at the door, so he didn’t see yours light up when he sent the message. It was a drunken guilty pleasure you had indulged in and ever since receiving the first message tailored with your name, you couldn’t stop yourself from renewing the subscription.

His legs keep brushing against yours when he readjusts his position on the bed and somehow has gotten so close that his shoulder is now brushing against yours. You try to shift away, but he only closes the distance again when you do so. Your heart is pounding in your chest and you’re having a difficult time focusing on the show.

Suddenly the screen is filled with bright colors as they depict beautiful graphics of what scientists imagine the birth of a star looks like and a gasp falls from your lips as you lean forward, eyes flickering across the screen to take in the beautiful scene.

“You’re so pretty when you nerd out over this stuff,” comes his low voice, suddenly close to your ear, hand resting in the middle of your back.

You lean back in reaction, trapping his arm between you and the pillow, turning slightly to face him.

“Coming from NASA’s number one stan, please,” you reply lightly, shoving the plushie at him playfully. You let a chuckle fall from your lips and shake your head lightly, causing your hair to cascade over your shoulders.

He grabs at it and throws it off the edge of the bed, hands suddenly tight on your hips and pulling you into his lap, possessively gripping your ass as you straddle his legs. 

Your lips drop open in surprise, both of you breathing heavy at the sudden movement. You feel your responsible self tapping your shoulder but finally decide to let the years of desire bubble to the surface and propel your lips to close the gap with his.

You move your lips across his gently, resisting the urge to push your tongue out immediately or bite down on his lower lip. He tightens his grip on you in response, pushing his crotch up to meet yours. You swear you can feel him through his pants which only makes you want him more.

He pulls away, taking your cheek in his other hand and looking between your eyes as if searching for some sort of silent answer to a silent question. You can almost see his own voice of reason forcing him to pause, if only for a moment.

“You ready to deal with the consequences of that monster you created, Noona?” he asks in a devastatingly low tone before moving his lips down to mouth at your chest, pushing the knit fabric to the side to bite at your shoulder.

A sigh falls from your lips as you let your head roll back, entire body on fire as he marks the skin at your neck, teeth sharp on your skin. You can’t help as your hands slide over the zipper of his hoodie and unzip it slowly, pushing the fabric down his shoulders to expose his toned chest. Running your hands over his hard muscles, you dig your fingernails gently, eliciting a deep groan from Jisung.

“Babyyy,” he sighs out, sliding his hand up to your throat and applying pressure there, pulling you forward to meet your lips again. The kiss is more urgent this time, tongue pressing deep into your mouth and hand gripping you tighter as he continues.

You let your hands slide down his torso, running over his abs and sliding them to his back to pull yourself closer to him. Before you can pull yourself fully flush against his chest, you are being flipped over, head falling back into the pillowy surface.

“Are you sure about this,” you ask, voice wavering despite every intention you had to form a confident question. Your eyes are flicking between his dark ones, as they had many times before, but suddenly holding so much more meaning in this intimate space.

“Are you not?” he asks back, head cocking lightly to the side, thumbs never stopping the circles they are rubbing into your hip bones.

“That’s not an answer,” you quip back, grabbing onto his hands to force him to focus. Unfortunately for you, it did the exact opposite.

You pull your eyes away from his, looking at your hands now pressed up against each other against the comforter. Your hand looks tiny next to his, his fingers could almost wrap fully around the tops of yours and that makes your mind fuzzy. You pulse your fingers, stretching them along his, feeling the length of them and how hot they are to the touch.

“Noona,” he calls, not as harsh and biting as on set, but still drawing you back to reality quickly.

His voice finally softens as he sees your watery blinking eyes, overstimulation creeping up on you before you’ve done much more than make out. He drops his thumb down the side of your face, caressing the space between your ear lobe and jaw tenderly. You want to look away, you want to push up and capture his lips in yours, you want to pull that stupid hamster plushie over your face and hide your burning cheeks.

“You know, I want it, I like,” he states, as if that is a full sentence other than in the context of the song they were filming with all day. His lips turn up in a small, shy smile at the end, showing a glimpse of that quiet boy you’ve always known and your heart settles a little in your chest. You nod rapidly a few times, sinking your nails into the palm of his hand and letting your eyes flutter shut.

His lips are on yours again quickly and that wicked hand that was just caressing your skin is now tightening around your neck again, which forces you up into an arch on the bed, pressing your lower body against his hardening cock. His tongue feels hot and wet in your mouth and you can’t help the moans that are escaping every time you have to pull back for air.

He sits up, straddling either side of your legs, tugging at your shirt and you manage to sit halfway up on your elbows, almost tearing the delicate fabric of your sweater as you rip it off, fumbling with the clasp of your bra as Jisung’s mouth is suddenly latched onto your neck, dropping heated kisses down your collarbone.

He sees you struggling and simply presses a strong thumb to the clasp, letting the cotton fabric slide off your arms and he tosses it clear across the room. This draws your attention to the door, which you realize now is cracked and you pray to every higher power that Renjun isn’t home.

“Hey, eyes on me,” comes the low voice above you again and you’re drawn back in, tuning out the distractions around you. He seems more amused than annoyed, which you have to appreciate given how long you’ve both waited for this exact moment.

Jisung makes quick work of removing his pants and boxers, reaching for a condom from his nightstand as you push down your own sweats, pausing at the thin band of your underwear. He sees you, dropping the foil packet to the bed and dips his head down, teeth dragging the elastic quickly, causing you to jump and let out a giggle.

“SUNG!” you yell weakly, trying to push his dark blue locks away as he continues to drag the dampened fabric down your legs.

He somehow manages to do it pretty easily, without getting too caught up on your knees or thighs, only struggling once he’s at your ankles and ripping them off with his hand, letting them drop to the floor with your bra.

He simply shrugs at you, a smile tugging at his mouth as he smooths those huge hands over your thighs, kneading the flesh there, eyes transfixed on your naked body. Your whole body is on fire and you silently beg for him to get on with it, even as it looks like he is about to swallow you whole.

A creeping monster your in your brain tells you you should feel more self conscious with him seeing you like this, despite both being equally exposed, realizing how many times you’ve seen him half clothed or even less. His tongue darts out to lick his lips as he reaches up, covering your breast easily with his hand, thumb teasing your nipple absently. Your breath hitches in your throat and you can’t help but hold your breath as pleasure begins to flood through your body. 

You beg your own gaze not to lower, not ready to see the size of him fully hard. You’ve unfortunately seen almost all the members’ dicks but usually in quick, embarrassed, accidental glimpses. Well, except for that one time Jaemin was literally helicopter swinging it around in the dressing room when you walked in with a tray of iced americanos. Both him and Jeno couldn’t speak to you for two weeks while Chenle continued to bring it up every chance he could, even mimicking the motion during sound check at their next stop.

You are startled at the sound of him tearing the condom wrapper, rolling it quickly on and leaning back down, face inches from yours as he cups the side of your face again. You instinctively nuzzle lightly into his hand at the contact, letting your eyes flutter shut as you draw your lips to his hand, smelling faintly of the lube from the condom. You kiss in between his thumb and forefinger lightly and before you know it, he’s slipping his thumb in between your spit covered lips, pad of his finger gently pressing against your tongue.

You gasp but drag your eyes lazily to meet his, knowing your own hunger is visible now not only in your gaze but also in the eager sucking of your lips.

He groans, taking the chance to push into you and you swear you see stars. Your eyes widen but pull his thumb further into your mouth, teeth grazing across the tip of his finger erratically as your hips buck up to pull him impossibly close.

Jisung’s eyes are fluttering shut, thumb dropping from your lips, now flushed red with teeth marks and slick with spit, sliding down to clutch your throat once again. Your own hand flies to your chest, groping at yourself, desperate for something to hold onto as he picks up the pace of his thrusts.

He’s quiet, but with deep and passionate groans tumbling from his lips every once and a while. You watch as sweat begins to form at his hairline, perfect face beautiful in the dim light of his room, quiet music floating from his tv’s speakers as the episode is long forgotten and scrolling through the credits screen endlessly. Each noise that bubbles up from his chest equally soothes and paralyzes you, your own personal brand of poison seeping coldly through your veins. Your lips are perpetually hung open, mouth becoming so dry you can barely squeak out your own moans.

You feel your orgasm building suddenly after a particularly strong thrust and you swallow harshly, moving to speak to alert him. He doesn’t need any warning, reaching down to throw your leg over his shoulder and angle his lower body to perfectly hit that same spot over and over.

In seconds the poison is washing over you, lapping first at your feet like waves at the shore, nearly knocking you out as you float high above yourself, almost feeling like you’re having an out of body experience. Your chest is heaving as he slows his movements, as if he’s going to pull out. 

A confused look forms on your face, head cocking to the side as you grip his arm, shaking your head wildly. Your hair is sticking to the back of your neck and you feel too hot on his plush bedding, but that isn’t reason to stop.

“Wait…what about…” you ask, confused, knowing he hasn’t come. Your eyes flick to the door again, wondering if he’s heard something while you were swimming a galaxy of bliss post orgasm.

He smiles at you, sliding out slowly and disposing of the condom quickly. He walks back over and takes your hand, bringing you to rise on shaky legs, standing naked beside his bed as he takes both your cheeks in his hands and kisses you deeply on the lips.

“I was thinking it would be better to continue what we started on set,” he purrs against you when he finishes ravaging your swollen lips.

A mischievous look forms in your eyes and you drop your hand to his stiff cock, giving it a few experimental pumps with the mix of lube and pre cum.

“Oh yeah?” is all you can reply, sinking slowly to your knees, still managing to tease him at this moment. You drop your hands to let them rest at your thighs, pressed together in an attempt to cool the burning heat still there.

He hisses out as soon as he can see you below him, bicep flexing as he runs his hand through his hair, shaking his head in feigned annoyance. His lids are heavy and all you can see are the whites of his eyes as they roll up in ecstasy.

You run your hands up your body, fingering the side of your neck and then tangling your fingers in your own hair seductively, never looking away from the man standing above you.

“Show me how good you can be for me, Noona,” he grunts out suddenly, gripping your chin way tighter than he had in the dressing room earlier. You grit your teeth but try to keep your face even as he tilts your head lightly, as if studying your face.

You gulp audibly and take him in your hands, finally faced with what you already knew was going to be stretching your cheeks as you were definitely going to struggle fitting him in your small mouth.

You tongue at his slit teasing it gently before sucking at the tip, letting it rest in your open mouth, eyes flicked up at him menacingly. You can tell from the look in Jisung’s eyes that he is dying to ram his cock down your throat but is trying so hard to let you set the pace.

Without any warning, you're sliding him further and further into your mouth, hands massaging his smooth calves to ground you. He’s getting louder now and one of his hands is playing in your hair, every once and a while gripping it tighter.

It only takes a few gentle thrusts till his voice becomes more strained and he’s tapping you on the head as a poor attempt of warning you he’s close. You resolve to let him spill into your mouth, but as soon as he comes the sudden movement causes most of the mess to land on your cheek and shoulder.

His loud exclamation of his pet name for you still ringing in the air, his hand loosens in your hair and you’re on your feet, hands settling on his broad chest, a hazy look of satisfaction on your face.

He seems mesmerised by you covered in his cum and draws a thumb up to that same spot between your ear and jaw, sliding it down and through the mess he made on your face. It’s as if everything’s moving in slow motion as your bottom lip drops open without a word and he slides his thumb into welcoming lips. You taste him, all of him, as he watches you suckle on the digit and blush form on your cheeks under the shine of your skin.

“Fucking filthy baby,” he whispers out, yanking you towards him as he sits on the edge of his bed and lifts you into his lap. 

You can feel him harden under you and feel yourself warm up as his cock brushes against your core. You grind down on his lap which is met by him only gripping your waist tighter and landing a light smack on your ass. You grin at this and lean forward to kiss him, pushing your tongue greedily into his mouth.

“Already wanting more?” he asks with a mild mocking tone when you pull back, breathless and red in the face. He’s fully groping your ass at this point, massaging your cheeks with his fingers and pressing his palms into the thick flesh there.

You nod aggressively as you grind down on his cock again, spreading your thighs a bit more for better leverage. You want nothing more than for him to slide his bare cock into you right here and let you ride him through multiple orgasms, your tits bouncing right at eye level as he groans into your mouth through open mouthed kisses.

He merely laughs, pulling you out of your fantasy and reaches awkwardly for another condom, hand firmly keeping you in place.

“As much as I want what you want right now baby, let’s make sure there’s no-“ he starts out, rolling the condom on with shaky hands.

“SUNG, PLEASE!” you yell, clasping a hand over his mouth in embarrassment.

Even in the midst of it all, all the lustful years leading up to this moment, all the hidden glances and late night drunken thoughts, he is still your poison. Something that worms its way into your mind, into your heart. Normally, you wouldn’t even imagine being this close to someone without protection but somehow, Jisung does something to you that makes you want to be reckless. You want to be reckless with your heart, let it be swallowed whole by him. You want to throw your body on him, let him tear you down and degrade you and use you. You want to give him everything and every bit of love you can offer. You think you can see the two of you growing old together, sitting quietly in a park watching your grandchildren play together in the distance.

But you see, that’s the problem with poison. It gets in your veins, in your lungs, in your heart and slowly sweeps and finally, finally tears you down. You float high above yourself again, seeing stars as Jisung releases into the condom and his head falls against your chest. You are both quiet and unsure of what comes next. The poison of this night will wear off soon and reality will set in, leaving you only the memories of this night to return to in your dreams.

~~

[luceracastro]

SAN LUCAS

Enzo vogrincic x reader

Summary: you and Enzo had been together since you both were teens, now as you both matured and have proven that you both can be there for eachother through good and bad times, he pops the question and you both finally marry

Warnings: None except a bunch of fluff

You and Enzo met when you both were 15 in school, he remembers you walking into class on the first day, the school uniform adorned your body and though he usually hated it you made it look good, your pretty hair cascading down your back, your face was the prettiest he had ever seen

He remembers you were seated next to him and he could not bring himself to even speak to you, but when you asked him for a pencil and lent him a kind smile, he began to speak to you, simple hellos, good mornings, byes, then it turned into conversations about the assignments or teachers then your classmates

Then just about eachother, the two of you became the best of friends so naturally it was meant to be, he remembers telling you about his dream to become an actor and how he did theater, he invited you to see him and he didn't expect you to come but there you were in the front row with a smile on your face

You supported him and pushed him to reach his goal, his dream of acting because you knew he could do it, he could make it "Lo vas a lograr eso lo tengo por seguro" you said giggling as he smiled at you admiring you in every aspect

You helped him learn lines, helped him get into character and gave him honesty when he needed it, you attended every play and practice if needed, you supported him 100% and he couldn't be more grateful

He loved you, so much it was unbearable. He asked you to be his girlfriend when you both turned 18, for your birthday he brought you flowers and chocolate and saved up enough to take you to eat, it was meaningful and lovely

You swooned over it, he made time to plan this for you and he gathered enough care and thought to do that which made you blush and grin like an idiot

That night you both ended up in a field looking up at the stars, however you were the only one looking up while his eyes were stuck on you "quieres ser mi novia?" You heard him ask and you stopped talking sitting up and facing him "que?" You asked the look of disbelief on your face

"Que si quieres ser mi novia" he repeated and your eyes lit up and you nodded bending down to kiss him, that kiss was full of love and care, it was so sweet you still remember the feeling of it till this day just as he does

"Te amo" he said in between the kiss "yo tambien te amo" you giggled pressing your lips together once more, ever since then you both had been inseparable as he went to his practices and plays you followed, when you got big awards at school or simply had a special occasion he was right behind you

He loved you and you loved him. So it made sense that on your 29th birthday he got down on one knee and proposed to you, you cried like a baby accepting the proposal a million times as he cried holding you close

The one thing Enzo knew was that you were the one, and you'd always be the one.

