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nolossforwords · 3 years

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Billie Eilish's New Album Makes Me Happier Than Ever

First real post - here we go!

TW: mentions of abuse

On July 30, Billie Eilish dropped her much-anticipated second studio album, Happier Than Ever, ushering in a whole new era of Eilish. Billie is bolder than ever before. Frankly, she’s bolder than almost anyone else in the music industry right now. I listened to the album in its entirety on the day it dropped, and the thought I kept having was, “Billie’s out for BLOOD,” which doesn’t sound very intelligent or journalistic, I know. But truthfully, there is almost no difficult topic that goes unaddressed on this album. And, in true Eilish fashion, everything is handled with powerful, poetic grace. Eilish and Finneas (her brother, best friend, songwriting partner, and producer) crafted songs about everything from stalkers to body image to abusive relationships to unrealistic portrayals of women in pornography. This is an oversimplification of the album’s themes, but these are topics which stand out as the most striking, simply because they are so commonly avoided or mishandled in modern media. At only nineteen years old, Billie Eilish is re-shaping the norms and standards of her industry for the better. She gives me nothing but hope for the future of music, and art as a whole. This is my personal ranking of my favorite songs on Happier Than Ever, based purely on taste. Every song has a special place in my heart, and I connect with each in a different way, but for this list, each track is listed in an order based on how much I love it.

16. Everybody Dies

“Everybody Dies” felt a little flat to me in some respects. A few lines stood out as profound, such as, “It's just a lot to think about the world I'm used to/ The one I can't get back, at least not for a while/I sure have a knack for seeing life more like a child.” Otherwise, the song is basically just Eilish pondering death and the overall idea of losing things, such as the quieter, pre-fame lifestyle mentioned in the line quoted above. It fits with the other themes of the album, but it doesn’t shine quite as much as the other songs. However, I will give her and Finneas credit for their unconventional songwriting style: this song has four verses and no chorus. Even though this one isn’t my favorite, the music is still lovely, and they totally managed to pull of the unorthodox lyrical arrangement.

15. Male Fantasy

Lyrically, this song didn’t feel quite as strong as some of the other songs. But I appreciate how it starts off with Eilish calling out unrealistic depictions of women in porn, an industry infamous for catering to the satisfaction of male viewers, hence the name “Male Fantasy.” This idea connects to the larger meaning of the song: Eilish is coming to a disheartening realization about the superficiality of pornography, while simultaneously coming to a disheartening realization about the difficulties of moving on from someone. This song feels a little unexciting to me, but maybe that’s intentional. When we’re hurting, we use coping mechanisms that don’t always make sense to other people, or even seem boring to others. Eilish has said vulnerability is a big theme on this song, and maybe that’s also the point: she’s the one feeling vulnerable, not me, so it doesn’t matter if I enjoy it. It’s her moment, not mine. And I'm cool with that.

14. Halley’s Comet

This felt to me like a very basic love song, and Billie is far from basic. The song is named for a comet that is visible from Earth every 75 to 76 years. She sings, “Halley’s Comet comes around more than I do,” which is a play on words. “Comes around” means to physically visit, and also to change opinions. The song focuses on Eilish having trouble accepting her feelings for someone, while also acknowledging that she doesn’t physically spend much time with this person. I feel like the metaphor in this song could have been developed further. Eilish has shown her strength with extended metaphor in the past (see “strange addiction” and “all the good girls go to hell”), and I wish we’d gotten more in-depth usage of the comet metaphor. But that piano bit near the end is magnificent.

13. Your Power

The message of this song is undeniably important. There are far too many songs glamorizing adult men having relationships with underage girls (I have news for KISS and The Knack: pedophilia is never rock ’n roll). I think Eilish is a trailblazer for flipping around the narrative and giving the victim a voice. She switches perspectives throughout the song, sometimes singing from the viewpoint of a spectator, sometimes recalling her own experience. This ensures the emotional investment of all listeners, whether they are victims themselves or simply feel empathy for victims. Once again, I find this song groundbreaking. The only reason it has a slightly lower rating is that I sometimes find it harder to get into, but that’s just because it’s a slower song. That’s not a fault of the music - that’s just me being overactive and wanting to dance. This isn’t really a song for dancing.

12. GOLDWING

This song is about a young woman - the “gold-winged angel” - who has yet to be traumatized or exploited in life. Eilish once again brings up the vicious nature of celebrity culture and abuse when cautioning her subject about the cruelty of the media, or just life in general. Eilish considers her subject “sacred” - this person is lovely and genuine, and Eilish fears these traits will make it easier for others to manipulate her. The feeling of this song is angelic and hymn-like, which really helps to drive its meaning home. The message, musical style, and lyrics are all very solid.

11. Oxytocin

This song is so intense, I love it! Oxytocin is sometimes called “the love hormone,” as it’s released during various sexual and reproductive activities. Eilish claims to “need” her lover for this hormone, and describes feeling very possessive of this person - her passion borders on violent. Considering that women are typically depicted as meeker and more submissive in romantic relationships, I liked seeing Eilish channel her dominance and ferocity. And, she refers to God using female pronouns (iconic), as well as saying that She would want to get involved in the romantic activities of Eilish and her lover. Billie knows she’s hot. Good for her.

10. Not My Responsibility

9. OverHeated

I know, technically “Not My Responsibility” isn’t a song, it’s more like spoken word poetry. It was first shared as a visual and musical interlude on the world tour for When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?. I think it was a brilliant choice to include it on the album, with a seamless transition into OverHeated. Both address the toxic and impossible beauty standards placed on women. Eilish discusses the controversy around the baggy, shapeless clothes she used to wear to hide her body and save her from judgement, remarking on how she would probably be judged no matter what she wore. OverHeated pertains more to an incident in which paparazzi captured a picture of Eilish in a tank top, and the internet immediately labeled her curvy figure as “fat.” These two tracks contain some of the most powerful lines regarding body image I’ve ever heard - especially concerning celebrities’ bodies. In “Not My Responsibility,” she says, “The body I was born with - is it not what you wanted?” In OverHeated, she points out, “And everybody said it was a let down/I was only built like everybody else now.” Eilish seems to come to the important realization that there may be no satisfying people. Someone will always have something ugly to say about your body. But with these two tracks, Eilish establishes a boundary: she’s distancing herself from the negativity, and she’s learning not to care what everyone else thinks.

8. Lost Cause

This is truly such a fun song. The music video is iconic. I’m honestly offended that I didn’t get invited to that slumber party. I love how this song balances addressing relationship issues while being super playful. She’s ending the relationship, she’s calling her partner out on their BS, but she’s having a lot of fun while doing so. The bluesy music only adds to the sass. It’s the ultimate “you-weren’t-good-enough-for-me-anyway” song.

7. Billie Bossa Nova

First of all, I’m a sucker for alliteration, so naturally, I’m quite fond of this song. “Billie Bossa Nova” marks a more mature shift in Eilish’s music as she discusses a new relationship, singing about “that heavy breathing on the floor” and wanting to "make a movie…that we'd have to hide.” But, as always with this album, themes of celebrity are brought in as she describes using “different names at hotel check-ins” and how “nobody saw me in the lobby, nobody saw me in your arms,” revealing her intention to keep this relationship fairly private. This song, paired with Billie’s British Vogue issue, in which she wore a variety of pink and tan lingerie, marks her fully embracing adulthood and the sensuality that comes with it. We stan a queen who owns her sexuality!

6. NDA

5. Therefore I Am

I HAD to put these two songs next to each other; they are inseparable. The transition is flawless, and it gave me chills the first time I heard it. First, she reckons with the more personal struggles of fame, such as legal documents preceding hookups, stalkers, and overbearing paparazzi. Next, "Therefore I Am" takes a broader look at fame - it delves more into Billie’s relationship with the public and other celebrities. Recently, the news has been filled with discussion of parasocial relationships, thanks to John Mulaney’s fans’ shock at some of his recent behavior (parasocial relationships are a fascinating concept - I would recommend reading a few articles about it). I feel like "Therefore I Am" touches on parasocial relationships, even among celebrities. Everyone thinks they know a celebrity, when we don’t - we only know the image he/she/they present. Just because you are a fan doesn’t mean you are a celebrity’s friend. Eilish vents this frustration in “Therefore I Am,” named for the philosophical phrase, “I think, therefore I am,” which states that just being able to contemplate existence means one actually does exist. In the context of the song, Eilish refutes the assumption that admiring her and her music is enough to establish a friendship. Yet again, a profound and refreshing message. And I think I need to get the line, “Get my pretty name out of your mouth,” tattooed on my body, ASAP.

4. my future

Honestly, this might be one of the most gorgeous songs she’s ever written. The message is truly perfect. This is the song any lonely person, heartbroken person, or person on the verge of adulthood needs to hear. I think it’s a crime that there aren’t more songs that impart the importance of the relationship one has with one’s self - after all, that’s a relationship you’re going to have for the rest of your life!

3. I Didn’t Change My Number

Am I biased because I just got out of a relationship that occurred primarily over text? Yes. Yes I am. But, I love how confident Eilish is in this song. She knows she hasn’t done anything wrong. She knows she’s making the right choice by breaking off the relationship. She knows her ex-lover is clingy and overly demanding. This is an excellent moving-on song. I also love how to mentions her manager and best friend by name, because, y’know, women supporting other women in the face of awful men warms my heart. There’s also a part towards the end of the song when she sings, “Maybe you should leave/Before I get too mean/And take it out on you/And your best friend, too.” The last line is sung in this funny, higher-pitched voice, and I always get a huge kick out of it.

2. Getting Older

When Billie sang the opening lines of this in her Disney+ concert (more on that below), I honestly almost cried. This song is stunning. The lyrics are straightforward but reflective. The music is soft - not enough to get lost in the background, but just enough to provide gentle but un-distracting ambience for Eilish’s thoughtful singing. This song means a lot to me, because it feels like many of the internal conversations I’ve been having with myself lately. Very wise choice for an opening track.

1. Happier Than Ever

Without a doubt, this is my favorite song on the album. It feels like a marriage of some of her old musical styles and new techniques. It starts with a guitar or ukulele that we heard so much of in her first two albums, and then transitions into a full-out rock anthem. I love that when the song begins, the slower, softer singing and music seems to indicate she’s feeling quite calm about the end of the relationship…but she quickly proves to still be furious and heartbroken when the drums and electric guitar kick in. This feels like such a realistic way to portray the end of a relationship. One moment, you’re fine. You’ve totally moved on, you’re completely over the other person - but if you think about it too long, you’re not fine. You still feel broken and angry inside. My favorite lyrics are, “I don't relate to you, no/'Cause I'd never treat me this shitty/You made me hate this city.” Those lines give me such an adrenaline rush. Once again, she brings up the idea of first and foremost loving yourself. And the idea of someone traumatizing you to the point where you despise an entire city is one of the saddest sentiments ever - especially considering how openly Eilish admits to loving Los Angeles. If I could only pick one song to save from the entire album, this would be it. This is an extraordinary song.

If you get the chance, check out Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles on Disney+, a recorded, audience-less concert Eilish performed at the Hollywood Bowl. The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus both make appearances, plus some other impressive musicians - and Finneas, of course! Some people called it underwhelming, but I found it genuinely enjoyable. It’s not the movie of the year or anything, but if you like Eilish’s music, it’s nice to watch her perform in a slightly more traditional concert setting after being deprived of almost anything resembling a concert for more than a year. If nothing else, watch it for the adorable animated Billie Eilish.

And, if you made it this far, your reward is this photo of my aesthetically arranged Billie Eilish paraphernalia! On the top left is the July-August issue of Rolling Stone, featuring Billie on the cover and in a wonderfully insightful interview. All the photos are gorgeous. Top right is a spread from her photo book, which I also highly recommend checking out. On the bottom is my Happier Than Ever page in my poetry journal! This song is super long, so I didn’t include the entire thing, just my very favorite verses at the end. And, I threw some nail stuff into the photo, because I always think of Billie when I’m doing my nails. She has really great nails. 💅🏻❤️

Closer look at the journal page ↑

Thanks for reading this monster of a post! I hope you enjoyed. And if any of these gifs belong to you, thanks for letting me use them! Feel free to give yourself a shoutout in the notes. Keep checking in for more awesome content this week!!

@NoLossForWords,

Katie

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tobiosmilktea · 3 years

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high fidelity — kuroo tetsurou

3.9k words | genre: fluff | warning/s: terrible writers block writing, ooc kuroo cause i suck | pairing: kuroo x gn!reader

↪︎ in which being the only two employees at a small record store meant that you and kuroo worked together almost every day. and not a single day has passed that you didn’t find your coworker absolutely insufferable. you think he’s annoying, and he thinks you’re cute. in reality, kuroo just sucks at flirting.

a/n: is the plot a bit of a mess? lowkey yeah, but ykw that’s okay cause i needed something stupid to write. this was also a bit self-indulgent cause homegirl just got employed at a record store (yay)

fucking tired—is what you would tell kuroo in the means of his grand intervention to mess with his favorite coworker of all time. granted, you were his only coworker in the infamously meager record store down some random alleyway in downtown tokyo.

those six words were how you would describe how you felt at that very moment. busy with doing what you were employed on doing rather than sitting around and snacking on some trail mix. one would assume that working at a rather small establishment meant little to no work, especially in hours where it was slow with no customers roaming up and down the aisles, but god were you wrong. you were the only one on the shift actually busting your ass off on the floor and at the register while all kuroo does is change the music playing on the store’s overhead speakers and hangs out.

sure, he does do his fair share of work here and there. occasionally he would even take over most of the manual labor of carrying all the new shipments of heavy vinyl records for the sake of courtesy, but at the end of the day, it was always you who would have to restock the displays every time.

so much for being a gentleman.

your feet hurt, your legs ached, your arms were sore. you were just glad that kuroo finally decided to get his ass up and actually walk around for once. he probably wasn’t planning on doing any work, simply just meandering through the aisles of vinyl just to see what to buy next with his 20% off employee discount. you honestly couldn’t care less. what you did care about was that the stool behind the cash register (aka the only place to sit inside the entire building) was finally free.

you settled yourself behind the counter, a sigh escaping your lips as your chin rested atop the palm of your hand.

you finally had a chance to rest. yet despite taking this rare opportunity, you couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit bored now that the store was practically deserted. then again, what did you expect from working at a small business? not to mention, it’s the twenty-first century and all forms of media was digitized and easily accessible by a single internet search. there were, however, a few old souls out there, still in love with the idea of having a physical copy of their favorite artist’s work.

you were easily one of those people.

there was something so endearing listening to strangers talk about their love for music—it’s why you started working here at TRAX in the first place as a sorry excuse to surround yourself with the physical embodiments of the best invention mankind has ever made. hell, you still had the old walkman that your father gave to you. it was from the 90s with its gray plastic chipping at the corners and scratched-off lettering. you even had his old cassette tapes always in your bag whenever you go out.

regardless, the quietness of the store wasn’t at all bad at times. if anything, you were fortunate that kuroo wasn’t annoying the shit out of you like he normally does—poking at your cheeks and teasing you to no end. in fact, it was a nice break from the overstimulation of the occasional busy hours that come out of the blue. from old men mansplaining how record players work to annoying middle schoolers trying to blast their terrible soundcloud songs on the store’s bluetooth speakers. perhaps the slow hours were a godsend.

it was absolute hell trying to chase those annoying thirteen-year-olds out of the store with the help of kuroo. causing a ruckus or not, the situation was a bit funny at the end. it was one of those rare moments you and kuroo shared a genuine laugh together.

a sigh escapes your lips then as you take out your walkman, plugging in the old headphones that came with it. the black, plastic ones with thin muffs whose wires tangle no matter how much you try not to. you place them over your ears.

today’s mood was classic 80s rock, something along the lines of queen, guns n’ roses, and journey beating into your ears as you let your eyelids rest for a few seconds.

however, your means to relax was immediately shut down when a hand snatches your headphones off of your ears.

“ouch,” you groan as the plastic of the headset scratched at your temple. you look over your shoulder at your coworker with confusion plastered all over your face. “what was that for?”

kuroo blinks with a sly smile on his face, “those things still exist?”

you flick him a look, “what do you want?”

“you don’t get paid to sleep on the job, you know.” kuroo gives you a pointed look as he hands you back your headphones.

you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. the audacity. “i get paid by the hour and the store is literally empty right now,” you defend as you click your walkman on pause, “besides, aren’t you the one slacking all the time?”

“only when the boss isn’t around,” he hums.

“the boss is never around,” you huff.

“speaking of an empty store,” kuroo starts once again, watching you wrap the thin headphone wires around the body of your walkman. “d’you got any spare change?”

your eyes peer at him slightly, “what for?”

“to get a drink from the vending machines down the street, obviously.” replied kuroo.

yet another sigh left your lips, licking at its dryness as you reached into your pocket to reveal a few fifty-yen coins. it wasn’t much, but it wasn’t like anything from the vending machines in the city was that expensive. just anything to get him off your back again for peace of mind. “get me a one too while you’re at it,” you mutter, tossing the coins into his palm.

“why don’t you just come with me?” he asks, curious.

you shake your head, “i can’t leave the store unattended.”

kuroo clicks his tongue, feigning himself from rolling his eyes and just tugging you along with him. “come on, it’s not like there are any customers.” he gestures onto the barren floor as if its emptiness wasn’t already obvious enough.

“do i have to?” you groan. you just got comfortable and you weren’t exactly in the mood to walk all the way down the street either.

“yes,” he said sternly, hoping that it was enough to sway you, but surprise surprise! it didn’t. his unsuccessful (and oddly pitiful) attempt at convincing you to come with him caused the corners of kuroo’s lips to dip into a slight pout.

no matter how annoying your coworker was, thinking he wasn’t at all cute or the least bit attractive was a lie. when you look at kuroo, you’re not entirely sure what it was about him that made your heart skip a few beats despite your brain thinking the opposite. was it his sleek obsidian hair that was always styled perfectly? perhaps it was his eyes that were so pretty that if you looked at him for longer than a few seconds, you would be entranced? or maybe it was his witty charm that despite being annoying, you still found his presence nice to be around?

whatever it was, you hated to think there was even the slightest possibility that you liked kuroo more than you would like to admit. and the worst part of it all? perhaps you did like him more than a friend.

and that was the biggest problem.

how annoying, you think.

“pretty please,” he begged, his warm hands suddenly finding yours in the midst of your internalized dilemma and pulling you out of your thoughts.

the action catches you off guard as you snatch your hands back from his abrupt contact. eyes wide and heart beating heavy, you gulped when you noticed how close he was to you then. the action of you pulling away from him only brought kuroo closer like some odd twist in fate.

your thoughts pondered a bit as you looked up at him, still patiently waiting for an answer as he gives you a comforting smile. perhaps kuroo stepped a bit out of line this time, and there’s no doubt he feels a bit bad about it. he was about to pull away and apologize but after your thoughts spiraled for a few seconds you gave in with a nod.

“fine,” you say, lifting yourself off the stool as kuroo steps away from you with a grin. you follow him around the counter, taking your walkman with you as you pass it.

you just hoped no one came by while you two were out. the last thing you wanted to do was get fired all because your annoyingly handsome coworker wanted to get a mid-afternoon beverage.

your shoes muffled gently against the store’s floor—tap, tap, tapping in some form of patterned unison as you and kuroo left the building.

the backroads of downtown were quiet. considerably so compared to the main streets as there was nothing but tweeting birds, whistling cicadas, and an occasional bicycler whizzing by. it was such a nice day, perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea to go out after all.

there was something incredibly calming about afternoon strolls down the street, feeling the rays of sunlight beaming down on your face as you further melted into an earth-smearing mood while you unpaused your walkman.

your headphones laid around your neck with the volume set on max this time just so kuroo could listen in. the corner of his lip quirked up a bit as you did so. it was like a nod of approval within a minuscule gesture. then again, you and kuroo always had a similar taste in music—messy and all over the place, but the classics are where you and he truly had the most in common.

the walk there was short and quiet. usually kuroo doesn’t mind being the one to strike up a conversation, but right now, it was as if he was trying to savor something at the moment that you couldn’t really pinpoint.

upon arriving at the rows of vending machines, kuroo slips in a few coins before pressing one of the buttons. he opted for a calpico, watching the can fall from behind the glass before bending down to pick it up. kuroo doesn’t even give you a look before he puts in the rest of your change, let alone ask what you wanted. the boy presses on the button right below a matcha drink—the exact one you were planning on getting.

he bends down when the drink dispenses and hands it to you on beat with the music emitting from your headphones.

“thank you,” you say, a bit dumbfounded as you opened up the can.

the slight confusion was evident on your face as kuroo couldn’t help but find your curiosity absolutely adorable. “i always see you with that drink whenever you come in for work,” he explains, chuckling as he takes a sip from his own. “assumed you liked it a lot.”

you couldn’t help but blush at his words, feeling your heartstrings suddenly tug at the thought that he knows you enough, let alone care to even remember such a minor detail. letting out a shaky breath that you hoped was drowned out by the music, you lamely attempted to hide the crimson red hues on your cheeks as you take a drink.

“i’m surprised you’d even remember something so insignificant about me,” you mutter as you two walk back to the store, yet this time your pace slowed along with his.

it seemed as if you weren’t the only one wanting to spend a little more time like this.

“i mean, it’s you.” kuroo replied, fingers nervously fiddling. “you are my favorite coworker after all.”

which wasn’t at all a lie. it was true. you were his favorite, but it was nothing more than a panicked and questionable explanation in the means of nonchalance. he couldn’t exactly expose himself out of the blue ever since you two talked about what you looked for in a partner. he recalled your words of wanting to find someone who cares about you and can remember every detail about you regardless of what it was. and much of his dismay of explaining his type to be the exact same of your own traits and characteristics, his sorry excuse of casually flirting completely flew over your head.

and if he’s coming to think of it now, all of kuroo’s sorry excuses of flirting probably went over your head. he mentally faced palmed himself. god, you probably thought he was the most irritating guy on the planet.

yet to his rapidly beating heart, you laughed, practically beaming at him. kuroo swears you could literally send him into cardiac arrest. “i’m your only coworker, idiot.” you tease before taking another sip.

he grins.

“gives me an even better reason to care then,” he hums, pulling the door to the store open just to be met with a thunderous shout.

you two were met with the owner of TRAX record store aka your boss. the short, pudgy old man with a receding hairline and a scowl on his face stood by the counter, arms crossed over each other like a disappointed parent.

“where have you two been?” he grunts, his familiar adenoidal and croaky voice ripping through your eardrums as you hurried to pause your walkman. “leaving the store unattended just to get drinks? you two are lucky i got here when i did because a customer just came by!”

your lips purse together nervously as the grip around your can tightened. kuroo notices your unease, giving you an apologetic look. he turns to face igarashi, your boss, “sorry sir, that’s my bad. i was the one who convinced (y/n) to come with me even after they said no.”

“oh really?” your boss tested. his hand came up to his chin to scratch the few strands of beard hair he even had. he scoffs, “of course it is.”

your neck swivels up towards kuroo as guilt melted into your bloodstream. knowing igarashi, he wasn’t the type to lay easy on simple mistakes. it was the only reason why you were glad he wasn’t here often in the first place knowing that he was like a ruthless hawk with eyes that followed you everywhere.

“it’s not entirely his fault, sir. i knew better but i still decided to go.” you muttered, refusing to look kuroo in the eye as he looks at you surprised.

igarashi lets out a huff as his eyes closed for a few seconds, “my therapist told me to take deep breaths whenever i feel as if i am about to lash out,” he explains before pulling himself together. he opens his eyes, tone much calmer now but the words were still like venom. “since you two were at least truthful about it, i will let it go this time, but know it won’t be the next time around. alright?”

you and kuroo nod, “yessir.”

“good. now, i want this place spotless by the time i come back.” with that your boss disappears into the back where he would be for the rest of the night–not helping at all. he stays in the backroom just to nap and to get away from his own unhappy marriage. you just hoped he stayed there until the end of your shift.

with your pulse calming, you took a sip of your matcha drink out of comfort, finishing all of its contents before throwing it into the trash bin. kuroo does the same thing, this time out of the fear of getting in trouble again as for the first time in a long time, you hear him ask you, “should we get to work then?”

you almost wanted to laugh. you were oddly giddy about working alongside him rather than vexed, nodding in response. both of you grab one of the grates of newly shipped records from behind the counter, ready to be put on display as you and kuroo worked down the same aisle.

with your walkman still on hand and your headphones wrapped around your head, you decided to play the cassette tape again just to ease the underlying awkwardness that was still in the air.

when you paused your walkman earlier, it stopped near the beginning of good old fashioned lover boy by queen. and the moment freddie mercury starts vocalizing, you could practically feel the ice around the two of you melt, heads bobbing to the beat as you two worked your way down the jazz aisle.

it went like this for the next hour. songs ranging from artist to artist, humming lightly to the beat of every drum. usually, kuroo wouldn’t last two minutes without complaining about doing work, but for once he didn’t mind knowing that you’re right next to him, mumbling the lyrics together in incoherent unison. if he knew working with you was going to be like this, he wouldn’t have been such a slacker after all. you could honestly say the same thing.

the cassette tape pulls to a stop, reaching the end of its duration as you and kuroo reach the bottom of the crate of vinyl records. as you reach inside to take out the last few albums, a gasp escapes you as your eyes fall onto one of the records. it was one that you have been dying to get for years now.

you put your walkman and headphone set down, grabbing the album.

“no way,” you grinned, capturing kuroo’s attention as he looks over at you curiously. “look, look!”

“tears for fears?” he says as a small switch flickers in his brain. “isn’t that your favorite 80s album?”

you nod, happy to think he even remembered that about you as you rush over to the cash register. you buy the album without a moment of hesitation, already freeing it from its plastic wrap as you reach kuroo again. you open the cover, beaming at its beautiful design. you couldn’t wait until you got home to listen to it.

at the end of every other row, there was a record player display that customers were able to use. taking out the delicate vinyl, you carefully placed it on the player’s mat with delicate fingers. you pick up the needle, hovering it over the edge of the record before placing it down gently.

on either side of the record player, there were hooks to hold headphones. each of which was connected to the machine as you quickly pull kuroo over. taking the headsets from the hooks, you put one of the pairs on before placing the other over kuroo’s ears, tiptoeing just to reach his height. almost immediately one of the most iconic songs of the decade stream into his ears. it was everybody wants to rule the world—one of your favorite songs.

you two stood there in silence, listening to the song’s nostalgic beats as your bodies faced each other. while you were looking over at the spinning black vinyl, kuroo eyes fell on you.

there was absolutely nothing in his wake to be able to take his admiration away as this, this beaming expression on your face had something special about it. it was as if his entire world was right in front of him, just an arms reach away.

his heart couldn’t slow for a minute as he could practically hear it over the music playing in his headphones. his breath gave way then, at the moment you turned to look back up at him with glowing eyes as if you struck gold. you consider yourself lucky being able to get your hands on such a rare vinyl, but kuroo considered himself the winner as he had you.

