#actually though. concert tickets?.................baby's second international travel..........?

[bilbao-song]

what do you want for Christmas? 🎄

and some smoked salmon. and raspberry chocolate <3 please

[eternaljouska]

Over the Narita Sky - Choi Seungcheol

Pairing: Seungcheol x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Word Count: 1,842

Notes: 1. This was supposed to be for his birthday :) 2. This was supposed to be finished yesterday :) Well, at least here we have it done, and it’s still August :)

“Hey, Cheol! Over here!” you shout out as soon as you catch the glimpse of your long-time boyfriend behind the masses of men that are his band members and crews. He finds you instantly and his face lights up, seeing that you’re skipping your way through the busy airport towards him. Seventeen has just wrapped up their activity in Japan with a three-day mega concert in Tokyo Dome and now is on their way to Las Vegas for BBMAs. You can see the exhaustion framing Seungcheol dark eyes as well as the other members’. They always remind you how easy it is for their excitements to freshen them up again, but still, it’s a hectic schedule. The most rest they can get is the one day off before rehearsal. And for this reason, you’ve turned down your boyfriend’s original plan to pick you up in Seoul and then fly from there to McCarran International Airport. Because that, you imagine, would be such a great hassle.

You’ve been waiting in the gate only for about fifteen minutes when you saw them marching in. You didn’t really pay attention to your surrounding, only facing up once in a while from the captivating video you’re playing on your phone, fancams from last night’s concert. It was so sad that you couldn’t attend any of those three-day concerts because you’re doubling as your cousin’s wedding organizer and bridesmaid, which you would consider as an insanely terrific experience because how could someone do that? You’re planning a wedding but then you’re basically leaving it be as if you’re certain that nothing could ever go wrong and you could just stand and look pretty as the bridesmaid. But you made it.

And so did Seungcheol. He made it through the concerts with no injury and with a high spirit still—credit goes to the pictures of you on your salmon pink bridesmaid dress. But to be perfectly honest, you not being there took a toll on him, and pictures could only do so much. Sure, he’s a leader you could count on to and he’s also good at hiding what he’s actually feeling if he wanted to. But when it comes to you, he’s just a complete baby. And even right now, he’s walking to you in childlike strides and with a pout on his face.

When he arrives in front of you, the pout on his lips turns into a straight line which makes the dimples on his cheeks more prominent. “Babe,” he whines as he stares at you, who had stopped too many steps away from him.

You understand right away what he tries to express in that one word, his expression telling you everything you need to know. He missed you, and he came to the airport with an expectation, which you obviously didn’t fulfill.

 “Why didn’t you come up to me to hug me or something? I thought when we’re on the phone you said you missed me,” he grumbles and in turn, you laugh.

“I was distracted. I just finished watching the videos of a special someone spitting fire on last night concert and the pouty baby in front of me is such a polar opposite to that person, you know. I wonder how that’s possible.” You nudge him when he deliberately trying to shy away from your gaze.

“But still, how could you not run to that person when he��s literally a few feet away from you.”

“Oh my god, see! You’re such a baby! Did you miss me that much, huh?” You let out an airy chuckle before you stand up and link your arm with his. “Come on, let’s take a walk around. We still have, what, twenty, twenty-five minutes before check-in? I’m sure once your members get the timing right and circle us, they’re gonna tease you to death.”

You walk hand in hand visiting every shop with no intention of buying anything. There’s one that looks like a mini-market, and it has all kinds of instant noodle you can imagine. You audibly gasp and point at the stacks of noodle packages excitedly. “Cheol-ah! Look at that! It’s- Oh my god, that’s a lot of noodles!”

And then there’s another shop that sells assortments of soft cakes and chocolates. They have banana cake in the shape of a sliced banana, hello kitty soft cakes, Dorayaki, which you love, and various others. Again, you don’t buy anything. You just take the small pieces of cakes the shop assistant offers you. Seungcheol insists that you pick something, but of course, you insist back, saying that something is too sweet or not of your taste or that you don’t really want it at all. But it’s just that you don’t like him spending money on you. This whole trip, it’s on him, and you don’t want to add more to that, however small the addition is.

Seungcheol knows of this, but he can’t really do anything. Well, at least, anything other than buying you stuff behind your back. Just like how he secretly booked you your flight ticket here, he bought you a pack of a dozen Dorayaki. Only one, though, so that he can fit in inside his already-packed backpack. He can already see the way you’d sigh and scold him because of it, but he can save that image for later when you actually do sigh and scold him. Right now, he’ll just revel in the way your eyes light up at the littlest thing that piques your interest as you continue your walk.