So with the help of both mothers, him, and your bridesmaids the wedding was planned all within a year, now this was the morning you had been waiting for all your life, the makeup artist was working her magic as was the hair stylist

"Que hermoso este vestido!" Male Matias girlfriend had joined you and your bridesmaids in getting ready since she had been such a kind loving person towards you

"Gracias amor, me encanto en cuando lo vi!" You said excitedly and she grinned "te vas a ver como reina!" She squealed and you giggled "No puedo creer que te vas a casar" your mom said as she sat looked at you with eyes full of adoration and you smiled "Y con el chico que siempre me encanto para ti" She laughed as you chuckled

your hair and makeup was set, you were changed out of the silk white robe you wore and into the beautiful white dress you had fallen in love with since the moment you had first saw it after searching for months and in different dress shops

you looked in the mirror and smiled, "Estas hermosa!" your mom came over with a smile on her lips as you both looked in the mirror, only then did you realize you both had watery eyes "Ya te vas a llamar T/n Vogrincic" you both giggled

the transportation was easy yet the nerves ate at your stomach, your maid of honor took note and squeezed your hand "Sonrie" she smiled at you and you smiled too, but the nerves and jitters didn't go away "Tengo muchos nervios" you admitted smiling "Lo se pero vas a ver que todo va estar bien" she assured you and you took a deep breath nodding

you were helped out the car by your bridesmaids as they were careful to keep your white dress as white as it was, you had walked to where the ceremony would be held, your body was shaking and your belly hurt from all the nerves and butterflies "Te ves hermosa" you heard your dads voice as well as the crack in his tone

you looked at him as he held back tears at the sight of you, "Estas lista?" he asked and you nodded "Si, mas que nada" you chuckled interlocking your arm with his "Si quieres podemos huir" he suggested and you laughed nudging him with your hip as he laughed as well.

it was time, it kicked in as you were now beginning to walk down the aisle, rows and rows of close family and friends filled the seats and then your eyes landed on him, Enzo in that black suit, he had offered to cut his hair but you denied it, that was the hair you fell in love with and he liked it long so he resorted to taming it with some gel at most but to you, he was the most handsome man you had ever seen.

his eyes were watery, he looked at you with love, adoration, and admiration, he wiped the tear that fell on his cheek as you got closer, your dad placed your hand in Enzo's and he didn't leave without saying one last thing first

"Cuida de mi niña" your dad said and he seemed to allow his tears to slip down his cheeks and it seems Enzo had allowed his tears to do so as well, "Siempre, te lo prometo" he nodded

Your vows were anything but short, you and Enzo spoke of your fondest and loving memories and made promises to one another, “puedes besar a tu esposa” Enzo was quick to pull you in for a kiss, a very loving one

Walking down the isle hand in hand it was unbelievable, this was real, you both were officially together and you knew you’d never separate

“Felicidades a los casados!” Pipes voice was recognizable and you smile turning to see them all huddled together “Mas hermosa la señora Vogrincic” Alfonsina chuckled as she hugged you making you hug her excitedly

“Te ves Bonita gordis” Fran’s squeal made you laugh as you hugged him “tu mas Fran mírate” you teased “bueno bueno vamos a celebrar no?” Pipe smiled and Rocco put a hand over his shoulder “eh nomas quieres desvelarte”

“Eh pero yo agarro el primer baile con la novia hermosa” Enzo gave Simón a look “es mi novia eh cuidado” Enzo warned a small smile “Esposa, Enzo, soy tu esposa” you corrected him making him smile “Mejor que mi novia, mi esposa” he kissed you making you smile.

@madame-fear @luv4fati @creative-heart @espinasrubi tagging my loves❤️

A/n: I had sm fun writing this, in all honesty music inspires most of my fics lol but I hope you all love this just as much as I do,

And likes, reblogs, and comments are appreciated but not required just as long as you all enjoy the read, love you guys❤️❤️❤️

[bangtanintotheroom]

Model Behavior (M)

Still hooking over Still hooking over and die

• Pairing: Taehyung x Assistant!(F)Reader

• Genre: Idol!AU, Smut

• Rating: 18+

• Words: 3,181

• Summary: Helping with photoshoots brought you stress, excitement and a sense of validation. Today, you experience a new and unexpected emotion, thanks to the man at the center of it all.

• Warnings/themes: the Elle Korea photoshoot 😵‍💫, innocent touching (at first), flirting, eye contact, Tae in the open denim jacket ⚰️, making out, oral (m. receiving), a smidge of soft dom!Tae, Y/N using her teeth 🥴, restraining (with hands), cowgirl, semi-public sex, unprotected sex (a swift talk about BC and STDs is had!)

• Song Inspo: Quick Musical Doodles - Two Feet (Spotify | Soundcloud)

• Notes: When I tell y’all I am TIRED of this man wrecking me 🔪🔪🔪 I didn’t expect all of this from the Elle shoot! It got to me so bad that I started writing the beginning of this in the group chat… 🫣 Thank you to @minisugakoobies @sugalaritae @minttangerines for taking the ride to delulu land with me 💕💕💕 And thanks to @luaspersona for the helpful beta! 😚

• Taglist: @jimilter @joontied @jinsquishes @swweetnightt @minisugakoobies @minttangerines @sugalaritae @crisle19 @codeinebelle @ssaboala @kookprada @saweetspoiled @effielumiere @m1sss1mp

You're an assistant on the set of Elle Korea.

You've always been professional, especially since your position involved sprucing up the model at the time. From damn-near naked to partially covered, the human body never fazed you too much.

Until the day Kim Taehyung stepped into the room.

Your eyes were wandering.

Your responses were delayed.

Every time your fingers brushed against his sun-kissed skin, a spark began and traveled to the pit of your belly. And it didn't help that he had a tendency to look you dead in your eyes whenever you were in front of him.

His dark gaze penetrated you every single time.

But you managed to truck on and the rest of the shoot goes smoothly. Well, aside from the one time you almost missed your cue from the director, thanks to wishing you were the flower sticking out of Taehyung’s waistband.

Just as you were packing your bag, you felt a tap on your shoulder. You thought it was your boss and prayed that they didn't notice your slacking today; you had a cruise to go on next month. Opening your mouth with an apology ready, you spun around, only for it to evaporate.

For it was your distraction standing there.

"Hey. Y/N, right?"

Wait, he actually remembered your name? You were so used to 'the helper' or 'that girl' or 'you there' that the courtesy surprised you.

"Yes...Taehyung, right?"

A smile that lifted his cheeks came over his handsome face.

"That's me. Thank you for your help today, you work quick."

No Y/N, don't shuffle your feet like you're some shy schoolgirl.

Oops. Too late.

"Oh, thanks, but it's kind of what I have to do. If I was slow, I definitely wouldn't be here, haha."

You hoped you didn't sound too self-deprecating there, but it seemed to be okay as Taehyung chuckled.

"You have a point there."

Thinking that he was just coming by to pay his gratitude before moving onto whatever else million-dollar celebrities do, you were caught off-guard when he remained steady. For a few seconds, nothing was said as he continued looking you dead in your eyes.

Fuck, he needed to stop with that. Did he know what kind of power his deep brown orbs had?

"Y/N, listen. I need a bit of a favor before I leave for the day."

You blinked.

"You do? What is it?"

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his tight slacks, making the front of his open denim jacket part further, revealing more of that golden skin you kept eyeing up.

"I really liked these outfits. I wanted to see if you could give me the details on them so I could pass them along to my stylist."

Oh? You could do that. Anything to be around this gorgeous man longer.

"Of course! Just follow me to the fitting area, the bags have all the details."

Taehyung directed a box-like smile at you, nodding. You turned and motioned him to follow you down the hall and past people scurrying by with coffee trays and overflowing binders. Reaching your destination, you walked into the room with him, hearing the door shut behind as you made a beeline for the clothing rack along one of the walls.

You studied the cardstock hanging off of the first garment bag before speaking, "Okay, it looks like the red leather jacket you had was Valentino from the Fall/Winter 2023 collec—"

"Y/N."

You were interrupted by a baritone in close distance to your ear, turning your head to jump at how close Taehyung was standing next to you now.

"Y-Yes?"

His full lips curled into a crooked grin.

"I knew what collection that was from before I even got here."

Huh?

"You did?"

"Mhm."

A hand came up to hold yours, removing it from the paper.

That spark from earlier? Yeah, no, that was nothing, because his long and callused fingers against your smaller and somewhat dry ones lit a damn match inside you. And he only made the fire grow with the way his eyes lidded, looking so close to one of the shots that was taken earlier.

"Just wanted to get you alone."

Oh shit.

The air shifted thanks to his confession. The longer your gazes held, the more you forgot that you were at work.

You definitely shouldn't be alone in a dressing room with a famous idol. You definitely shouldn't be forgetting that anyone could bust in at any moment. You definitely should be reminding yourself about that cruise you still had to pay off. You needed this damn job and—

"Y/N."

A shiver ran through you. Damn, his voice.

"Don't think I didn't notice how you were looking at me the whole time."

Oops.

"I-I'm sorry, Taehyung, I shouldn't have been—"

Whatever else you wanted to say was halted when he pressed one of those appendages to your lips.

"Why are you sorry? You think I made you bring me back here for an apology?"

All you could do was stammer, looking undeniably stupid in front of someone who you deemed untouchable. Realizing you were at a loss for words, Taehyung took the reins and moved his finger before leaning down. You felt his wispy bangs brush against your forehead, eyes still on his smoldering gaze.

"If you're not averse to overtime, I'd like to see what's been running through this pretty head of yours."

Nope. This had to be a dream. Or a setup. Maybe that prick Kwan was trying to get you fired so he could get your position.

But...you didn't want to say no.

Licking your lips, you finally found your voice again.

"I...I don't want to get in trouble."

The idol didn't seem fazed, shoulders shrugging as he laid his hands on your hips.

"What happens in this room, stays in this room."

Ah. Well, that was what you would definitely consider a green light.

So you gave your own answer by grabbing the lapels of his jacket, tugging him in for a heated kiss. The next few moments were a blur.

There were hands roaming. His over your comfortable clothes that were starting to feel restrictive over time. Yours going straight for the warm, bare skin underneath the denim, doing your absolute best to remember every bump and dip. How many people would get to say they got to touch Kim Taehyung like this?

At some point, his back was pressed into the wall next to the rack, lips still ravaging your own. Your fingers went on autopilot for his belt, but as soon as you brushed the expensive leather, Taehyung broke the kiss.

"Hold on."

Uh oh. Did he change his mind?

You tried to stave off the disappointment coming on.

"What's wrong?"

He took your hands and pulled them away, but he never let go.

"I know how well these hands of yours work, baby—"

The smirk he gave you should have been illegal in over seventy countries.

"But I wonder if your mouth is just as talented."

Oh.

He had to have felt the way you trembled in his grasp. He had to.

"I mean...I've never had any complaints before."

Taehyung's eyes squinted at your sudden surge of confidence.

"Then don't be greedy. Sharing is caring."

Barely biting back a grin, you waited until he let you go before sinking down to your knees, coming face to face with a tent in his costly slacks. You began reaching for his belt again, only to feel a light swat to your hands. You gaped up at him in shock, only to quiver at the heat directed on you.

"I didn't say you could use your hands, did I?"

What had you gotten yourself into and how could you do it again?

“No, you didn’t.”

Taehyung’s straight teeth flashed dangerously.

“Don’t keep me waiting, gorgeous.”

While those few words rolled off his tongue, he took the opportunity to shift his hips closer to your face. You couldn’t hold back a swallow.

Hopefully, you wouldn’t make an absolute fool of yourself with what you were about to do.

You anchored your palms on your thighs, gripping lightly before you leaned forward, brushing your lips against the cool metal of his belt buckle. Praying that you wouldn’t get any marks on it, you took a hold of the leather with your teeth. You tried your best not to think of how stupid you might have looked, attempting to undo Taehyung’s belt this way.

But his word was absolute; no hands meant no hands.

Finally, you got somewhere, managing to release it from the metal prong before sliding the buckle away. This gave you access to his slacks now, relieved that this part would be much easier.

It was a good thing you only had lip balm on; any kind of stain on the expensive fabric would surely cause you to be reprimanded by your boss.

Your teeth loosened the button from its hole before going for the zipper tab, the sound of the fasteners undoing themselves like music to your ears. You went for his waistband as soon as you were finished, putting more force into your movement this time. With a sharp jerk, you pulled down enough to see a good portion of his briefs.

Just one layer left.

Taehyung seemed to be losing his patience, jutting his hips forward once again. Shooting him a reassuring look, you made quick work of the thin fabric. You barely had time to avoid his cock springing out and hitting you in the eye, face warming at the humored chuckle he gave.

Wanting to wipe the smirk off his face, your mouth engulfed as much of him as possible before giving a harsh suck.

“Shit—”

Lips curling around his length, you gave it your all, throwing in whatever tricks you were familiar with. Taehyung seemed to appreciate the effort, ebony eyes watching you like a hawk and filth-coated praises leaving his mouth.

“That’s it, baby— This what you wanted to do to me the whole day?”

Hopefully the way you fluttered your lashes got the message across.

“Goodness, I hope you’re not like this with every model you work with.”

Now your eyes narrowed, a hand coming up to swat his thigh on instinct. Unfortunately, you didn’t realize your mistake until Taehyung flew out to grab your wrist.

“What did I say, Y/N?”

Forgetting that your mouth was occupied, you began apologizing, but the idol was quick to stop you with his free hand.

“Give me your other arm.”

Your thighs quivered at the commanding tone covering the baritone now, obliging without a second thought. He wrapped his long fingers around your other wrist, keeping your arms up and next to his legs.

“Go on.”

You did not expect him to just take charge like that; the thought only made your pussy clench hard before you continued sucking him off.

For the most part, Taehyung let you do all the work. But sometimes his hips would come to life, taking a moment to give shallow thrusts into the wet heat of your mouth. The rational part of your brain freaked out whenever some of your spit threatened to leak out onto his pants while the horny part relished in the messiness.

Just before a large glob was about to slip past your lips, you felt him release your wrists and pull back to slide out of your mouth. While you were catching your breath, Taehyung helped you stand before walking you over to the couch on the other side of the room. He took a seat, keeping his legs spread as he tugged you by your hips to stand between them.

“Sorry to rush the fun, but my people are going to be looking for me soon.”

His hands already began working at your pants before the sentence was even finished.

“It’s fine.”

As soon as he opened the closures and yanked both waistbands down to your calves, you helped with getting them off your feet. He pushed his own clothing further down his legs and you straddled his lap, shivering at the sensation of his dick under your drenched core.

“You’re okay with this?”

Taehyung’s question took a second to sink in, but you nodded when it did.

“Yeah. I’m clean and safe.”

The man underneath you reflected the nod, hands sneaking around to cup your bare ass.

“Good. You don’t have to worry about getting anything from me, either.”

Your brows knitted jokingly as you felt Taehyung lift you up a bit.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to have to end up going to the media and letting them know that Kim Taehyung is carrying something.”

He merely chuckled, reaching down to guide himself to your entrance.

“And I don’t want to have to go to your boss and tell them about what went down in this room.”

Your mouth parted as you felt him begin to spread you out, words unable to come out until you were fully seated on his lap.

“T-Touché.”

Pleased with your acceptance, Taehyung took a hold of your hips and began pumping up into you. It was torture to have to hold back some of the louder noises you wanted to make, but you did not want to lose this damn job.

Guess you would have to show your appreciation another way.

Managing to balance yourself upright, you laid your palm on his chest, pushing the jacket aside to give you a better look at his torso. Your fingers roamed over the tanned skin, savoring the muscle and tone lying underneath. You took special interest in his stomach, enjoying the faint outline of abs that would show whenever he thrust up.

“Hey, that tickles.”

Your lips curled at Taehyung’s thick protest, sliding your index finger down to trace around his belly button.

“Sorry.”

He merely shook his head as you showed no signs of stopping your trek, digging his nails into your bottom.