“do you like this song?” you asked him curiously, ignoring the way your heart started beating rapidly from the way he was looking at you with such care and admiration.

you were so close, you were literally right there. all of kuroo’s emotions that battered onto him like a cumbersome downpour can be relieved if he were to just say the words. a simple phrase, three short words, and a heavy heart beat. ready to leave his tongue and all would be done.

come on, just say it!

“I like you,” he says out of the blue, but his voice was a bit muffled due to the headphones.

your eyebrows furrow slightly, mouth suddenly running dry as your eyes widen.

did he just say what you think he just said?

you are not entirely sure what he said considering his words were partially drowned out by the music. you wanted to think that he did say the words of the impossible, but you couldn’t be so sure of yourself.

“sorry, what did you say?”

kuroo’s hands wrap around your headset, pulling them off of your ears and placing them around your neck. “i said i like you and i wanted to know if you wanted to go out sometime!” he says ratherly loudly. his headphones were still on him blasting tears for fears.

you couldn’t help but laugh, the back of your hand coming up to cover your reddening cheeks. warmth surrounded your heart, like a hug that squeezed at your chest in the most comforting way possible. you raise your hands up, cupping around the shell of his headphones as you pull them off of kuroo.

“you’re so loud,” you mutter.

as if fate decided to push you into the unknown with a strange burst of confidence within you, you got up on your tiptoes and leaned it. pressing your lips against his, soft and light, your skin ignited ablaze.

in a mere moment of serendipity just to test out the waters, you were pulled in deeper, mind blurring in satisfaction. yet it was nothing more than temporary as the sound of infamous footsteps gradually got louder and louder. panicked, you pull away quickly just seconds before igarashi emerges from the aisles, staring bullet holes into you and kuroo.

“i suppose you two are working?”

you nod, pulling your wrists out of kuroo’s grasp.

kuroo quickly answers, “we are, don’t worry.”

your boss lets out a suspicious hum as he gives you two one last look. he turns back around again, disappearing into the back.

a sigh of relief leaves you as you turn back towards the boy in front of you. he still waited for an answer, almost desperate to know as his eyes searched for an answer.

grinning, you pause the record player and kuroo watches it spin to a slow stop. “you’re an idiot,” you say with a laugh.

kuroo doesn’t seem to care at that moment, if anything he was just glad there were no one else was around. his hands wrap around yours again, “well, is that a yes or a no?”

“so that kiss wasn’t obvious enough for you?”

liking someone you found annoying was impossible, but liking your annoying coworker? now, that was a different story.

general taglist: @yongboxerrr @rosepetalhaven @tvwhoresblog @tanakaslastbraincell @kellesvt @kitsunetea @milktyama @anejuuuuoy

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu fluff #kuroo x reader #kuroo imagines #kuroo scenarios #kuroo fluff #kuroo tetsurou #haikyuu kuroo #hq kuroo

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jamaiskookie · 4 years

Text

meet me in your memories (knj)

✂︎ pairing: memory traveller namjoon x gender neutral reader

✂︎ wc: 11.8k

✂︎ TW// car crash, mentions of death, crying, mental health, mental breakdowns, spoilers for frozen 1?? um, vomiting, mentions of PTSD, three seconds of family drama, memory loss

✂︎ notes: a little gift from me for being away so long <3 luv yall also ignore how short and shitty this is!!! ignore it!!!!!

✂︎ synopsis: namjoon is a memory traveller - he is thrusted back and forth into his world and the world of his memories, forced to re-enact his past experiences. but he doesn’t recognise you, who keeps showing up in his memories. why doesn’t he remember you? why can’t he recall any of these scenes if they’re supposed to be his memories? and why does it always feel like he’s forgetting something?

he comes to find out that he would choose you over and over again, in whatever lifetime or world he’s in. because he always returns to you.

✂︎ fic tunes: "eight"- iu (prod. & feat. suga) but you're at your favorite secret spot after a long day by neptjoon

masterlist asks

The road is slippery and Namjoon cranes his head out to look at the window. Rain splattering everywhere, he notes worriedly. He hopes that nobody crashes. The bus driver sitting about three meters in front of him is humming a melody to a song he doesn’t know nor recognise. While listening to the poor man hum the off beat tune, Namjoon sits in silence, wondering how sad it must be to drive a bus with no passengers but himself.

Suddenly, his stomach drops and his head spins, and this time Namjoon is certain it’s not from the rain or the driver’s subpar driving. He lurches forward, watching as the rain knocks against the window and falls in thick ribbons.

Click.

In an instant, Namjoon’s world collapses around him and he is thrown into his mind.

Seoul is sweltering hot - hot like he’s never felt before. Namjoon reaches up to clutch his head, which is still spinning, and finds himself standing in a pair of light washed baggy jeans and a sleeveless tee shirt, unlike the padding coat and thick boots he had on just a moment ago.

“Namjoon!” Someone squeals behind him and his heart jumps. He jumps around, facing you and the view of hot street food stalls and tall buildings behind you. Suddenly, his hand is reaching out to grab onto yours and you smile softly.

He hears his own voice ring out, clear as day: “Don’t run. I was looking for you.”

“Psh.” You wave off his concern, handing him a shiny golden hotteok. You hold an identical one in your fist, so he accepts it and murmurs his thanks, tearing apart the pancake and stuffing it into his mouth. Sweet, hot honey and small pieces of walnut flood into his mouth, and Namjoon is momentarily surprised. Science states that you cannot taste or physically feel anything in your dreams.

But Namjoon already proved that wrong long ago.

He takes you by hand and drags you over to a shelter, for some rest, apparently uninterested in your cries of wanting more tteokbokki or some Chinese food. He flings you over to his side and places his hand over your shoulder, while you both silently devour your hotteoks.

“This was a nice date.” You mumble tentatively, and oh. That’s what this is? A date? He wants to turn around and ask you for your name. Where are you from? Why am I here again? He wants to scream it out until his lungs hurt and he gets an answer that makes sense, but no matter how much he tries, his throat will not allow those words to tumble out of his lips.

Why don’t I remember you?

Instead, he replies: “Yeah, it was. This was fun.” He tilts his head down to smile at you and Namjoon finds himself nervous. Nervous enough that his hands are shaking against his will, but he tells himself that the sweat and the nervousness are all side effects of the swampy heat this summer.

You beam at him and Namjoon thinks you’re an angel. You lean up onto his chest to place a soft kiss onto his lips and Namjoon thinks about when he’s going to be thrown back out of his head.

“Wanna go home?” He asks, nudging at the sky, which is already filled up with first streaks of the sunset. Purple hues and pinks and blues that all blend together nicely. You watch the sky for a moment.

“Never.” You offer no explanation after that and Namjoon doesn’t pry. He feels like he understands you, which is scarier than any other encounter he’s faced, in real life and in here. You stare up at him more intensely, and a shudder of fear runs down Namjoon’s back. “I just want to stay here forever,” You enunciate, like you want him to remember this. “Just Y/N and Namjoon.”

Something tugs in his chest and Namjoon screams in his head, no. Longer. Not now. He slips away, gone, disappeared from the world before he can even tell you how pretty your name is. And he awakens back at the bus, where the driver is shaking him and yelling at him to get out.

Namjoon walks home in the rain, yelling out your name in happiness until his neighbours come over politely asking him to shut the fuck up.

“Y/N, Y/N, Y/N, Y/N… Y/N?” He keeps repeating the name over and over again, enough to make Seokjin annoyed, who has moved away from Namjoon’s desk to the sofa in his office just to escape the random spiel that Namjoon is hurriedly rushing through.

“I can’t find a single Y/N in here!” Namjoon cries frustratingly, and the corners of Seokjin’s eyes soften in something that is either pity or empathy. He discards his non-fiction novel about drag queens and wigs to come over and clap a hand on Namjoon’s shoulder.

“My friend, my crazy, idiotic, slightly insane friend.” Seokjin bends down. “You’ve checked all your yearbooks, social media, archives, newspapers… Have you perhaps considered that this person wasn’t that important? Just a passing stranger?”

“No.” Namjoon shoots down stubbornly. “They appear far too often for them not to be important.” So Seokjin shrugs, leaving Namjoon to, once again, search through the Facebook friends of a friend of a friend of a friend.

But no Y/N’s pop up, and he’s wondering if Y/N was just a nickname. Was it even your real name? With a sigh and one single (rather impressive) agitated brow wave, he lets go and spills. He tells Seokjin about how he finally learned your name, about the places you’ve been together and how much you adore street food.

He appreciates Seokjin for being a good friend, for sitting there and not interrupting to call him a crazy person, even if he is most certainly thinking about it in his head. Because Seokjin, at least, knows about a miniscule part of Namjoon’s tragic life. He doesn’t understand, but he gets it, and that’s all Namjoon needs in a friend.

He doesn’t tell Seokjin about how soft and pillowy your lips feel against his, he doesn’t tell you how much he longs to do unspeakable things to you when you show up in those blue short shorts. He definitely doesn’t tell him how much he loves your name.

Seokjin suggests a number of things. That perhaps you are a character from long ago, or maybe a passing stranger Namjoon once had a summer fling with. You may be someone long forgotten like a mutual friend in high school or college. He also suggests a psychiatric hospital to screw his head back on (as a joke, Namjoon’s pretty sure.)

But none of those seem right. Namjoon does his best to explain, he really does. For an award winning journalist and aspiring writer, he does just about a terrible job of trying to string his words together. Seokjin pinches the bridge of his nose and falls back onto the sofa, already spacing out. Namjoon weakly cries out that he knows you. He really does - he just doesn’t remember how, or why.

Like a puzzle with a few missing pieces.

He wonders when and if the missing pieces will ever make their way over to him.

Namjoon gives up and flops down onto the sofa next to Jin, who squeaks out various protests about how heavy he is and how stupidly huge his arms have gotten after he started working out, along the lines of comparing him to Jungkook and calling him a gym rat.

As usual, Namjoon doesn’t listen.

It’s difficult to explain the feeling of falling to someone who hasn’t experienced it. The cursed Click echoes out and suddenly, the world spins around, the axis breaks and he’s physically thrown into another time, another place… another memory that he can’t seem to recall. His stomach lurches, his head hurts and there’s a small breeze flowing in.

For a short moment, the loops of space and time are completely open to him. He can’t see it, but he can feel it. It flips his mind completely upside down and boom. He’s in a specific, random time and place. His body feels light, and every step he takes, he can physically feel it: He doesn’t belong here. He isn’t supposed to be here. Everything feels different. Even the air is more smoky, because something in this world is suddenly wrong, and it’s him.

The next time he meets you, he is in just about the worst place to fall. Sitting in a press conference, his stomach drops and he’s dreading the fall. Namjoon can already hear his boss screaming at him, and he desperately tries to root himself to his seat, typing whatever the assemblyman is yapping on and on about. About farming and agriculture and tax cuts…

Click.

He can distantly hear the assemblyman candidate talk about corrupt government workers as he’s thrusted out of his world and into another.

The memory he has the pleasure to be in this time is something not too unfamiliar. For a second, he thinks if this is just a normal day of him in his cramped, tiny city apartment. Until he turns around and realises you’re lying right next to him, sound asleep and nuzzling into the side of his neck.

The air is crisp. It’s spring, not winter anymore, and he can hear the flower petals outside his apartment complex falling lightly on the ground. This, Namjoon thinks, may just be the best memory he’s been in. The press conference and his life and his boss slips his mind and he cradles you in his chest, holding you closer and closing his eyes shut.

“Mm?” You mumble, half asleep. “You’re suffocating me.” You hoarsely call out, and Namjoon releases you with an insincere apology. He brushes the hair out of your hair and grins, framing you in his head. He reaches to his alarm clock, which is right next to his bed as it always is to check the time.

April 1st, 2017.

Oh god, Namjoon winces. This means he still has that god awful haircut right now. He reaches up to feel his head, and sure enough, the horrible slicked back bleached hair is still there, an unfortunate result of his friend Hoseok daring him to drunk dye his hair.

“You’re awake?” He asks you, and you nod slowly.

He wonders if this memory precedes or follows the one he had with you last time, and he desperately hopes things are going in chronological order. He wants to know you just as much as you know him. Namjoon naively prays to whatever deity that controls his dreamworld: Please follow things step by step, follow the clock.

You roll around, saying something he can’t really catch. He asks you what you said and for the first time today, you peel open your eyes directly facing him. Namjoon’s heart almost falls out of his ass, seeing your eyes bore into his own.

“Where’s my morning kiss?” You ask cutely, nudging his nose with your own button nose.

“Right here.” He finds himself saying, leaning in to close the inches in between your two faces. You taste like hotteok, even early in the morning. You taste like a spring day and a never ending forever. As your lips capture his and his everything is consumed by thoughts of you, Namjoon begs himself to kiss you harder.

His past self declines politely, and Namjoon thinks about whether this counts as himself being controlled if he himself is still controlling what he says and does.

In that moment, listening to your slow breathing and someone across the street playing simple, melodic piano chords, Namjoon tells himself: Do not ever forget April 1st, 2017. You rise from the bed and some form of protest bubbles up from Namjoon’s mouth, to which you just laugh and drag him out of bed with the excuse of wanting breakfast.

You push him into the bathroom, where he expects to meet his sad single grey towel and foggy mirror. You push him in front, and he cringes at the sight of his hair in the mirror. You sigh.

“Calm down. The blonde looks sexy. You can dye it back black later.” He laughs, because it’s clearly not very sexy. For once, his past self is doing exactly what the current Namjoon is pleading him to do. Does it count as reliving your memories if someone else was living through them originally? But, he reminds himself while you hand him a green toothbrush and squeeze a dollop of toothpaste on both your toothbrushes, this is him. He lived through this once and he is just taking a trip down memory lane.

The person who lived through this before was him.

He has to remind himself many more times before it sinks in.

You brush your teeth next to him, fluffing your hair and squinting in the mirror to wake yourself up. Without a second of hesitation, Namjoon brings the toothbrush up and starts to brush his teeth. Nothing has ever felt more domestic or right than this, despite the tentative steps and heavy lead feeling in his throat telling him he still isn’t supposed to be here.

You spit out toothpaste in the sink to gargle your mouth and Namjoon mimics you exactly. Somehow, you find yourselves in the kitchen, giggling while making some sort of french toast with an abundance of cinnamon floating through the air. Which makes Namjoon cough and makes you laugh even harder.

“This is a perfect morning.” You say, peering out the window to watch the city life slowly bustling to life. People scrambling out their doors, ushering their children or pets with them. People you don’t recognise going on walks or runs. Mailmen and delivery people dropping off packages and people yelling into their phones as they hurriedly walk along the sidewalk.

And you and Namjoon, calmly staying in your pajamas while frying toast on the pan.

“Is something burning?” You ask, sniffing the air, and Namjoon’s blood runs cold.

“Oh, shit!”

You smile and shake your head while Namjoon attempts to save the blackened piece of bread to no avail. He catches sight of the corners of your mouth lifting, even as you chastise him about watching the stove and ranting on about how you’re never going to trust him in the kitchen again. Namjoon watches your pink lips, stained with a brown mudge of cinnamon french toast mixture, which lifts up and your head falls back, hair flowing around your head like a halo.

Your laugh plays out in front of him in slow motion, and absentmindedly, he thanks that deity he prayed to for slowing this moment down. Because if there’s anything he yearns most to remember, it’s the way you laugh. A chuckle makes its way out of his own throat as well, and he’s not sure who’s in control at the moment.

Himself or himself in the past?

Either way, they both did the right thing. Namjoon forgets. He forgets the life he has back home, he forgets Seokjin’s warnings, he forgets that he has at least a hundred articles waiting for him at work to be written. He forgets that this world is nothing but a chance for him to follow the footsteps of what he once did, with no control to say or do anything he wishes to do himself.

But, oh, he really can’t bring himself to care.

Those piano chords from before blend together beautifully, and you scrape the black toast into the garbage can, still teasing him relentlessly, and oh. Oh, this is what it means to have a home. You made this junk of a house into a home, and he feels like he has to return here. This is where he’s meant to return to, everyday. Each time.

You turn around after discarding the toast and with a bright smile, you ask him to kiss you again. Namjoon thinks that he doesn’t ever have the capability to deny you when you smile like that, so he complies and crashes his lips onto yours.

The lead, heavy feeling in his throat is still weighing him down. Except Namjoon isn’t sure whether it’s weighing him down to this world or the real world.

The cursed deity pulls him back, pulling him through the time and space back to his own responsibilities and life. His heart is wrenched out and he reaches out, trying to grasp your hand for the last time. He falls back to his own world in a hospital bed and an IV attached to his arm with half a piece of french toast dangling in his mouth and another promise he makes with himself to meet you again with a smile on his face.

Memories… memories that he’s lived through but can’t remember. Memories he slips into to live momentarily through the actions and words of his old self.

Somewhere along the line of diving back and forth his own life and this past one, he has forgotten which is which.

“Most likely due to exhaustion. Lack of sleep, lack of rest. It’s quite common with working young adults, workaholics. I’m putting him on medical leave for the rest of the week. He needs a rest - He needed it yesterday. Don’t worry too much, Mrs. Kim. A long nap and a meal or two will fix him right back up.” Namjoon groggily registers the white walls and beeping noises, the chatter of doctors and nurses rushing around.

He’s in a hospital, and a rush of fear runs straight through his blood. He sits up to eye his mother, sitting next to him and holding his hand. She shushes him, laying him back down on the bed, but all he can do is panic.

“No, not here. Not here again.” He mumbles incoherently. His mother puts a hand over his eyes, shushing him again and telling him softly to go back to sleep. He doesn’t want to go to sleep, he wants to get out of here. But his eyelids are already feeling heavy and he weakly fights against his body, but before he can even process it, his eyes are shut and he is asleep.

Seeing her son close his eyes and drift off to sleep, Mrs. Kim turns back to the doctor.

“I’m not surprised,” She starts. “He’s always worked himself to the bone. But that’s not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about his brain.” The doctor cocks his head and looks through the papers which are clipped to a clipboard in his arms.

“Ah, yes. I see he was in a car accident a few years ago.” Doctors are some of the most heartless people, and you can always tell how experienced a doctor is by how much sympathy they show. This doctor shows none at all, which must mean he’s been working for a long time.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Kim.” The doctor continues, peering over Namjoon’s sleeping body. “I see he suffered light effects after the accident. Selective amnesia, no external damages to the skull. He didn’t suffer as much. In fact, I believe the doctor in charge believed that the amnesia was mostly due to the shock of the event. But he’s received treatment for PTSD since then, right?”

Mrs. Kim nods.

“Good. Doctor Park also noted at the time that his amnesia actually didn’t affect much of his memory. He couldn’t remember distant relatives or kindergarten friends, but that seemed to be the extent of his amnesia. Oh,” The doctor slipped through the clipboard. “He also couldn’t remember certain knowledge about philosophers such as Freud, which he was, quote, ‘devastated over’ un-quote.”

Mrs. Kim stays silent.

“So, you don’t have to worry too much. Best thing your son could do for his well being is rest. And a therapist if he has a relapse or shows some symptoms such as sleep difficulties or nightmares, or physical signs like fatigue and nausea.”

Mrs. Kim nods. “Thank you, doctor.”

That’s it, and she turns back to her son, with her hand in his. She stays there, unmoving until he opens his eyes, mumbling incoherent questions and asking his mother why he is in the hospital again, demanding to be discharged immediately. Her heart breaks a little, small cracks form for her beloved son and she kisses him on the forehead, telling him he’d be out of here in no time.

“What did you see?” She asks quietly, and Namjoon is surprised. She never asks him about his memory walks. It’s taboo to mention it in his household. Not even his sister is comfortable talking about it. “Anything? At all? You passed out at a rather unfortunate time, I heard.” She continues.

“Nothing much.” Namjoon replies, lying through his teeth and trying to justify it with the sight of your laugh. He leans back and closes his eyes once more, bringing up his memories of you and your bedhead. He tries to fill the gap inside of him with thoughts of you, as if that can make up for the empty feeling that he’s forgetting something.

In the hospital, staring at a white ceiling and glaring lights, Namjoon is left to think about what’s happening to his head. During the end of his rather short stay, he comes up with a terrifying conclusion. One that scares him more than he could imagine, but it’s the only one that makes sense. He’s falling in love with you.

He voices out this concern to Seokjin when he visits after his mother leaves. Seokjin stays silent, mumbling out an apology that feels like the wrong thing to say. The elder boy can only look at his friend with sadness in his eyes, telling him that someone as great as Namjoon shouldn’t be suffering so much pain. Namjoon jokes that a witch must have cursed him when he was born.

None of the two friends laugh.

This routine continues on and on, without Namjoon dwelling too much on it. Which is so much unlike Namjoon, whose main personality trait is overthinking about the smallest things. He lets the flow of time and space take him wherever they wish to plop him down. He lets the evil deity toy with his heart and wrench him away whenever you smile the largest.

It hurts right after he is torn away from you, but he’s filled with so much joy in the moment that he can’t bring himself to do anything else about it. Even if he wanted to do something without it, he has no idea where on earth he might start.

Sometimes he questions the validity of his memories. What is real, what is fake? He still can’t answer, and this is what he spends most of his time wondering about. The memories he has with you don’t make sense. Those are large gaps in his life that he seems to have no recollection of.

He goes everywhere with you.

One day he showed up on November 5th, 2015.

The next day he jumped to August 23rd, 2017.

Another time, he was thrown into March 15th, 2016.

None of it makes sense. Are they not memories? He thinks. There’s no possible way he’s spent this much of his life with you and can’t recall any of it. What is real - the world he spends with you, or the world where he always returns to by default?

And yet, nothing else can explain these short periods of blackouts. Ever since one day in some horrible hospital, he’s gone under and pulled and thrusted into some land where he has no control over his own hands. Everything else makes sense. This world, everything else is accurate from the settings to the props, with one anomaly in his memory.

A character who goes by the name of Y/N.

He could go the science-y logic route that he so often frequents, come up with theories that can somewhat explain these periods of time. Theories that include explanations such as hallucinations, or that Seokjin’s right and he’s finally gone crazy. You’re just a figment of his imagination, that this is all in his head and he’s out of his mind.

But he rejects all those theories when he’s clicked into another memory. Somehow, he just understands. These are memories. These are memories he’s had with you, whether that was in a past life or in some sort of messed up alternate timeline where he’s actually happy.

Is this a gift or another curse from this stupid deity?

He has too many questions.

He cannot explain these memories using science, logic, common sense, or even using his own words. But in the moment, while you’re in his arms, he can feel it. He can explain it by describing the way you smell, like pancakes and fresh mint. He can explain it by describing the way you feel, like a warm marshmallow filling up his insides and consuming him.

It’s cheesy, cringier than Seokjin’s dad jokes, but only he gets it.

Namjoon is in his living room, switching channels on the TV and thinking about this when his stomach sinks again. He braces himself, and disappears.

Click.

Seoul is freezing cold. The air is light and he is sitting on a bench on his college campus, rubbing his hands together and zipping up his huge jacket over his sweater. Namjoon shudders, his body not yet used to the bite of the cold compared to the warm breeze he was just enjoying.

He sniffles, nose slightly red like some knockoff Rudolph and wanders around. His body pulls him to go to the right, despite the warm coffee shop being on the left. He shudders again and tries to protest, but his body won’t listen, standing up and walking over to the right with no particular destination in mind. Students are rushing around, complaining about the cold and talking about their next party or study session.

Namjoon pulls himself forwards, and thank god this version of himself still has terrible tolerance for the cold, because he reaches up and pulls his beanie down over his ears, still wandering around aimlessly. Where are you going? Namjoon wants to scream out frustratingly.

His brain doesn’t reply and Namjoon sulks.

Eventually, he is pulled over to another bench, outside in the cold, and he sits down, deeply resenting himself and wondering why on earth he just stood up from one bench to walk to another one. If anything, it’s colder here. He watches the students that pass by for a minute or two, thinking that this is the most boring memory he’s ever been in.

There is no snow falling, but almost everything on campus is lined with a sheet of ice or cold steam. Namjoon nuzzles deeper into his own clothes, cursing himself for not being able to go buy another sweater or something to fight the extreme cold.

Suddenly, you appear in front of him and Namjoon perks up. There you are. He thinks. Finally. You come over and sit down, holding something in your hands. He smiles, waiting for you to speak up and greet him with a kiss that will surely warm him up, but you silently sit next to him, ignoring him. Namjoon urges himself to say something, but instead, he continues to watch the students bustling through campus grounds without looking at you.

Are we fighting? Is Y/N mad at me?

This is excruciatingly frustrating, Namjoon bites his tongue and thinks. Why can’t he just say something? Abruptly, something lands on his jacket with a splat and he straightens up, snapping his neck towards you, who is looking at the yogurt splat on his jacket with a look of terror.

“Oh my gosh!” You squeak out, quickly setting your yogurt aside and reaching for some tissues in your purse. “Oh, god, oh god, I’m so sorry. Please, let me-” Namjoon frowns, taking his hands out of his pockets to thumb at his jacket, debating whether he wants to take it off or not.

You lean over, pawing at his jacket and wiping the yogurt off of his jacket. “I’m so sorry!”

“No, don’t worry.” Namjoon says, chuckling. He reaches for another tissue, helping you get the yogurt off of him. “It’s no big deal.” The yogurt is mostly wiped off and you side eye him with the unmistakable look of guilt filling your eyes. Namjoon laughs again.

“It’s fine, really! No, don’t worry about it.”

“I’m literally so sorry. Do you want me to pay for dry cleaning? Laundry? I can, um, wash it for you! I’m not the best at laundry, but it’s the least I could do?”

Namjoon briefly wonders why you’re being so polite.

“No, it’s fine.” The words tumble out his mouth again before he can process it. “Really, this jacket is old, anyway.” Not really, Namjoon thinks. It feels really new. “But who the hell eats cold yogurt in this kind of weather?” He jokes. “You sure you’re not a demon?”

You freeze, terrified before realising he was cracking a joke. “Oh. Hah! Yeah, no, I guess I just really like yogurt.” You offer lamely, and you break out into a small giggle. “Yeah, I guess I kind of am a psycho for eating it right now. It’s freezing today.”

“God, tell me about it.” Namjoon says, stuffing his hands back into his pockets.

“Thanks for not going bonkers on me. This jacket looks insanely expensive.”

“Not really.”

“I’m Y/N.” You greet, holding a hand out for him to shake. I know, Namjoon thinks with a secret smile, but everything makes sense now. You don’t know him yet. To you in this moment in time, he’s just a random stranger who didn’t blow up on you after spraying some yogurt onto you. To him, you’re… you’re…

“Oh, um, I’m Namjoon.” He says, hurriedly taking a hand out of his pocket to shake your outstretched hand. Your fingers meet and Namjoon swears a small zap just went through his hand.

“Namjoon. Nice to meet you, Namjoon.” You say with a small smile, yogurt already long forgotten on the bench beside you two.

“It’s nice to meet you too.” He says in return, even though he doesn’t mean it. He already knows you, he knows you better than everyone. He knows your favourite food is Korean street food, and you always wake him up with kisses and your favourite colour is periwinkle and you absolutely hate abalone with more passion than he’s ever seen in his entire life.