And then you sigh, and Seungcheol feels that he’s on the border of panicking, thinking that you’ve caught him, but that was until he notices the contentment that framed your sigh. “I always love this airport,” you begin and Seungcheol let go of the breath he’s holding since a few seconds ago. “It feels airy and light. All these glasses and high ceiling. But you know, there’s always a downside to everything. Somehow, even though I’ve been here, like, at least thrice, I still have a hard time finding the restroom, like, all the time.”

And Seungcheol bursts in laughter, classic Y/n.

“That’s true! Really! It feels like they’re too far apart or whatever,” you say, laughing with him as you see the comical quality of your sentence. Seungcheol frees his arm from yours only to wrap it around your shoulder, and you feel grateful for the proximity it offers. “Anyway, I want to live here,” you start again after some time, earning you one surprised look from your boyfriend.

“What? Here? As in this airport?”

You shoot him a look before answering, “No, you silly! In Tokyo.”

“Why? Because the airport is good?”

You shoot him another look, causing him to chuckle.

“You hate living in a big city, though.”

“Well, then, Kyoto?”

“Is it a small city?”

You giggle at that because you don’t know, and as you exaggerate a shrug, you tell him just that. “I don’t know. I know nothing about anything, you see.”

He looks at you incredulously and asks, “Then how do you come up with Kyoto?”

“You know, there’s this poet. He wrote a piece of Tokyo and another of Kyoto. They’re beautiful, the way the pieces are connected to each other. And, uh, Tokyo and Kyoto, you reverse one and you get the other. Tokyo, Kyoto, Tokyo, Kyoto,” you explain while flipping your palm up and down after you say the name of each of those two cities.

“Is… that why you like the poetries?”

“Hey,” you whine, “I told you they’re beautiful! That Tokyo-Kyoto thing just adds to its value for me. I’ll show you later, you’ll see just how beautiful those pieces are, ugh. Anyway, I like the Kyoto one better.”

“So… We’re moving to Kyoto because of that?”

“Uh”—you stop walking and turn to face Seungcheol—“are we now?”

He follows your action and replies bluntly, “No.”

Then you both laugh together before falling into a comfortable silence as Seungcheol tightens his arm around you and the two of you walk back to your designated gate.

“Cheol-ah, look at that, it’s beautiful,” you say, motioning to the sky outside the plane’s window beside you. “The clouds are so neat and white and pretty. And there’s just the perfect amount of sunlight, in addition to the shade of blue that the sky has. It’s so calming. Somehow, everything’s so calming.”

“So it’s Tokyo?” Seungcheol prods.

“Huh?”

“The one that makes you feel calm.”

“Huh?” you say again, not quite comprehending his words.

“Not me?” he finally asks the core of his previous question, prompting a chuckle from you. But then instead of answering further, you look out the window again, settling on a rather mellow expression.

Seungcheol sighs as he reaches for your hand, knowing exactly what you have in mind. “Hey, I’m sorry that you’ve never had the chance to go beyond the airport, not even to our hotel. But next time, we’ll travel, yeah? Tokyo, Kyoto, wherever you want, hmm?”

You snap your head around to face him. “Cheol, that’s not- You don’t have to—“

“Shh.”

“But I don’t want you to—“

He cups your face and runs his thumbs on your cheeks, their warmth immediately paints red on your face. “I want to,” he states firmly before he falters, “And, uh, you’re wrong.”

“Huh? Wrong? About what?”

One of Seungcheol’s palm releases your cheek to straighten the line forming on your forehead. “About knowing nothing about anything. You know a little thing about something. And that’s the only thing that matters.” He chuckles when that line only grows deeper at the end of his sentence.

“I know a little thing about something? What? That sounds weirdly complicated, Cheol,” you protest.

“You know a little thing about me. In fact, you know almost everything about me, every little thing.”

You scoff, “Impossible!”

“Well, will you continue to learn then?”

“As long as you’ll do the same.”

“Easy thing,” he shrugs, bringing his hands away from you and folding them in front of his chest.

You raise your eyebrow at him, completely amused by his answer. “Uh-huh?”

“Yeah.”

“You cocky little man.”

“What?!” he exclaims in half a whisper, “You sure you’re talking about me?” Seungcheol wiggles his eyebrows and nod towards the seat behind yours, which as it turns out, is occupied by one sleeping Jihoon. Your eyes grow big in terror, but you can’t help the laugh that’s coming out of you, and neither does Seungcheol.

“Alright. Come here,” he says in the end, bringing your head to his shoulder, “and, uh, I might have bought a box of Dorayaki for you.”

“Seung—“

“I want it, too, okay? If you don’t want it then I can eat everything.”

You roll your eyes at him. “Whatever you say,” you mumble as you throw your gaze outside the window again, biting down a smile at how his palm mindlessly rubs at your arm and his head comfortably rests atop of yours.