“Sure you are.”

Taehyung made sure to get his revenge by pumping harder, forcing you to clap your free hand over your mouth, preventing a loud moan from escaping. He doesn’t slow down over time, fucking into you with abandon as low grunts left him. The model seemed content with watching you bounce above him for the most part. His dark orbs often switched between your face and where your bodies were connected.

The two of you continued until you felt that unbearable coil twisting in your gut, needing something extra to help it snap. Taking a chance, you removed the hand silencing yourself to grab one of Taehyung’s, sliding it between your hips. With a pleading look down at him, he nodded swiftly.

You were sure you tasted blood with how hard you bit on your lip when he started circling your aching clit.

But it was just what you needed, finding yourself getting to that precipice faster than before.

“T-Taehyung—”

Said man continued his movements, eyes steady on your face.

“Keep going, baby. Gonna make me come too—”

His admittance made your pussy quiver, but the excitement took a halt with a sudden thought you had.

“Wait, where are you gonna come?”

“I’ll pull out, don’t worry.”

Oh hell. If he did that, who knows where the mess would end up. While it would be unpleasant if it landed on your own clothes, any trace of semen on his own garments would cause a fiasco.

“Don’t, just— Stay inside, it’s fine.”

Taehyung gaped up at your words. It seemed like he wasn’t going to fight you though, not saying anything more. He let his hips do the talking for him instead.

With a few more steady thrusts and swipes over your bud, you saw stars behind your lids, arching your back and stifling down a cry in your throat. Your nails dug into the firm chest below, needing some sort of anchor as you rode out the tension. You almost missed the sight of Taehyung following behind you, watching as his face screwed up in bliss as ropes of release coated your walls.

His hips came to a stop after some time, his head flopping to rest on the back of the couch as he caught his breath.

“Fuck, that was good…”

You couldn’t speak quite yet, choosing to reflect the sentiment with an unsteady nod. The two of you took a moment to catch your breaths before you tapped his shoulder.

“We should probably get out of here now.”

“Ah.”

You were careful in pulling off of Taehyung’s dick, making sure nothing dripped out. Thankfully, a tissue box was nearby, allowing you to grab a few sheets to clean yourself up. You handed a couple to him as well.

Once you were done, you picked your pants and underwear off the floor, sliding them back on over trembling legs. Taehyung seemed to finish getting himself together at the same time as you, fastening his belt. He looked up at you with a grateful smile.

“Thanks for that, Y/N.”

You scoffed lightly, your own smile coming to the surface.

“I should be thanking you. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t expect to get the opportunity to fuck an idol.”

The taller man laughed at your quip, wispy bangs moving as he shook his head.

“Cross it off your bucket list. Who knows, we might see each other again in the future.”

Taehyung smirked at how flustered you became now, leaning down to plant a kiss on your swollen lips. He whispered against them, “Hell, I wouldn’t mind it. See ya.”

He didn’t even give you a chance to say goodbye, heading for the door. Shooting you a wink, he opened it before stepping out and shutting, leaving you all alone in the dressing room now.

Wow.

Did you really just sleep with the Kim Taehyung?

And got away with it?

A short laugh couldn’t help but come out.

Hopefully he was telling the truth when he said that what happened here would stay between the two of you.

Glancing at your watch, you decided to head back to the set to help break everything down. You walked over to the door and placed your hand on the knob.

A sudden realization froze your body and made your gut twist.

The two of you forgot to lock the door.

Motherfucker.

All you could do was sigh and shake your head before leaving; Taehyung better keep his pretty mouth shut.

©bangtanintotheroom, 2023. Crossposted to AO3. Do not repost to other sites or copy without permission.

[suguwu]

lover be good to me: part one

You meet Kita Shinsuke on a rainy summer day, with a sea of hydrangeas swirling at your feet. You know him instantly, as only a soulmate can. He seems like a good man. Like a good soulmate.

But it's your wedding day.

minors and ageless blogs do not interact.

pairings: kita shinsuke x f!reader, oc x f!reader

notes: this fic has been a long time coming—it's basically my baby at this point. i'm so excited to finally get to share part one with you! i am so thankful for everyone who has sat thru me yelling about this to them. and a million thank yous to my beta, between your enthusiasm for this fic and all your help with it—i don't know if it could have been done without you!

title and part title are from hozier's "be" and "nfwmb"

tags for this part: soulmate au (first words), this is a very reader-centric story, very significant reader x oc, slow burn, hurt/comfort, pining, alcohol consumption, anxiety.

see main fic tags here.

wc: 13k

The hydrangeas are in full bloom.

You can see them through the window: the sea in each blossom, the radiant blue of them veined through with white, ocean and foam detailed in petals. They nod with the rain, weighed down by the fat droplets. 

There are two men that keep passing through the sea of hydrangeas like ships, leaving little eddies of blooms in their wake. They must be vendors considering they’re weighted down by boxes, though neither seems bothered by their load. 

You watch them for a moment. They’re both efficient, unbothered by the slow, steady drizzle. You rest your chin on your cupped palm, eyes drawn to the shorter man. There’s a few strands of hair peeking out from beneath his hat, the hazy gray of it—black-tipped like thunderclouds—an odd contrast to his lean, toned body. 

He makes his way through the courtyard, and you lean forward to keep him in sight, your nose almost pressed against the foggy window pane. He steps carefully around a drooping hydrangea bloom, his calm face visible for the first time, and something threads through you for a breath unraveling too quickly for you to place. 

He ducks beneath the eaves and out of your sight. 

Just in time, too. The rain picks up drumming gently against the ground, carrying a few loosened petals with it. The other man—broader and taller but no less graceful for it—spits out a curse. He hurries forward until he too is gone from view. 

“Told you it would rain,” Abe says from behind you, making you yelp. She presses in next to you. Her breath billows over the window pane blooming hazy against it, a marine fog. 

“You did,” you say with a laugh. “So did the weather channel. Almost a full week before you did.”

She scoffs. “Yes, but that’s their job. Mine was sheer instinct.”

“And listening to the weather channel?”

“Must you slander me?”

“Yes,” you say, smiling, but your gaze returns to the courtyard where the hydrangeas are bleeding petals under the rain’s heavy cut. 

“Are you nervous?”

You meet Abe’s gaze in the reflection of the window pane. Her dark eyes are warm and soft, and maybe a little bit sad. 

“Should I be?” you ask.

She wraps a small hand around yours and you realize you’ve been tapping your nail against your water glass, a crystalline symphony. 

“No,” she says firmly. “You shouldn’t.”

Warmth blooms in your chest, sprouts like flowers between the cracks in the concrete. You lean into her. She sighs, long and put-upon, but she tilts towards you, opens her body to you. It’s an invitation you know well. You rest your head in the crook of her shoulder and stare out the window.

“Yeah,” you say. “You’re right.”

“Always am.”

“That’s debatable, Natsu.” 

She grumbles but starts to pull away without comment when the kimono stylist calls out for her. She pauses for a moment. She leans in and adjusts your shiromuku carefully, her fingers deft. Then she squeezes your hand softly, familiar and warm, like a song you’ll always know. You squeeze back. 

You watch her reflection in the window until it blurs at the edges. She’s already bickering with Yoshikawa by the time it fades entirely from the foggy windowpane, their voices carrying. You’re sure that they’re curled together over Yoshikawa’s phone, flicking through the itinerary you’ve already forgotten most of. 

There’s movement beyond the window and you perk up as the man from before walks by. He’s kept under the eaves by the increased rain, and you can see the way it’s dampened his hair to something closer to slate.

There’s a gleam of amber above the boxes he’s carrying; the briefest flash of his eyes, bright and keen. He sweeps by the window almost close enough to touch, and you press your fingertips against the cool pane without thinking. 

It’s this closeness that lets you see his phone—a flip phone, of all things, with a little charm you can’t quite make out dangling from it—slip from his pocket. You wince as it drops out of view. 

He keeps going though, utterly unfazed. The rain has overshadowed the noise you realize, and you’re darting outside before you even know it, the shoji rattling slightly from your force. The summer humidity rolls over you, so stark against your aircon-chilled skin that you shiver with it. 

“You dropped your phone!” you call out after the man, hurrying along the engawa to scoop it up, careful of your shiromuku’s hem. The tiny charm is a stylized stalk of rice, you realize, the little panicles at the top colored with shimmering golden paint. It’s cute. A little at odds with his utilitarian flip phone, but cute nonetheless.

Ahead of you, the man goes still.

He’s turning around when his name unfurls inside of you. 

The movies hadn’t said it was anything like this.

There’s no passion ripping through you like forest fire, no lightning strike sizzling his name into your very bones. It’s slow and soft, like slipping into bathwater after a long, hard day, the heated kiss of it a balm against all of your bruises. Like the bloom of the first crocuses, a promise of spring after the long winter. 

“Oh, Shinsuke,” you breathe, and you think you’ve never known a name so well, that each curve of it was made to fit upon your tongue. 

The man—Shinsuke—stares at you. And then his lips tilt into a faint smile, tender like the oncoming dawn; a watercolor sky burgeoning with sunlight, a world coming awake. You think you could build a home in the way he looks at you. 

“There you are,” he says softly. “I’ve been waiting.”

You know.

You’ve known for years that he’s been waiting for you; it’s been scrawled on your skin this whole time. He has always, always been waiting for you.

Your soulmark pulses faintly. For a breath, you think you can see it glow despite the heavy layers you have on.

“Shinsuke,” you say again. It’s a helpless little sound, the edges of it catching in your throat like burrs. You need to say something else. You know you do. You know what you have to tell him, but he’s looking at you so softly that the words keep getting lost. 

Your grip on his phone tightens until the little rice charm is cutting into your skin.

His smile starts to fade. It curls in on itself, wilting at the edges, like the last of the summer flowers.

He’s been looking at only you, you realize. Just you. Your face, most likely, but it feels like something more—as if he’s seeing down to your marrow, as if he’s flayed you open beneath his tender gaze. He’s only been looking at you. Nothing else. 

He’s been looking at you, but you think he’s seeing the rest now. Your careful makeup. Your pristine hair.

Your lavish shiromuku—carefully embroidered with the elegant sweep of cranes’ wings and with delicate petals unfolding into bountiful chrysanthemums—that fits you perfectly, the heavy silk of it as white as driven snow.

You couldn’t find the words for it, caught up in the gentle sun of his joy as it pooled golden around you, but he’s finally seeing what you couldn’t say.

It’s your wedding day.

***

Your soulmark appears when you’re twelve, all without you even noticing. 

Summer is in full bloom in Toyooka; the wet lick of a heatwave has settled oppressive over the countryside. It’s relentless. Even the rice fields seem to feel it, the verdant green ripple of them becoming a honey-slow shiver under the wind’s gentle touch. 

In the heat the cicadas’ call goes lazy; the storks only come out in the earliest parts of morning. They wade carefully through the still waters of the rice paddies, their beaks flashing in the weak sunlight as they needle down into the murk. 

The rental house is tucked carefully between two farms, a lone house amid the rippling rice plants. It’s old but well-maintained, a perfect little hideaway for your mother to finish her study. In the heat, she keeps the shoji doors open wide to let in the dancing, citronella-scented breeze. The first day you wander around the house to weigh the papers down with a mish-mash of items: the fruit bowl, pilfered from the kitchen counter under your father’s nose; encyclopedias long outdated; a pair of petal-flecked garden shears. 

It helps it feel like home.

Abe and her mother have come to Toyooka too; your mothers spend their days bent close together, talking in a language you know by heart but still can’t understand. Caught up in their research, they leave you to your own devices.

Away from all of your other friends and the bustle of the city, you and Abe roam free like a pair of stray cats. You spend the days without chores wandering through town, your arm hooked through hers, both your tongues stained sky blue from the Gari-Gari Kun popsicles from the conbini. The grannies wave at you as you pass by them; the two of you wave back with sticky fingers. 

You flit in and out of the rice paddies, scooping up tadpoles from the murky water. The farmers grow used to your presence quickly; they greet you cheerfully, accepting the onigiri you bring with little nods. 

After you splash through a paddy to coo over them, Watanabe lets you feed his ducks. He pours the feed from his hands into your smaller ones with a grunt. His hands are strong but aged, the dark skin on the back of his hands papery in the sunlight, wrinkled like old parchment. He teaches you both how to sprinkle the feed into the water just right so the ducks go arrowing across the water, little ships without sails. 

The days are long and short in the same breath.  

At night, Abe’s flashlight flickers in her window like a firefly, long after you are both meant to be in bed. You flash your own message back, little secrets wrapped up in ribbons of light, never mentioned after dawn. The two of you are woven together as only childhood friends can be.

And it’s Abe that sees your soulmark first. 

It’s midday and the clouds are rolling in across the clear blue sky hanging heavy and low, a gray promise of afternoon thunder. The two of you trace shapes in the clouds, shaded under a massive camphor tree, bumping into each other’s arms as you go.

There’s a rabbit in your cloud, the puffy edges of it extending into fluffy gray ears that wisp and sway with the growing breeze. You’ve just traced along the little curve of its nose when Abe—who has been burbling away like a spring brook, her chatter weaving a spell around the two of you—goes silent. 

Then she shrieks and grabs your arm.

“When did it come in?” she asks breathlessly. She’s shaking you too hard for you to see what she’s talking about, but there’s only one thing that tone could mean. 

You freeze, your heart pounding in your ears. For a moment, you consider closing your eyes, as if that will keep it from being real. As if that will rewrite your fate. 

You think of all the quotes you’ve scrawled in your notebooks late at night, and hope for all of them and none of them. 

Abe gives you another little shake. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! It’s so early! How long have you had it? Has anyone said it yet? What do you—”

“I don’t know!” you say, shaking her off and scooting backwards, pulling your arm towards your chest. 

She scowls. “How do you not know?”

“I didn’t notice it.”

You hadn’t. Maybe it was the sleepy haze of summer days running together.

Maybe you hadn’t wanted to see it.

Now that you know, it’s easy to see your mark. It’s already settled into your skin, the kanji tucked carefully into the tender flesh of the crook of your elbow. The characters are neat, precise little things, delicate at the edges. It shimmers silvery in the sunlight. A winter moon’s glow inked into your skin.

Abe plants her hands on her hips. “You didn’t notice your soulmark?”

You shake your head. “You know I would tell you!!”

She huffs. “I guess. You really didn’t know?”

You yank on a tuft of grass. “Nope.”

“Idiot,” she says, but it’s fond. She nudges closer to you despite the heat. “Who doesn’t realize their mark was written?”

“Me, I guess.”

“Guess so. Lemme see,” she says, making grabby hands at your arm; you let her yank it close with a sigh. She peers down at your mark with heavy concentration.

“You look like Granny Takada right now.”

She pouts. “Do not!”

“You do,” you tell her. “You’re all squinty.” 

“Do you want me to read it to you or not?”

You take a second too long to answer, the words caught in your throat, tangled on your tongue. Abe glances up. Something passes over her face; it’s too quick to know, a fleeting summer storm. She drops your arm with a sigh.

“The kanji are complicated,” she complains. “Too hard to read. Leave it to you to have a soulmate like that.” 

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” you ask, wrinkling your nose even as you relax, your muscles uncoiling. 

She snorts. “Nothing, nothing,” she coos, smacking your hand away when you swat at her. “Let’s go, it’s gonna rain. We can’t track mud inside again.”

“That was you, not me.”

Abe ignores you, popping up to her feet and rocking back on her heels. She takes off before you can stand her braids streaming behind her like kite ribbons, and you yelp out a protest as you scramble to your feet. 

“Nat-chan!” 

“Keep up!” she shouts, halfway to the rice paddy that edges the little meadow, and you take off after her.

The skies open on the two of you when you’re almost back to the rental, the rain relentless and heavy as only a summer storm can be. You both shriek but the water is warm, and you giggle at the way Abe’s bangs are plastered to her forehead even as you keep running.