But this is your first time seeing him, ever, he reminds himself. This is your meet cute. This single moment set off the events in the next god knows how many years. This is the first time he ever had your name grace his tongue. This is the first time you’ve seen him.

Another moment to treasure. You let go of his hand, after realising you two have been shaking hands for much longer than the socially acceptable rate of hand shaking. Blushing, either from the cold or humiliation, you sit, turn back around, grabbing a hold of your yogurt once more.

Suddenly, Namjoon finds himself blurting out: “Hey, you wanna go get some coffee?” You look over curiously, pointing to yourself like you can’t believe he’s asking you out, because you don’t know that you’re all he ever thinks about at any given moment in any given day. “You’ll probably freeze your ass off if you keep eating that yogurt.” He jokes, pretending like this is all because he’s caring about how cold you are and not how cute or incredible or kind you are.

“Sure.” You say, nodding shyly. He stands up, leading you to walk over to the left where the campus coffee shop is. Along the way, you throw the yogurt cup in the trash.

“You can’t bring food brought from outside into a shop, right?” You ask.

Namjoon smiles. “Yeah.” He stays there until night takes over the sky and one single twinkling star in the sky is signalling that it’s time to go home. Possibly the longest time he’s ever spent in a memory. He keeps glancing at the clock, praying that he gets one more minute with you, one more second, one more moment.

At any time, he could be pulled out of this world, and he needs to make the most of it. You tell him about your childhood bedroom and your major. You tell him about the love you have for pancakes, and how much you want a puppy even though it’s prohibited in the on campus dorms. He nods, pretending like this is all new information even though it’s not, and he’s known all of this for the longest time. He knows you better than you know yourself, which he keeps to himself.

In return, he tells you about his own childhood bedroom, which was adorned with posters of western hip hop rappers. He tells you about his passions for writing and music, that if he didn’t major in journalism, he’d be studying music production in school. He tells you that he’s obsessed with philosophy, and in all honesty, is a bit of a nerd.

Instead of laughing or pulling a face, you nod and smile, saying that you think he should tell you more about philosophy on a second date.

You leave the coffee shop with a small goodbye, and even though he desperately wants to, Namjoon can’t kiss you.

He gets pulled back after you disappear pass the corner of the street, and the world morphes into a huge motion blur. When he gets pulled back into his living room, the TV is playing late night TV shows already. Namjoon checks the time. He was pulled in for five hours, the longest he’s ever been in that world.

After that, no matter how much more he prays and begs, he never stays any longer than that.

Three days later, Namjoon suddenly pops into Hong Kong, which is hotter than anything he’s ever felt. The streets are heavy with people, squabbling in cantonese while selling raw meats in a wet market. The sun is glaringly bright, and Namjoon starts to sweat almost instantaneously. Taxis and huge buses drive past, Namjoon jumps to a side only to find a vast ocean. He’s at the harbour front.

The smell of food, of egg tarts and pineapple buns and meat dumplings along with other Hong Kong delicacies waft through the air, combined with the salty air of the sea. It makes for a strange combination that confuses his senses but works nonetheless.

He thought he knew a city like Seoul, but this is a true city. This is busy and fast paced like he’s never even seen before. People shove each other aside to catch the bus, dogs are yapping everywhere and he soaks it all in before the thought enters his head.

What the hell is he doing in Hong Kong?

It’s like every time he wonders aloud, you pop up. “I’ve been looking for you.” You say, echoing the words he said to you that day in the streets of Seoul.

“I was exploring!“ He says defensively, and you roll your eyes.

“Come on.” You say, walking along the harbour front.

“You’re not still mad at me, are you?” Namjoon asks, the words spilling out and surprising himself. Are you mad at him? You’ve never been mad at him before, not in the memories he’s seen. He hasn’t ever seen you fight with him, and immediately, he wants to apologise, fix things before he’s pulled back out and he has to live with the guilt and overthinking of whether you’re still mad at him for the next week.

“Can’t believe you’re mad at me during our vacation.” Namjoon says, and that’s why he’s in Hong Kong, he realises. He’s on vacation. How strange. Namjoon thinks back to when the last time he took a break from work and the only thing he can think of is when that doctor put him on medical leave not too long ago. Oh no, you’re mad at him on holiday?

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” You retort back, and Namjoon has never heard your voice this curt. “Just sit around pretending like everything's okay?”

“What do you want me to do?” Namjoon replies. “You act like this is my fault!”

“It is your fault!” You cry out indignantly, and Namjoon knows that, but why? What did he do? What did you do? “Is this even a vacation?”

“Yes!” Namjoon cries out again in response, and you shake your head.

“You promised, Namjoon.” You say like it’s a warning.

“Yes, I know,” Namjoon says, even though he doesn’t and really, what on earth did he do? “But this is out of my hands! I can’t just say no, you’re not looking at this from my point of view.”

“You’re not looking at this from my point of view!” You argue back, and Namjoon looks around, realising that this squabble is attracting a small crowd of chinese people, gathering around to watch the free entertainment along the sidewalk of Victoria harbour. He awkwardly laughs, raising his hand and bows, a universal sign of apology, grabbing your hand and walking to the other direction.

“Come on, I’d rather not have the whole city witness our fight.”

“Oh, so this is a fight now?”

“What? Yes!” Namjoon says exasperatedly. “How else would you classify this argument?”

Once he makes it to somewhere with at least a sliver of privacy, he turns around with his brows furrowed and a glare etched on his features. Why do you look so angry? Namjoon chastises himself. Just relax, relax, relax. As usual, his body doesn’t listen.

“Why are you so mad at this?” Namjoon asks, and feels a flow of relief go down his spine. Finally.

“It’s not just this instance, Joon. I know work is important, but sometimes it feels like you put literally anything else above me! Like last time? You bailed on our date, like, at least twice. You keep saying you can’t say no, but you can. You have that right, Namjoon.”

Namjoon’s heart softens a little bit. His workaholic tendencies ended up biting him in the ass after all. Sighing he rubs the back of his neck, eyes glued to the floor. “I’m not prioritising work over you, baby.” He tries to explain, and tries to ignore how his heart sinks when your eyes turn stony at the sound of the pet name he often uses to address you.

“It’s just important to me as well, okay? It’s not my fault my boss heard I was going to Hong Kong and insisted I come to interview some investors about Hong Kong’s economy.” He explains slowly. “It couldn’t take more than a single day to get everything organised and tidied up.”

“But-!” You huff angrily, spitting out your words. “You don’t understand! You keep doing this, Namjoon. You keep working, working, working. It’s been this way since college. It’s like you’ll die if you just take a break to come talk to me. I even went over to your office to have lunch with you last week and they told me you were in a meeting.”

“It was important!” Namjoon insists and he can feel things sinking and getting worse and worse with every word he says. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? You can’t expect me to put you in front of all of my responsibilities. I’m sure you have things you can’t give up for me too.”

Hearing that felt like a slap to the face to both you and Namjoon, and he’s screaming at himself internally, why would you say something so, so, stupid?

“Excuse me?” Your broken voice rings out and Namjoon’s accusatory finger falls.

“Wait.” He mumbles, fumbling with his hands. “Wait, I didn’t mean that. Wait, I-”

“Fine!” You yell angrily. “You think nothing’s more important than work? You think I haven’t given up anything for you, Kim Namjoon? Because I’d quit and give up anything for you, you asshole.” You bite out, tears desperately trying not to fall. “You fucking asshole.” You say, before turning back around to weave through the crowd.

“No, wait, baby!” He calls out, and even he knows that he’s messed up. Messed up big time. That was more hurtful than any cuss word or insult he could’ve ever said. “Kim fucking Namjoon, you idiot.” He mumbles to himself. Seeing you cry is more painful than anything else in the world, Namjoon thinks. He’s not ever going to see that sight again if he can help it.

He walks forward, trying to find you. Maybe you went back to the hotel, or went to look at the sea to clear your head. He thinks he sees the back of your head for a second, and he reaches forward, clutching at air. He’s about to cry, and Namjoon has never seen himself be more pathetic.

“Oh no, where are you?” He murmurs to himself like a crazed man. What if you were hurt somewhere? He needs to know you’re safe, he needs to know you’re okay, he needs to make everything better. With each step, the lead feeling in his throat grows heavier and heavier until he feels like it’s sunk to his chest. He wants to kneel down, he wants it to stop hurting, but he can’t.

He must aimlessly follow his shell to do whatever he is doing now.

The lead feeling continues to grow, and Namjoon feels like he’s suffocating. He’s not supposed to be here, he reminds himself. But he has to find you first, then he can leave. Then he can go, but where are you? He wants to cry, he wants to breathe.

Namjoon tells himself to gasp for air, but he cannot. He tells himself if this is the last time he ever sees you, he needs to see you smile. He needs to see you laugh.

Like the pattern in the rest of his meaningless life, an evil deity always pulls him away from the ones he loves when he needs them most. He feels the lead feeling being lifted and pure panic races to Namjoon’s head. He tries to croak out no. He tries to resist, he shoves people aside and calls out your name. But no one answers him, and the cruel deity laughs at his demise.

He is too weak, too weak to control himself.

Namjoon is plucked out of the world and transported back to his bedroom with the threads of time slowly ravelling and tangling themselves around his neck, all while he reaches forward, only to grasp at air and pretend in his head that everything’s alright.

When he reaches his bedroom and wakes up, he stumbles into the bathroom and vomits, all while longing for the warmth of your lips.

Walking around dazedly, Namjoon somehow manages to make his way to Seokjin and Jimin’s apartment, knocking and hoarsely asking them to open, open up please. Because he’s not sure he can hold on to another night alone. Jimin opens the door instantly and catches Namjoon in his arms, frantically calling for Seokjin to come fast.

They lay him on the couch, hearts slowly breaking and trying to convince themselves their friend will be fine as they watch Namjoon whimper in his sleep.

Namjoon wakes to the smell of breakfast, of bacon on the stove and Jimin chattering around while watering his plants. He gets up, headache pounding and throat sore. Seokjin wordlessly hands him a few pills and a glass of water, while Jimin plates up breakfast, placing the sausage, eggs and toast separately on the plate because Namjoon can’t stand it when food on his plate touches.

Silently, the three friends eat. Nobody speaks until Namjoon clears his throat and looks up.

“Thank you.“ He whispers.

“What are friends for?” Jimin says.

Namjoon wonders why he’s got such amazing friends. Jin replies that he was born perfect and God created him like this, so Namjoon shouldn’t dwell too much on it. Jimin and Namjoon both throw a spoon of scrambled eggs in his direction simultaneously, high fiving without missing a beat when Jin lets out a protest of unjust behaviour.

As the three friends sit quietly, Namjoon says: “I think I’m going mad.”

“I’m glad you’ve realised.” Seokjin replies offhandedly.

“I don’t think I can keep going between these worlds. I think it’s making me lose my mind.”

Jimin stills. Seokjin stops washing the dishes and turns off the faucet.

“Do… do you know how to stop it?” Jimin asks hesitantly. Namjoon shakes his head, and Seokjin sighs, in deep thought, which is a strange and rare sight to see itself.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to figure this out together.” Seokjin says casually. Jimin agrees and the faucet comes back on, Seokjin going straight back to washing the pan he used to fry up the scrambled eggs. Jimin unplugs the toaster and Namjoon sits, smiling at his beloved friends.

“You can borrow some of my shirts.” Jimin calls from the bathroom. “You know, if you want to stay over a couple more nights. Feel free.”

“Make yourself at home and shit.” Seokjin mutters, waving his hand around sarcastically. Namjoon almost bursts out into tears of happiness, but he decides to hold it in until Seokjin doesn’t have access to his phone and won’t put Namjoon’s breakdown on instagram live.

The next day, the entire gang comes over, all with varying degrees of understanding what the hell is going on with Namjoon. For example, Yoongi pretty much knows as much as Seokjin does, who still doesn’t really understand what’s going on. Taehyung was just told Namjoon’s been feeling down because God knows that boy has a big mouth and definitely can’t keep a secret to save his life.

Seokjin supplies homemade snacks and burgers fresh off the grill, Yoongi brings over his unlimited Netflix and HBO account passwords he probably stole off of some innocent family member to watch Disney movies, Taehyung comes over with Yeontan clutched to his side because that’s the group's emotional support dog. Jungkook and Hoseok offer up their extensive alcohol collection and bring over some quality wines. Jimin, after a long three hours of consideration, gives up his lucky plushies and fluffy blankets to build a fort.

For one night, the seven boys crowds around the television, watching everything from The Lorax to Tangled to Frozen and bawling their eyes out when Anna turned to ice (spoiler alert!!!) For one night, the fully grown men all turn back into their 8 year old selves, playing video games and staying up as late as they wanted even though they all had responsibilities to tend to the next day.

When they all awake from their mega-sleepover the next morning, the remaining six friends all insist they just felt like watching Disney movies and drinking wine suddenly. It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that Namjoon’s been feeling a little off in the past few days.

Absolutely not.

Namjoon’s eyes brim with tears and he tackles all the boys to the ground in one incredibly coordinated group hug, ignoring Yoongi’s complaints of being anti-social and that his love language is not physical touch.

“Thanks, guys.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jungkook mutters. “Now could you please get the fuck off?”

“Never.” Namjoon says, muffled because he says it while his head is buried in Hoseok’s chest.

“Love you.”

“... Love you too.”

The next time he falls, Namjoon thinks he’s prepared. Ready, not to get attached, ready to make clear of what belongs in his world and what doesn’t, after lots of pep talks and therapy sessions with Seokjin and Jimin and Yoongi, who is surprisingly helpful with shooting down ideals of toxic masculinity and talking about mental health.

He’s wrong- he’s not ready, but he doesn’t know that yet.

Click.

He’s come to resent that stupid sound. In an instant, he’s dropped into a car, which is strangely familiar. You are next to him, driving, and thank goodness, because everyone knows Namjoon cannot drive. If he were dropped in the driver’s seat, things may have taken a turn for the worse.

“You want to play some music?” You ask, and Namjoon nods.

“Yeah sure, turn up the radio.” You reach over to flip a switch and a pretty tune fills the car, echoing and bouncing off the walls of the small vessel. You bring your hand down and interlace it with Namjoon’s, who is suddenly hyper aware of his surroundings.

“You’re driving, baby.” He says, and a great sense of relief floods back into his system when he sees you smile at the pet name. He hopes this moment is after the Hong Kong trip. He hopes he did the right thing and made up with you afterwards.

“We always do this. When there’s not many cars around, anyway.” You hum along with the music. “Nobody’s on the road tonight.” Sure enough, there are no cars in sight and Namjoon sighs, curling his hand tight against yours. He looks out the window.

“No stars tonight, either.”

You snort. “There are never any stars around the city, babe.”

“Ahh.” He huffs playfully. “Fuck global warming.”

“Fuck capatalism.” You add on, and he nods, wholeheartedly agreeing.

“I love you.” He murmurs.

“I love you too.” You reply with a sweet smile and Namjoon just realises that no, he’s not ready to let go of you, because his heart still flips like crazy when he hears you say that. He’s so unbearably, horribly, absolutely in love with you. Not in a creepy or obsessive way like he was probably in love with you a few months ago, but so in love with you.

He wonders why on earth he’s so drawn to you, but as usual, there’s no definite answers to his questions. Namjoon thinks about how he likes the way you cook pancakes, and how he likes the way you always reach down to pet a puppy no matter where you are or where you need to be. He loves the way you’d give up anything to defend the people you love. He admires your bravery and your courage. He admires the way you present yourself to the world.

He loves you simply because you are who you are, unapologetically and unashamed, which is something he never had the guts to do. But he gets pretty damn near to being fully and truly himself when he’s around you, so maybe that’s why he’s so in love with you.

Namjoon feels bad for a moment because he realises his love isn’t selfless or humble like the ones he sees on dramas and TV. His love for you is shamefully selfish, because he needs you more than anything else. He voices this out to you in a long speech while you keep your eyes on the road.

“I need you more than you think I do, Joon.” You say, while laughing, and Namjoon doesn’t know whether to feel offended or relieved.

“You think your love for me can trump my love for you?” He asks with his eyebrows raised.

“One hundred percent.” You drawl out, and this time, Namjoon’s offended.

“Excuse me? Who the fuck?” He asks, sitting up. You laugh bashfully, enamoured but mostly just entertained by your needy boyfriend who is very willing to prove how much more he loves you right now. “I love you way more than you love me!”

You laugh, your eyes still fixed on the road. “Oh no, please, we’re not arguing about this.”

“Yes we are!” Namjoon demands with a huge smile on his face. “How could you possibly think you love me more than I love you?” Your laugh only grows louder.

“I don’t even know if you’re being serious or just joking around anymore.” You say through bit back laughter.

“I’m being dead serious.” Namjoon softens for a bit, laying a hand on your thigh. “You’re my everything. You’re my future, you’re my present, you’re my past.” A part of you wants to tell him he’s being cheesy again, but the romantic in you who doesn’t want to hurt your boyfriend immediately shuts the realist in you up.

“That was sweet.”

“I try my best.”

You turn your head back to the road and he keeps his eyes on you. On the hoodie you’re wearing, which definitely doesn’t belong to you and he now has a certain inkling of where his missing hoodie went. He likes how it swallows you up. He likes that you have something of his on you.

Not as a weird mark of possession, but he likes that you’re comfortable with wearing something that essentially brands you as his. But you are his as much as he is yours and wow, Namjoon thinks in his head, is this the real Namjoon or the past Namjoon speaking? And his brain replies that it’s both.

“I love you.” He repeats, because as much as he seems to say it, he can’t seem to express how much he loves you (hint: it’s a large amount).

“I love you too.” You say right back.

He wants to say it more. He wants to say it better. He wants to repeat it until you get annoyed and tell him to shut up, he wants to let you know how much he loves you. But his lips are sealed, and he can’t say another word. Instead of what he wants to say, the words that come out his mouth are, admittedly, just as true.

“You’re pretty.”

You giggle. “Did you just realise?”

Namjoon shakes his head. “You’ve always been pretty. You were pretty on the day we met. You were pretty the day we fought in Hong Kong. You were pretty the first time you stayed over. You’re pretty when you cry, you’re pretty when you… I wanted to think of something that rhymes with cry, but it slipped my mind and now everything’s ruined.”

You laugh, a real, huge one this time. He can always tell when your laugh is real or not.

“Thank you.” You say. “For the record, you’ve always been pretty too.”

Namjoon leans back into his seat. “Damn straight.”

“When d’you think you first fell in love with me?” You ask, genuinely curious, and Namjoon thinks for a moment. He thinks about what the Namjoon in this moment would say, and he thinks about what the present Namjoon would say.

If he had verbal control, what would he say? That he fell in love with you during the very first memory he was thrusted in? But that wouldn’t be true, and that wouldn’t be honest. He fell in love with you during the memory of when you met? But that wouldn’t be true either. He fell in love with you in between memories, when all he could think about was the next time you could be in his arms, or how much he longed for your touch.

He tries to say that, he really does.

Instead, what comes out of his mouth is:

“I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s a specific moment. Maybe it was that time we went to the movies and watched Coco while crying over popcorn, or maybe it was that time we went to Disneyland.” Namjoon’s heart slouches, because he doesn’t know any of those moments. He hasn’t been in any of those memories.

“But I don’t think falling in love is a one moment, time stops kinda thing. I was always falling in love with you. From the time you spilled yogurt on my jacket to right now, where you’re asking me when I fell in love with you. I’m going to be falling in love with you tomorrow and the day after that, until the day where we shrivel up and die from old age.”

Oh, good answer, Namjoon thinks.

“Good answer.” You say. “I think I’d say the same thing.”

“Great minds think alike.” Namjoon sighs out.

Something strikes Namjoon’s heart. It’s not the lead feeling or the heavy weight he’s grown used to. It’s strange, like a wave of deja vu. And suddenly, Namjoon stops thinking. He glances over to the control board to look at the time, which proudly reads: December 3rd, 2018.

So that’s why he’s always had the feeling that these were memories. Why he was so adamant to believe these things really had happened to him. Even more strangely, what feelings strike him then is not panic, nor fear. It’s a strange flow of calmness that rushes through his veins. He looks over at you again, driving now with both hands on the steering wheel.

He wonders why the deity would make him witness something as cruel and horrible as this, and he gets the weird feeling that this will be one of his last memories to enter. Namjoon looks at the dark blanket covering the sky and sadly thinks that the deity could have at least placed a few stars in the sky on this night. As consolation, or perhaps an apology.

Something is ticking in the background, and Namjoon has no idea if it’s coming from the car or if he’s imagining it. Flashing memories go through his mind, so fast he can barely register them as images or moving pictures before they are gone again. Your smile, your laugh, your first date, your second date. The day he asked you to move in, the day you told him ‘I love you’ for the first time and he literally fainted.

The day he came to pick you up from work for the first time, the night where he first laid his hands on you and kissed all your worries away.

It comes fast and hurtles towards the two of you, but Namjoon doesn’t even see it coming because all he is looking at is you. Your face, your lips, your eyes, trying to engrave it all in his memory. You yelp out something to him, which he doesn’t hear. Floating images spin around both your heads and a high pitched screech rings out, a spark of orange lighting up like a stack of fireworks. The dark van shoots forward and collides into the driver’s seat.

The world collapses. It goes sideways, rotates then flips completely upside down, and the dark fog starts to eat up Namjoon’s eyesight. Oddly, nothing hurts. Perhaps because of the shock, or panic, but nothing on Namjoon’s body is in pain. Everything crashes, Namjoon’s head hits the window with force. Something breaks, glass cracks, people scream and he cannot tell which is which. Red and white flashes are all he can see before everything fades to grey and he can only reach around in the darkness, to find your hand.

He clutches onto your unmoving, still hand desperately, trying to calm his jumping heartbeat. Are those sirens in the background he hears or is that his imagination? Is that your voice he hears or is that a hallucination?

In the end, his final thought before leaving the world once again is a wish. A wish that he prays the deity will grant him. He hopes that in your final moments, you were not scared.

He falls.

When Namjoon arrives home, his entire body is numb. He doesn’t know where he is, nor what he was doing before he was clicked in. He opens his mouth and screams for a full minute without stopping.

It feels good in a fucked up way.

Namjoon has never been one for confrontation. Just ask his middle school bullies, who tormented him all they wanted because he wouldn’t do anything but put up with it. Just ask Mingyu from work, who keeps piling his unwanted projects and articles onto Namjoon because he never protests or complains to the higher-ups.

But while walking towards his childhood home with the birds chirping and his hands placed casually in his pockets, confrontation is all he can think about. He lets himself in the door; his mother never locks it and walks in calmly.

His mother is sitting on the couch, stitching up a sock which has a hole in it.

“Mom. I’m home.” He says softly, and his mother greets him normally. Namjoon leans on the wall and his mother stares at him strangely, calling him over to sit and have some fruit. He declines, telling her he won’t be staying very long. “That car crash that happened two years ago.”

The needle in his mother’s hand stills.

“They said I had selective amnesia, right?”

The needle picks up speed, stitching faster and faster, his mother’s hand moving faster than light.

“What did I forget again?”

“What did you remember?” His mother asks, never one to beat around the bush.

“Mom.” He says, firmly this time. “What did you do to me.”

The sock is torn apart in his mother’s hands. “Namjoon,” She starts and Namjoon already has a growing urge to shake the truth out of her. “When you got into that crash two years ago, you came out of it with very little injuries. We were all so relieved. When you woke up, you didn’t remember Y/N.” All that fills the air for another moment or two is the spongy sound of silence.

The gap in this family became clearer than ever to Namjoon. He thinks about how everyone must have been in on the secret, even his sister. And he was left to suffer, wondering why his life seemed so empty after forgetting something he couldn’t clutch onto.

“And what?” He demands, screaming and throwing his hands out of his pockets. “Do you think you can just keep something like that from me? The love of my life, and you just decide to erase them from my memory?” His mother stills and looks up at her son.

“You didn’t remember Y/N. You lost contact with all your college friends, and then when I asked the doctor how selective amnesia worked,” His mother cleared her throat. “Sufferers often forget some parts of their memory. Relationships, talents, skills, certain areas or certain people.” His mother looks up directly in his eyes. “Sometimes, especially after going through a traumatic event, people forget certain parts of their memory as a coping mechanism. To erase bits of pain and regret.”

“I thought,” Her voice breaks and her face twists in regret and bad memories. “I thought maybe by forgetting her, I’d be saving you from more pain and hurt. I just wanted you to stop hurting”

Namjoon held eye contact with his mother for three full seconds before collapsing and gasping for air, lying with his head on her lap. All words of scolding, anger. All the confrontational tactics and all the accusations he’d thought of shooting towards her had gone.

“Hurts.” He let out through large gasps of breaths. “Hurts, mom.” He lied there, with tears threatening to spill out his eyes for the rest of the night, with his mother caressing his hair and apologising to him with tears in her eyes.

“Miss Y/N. I miss Y/N.” He hiccups out, and his mother wipes away his tears, but it feels different from when you used to do it.

“I know, I know.” The woman looking down at her son wonders why she put him in so much pain. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” The night carries on like that, with the lights eventually dimming and the night covers up the light in the sky. The mother son pair repeat their grievances and apologies to each other until the sun comes back up, peeking through the curtains and extending out their warm embrace as if it wants to comfort the hurting humans.

It doesn’t take long for Seokjin and co to come knocking on his door, sent by his mother who must have filled him in on everything, judging from the looks on their faces. It only takes one single glance at his friends, tilting their heads and all asking to come in for him to burst into tears. Ugly crying, with snot coming out of his nose and eyes bloodshot red from the nightmares.

Jimin is the first to reach forwards and bring Namjoon into a hug. Soon after that, the six friends surrounded Namjoon, comforting him with the warmth of their arms and soft spoken words of encouragement.

“You did well.” Someone mumbles into his hair.

“We’re all proud of you.” Someone else says.

Namjoon’s sweater sleeves are sopping wet with tears when he asks the boys to help him get into therapy.

Things went on like that for another while.

Therapy isn’t as bad as Namjoon had thought it might’ve been. He wasn’t forced to be vulnerable or open up or confront his worst fears. He certainly didn’t want to tell the truth about the world he’s thrusted in, for fear of getting thrown out of the building and into a mental institution.

Even his mother didn’t believe him the first time he told her about it. She urged him to visit a doctor. How could a therapist who doesn’t even know him believe the nonsense he spouts? Even he himself wouldn’t believe himself if he hadn’t experienced it firsthand. Slowly, but surely, he began to open up, and to his surprise, there was no calling of hospitals or kicking him out. His therapist sat there and listened like everything he was saying was valid.

He started eating again, mostly because of Seokjin, stuffing his creations down everyone’s throats every two seconds, claiming he needs opinions on his new recipes even though Namjoon’s fairly certain that the past three dishes of spaghetti were the exact same recipe.

Namjoon started to workout again with Jungkook, much to the younger boy’s surprise and happiness. They talked about their own struggles while panting on the treadmill and spinner. Jungkook eventually tells him that he also has a secret he keeps from the rest of the guys, which is his high school sweetheart who broke his heart so horribly that he still feels hurt from it.