[sapphylicious]

Time for the B1A4 con report! First off, let me just say it was TOTALLY WORTH IT, but as soon as @cactuarneedles and I arrived back in KC at midnight we were like, “Let’s never go to California again.” It was that kind of trip.

First off, our connecting flight in Denver was delayed. Not by a lot, but in retrospect that set the tone for the rest of the weekend. We still managed to arrive in SF on Saturday around noon, checked in at the hotel, and then got ramen for lunch in Japantown. It’s been, oh, 11 years since I was last in SF for Hyde’s Faith tour, and wandering around Japantown was a bit nostalgic. I wanted to buy All The Things but couldn’t have fit anything else into my carry-on except a Pusheen shirt I ended up getting just because. Also, makeup remover, since I forgot to bring any and didn’t realize until I was putting on my eyeliner (very, very carefully). The salesperson in Kpop Beauty liked my Big Bang hoodie lol.

We were running out of energy fast since we’d been up since 4am Central, so we went back to the hotel and ordered in for dinner. I slept as I usually do in new places, which is to say, not well, but I managed not to be too tired on Sunday.

As for Sunday. 

Well.

It was raining all morning, and we’d bought umbrellas the day before at CVS, so we were like. The bare minimum of prepared. We also bought some trash bags to sit on. It was in the 50s but felt like it was in the 40s, and there was some wind, so overall it was a cold, wet, miserable experience. I’ve queued in line when it was colder (Akanishi Jin’s Yellow Gold tour in NYC in November was hella cold) but a) I was younger then, and b) I wasn’t being rained on. So Janel and I discovered our Too Old For This Shit threshold. If we hadn’t been close to the front of the line we probably would have said fuck it and stayed in the hotel room all day.

We took a break for lunch at a Vietnamese place where I was able to stop shivering for a while, and stayed there as long as we felt was reasonable. We’re not fans of the “claim a spot in line and then fuck off for the rest of the day until an hour before the doors open” tactic some people (read: assholes) like to use. Getting to be right in front of the stage is privilege you suffer for.

On the way back we decided to stop in a Target to buy some of those mini folding seats to help make the rest of the wait bearable (the trash-bags-on-ground was not working out for us). And this is where the trip really went to shit.

Janel left her purse in the restroom by accident. She realized it the moment we stepped outside and went back to the restroom in three minutes tops, and by then everything inside her purse had been stolen. Cash, cards, ID, keys -- the only thing she still had was her phone since it had been in her pocket (which luckily also had the tickets).

Soooo she pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon making phone calls and filing a police report -- not that the police could actually do anything about it, but it was good to have for getting through airport security for our flight back. So note: you can fly domestically without an ID, but it’s a huge pain for everyone.

At least by then it had basically stopped raining. There was a little bit of a situation when the lines were separated and we had to leave our spot to wait in another line for our VIP wristbands. I asked a girl I recognized being a couple people ahead of us to save our spot (couldn’t find the people who’d been directly in front or behind), but when we eventually got our wristbands I couldn’t find her again, or anyone else who had been near us in the original line. So we kind of just cut in at roughly the same area and miraculously no one gave us shit about it.

Let me just say, out of the several cons I’ve been to, B1A4 fans are the most chill. I remember standing in line for Big Bang and recalling how VIPs used to claim to be the most chill fans and lol nah man just nah. We chatted a little with the people around us, told the "everything got stolen” story a few times -- and also the “we’re from the Midwest” story. YOU PEOPLE IN LA AND SF DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE LIVING IN THE ENTIRE REST OF THE UNITED STATES. Travel for Kpop is a given. I’ve made weekend trips from the East Coast all the way to the West Coast for Kpop. This is also why we only go to cons for our absolute favorite groups, and will pull out all the stops for them. I figure I’ll only do this for B1A4, Big Bang, Epik High, TVXQ/JYJ, and maaaybe I might do it for VIXX. Maybe.

Getting into the venue wasn’t an issue and we wound up about four people back from the stage. We were hella sore by then, although I think it was worse for Janel since she was running back and forth a lot and under a ton more stress. Luckily the con didn’t start too late, and I forgot how much my feet hurt most of the time (I’m really glad I have a pair of comfortable boots).

So. B1A4 in person.

This is the first concert where I bothered to take pictures and record video, but I don’t know how some fans can dedicate their attention to recording the whole time because I was a flailing mess lol. THEY WERE SO CLOSE. They’re all really attractive in person??? I mean Gongchan is of course a given and he is EVEN MORE HANDSOME THAN ADVERTISED no wonder Sandeul and Jinyoung don’t shut up about how he looks. The suits they wore for most of the show were very nice and ESPECIALLY when they took off the jackets because men in waistcoats are my weakness. Jinyoung rolling up his shirtsleeves jesus christ and he does it all neatly too (whereas Baro’s sleeves kept falling and flopping around lol). Jinyoung is so fucking charming it’s unfair. When the water bottles came out he liked to hold them up and tease the crowd lmao how... typical...