You tumble into the genkan just as the first lightning strike splits the sky. You’re practically tripping over each other. Abe knocks into the getabako, jarring a pair of your father’s shoes, their well-worn soles rolling upwards like the barnacled hull of a capsized boat. She grunts with the impact.

“Quiet,” you hiss.

“I’m being quiet,” she hisses back, just as your mother rounds the corner and fixes the two of you with an unimpressed raised brow.

Abe’s mother peeks around the corner too, her lips thinning as she sees the water dripping from the two of you. “You’re soaked,” she says. “And you’re making a mess of the genkan, Natsumi.”

“Sorry,” she mutters.

Her mother sighs. “Weren’t you supposed to be back earlier? Before the rain?”

“We got distracted because her soulmark came in!” Abe says, pointing to you with no remorse. 

You gape at her. 

“What?” she says. “It’s in a pretty obvious spot.” 

“Natsumi,” her mother says, exasperated. “You’re always jumping in feet first.”

Abe grumbles, but goes quiet when her mother eyes her.

“Chieko,” your mother says. “Do you need umbrellas for the walk home?”

“If it’s not an inconvenience.”

“Of course not.”

You and Abe engage in a rapid-fire round of mouthing things to each other as your mothers search for umbrellas, too close to risk actual words. Abe speaks fast, even in exaggerated slow motion, and after you think she says something about snails, you decide it’s too incomprehensible to keep trying. You wave her off with a quick tilt of your head. She scowls but stops, crossing her arms with a soggy squish. 

The scowl disappears from her face as soon as her mother steps up beside her, handing her one of your umbrellas. She traces a finger over the nearest little cat design, petting lightly at its fabric ears. 

“Let’s go before you catch a cold,” Chieko says. “Say goodbye.”

“Bye,” Abe says, her voice stilted.

“Bye,” you parrot. 

“Alright then,” Chieko says after a moment. She looks at you, considering. You bite the inside of your cheek, running the tip of your tongue against the pinched flesh. 

She sighs. “You’ll figure it out,” she says softly.

You should have known that she wouldn’t offer congratulations. The relief spreads over you like a balm, soothing the scrape you hadn’t even known was there. 

You nod. 

“See you tomorrow,” your mother tells her.

She and Abe disappear out the front door and into the downpour; Abe throws you one last look before the door closes behind them. You look away. 

Your mother is quiet for a moment. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

“I—I don’t think so.”

She considers you. “Alright,” she says. “I’ll get you a towel and then you need to go change before you get sick.”

“Okay.” 

She disappears down the hallway without another word. 

You look down to your soulmark. At the thin kanji of it, the gleam of them like spiderwebs caught in a moonbeam, an ethereal silver. When you touch it, tracing a fingertip carefully against the crook of your elbow, it just feels like skin. As if it’s always been there. As if it’s always been a part of you. 

Upside down, the kanji are difficult to parse. You run your fingers over them once more, and then your mother is there with a towel. You yank your fingers away as if burned. She doesn’t react, just handing you the towel and corralling you upstairs to dry yourself off. 

Dinner is quiet that night and you go up to bed early, tired from the ups and downs of the day.

You’ve just finished brushing your teeth when the flickering catches your attention. You spit out the last bit of foam and rinse out your mouth before padding over to your window. 

A little light bobs up and down across the way; at moments, you can make out the vague outline of Abe’s face when she brings the flashlight up with a sharp jerk that almost hits her chin. She’s cycling through the attention-getting code you’d made up a few years back. 

You consider pulling your shade down entirely. 

Instead, you pad over to your dresser drawer and pull out your own flashlight. You settle into bed with it heavy on your lap. You pull at the edge of the faded sticker slapped below the switch, tearing a little piece of it off. You flick it on for a second. Just enough to let Abe know you’re there. 

It’s not your normal greeting, and Abe’s window stays dark for a long, long moment. 

Mad at me? she finally flashes, little pulses of starlight in the dark.

You are. Soulmates are different for the two of you. You’ve grown up hearing all of the jargon for your mother’s study, and you know that she has too. You know the low rate of soulmates meeting, and you know the distant look in your father’s eyes as he wraps tender fingers around his blackened mark. 

It’s different, and you thought she knew that. 

Sorry, her flashlight blinks out. I am.

You think of how she complained about the kanji of your mark despite being the most proficient in your classroom. 

Mad at me?

You wonder how you would have told your parents that you’d received your mark when you can barely acknowledge it yourself. 

You raise your flashlight.

No, you send off. Not anymore. 

Good, she immediately sends. 

You talk until your eyelids are drooping and your jaw is cracking with non-stop yawning. It’s easy to say goodnight, knowing you’ll see each other in the morning. You pull down your shade and climb into bed.

You fall asleep with your hand cupped over your soulmark.

***

It takes you three days to finally ask what your mark says. 

Evening is coming to life, the sky darkening into plum, the faintest hint of cotton-candy pink lingering on the horizon. As your father sets the table, you’re unable to resist the quiet call of what fate has scraped into your skin. 

He blinks, trading a look with your mother, but then he smiles softly. 

“After dinner,” he tells you. “Okay?”

You nod.

It’s your mother who reads it to you later, the two of you whispering together on the engawa surrounded by the flicker of the summer fireflies. You curl tight into her side, a rib returned. 

“There you are,” she reads softly, stroking a thumb gently over the kanji. “I’ve been waiting.” 

Her voice is a honeyed drip, sweet and steady, and though she is smiling, you think she sounds sad. She shifts to press a hand tight over her stomach as if it’s the only thing holding her together, as if she’s suddenly too big for her body. You know her mark is there. The kanji has gone sour and black, an eclipsed moon. 

“I don’t know if I want them to wait for me,” you whisper to her. 

She presses a kiss to your hairline. “You don’t have to know, tadpole.”

You bite the inside of your cheek. 

She shifts beside you. “You don’t have to wait for them, you know,” she tells you.

“Really?”

“Really,” she says.

“Do you think I’ll meet them?” you ask, kicking your feet and looking out into the night. A firefly flares bright, and you consider running to catch it. You’ve always been quick enough. The fireflies have always been trusting enough. 

She nudges a knuckle against your cheek. “The chances are low,” she admits, because she has never lied to you about soulmates. “And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

“Why?”

She sighs. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

She still has her hand pressed hard against her ribcage. 

You bite your lip and don’t ask anything else. 

The two of you stay curled together under the stars, watching the trucks trundle down the road as the late-working farmers return from the paddies. Eventually, she ushers you inside, and when she thinks you aren’t looking she knots her fingers in your father’s shirt. The fabric winds tight around her fingers, cutting into the softness of her skin. Her shoulders are trembling. Your father cups the back of her head and brushes a kiss to her hairline. 

You go up to your bedroom without a word because even this young, you know there are things you aren’t meant to see. 

Not long after that night your mother and Abe’s mother publish the study. It’s a culmination of years of grueling research on soulmates, of half-written notes on napkins when you go out to restaurants, of simmering arguments between her and Abe’s mother, of death threats and poisonous words. 

It covers the concept of soulmates like kudzu, winding over the romance of it and smothering it beneath statistics and a dissection of societal impact alike. 

It gets a nickname soon after publication, and your mother’s smile is a melon rind curve, bitter at the edges. 

They call it the Heartbreak Study.

***

Summer comes to an end.

You leave Toyooka on a rainy afternoon, the light drizzle sending water droplets racing down the train window. The storks huddle together in the paddies, their wet feathers gleaming like the moon. Abe is warm at your side curled into you, already half-asleep from the underlying hum of the train. It picks up speed and the rolling green of the countryside blurs like a watercolor, smearing across the horizon as you head back to the city.

It feels like you’re leaving more than the countryside behind.

Still, the city is a comfort, the bustle of it a familiar song, and you’d missed the neon lights that dot the streets like little flowers. With the return of school just around the corner it’s nice to settle back into the rhythm of city life, so different from the steady, unyielding heartbeat of Toyooka. 

You unpack your clothes and yourself too, slotting everything back into your city life, trying to fit back into it like a well-worn pair of shoes. 

“Oh,” Yoshikawa says lazily the next day, when you and Abe find her sprawled out on a bench by the conbini, sucking on a popsicle. She peers up at you, her long hair flowing around her shoulders like weeds in the current, softly swaying with each little movement. “You’re back.”

“She got her soulmark!” Abe says, dragging you forward by your wrist to display your mark. 

“Natsu,” you groan, ignoring the way she tugs at your wrist to pull you even more into Yoshikawa’s space. “Really?”

“What, you weren’t going to tell her?”

“Yeah,” Yoshikawa drawls, her dark eyes sly. “Were you not gonna tell me?”

“Shut up, Yocchan,” you say. “You know I was going to tell you.”

“You sure?” she asks, propping herself up on her elbows. “Doesn’t quite sound like it.”

“Yocchan.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll stop teasing. Can I see?” 

You hesitate for a breath. 

“You don’t gotta,” Yoshikawa says, biting into her popsicle with a loud crunch. Her lips are blue with it, the same color as the mid-morning sky. It drips down her elegant fingers, catches on the small scars littered across them. She licks at them absently, but her gaze is keen.

“It’s fine,” you say. “I’m just…still getting used to it.”

She hums. 

“Great,” Abe says, using her grip on your wrist to tug you forward again. “Look, look, look!”

Yoshikawa pushes herself the rest of the way up slowly, tucking her popsicle between her teeth as she reaches for your arm. Her fingers are sticky against your skin. She’s quiet as she reads your mark, her brow slightly furrowed. 

She lets you go after a minute, and you try not to fidget.

“Romantic,” she says. She lays back down on the bench.

Abe makes a strangled noise. “That’s all?”

Yoshikawa blinks slowly, but there’s a smug curve to her lips. “Is there something else to say?”

Abe stamps her foot. “There’s so much to say! She got her mark! The first of us! The first in our year!”

“Nah, Sasaki got his right before the break.”

“He did?”

“He did?” you echo. Relief blooms in you, rooting in the cracks of you, and you let out a tight breath you didn’t know you were holding. 

“Yeah,” Yoshikawa says. She closes her eyes and raises her face to the sun. It bathes her, turns her golden, an offering at the ending summer’s altar. “Our moms are friends. Heard them talking about it.” 

“Oh,” Abe says, pursing her lips. She glances at you, and you don’t know what she sees in your face, but her eyes go soft. “I guess it’s better that way. It won’t be as big of a deal. It’ll be fine.”

“You think so?” you ask. It comes out smaller than you meant it to. 

She nudges you with her hip. “Yeah,” she says, her voice gentle. There’s a promise in it. “I do.”

Yoshikawa hums her agreement as she bites off the last of her popsicle, ignoring Abe’s wince. She sucks the stick clean and glances at it. “Oh,” she says mildly. “I won.” 

“What?” Abe cries out, practically clambering on top of her to grab the stick. “How do you always win?”

Yoshikawa grunts under her sudden burden, stretching out one long arm to keep Abe from grabbing the stick. “S’not my fault you have bad luck.”

“C’mon, you already had a popsicle today!”

You watch them struggle, Abe doing her best to blanket Yoshikawa’s lanky frame with her tiny one. The laughter bubbles out of you, spills from you like an overflowing urn, loud and unrestrained. 

They turn to you in unison, brows raised. 

“Let’s go to the park,” you say, laughter still sweet on your tongue. “Don’t want to waste the day.” 

They eye you for a moment. They look at each other and shrug. 

“Conbini first,” Abe says. “I want something.” 

“You can’t have my popsicle,” Yoshikawa says.

“I don’t want your stupid free popsicle!”

“You were just trying to grab it!”

“Well I don’t want it anymore! I want mochi instead!”

This time you swallow down your laugh, let it spread warm through you like bottled sunshine. You follow the bickering pair into the conbini. They wait for you at the door, and you link pinkies with them both so they can drag you down the snack aisle.

For the first time since getting your mark, it feels like everything is going to be okay.

***

School starts up again.

It’s still warm, the last dregs of summer lingering in the air as you walk languidly to school with your friends. Abe flits ahead, her dark hair shimmering under the morning sun, and you think of a little darting fish on a reef, a quicksilver flash of scales. She greets other classmates easily. They always have a smile for her, and she falls into step beside them for a moment, chattering away. 

But in the end she always turns around and waits for you and Yoshikawa.

She’s off in the distance when Yoshikawa glances down at the silver peeking out of the crook of your elbow, exposed by the summer uniform’s short sleeves. 

“No wrap?” she asks. 

“No wrap,” you say.

You’d thought about it, but wearing a wrap screams that you’ve gotten your mark. With yours tucked tender into the crook of your elbow, you might be able to get away with it. At least you hope so. You know how many eyes will be on you when people realize, and you shift on the balls of your feet, pressing closer to Yoshikawa.

She hums. “Alright.”

You know that tone.

“Do not cause any problems,” you warn her.

She blinks slowly, like a smug cat with a patch of sunshine all to itself. “I would never. Do you want some toast?”

“Do I what—”

She pulls a handkerchief filled with toast out from her bag, little oily spots of butter bleeding through the hand-embroidered cloth. “Toast,” she says, holding it out.

“Don’t try to distract me,” you say irritably, but when she nudges the toast in your direction you slip a piece free of the handkerchief. You’ve eaten breakfast but no one makes bread like Yoshikawa’s mother, a hobby she’d picked up in her year abroad as a teen. Any of her loaves crackle perfectly under the bread knife, each slice thick and hearty, woven through with herbs and spices. 

“I would never.”

“Liar,” you mutter, sinking your teeth into the toast.

“So mean,” she says, but she’s smiling.

“Hurry up!” Abe shouts back to you both, her hands cupped over her mouth to unnecessarily amplify herself. 

Yoshikawa ignores her, sauntering along as your fellow students pour past you both. She moves like a river current, languid and flowing, and immoveable from her path. 

“You’re the worst,” Abe tells her a few minutes later, when you’ve finally caught up to her. 

“Uh huh.”

“Don’t ignore me, Yocchan!” 

“I’m not,” Yoshikawa says, holding out the toast again. She always brings enough for all three of you. “You just say it so much that it’s lost all meaning.” 

Abe grumbles, but she snags a piece of toast. It crunches beneath her teeth, a crackling symphony. “This is bribery, you know,” she says through her mouthful, scrunching up her nose. 

Yoshikawa shrugs. 

“C’mon,” you say, poking at them both. “We’re gonna be late.”

Abe links arms with you. Your mark flashes bright with the movement, glimmering like snow in the moonlight, all prismatic ice. 

She hums, shifting her arm just enough that your elbows are interlocked, hiding your mark as she tugs you towards the school gates. “Let’s go then,” she says. 

Yoshikawa falls into step on your other side. She leans over and softly bonks her head against yours, her long hair a veil for you both. You press together for a breath, then she pulls back and links her arm through your other arm as you enter the school grounds.

You make it two whole periods before someone notices. 

It’s Hasegawa, of course, her deep brown eyes going wide as you reach into your bag for your textbook. She says something to her seatmate, and Honda’s eyes snap to you.

You keep arranging your supplies. You set your pencil down next to your notebook and line them up as precisely as you can, nudging it back and forth until it’s perfectly aligned as they whisper to each other. They keep glancing at you until Yoshikawa leans back in her seat and flashes them a razor-edged smile. Honda squeaks, and they both go quiet after that.

But there’s no escaping it. You can feel eyes on you all day, and murmurs follow you everywhere. You barely eat at lunch, pushing the pieces of your bento around as Abe and Yoshikawa crowd you on either side. 

You almost make it to the end of the school day, but then Ueda and Nakajima stop you in the hallway. You bow to your seniors as they look you up and down. 

“We heard you got your soulmark,” Nakajima says, swaying in place just slightly, like kelp caught in a current. “Is it true?”

“Yes,” you say, trying not to fidget with your sleeve.

“When?” Ueda asks, frowning.

“Over the break.”