Jungkook told him to cheer up though, because most of the pain fades away with time. It’s still there, ever as present, but other things will become more important to you and cover up a scar or a wound with blooming flowers.

“Like us,” He said cheekily. “Your friends.”

He talked to Yoongi most days of the week about nothing in particular. He enjoys the time with Yoongi because he’s the only one who never walks on eggshells around him. He still pelts him with pillows and roasts the outfits on Rupaul’s Drag Race with him. Taehyung and Jimin even helped him adopt a dog, an furry white Eskimo named Rap Mon which is literally now Namjoon’s entire life.

Would likely kill all of his friends if one of them hurt his precious baby.

Life is good, Namjoon learns. He gets better at his job. He never forgets you, but things seem to hurt less. But he gets relapses sometimes. Some days he wakes up screaming about the stupid lead filling up his throat. Sometimes he gets nightmares so intense he has to take medicine.

Therapy isn’t as bad as he painted it out to be, but recovery is ten times harder than he thought it would be. Some days all he can do is lie in bed or do nothing, thinking of you.

His therapist tells him that his life is more than his past memories. Both Yoongi and Hoseok agree, when he pulled up a random conversation about it late at night. Hoseok says that there’s never going to be a time where he won’t think of you, or still love you. Perhaps not as much as he once did, but he’ll never forget about you. Yoongi tells him he’s healing, and that they’re all proud of him.

Namjoon meets his friends, for the first time in the two years he’s known them. Taehyung has an extraordinary and (slightly strange) obsession over art museums. He’s been to almost every single one in Korea, and he dragged Namjoon over to one an hour away in Gangnam in the summer. Jimin is an amazing dancer, which Namjoon never knew.

Until Jimin brought it up casually, looking through old footage of his dance competitions. “Nothing big,” He said. “I used to dabble.” Namjoon’s eyes bulged out of his head and he told Jimin if that was ‘dabbling’, then he was wasting away his talent. He asked Jimin why he never made a career out of dance, and Jimin replied casually:

“I feel like if I start to make money off of it, and I’ll lose my love for it. Now that I haven’t really has time for it... I dunno. I feel like I’ve lost the talent a little bit.“

Namjoon told his friend that talent is nothing but a bunch of practice and time dedicated to a certain skill. Nobody loses talent, people just get a little unfamiliar with it. Jimin turned around in deep thought and told him he may just have a point.

Still, some days, he can do nothing but sulk around, feeling like a waste of space. Take today for an example. He walks down the street and out of the corner of his eye, he thinks, and he might be wrong, he thinks he sees you. The back of your head, anyways, but you’re wearing a red sweater with headphones over your ears and you turn around the corner.

Namjoon panics. He drops his coffee, which splashes all over his leather shoes and runs. He runs past the corner and he doesn’t know what on earth he’s doing but all he can do is run, and the wind dries his tears faster and faster, and he forgets all over again, that you aren’t here, that there’s no way he can go back and see you unless it’s in his memories, which he doesn’t even know how to control.

Somewhere deep in the depths of his mind, he knows something about this doesn’t seem right. That it couldn’t possibly be you, because he watched you go right in front of his eyes. He knows that in order to heal, he can’t chase after you or center his world around you. He knows all of that. But in that moment, he forgets that he still doesn’t remember everything about you.

He forgets that you’re dead.

And one day he’ll be free from this constant spinning. One day he won’t ever have to think twice when he cooks pancakes but that day and all that work he’s put in is the last thing on Namjoon’s mind and all he can think about is if that’s really you.

He sprints faster and reaches out, misses your wrist by an inch and ends up clutching at nothing but air. He heaves a huge breath, about to clap his hand over your shoulder-

Click.

tags; @jksbbyfacebunny @extremeobsessions101 @dwcljh @bishuthot @s0seo @stonyiscanon @cecedrake2217

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lys-lilac · 3 years

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Yuki Sohma: An In-depth Character Analysis

I remember getting this anime as a recommendation in summer almost 2 years ago. Right, when the reboot season 1 started. I was so engrossed in this that I can’t tell you. The theme of the series always made me keep at the edge of my seat. And yeah, as the title suggests, I got to admire him the most-

I know, many of you might think that I fell in love with his beauty after seeing him in the anime for the first time, but unfortunately, it’s a big no. I love the characters who care about others so much. And he is the perfect example.

Now, the point is, what makes him steal the top rank for me while most of the fandom is basically about Kyo and Tohru? Let me put down the points. But before that, grab your earphones or headphones, and play this song as you read about the things he has been through.

youtube

1. His selfless attitude

His kind nature shines throughout the series. We see in the beginning that it was he who discovers Tohru living in a tent. He welcomes her to stay in Shigure’s home, even after knowing that their curse is being put at risk and takes care of her fever. After she sleeps, he ventures out in the night to dig up her belongings. Even though he mentions that he had selfishly taken her just to rebel against the family curse, still this is replaced by his benevolent and sweet nature towards Tohru. As a result, their relationship is beautiful.

He also has helped her countless times, whether it’s taking her back from her relatives, or lending her hand to carry the grocery bags. These all moments define how pure their bond is and how both trust and care each other.

2. His willingness to sacrifice everything

This point actually reminds of Kasumi Toshiki from Romance MD: Always on Call. Even though he appears plain on the surface, he can go to any extent just for the sake of her happiness. One instance of this can be from season 2 episode 22. Kyo and Tohru seem to be in the hallway, with Tohru trying to grab the script from his hands. Just then, Yuki says whether they would give him way to go upstairs. It is obvious that Yuki would have seen the whole thing, but for her sake, he doesn’t interrupt. The line he says here is-

“You are precious. I look up to you. I cherish you because you provided for me what I desperately longed for.”

Now what did he yearn for? It was Tohru’s love and affection for him, which he didn’t get from anyone else, not even his mother when he was a child.

3. The heart-fluttering sweet moments and his character development

Ah! Thanks to the production for such sweet moments of Yuki and Tohru. Even if the ship is not canon, they will still remain my favorite.

In my opinion, this story actually portrays Yuki’s development in character more than any other thing. This is amazing. The boy, who was unable to let go of his dark past, the truth that he was after was covered with a lid, all are slowly untangled with Tohru’s compassionate nature towards Yuki. Unlike the fan club who adored him only for his looks, she sees him in a different, more friendly light, which mellows him up. What’s more, the once timid boy builds up so much courage within himself that he doesn’t get afraid of Akito anymore and confronts her face to face. The warmth he searched for, finally reaches him just like a soft feather, landing on his palm, giving a soft and soothing touch of happiness.

Let’s look at this background here. Yuki is surrounded by chinese bellflowers, which symbolize honesty, unchanging love and obedience. In his hand lays a white rose, which means, devotion, and innocence. The color white itself and his name are a symbol of peace and silence. This actually is an imagery for his character, and it resembles it truly.

Yuki had no intentions of getting on bad terms with Kyo. But it’s seen in episode 20, that Kyo shouts at him outside the banquet saying it was all his fault. Although he was small, but those words were like a heavy blow to him. What’s more, even when he comes back crying hoping for his mom to console him, she slaps him and warns him not to disappear again. (Noo... T^T)

(Kyo shouts this to him outside the hall.)

There is some fault with Kyo as well for this point. All Yuki wanted was to become friends with him. He yearned for the parental love and friendship which Kyo had since his childhood. But, the latter has the misunderstanding that Yuki had everything.

Yuki says this when he remembers that Kyo didn’t take the hat from his hand when he gives him. This makes him cry so hard, cause he was just a little child going through these painful things, all at once.

“There was something I wanted. Parents who would embrace me. A home I wanted to return to.”

(Yuki cries after being ignored by Kyo.)

Even though Kyo’s behavior initially compelled him to be like that, even though he knew that there is a lot Kyo was internally suffering from, but in episode 22, he just couldn’t take it anymore. Instead of debating, he stays silent and shows his most vulnerable and hurt face to Kyo, because he didn’t want things to end up like that between them. He didn’t want the person he admired to lash out at him every time, when he was at no fault at all, and still is the prey of Kyo’s anger and apathy. This only leaves Kyo speechless, making him break the window out of frustration. This part pains me a lot, because Kyo had at least someone he can throw out his anger and put the blame. But Yuki didn’t even had that.

There is again this pretty imagery here. Yuki, when looking at Kyo, is bathed with the sunlight. This symbolizes the change he has gone through and accepted it, which is really stunning to notice.

[The rest are in paragraph form from here]

Now that I have talked much about his positive points, let’s explore a hot topic which is often a reason of disagreement between Yuki’s fans and Kyo’s fans.

What are Yuki’s actual feelings towards Tohru?

I know that almost all the fandom here will say these feelings which he talks about is what a mother would give to his child. And this point strengthens a lot more as it was confirmed by the author. If that’s the case, then let me state my thoughts on this, which are opposite to the author’s.

Let’s again move back to episode 22 of season 2. In the first half, Yuki talks to Kakeru about his first meet with Tohru when he was a child. At that time, he was tortured so much by Akito, both physically and mentally, that he thinks that there is no purpose of his life, and he is not needed by anyone at all. With this thought in mind, he disguises himself with a baseball hat and runs away from the Sohma estate. After some time, he discovers Tohru’s mother, Kyoko, crying because she was missing. He suddenly remembers to have seen her earlier, crying in the street, and helps her to reach her mother. At last, he places the hat on her head and disappears. It is later seen that he has converted to his rat form, and cries on realizing that at least at that point, he was needed by Tohru, and his thoughts were proved wrong.

He mentions that he almost forgot to ask her name at that time. And when he again was hitting the bottom, Tohru approaches him in the high school, slowly building courage and giving love to him. He also discovers later that the girl, whom he once his hat was none other than Tohru. With things unravelling, their bond becomes stronger.

But, although he mentions that he had only motherly affection towards her and couldn’t see her in a romantic light, I still doubt the line itself.

“But she appeared before the hopeless me once again. To be with me, close to me. She even listened to what someone like me had to say. Time after time, she accepted me time and again. She’s beloved to me. Like how the sky feels so close, yet so far.”

This line, although somehow shows that Yuki is saved by Tohru every time he is in need of it, but it feels weird to say that he only thinks of her as a mother here. I mean, one can also feel like this if he/she is helped by a good friend, or a dear one. And Yuki also mentions that she is beloved to him. But, what about the last line? Doesn’t it sound like, he can’t reach her even if she was close to reach? Because this is the exact meaning. If we analyze word by word, then this makes sense, as Yuki had already realized by that time that Kyo and Tohru had mutual feelings towards each other. In fact, he says it himself that it dawned on him in the last episode of season 1 when Tohru chases after Kyo into the forest, the latter being converted to his monster form. And how could he not? This guy is mature enough to figure out anything. Then this would have been nothing.

One instance of this realization could be the beach arc episode 7 , where he says-

“I probably actually knew, in the back of my mind. What would happen if I opened the lid. What I must do. Thanks for always being willing to lend an ear. Thanks for always accepting my weaknesses.... You probably don’t know that you are the one who’s always saving me. You always shared your kindness, warmth, and joy with me. That’s why, I won’t lose. I will keep going forward, and keep believing.”

Tohru asks the exact thing which was going on my mind listening to that voice acting. Why did he look so sad there? And Yuki replies that she is just like the sky, very dear to him. Doesn’t it sound exactly like a confession to a person about what she did for you till now? Yuki already had realized that, and this is just a proof. He sounds sad, and he also compares her to the sky. The metaphor which comes to mind is that he is basically symbolizing that her vast expanse of kindness is just like the sky, which is so close, yet so far. Even if he wanted, he can’t keep her all to himself. That’s why he just says that she is dear to him. The way it is portrayed here, is just like saying goodbye before parting ways. Huh... I didn’t continue the season afterwards because of this scene. T~T

(Why, why did he cry after saying that she was dear to him....? Isn’t it right in front of your eyes? *sobs*)

And, if he only sees her as a mother, then what does this mean-

“I was so confused, not to mention incredibly embarrassed. I wasn’t sure how to deal with it, so I didn’t. I shut it away immediately. I stuffed those feelings down, teased and flirted like a normal guy with the girl he likes. But still, it felt wrong.”

It’s clear here. He had somehow developed romantic feelings for her, earlier. But when he realized it was not what he meant, and saw the gradual progression of Tohru and Kyo liking each other, he changes his mind, thinking that he might have been wrong the whole time. That the feelings he harbored for her weren’t correct. But when he thinks of her as a mother, he feels embarrassed. And it’s no different. Why wouldn’t anyone feel like that if it’s someone of your age? This implies that their relationship wasn’t a romantic one, but not a motherly one either.

Kakeru asks the same thing next. He says that maybe he has twisted his thoughts and feelings just after knowing that he had lost her to Kyo. But Yuki denies it saying-

“It’s not true why I feel like this. But, he properly sees her as a woman. He loves her. You can see it in his eyes. Her too. The way she looks at him... But I... I don’t want that! That isn’t what I want! I’d feel... so lonely. I am not willing to give up. I don’t know when to give up.”

(Such a pure boy... Just cried after saying that... )

Definitely as said above. He is obviously jealous of Kyo here. Not in a romantic way, but because he didn’t want Tohru’s kindness and hope she gave him to recede away. Even if it was like a good friend, he wanted to stay by her side. He is mature enough to see the bonds that she and he shared. And he is not the type to fret over getting rejected or anything like that. Moreover, you can already get a hint from the line that he approved of Kyo and Tohru. This always impresses me. The bond that these two have is so beautiful and unspoken, that it transcends romance itself.

Although this is probably half of my reasonings, I will stop here. Although I covered the most important ones here, but I wanted to discuss many other scenes too. Let’s keep it for next time!

#fruits basket #furaba #yuki sohma #sohma yuki #character analysis #kyo sohma #tohru honda #akito sohma #kakeru manabe #lys's thoughts #analysis and thoughts #i ship the pure and beautiful relationship they have #T-T #coffee with lys

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dahlia-coccinea · 3 years

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A few thoughts on the scene of Catherine returning to the Heights after her stay with the Linton’s - it is commonly cited in discussions about her character and generally, the narrative goes that she shows herself to be vain and narcissistic in laughing at Heathcliff, and this honestly confuses me? I think that is quite selective in what details are noted about the scene and misses placing it in a wider context. To start I think its best to reference the scene in its entirety, sorry it is quite long (bolding is mine):

Heathcliff was hard to discover, at first. If he were careless, and uncared for, before Catherine’s absence, he had been ten times more so since. Nobody but I even did him the kindness to call him a dirty boy, and bid him wash himself, once a week; and children of his age seldom have a natural pleasure in soap and water. Therefore, not to mention his clothes, which had seen three months’ service in mire and dust, and his thick uncombed hair, the surface of his face and hands was dismally beclouded. He might well skulk behind the settle, on beholding such a bright, graceful damsel enter the house, instead of a rough-headed counterpart of himself, as he expected. “Is Heathcliff not here?” she demanded, pulling off her gloves, and displaying fingers wonderfully whitened with doing nothing and staying indoors.

“Heathcliff, you may come forward,” cried Mr. Hindley, enjoying his discomfiture, and gratified to see what a forbidding young blackguard he would be compelled to present himself. “You may come and wish Miss Catherine welcome, like the other servants.”

Cathy, catching a glimpse of her friend in his concealment, flew to embrace him; she bestowed seven or eight kisses on his cheek within the second, and then stopped, and drawing back, burst into a laugh, exclaiming, “Why, how very black and cross you look! and how—how funny and grim! But that’s because I’m used to Edgar and Isabella Linton. Well, Heathcliff, have you forgotten me?”

She had some reason to put the question, for shame and pride threw double gloom over his countenance, and kept him immovable.

“Shake hands, Heathcliff,” said Mr. Earnshaw, condescendingly; “once in a way that is permitted.”

“I shall not,” replied the boy, finding his tongue at last; “I shall not stand to be laughed at. I shall not bear it!” And he would have broken from the circle, but Miss Cathy seized him again.

“I did not mean to laugh at you,” she said; “I could not hinder myself: Heathcliff, shake hands at least! What are you sulky for? It was only that you looked odd. If you wash your face and brush your hair, it will be all right: but you are so dirty!”

She gazed concernedly at the dusky fingers she held in her own, and also at her dress; which she feared had gained no embellishment from its contact with his.

“You needn’t have touched me!” he answered, following her eye and snatching away his hand. “I shall be as dirty as I please: and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty.”

With that he dashed headforemost out of the room, amid the merriment of the master and mistress, and to the serious disturbance of Catherine; who could not comprehend how her remarks should have produced such an exhibition of bad temper.

Importantly Nelly specifies that Heathcliff isn’t just his usual level of childish dirtiness and unkemptness, which assumedly Catherine wouldn’t have noticed when she comes home eager to find him. She wasn’t expecting him to be so neglected and her worst fault here is carelessly misplacing the reason for Heathcliff’s dirtiness, and not recognizing the larger neglect done by Hindley and how laughing could very understandably have hurt him (I don’t think many 12 year-olds are particularly emotionally intelligent though). Initially, she doesn’t seem to notice his state since she runs to him and gives seven or eight kisses. What she does not do, is she does not come back and say she’s better than him, acts embarrassed of him, or indicates she doesn’t want to be friends anymore - she says “it will be fine,” he just needs a wash.

Catherine’s presence must have been part of what kept him tidier as Nelly notes that it during her absence is when he fell into such neglect. This would be in line with Nelly’s previous description of the two of them of when Hindley first comes home: “Heathcliff bore his degradation pretty well at first, because Cathy taught him what she learnt, and worked or played with him in the fields.” Just as she would teach him what she learned and worked with him in the fields I’d say in this scene she’s simply consistently showing care for his wellbeing, even if she isn’t completely considerate when expressing it.

Not to get too off subject but I think this is pertinent - the line, “They both promised fair to grow up as rude as savages” might be another quote that is taken too literally at times - I don’t think they were just running around dirty all the time as Nelly noted that Heathcliff isn’t generally this uncared for. Also, this line ends up being understood as their rejection of all society and their resistance towards growing up which I think may only be partly true. While I love that Nelly calls them “unfriended creatures,” I don’t take this to mean that they are simply elements of nature. Along with @astrangechoiceoffavourites’ recent post about how “Heathcliff does not reject Culture. Culture rejects him,” I think it’s also often overlooked that they both admire the beauty of the Grange. He describes the house in great detail:

“ah! it was beautiful—a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-covered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass-drops hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with little soft tapers.”

He tells Nelly if they were in Edgar’s and Isabella’s position, “We should have thought ourselves in heaven.” Catherine is not more vain or materialistic than Heathcliff, or vapid just because she tells a 13-year-old boy who works on a farm and is only washing once a week he needs to wash more.

Still, Heathcliff has every right to feel hurt, he’s facing terrible physical and emotional abuse and as mentioned previously this has repercussions on his self-esteem for his whole life. Hindley in this scene is clearly trying to demean him to the level of a servant in the eyes of Catherine. A few months previously he was loved and cared for by Mr. Earnshaw but now any bright future is quickly disappearing. Heathcliff must know his situation won’t change under Hindley. The encounter with the wealth of the Linton family and Catherine’s acceptance into their world is also a stark example of Catherine’s ability to have something better than being with him forever. They both will grow up one day and she will eventually marry and there is no way Hindley would allow them to do so, nor would he give Heathcliff any means or education to provide for a family and have a home.

Seeing Catherine obviously well cared for I think ignites a little jealously and fear that he is already losing her company. He seems at least mildly aware of Edgar as a potential rival as we see the next day during his conversation with Nelly when he tells her, “...if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn’t make him less handsome or me more so. I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!” He did already note Edgar’s reaction to Catherine at the Garage saying, “Edgar stood gaping at a distance...I saw they were full of stupid admiration.” It seems easy to assume he is at least starting to be aware of her - three months prior he mentions to Nelly Catherine’s “beautiful hair,” “enchanting face” and says, Catherine is “immeasurably superior to them—to everybody on earth.” Catherine of course doesn’t necessarily know he feels this way and most likely isn’t fully aware of all his feelings about the situation he’s in. Seems reasonable to assume that she’s somewhat blind to his inner conflicts - later when talking to Nelly she seems to think that Heathcliff understands her completely yet its apparent they aren’t on the same page. She is as blind to the extent of his feelings, as he is of her’s.

Anyway (getting a little off topic), Catherine’s subsequent reaction to this scene is totally out of line with the narrative of a wildly self-loving and cruel girl, and again we get a glimpse of a morose Heathcliff, nursing his pride and slowly pulling away from her. The fact that he storms off and they don’t immediately go back to their former relationship before her stay at Thrushcross Grange completely shocks her. After this encounter Catherine shows feelings of guilt and distress over the sour encounter. “She cried when I told her you were off again this morning,” Nelly tells Heathcliff the next day. And later again Catherine cries over Heathcliff’s mistreat by Hindley upon the Linton’s arrival. Later that evening when he’s locked in a garret Nelly details how she sneaks off to visit him:

“She made no stay at the stairs’-head, but mounted farther, the garret where Heathcliff was confined, and called him. He stubbornly declined answering for a while: she persevered, and finally persuaded him to hold communion with her through the boards. I let the poor things converse unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and the singers to get some refreshment: then I clambered up the ladder to warn her. Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within. The little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret, along the roof, into the skylight of the other, and it was with the utmost difficulty I could coax her out again.”

Later on she tells Nelly that his miseries have been her miseries - and she certainly isn’t ever as classist in her treatment of Heathcliff as her daughter is towards Hareton. When she misses Heathcliff for three years she’s only missing a “ploughboy,” as Edgar calls him. When he returns a gentleman she scoffs at Edgar’s suggestion that Heathcliff be let into the kitchen and mockingly gives the order: “Set two tables here, Ellen: one for your master and Miss Isabella, being gentry; the other for Heathcliff and myself, being of the lower orders.” And later tells him “Heathcliff was now worthy of anyone’s regard,” which shows she’s obviously blind to how many will always perceive him as an outsider and never a true gentleman.

For fun, here is how this scene was adapted for the 1939 film - in the scene Catherine dreads seeing Heathcliff and upon seeing him makes no move to embrace him, then they have this AWFUL exchange:

Heathcliff: Why did you stay so long? Catherine: Why? Because I was having a wonderful time. A delightful, fascinating, wonderful time...among human beings. Go and wash your face and hands, and comb your hair...so that I needn't be ashamed of you in front of the guests.

I have a lot of questions. Number one: how dare they? lol How did they extrapolate that from the book? This has become the lasting memory of her for many film viewers, and also somehow for people that have read the book.

I know there are many conversations that could be had on Catherine saying it would degrade her to marry Heathcliff, or at various time saying he is a baby, a pitiless wolfish man, and a brute. I’m not trying to gloss over when she is demanding and not always kind to him or other characters but people really choose to be blind to some of her actions in order to paint her as the villain of the story. Catherine Earnshaw is a wonderfully flawed and human character and these interpretations make her so 2D.

I feel like a lot of these views are an expansion on this discussion as well as this other post (credit to @princesssarisa) about the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff before he leaves - I’ve found so few critics talk about them in a realistic, rather than metaphysical, way. Fewer yet discuss Heathcliff’s role in their failed relationship. More commonly they assert that Heathcliff’s feelings for her are true and hers are based on a shallow self love or whatever. So I guess I’ll just have to write it myself lol.

#wuthering heights #catherine earnshaw #emily brontë #she does not deserve the slander lol #this was supposed to be short...#i totally lied at the start - this isn't just a few thoughts #i get worried posting things this long because i'm sure the i forgot to edit something #thoughts

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mydogisveryadorbs · 4 years

Text

blue ain't your color | jj maybank

masterlist

summary: song fic based on blue ain’t your color by keith urban.

warnings: mentions of mentally and physically abusive relationships, underage drinking, mentions of drugs, angst, fluff, v soft jj

PSA: this is not in any way meant to idealize or romanticize abusive relationships. if you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship please get help. below are some resources and learning tools.

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1 (800) 799 – 7233

Love is Respect – National Teen Dating Abuse Hotline: 1 (866) 331 – 9474

more hot lines and info: https://victimconnect.org/resources/national-hotlines/

learn more: https://www.thehotline.org/psa/

lyrics in bold

3.8k+ words

✰⋆✰⋆✰⋆✰

I can see you over there

Starring at your drink

Watchin' that ice sink

All alone tonight

You look down at your drink, moving the straw in a circular motion causing the ice to swirl around creating a small tornado.

Glancing at the time on your phone, you realize you've been waiting here for almost two hours.

Your boyfriend was supposed to meet you at Topper’s party at 9. In the first thirty minutes, you weren't surprised. Liam, your kook boyfriend of 10 months, was late for almost everything, so this didn't come as a shock to you.

When the one hour mark hit you were honestly quite worried. What if he was in an accident? What if he got jumped? Maybe your thoughts were most likely irrational, but you couldn't help but worry about your boyfriend.

One hour later, you had gotten past the worrying stage. Now you were simply angry, no, furious at him. Had he stood you up? Did he forget about you? These thoughts were definitely more rational. It wouldn't be the first time Liam stood you up, but you would make sure it was the last.

At the beginning of your relationship, everything had been sunshine and butterflies. About two months in, however, he asked you to stop seeing your friends.

You see you were a born and raised pogue. Your dad was a close friend of Big John so you had practically grown up with John B, JJ, and Pope, in more recent years becoming close friends with Kiara.

At first, it was little things. Liam would get upset if you left to hang out with the pogues instead of him. Then one day, he asked you to stop seeing them all together. You, of course, retaliated, telling him that you would never leave your friends. But Liam had a way with words, and not a good way. He told you for months that your friends would never love you and that you were lucky that he had even taken pity on you. Slowly, you started to believe him. You stopped seeing the pogues, pushing everyone who truly loved you out of your life.

Liam became more and more distant as the months went on. He would leave you almost every night to drink and party, not even bothering to let you know where he was headed. The two of you had been fighting nonstop for several weeks. It had gotten physical only a few times and the next morning he would apologize profusely, so you stayed.

Seeing him walk in with two girls wrapped around his waist, nearly two and a half hours late, was the last straw for you.

Grabbing your purse, you walked up to Liam, who's eyes widened with the realization the moment he saw you.

“Fuck, (Y/N),” he says, slightly slurring his words as his arms still holding the two skinny blondes at his sides, “It's not what it looks like.” You can see his red-rimmed eyes and dilated pupils, telling you that he was coked out.

You roll your eyes, knowing that this was it for you. “Really, Liam,” you snap back, “‘Cause it looks like we are done here.”

Liam’s eyes widen in shock, never having seen you lash out like this before. He shakes it off and his expression quickly contorts into one of disgust. “Okay,” he says with a shrug, “Good luck finding someone else to take pity on a whore like you, dirty pogue.” He walks away with the two girls, leaving you in shock.

It takes a moment for you to realize that you had just ended this almost one-year relationship.

The first emotion you feel is one of freedom and relief. No more would you have to be held down by this weight of not being able to do and say what you want.