CNU was amazing with the fanservice and the body rolls lol and he has such pretty hair. There was a moment duringggg I think Baby Goodnight when he and Gongchan were really cute together. I was filming Sandeul and had to quickly cut over to them with their arms around each other.

Baro did a lot of talking in English, I was surprised and impressed and I think this con has cemented him as third in my lineup of faves (Sandeul-Jinyoung-Baro-Gongchan-CNU). I feel like he interacted with the crowd best and I saw him paying attention to the balcony people often too, but someone needs to take the word “lit” away from him hahaha.

The venue was small so it was really easy for them to reach every part of the stage, we got to see all of them up close in roughly equal amounts but ngl my memory is like 70% Sandeul because I tracked him all across the stage.

BOY CAN HE SING. Not only does he sound amazing but you can tell just by looking at him how passionate he is, the way he moves and puts more of himself into it than the others do. The only way the con could have been more perfect is if he’d been able to perform a solo. Or just. If he could release a full-length solo album and then go on tour that was be okay too. He teased us by singing 그렇게 있어줘~ and augh so good. SO GOOD. AND SO CUTE. He’s so adorable I can hardly stand it. Near the end he was crouched down in front of us and stuck out his tongue bUT I DIDN’T MANAGE TO RECORD IT. OPPORTUNITY LOST.

I did however record the cheek squishing. It was so classic. Jinyoung goes for the cheeks, Sandeul tries to retaliate but misses, Jinyoung waits for a few seconds and then goes in again to get a good grip and Sandeul looks SO RESIGNED before he jerks his face away. They did this while Baro was talking and he was like “Hey, it’s my turn now!” lol poor Baro.

I also have some pics of CNU lowkey harassing Sandeul and Sandeul giving him this Look afterwards. And Gongchan fussing with Sandeul’s clothes. And Sandeul limp in Baro’s arms. I ship my bias with everyone, can you tell.

They were all so cute though, ugh, I love B1A4. I’m so glad I gave Kpop another chance after I thought the TVXQ breakup was the End Of All Things.

We fought with another girl over one of the towels thrown into the crowd. I only made a claim so it would be 2 vs 1 but we both lost the rock-paper-scissors battle and had to give it up. In retrospect we maybe should have played the “she was robbed today” pity card because you’d think after losing all the contents of your purse you could at least get a towel in compensation. We’re unfortunately not that combative though. At least this time the opponent didn’t cheat and throw down her choice late. Like I said, in terms of the fans B1A4 has much fewer assholes than I’m used to encountering.

I felt like a drowned rat by the end of the show and feared for my eyeliner but luckily it wasn’t running or even smudged (thanks, Stila stay all day waterproof liquid eyeliner). My hair was rather bedraggled though and after the rain and the water bottles it was like, why did I even bother curling it that morning, but what can you do.

I wanted to say something to everyone during the high touch -- I knew it was going to be quick but the staff really hurried everyone through which was annoying, and I had a holyshitholyshitholyshit internal monologue going when actually face to face with the boys. So I only managed a weak “thank you” to Gongchan who said it back (he’s so sweet ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥) and I blurted out a rather embarrassing “I love you!!” to Sandeul ahahaha god so much for being a cool, mature noona.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The walk back to the hotel was short, although we did wind up briefly walking in the wrong direction somehow because I can’t be trusted with directions even if the distance is only a few blocks. Our flight home was around 11am so we planned to get up extra early to have plenty of time for Janel to get through additional screening.

Aaaand then in the morning the flight was delayed to the afternoon, which would cause us to miss our connecting flight. So we had to book a whole new trip which didn’t leave until 3:20 pm.

Getting through security wasn’t too bad for either of us, and we waited around watching B1A4 fancams and reading fan accounts. As it got close to departure there were some confusing announcements about delays and we found out our gate had changed with no warning. Also the flight was slightly delayed. Luckily (?), our connecting flight in Vegas was also delayed. Still, by the time we got there we only had 15 min before we began boarding. 

(Also, even the airport in Vegas has slots lol.)

It was a veeery turbulent ride back. All of our flights for this trip have been turbulent, but that last one was the worst. I’m not afraid of flying but I can now understand how some people could be. At one point I looked over at Janel and said, “I hope we don’t die.” If the plane went down I decided I would just pray for a quick death and also to be reborn as a cat so I can spend my life eating, sleeping, and being petted.

Finally, around midnight, we were back in KC.

Me: Let’s never go to California again. Next time there’s a concert, NY or Chicago or even Jersey is fine. Janel: SF is a flaming trash heap. It is the Tumblr of cities.

Sorry, SF, I liked you for years but now I am okay with never setting foot in you again.

But still: WORTH IT.