“Early to be getting your mark,” she muses. She doesn’t have hers yet, you think. Only a handful of people in her year do. 

“They say the earlier the mark manifests, the stronger the soul bond,” Nakajima says. 

It’s a common belief, one of the oldest wives tales there is, but you’ve spent too long listening to your mother. You know better. Still, your stomach twists.

“What does yours say?” Ueda asks.

You bite your tongue; the pain flashes through you like lightning, bright and sharp and bitter. The bitterness lingers, fills your mouth until you have to swallow it down. It stings the whole way. 

Ueda waits.

When you tell her, it feels like each word is being torn from you, as if they’d rooted into your very flesh. 

(You suppose they have.) 

For a breath, Ueda’s face twists. You think of the first hint of rot in ripe fruit, when the scent goes too sweet, a promise of decay. It isn’t the first time you’ve seen jealousy over a mark, but it’s odd to have it directed at you. 

I didn’t ask for this, you want to tell her. I don’t know if I even want this.

“Oh, how lovely,” Nakajima murmurs, moon-eyed. “You’re lucky to have such a devoted soulmate.”

You smile, but you think it’s a poor imitation of one, soured at the edges as it is. “Yeah,” you say, because she’s looking at you expectantly. “I am.”

“Well, congratulations. Right, Machi?”

“Yeah,” Ueda says, flashing you a tight smile. “Congratulations.” 

“Thank you,” you say, the words ash on your tongue. 

Nakajima tilts her head, bird-like, but Yoshikawa comes to your rescue, calling out your name from down the hall. You bid your seniors a quiet goodbye before hurrying to her.

She slings an arm around your shoulders, squeezing lightly. 

“Okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” you say. “I’m fine.”

She hums her disbelief but leaves you be.

With her by your side, smiling pleasantly and radiating danger, the day passes without anyone else approaching you. Abe joins you again, looking proud of herself in a way that means she caused a problem, and you wonder what you did to deserve both of them. 

They come home with you when school ends, waving to your parents as you head up to your room. You collapse face-down on your bed and Yoshikawa laughs, low and deep and a little bit sad. 

She and Abe curl up around you like cats. They talk about everything and nothing, filling up your room with their presence until you start to go lax against them. They shuffle closer as you do and they’re warm against you, like sunbaked stone. You sink into that warmth and breathe out deeply.

The next few weeks will be filled with questions, with murmurs behind your back, with everything that comes with getting your mark so early. You know that, but there’s one other thing that you know, too.

With them, you know you’ll make it through. 

***

The school year blurs past in a watercolor of seasons. Fall gives way to winter, curling up under the biting cold; spring chases away winter in a riot of color, the sakura buds unfurling as your upperclassmen graduate, each bloom inset into the branches like a little jewel. As summer beckons, the days warming as the promise of rain hangs heavy in the humid air, Kimura gets her mark.

She’s only the third person in your year to get hers and she’s coy about it, wrapping it in a ribbon, the burgundy silk luscious against her skin. It’s as eye-catching as she meant it to be. 

It’s elegant in its own way, though the ribbon wilts slightly as the day goes on, mostly from the way she keeps touching it. She strokes along the ribbon as she talks with her friends. You’re not sure she realizes it.

A few people glance your way, their eyes flickering to your elbow, but their attention is as fleeting as the first snow. Their gazes return to Kimura, to the bruised burgundy of her ribbon.

Something loosens in you, unravels from where it’s been knit tight around your ribs. 

Honda gets hers next, and then Watanabe gets his. 

Slowly, mark after mark comes into being, words unfurling across skin. As more of your classmates receive their marks, yours fades into the background. It becomes common and you sink into that commonality, having long waited for the spotlight on you to cease.

Your mark fades into the background, like a star just after dawn—known only to those who know where to look. You try not to think of it. Sometimes you even succeed.

In your second year of high school, there’s Takao.

He’s a quiet boy. Stoic, even, his face almost stony as he introduces himself as the new transfer student. But he has a dandelion tuft smile, downy soft and fleeting, carried off by the wind not long after it blooms across his lips. 

You like it, his smile. 

You watch Kimura—your class rep, a position she’s held since middle school—get to her feet. Takao is setting up his desk when she approaches, methodically laying out his supplies. He keeps them in neat rows and you can’t help but smile when you see that his eraser is a battered little Keroppi, its round eyes almost flattened into a straight line on one side.

The class’s chatter softens, a few people glancing towards Kimura and Takao. You can’t see her face, but her fingers are trembling, just a bit. He looks unbothered. There’s not a trace of nerves in him, until you realize that the tips of his ears have gone faintly pink.

Kimura’s voice doesn’t carry when she greets him so you don’t hear what she says, but you see the tension bleed from her after Takao speaks. 

Not soulmates, then.

She relaxes, and from the way her hands are moving she’s starting to outline the classroom expectations. You shift in your seat, starting to turn away, when a flash of movement from Takao catches your eye.

He looks at you from beneath the fan of his eyelashes from across the classroom. He has a small spray of fading freckles, you realize, speckled over the bridge of his nose like a cluster of stars. He gives you that smile again. It takes a moment to realize you’re staring, and you look away, your cheeks hot.  

“You’ve got a crush,” Abe sing-songs at lunch a few days later, jabbing her chopsticks into your bento and stealing a piece of pickled daikon. 

“I don’t,” you say, moving your bento away as she tries to steal another piece. 

Yoshikawa snorts. She’s sprawled out on the grass next to you and Abe, her long skirt caught up around her calves. There’s grass caught in her black hair, the verdant blades swaying as she moves, as if floating in the whirling eddies of the darkened sea.  

“If you’re gonna lie,” she says, turning over onto her stomach, “at least do it well.” 

“I’m not lying!”

“Liar.”

“Such a liar,” Abe agrees. “You stare at him all the time.”

“No I don’t!”

Abe’s grin goes sly. “I didn’t say who,” she tells you. 

“I—it doesn’t matter who, I don’t stare at anyone!”

Yoshikawa raises an eyebrow. “So you don’t stare at Takao.” 

You scowl down at the ground, ripping up a small chunk of grass. You rub the blades between your fingers until they’re a fine pulp, and the scent of a freshly mowed lawn permeates the air.

“See?” Abe says. “Told you.”

“Are you going to talk to him?” Yoshikawa asks, peering up at you. She’s sly-eyed, her gaze keen despite the way she yawns. 

“Not yet,” you say. It takes you a moment to realize that you’re cupping a hand over your mark, rubbing your thumb over the thin skin just above it.

Yoshikawa smiles, warm and soft and knowing, and doesn’t say anything else. Instead she moves closer to you, curling around you like a crescent moon, her head padded on her discarded blazer. You settle into the cradle of her.

Abe is grinning wildly. “I knew that you had a crush,” she says, popping another bite of your rice into her mouth. 

“Oh, like we haven’t seen the way you moon over Takeda!” you say.

She shrugs. “She’s cute.” 

You huff and reach over to steal some of her tamagoyaki. She yelps, scrambling to pull her bento away as you snatch at the last piece. “Mean!” she says, watching as you eat it, the fluffy egg practically melting on your tongue. “I want the rest of your daikon!”

“Get your own!”

She reaches for your bento and you swat at her. The two of you bicker for the rest of lunch, only ceasing when you return to the classroom and take your seats.

Out of the corner of your eye, there’s a flicker of movement. When you glance over, Takao is already watching you. There’s a smile tucked sweet into the corner of his mouth, a sliver of a thing. 

It’s you who looks away first.

You’ll talk to him eventually, you think, cupping a hand over your soulmark once again. 

Just not yet.

***

Not yet lasts longer than you thought.

You and Takao trade glances across the classroom for one week, then another, and then another still. Each look is a fleeting thing, like a shooting star streaking across the sky. 

But you don’t speak to each other. 

You learn the sound of his voice through others when he speaks to your classmates and teachers. It’s quiet, steady, with a warm rasp to it that makes you think of billowing smoke. He blushes to the tips of his ears when it cracks. It’s cute in a way that makes you ache.  

You learn the sound of him, but never for yourself.

Still, you gravitate towards each other. He offers you a tangerine one morning, his smile small, soft, and earnest. When you nod he uses his fingernail to split open the peel, unfurling it in a smooth motion. The peel curls bright around his hand. He separates out a segment and gives it to you, his fingertips damp with sticky juice. They leave shy little imprints across your palm. 

The fruit bursts across your tongue like sunshine, golden and warm. Takao is watching you with hopeful eyes. You grin, and hold your hand out for another.

He sits down next to you to share it. The classroom is full of chatter, but the two of you are quiet, wrapped up in your own world. Suddenly, it’s not so much that you’re scared of speaking, but that maybe you don’t quite need it. Not yet.

It would be nice, you suppose, but as time passes, you and Takao find ways to fit together without speaking. Instead, you learn the tilt of his mouth and the crinkle of his nose and the way his fingers run through his hair. 

It works. It’s not quite enough, but it works.

And so not yet lasts just a little bit longer, the two of you steering away from the cliff’s edge looming in the distance. 

Another month goes by. 

You spend hours with Takao, the sight of you together a common thing to the point where your classmates ask you where he is when they’re looking for him. You can usually tell them. You’re incredibly aware of each other, caught in each other’s gravitational pull. 

Sometimes it feels like you’re destined to only orbit each other, to never truly touch. 

But sometimes you almost speak.

It’s a golden afternoon, the wind rustling through the leaves like a lullaby, filling the space between you both. You’re tucked together on one of the benches in the school’s yard watching the flow of students as they head to their clubs. 

Takao is sunstruck, haloed in gold, and it makes his dark eyes even deeper, an obsidian sheen. You’ve seen it before, but there’s still something about it that makes your stomach flip. 

He shakes his head, trying to get his hair out of his eyes. It doesn’t work, and he does it again. You think of a wet dog and try to stifle your laugh. 

When he does it for a third time, you reach out and brush your fingers through his hair, sweeping it back from his face. He turns into the touch, just slightly.

Someone shrieks out a laugh, and you look up to see one of the girls in the other classes batting lightly at her boyfriend. He murmurs something to her, and her smile grows wider. 

Your stomach twists, coiling tight as you watch them banter with each other. The gaps between your ribs seem to grow, until the empty space is what you’re made of. 

You want, you want, you want. 

You wonder if you’ll ever have.

Takao senses your change in mood but you say nothing, and the two of you separate not long after. 

Your father is watering the plants when you come home. They fill the windows of your home, the sun streaming through the verdant leaves, leaving emerald patches of light on the floor, nature’s stained glass. 

He’s quietly humming to himself, each note off-key, but he stops as soon as he sees you. He eyes you for a moment. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Nothing,” you say.

“You were better at lying when you were little,” he tells you.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now what’s wrong?”

You tell him. It spills out of you like an oil slick, coating everything it touches. You tell him about Takao, about the silence, about it all. You hadn’t realized how much the quiet was eating away at your bones. 

“So what is it, exactly, that you’re worrying about?” your father asks when you’ve finished. It’s a sharp question, razor-edged, but his eyes are soft.

“What if he’s not my soulmate?” you ask him.

He blinks. “Does that change how you feel about him?”

You take a moment to consider. You think of Takao’s smile, and the way his fingers linger against the palm of your hand when he hands you the erasers to clap; the way he lets you take pieces of his bento, all without a word. 

“No,” you say. “I don’t think so.”

“There you go, then.”

“But if he’s not my soulmate—”

“You know the statistics as well as I do,” he says.  “If Takao isn’t your soulmate, that doesn’t mean you can’t be with him.”

“They’re waiting,” you whisper.

“That doesn’t mean you have to,” he says gently. “You’re allowed to make your own choice.” 

You’re not sure that you are.

“What if he is my soulmate?”

Your father puts down the watering can. You see a flash of his soulmark. It’s blackened, a charred smudge against his skin, and when you glance up at his face, there’s something old in his expression. For a breath, you don’t know him at all.

It’s gone as soon as it came, like a shadow beneath the summer sun. He smiles at you. “Then your mom and I will have to meet him, won’t we?”

You balk. 

He laughs, a sound that shimmers in the air. “I’m joking, tadpole,” he says. “And if he is—you’ll figure it out. There’s no point in guessing before you even know.” 

You fidget with your sleeve, rubbing your thumb over the fraying hem of it. 

There are worse things than losing something you never had, you think.

“Okay,” you say. “Okay.”

But things are easier said than done.

It’s not easy, not with Takao. It’s hard to find the words when you’ve spent so much time living in the space between them. 

You find yourself on the rooftop with him during lunch. It’s unseasonably warm, thick puffy clouds sitting high in a robin’s egg blue sky, and you’re sitting side-by-side, close enough to touch. Close enough, but not quite.

Takao hands you some anpan; you give him one of your onigiri, peeling the packaging open for him. He nudges against you, a silent thank you, and something in you breaks. 

“This is stupid,” you blurt out, loud enough that a few heads turn your way.

You clap your hand over your mouth immediately. 

He blinks, staring at you with his lips parted, and your cheeks start to heat. And then he laughs, the sound like woodfire smoke, billowing out of him in low, slow tones. It sweeps over you, settles on your skin, and though your cheeks heat more the sight of him sparks something in you. 

He laughs freely and warmly, his eyes crinkling at the edges. It doesn’t stop; if anything, it flows more strongly, like a river to the ocean. You find yourself swept up in it, laughter bubbling up inside you. 

When it spills out of you and joins his, it sounds like a song. 

“I cannot believe that’s what you said,” he says, and oh, you’ve ached to hear his voice when it was meant for you. You drink it in, swallow it down, something for you alone. “Of all the things.”

He laughs again, short and sharp with delight, but your smile is wilting, going brittle at the edges.

You finally have Takao, only to lose him a moment later.

You’re not soulmates. 

***

It changes things. 

You don’t mean for it to happen, but it does. Suddenly, the language between the two of you is different. Too used to speaking without words, neither of you are prepared for actual speech. You stumble over conversation, the words caught in your mouths like pebbles in a wave, spinning over and over until they’re worn down to nothing. 

“You’ll figure it out,” Abe says, lounging upside down on your bed, tapping away at her controller, her brow furrowed as she smashes at the buttons. “You just gotta adjust, that’s all.” 

You sigh. It’s not something you can explain, really. How one space was filled and another emptied. It leaves something in you aching. 

Yoshikawa hums from where she’s sprawled on your floor, barely paying attention to the tv as she hits combo after combo, much to Abe’s annoyance. “Soulmate stuff is weird,” she says. “But it’s up to you.”

“It’s up to him, too,” you remind her. “Not everyone wants to date someone who isn’t their soulmate.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Abe says. “He likes you. It’s kinda gross how much.”

Your cheeks heat. “Shut up.”

She sticks her tongue out at you. “Make me.” 

You throw a pillow at her face, relishing her little yelp as she tries to scramble out of the way and almost falls off your bed. 

“Brat,” she says, tossing the pillow back. “He does, though. Like you.”

“I know,” you say, something vast filling you.

“Is this about the waiting thing?” Yoshikawa asks, putting down her controller and turning to face you. She hooks her chin over your knee, looking up at you with knowing eyes. 

You bite at your bottom lip. 

You know the rates better than anyone; you’ve spent your whole childhood hearing a language all its own. Percentages, probabilities, and all manners of complicated academic jargon, all focused on stripping away the whimsy of soulmates. 

Your mother has only ever wanted to understand. But in that coveting, that hunger, she pressed understanding upon you as well, until you’re caught up in yourself, a tangled skein, so knotted that the beginning can barely be found. 

“What if I do meet them?” you ask. “And they really have been waiting?”

Yoshikawa hums; it reverberates through you. “Dunno,” she says. “But what if you don’t meet them?”

You glare. “Thanks, that’s helpful.” 

“Yeah, Yocchan,” Abe pipes up. “Super helpful.”

Yoshikawa tosses another pillow at her. “I don’t see you offering anything!”

“I already said it’ll be fine!” 

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did!” 