That feeling slowly dissipates as the feeling of dread starts to overcome it. You had pushed away all of your friends for this boy who had let you go like you were nothing to him. Maybe you were nothing.

You walk back to the bar area, grabbing another drink, feeling the need to drown away your sorrows.

And chances are

You're sittin' here in this bar

'Cause he ain't gonna treat you right

JJ Maybank hated kook parties with a passion.

Thankfully he hadn't had the opportunity to attend too many of them in his lifetime. But now that John B was macking on Sarah Cameron, it wasn't uncommon for the blonde boy to get dragged along to one of these events.

John B had left JJ to fend for himself as soon as they had arrived at the party, slipping off somewhere to find Sarah. JJ looked around the extravagant home that belonged to one of his enemies, Topper Thornton. His ring clad fingers fiddled with an expensive-looking vase, trying to find the perfect moment to snag it and slip away.

JJ’s eyes filtered through the crowd when they landed on something, or rather someone, that he had least expected to see.

His hand slipped from the vase, letting his gaze drink you in. You definitely looked different. Your once long hair was now cut just below your shoulders and your typical style of denim shorts and a cropped shirt was exchanged for a lavish-looking dress and sparkly stilettos.

JJ admits that he probably wouldn't have recognized you if he hadn't spent so many years unable to take his eyes off of you whenever the pogues were together.

The boy had loved his life long best friend since the day she clocked a boy in the face for making fun of JJ’s worn-out clothes. They were seven. In addition to being the day JJ had met (Y/N) and John B, it was also the day he fell in love with the (Y/E/C) eyed girl.

When you started dating your kook boyfriend at the beginning of your junior year, JJ was initially devastated. He soon brought himself to realize, however, that a lowlife like him would never be able to deserve someone as beautiful and kind-hearted as you. His thoughts were confirmed when you abruptly stopped hanging around the pogues and him. You were too good for him. The blonde boy had no idea of the pain that Liam had caused you in the past ten months.

Now looking at you, JJ could see that you were upset. He had gotten really good at analyzing your body language over the many years of being your best friend.

All thoughts of stealing the vase flew out of his mind as his feet started in your direction.

Well, it's probably not my place

But I'm gonna say it anyway

'Cause you look like

You haven't felt the fire

Had a little fun

Hadn't had a smile in a little while

You felt a figure move to sit in the bar stool chair next to you, but you choose to ignore whoever it is, not particularly feeling up to socializing with a contemptuous kook after what you just went through.

The figure didn't move after a few minutes so you turn to look at them with a glare in your eyes, ready to snap at them and ask them to leave you alone. Your gaze immediately softens as you realize the person next to you is in fact the last person you would ever expect to see at a party like this, JJ Maybank.

Tears begin to prick at your eyes as you continue to stare at the side profile of the blonde boy who hasn't yet turned to face you.

Everything you had done so well to hide over the last ten years of knowing and loving him comes rushing back. Your love for the boy next to you consumes every fiber of your being.

A lone tear falls down your cheek as you begin to curse yourself and Liam. How did I let him control me into giving this up? This feeling?

Blue looks good on the sky

Looks good on that neon buzzin' on the wall

But darling, it don't match your eyes

JJ finally turns his head to look at you and feels his entire resolve crumble. You were crying. The sight nearly breaks his heart in two.

His eyes lock with yours and he can see the pain and heartache swirling within them.

“What did he do to you,” JJ mutters, letting his eyes roam the crowd for the boy he despises most in the world. Almost a year of suppressed anger starts to bubble up to the surface.

“JJ,” you whimper.

The sadness and hopelessness in your voice makes every ounce of anger in him evaporate as he turns his head to look at you again. The look in your eyes tells him that the kook boy had hurt you worse than he ever knew.

JJ wants nothing more than to pull you into his arms and never let anything else in the world harm you. His hands itch to wipe the tears off your face and pull your head to his chest.

However, JJ also wants you to be as comfortable as possible and he's not sure if you're ready for the amount of love he has to give you just yet.

You surprise the blonde boy by reaching out to your arms out to him. The blonde wastes no time in standing up and pulling your body flush to his chest.

Everyone else in the world disappears as the two of you clutch each other with all you have. Both of you realize how much you had missed the comfort of each other's embrace.

You're not sure how long you stand there like that, face nuzzled into JJ’s shoulder as the boy strokes your hair comfortingly.

“I'm sorry,” you mumble into his shirt, not willing to pull away from the warmth he radiates.

JJ’s eyebrows draw together in confusion as he pulls away enough to look down at you. “What do you mean,” he asks with a softness in his voice that is reserved for you only, gently lifting your chin so that you are looking into his beautiful cerulean eyes.

You sniffle. “I'm sorry for leaving you. I'm sorry for breaking down in front of you. I'm sorry for dragging you into this mess. But most of all, I'm sorry for ever believing that I could live without you. I-I mean if it weren't for you I don't know what I would do. I understand if you don't want to talk to-” your ramble is suddenly cut off by JJ pressing his lips to yours.

The boy knows that this is probably not the best time to confess his feelings towards you, but he can't watch you talk down about yourself like that anymore. Do you not know how much he adores you?

The kiss is soft and passionate. JJ can taste your salty tears on his slightly chapped lips as they work against yours. Both of you poor every ounce of emotion you have into the kiss.

JJ reluctantly pulls away when the two of you run out of air, placing his forehead delicately on yours as your arms wrap around his neck.

I'm tellin' you

You don't need that guy

It's so black and white

He's stealin' your thunder

Baby, blue ain't your color

Both of you pant as you look into each other's eyes. “I've wanted to do that for so long,” JJ says, as the smile you cherish so much graces his features.

“Really?” you ask and JJ can hear the vulnerability in your voice. What did that shithead do to you to make you so insecure?

“You have no idea, baby,” he says, tenderly kissing away the tear that has slipped out of your eye and onto your cheek.

Not having the words to express how you feel about the boy in front of you, you pull his head back down, kissing him so sweetly that it makes his knees buckle.

“JJ,” you whisper as you pull away, but you never get to finish your statement because you are suddenly ripped out of his embrace.

“You fucking whore,” Liam seethes at you taking a stride towards you and you instinctively take a step back. “You break up with me and two minutes later you've moved onto another guy. Slut.” His words cut you deep and you know by the tone of his voice that a punch to the gut or a slap to the face is coming. Liam raises his hand and you brace yourself for impact, but it never comes.

The sound of yelling fills your senses and you open your eyes to see JJ punching Liam in the face repeatedly. You are frozen as you watch the scene in front of you.

“JJ,” you hear John B yell, turning to look at him, “You're gonna kill him.”

Your eyes widen in realization at his words and you take a step forward.

“JJ,” you call, but your voice is drowned out by the sound of everyone yelling around you. You clear your throat and try again, louder. “JJ.”

This time JJ stops mid punch, turning to look at you. Fear fills your body when you see that his wide, normally baby blue eyes are nearly black.

His gaze softens as he takes in your anxious look.

JJ steps away from the beat-up boy and you see a few of his friends pull Liam’s limp body away. You lock your eyes back to JJ’s and he takes a careful step towards you causing you to involuntarily flinch back slightly.

I'm not tryna

Be another just

Pick you up

Kinda guy

Tryna drink you up

Tryna take you home

He wants to cry out at the sight. Don't you know that he would rather die than ever hurt you?

You do know this, and you're not afraid of the boy in the slightest, but the last five minutes have put you on edge.

Seeing the broken look in the blonde’s eyes, you take quick steps toward his body, wrapping him in your embrace. He melts into your arms, allowing his face to nuzzle into the crook of your neck.

The crowd that had formed around the fight disperses, realizing the show is over.

“(Y/N).” The sound of your name being called pulls your attention away from the sweet boy in your arms.

You pull away from JJ slightly, still keeping an arm around his bicep.

Looking over, you see John B standing to the side with Sarah Cameron. You had heard about the two of them getting together and you suddenly realize why JJ happened to be at this party.

The sadness in John B’s eyes as he looks at you breaks your heart. The two of you have been like sister and brother your whole lives and, besides JJ, he was the hardest for you to stop talking to.

You feel JJ’s grip on you loosen, urging you to go to John. The two of you walk towards each other and John B pulls you into his arms.

“I missed you, (Y/N/N),” he says unto your hair, “So much.”

You smile, tears softly rolling down your cheeks. “I missed you too, JB,” you say, pulling away to look at JJ who looks back with a sad smile on his face.

But I just don't understand

How another man

Can take your sun

And turn it ice cold

The four of you decided it was best to leave. John B dropped Sarah off at her house and drove the three of you back to the Chateau. Your stomach drops at the sight of the small shack.

JJ notices your facial expression, placing his hand softly on top of yours. “You okay?” he asks gently as John B parks the van.

You nod with a small smile and JJ helps you out of the van, holding your hand as he leads you to the porch. You stop walking, causing the two boys to turn around and look at you.

“I'm sorry,” you say, tears pooling in your eyes again. JJ gives you a knowing look. “(Y/N),” he says, almost sternly.

“No,” you say, wiping your eyes, “Let me talk.” JJ nods and John B looks at you expectantly. “I left you. Both of you. I- Liam, he just made me feel so useless and I didn't want to be a bother to you guys anymore.”

JJ lets out a sound, almost like a growl, and pulls you into a hug. “You are not useless, (Y/N),” he says seriously, “You are so important, to both of us, and we missed you so much.”

You nod into his chest as John B comes to wrap his arms around both of you.

The three of you group hug and you sigh contently, happy to be back with your boys.

Well, I've had enough to drink

And it's makin'

Me think that I just might

Tell you if I were a painter I wouldn't change ya

I'd just paint you bright

John B helps JJ set up the pull out while you change into a pair of John B’s sweats and JJ’s t-shirt. John B says goodnight and goes to “hit the hay” as he puts it, leaving you and JJ alone again.

“I'll sleep on the other couch and you can take the bed,” he says sweetly, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of your head.

The two of you settle into your “beds”, but you can't seem to fall asleep with so many thoughts running through your mind.

Everything that has happened since you left the pogues seems like one big sad blur. Your mind wanders to JJ. What does this mean for you two?

“(Y/N),” the voice you love so much calls. You hum in response. “You ‘wake?” he asks. You sit up in the pullout shaking your head.

“Can't sleep,” you say, rubbing your eyes.

JJ sits up as well. “M’sorry, baby,” the nickname makes your heart flutter.

You open your arms for the boy who looks at you warily. “Are you sure, (Y/N),” he asks. You nod quickly and he stands up, falling into the pullout and wrapping you into his arms. He tucks your head under his chin, pulling you closer.

“JJ,” you ask.

It's his turn to hum in response. “This may be weird for you, but I feel like I just have to say it,” you tell him. JJ pulls back just enough to look into your eyes. He's worried about what you are going to say but tries to hide it for your sake. “I love you, J.”

JJ smiles, leaning down to nuzzle his nose with yours in an Eskimo kiss. “I love you too,” he says sincerely, but you're afraid he doesn't understand what you mean.

“No, J,” you say, looking away from his eyes, “I love you. Like, I'm in love with you.”

The blonde boy only smiles bigger. He leans down pressing a passionate kiss to your lips, pulling away when you run out of air. JJ trails sweet kisses down your jaw and neck before placing one last kiss on your lips.

“I'm in love with you too (Y/N),” he says kissing your forehead. JJ wonders how he went so long without being able to kiss you and hold you. Even after only confessing a few hours ago, it feels so natural to have you in his arms. The thought of not having you makes his heart ache.

“I have to ask you something, but you can say no and it won't change anything and I understand that this is hard because of everything that just happened,” JJ rambles. You kiss his jaw softly, urging him to continue. “Will you be mine. Ya know. Like my girlfriend, or whatever.”

You smile wide. “Of course I'll be yours, J.”

JJ copies your smile leaning down to press another kiss to your lips.

He pulls away, snuggling into you, and the both of you bask in the feeling of being in each other's arms. Your hand reaches up to play with JJ’s hair as your eyes start to droop.

“Love ya, pretty girl.”

“Love you too, J.”

'Cause blue looks good on the sky

Looks good on that neon buzzin' on the wall

But darling, it don't match your eyes

You are sitting down on a beach towel, watching the sun slowly fall into the ocean, lighting the sky with a beautiful rainbow of colors. Your feet are outstretched in front of you and your hands prop you up behind your back. The Outer Banks heat is making your skin warm, but you don't mind, letting the steadily depleting sun hit your skin.

You watch as JJ catches another wave, surfing it perfectly. You giggle as he raises his hand in a fist, clapping for him.

It's been two weeks since you finally ended things with Liam. You were able to mend things with the rest of the pogues and Kiara and Pope welcomed you back with open arms. Things with JJ have been going amazing. The two of you agreed to take things slowly seeing as you were just getting out of a toxic relationship. It was different to finally be in a place with JJ where you weren't afraid to show him and tell him how you feel, but you loved it.

JJ runs towards you, gripping his board in one hand as the other pushes back his blonde locks.

When he gets to your towel, JJ throws down his board and plops down next to you, pulling you into a sweet hug.

You giggle. “You're all wet, J,” you say, not making any move to get out of his warm embrace. The boy peppers your face with soft kisses causing you to giggle even more.

A few minutes later you are seated in between JJ’s legs and he has his strong arms wrapped around your waist, his head nuzzled in the crook of your neck.

“I love you, J,” you say, still watching the sunset.

“I love you too, pretty girl,” JJ says kissing your neck. He begins humming the tune to a song you recognize.

“Blue ain't your color, umm mm,” he sings, “No, no baby, come here baby, let me light up your world.”

✰⋆✰⋆✰⋆✰

420 notes · View notes

whatiwillsay · 4 years

Text

submission:

Reputation is about more than one relationship; a thesis by anon

Hello! I am that anon who thinks Rep is about more than one relationship and this is a hill I am very much willing to die on. I believe there are (at least) two relationship stories told in detail on this album.

One is the relationship between two very famous women (*cough*Kaylor*cough), who are struggling to make it work because of the public pressures. The other is between Taylor and someone who is out of the public eye, or at least someone she is able to keep the relationship completely private. I’m not going to speculate on whether that’s Lily or Joe (lol so full disclosure I don’t think it’s Joe but someone else might) or maybe someone else we don’t know much about. All I know is that there is more than one relationship being discussed. Let’s dive into this analysis, shall we?

The first explicit mention of the public relationship - let’s actually just refer to it as Kaylor from here on out - is on End Game.

Big reputation, big reputation Ooh, you and me, we got big reputations Ah, and you heard about me Ooh, I got some big enemies (yeah) Big reputation, big reputation Ooh, you and me would be a big conversation Ah, and I heard about you (yeah) Ooh, you like the bad ones, too

Tay’s lover on here is someone with a big reputation, and being with the person would be a big conversation. Endless Kaylor analyses have discussed this as ‘proof’ that it’s not about Joe. Which, yes, obviously. But equally obviously, any woman in a relationship with Tay would be a big conversation so once we exclude Joe as a possibility, as we rightfully should, we wind up with plenty of other options.

Later in the song we do hear more explicit Karlie lines like “it’s like your body is gold”. We all suspect Karlie is gold (I tend to agree), so let’s call it a Kaylor anthem. Cool. Then, what can we learn about their relationship from this song?

I don’t wanna touch you, I don’t wanna be Just another ex that you don’t wanna see I don’t wanna miss you (I don’t wanna miss you) Like the other girls do I don’t wanna hurt you, I just wanna be Drinking on a beach with you all over me I know what they all say (I know what they all say) But I ain’t tryna play I wanna be your end game (End game) I wanna be your first string (First string) I wanna be your A-Team (A-Team) I wanna be your end game, end game

The lyrics explicitly suggest Tay’s begging the lover to make it work. It’s “I wanna be” not “I am”. She’s craving affirmation, she’s wanting to be chosen; we can pick that up from the repetitive nature of the song. First string, A-team, end game… She just wants for her to be the one. Some might say that would be fun. She’d love for them to wind up together - but there is no clear sign in the lyrics that it’s an actual possibility. It’s what she wants. She’s trying to convince her lover that she is committed, but they never resolve that commitment in the song. It’s never fully requited. No matter how many times she offers what she ‘wants’, there is no response.

Later, she sings:

I hit you like bang We tried to forget it, but we just couldn’t And I bury hatchets, but I keep maps of where I put ‘em Reputation precedes me, they told you I’m crazy I swear I don’t love the drama, it loves me And I can’t let you go, your hand prints on my soul It’s like your eyes are liquor, it’s like your body is gold You’ve been calling my bluff on all my usual tricks So here’s the truth from my red lips I wanna be your end game (End game) I wanna be your first string (Me and you) I wanna be your A-Team (Be your A-Team now) I wanna be your end game, end game I wanna be your end game (oh, I do) I wanna be your first string (first string) I wanna be your A-Team (A-Team) I wanna be your end game, end game

I’ve referenced part of this above, because it’s where the Kaylor-ness of it all gets more explicit (drinking/liquor/intoxication, gold, handprints/footprints). But again, this isn’t a happy ‘in love’ song. It’s Taylor actively trying to convince Karlie that her feelings are real. “Here’s the truth” she says - that doesn’t sound romantic, it sounds like they’re fighting and wanting to make things work but it’s all proving to be incredibly challenging.

When we add Taylor’s tone of voice in - and the almost forlorn “I wanna be your end game” at the start - my reading makes a lot of sense. It’s definitely a Kaylor song; Kaylor songs are always steeped in anxiety.

Our next clear Kaylor song is ‘Don’t Blame Me’ which (importantly) Taylor didn’t write, but which clearly picks up on themes she finds relatable. Apparently it’s similar to Hozier’s Take Me To Church (I don’t know much about Hozier, but from a quick glance at those lyrics that’s not a wildly happy song either).

Something happened for the first time In the darkest little paradise. Shaking, pacing, I just need you. For you, I would cross the line, I would waste my time, I would lose my mind. They say, “She’s gone too far this time.” Don’t blame me. Love made me crazy. If it doesn’t, you ain’t doing it right. Lord, save me. My drug is my baby I’ll be using for the rest of my life.

We’re going back to that same theme from End Game - Tay is begging her lover to make it work. “For you” she says, “I” would do just about anything. Cross the line, waste time (a biggie when you’re Taylor fucking Swift), even lose her mind. Love has made her crazy, unstable - it’s almost a play on the satire of Blank Space. True love seems to have actually made her into that mad woman she laughed at on the previous album. She’s shaking and pacing, craving the physical release of her drug of choice. (The shaking and pacing in a darkened room comes up later on the album again, by the way - it’s clear that Tay is super into Karlie and I do get it, she’s so gorgeous it’s nuts).

Then comes this gayness:

My name is whatever you decide, And I’m just gonna call you mine.

I’m gonna pause here because these call me by your name vibes are just. So. Damn. Gay. But that’s neither here nor there. Tay continues:

I’m insane, but I’m your baby (your baby). Echoes (echoes) of your name inside my mind. Halo, hiding my obsession. I once was poison ivy, but now I’m your daisy. And, baby, for you, I would fall from grace Just to touch your face. If you walk away, I’d beg you on my knees to stay.

Again, we’re picking up those same recurrent themes: she’s asking her to stay, she is willing to risk it all for love. The daisy is a Kaylor inside joke, we all know about Big Sur, so I’m not going to dwell on that.

The name thing is more interesting, as is the ‘halo, hiding my obsession’. To me, both gesture towards the public nature of the relationship that first started in End Game and picks up steam in later songs. “My name is whatever you decide” she says, but the other woman’s name keeps echoing in her mind, possibly because of her lover’s big reputation? I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s fascinating. I think Tay’s got a thing about names - lol Betty and James but also later in this album; bear with me - so I think this whole name bit is of interest. I think Tay likes the idea of the symbolism of names and the concept often comes up in her lyrics…

Then we get the line which suggests one or both of them have a (public) halo, that they use to hide the desperate love Tay feels for her lover. To be honest, that screams glass closeting phase to me. We go straight from ‘hiding my obsession’ to the daisy references. “Glass closeting with me is fun!” cries Tay, “Please stay with me, please please please.”

But once again, there’s no answer.

And then we switch gears and go into Delicate. What we’ve established in the two songs above is Tay is very invested and wants to make it work, and that she’s dealing with someone who is also famous, and that there are complications. One of those complications is that she’s insecure in the relationship.

Delicate opens with:

This ain’t for the best My reputation’s never been worse, so You must like me for me…

It sets a different tone and attitude to the last two songs. For the first time, we’re hearing an analysis of her lover’s feelings. She’s not begging, she’s not urging. She’s shocked that this person wants her for her. The big reputations and the shaking, quaking and pining are suddenly gone.

We can’t make Any promises now, can we, babe? But you can make me a drink…

Here the lover is more involved than she was previously. Taylor has gone from asking for something to saying that this is what’s happening. This is chilled, low key. This isn’t an obsession. This isn’t her ‘hitting like bang’. It’s two people starting something very… delicate. It’s not love at first sight, it’s an exploration of possibilities. They’re going to a dive bar, they’re hanging out. It’s calm and peaceful. Her anxiety here is a gentle, delicate, romantic one. It’s not dramatic like on the Kaylor songs.

Come here, you can meet me in the back Dark jeans and your Nikes, look at you

The theme of secrecy comes in strong on the lines above. They’re hiding, and they’re private. This is not “I would fall from grace just to touch your face” - the stakes are markedly lower. It’s the start of something new, something beautiful. She’s starting over again. And she’s doing so with someone who is willing to hide with her.

This is in sharp contrast to our Kaylor anthems, as we’ve already seen above. Ready for another Kaylor song? So It Goes (again, not by Tay but thematically linked) is peak Kaylor.

See you in the dark All eyes on you, my magician All eyes on us You make everyone disappear, and Cut me into pieces Gold cage, hostage to my feelings Back against the wall Trippin’, trip, trippin’ when you’re gone

Okay, here we have a gold cage imprisoning Tay and a ‘lightning strikes every time she moves’ woman stealing the attention of everyone who sees her. She’s got Tay backed up with nowhere to go and tripping when she’s gone. That’s the same insecurity from before.

'Cause we break down a little But when you get me alone, it’s so simple

She’s explicitly acknowledging their problems, but the problems fall away when they’re in bed or having a romantic interaction.

'Cause baby, I know what you know We can feel it… And all the pieces fall Right into place Getting caught up in a moment Lipstick on your face So it goes… I’m yours to keep And I’m yours to lose You know I’m not a bad girl, but I Do bad things with you So it goes…

The above doesn’t need much additional analysis, there are Kaylors who’ve done it and I recommend going to read those (or just looking up times Tay ended up with smudged lippy around Karlie).

Here’s the really relevant bit:

Met you in a bar All eyes on me, your illusionist All eyes on us I make all your grey days clear and Wear you like a necklace I’m so chill, but you make me jealous But I got your heart Skippin’, skip, skippin’ when I’m gone

Does that sound the same as the ‘dive bar on the East Side where you at?’ Because to me, while describing similar situations - dates in bars - they are explicitly different in mood, tone and atmosphere. In Delicate, Tay and her lover were hiding out in the back, having a heart to heart. Here, the bar has ‘all eyes’ on them. Kaylor both have big reputations and Karlie makes Tay anxious and jealous. She’s not ever sure where she stands with her. The best she can come up with (and you must listen for the high-pitched, uncertain tone with which this line is sung) is that Karlie’s heart skips when Tay’s gone. That’s hardly explicit confirmation of deep, requited feelings.

You did a number on me But, honestly, baby, who’s counting? I did a number on you But, honestly, baby, who’s counting? You did a number on me But, honestly, baby, who’s counting? Who’s counting? 1, 2, 3

This once again acknowledges the difficulties in the relationship. It is not ‘Delicate’. It is not always happy. It’s a proper fucking mess.

Cool now let’s take a look at another Kaylor anthem:

I, I loved you in secret First sight, yeah, we love without reason

I hear the naysayers point to the ‘in secret’ as paralleling Delicate (which so far has been the only one that’s not about Karlie). The thing, though, is that this is about love at first sight/physical attraction/lust - not about the meaningful emotional connection we glimpsed in Delicate. Delicate is explicitly not about love ar first sight or love without reason. It’s about embarking on something new and beautiful but having trepidation along the way. It’s about careful connection.

My, my love had been frozen Deep blue, but you painted me golden

I’m including this as further evidence this is about Kaylor. As I said Karlie = gold. We’ve heard this image in every Kaylor song. You know what didn’t feature in Delicate? Gold. Spoiler: it won’t feature in CIWYW and KOMH either.

I could’ve spent forever with your hands in my pockets Picture of your face in an invisible locket You said there was nothing in the world that could stop it I had a bad feeling And darling, you had turned my bed into a sacred oasis People started talking, putting us through our paces I knew there was no one in the world who could take it I had a bad feeling

In this verse we have people talking and noticing this couple. She’s describing a well-known, public relationship. It isn’t a secret, not really, despite the actual love being kept somewhat secret. Their locket may be invisible but despite that, this relationship is something well known. Furthermore, we already know she has had a bad feeling. That’s kind of the premise of many of her other Karlie anthems - she’s begging Karlie to stay and trying to convince her that they have something real and serious. She is constantly trying to convince Karlie of the seriousness of her feelings. And, well, the song ends with her saying she’d like to dance with Karlie again but there’s no real way forward, seeing as their hands are tied. The whole thing is quite sad.

Let’s look at the other very very Kaylor song (like there’s literally no other way to read it):

Our secret moments In a crowded room They got no idea About me and you There is an indentation In the shape of you Made your mark on me A golden tattoo All of this silence and patience, pining and anticipation My hands are shaking from holding back from you (ah, ah, ah) All of this silence and patience, pining and desperately waiting My hands are shaking from all this (ha, ha, ha, ha)

We have the familiar desperation, the shaking, the gold, and the secret moments in plain view. And again, they’re both very famous:

Everyone thinks that they know us But they know nothing about All of this silence and patience, pining and anticipation

We also get this bit:

Say my name and everything just stops I don’t want you like a best friend

There’s the name thing again and after that the gayest, most glass closety line I’ve ever witnessed. “I don’t want you like a best friend”, she says. I want your body. I want your love. I want us. I want this relationship to be real.

You know what that clarification is in sharp contrast to:

(Call it what you want, call it what you want, call it) So call it what you want, yeah Call it what you want to

Tay didn’t want to call it what you want with Karlie. She wanted to call it end game, first string, A team. She didn’t want to be friends. People talking about them caused her anxiety and lead to the breakup described in DWOHT. CIWYW has that renewed joyful tone that she had in Delicate. It’s hopeful and optimistic. It’s all about about connection and meaningful interactions:

I want to wear his initial on a chain round my neck Chain round my neck Not because he owns me But 'cause he really knows me

This is not an invisible locket, this is not about sex and getting clothes off in bathtubs, this is about a really deep emotional connection which we first heard on Delicate. Notably, it’s the third time she speaks of necklaces on the album, but it’s the first that it’s not sexual. It’s also - importantly - not invisible. It’s not comparing the lover to a necklace (like before, which makes it a physical connection) or saying their relationship can be entirely symbolized by one. She’s saying she’d actually love to actually have tangible physical proof of the relationship. She wouldn’t have said that about Karlie because she wasn’t expressly convinced the feelings were fully mutual. Also, this song is missing that desperate pining and longing that she experiences for Karlie in the Kaylor songs.