You laugh, the sound light but loud. Your friends pause, looking incredibly pleased with themselves. 

“Oh good,” Abe says. “You’re back.” 

“What do you mean?” you ask.

“Nothing,” she says, but you think there’s a bit of sadness to her, in the waning moon of her smile. “Are you gonna play with us now?” 

She shoves a controller at you and you take it with a huff. “Get ready to lose,” you tell her.

“What else is new?” Yoshikawa asks, moving away from you to grab her own controller again.

“Shut up, Yocchan,” Abe says, scowling. “You’re the worst.”

“Love you too.” 

You ignore them both to pick your character, but you can’t help the smile that plays across your lips as they continue to argue with each other. Abe curls herself around you, sticking her tongue out at Yoshikawa. You shift to give her room and your mark catches the light, reflects it back like morning dew. 

For a moment you stare down at the words that have already changed your life so much. Sometimes you wonder how much more they can take from you.

“It’s my choice,” you say. You freeze, not having meant to say it out loud, but Yoshikawa just hums, settling warm on your other side

“Yeah,” she says with a little hum. “It is.” 

But it isn’t just your choice.

You can’t quite understand Takao’s smile anymore. The nuances are lost in the space between the two of you, a language half-forgotten. The structure is there, but you’ve lost some of the words. 

You can’t quite understand his choice, either.

“I’m sorry,” he tells you, a scant few weeks after you realize you aren’t soulmates. The tips of his ears are pink, the color of the early dawn, and his eyes are glassy. “It’s just that—”

“We’re not soulmates,” you finish for him. Your heart is thrumming behind your ribs, a hummingbird battering against its cage. “Right?”

He winces. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t think it would matter.”

Maybe you should have known that it would.

He winces again; his hands tighten on the strap of his school bag. He stares at you, looking helpless, and you hate that you want to cradle his face in your hands. That you want to make it better for him. 

“It—”

He cuts himself off. His lip trembles, wobbling like a spinning top, and it comes to you all at once. It’s written in the space between you, in a language you’ve both been speaking for months, one that’s all your own.

Takao’s lying.

“Tell me the truth,” you demand, clenching your fists. 

He looks away. “We’re not soulmates,” he says. “That’s all there is to it.”

“Liar.”

“Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he says. “Please.”

“Then tell me the truth.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“Fine,” you say. “Fine.” 

When you walk away, he doesn’t come after you. 

***

You hide yourself away among the hydrangea bushes that line the library, settling yourself in a sea of powder-blue petals. You curl up, pulling your knees up against your chest, and cry quietly until your uniform skirt is damp. 

“Well, that’s not good,” Abe says.

You glance up to see her and Yoshikawa leaning over the hydrangea bushes, looking down at you with tender expressions. You immediately cry harder, starting to sob aloud.

“Oh shit,” Abe says, pushing through the puffball clusters of flowers and dropping to her knees beside you. “Don’t cry, don’t cry, it’s okay.” 

“Takao?” Yoshikawa asks.

You nod. 

She smiles, sharp and mean. “Abe, stay with her. I’ll be back.”

You shoot to your feet, grabbing her by her uniform sleeve before she can take off. “No!” you yelp. “No, Asako, don’t do anything!”

“Why not? He made you cry.” 

“He just—it’s okay.”

“It’s not.” 

“He doesn’t want to be with someone who isn’t his soulmate,” you say softly. “That’s…he’s allowed to make that choice.”

She clicks her tongue. “He didn’t strike me as the type.”

“Me either,” you mumble. “I think he’s lying.”

“Why would he lie?” Abe asks, tilting her head.

“Don’t know,” you say. “But it just…it just seemed like he was. Please leave him alone.”

You don’t know how to explain it. You’re not sure you can. It’s a strange little language, the language that forms between two people who haven’t spoken to each other, and you’re not sure anyone who hasn’t created that language between themselves and another could even begin to understand the alphabet of it. 

Yoshikawa hums; her sly eyes are narrowed, the deep brown of them darkened to almost black. “Fine. But if he makes you cry again, all bets are off.”

“Yeah,” Abe says, nudging you up to your feet. “And we know where you hide, so no point in trying to keep it from us!”

Your laugh is watery, but it’s light as it leaves your lips. 

Abe loops her arm through yours. “Let’s go,” she says. “It’s lunchtime and Yoshikawa has a good bento today.”

“And it’s not for you,” Yoshikawa says lazily, stuffing her hands in her pocket as the three of you start to walk. “So don’t even try it.” 

You laugh again and they bicker all the way to the classroom. You’re in the middle of grabbing your own bento when you feel eyes on you and when you look up, Takao startles, looking away quickly. You bite your lip as the tips of his ears go pink once more. 

He glances at you again, and his eyes linger on your face. When his lips curl down into a small frown, you realize he knows you’ve been crying. He looks away as the twist of his lips goes pained. 

Yoshikawa steps in front of you, blocking your view of him. “C’mon,” she says softly, chivving you towards her desk where Abe is already sitting. “Let’s go.”

You follow her after one last glance in Takao’s direction. 

It develops into a routine over the next few weeks. You get used to the feeling of eyes on you all over again. Takao’s gaze feels silken against your skin, and though you shouldn’t, you bask in it. Maybe you’re too used to it; it reminds you of the beginning, when all you had was fleeting looks and quiet gazes. 

But now he looks away every time you look up, though his ears always give him away. 

Still, there’s a comfort to it. It doesn’t go away, even as you simply circle around each other, caught in each other’s orbit once more. This time, at least, you know that you’ll stay this way. 

Except two months after you go your separate ways, you’re assigned to work on a project together.

Your hurt has waned; it’s a healing bruise, now, only flaring to life when you press on it. The hopeful look on Takao’s face barely even causes an ache. You stay in your seat, but he gets to his feet and comes to you as the teacher leaves.

“Hi,” Takao says, fidgeting with the strap of his school bag. “I’m—if you want to switch partners to someone else, I understand.”

“Do you want to switch partners?” you ask.

“Not really,” he blurts out, and this time, his blush is bright, the apples of his cheeks dusted in heated red. “I mean, no. I don’t.”

“Okay,” you say slowly. It feels nice, somehow, looking at him, at his small, timid smile and the way the sun catches golden on his skin. “I guess I’m fine with it.”

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, I’m—I’m glad.”

“Let’s talk after clubs,” you say. “We can figure out our topic then.” 

He nods. He stands there for a moment; it’s only when you raise an eyebrow that he jolts and heads back to his desk. When you look over, he’s got his hands pressed against his face. You think you see him mutter “idiot” to himself.

The smile tugs on your lips without you even realizing it. 

***

“I miss you,” Takao says, fifteen minutes into your third project session. “I miss you so much.” 

You go stiff. 

The project has gone well so far. You’ve found yourself falling into easy communication with Takao, but you’ve kept it strictly to the project, rarely going into your lives outside of school. Still, it’s easy in a way it hasn’t been in a while. You find yourself smiling, and sometimes he even makes you laugh. 

“Okay,” you say, sounding wooden even to yourself. “I—I don’t know what you want me to say to that.” 

He winces. “You don’t have to say anything,” he says.

You mean to say okay, but what you say instead is—

“I miss you too.”

Takao blinks. And then a smile is spreading across his lips, slow like the dawn and just as warm. “Really?” he asks.

Your cheeks heat, but you nod. 

“Do you think we can be friends?” he asks, almost shy.

You bite your lip. “I think…I think we can try.” 

“I’d like that,” he says softly. “I’d really like that.”

You smile at him, slow and sure. “Me too.”

He smiles back, and the two of you turn back to your project.

You find that it takes time to learn how to be friends with Takao. It’s not like Abe and Yoshikawa with the fluid ease of childhood friends, forged by years and years at each other’s sides, memory after memory built into a firm foundation. Nor is it like your other friends.

Takao seems to inhabit a space all his own. Maybe he always will. It seems right that he would; it doesn’t surprise you that he carved himself a place in your world without even trying. 

It takes time. Eventually, even Abe and Yoshikawa warm up to him, until the four of you are spending summer nights together, popsicles melting down your fingers in the heat. You laugh through sticky lips and sit side-by-side despite the heat.

It feels good to have him back in your life, and high school goes by in a whirlwind of seasons, the years melting together until you graduate. He’s by your side when you do ,along with Yoshikawa and Abe, the four of you taking pictures on the school lawn surrounded by your peers. 

The four of you spend as much time as you can together before you head off to college, just a few scant weeks after graduating. 

It’s easy with Yoshikawa and Abe; the three of you are woven together, a tapestry of home. College is just another stitch, with the three of you attending the same one. You find a cute apartment just off campus, in a slightly worn building with wisteria dripping down the sides like honey. Yoshikawa and Abe like to hang laundry from the balcony; they says it comes back with a floral scent. The dishwasher is broken more often than not, the rooms are tiny, and you love it. So do they, and the three of you build a home together.

With Takao, it’s harder. You drift away from each other in college, pressed in on all sides by classes, studying, and local friends. It feels hard to find the time to breathe, let alone text Takao anything other than a fleeting check-in or a picture of something that reminded you of him.

Unlike before, it feels natural. It isn’t without its edges but they’re dulled, so that they press against your skin instead of cut. He simply fades from your everyday life until the ding of his text message is a surprise instead of a given. 

When he walks back into your life in your third year of college, it’s like getting hit by a lightning bolt.

***

The izakaya is tucked away at the edge of the city, sandwiched between two small apartment buildings that have ivy spidering up the side of them. You watch as a sheet billows on a clothesline, rippling like water, the clothespins holding firm despite the strong breeze. 

The fat tabby lazing on the edge of the izakaya steps doesn’t even lift its head to look at you. It’s sheltered under a verdant fern frond, part of the little forest of plants clustered around the entrance. Some of the plants are spilling out of their pots, sprawling out in great clusters of leaves, the tiny flowers dotted in them barely visible in the light of the nearby vending machine. 

You crouch down by the cat unable to resist, and it blinks itself awake slowly, turning slate gray eyes your way. It sniffs at your knuckles when you reach out to it. It rubs its cheek against your hand once, and then gets to its feet, stretching mightily as your friends laugh from just inside the entrance. You try to pet it again but it pointedly turns away and curls up again under the frond, further in than before, a little forest deity hidden amid lush scenery. 

You stare at it for a moment longer, looking at how its cheeks squish up against its paws. 

“Pouting doesn’t affect Momo,” someone behind you says.

You look up, and then go still.

“Hi,” Takao says, warm like the early morning sun. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” you say, as if he hasn’t knocked the breath from you. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been good. You?”

“Are we really going to do this?” you ask, standing up from your awkward crouch. 

He smiles, and you think he might be swallowing down a laugh. “Do what?”

You scowl at him. “You know what,” you say. “The small talk.”

“It’s polite.”

“Is that your main concern? Politeness?”

This time, he does laugh, low and sweet. “No,” he says, his eyes glittering. “You are.”

Your cheeks heat. “You can’t just say that.”

“Just did,” he says. “Are—are you here by yourself?”

“With friends.”

“Do you think I could steal you away for a drink?”

“Yeah,” you say softly. “I think you can.” 

He smiles at you. “Good.”

He ushers you into the izakaya. It’s warm inside despite the open windows, and the scent of fried food lingers in the air. People’s chatter fills the room up to the rafters, little laughs peppered in like champagne sounds, little pops of joy. There’s another cat curled up on a barstool tucked away in a corner, a ball of white fluff that makes you think of dandelions. 

Yoshikawa sees you first; when she sees Takao behind you, she raises a single elegant brow before turning back to your group of friends. She says something with a lazy roll of her shoulders, and suddenly, all of your friends are trying very hard to not look at the entrance. 

“Oh my god,” you mutter.

Takao laughs, the huff of air stirring against your nape. “They’re pretty obvious,” he says. “Should we go say hi?” 

“Later,” you say.

He follows you to the bar. He’s close, and under the scent of fried food you can make out the faintest hint of his woodsy cologne. 

You sit side by side, close enough to feel each other’s warmth but without touching. The bartender brings you your beers, and you look to Takao as he taps the neck of his bottle against yours. 

“It’s so good to see you,” he breathes, his dark eyes soft.

“Yeah,” you say. “It is.” 

One drink turns into two until you’re both sliding closer to each other in your seat, pressing into each other’s sides. You barely keep yourself from curling into him. He leans in close when you’re speaking, so that his voice is rumbling low in your ear. 

You share some takoyaki and then one of the biggest okonomiyaki you’ve ever seen, the pancake stuffed to the brim with filling and heavily topped. When the food arrives, so does the white cat, meowing quietly at your feet as it winds its way around the rungs of your barstool. Takao holds you steady when you lean down to pet it, his hand firm on your lower back. 

By your third beer, Yoshikawa and the rest of your friend group leaves. She gives you a little wave on her way out the door. 

“Sorry,” Takao says. “I didn’t mean to take up your whole night.” 

“It’s okay,” you say. “It’s been…really nice.”

“Just nice?”

“Great,” you admit. “It’s been great.”

He smiles, and it’s that same dandelion fluff smile you remember, sweet and fleeting. 

“Good,” he says, taking a sip from his beer. You watch the way his forearm flexes. “Listen, do you want to meet up again?”

“Yeah, I would.”

His eyes crinkle. “Great,” he says.

You bite down on your smile. 

The two of you finish your beers between lazy chatter. It’s comfortable, as if you never fell out of touch. 

When you leave, Takao waits as you pet the white cat once more, delicately bumping your knuckles against its cheek as it rumbles out a purr. It meows pitifully when you stop, opening its blue, blue eyes with a disgruntled look on its face, and you laugh to yourself, kneeling to give it a few more pets. 

You look for the tabby as you exit the izakaya but it’s gone, likely curled up amid some of the planters further back. You and Takao both stop at the sidewalk, carefully making sure you’re out of the way of any pedestrians, and for a moment, you just look at each other.

“See you soon?” Takao asks.

“Yeah,” you say. “See you soon.” 

“Good,” he breathes, with his eyes so soft that it makes your cheeks warm. 

You say goodbye, and each of you heads home. When you glance back Takao is already looking back at you from the street corner. You give him a little wave, and he jolts before hurrying off.

You smile your whole way home.

***

“It’s so hot,” you complain, flopping down next to Takao on the park bench. “Can we go to the conbini?”

“Popsicles?” he asks.

“No, I want onigiri.”

He raises a brow. “How does that help with the heat?”

“It doesn’t,” you tell him. “The aircon does.”

He laughs. “Oh, of course.” 

You head to the closest conbini, practically swimming through the humid summer air. The air is so thick that you could cut it; there’s rain on the horizon, promised in the encroaching gray-blue clouds hanging low in the sky. 

Inside it’s blessedly cool, the aircon hard at work. The two of you scour the aisles, picking out varying snacks and pointing out new flavors to each other—you try to make him buy a cream stew Gari Gari Kun popsicle, but he refuses—before you head to the cashier.

You settle in at one of the tables, opening your drink as Takao unwraps one of your onigiri, handing it to you before he busies himself with his own food. He gives you a little swat when you reach out for his snacks, making you retract your hand with a laugh. As you pull back, you wonder when the two of you fell back into rhythm.

It’s close to the one you had in high school, but not the same. There’s something new twining through the rhythm, a swirl of notes that resonates through you. It’s an easy flow, a soft ebb and tide, like the calmest of seas. 

“Hey,” Takao says gently. 

“Hmm?”

“Where did you go, just then?” 

You blink and take a sip of your peach tea. It lingers sweet on your tongue as you meet his stoic gaze. His mouth tilts, just slightly, something tucked up secret in the corner of his soft lips. 

For a moment, you just look at him. He meets your gaze easily; he lets you look your fill, as patient as ever.

“Sorry,” you say. “Nowhere important.” 

“Okay.”

You shake your head. “You’re so—” you break off.

“I’m so?”

You bite at your lip. “You,” you say. “You’re so you.”

His smile is small, but it grows, as steady and sure as the sun’s rise.

“I hope so,” he says, almost flippant, but there’s something soft in his gaze; it brushes over you like silk.

“Shut up,” you tell him.

He just laughs, quiet and low.

The two of you chat as you eat, talking about Yoshikawa’s upcoming art show at a trendy new gallery. You’ve been waiting patiently ever since the curator first picked her up as a featured artist. It’ll be nice to go with Takao, for the four of you to be side-by-side again, something that’s becoming as constant as it was in your high school days. 

When you’re finished Takao takes all the wrappers and folds them up neatly, creasing them until they’re practically origami. You bite down on your smile.

The summer air rolls over you as you step back into it, licking across your skin as only wet heat can. You shudder with it. 

Still you meander through the nearby park, ducking beneath low-hanging branches hanging heavy with fruit, the citrus of them permeating the air. It’s quiet, with just the distant shouts of the playground and the whisper of the leaves in the stirring breeze to accompany you both. 

You find yourself at the koi pond without meaning to and Takao wordlessly heads to the food meter as you settle yourself on the rock wall that edges the pond. The surface ripples, orange and gold scales muted in the murky water like a sunset covered by clouds. You trail your fingertips over the surface, and giggle as they mouth at them. 

Takao presses some feed into your palm when he comes back; the heat of him lingers there. Your mark glimmers in the light as you toss in the feed, a needlepoint flash of silver. You can feel Takao’s eyes on it. But then the koi come up in great, arcing splashes, the quiet pond roiling like the angry sea in their fervor, and you laugh as you dodge the worst of it.

Takao chuckles, and he settles down next to you to hand you the last of the feed.

You curl into him despite the heat, skin against skin, a slick slide of a touch before you fall still. The koi are still churning up the water, their gaping mouths breaking through the surface, and you give them what they want. Scales flicker by, a mesmerizing firework show caught beneath the surface, and so it catches you off guard when Takao suddenly says—

“I’m sorry.” 

You go still.

“For what?”

He shifts beside you; when you glance at him, he’s staring into the distance, his dark eyes caught on something that only he can see.

“For high school.”

You breathe out through your nose. “So you’ve said.”

“I was scared.”

“So you’ve said,” you repeat.

He glances at you, then, and his eyes remind you of the vastness of the unending night sky, dark and glittering.

“I’m not scared anymore.” 

You suck in a sharp breath. He waits, ever patient.

“Me neither,” you say, curling your pinky around his, twining around him like thread. 

He cups your cheek, his touch almost reverent, and presses his forehead to yours. “Okay?” he asks.

“Okay,” you breathe.

He leans in and kisses you. It’s careful and sweet.

It feels like coming home.

He breaks the kiss when you’ve stolen each other’s breath away.

 “Our soulmates—” he starts.

“It doesn’t matter,” you say breathlessly, kissing him again. He’s smiling against your lips.  Warmth floods you. You love him, you love him, you love him. That’s all there is. That’s all you need. 

“It doesn’t matter,” you say again.

He presses his forehead against yours. “You’re right,” he says. “It doesn’t.”

Until suddenly, it does.

***

You and your soulmate—Shinsuke, you think, still tasting the honey of it on your tongue, Shinsuke Shinsuke Shinsuke—watch each other. 

The only sound is the steady fall of the rain. 

It’s picked up again, sending the hydrangeas eddying, spinning in a lazy current as their puffball blossoms catch the droplets. More petals flutter to the ground. The blue of them is stark against the dirt, and you think of what a storm leaves in its wake.

Shinsuke lets out a deep, slow breath, and you wince. His amber eyes have dimmed and the last of his smile has washed away, leaving just the dregs of emotion behind, too faint for you to read. 

You feel too small for your skin; your heart is fluttering, a hummingbird thing, trying to press through the gaps in your ribcage. You take in a shallow breath. It tastes of the earth, of drenched soil and summer heat. You choke on it. 

Shinsuke’s brow furrows as you take in another breath, even shallower than the last, and your heart is thrumming, and his eyes are so sharp, so knowing, so kind. You’re caught in the amber of them, the resin of his gaze pouring over you. 

Even the rain seems quiet now. 

His lips part.

Your ribs start to crack; your heart thumps harder against them. Too strong, too fast, too loud. 

His lips part, and you do the only thing you can.

“I’m sorry,” you gasp.

You run.

[fourseasonsfigs]

Fig Fashion Week: Marie Claire - Zhehan with Umbrella

Zhang Zhehan is kicking off the next round of Fig Fashion Week, where Four Seasons Figthusiast will be showcasing both our boys in their most fashionable wear!

Zhehan starts us off in style with his Marie Claire photo shoot, wearing this lovely Bottega Veneta number.

Imagine being at a resort and seeing a photo shoot like this. Amazing!

I wish this video of Zhehan being super cute with the umbrella was just a little bit longer, so we could see more of his smile!

The umbrella was a separate, totally optional purchase. I assume it's a cost consideration to make the base figs more affordable, which I certainly appreciate. That being said, I feel like it's often the accessory items that make the look of the fig, and this one certainly completes the magazine look.

However, more creative minds than mine could have him hold other things - a big flower, or a leaf, or something fun. Oh! one of those big swirly lollipops would be super cute!

I'm not sure why I have these rare creative thoughts AFTER I've stuck the fig down on a base and taken all the photos. Maybe because my brain is permanently stuck in work spreadsheet mode after all these years.

Anyway! We're not talking about me here, we're talking about this fig set. Focus, Lelanthe!

Here's the underside of the umbrella. I'm not gonna lie, my heart sank a little when I saw this. Along with having lost my creativity around spreadsheet iteration 9 hundred and 40 million, my handy do-it-yourself capabilities have also atrophied down. Now it's all butterfingers and a total inability to see straight (to be fair, I couldn't measure straight even when I was a sprightly arts-and-crafting teen). Luckily, unlike the umbrellas in the It's Raining post, this handle actually slotted into the faux-straw umbrella perfectly. I thought about leaving it removable, and maybe securing it with some museum wax, but I've had one too many instances of being in another room and hearing a crash! and racing into my office, heart in my throat, to see a fig has come loose and toppled down the display like the world's smallest and deadliest bowling ball.

Can you imagine the havoc this umbrella would unleash if it came loose? It's so big too, so it would be on the very top of one of my display shelves, and oh wow I'm going to stop thinking about that right now. My precious figs!

So yeah, one day after work I carefully squeezed some glue into the little hole there, and concentrated on holding it very, very even until it set. I then let it cure for a day or two, just to make sure it was extra secure before fiddling around with clipping Zhehan's hands around it. I was tempted to also superglue his feet to the standee, but I figured I'd try using fig stickers for him and the umbrella first. Which I'm glad I did, since it feels quite sturdy.

And here he is, looking adorable! I'm so happy, I think it turned out perfect.

This would be a really cute fig to have in a beachy diorama and to cover the up the standee with sand. With Beach Jun! Hmm.

This is a good angle with the light falling on his feet to see how he's wearing the woven mules from the photoshoot. With socks, naturally. I know this was a stylistic choice by a professional stylist, but is it just me or do we seem to have a TON of photo shoots with him in socks?

I suddenly wondered if I had turned his umbrella handle knob the wrong way?!!? I zoomed back up to check in the inspiration photo, and oh sure, yeah, I sure did. Tangentially, do you know I have 11 years of post-graduate schooling? You can tell because of my crack attention to detail.

ANYWAY, I'm just gritting my teeth and moving on here because if there's one thing this fandom has taught me it's that imperfection actually can be the most perfect thing, so here we go.

The umbrella felt big and bulky when I was fussing around with it, but I think it's actually perfectly proportioned.

Zhang Laoshi, I must admit that your shorts in the inspiration picture are indeed respectably knee length - not like Junjun, walking around in mid-thigh shorts. However, in fig form, I gotta say you're flashing a whole lot of fig leg there, even with those long socks!

He kind of has to though - there's just not a lot of real estate for the fig body, so if the shorts are modeled knee length the socks would just end up tiny. I think the fig maker did a superb job of translating the pic into fig form.

Look at that sweet face! I love his quirky smiling mouth. That little artful bit of his bangs there is wonderful, and spot on from the inspiration pic. His hands look great here too, very beautifully modeled. What a cutie.

A top view - the detail on the straw umbrella is really very nice. Very sharp (not literally) and clean. It always amazes me how good the quality can get on these figs.

The box card makes me laugh. The golf range I get, but the rubber ducky? Smarter minds than mine!

The box is the multi-purpose one that also houses the Be a Boss fig (forthcoming) as well as the ?? fig that is Bamian Mountain God (also forthcoming!).

The umbrella box, however, is all it's own, and features some pretty cute and funny line drawings of an attractively posing dog and a very charming cat!

Material: PVC (both fig and umbrella)

Fig Count: 331

Scene Count: 24

Rating: Summer sunshine happiness!

[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]

[confessionsfromthesecondrow]

Honey, We Shrunk the Interns.

Growing up, I never dreamed of pursuing a career in fashion. Right up until I left college in 2011, I was fixated on the idea of becoming a barrister. Although fashion was an avid interest of mine – one that I studied intensely, poring over my favourite magazines and keeping up with runway shows each season – it felt a million miles away from the reality of my quiet, suburban life. After all, it's not what you know, but who you know – fashion’s unofficial epitaph that is sadly still relevant over a decade later. 

With no connections via relatives or family friends, I turned to Gaydar, determining that through the gay network I’d find an in. As luck would have it, I came across a young fashion photographer who put me in contact with his stylist flatmate to embark on my first internship. 

I wasn’t paid a single penny, much to the dismay of my parents – who chose more reliable careers in building and finance – but my modest entry into the industry felt akin to the moon landing, at least to me anyway. I met models, hauled suitcases filled with returns on buses all over London, and peered inquisitively at the magic being made on set while steaming clothes in photo studios – marvelling at Prada samples that I recognised from the runway. I even met fashion royalty, in the form of Pam Hogg, who offered me a cup of tea when I turned up rain-soaked at her studio one sodden evening. 

From there, an internship at GQ Style followed, the majority of which I spent sobbing in the bathroom thanks to the (nameless) editor at the time who often humiliated me with pointless menial tasks. In one instance, I was asked to hand deliver a single daffodil to Alasdair McLellan sans address, later loudly berated in the open plan office for the flower’s wilted demise by the time I was provided with the studio’s location. 

My introduction to interning finished with a friendlier stint at Dazed – acquired via the gay network, once again – five years before I’d return in a full circle moment as a fashion editorial assistant. 

Beyond the obvious hands-on experience my months of interning provided me, it quickly proved even more valuable than I realised. After initially being rejected by University of Arts London to study fashion journalism, a follow-up email clarifying the additional internships I’d undertaken quickly secured me an interview and later a prestigious place on the course. 

Throughout my studies at university, we were encouraged to continue gaining industry experience, culminating in a term entirely dedicated to interning during my second year. Interviewing at Wonderland and 10 magazine, I chose the latter, and continued interning there throughout my final year – while simultaneously juggling my final major project, writing my dissertation, and a part-time job – until I ultimately became the publication’s fashion assistant upon graduation. 

Over my career, I’ve had the privilege of working with hundreds of interns – the good, the bad, and the lazy – the brightest sparks among them going on to become my peers holding jobs at Clash, The Face, GQ, Wallpaper*, Matches, and British Vogue. As was my experience at 10, it was common for brilliant interns to find themselves earning entry-level full-time roles within Dazed and AnOther right up until the pandemic when the company’s internship programme was discontinued. 

At the time, the Guardian reported that 61% of employers cancelled their placements due to the pandemic, with small and medium-sized businesses the most likely (49%) to do so. Yet, as we emerged from the two-year slump, internships were just as scarce, largely due to HMRC cracking down on unpaid internships – serving fashion publications (both the media and arts are serial offenders) with warnings of fines if they failed to pay interns the national minimum wage. 

So, where does that leave today’s budding fashion journalists? 

‘It is impossible, it literally feels like winning the lottery,” Moira Gonazález, an MA Fashion Communication student at Central Saint Martins tells me. ‘My plan was to join a team as an intern and work my way up, but it’s so difficult to start like that – maybe one person out of every 20 will reply and most of the time you don’t learn anything. I’ve ended up assisting so many stylists where I’ve just been in Ubers picking up stuff all around London. So many people still expect you to work full-time for free, which is crazy, but everybody’s willing to do it for fashion.’ 

Despite being required to complete 120 hours in the industry as part of her BA, Moira was the only person on her course who was successful in doing so. ‘The teachers said that if you worked on shoots for uni that it would count towards the hours, so there was no motivation to go out and get the experience,’ she says. ‘The process can also be so long, it took four months to get to the interview stage for an internship at Burberry. How can you survive living in London as a 20-year-old and pay rent if you have to wait for four months to get an answer? It’s impossible unless you’re privileged enough not to worry about money.’

To see for myself, I looked into fashion editorial internships in London to see what was currently available. Unsurprisingly, I failed to find a single placement to apply for and advice offered by the Business of Fashion overlooked the obvious, that no amount of experience or tenacity can help secure an internship if there aren’t any available to begin with. Reaching out to all the editors I knew, the results were marginally better with month-long placements available for university students only at 10 and the Evening Standard. The majority – including Elle, Wallpaper*, GQ, The Face, and Perfect – responded with a resounding no, with Vice allegedly going as far as implementing a company-wide ban on all internships. 

Of the paid internships the government were hoping would become available, only Dazed and British Vogue currently offer them – both six months, full-time, and paid the London Living Wage – though at the time, the vacancies were filled. ‘I remember when British Vogue posted the internship on LinkedIn and after two days they already had 500 applicants,’ Moira says. ‘When I later saw who got the internship, she had worked at two banks previously, studied politics, and was 25 or 26 so had a much bigger CV. How can I even compete?’ 

‘For me, I’ve always found that there was never a clear route into the industry, I didn’t have a degree and my parents aren’t creative – there’s nobody in the creative industry in my immediate family. I wasn’t getting anywhere and couldn’t get my foot in the door,’ says Louis Merrion, Dazed Digital’s inaugural paid editorial intern. ‘I had come to a point where I was looking at unpaid internships, but I’d have to work weekends to be able to afford to commute from Southend. All of sudden you’re working seven days a week and you could come out of the end of it without having gained any experience. It’s easy to see why people get so disillusioned with the system.’ 

Three months into his tenure at Dazed, Louis’ day-to-day involves tasks that you'd expect for aspiring writers: shadowing working journalists, transcribing, researching, pitching and writing their own stories. ‘It feels more like an apprenticeship than an internship because of the learning aspect of it, you’re not expected to come in and know how the industry works straight away,’ he adds.

With several bylines now under his belt, Louis is already using the opportunity to gain additional experience working alongside Dazed’s social and Studio teams, which he hopes will set him in good stead once his internship ends. ‘I couldn’t ask for a better first creative job and the experience I’ve gained is invaluable,’ he says. ‘I now feel like somebody who is actually involved in the creative industry as opposed to being a part-timer; I have the belief that I could have a career in it. It’s not as far-reaching as it seemed six months ago.’ 

It sounds too good to be true and for most it will be – the cost of paying the LLW means that spaces on such internships are currently limited to two golden tickets per year. What do you do if you're not so lucky?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @mentoring.matters

An alternative path into the industry – thanks, in part, to the diversity reckoning fashion faced in 2020 – are mentorships that pair beginners with working creatives for 1-2-1 support over a six-month period. 

Mentoring Matters (founded by Laura Edwards, a design director who has worked with Christopher Kane and Alexander McQueen), Room Mentoring (founded by Elle's editor-in-chief Kenya Hunt), RAISEfashion, and The Junior Network are a handful of these schemes born during the pandemic – generally aimed at aiding Black and brown creatives and those from working-class backgrounds. 