I know people hear “Karlie” instead of “Call It” but honestly it makes more sense as one of the non-Kaylor songs. I think maybe the rhyme is her trolling Karlie - call it what you want, which is certainly not what she had with Karlie. This would also kind of explain the laugh in Miss Americana. If someone sang me a song about how things are good between us, and added in a dig at her ex, I’d laugh too. And let’s be honest discussing exes - especially exes in the same social circle (Tay, Lily and Karlie) - is peak lesbian culture.

One more thing:

Cause… My baby’s fit like a daydream Walking with his head down I’m the one he’s walking to

Karlie has never had her head down. She is super active on socials, as a model, and as a philanthropist. Karlie has never been quietly walking “to” Tay. She’s been stunting and traveling and being extraordinarily visible. And all the Kaylor songs deal with that very public nature - with rumors and discussions and everyone’s eyes being on Karlie and the anxiety that causes Tay. I know some Kaylors think they just went underground after being caught making out but that’s just not what’s being described in CIWYW. It’s a different person.

My baby’s fly like a jet stream High above the whole scene Loves me like I’m brand new So call it what you want, yeah

She’s explicitly saying her baby doesn’t form part of “the scene” but rather floats above it. How does that fit Karlie going on vacation with Scooter? Or anything about Karlie, actually? This is obviously about someone very private or not particularly famous. Or both.

Bonus lyric from a non love song that points to an actively private relationship is “and here’s to my baby, he ain’t reading what they call me lately” - why would Karlie not read stuff? She is calling the paps on herself and Josh regularly but she’s not following Tay’s PR game? Make it make sense?

Anyhow back to CIWYW. In that song, her baby loves her - a source of anxiety that never gets stated explicitly resolved in the Kaylor songs. Those songs have her begging for love, not stating it’s existence matter of factly. The difference is palpable.

And I know I make the same mistakes every time Bridges burn, I never learn At least I did one thing right I did one thing right I’m laughing with my lover Making forts under covers Trust him like a brother Yeah, you know I did one thing right

I’m including this because of the chilled out atmosphere, the “brother” simile (which to me is kind of the opposite of “not wanting you like a best friend”) and the insistence that this is “right” which is absent in the Kaylor songs.

KOMH keeps with that same quiet, calm, positive energy.

I’m perfectly fine, I live on my own I made up my mind, I’m better off being alone We met a few weeks ago Now you try on calling me, baby, like trying on clothes Salute to me I’m your American Queen And you move to me like I’m a Motown beat And we rule the kingdom inside my room 'Cause all the boys and their expensive cars With their Range Rovers and their Jaguars Never took me quite where you do

“Try on calling me” like “trying on clothes” is that same idea from Delicate. Things are early, and uncertain. They’re exploring this and seeing where it goes.

This is not a public relationship, it’s entirely “inside her room”. And it doesn’t feature expensive cars and the visibility her - or Karlie’s - stunts had. (Kinda interesting that she drove Lily in the Toyota, don’t you think? And also drives her/someone in Miss Americana?)

This relationship is super secret:

Late in the night, the city’s asleep Your love is a secret I’m hoping, dreaming, dying to keep Change my priorities The taste of your lips is my idea of luxury

But what’s secret? Not Tay’s love of this person like before. “Your love” is the secret. As I’ve pointed out that affirmation of requitedness never happens in the Kaylor anthems and hiding out in the dark. Additionally “idea of luxury” is very different to her drug imagery from the Kaylor songs, by the way. This is not addictive, this is just nice.

And all at once, you are the one I have been waiting for King of my heart, body and soul, ooh whoa And all at once, you are all I want, I’ll never let you go

I believe the “all at once” contrasts the love/lust at first sight feelings she expressed for Karlie. This didn’t “hit her like bang” - it surprised her after a few weeks. And it’s not just a physical connection. This person rules her heart, body and soul.

And what do they do together? Well it’s less ripping off clothes and more chilled hangouts with someone who makes her happy:

Is this the end of all the endings? My broken bones are mending With all these nights we’re spending Up on the roof with a school girl crush Drinking beer out of plastic cups Say you fancy me, not fancy stuff Baby, all at once, this is enough

This is very cute. It’s very much lacking anxiety. She’s happy with her new person; it is finally “enough”. That’s not true for her relationship with Karlie. “School girl crush” is a very cutesy image - and is in stark contrast to the craving, shaking, pining, and bedpost carving that came with “not wanting you like a best friend”. Notice how the second relationship uses constant friendship/platonic imagery and how that type of imagery is not expressly disavowed in the Kaylor songs.

I also think it’s worth contrasting the “beer out of plastic cups” on the roof with “I’m spilling wine in the bathtub” and “eyes like liquor”. All three references are about drinking - but only one is peppy, cute and upbeat and the others are full of lustful desperation.

Now the other possible reading - implicitly favored by the Kaylor community - is that KOMH, CIWYW, and Delicate are set at a different point in the relationship to the sex songs. Unfortunately that doesn’t really hold water because, as I’ve pointed out, the origin story described is different. Kaylor “hit like bang” and fell in love at first sight. The other relationship started out slow and cautious, but quickly settled into something quietly special. These other songs are about a connection that’s chilled out and very emotional and cerebral. The Kaylor songs are about how much she wants to sex up Karlie and leave scratches down her back (which, I mean, fair). The other songs are about tentative emotions and cutesy intersections.

Also KOMH, CIWYW and Delicate are the three songs that feature British/foreign imagery. (This is why I think they’re about Lily or maaaaaybe Joe but again I doubt that and the scene in MA where a woman laughs during CIWYW contradicts it and I also have further lyrical evidence it’s not him which I’ll address below). In KOMH she says “you fancy me” and describes herself as “an American queen”, in CIWYW her baby’s “fit like a daydream” and in Delicate she asks about the “girls back home”. Also East side and West side in Delicate make more sense as being about London. Dive bars in the East End are a vibe. But that’s neither here nor there.

Why is this analysis important? To me it shows that contrary to the rosy Kaylor depictions, the Kaylor lyrics consistently show they always had massive issues (not dissimilar to her issues with Di actually).

Very quickly on why Joe’s not the muse: he’s referenced in Dress in a verse makes no sense lyrically or musically or thematically in the song and I think is only there to make it slightly less gay because otherwise the song is making Kaylor Facebook official. But the “wake up by your side” doesn’t fit in with the pining and anticipation and drunken bath time fun. It’s just thrown in there as deflection. It doesn’t actually fit the other relationship on the album - it’s very romantic but “my one and only, my lifeline” is not the cutesy tone of the other songs. This verse is just made up and slapped in to feed the hets. The musical accompaniment is so markedly different that it is clear it literally doesn’t belong in the song. The other song that makes reference to him, I believe, is “Ready for it”. I think “I keep him forever, like a vendetta” is very much about her plans for him. But it’s a very different thought to “is this the end of all the endings?” because that’s a far less certain emotion. She’s only 100% sure about Joe because it’s… not real.

And final note: Getaway Car is obviously a satirical piece about Hiddlestunt obviously. And I think New Year’s Day is a general love song about the type of relationship she wants, similar to some of her early songs, not about Karlie or Di or Lily/whoever else. It’s missing any of the imagery associated with either relationship except “don’t ever become a stranger” but it might be written from diary entries (which she has shown us she does). Final final note: I don’t know for sure who Gorgeous is about. It could just be a song about hot girls more generally.

If anyone is interested in further thoughts, I’m happy to do this for Lover and folklore too. I think we need to challenge the myth of Kaylor being perfect. And I think we should listen closely and let the lyrics speak for themselves.

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thanks for taking the time to write all this up! let’s discuss!!!

#submission #reputation #reputation analysis

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xbaepsae · 4 years

Text

prove it (m)

“How could he not see how this was all affecting you? Why didn’t he realize you needed him to be present in your life? But as much as you needed him to be one hundred percent here for you, a part of you would just rather have him one hundred percent gone.”

[boyfriend!jeongguk x girlfriend!reader]

genre: estranged relationship!au, smut, some angst

word count: 4.9k

rating: mature

warnings: mutual masturbation, jealousy, language

a/n: this is another reupload! i went back and reread this and, honestly, it’s not too shabby. granted, it’s not that complex, but i enjoyed writing this estranged relationship between jk and the reader. kind of want to write a follow up. let me know lol. xoxo

Long distance relationships suck.

Even for the strongest of people, separation is never easy. Ideally, everyone wants to believe that not being with the person they love all the time isn’t a big deal. However, after a while, there are different factors that cause major stress in a relationship.

There’s a lack of communication sometimes; you can’t physically see them often, so you resort to the basic text and phone call. Still, it’s not the same. Seeing someone through a phone is vastly different than physically being with them. There’s a lack of intimacy too; no holding hands, late night cuddles. Your toys and hands can only do so much, unfortunately.

Being long distance wasn’t always the case for you and Jeongguk, but it became a reality when you both decided to attend different universities.

Early in your relationship, you both avoided talks about the future. In the back of your mind, you already knew that you both had different plans for college. But you didn’t want to admit it out loud—not even to him.

A part of you was afraid about the longevity of your relationship. Most long-distance relationships, and even more so with high school relationships, don’t really make it. But you loved Jeongguk; you don’t think you’ll ever be able to love anyone else as much. As cheesy as it may sound, he’s your other half. You knew that there were others out there, but you didn’t want anyone else.

“You’ll call me every day, yeah?” you asked him the day you both graduated.

“Of course,” he caressed your arm. “Every day.”

The first semester at college, you both talked nearly every day. And you were happy; so happy that despite the distance, not much had changed. Even with your different schedules, you both still made time for each other. You both even visited each other—you went to see him during Halloween, and he surprised you before your finals.

But of course, life gets in the way.

After the first winter break, the communication between you two dwindled. And after that first summer, everything changed. Even when you both did happen to be home, you barely had the time to talk let alone hang out. You found out more about Jeongguk’s life from his Instagram account than you did directly from him. Every time you scrolled onto his page, countless pictures of him partying and hanging out with his friends filled your screen—and yet, no time to give you a quick phone call. It was frustrating.

You considered calling it quits multiple times—what is the use of being with someone if you both don’t act like a couple? It was so bad; you couldn’t even remember the last time you two were in the same room. But every time you brought up the issue, Jeongguk did some redeemable act and you forgave him instantly.

It seemed to be a never-ending cycle.

And now, even though you both were well into your third year in college, Jeongguk was still tethering you on a string. How could he not see how this was all affecting you? Why didn’t he realize you needed him to be present in your life? But as much as you needed him to be one hundred percent here for you, a part of you would just rather have him one hundred percent gone.

***

3:14 PM | Jeongguk: I’ll call you later

3:15 PM | You: for real?

You watched the text bubble pop up for a few seconds before disappearing. And when it disappears, it doesn’t pop up again. A sigh leaves your mouth as you drop your phone onto the table.

“Are you texting him?”

Looking up, you make eye contact with your friend Taehyung. “Yeah…”

“And?” Taehyung prompts you to finish your sentence.

“And…he said he’ll call me later,” you say, “but these types of texts from Jeongguk are pointless and disappointing.”

You met Taehyung your first year at college, and immediately hit it off. You helped him with his math homework, and he paid you back by listening to all of your Jeongguk drama. Sometimes you wished you could fall for Taehyung—a relationship with him was bound to be easier than the one you had right now—but he was already in a deeply committed relationship with the cute librarian assistant, Jimin.

“I mean, at least he texted you, right?” your friend attempts to make you feel better, but you feel anything but that.

“I guess.”

“Well don’t be too hard on yourself, buttercup,” Taehyung smiles, “because today is not the day to be down in the dumps!”

Half the time, you have no idea what the words that came out of his mouth even mean. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you remember?�� You have no idea. “It’s Hoseok’s birthday tonight!”

After a few moments, the gears in your head begin moving and you remember Taehyung mentioning something about it last week. You aren’t really close with Hoseok though; he’s Taehyung’s friend and a member of the soccer team, so it slipped your mind.

You have only chatted with Hoseok twice; once was at a party freshman year and you were wasted, and the second was in line for coffee at Starbucks; but you were pretty sure he had no idea who you were. “But I don’t really even know him.”

“Y/n, he doesn’t care who comes; hell, I think he invited the entire school. Besides, I already told him that you’re my plus one since Jimin can’t make it.”

Even though it was a Friday, you were not in the mood to do anything. All you wanted was to return back to your apartment and sleep until Monday rolled around. “Tae…”

“It’ll take your mind off of Jeongguk,” he says in a sing-song voice.

And he’s right—it will be a distraction from your issues in the love department. You think about it for a moment before deciding to hell with it; you’re going to allow yourself to enjoy tonight. “Okay fine, I’ll go.”

Taehyung gets up in that moment and engulfs you in a hug, which attracts the stares of many people in the room. “Thanks y/n!”

“I think you can let me go now,” you pat his back and he lets you go with an airy oh.

“Okay, well, I’ll swing by your place at around seven and then we’ll goooooo!”

You laugh at his enthusiasm and bid your friend goodbye as you both leave. You’re pretty sure Taehyung has a class, but he’s going the opposite direction…so you’re not sure what he’s doing. But you don’t think too much about it and make it back to your apartment. There, you greet your roommate, Nana.

“Hey, girl hey,” she smiles, and you’re struck once again by how pretty she is.

You and Nana have been roommates since you both started going to school here. Most people don’t end up living with their first roommate their entire stay at college, but you both got along well and there has never been a problem. Also, you two just knew too much about each other’s living habits at this point to live with other people.

“Hi,” you smile back, setting your things down before falling down onto the couch beside her.

“So, how was your day?”

Since you both are juniors and have busy schedules, it seems like you never really get to see each other. Which sucks because you honestly consider Nana to be your best friend, besides Taehyung of course.

“It’s been okay,” you begin, “I barely passed my exam in history and managed to turn in my paper for lit right before the deadline…and Jeongguk texted me.”

“Jeongguk texted you?” she only seems to pick up the last bit you said.

“Yep,” you pop the end of the word.

“How’d that go?”

You give her a look, “Horrible.”

Nana gives you a sympathetic smile, “Sorry boo that you have such a shitty boyfriend.”

“He’s not shitty…he’s just…” you try to get the words out about how loving Jeongguk really is, but your mind fails you. Maybe she’s right. “Okay, maybe he is being a little shit right now.”

“You know, I really liked Jeongguk when I first met him,” your roommate says. “But then he just stopped coming to see you.”

You sigh and burry your head into a pillow, “I know.”

“What did he even text you about?”

“He said that he’ll call or whatever—but I’m not even sure if he’s serious, or just messing with me,” you lift your head up. “Do you know that we haven’t talked since school started again?”

Nana gasps, “That was almost two months ago.”

“Exactly.”

“Y/n!” she screams your name. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m actually going crazy, Nana,” you feel defeated; what kind of relationship is this? “But maybe tonight will get this shit off my mind.”

“What are you doing tonight?” she asks.

You explain how Taehyung has basically dragged you to Hoseok’s birthday party and even though you don’t want to go that much, you need to forget about Jeongguk for one night. Nana thankfully agrees with you. She even says that you can borrow one of her dresses since you don’t, in her words, own anything nice.

“Wow are you saying I have no style?” you pretend to be hurt.

“I’m saying you don’t have clothes appropriate for nights like these,” Nana laughs and tells you to follow her to her closet.

When you walk into her room and open her closet—you let her have the bigger closet because she has more clothes than you anyway—you’re not surprised to see a variety of mini skirts and dresses. Nana definitely goes out more than you ever do and proclaims that she can never wear the same outfit twice. “What shall we put you in?”

You shrug, “I’m down to wear anything.”

But maybe you’re giving Nana too much free reign because as she begins to dig through her closet, she pulls out the most revealing dress you’ve ever seen. She tosses it you before you can blink and demands that you have to wear it.

You nearly fall over from the force of the dress, but somehow manage to catch it. Pulling it away from your body, you immediately begin to shake your head. There was no way in hell you can go out in public like this—you don’t even want to wear it in the safety of your apartment. The dress is black with a plunging back and an equally plunging front. And with its short length, it leaves nothing to the imagination. “Hell no.”

“Come on, y/n!” Nana whines, mouth dropping when you fling the dress onto the floor. “This dress will look so good on you!”

“I don’t think anyone can wear this dress,” you frown as she hands you the dress again.

Your roommate rolls her eyes, “Please—I wore this! And I got a ton of male attention that night…you will too.”

But you don’t want the attention of multiple guys, just want the attention of one. “I don’t know, Nana. I’m not one to wear this kind of stuff…”

“Just this one time! Trust me.”

And even though you’re completely out of your element, you succumb to Nana’s demands and trudge into the closet to try the dress on. You let your clothes fall onto the carpeted floor and slip the revealing dress on. Surprisingly, even though you and Nana aren’t necessarily the same size, the dress seems to fit; you just hope all your precious body parts aren’t hanging out on full display.

When you step out for your roommate to see the dress, her jaw drops, and she lets out the loudest ear piercing scream you’ve ever heard. It’s so loud, you’re positive the neighbors heard it.

“Oh my god, y/n! You look so fucking good,” she pushes you towards her full-length mirror and the air seems to leave your lungs.

“I…” you’re at a loss for words, “I…actually like it?”

Nana screams again and proceeds to hug you, but you can’t stop staring at the mirror. You hated the way the dress looked on the hanger; now, is it crazy for you to say it makes you feel like a bad bitch? It feels like you can conquer the world.

“I told you!” Nana exclaims. “God—you look so good; you can just keep the dress after this. I don’t think I could ever wear it again after you just slayed my existence.”

“Okay, you’re just being dramatic at this point.”

“But no seriously, you look amazing and fucking Jeon Jeongguk is missing out,” she says hugging you again. “Can I do your hair and makeup?”

A few hours later, the doorbell rings as you slip your shoes on. Nana runs to answer the door and you smile as Taehyung walks in. The moment his eyes land on you, he stops in his tracks and brings a hand up to his mouth. “Y/n?”

“Don’t look so shocked,” you roll your eyes.

“Who are you and what did you do with y/n?” he runs up to you, inspecting your body from head to toe. “Who knew you had this side in you?”

“You can thank me for that,” Nana slides beside you, offering a bright smile.

After a little convincing, you managed to bribe Nana in coming out tonight too. Your main argument for making her go out too is that you needed someone to last the night with. Even though you are technically Taehyung’s date, he never stays out long and you didn’t want to be left alone with Hoseok and his friends. And you promised that all the drinks were on you, which made her agree in a heartbeat.

“I’m actually blown away,” Taehyung rubs his eyes.

You feel a bit of pride flare up inside of you; if your friends were already so blown away, you can only imagine the reactions from other people.

“You guys are so nice,” you smile before Taehyung makes it known that you all have to go before the party begins.

The three of you hop into his car as he drives to the place where Hoseok’s hosting his party. It’s at a local bar just down the street from school and when you get there, you see a huge sign with the words ‘Happy Birthday Hoseok’ in bold letters. Well, that’s one way to let everyone know. As Taehyung parks, you realize just how many people are here; birthday boy must’ve really invited everyone.

Walking inside the bar, Hoseok stands front and center and immediately greets you guys.

“Taehyung!” he excitedly says, a bright smile om his face. “Glad you could make it.”

The two of them shake hands before Taehyung wishes him a happy birthday and points to you, “You know y/n and Nana, right?”

“Of course,” Hoseok turns to you and immediately takes in your appearance. You notice his eyes widen at your dress before they meet your gaze. “Glad you guys could make it.”

You redden under his heated look as he reaches a hand out and you return the favor by extending your own too. Taehyung quickly suggests that you all take a picture together before the night gets too crazy and Nana forces you beside Hoseok. You give her a wide-eyed look, but she just smiles. You offer your phone to someone nearby and they tell you four to get into position.

The phone camera flashes while you offer your biggest smile. A few more flashes go off before the phone gets passed back in your direction. You swipe through the pictures, because one is simply not sufficient, and are pleasantly pleased with yourself. You have to admit it, you look pretty good.

“Damn, y/n!” Nana brings the attention to you and everyone begins to ask to see the pictures. But before Nana can pass your phone around, Hoseok tells you that he has to attend to the rest of his guests. At that, you quickly send everyone the pictures.

“I’ll catch you later?” he asks, and you realize he’s talking to you. Heat creeps up your face as you reply with a tentative sure and watch Hoseok walk away.

The moment he’s out of sight, Taehyung and Nana turn to you simultaneously saying that he definitely likes you. And while you’re flattered by the attention, you’re not interested. So you just brush your friends off and walk deeper into the bar. You order the three of you drinks and look at the pictures again.

“I think you should post the pictures,” Nana says sipping her drink.

You raise a brow, “Why?”

“Because you look good,” she talks like it’s the most obvious thing ever.

“Isn’t it a bit scandalous?”

“No?” Taehyung’s words come out like a question. “I’m posting one of these too.”

“Yeah but it’s normal for you to post stuff like this.” You honestly aren’t one to post suggestive pictures. Your feed is rather plain and simple. Also, you don’t party much either so might just look weird, or are you thinking way too much about this?

“Maybe it will elicit a reaction from that boyfriend of yours.”

Your ears perk up at Nana’s words. “I don’t think he even checks my social media…”

She raises a brow, “Girl, all men check their girls social accounts whether they like to admit it or not. Besides, he posted up pics with his boys earlier…why can’t you?”

She has a point. As the two of you were getting ready before, you scrolled through Jeongguk’s profile and saw that he posted a picture from last night. And it was the same pictures he was always posting—him and his friends with those damn red solo cups. If Jeongguk can post pictures of him at parties, why can’t you?

And at the end of the day, they are just pictures—completely harmless. You quickly scroll through the pictures again and pick the one that you look best in. After editing the picture and adding a witty caption, you press post. As you watch the page load, your heart races. Soon, a text bubble pops up signaling that the picture has been posted and you internally scream.

“Did you do it?” Nana asks, looking over your shoulder.

All you can do is nod and shove your phone away from you. “Can we just forget I did that?”

Taehyung and Nana don’t need to be told twice before ordering a round of shots for you, which you down without a fight.

***

As the night progresses, you actually do forget that you posted the picture.

With your phone on silent and your body a little more than slightly buzzed, you let the music and atmosphere of the bar take you away. By this point, you aren’t sure what time it is or where Taehyung went. You’re betting that he already left, but you’re too absentminded to really care right now. Beside you is Nana, but she’s rather preoccupied with a guy.

You try to grab her attention, to let her know that you need to run to the bathroom, but it’s fruitless so you just leave. In the bathroom, you push open a stall and let out a cry when your phone falls and narrowly misses the toilet. Thank god. Picking up the phone, you suddenly realize how many unread messages and missed phones you actually have…and they’re all from Jeongguk. You briefly run over the messages and see that he’s been leaving message after message for you to call him.

As if the ten missed calls weren’t enough.

Quickly doing your business, you run out of the bathroom and tell Nana that you need to go back to the apartment. But instead of the both of you leaving, she tells you that she’s more than likely not coming back tonight, and you catch the look in her eyes. Before calling an Uber back, you make her promise to text you and then you’re off.

The moment you step through the threshold of your place, you call him. And surprisingly enough, he answers on the first ring.

“Y/n.” As much as you hate to admit it, you’ve missed his voice.

“Hello to you, too,” you dismiss such defeating thoughts and try to remember your anger towards him.

On the other side of the phone, he sighs, “Where are you?”

“At home,” you tell him, kicking off your heels and walking into your bedroom.

“I see…” he says. “So, you’re not out at a party? I saw the picture you posted.”

You release a deep breath. So that’s what this phone call is about.

“Did you just call to chew me out?” you fall onto your bed. “Because if that’s the case, I don’t want to hear it.”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Why the fuck do even you care?” you retort. “I see you partying every week too, and do I make a big deal out of it? No. You’re such a hypocrite.”

Jeongguk is quiet for a moment. He’s so quiet you almost think he’s hung up on you, but before you can say anything else, he asks, “Are you still at the party?”

You roll your eyes, “I told you I’m at home already.”

“Prove it,” he says.

You don’t even know what he’s asking for. How are you supposed to prove you were at your apartment? “What?”

“Skype me.” Oh.

“Isn’t it a little late,” you say, peering at the clock on your wall that reads a little after midnight. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

Even though you’re angry at Jeongguk ninety-five percent of the time, that doesn’t mean you don’t care to know what goes on in his life. You know that he has practice every Saturday morning and if he doesn’t sleep, he’ll be a cranky little baby.

“Practice is cancelled tomorrow.” It’s like he’s read your mind or something. And after much contemplating, you tell him you’ll skype him.

Grabbing your laptop from the floor, you can’t deny the anxious excitement you feel. You also can’t deny the fact that you miss Jeongguk desperately, even though he can be an asshole. It’s honestly been so long and you want nothing more than to see his face again. Logging onto your skype account, you click on his little icon and watch as the screen begins to make a call. As it loads and connects, you situate your laptop away from you.

And the moment Jeongguk appears on your screen, you feel an array of emotions. He’s in his room, you can tell from his blue pillows and the posters that line the wall behind him. A part of you wants to cry as dumb as it sounds; it just feels like you haven’t seen him in so long. Your eyes run over the softness of his features before meeting his piercing gaze.

“Hey,” you offer a half-smile.

“Hey.”

“So,” you clear your throat, “as you can see, I am at home…in my room.”

He nods, not looking away from you, “Sorry for doubting you. That picture…just really fucked me up.”

“Why?” you question, shifting your position.

“First of all, you look fucking amazing in that dress,” Jeongguk smirks and you remember that you’re still in Nana’s revealing dress, face heating up. “Second, that guy’s hand on your body was literally too much.”

You’re not sure what he’s talking about, so you look back at the picture and notice that Hoseok’s hand was wrapped rather tightly your waist. “I didn’t even realize.”

“Sure.”

“No, I’m serious,” you look back at Jeongguk. “I barely know the guy. It was his birthday tonight and Taehyung invited me.”

“And you still let him put his hands all over you?” he asks.

Why is he getting so angry about the picture? It was just a photo. Never in all the years you two have been together has he ever been like this. Is he jealous? You haven’t thought to pin him as the jealous type, but perhaps it’s finally showing.

“Are you jealous?” you narrow your eyes as his own widen.

“Of course not,” he brushes you off. “I just don’t like it when guys put their hands all over other people’s girlfriends.”

He’s totally jealous and your heart begins to warm at his words. “I’m your girlfriend?”

You’re teasing him and he doesn’t seem to catch on. “Are you not?”

“I don’t know,” you shrug. “Doesn’t really seem like it sometimes. I mean, you never call me. Aren’t people supposed to call their girlfriends? And I just feel neglected, you know? Like you’re living a completely different life from me—like we’re not even dating.”