In 2021 through Mentoring Matters, Aswan Magumbe, a BA Fashion Communication student at Central Saint Martins was paired with i-D’s global editorial director Olivia Singer. ‘Mentoring was more personal, so Olivia helped me pinpoint specific things I needed help with like pitching and how to approach PRs. I also got a lot more in-depth feedback about my writing,’ she shares. Yet, even with this, Aswan admits, ‘I’m still very stuck. Mentoring is good because you have somebody to turn to, but I still don’t know how to navigate internships. I really don’t know the route to take.’ 

As a working journalist, I’d be hesitant to take on a role as a mentor for this very reason. While I could impart practical wisdom on how to be a writer, I have no means of offering advice on where to practise those skills. While well-intentioned, these mentorship schemes are guiding marginalised voices into an industry that has been reluctant to give them a seat at the table to begin with. How responsible this is without fully understanding or doing more to remove the roadblocks that sadly still exist remains to be seen.

It’s a complex issue, yet to be properly acknowledged – the disheartening reality is that many editors I spoke to weren’t aware that their publications no longer offered internship opportunities. I urge them to similarly reflect on their own arduous journeys – regardless of whether they grafted as an intern or not – and question leadership on why they aren't putting more time and resources towards supporting the talents of tomorrow. Take a chance on a new writer with no bylines, become an unofficial mentor, answer that email asking for advice – do more!

We’ve talked enough about making opportunities more readily available for those who want to pursue a career in fashion – it’s time to finally do something about it. 

[chaesvoguerice]

the duality of seo soojin

Anytime the maknae of the famous Kpop girl group (G)I-DLE, Yeh Shuhua, tried to show her best friend and coworker Seo Soojin any type of affection, Soojin either did one of two things. Ignored Shuhua, or rejected it. Nonetheless, that didn't stop Shuhua from chasing after Soojin every chance she got. 

She constantly made sure all of the other members of the group were nice to her and didn't tease her too much. When they did V-Lives, she wouldn't let Soojin read any hate comments, and would distract her by doing silly things. Sometimes, when Shuhua isn't looking, Soyeon tries to claim that Soojin's favorite member was her, and Yuqi and Miyeon try to give Soojin kisses on the cheek; but Shuhua always catches (and scolds) them. 

Shuhua was protective of Soojin, she wouldn't let anyone hurt her, or claim her as theirs. Soojin was Shuhua's property, whether Soojin knew it or not (and she probably didn't).

But today, Soojin rejected a flower that Shuhua tried to gift to her. This made Shuhua sad. She even went about asking Soojin's old friends what her favorite flower was, and customizing a vase for her just in case she gave her more flowers in the future. 

Shuhua couldn't playfully wipe away her hurt with a childish smile anymore. Because her feelings weren't childish. They weren't made to be played with like toys. 

"Shuhua's crying!" Minnie exclaimed, ripping the blanket off of her head. Shuhua scrunched her face angrily, hoping to have been left alone. 

"Haku probably didn't want to learn that new trick she was trying to teach him," Yuqi joked and started to laugh, Minnie and Miyeon joining in. 

Soojin was busy on her phone in a different corner of the makeup room, oblivious to whatever was going on. As usual. 

"What's so funny?" Soyeon entered, a hair stylist on her tail trying to fix a golden strand that just wouldn't stay flat. 

"Shuhua is crying, so we joked that Haku wouldn't learn a new trick," Miyeon explained with a giggle. 

Soyeon's face fell. She turned her attention to Shuhua, studying her closely. There was one thing that Shuhua knew the most about Soyeon: her stare is exactly like her rapping. Precise. She knows her members inside and out, she knows if they're lying or telling the truth, always. 

Before the group leader could say anything, Shuhua yanked the blanket back over her head. She enjoyed the peace of the darkness, even if she could still hear their voices. She pulled out her phone and tapped into Instagram. She scrolled through some things, trying to get off the verge of tears. 

She clicked on her friends list and her eyes were immediately glued to the little green dot next to Soojin's account name. Without any hesitation, she clicked on it, her finger hovering over the "message" button. 

After staring at it for a few more seconds, Shuhua reluctantly turned her phone off and sighed. She laid there for a few moments, contemplating what she should do. You could pay her a million dollars, and she wouldn't get out from under this blanket. And face the teasing of Minnie and Yuqi? To see Soojin not even give her a glance when she heard Shuhua's name mentioned? To see the look of pity in Soyeon's eyes for her or Miyeon sitting really close next to Soojin observing the whole scene? 

She'd rather die— No, she won't go down that path. She had to perform next week for a music show, she had to wait until she was approved for her own solo album. It would be dumb to leave this world just for some girl. 

But she's not just some girl... Shuhua thought, biting her lip.

"When do we get off work?" Soojin asked quietly. 

"Hmm," Soyeon hummed, "in about half an hour."

"Does anyone want to have a movie night?" Miyeon suggested, eyes lighting up at the thought. 

"Nahh, let's go shopping to the new section of the mall," Minnie whined. No one said anything. "Come on, guys! It's been in construction for months." 

"We're not going shopping with our off time," Yuqi argued. 

"I'm sorry, Minnie-yah, but it looks like shopping will be for another time," Soyeon said to the older, patting her softly on the shoulder. 

Shuhua groaned inwardly. She'd have to sit with them through a whole movie with them tonight? What has her life become... Really...

~

Shuhua entered the luxury hotel's room with a bag of chips in her hands. She walked into something unusual. All five of the girls were sitting on the couch around the television in perfect harmony. No arguing over the movie choice, no complaining about when Shuhua will get there, no teasing each other. Just normal people watching normal TV. She sighed in relief, setting the chips down on the counter and placing her shoes neatly in the corner to put on her slippers. 

The youngest purposely sat in between Miyeon and Soyeon, far from Soojin. 

"Shuhua?" Someone said. 

"What?" Shuhua asked softly, turning to the voice's owner. It was Soojin. It just had to be Soojin. Just as Shuhua thought her night would be normal, her heart started to race and her cheeks started to burn. 

"Why are you over there?" 

"Over where?" Shuhua retorted, gesturing to herself with a questioning gaze.

"With Soyeon and Miyeon."

"What's your point exactly?" 

"Why aren't you sitting next to me?" Now, none of the members were paying attention to the movie, though they pretended to, listening to Shuhua and Soojin's whisper-conversation.

"Because you hate me."

"When did I ever say that?" 

"You didn't say it but it feels like it." Shuhua decided to say nothing else. She crossed her arms and turned to the television. 

"Come sit next to me," Soojin half-demanded. Shuhua's poor, weak heartstrings couldn't refuse. 

Once she was settled next to Sooj– okay, let's face it, there was at least a few feet of space between the two girls that no one could really mark it as 'next to'.

Why isn't this girl as touchy as she usually is??? Soojin wondered, looking at Shuhua watching the TV peacefully. Soojin's eyebrows furrowed and before she could think properly, she snaked her hand around Shuhua's waist and pulled her closer. 

Shuhua let out a cute gasp of surprise, turning to face Soojin. Big mistake. Their faces were, okay, okay, this is cliché, but, literally inches apart. 

"Why?" Shuhua swallowed, forcing her eyes to not look at the plump, inviting lips before her.

"Why....?" Soojin questioned.

"I thought you–" Shuhua cleared her throat, her tongue having slipped to Mandarin. "I thought you didn't like me..." She said sadly, in Korean this time. 

Soojin pursed her lips, tracing small patterns on Shuhua's hand before intertwining their fingers. The older girl turned her attention to the movie. "I want my Shushu close to me.." she muttered. 

And if Shuhua had a dog's tail, you'd be able to hear it thumping wildly against the couch cushions. 

[loominggaia]

Who is most artistic in FGG (Besides Lukas?)

I might have answered this question before, or maybe a similar one at one point. I can't remember, so just in case I'll answer it anyway:

Evan: There's not an artistic bone in this man's body. He draws like a 3-year-old. He sucks at making up stories. He can't cook without setting his kitchen on fire. He has no fashion sense and his house looks like it was decorated by wild animals.

Lukas: Obviously has raw talent, but also went to art school so he has high technical skill as well. He likes to paint and write poetry the most, but he has a knack for lots of other creative endeavors like sculpting, interior design, and storytelling too. Dude's just gifted in the arts.

Glenvar: He whittles animals out of wood and bone, but he does this more for religious reasons than anything. I wouldn't say Glenvar is all that "creative". He's barely literate so he can't write, and when he draws, it's usually just symbols for religious rituals. He likes to cook, though he mostly pulls from cookbooks and rarely makes up his own recipes.

Alaine: Alaine is a talented songwriter and musician. I don't imagine her being a particularly good drawer or sculptor or anything, but she seems to have a decent fashion sense at least. She's also good at making up stories on the fly.

Jeimos: Jeimos secretly writes fanfiction, but frankly, they are terrible at it. All their creativity goes into their engineering projects, that's where they shine the brightest. They can draw schematics and complicated arcane sigils, but ask them to draw a portrait of someone and you'll probably get a stick figure.

Isaac: This kid doodles. A lot. On everything. In the series he has scribbled on walls, floors, newspapers, and even on his own boots and weapons. Isaac draws stupid little pictures just to make people smile, not to make an artistic statement or anything. He's pretty good at making up stories. He has a creative spirit, but very little skill.

Linde: Linde is very artistic, and she expresses her artistry mostly through fashion. She even has a side hustle making custom clothing. She also has an interest in interior design and baking too.

Balthazaar: Balthazaar strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn't seem artistic at first, but if you asked him to draw you something, he'd doodle up a pretty decent cartoon. In one story he mentions that his father was a barber, and while Balthazaar didn't officially follow in his footsteps, he does do a surprisingly good job dressing himself and styling his long beard when he tries. I think his depression and insecurity holds him back, but with some motivation Balthazaar could be a hair stylist or something.

Skel: Skel is not a creative individual. I mean, he can come up with some pretty unique insults, but the creativity ends there...

Javaan: It seems like Javaan has a sharp fashion sense, but actually he just asks Linde what to wear every day. His creativity is expressed in the elaborate stories and lies he tells, and the get-rich-quick schemes he comes up with.

Elska: While Elska is a creative, out-of-the-box thinker, this doesn't really translate to art for her. She can't write, she's too honest and grounded in reality to make up stories, and she can only draw primitive stick figures.

Mr. Ocean: Mr. Ocean is quite artistic in a lot of mediums. Most notably music, drawing, and spellcrafting. He also seems interested in fashion, even if his attempts at dressmaking didn't go so well...

Zeffer: I think Zeffer is creative in a devious sense, like he can think of a million ways to assassinate someone and make it look like an accident. And I think he has an eye for beauty, in that he appreciates beautiful things like flowers. But he's not really "artistic" in any way.

Examining all this, I'm going to say that the most artistic Freelance Good Guys are Lukas, Linde, Mr. Ocean, and Alaine. This one really made me think and realize some interesting things about these characters, thanks for the question!

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

[like-it-share-it-love-it-buy-it]

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[minisugakoobies]

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[allthemusic]

Week ending: 20th February

You really don't get much more different than this week's songs. They're not stylistically a million miles apart - both swing-ish pop tunes - but in practice they're just aggressively different in tone. Not in a bad way, but each song is doing something very distinct within the genre niche they inhabit.

Magic Moments - Perry Como (peaked at Number 1)

Before getting going, a slight amendment: I think when I was talking about Pat Boone being grandfatherly, a week or two back, I was partly thinking of Pat, but also partly of Perry Como, that other perpetually sentimental American artist whose name starts with P. Perry's not a senior citizen by any means - he's in his mid-40s in 1958 - but he's definitely older and so the slightly mawdlin nostalgia of this song does feel a little more earned than Pat's did, a few weeks ago.

So yeah, this song. It's a surprisingly well-known song, I'd say - I didn't think I knew it, but it turns out it's the song that's used for the British adverts for Quality Street every Christmas. It's been used in a tonne of films and TV shows, too, so even if you don't think you know this song, you possibly do, or at least the chorus, as Perry warbles along gently: Magic moments, / When two hearts are caring, / Magic moments, / Memories we've been sharing.

It's cute - almost too cutesy, but there is something a bit more real and grounded in the way that Perry doesn't just wax aimlessly nostalgic. Instead, we get a whole series of actual descriptions. And I do like that the "magic moments" aren't all super perfect and romantic, that a lot of them are just these little everyday things, or even funny mishaps, the sort of thing that you can imagine becoming a family story, in the future, something you tell the kids about.

They're also fun beause they do give glimpses into 1950s romance and young people's social life, which you just know I'm a sucker for. We've got a telephone call that tied up the line for hours and hours, we've got the Saturday dance I got up the nerve / To send you some flowers. We've got a glimpse of dates at a penny arcade, hay rides, sleigh rides, watching sports matches together, and the Halloween hop when everyone came in funny disguises. It's all genuinely sweet - I really wanted to dislike this for being saccharine and twee, but the specificity and period-specific variety of date ideas just kind of charmed me, somehow.

I should admit, I am concerned about the time that the floor fell out of my car when I put the clutch down. Is that... a thing that can happen? What kind of piece of junk car was Perry driving? He's very much framing it as a funny, relatable anecdote, but I can't imagine any scenario where the whole floor falling out of your car doesn't straigt up injure you. Unless cars just could fall to bits like that in the 1950s? Alarming, in either case.

The whole song's fine, though, and has a very distinctive sound - you've got this very repetitive tune, a little bit of guitar, bass and what sounds like a bassoon, plus the occasional bit of whistling. It's perfectly engineered to sound quirky, cute and just a little bit silly. And Perry, throughout, sings like he's sitting by his fireplace reminiscing, not a trace of intensity or agitation in his voice. Just a chill wander down memory lane.

You Are My Destiny - Paul Anka (6)

And so, on the polar opposite end of the drama spectrum, we reach Paul Anka with You Are My Destiny, a song that is many things, but never subtle. I mean, you can tell that from the title, but if you didn't, the opening gives it away. You've got a big, shrill run up on violin, timpani rolling, cymbals crashing and a whole backing choir singing destiny! you're my dest-i-nyyyyyyy!

And then, a huge pause, right before Paul comes in, much slower, his voice hanging on each note desperately. He's emphasising every note on some lines, here, as he sings about how You are my destiny / You share my reverie / You are my dream come true / That's what you are. So yeah, lyrically, it's not a song afraid of going big, or slightly emo, either, as we move on to singing about how You feel my emptiness. Paul, clearly, is feeling some big feelings, clearly, wailing them into the mic like his life depends on it.

The music really rises to the occasion, here, with this gorgeous slinky arrangement. You've got a bass doubled by a bass saxophone or horn, playing this low, slinky ostinato, you've got the violins playing a similar pattern but in a much higher register, all vibrato and dramatic jumps in pitch, you've got a piano playing quiet but insistent triplets underneath, and then, offset from it all, you've got a single female backing singer doing an ethereal sort of wail that should sound silly, but really works.

The whole thing works, actually, much better than it has any right to. It's dramatically big, but there's something classy about it. The lyrics are positive, but the sound is a little bit downbeat, a little bit desperate, very emotionally-charged, a little bit dangerous, even. There's something a bit James Bond about it all. It's that kind of vibe, right? And the more I listen, the more I spot little musical moments that I really like, from the bit where the backing singers drop out, to the Big Old Ending, which feels earned here, in a way it doesn't always. Man, it's great!

I'd love to see this being used (or even covered) nowadays, because I really think you could do cool things with it. Weirdly, I can imagine a rock band like Muse, who really go all out with theatrical performances, doing a particularly good version - but perhaps that's because the melody for the opening line of it sounds a bit like the opening sung line of Supremacy, an (excellent) Muse song that coincidentally also has some serious James Bond vibes.

Both of those were pretty good, but there's only one that I'm left hankering to hear more of. So as cute as all those magic moments and cosy domesticity were, I think Paul has to take it, with his epic wailing and dramatic strings. Good stuff - highly recommended!

Favourite song of the bunch: You Are My Destiny

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