“I’m sorry,” he immediately says, wetting his bottom lip. “I just—I’ve gotten caught up with life lately. I mean it when I say I’m going to call, because I really want to, but it doesn’t always happen.”

You’re a bit shocked at his apologetic confession because you were not expecting it. Jeongguk is not usually the one in your relationship to cave in first; you’re usually the one who comes running to him. Maybe he does still care about you in the same way he did all those years ago.

“You’re sorry?” you ask. “Prove it.”

His eyebrows raise at your repeated phrase. “What?”

“If you’re so sorry…show me.”

Where these words are coming from, you literally have no idea. While you cave in first, Jeongguk is way more forward about his intentions. It’s like your roles have switched and you strangely love it. His eyes stare into yours with so much intensity, it almost feels like he’s right here with you and not just on your laptop screen.

You wait for him to say something—do something; the anticipation of his actions have you squirming on your bed.

“Take off the dress,” he suddenly says, voice much lower than before.

Your insides clench as you raise your body to kneel on the bed and unzip the dress, letting it fall into a pile around your knees. Jeongguk lets out a deep breath as he takes in your smooth skin, body only covered by your flimsy underwear.

“I couldn’t wear a bra with the dress,” you smile at his reaction.

“Fuck, y/n,” he swears. “Take off the underwear and sit back on the bed. I want to see you.”

You oblige and fling your last item of clothing onto the floor. You’re about to do as Jeongguk wishes and lay back, but you stop. “I want to see you, too.”

His eyes darken as he pushes his laptop forward to reveal more of himself and peels the white t-shirt off his body. Your eyes drink in the muscles that adorns his body—god, it’s been so long since you’ve seen him like this. You’ve missed this all terribly. After chucking his skirt to the side, he pushes the waistband of his sweats down and reveals his already hard cock.

“Commando?” you smile, body heating up with desire. As you say this, he begins to slowly stroke himself and you swear that nothing hotter has ever graced your eyes.

“Lay back for me baby,” he whispers, and you follow his instructions, leaning back onto your headboard so you can still see him. “Touch that pretty pussy of yours for me.”

And you begin touching yourself, hands rubbing your sensitive clit. The first touch already has you moaning Jeongguk’s name. Fuck; you wish he was here with you right now. You wish it was him whose hands were touching you instead of your own. So you imagine his hands on your body instead and your eyes nearly roll to the back of your head.

“It feels so good,” you moan, watching your boyfriend as he moves his hand up and down his hard shaft. You can see the bit of pre-cum that has already leaked out of his head and you want nothing more than to lick it off. “Jeongguk…”

“You’re so hot,” he forces through clenched teeth. “Stick a finger inside baby. I want to see you fuck yourself.”

You do—you stick one and then another, pretending Jeongguk is actually entering you instead of your fingers. You start with a steady rhythm, slowly moving in and out before going a little faster. Jeongguk begins to match his pace with you and you feel yourself getting close. Your hips begin to buck up into your hands and your palm rubs against your sweet spot.

Sweat begins to bead along your forehead and you use your other hand to rub little circles into your clit again. “I’m so close.”

Jeongguk groans at the image he’s seeing, you desperate for relief. “Cum for me baby; I need you to cum, okay?”

And you can’t help it, you cry as your orgasm hits. It sends waves of pleasure throughout your body, causing your legs to shake. The entire time you ride the high, you’re saying Jeongguk’s name and it isn’t long before his own orgasm arrives. You watch as his face contorts, brows furrowed together and mouth slightly parted, and his load shoots onto his abdomen.

His dark hair is drenched in sweat, and chest rises and falls with each heavy breath. Jeongguk brushes his hair back and grabs his discarded t-shirt to wipe himself. You sit back up on the bed after you catch your own breath and brush your hair to the side.

“Thanks for that,” you tell him, and he laughs.

“Thank you, too,” Jeongguk smiles. “I needed that.”

“Same,” your eyes bore into his and silence passes between the two of you. You know this moment doesn’t change much; there is still a lot of work that needs to be done in your relationship. However, what you do know is that Jeongguk still cares and that give you hope. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you more.”

#armiesnet #btsbookclub #bangtan bookclub #bts fic #jungkook fic #jeongguk fic #kpop fic #bts smut #kpop smut #bts #bangtan #jungkook #jeongguk #smut #angst #prove it #xbaepsae

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dex-xe · 3 years

Text

I’ve made Spotify playlists inspired by each of the ghosts and I’ve made these little written pieces to talk about them. if you wanna read them, please go ahead - if not then enjoy the music!!

This is Humphrey’s playlist:

Body - Mother Mother

I wish I were sorry, but I’m honestly not. There’s no real consensus regarding what the song is actually about. I usually interpret it as being about body/gender dysphoria which isn’t really relevant here but I guess it links to the separation between body and soul and the idea that the body doesn’t define you which I think is quite relevant to Humphrey who relies on his soul for attention from others rather than his physical presence in a room.

Sign of the Times - Harry Styles

I feel like Humphrey probably has the most reasonable understanding of the passage of time of all the ghosts. He’s very down to earth compared to the rest of them. I know Robin has been there longer but I think he’s probably accepted the change of time without really considering it philosophically, whereas with Humphrey getting lost all the time he’s probably had more time to contemplate and I think he’d appreciate the song to listen to while he’s stuck various places. Also he’d like he piano, Humphrey’s a kinda piano man you can’t tell me otherwise (no Billy Joel fuck off).

Greensleeves - Ralph Vaughan Williams & Philharmonia Orchestra

This’ll come up a lot in various other ghosts’ playlists but I’ve tried to include some music from each of their time periods to try and capture what they would have heard so yeah, enjoy some Tudor music.

Tilted - Christine and the Queens

It’s been established that Humphrey’s wife was French so I felt the need to include at least a little bit of French which this song obviously captures. Also again it’s kinda the idea of not having total control over your body.

Abracadabra - Steve Miller Band

No idea why it’s just a Humphrey song I will take no criticism on this.

Don’t Look Back In Anger - Oasis

The scene with Fanny and Humphrey talking about their marriages is one of my favourite scenes and basically the whole “marriage went wrong but you can’t look back at it with contempt because it’s over now and time’s moved on” is what he was trying to say to Fanny and aid her recovery from her marriage trauma in the same way that Humphrey has healed from his.

High and Dry - Radiohead

I also see this song in reference to that scene with Fanny because it’s like no precise meaning to my knowledge but I interpret it as being about telling someone to let go of other people and what’s happening with them and focus on yourself and what you need.

My Iron Lung - Radiohead

Humphrey’s death is constrained by the decisions he made in life that brought about his death, which is kindaaaaa the meaning of the song like it’s a stretch. Like it’s actually about Radiohead being constrained by Creep as one of their most successful songs but like the idea of being stuck in a box and not being able to live freely. I really want to learn more about Humphrey’s life in the new series cause like, I want development to show how his beheading was brought about and what it’s like to live his… death completely restrained by his situation.

Body Terror Song - AJJ

“I’m so sorry that you have to have a body, one that will hurt you, and be the subject of so much of your fear, it will betray you, be used against you, then it'll fail on you my dear”. There we go!! Humphrey’s body wanders away - newsflash from me.

Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles

“A ballad for the lonely”, catch me crying over Humphrey as usual. But yeah obvious reason is cause Humphrey is often left alone and unable to interact with the others. The other thing I like to think when listening to this song is about the idea of lonely people noticing the little details no one else does, in the song it’s clearly the little details about the protagonists lives (Eleanor Rigby picking up tiny grains of rice with no one to help, and Father McKenzie writing sermons no one will hear) but Humphrey - like I think many lonely people — notices little things like Francis writing the letter to Thomas etc.

Where Is My Mind? - Pixies

Idk this song is just trippy. I remember reading ages ago that it was about scuba diving. But yeah, I primarily think it’s a Humphrey song because I just like the image of his body wandering aimlessly about the house with this song looking for his head XD

Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks

Again, I’ve said this a few times now but Humphrey being an observer of Button House and what takes place within it’s walls, just watching the others going about their days as he sits alone. I know the writer said he watched the world from the window of a hospital as a child and I think being able to watch over the city without being able to participate because of physical ailment is pretty telling.

O Lord, in Thy Wrath - Orlando Gibbons & Choir of Clare College, Cambridge

This is just a Tudor song. I grew up very very religious and, while I’m not sure I heard this exact song, I spent hours upon hours in church services every week with songs very similar to this and the music was the only thing I actually enjoyed about it. But yeah, I wanted to include at least a few religious songs in Humphrey’s because of my theory regarding his death which (given that we might find out about it in season 3 and I might be totally wrong) I’m gonna just briefly mention XD I basically think his death might’ve been religiously motivated because of the instability of state sanctioned religion in England at the time. Elizabeth I (monarch when Humphrey died) put 200 Catholics to death and given that Humphrey was married to a French woman and the French were under Catholic rule at the time it might not be too far outside the realm of possibility for Humphrey to have lost his head for being the ‘wrong’ denomination. Idk, probably miles off cause I’m really bad at theories but we’ll find out soon hopefully!!

Pantyhose and Roses - Echobelly

Just for the line “it could change but it never will”. Being a ghost must be such a difficult existence because there’s very little they can do to change what’s wrong because they obviously can’t leave where they die. But especially for Humphrey, nothing can change really for him because of his situation.

Waltz #2 (XO) - Elliott Smith

“I’m never gonna know you now, but I’m gonna love you anyhow”. As far as we know Humphrey’s relationship with his wife obviously wasn’t the best and it seems as if he possible barely knew her cause of the language barrier and the fact it was an arranged marriage.

After Hours - The Velvet Underground

This song has such a feeling of isolation like wishing that you could be a part of everyone’s fun but you’ve yet to find the person with whom you can experience that fun with.

Out of Time - Blur

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again but the idea of noticing the small things around you and focussing on the bigger picture of the world rather than hyper fixating on the intricacies of our own existence. Also, this is totally irrelevant but there’s an episode of Torchwood called ‘Out of Time’ in which three people from the 1950s suddenly rock up in 2000s Cardiff and the Torchwood 3 team have to take care of them and try to teach them about the modern world (it’s one of my favourite episodes, like it’s genuinely really good) and I think that’s really cool.

Blackstar - David Bowie

The song is just sad and I put it on any playlist of a sad character, no further explanation.

Why do I use my paper, ink and pen? - William Byrd, Stile Antico & Fretwork

More Tudor music, Tudor musiccccc.

25 Minutes to Go - Johnny Cash

Obvious but yeah there we go: just basically a man waiting and being led to his death which, if the assassination theory is to be believed (which we shall soon find out I guess) then the idea of Humphrey being led to his death is potentially gonna be a sorrowful story to hear about in the show??

#bbc ghosts humphrey #bbc ghosts

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funny-house · 4 years

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What do you think happens during the aggressive sequence when opal’s mom was singing her song?

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I have technically answered this before!! but since it was always always always attached to another post or rushed and summarized blah!! I will make this post

The Official

Opal Wine Mom Flashback Analysis tw: spousal abuse, drug use, etc

insert that Always Sunny meme of the disheveled guy at the cork board cause we are going in---

First things first!! Flat answer, then explanation so the answer is: The mom was having memory flashbacks to events within the house, one if not all of them, depicting her being physically abused by her husband, mirror man! A lot of people find that shocking to hear at first, but let me explain I got a lotta proof !!!

Let’s start from literally the tippy top The sequence starts by zooming into the mom’s eye. This represents that whatever is taking place in this flashy sequence is all about her, what she’s been through, and what she’s seen. It’s her perspective. That, combined with how it seems to paralyze her while she’s going through it and her eyes roll to the back of her head until it ends, implies it’s something she’s trying to force away or doesn’t want to think about!

So frame by frame analysis, this is film theory now!! first mental image: A windowpane at night that resembles jail bars. ( maybe the one seen on the bottom floor of the house in outside shots? ) A parallel to Claire’s window and a symbol for her feeling of being trapped-- something she brings up multiple times in her dialogue. She’s stuck here. She doesn’t want to be here but something is holding her by force and she feels helpless to escape it.

Next scene! Hard cut to rapidly trying to call on the phone. They type 9-1-1. The music starts to fade into screaming. Next scene! The mother’s head is in the far corner and the window is seen behind her, a reminder that she feels trapped, as she is literally seen being slapped in the back of the head by a hand. Next scene! A shot of their bedroom(whatever room she’s in!) door as her face melts across the screen Next scene! The mother screaming in a way that flaps her mouth in crazy waves and reveals her teeth and gums exactly like how Claire yells near the end Next scene! She’s shown laying down with pills dancing over her head. Next scene! her face melting below a distortion of multiple shots of her room’s door Next scene! A whole bunch of stuff in rapid fire!! An array of eyeballs and slapping palms and her face distorting and pills and something being thrown and shattering overlayed on her face and then a zoom out from the prison bar-like windows and more screaming bleh Starting to form a picture here, right? Somebody has been very badly abusing this chic. Bad enough that she’s called the police... probably for a domestic dispute, I bet. You can even see a very nasty wound/bruise on her head, just like she’s depicted being most often hit in her flashback!! On the face!!

And in higher quality than this little picture i resize so it doesn’t take up the screen lol, you can pretty clearly see reddening and discoloring-- that’s not just another dent in her weird shaped head, she’s been hit! No other character has visible wounds on their design like that, not even Claire. So why do I assume it’s Mirror Man? Well first, this world exists on a little set yknow they make a point of zooming out and showing as much, all their world is that house and that billboard. If someone not in that house was damaging her, they’d have to establish their existence or this would be.... a weird artistic choice tbh? The visual equivalent of randomly changing the subject lmao So it’s gotta be the dad or the grandpa heck-- it might be both, but I think it’s more likely the grandpa is a passively unpleasant company to her. He’s probably very mean and unstable- like he is to Claire, and-- honestly, for reasons i mentioned in a different post-- probably not even her grandpa but someone she was saddled with-- BUT he’s not the person in power. It’s just not likely she’d be afraid for her life enough to call the police on a badly disabled grandpa who can barely move without falling. Above all? He couldn’t be the one holding her hostage in a loveless marriage.

LET’S jump to the very very start of the short! Every character has a montage of items that represent their problems as people. Mirror Man is obsessed with self image and is shown frustratedly throwing a tissue at a fashion magazine of a ridiculously exaggerated man’s face, the grandpa is shown putting out a cigarette but he’s missing his cigarette holder and just dabbing it on a TV program list, which is reckless and dangerous and shows a little disdain for TV itself. The mom? She knocks her wine..... onto a romance novel. A novel Jack Stauber deliberately drew the cover of himself about loving a serial killer that depicts another exaggeratedly idealized hot dude... strangling a woman whose smiling and dying in his arms. A toxic relationship, I imagine! Looks like someone!!! is having!! relationship problems, maybe So let’s listen to how the mom describes the problem to her daughter “ It’s a virtuous cycle ” “ And they never repent how I want them to ” “ Our adversaries are in denial ” So it sounds like to me...... not only is she prone to being too forgiving of a certain someone, and that’s why she stays in a horrible situation in a horrible relationship... but that certain someone both gives insincere apologies... and denies that their actions are severe enough to be criticized.

Sound familiar? Maybe it sounds like the insincere apology of a certain mirror loving duderino who insulted his daughter’s ankles and promptly excused himself for having a brain that likes fixing mistakes without ever taking back what he said? And then promptly said this habit of his was uhhhh

“ That’s just a part of my journey, yknow? I’m like a tiny growing thing.” “ Everybody’s so mad at me, like, i’m growing though-- why be so negative? Why do people look at me-- like you probably are right now?” Feign innocence, empty promises to improve, reflect all attempts to convey that you’ve hurt someone? All without even being asked about it, btw lmao? It sounds like someone has something they should be apologizing for... ( You’ll also notice all the 3 adults have a way of talking as if speaking in general terms-- like they’re talking about everybody in the whole world or to an audience rather than to... a little girl they have a personal relationship with-- but i think that’s just expressing how disconnected and self interested they are. You kinda have to read between the lines to get what they’re saying. )

ANYWAYS this is all my take on it, at least ! Hope it made sense!! If... any of you actually read all this junk lmao

#Opal #Hope #Wine Mom #Jack Stauber #lol just tell me TL;DR i will understand #mail time !!#Anonymous

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bitchoftheclouds · 4 years

Text

Songs that make me think of a relationship with the Obey Me! brothers (Part 1)

Hey guys! So these are just songs that make me imagine a relationship with each of the brothers. I came up with this concept AGES ago but I finally started working on it. I give like detailed lyric by lyric explanation of why I think so with specific lyrics from the songs. Written from a gn!reader perspective, even if the songs reference a specific gender. Hope you guys like it ♥

DISCLAIMER: this only includes SATAN, ASMO, LUCIFER AND MAMMON. Beel, Belphie and Levi I am still working on, so I will make a PART 2 some time later and add them too! I was really excited to post it so I figured I would just share the ones I have already finished so far :)

Songs/descriptions after the cut!

Satan: Take Me to Church by Hozier

This song just instantly struck me as a Satan/MC song when I was listening to it. It just sorta seems to me to be from Satan’s POV. It’s how he views MC as this beautiful person who’s charming, funny and all around heavenly to him.

my lover’s got humour she’s the giggle at a funeral

This just refers to how Satan feels like MC has a way to make everything around them lively and to make him smile/laugh. There’s not much that can break through Satan’s shell or spark his interest. But when MC is around him, he feels like he can breathe, he can laugh.

knows everybody’s disapproval should have worshipped her sooner

This line to me seems like Satan sees himself as a monster but MC doesn’t see/care about any of that. MC doesn’t care what anyone thinks of their relationship. They don’t care about anyone’s whispering or judgement/disapproval. He says he should have “worshipped her sooner” because he feels as though it took him too long to appreciate MC. He saw all his brothers slowly falling for them but until MC worked to fight for his relationship with Lucifer, he never truly saw their spark. And now that he sees it, he wishes he had noticed them earlier.

if the heavens ever did speak she’s the last true mouth piece

Satan is a demon. He is wrath. He was literally born out of Lucifer’s anger. He does not understand the concept of Heaven. He knows it exists physically (his brothers were angels, and the Celestial Realm exists.) He was never an angel the way his brothers were. All he knows is his anger. But MC makes him have faith in Heaven. He believes a creature as beautiful as them, who is as selfless as them, and says the things that they do would surely be created by the Heavens. He sees her as the only true representation of Heaven and all that is pure to him.

the only heaven i’ll be sent to is when i’m alone with you

This is sort of similar to the paragraph above. It’s just Satan talking about how he feels at peace when he is with MC. When he is alone with them, he feels like the weight of his wrath is lifted off his shoulders. He feels free. He doesn’t have to hide himself behind a mask. He can be himself when he is with her, without having to pretend as he does for the rest of the world.

take me to church i’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies

This is just his promise that he will worship MC to their entirety. He will love them, their body, their soul.

i’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife

As I said before, he views himself as a monster. But with MC he feels like he can be open, be honest. He doesn’t have to hide the side of himself that scares him. He can tell MC his “sins”. He knows he can trust her with his heart, his truth.

offer me that deathless death

Satan views love as a “deathless death”. Because he views his love for MC as so strong it’s like a kind of death of his old self. He does not physically “die” but his love for MC is so strong that it’s killed him (in a beautiful way, not a harmful way.)

good god, let me give you my life

he wants to give MC everything, his whole life, his existence. everything.

Asmo: I Wanna Be Yours by Arctic Monkeys

@amsodeus @ireallyreallyloveasmo @asmodeusbby i hope my fellow asmo fans approve of this ♥

I just love this song for Asmo/MC. It seems to me from Asmo’s POV. He does not completely understand the concept of “love” that is so strong for another person. All he knows is that he wants to be MC’s, he wants to belong to them. He wants to be the only one who is MC’s.

i wanna be your Ford Cortina i will never rust

Here Asmo is trying to say that his love for them is everlasting. It could also be a reference to his beauty, cause it is Asmo. He wants to offer MC everything they could want in a partner. An endless, unconditional love. Asmo is scared, insecure about confessing his love to MC because he has never loved someone like this and is scared of being rejected. He tries to tell them “he will never rust”. He wants them to know that his beauty won’t ever fade. He is scared to be rejected so tries to use his beauty as another reason why MC should accept him, if his love is not enough. :(

if you like your coffee hot let me be your coffee pot

He wants to offer MC everything he has. It’s a metaphor, kinda like saying: “if MC likes coffee, I won’t just offer them a cup, but the whole ass pot”. He wants them to know he is willing to give his whole self to them.

you call the shots, babe i just wanna be yours

He doesn’t mind having MC in charge. He is almost clueless with this kind of love. He wants MC to lead him, to teach him that he can be loved and how he can love them. He just wants to be theirs. Maybe in a NSFW sense it can also be like Asmo offering himself as a submissive. To serve MC in the bedroom. For them to call the shots, and him to give them anything they please.

secrets I have held in my heart are harder to hide than I thought maybe I just wanna be yours

Asmo’s insecurities are his secret. He always tries to act as though he loves himself and that everything is simply perfect in his life. But this is untrue. He always felt empty. Until he met MC. They changed something in him, in his heart. He has spent so long hiding how he feels, and MC sees right through him. Another reason he loves MC, cause they can always see through his walls. And LORD this man has built hella walls around his heart. HE JUST WANTS TO BE THEIRS. He doesn’t want to share with anyone else, including his brothers. He wants to be MC’s one and only.

i wanna be your setting lotion (wanna be) hold your hair in deep devotion (how deep?) at least as deep as the Pacific Ocean i wanna be yours

As I mentioned earlier, Asmo wants to offer his entire being to MC. Again emphasizing the point: he wants to be MC’s, he wants to belong to them. He will love them and attend to their needs with devotion as deep as the Pacific Ocean. His past as a player is irrelevant to him now. He wants to devote his entire life to MC and only MC. And he wants MC to feel the same for him as he does for them.

Lucifer: Halo by Beyoncé

I definitely see this mostly from Lucifer’s POV. It just seems to work so well for me. It’s Lucifer giving into his feelings for MC. His shell is being broken and no matter how hard he tries to write it off, he can’t anymore. He loves MC and they have touched a part of him that no one ever has before.

remember those walls I built? well, baby, they're tumblin' down and they didn't even put up a fight they didn't even make a sound

He has had walls built around his heart ever since the fall and losing Lillith. He is scared to open up his heart again. He is scared to feel that kind of a loss again. He fears that if he tries to love again, it will destroy him, so he deflects. He avoids his feelings. But ever since MC entered his life, they are beginning to break down. Slowly but surely. He didn’t even notice it at first. It was so sudden. MC caught him off guard. He would have never imagined the exchange student from the human world would even matter to him, let alone have this kind of an effect on him. The walls around his heart have stopped fighting. They are breaking down because MC is breaking through them with their love.

i found a way to let you in but I never really had a doubt standin' in the light of your halo i got my angel now

At first he was skeptical, afraid, un-trusting. But with time, he began to give into his feelings. MC switched something on in him that hadn’t been on in a long time. They made him desire to feel something again. To love. To be loved. He devoted his whole life to Diavolo so he could avoid his emotions and only care to serve him. But suddenly that wasn’t the only thing that mattered anymore. He doesn’t even feel surprised. A part of him saw this coming, even though it did catch him by surprise at the start. Something about MC always struck him as different. He sees them as his angel. Their light shines on him and forces him to open up. To be true to them and to himself. He is done hiding. He has MC now and all his worries seem to melt away.

it's like I've been awakened every rule I had you breakin' it's the risk that I'm takin' i ain't never gonna shut you out

Like I said before, MC brought back a part of him that had been gone for so long. That part has been “awakened” within him. He created a set of rules for himself so he can prevent getting hurt in love again. But ever since MC arrived, he feels himself breaking all those rules. For them. He is letting MC in. He can’t fight their influence. He knows it’s a risk but he no longer cares. All he can feel is his love for MC. He will no longer shut them out. He knows his heart is safe with them. He knows they love him the way that they love him. He no longer is afraid of them breaking his walls. If anything, he welcomes it now. He feels safe with them emotionally. Something he hasn’t felt in a long, long time.

everywhere I'm lookin' now i'm surrounded by your embrace baby, I can see your halo you know you're my savin' grace

Everywhere he turns, he feels MC’s love. They have become his whole life. His reason to wake up in the morning. Their love keeps him going. He is surrounded by their essence. Their body, their soul, they whole being, it’s all that matters to him, all he ever sees. They are all he sees in a crowded room. He can see their “halo”. Their light, their positive influence on him, and even on his brothers. On his family. They are his “saving grace”. Saving him from himself. From his own fears. His own insecurities. Saving him from a life without love.

you're everything I need and more it's written all over your face baby, I can feel your halo pray it won't fade away

MC is all he needs. Even more. MC is his love, his life, his breath. He can see it on their face. They feel it too. Their love is pure, unconditional. They’re both hopelessly devoted to one another. They have opened their hearts to one another. He can feel their love, their influence. And for the first time since he fell, he feels himself praying. Praying that this never goes away. That he never loses MC. He wants this to last forever. It’s all he’s ever wanted.

Mammon: Unconditionally by Katy Perry

This song worked so well for Mammon/MC according to me cause it’s all about accepting someone completely, flaws and all, because that’s just how much you love them.

all your insecurities all the dirty laundry never made me blink one time

I love this part for them specifically. Cause as we know Mammon is a really insecure dude even though he tries to hide it. His brothers always go at him and he’s always worried MC will leave him for one of his brothers, always saying that he’s her “first” and she should come to him before anyone else. And like the “dirty laundry” part is that, sometimes Mammon does questionable things like stealing his brother’s things to sell them off for money but MC doesn’t care. MC knows that’s who Mammon is and they love Mammon as he is.

so come just as you are to me don't need apologies know that you are worthy

MC does not want Mammon to hide behind his mask. He tries to act as though he does not care and is unaffected by all these strong feelings. MC wants him to come to them “just as he is”. MC wants to see the real Mammon. They want him to feel like he can be himself with them. MC does not want him to apologize for who he is. MC just wants him to know that they love him for who he is. MC wants them to know that he IS worthy. No matter what his brothers, or anyone else says. MC knows Mammon puts on a strong face but he is truly hurt by what his brothers say, and he might feel “worthless” or like he is “scum”. MC wants him to know this is bullshit. HE IS WORTHY.

acceptance is they key to be to be truly free will you do the same for me?

MC completely embraces Mammon as he is, and accepts him. Being in love with Mammon makes MC feel free. The last line could be MC asking if Mammon would do the same for them. Love them unconditionally the way that they love him. Mammon of course would love them unconditionally. He always has. MC is everything to him and he accepts all their quirks, and actually loves all of them.

and there is no fear now let go and just be free cause i will love you unconditionally

These lines just appear to me to come from MC’s POV to Mammon. They tell him not to be afraid. There is no reason to be. They will never leave Mammon. They will always choose him. They will love him unconditionally. He does not have to constantly remind them that he is their first. Because they already know this. It is ingrained in their heart. Mammon IS their first. And that will never change. Mammon does not have to be afraid that anything between them will change.

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willowaudreykeyes · 4 years

Text

Okay: I’ve watched it 4 times and here’s the things about the episode that I find interesting. Or that I’m looking too much into. You guys can all decide because idk.

- Roman seems to make alliterations when he's shocked? He's done it before, but now he's done it again and when he's surprised that Thomas 'lied' or 'tricked' the ticket person.

- Virgil has resting disappointed face even as he eats popcorn.

- Roman is very dramatic about the age thing. "He's in his thirties, he may as well be in his sixties." "Can't think of new excuses quick enough in his old age."

- "I love you" is very big words. Do not use them, or forget them, lightly around Virgil.

- Have they always been on his back so much about lying, or was it only after Janus was introduced?

- Possibility: Romans eyes actually change into hearts when cute guy appears?

- Also: Roman goes into Shakespearean when cute guy appears.

- Roman is so optimistic when it comes to love! But not about other Sides? He's rather pessimistic when it came to Virge (at the beginning) and Janus. And kinda Remus too.

- Roman has used "We don't know if he's not gay" more times then the three can count.

- Pins equals introverts way of talking apparently. I guess that makes sense, since there’s pins for almost every kind of hobby, and Virgil knows this too.

- Roman sounds rather happy when they found out that Nico likes Paramore. Supporting his emo friend and his hobbies right there.

- “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is and will always be a Prinxiety thing. Did you see those star eyes Roman gave? And how happy-surprised Virge was?

- Virgil does think about romance too. “You can live like Jack and Sally, if you want.” Kind of cute.

- Virgil has eyes like a damn hawk. He saw those pins and went full on x10 zoom on them.

- Roman’s got some adorable music happening when more clues appear.

- Sticker/Button System must be followed or Virge no happy.

- Roman is almost as good as Patton with puns, except he has to explain it. Has he done that before? I feel like he has. I feel like this is a thing but I’m not sure.

- Roman and Virgil have about the same wavelength when it came to the creepy stalking-ish part. They both cringe when Thomas goes off to the side.

- If you use a word at the end of a sentence that sounds like a name at Roman, he thinks you got his name wrong. He did it at some other point I can’t remember when but he does this. Kind of feels like a autism and/or ADHD trait? (I know I for sure get confused sometimes)

- “Great... he’s gay” “Great indeed...” “GREAT INDEED” I love them. Just gonna say that again.

- Roman has this big thing about his name and it doesn’t seem like its a thing he’s faking? He seems genuinely confused. The one that’s two above mentions it, and the way he spelt it at the trial? And how he seemed very defensive when Janus spelt it wrong? This is a thing.

- Virgil is a self-proclaimed expert of anti-social etiquette and I say he deserves that title.

- Virgil also really likes non-verbal ways of communicating.

- Roman does the thing where you put your two pointer fingers together and its adorable.

- Fast head nod of agreement coming from Roman here. Over dramticness? Or actual quirk?

- Roman very much freaks out when flirting goes wrong. Not just a Virgil thing.

- Virgil be scaring Thomas with zero regrets when he lost his test that the Universe gave him.

- Virgil be very glad to admit when he’s panicking. He also has admitted when he’s anxious in the past. He knows it, acknowledges it, makes Thomas and the others deal with it because dealing with it isn’t in the job description.

- Roman’s fine with compromise! Virgil gives an idea that attempts to help the romance part, Roman’s not 100% happy but rolls with it. Besties right here (even if they don’t know it). He does have a limit though.

- Nicknames are forever with Roman.

- Virgil is on Thomas’ left side, the more ‘thinky’ side of the brain. Roman is on the right, the more ‘feely’ side of the brain. It’s kind of more obvious in the scene where they grab Thomas a lot.

- Roman really slips with his feelings when he’s stressed. He says stuff that’s usually more about his self-worth. “You’re making a mistake.” “If I am, I’ll add it to the list.” That was said under a lot of stress and frustration. He’s done it before and he’s done it again; except now they don’t address it and it’s just a passing sentence.

- pLaNt

- Virgil would rather embarrass Thomas by making him talk to a stranger, instead of the guy that he thinks is cute? I mean, its very embarrassing by the end of it and Virge barely seems affected by it.

- And now Virgil is compromising. He works with Roman to make sure that Thomas looks okay (the “check your teeth” line).

- idk wtf the sty’s thing is about. Weirdly placed anxiety over it? Or something?

- Roman is very impulsive and basically throws Thomas into the trash can when a bad thing happens in front of a lot of people. Ego was definitely hurt there. Why hide instead of run away? Did Virgil sorta influence that?

- Plans help anxiety. Pretty sure they’ve covered that topic before, but lets just do a recap in this I guess.

- Virgil is half the people on this platform “Cyberstalking... but real life”. I mean, everyone makes a metaphor that has an actual word behind it sometimes.

- “Try Speaking from the heart” ... I expected Patton, but there has been moments before where a Side who is expected to be there, isn’t there. Logan showed this in “Moving On” when he physically left but he never REALLY left. Patton showing up to add his own words to this may have been too much for him? Or he thought it would be for the others?

- Ah crap here’s the monologue-

- First off, it’s very honest. Full on honesty. With no holding back. And it really hit the feels; but is it realistic though? (Genuinely asking I’ve never been in that kind of situation)

- Very rambly too “I honestly don’t know what I’m doing at the mall today. I don’t know what I was looking for... I guess that answers my question- The mall is where you go when you want something but you don’t know what it is because the mall has everything.” Very rambly, very nervous, very honest.

- Roman and Virgil are very... in awe? Shocked? What is this? Roman looks so contemplative as he looks at himself in the mirror and I wanna be in his brain and know what he’s thinking.

- “I don’t know a lot about anything. Least of all, myself.” Okay, Janus just pulled all the way away for a full minute and forty-eight seconds (this is 99% accurate) to just let Thomas talk and feel didn’t he? This is just complete honesty.

- Anyone would be awkward with the guy coming out of that stall. I’m awkward thinking about it and seeing it again. Moving on-

- “I gotta stop wooing strangers in bathrooms” just a 3000 word fic of at least one other time that he’s done this and I will be yours forever

- Virgil is a dramatic emo who dislikes lying. Crossed arms, waiting outside for him, looks up when he says “you know what I meant”- They’re all part of an actor your at least a LITTLE dramatic.

- Virgil has a big thing about lies and relationships. This has to do with him and Janus’ relationship somehow- It’s about Thomas’ relationships with friends and his romantic life too. He didn’t seem as annoyed about them in the ‘Lies’ song way back when which didn’t mention lying about any type of relationship.

- “Can’t have true love if the relationship isn’t built on truth.” Is this what he was thinking about in the bathroom? Its a cute line either way.

- Okay, Roman and Janus have some kind of... something. Cause a lot of Roman’s talks about his goals for Thomas pushes Thomas into relying on Janus until Roman realises that it’s morally bad OR (as seen in the talk after the bathroom scene) when he realises that it’ll be bad for Thomas in the long run.

- “Will (D)deceit continue to be the answer to all of your problems? Is that fair to him?” HIM WHO!? Janus or Nico!? Both!? AHHHH! This could mean so much in any direction you throw it but I can’t find the dang words!! “No, he’s better off without me.” This could just be Thomas misunderstanding the ‘him’ Virgil means too or he does understand idk-

- “I was afraid you left!” *INSERT TWO SIDES SCREAMING HERE* Hahaha he’s literally screaming on the inside omg-

- “He fears things too!?” Virgil doesn’t understand how people work when he’s worked up. Duly noted.

- Roman and Virgil equals A Gay Panic

- Thomas’ first thought when panicked is to ask the guy, that he thinks is cute and has been trying to get the attention of for the last while, ‘what is wrong with you?’ ... 10/10 Thomathy

- .Roman seems... a little resigned that another ‘chance at happiness’ is walking away? I mean, he’s super sad but resigned to his fate. That’s sad as hell. He’s USED TO THIS and I don’t like that 😢

- Virgil’s scene where he looks between, NOT Thomas, but Nico and Roman, is really well done and filled with... a lot. He psyches himself up first of, taking in quick breaths before pushing Thomas, obviously afraid but still doing it anyway. And the look he gives a very resigned Roman looks like its both guilt and sadness. Could just be me thinking that he has a ‘this is my fault’ thing.

- Full on surprise on Roman’s face when Virgil pushes Thomas. No one was expecting that.

- Carrots. The carrots brought them together. Thomas... you don’t have to eat carrots, but at least say ONCE that they aren’t all bad.

- “I like songs” you’ve also written some and sung x5 as many but okay, go with that I guess. (Is this to not brag about being a singer right away? I guess so?)

- If Nico was writing about something that happened midway through his visit to the food court, what was he writing about before that? Did he have nothing until Thomas tripped over the bin?

- “I tend to waste a lot of opportunities in my life” Then cuts to Virgil. Ouch. Direct hit on Virge...

- BRAVERY. (i’ll get back to this-)

- “Shut up, emo.” No complicated nicknames; just the easy picking. Very cute. Very yes. Roman your a sap and its great.

- When Thomas is telling Roman to ‘get out’, he sinks down and is he biting his thumb? He’s still excited. And I’m adding ‘biting’ to his list of stims.

- Virgil claps his hands. Roman and Virgil both cover their mouths. Both yell. Manic hand movements. Virgil gets Thomas to walks around and flappy hands. (And the nervous pee too I guess?)

- OKAY. EYESHADOW. Big thing, also new. I believe that it may be him ‘growing’ as a Side. First, he believed that he was JUST Thomas’ anxiety. Then comes to term with being more then that, which helps him become a ‘Light Side’. And now, he’s learnt that ‘fear’ and ‘bravery’ can both be present at the same time and is now growing from that as well. So, his back and forth between black and purple could mean a back and forth of the ‘fear’ and ‘bravery’ aspects. Thomas about to send a bad tweet? Black. Optimistic about things ‘never being the same again’? Purple. Thomas bringing up that they just met? Black. Its a promising start? Purple again. Purple when something optimistic, its purple. Pessimistic, its black. There’s a thing happening there.

- And also, lots of smiley Virgil when he goes purple. Brave enough to smile? Or optimistic enough to be truly happy about it?

- “Join me! No thinking!” Okay, all the ‘Roman Himbo’ stans have already gone nuts over this so I’ll keep going XD

- Roman’s first date idea is to go to France immediately and I love him for being so honestly over-the-top

- Dogs are the demons of anxiety its now a fact. They even bring out the Tempest Tongue, despite hearing the dog “thirty times a day”.

- Do not tell Virgil to relax. Black eyeshadow. Very on brand tbh. He does not relax and you should know this by now Roman.

All in all; I love them and the entire episode ❤️ 🧡 💛 💚 💙 💜

#ts spoilers #sanders sides spoilers #sanders asides spoilers #roman sanders #virgil sanders #roman headcanons #virgil headcanons #i guess?#tw caps #willowkeyes for reference #willowkeyes rants #*throws at Tumblr* imma go rb art now

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 years

Text

But You Can Never Leave [Chapter 9: Follow The Rules]

Hi y’all, I hope you are all doing well 💜

Chapter summary: Veronica has some questions, Roger has a plan, John has a short temper.

This series is a work of fiction, and is (very) loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

Song inspiration: Hotel California by The Eagles.

Chapter warnings: Language, medical stuff, pregnancy.

Chapter list (and all my writing) available HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @loveandbeloved29 @killer-queen-xo @maggieroseevans @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @joemazzmatazz @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye @namelesslosers @inthegardensofourminds @deacyblues @youngpastafanmug @sleepretreat @hardyshoe @bramblesforbreakfast @sevenseasofcats @tensecondvacation @bookandband @queen-crue @jennyggggrrr @madeinheavxn @whatgoeson-itslate @brianssixpence @simonedk @herewegoagainniall @stardust-killer-queen

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! :)

At the wedding, Roger is wearing a cast on his right arm and a dazzling smile...and a white suit that he looks criminally good in.

John is in black, Brian in blue, Freddie in maroon-colored velvet and heavy eyeliner. Veronica’s dress is high-waisted and falls in huge, billowing, shapeless ruffles to hide her silhouette. Her family knows, of course—it’s written all over the tense, grim lines of their mouths and the blades their pale eyes hurl at John—but none of those strict Catholics are going to mention an out-of-wedlock pregnancy in God’s house, nor at the modest reception in the church basement that follows the ceremony.

Veronica’s mother and aunts and sisters are just like her, docile and milky-skinned and small-boned, and you’ve helped them deck the vast room with enough flowers, ribbons, candles, and balloons to make everyone forget this event was thrown together in five weeks and on a shoestring budget. There’s a simple buffet with pot roast and potatoes and vegetables, a live band (some of John’s old friends from high school), and a homemade Polish honey cake baked by Veronica’s grandmother situated regally on a china serving dish. Veronica and John cycle through the tables of guests, smiling and nodding and thanking them for coming, dutifully and yet also seemingly genuinely cheerful.

“The boning is bloody impaling me,” Chrissie murmurs as she tugs at the bodice of her gown. It’s satin and a muted pink, just like yours and Mary’s and Veronica’s sisters’. “If I happen die, wrap me in one of those nice tablecloths I paid for and throw me in a ditch somewhere, will you love?”

“You got it.” You stab a piece of potato with your fork. “This should inspire you to be especially compassionate towards your own bridesmaids! Maybe no horrid shiny green.”

Brian chuckles. “Good luck with that.”

“Are you comfortable?!” Chrissie asks Mary, exasperated, fanning herself with a wedding program.

“I am,” Mary admits cautiously. “But...well...at the moment, I think my dress is a bit...roomier.”

Chrissie moans, dropping her face into her hands. “I always gain when the students go home for summer. My routine is wrecked, all I want to do is read Glamour magazines and listen to records, it’s too damn hot to go walking...and I adore ice cream.”

“I like you just fine,” Brian reassures her.

Freddie snickers as he taps his cigarette against an ashtray. “Yes, we’re all well aware of your anatomical preferences, Bri.”

Chrissie rolls her eyes. “Please do not elaborate.” She’s not offended—she’s far too used to Freddie’s shenanigans to be offended—but she’ll be embarrassed if he makes a scene at a wedding.

“Darling, I don’t care what anyone tries to tell you, plenty of men love a little extra meat on the bones. Particularly the ass bones.”

“We’re in God’s house!” you scold him in a hiss. “You’re going to give Great Aunt Zofia over there an aneurysm if she hears you!”

Roger quips: “Great Aunt Zofia stole the last kielbasa right out of my disabled, ineffectual grasp, so fuck her.”

You all burst into shocked, uncontrollable laughter. Great Aunt Zofia squints judgmentally at the commotion from several tables away, gnawing on her kielbasa; she’s been glaring at John and Veronica—the Tetzlaffs’ very own fallen angel—since she first ambled into the church. Roger rocks back in his chair, smoking with his unbroken left arm, smirking cockily and basking in the distraction from the real world that the wedding has gifted you all tonight. He catches you watching him—marveling at him, truthfully—and winks.

John appears and rests his hands on the back of your chair. “What’s so amusing? I swear, I leave you people alone for two hours and you’re having all sorts of fun without me, I won’t stand for it!”

“It was a lovely ceremony,” you tell him. “I’d forgotten how beautiful Catholic weddings are, all the music and ambiance.”

“And from what I saw, you knew most of the words.”

“We have a lot of Irish people in Boston. Saint Patrick’s Day is bigger than Christmas.”

John points at Roger’s cast. “It’s not paining you too much, is it?”

Roger holds his Dark ‘n Stormy aloft, and ice clinks in the misted glass. “Enough of these, and I can’t feel anything. Numb to the world’s many disappointments. I highly recommend it.”

“Noted,” John replies. Roger has pills for his arm, but they only take the edge off. You don’t know that because he’s told you; Roger never tells you that he’s hurting, that he’s frustrated, that he’s afraid. He wears grins and flippant humor like a second skin, shrouding his wounds—both physical and disembodied, old and new—in darkness. Still...you can see all those words he doesn’t say swimming in the depths of his eyes. “I think I’ll hunt down a Manhattan myself.”

“Dad made an impression!” you tell John enthusiastically. “I’ll have to let him know, he’ll be overjoyed.”

“He mixes a good one, that’s for sure. I doubt Cousin Bartosz will be able to compare.” He casts a glance at a perplexed-looking, flame-haired teenager manning a tiny wet bar.

“Booze won’t help you heal,” Freddie informs Roger, checking his reflection in Mary’s makeup compact and fluffing his lustrous hair. “Eat your vegetables. Get more sleep. When do you start physical therapy, again?” Then, to you: “Darling, when does Roger start his therapy?”

Roger sighs. “I’ve got it handled, Fred.”

“Dear, don’t have a fit, I just want to make sure you’ll be ready—”

“I’ve got it handled,” Roger repeats, his tone a warning.

Brian breaks the tension with a toast, his Vesper jangling against Roger’s Dark ‘n Stormy. “I’m thrilled, honestly. Now I’m not the only one who’s ruined a tour.”

Roger grimaces. “Thanks, Bri.”

“Yes, let’s all have a turn,” Freddie mutters, sipping champagne. “Deaky can electrocute himself while fiddling with his amp, and then I’ll...what? Have my foot chewed off by an alligator in New Orleans? Get gored by a wild boar outside Atlanta? It just can’t be a boring maiming, that’s my only request.”

“Alaska has grizzlies, huge ones,” Brian suggests.

“Darling, in what dimension would my luxurious self ever end up in fucking Alaska?”

You shake your head, frowning down into your wine glass. It’s June now, the dead center of a crestfallen year: the rest of the Sheer Heart Attack Tour is cancelled, the record company is furious, and the band is broker than ever. Queen is supposed to start recording their next album—their last album, the record company insists, unless it happens to be a runaway success—in July, but you don’t know if Roger’s arm will be healed in time. None of you know that. You wonder if this really is God’s house, or at least one of his homes, sanctified piles of bricks and glass scattered across the globe; maybe you could ask Him where Queen’s future lies.

Veronica swoops in and dusts an airy kiss onto Mary’s cheek, and then Chrissie’s, and then yours. “Thank you so much,” she gushes. Her high cheekbones are flushed, her watery eyes sparkling. She’s in heaven, sinner or not. Her massive white dress swishes with every step. “We couldn’t have done it without you. And you’re next, Chris! I can’t wait.”

Chrissie smiles. She and Brian are getting married just before Christmas. “Yes, well, time will tell if we’ll be serving Christmas ham or canned beans.”

“And then Mary...” Veronica’s gaze migrates across the table. Mary’s been wearing a ring on her wedding finger since Queen returned from Japan, a simple gold band that once belonged to Freddie’s mother. “What about you, Y/N? Any plans? Then we’d all be hitched!”

Red wine spurts from your lips and you fumble for a cloth napkin. Roger doesn’t believe in marriage, and neither do you; not after only four months together, anyway. And yet...is there some part of you that can’t help but think of papers and rings when you get lost in his eyes, of promises of forever, of some way to tie yourself to him like vessels to a heart? Sure; and that’s a little wonderful, that’s a little terrifying. “Uh, uh, oh, oh no, definitely no plans whatsoever.”

“What bollocks!” Rog sneers. “Really, what’s the point if you’re not religious? Who needs a bloody piece of paper to prove they love someone?! ‘I care for you so much I need the government to know we’re together and the hassle of divorce fees to make me stay,’ what the fuck. I mean, uh, no offense John, Bri, uh...this is all well and good for you, but...ah...”

“It’s just not your scene. That’s fine, Rog,” Freddie says with a tad too much empathy. Mary doesn’t seem to notice.

“But you’ll want children at some point, won’t you?” Veronica asks you, almost pained. She’s not trying to be cruel, you realize; she genuinely can’t fathom the pinnacle of a woman’s life as anything but being a wife and mother.

“Theoretically, sure. One day. Eventually.” You titter nervously. Roger’s good arm circles your shoulders, his cigarette lofting smoke. Oh, but wouldn’t he make beautiful children? You push that thought away. It’s too soon, it’s too much, it’s not in the cards for an impoverished maybe-drummer and his girlfriend; and a girlfriend—with all the intangibility and impermanence that title entails—is all I’ll ever be. “I think I need to travel the world a bit more first.”

John sighs and pats the back of Veronica’s hand. What is that weight in his voice...impatience? Annoyance? “Ronnie, please, don’t bother her.”

Veronica sulks, scraping the old scuffed linoleum floor with her pointy white heels. “I wasn’t trying to bother anyone...”

Mary comes to the rescue: “No, of course not. You didn’t, dear.” She likes Veronica more than Chrissie does. Isn’t she oppressively vapid? Chrissie has asked you more than once. Isn’t she so miserably naïve? Veronica is sweet, sure, but she has no fucking idea what she’s in for. “Babies are wonderful, but they do make things harder, don’t you think? Especially for the mother. You have to be ready to drop everything for them. All your other interests and aspirations.”

“I suppose,” Veronica mumbles. You can tell she’s thinking: What other aspirations?

“But you must be so excited!” You beam up at Veronica. It’s her wedding day, and John’s; it should be happy, it should be optimistic. And you’re learning to like Veronica—less than Mary, but more than Chris—because you know that’s the best thing for John.

She instinctively rests her hand on the swell of her belly; or, rather, where it must be somewhere beneath all those heaps of satin and tulle. Great Aunt Zofia’s glare intensifies. “I’m scared to death, to tell you the truth.”

“Why?!” Mary cries.

“I’m so afraid something will happen to him.” Veronica’s voice is soft, her blue eyes glassy. She’s certain the baby is a boy, claims she had some sort of dream about it. “There’s a lot of bad luck going around for us, isn’t there? And my mother lost four babies. Any time he stops moving, I worry constantly until my next appointment. I haven’t felt anything in days, and I just...I just...” She trails off, staring vacantly across the crowded church basement. She’s trying not to cry, you realize.

“I can try to check for you,” you offer. “If it would make you feel better.”

“Really?” Veronica sounds hopeful, but guardedly so.

“This is embarrassing, but I carry my nurse kit almost everywhere I go now. That’s why I brought my huge blue purse even though it doesn’t match the dress. You know, you can’t be too careful...”

“Yes, who knows when someone will try something idiotic like jogging backwards down the stairs?” Freddie muses. Roger lobs a pierogi at him. Great Aunt Zofia wheezes out a disgusted huff and crosses her veiny, wrinkled arms over her sagging chest.

“I have a stethoscope,” you continue. “I can’t guarantee I’ll find a heartbeat, but I’ll give it a try if that would help.”

“Would you, Y/N?” Veronica clutches for John’s hand, and he lets her take it without any resistance; but he doesn’t seem to know how to comfort her. He has the same dazed look on his face that he has a lot these days, the same look that Bri and Freddie sometimes get: like they’re on autopilot, like they’re actively filtering through brainwaves to fish out any that wander astray. Roger lands a kiss on your bare shoulder and pitches you a playful smirk, his I’m so proud of my too-fucking-smart girlfriend smirk.

You grab your purse from beneath the table. “Does God’s house have a cozy private spot somewhere?”

Veronica leads you, Mary, and Chrissie to a small unoccupied room that is used (how pertinently) as the church nursery. The pink wallpaper is dotted with waddling ducklings, cloud-shaped sheep leaping over fences, smiling suns and winged cartoonish angels. Veronica settles into a faded blue couch, and Mary and Chris help her shove aside the massive plumes of her wedding dress to reveal the plain shift she’s wearing underneath. She’s over five months along now, and her entirely unremarkable bump seems colossal on her delicate frame.

You pop the headset into your ears and press the chestpiece against Veronica’s unyielding belly, gliding it over the pearly shift as you try different positions.

“Anything?” Mary asks anxiously.

“It’s not bloody instant, Mary!” Chrissie snaps. “Be quiet so she can listen.”

“No need to be cranky—”

“You can’t find a heartbeat, can you?” Veronica says, her voice quivering. “Oh god...”

“Found it,” you announce. You hold the chestpiece in place as you yank the headset off and pass it to Veronica.

She gapes at you. “You’re just saying that so I’ll stop worrying, aren’t you?”

“Hear for yourself.”

Veronica takes the headset and listens, closing her eyes as the rapid-fire and rhythmic swishing of her child’s heartbeat floods through her ears. “Oh,” she breathes, beaming. “There he is.”

“That’s incredible!” Mary trills. “Can I hear too, Veronica? Whenever you’re finished...”

Mary listens, and Chrissie does too, and then you all help touch up Veronica’s hair and makeup before you head back to the reception. The cake is due to be cut in twelve minutes. As you smooth the short train on her dress, Veronica turns back to you.

“Do you think I’m a bad person?” she asks timidly, hugging her belly. “You know...for this.”

“That’s something I’ve always liked about nursing. So many jobs require sorting out who’s right and wrong, casting judgment, assigning punishment. There’s no weighing of the moral scales in medicine. It doesn’t matter if a patient is trustworthy, deceitful, good, bad, worthy, undeserving, if they disappoint you, if they’re the ones who hurt themselves. You treat everyone, you heal everyone. And I would like to keep that part of myself for as long as I can.” You smile at Veronica. “But, for the record, no. I don’t think you’re a bad person at all.”

She sighs in relief, untethering an anchor she hadn’t even known she’d been dragging around by her throat. “Thank you,” she whispers, tears snaking down her powdered ivory cheeks.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Come on.”

“How do you feel about marble lion statues? You know, the ones at the end of long, winding driveways. Rich people’s driveways. Mansion driveways. Or do you prefer gargoyles?”

“Roger.”

He groans, grins, presses his right fist into your palm. You measure the force with your mind, with your muscle memory. He’s stronger than he was yesterday, the day before, last week. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Rog teases. “You’ve got a soft spot for damaged people. Helpless people. That’s why you warmed to Brian so quickly. He was lying there all gaunt and jaundiced and terrified, and you just couldn’t resist, you just had to make sure all his wildest dreams came true.”

“I have a soft spot for self-destructive musicians who end up in hospitals, evidently.” Your gaze cruises over the scar on Roger’s forearm where the surgeons popped his bones back into place, stabilized them, stitched the ragged gore closed. You hate looking at it; you hate reminders of how mortal Roger really is.

“I want lions,” Rog decides. “For the driveway of our eventual mansion. I like the Leo connection.”

“And the Queen crest connection.”

His grin widens, toothy and radiant. “See, I knew you were the love of my life.”

“Come on. Again.”

He winces this time. “Doesn’t hurt a bit.”

“Uh huh. I bet.” You’ve slathered his fresh blisters with numbing antiseptic ointment, iced his arm, administered pain medicine, allowed him the constant sips of alcohol necessary for him to work, to drum, to sleep. But he still hurts. You imagine he hurts all the fucking time.

It’s August now, and Queen is recording their fourth album at Rockfield Farm. You and Roger are sitting by the pool as Freddie splashes around in the clear chlorine-smelling water trying to get John’s attention. John, meanwhile, is lounging on an inflatable raft, wearing black sunglasses and most likely asleep. Brian circles the pool snapping photos with your Canon F-1.

“I have a plan,” Roger informs you as he starts his stretches without prompting. He knows the drill, even if he likes to be difficult about it.

“By all means, enlighten me.”

“Fred’s thing, the weird one. It has a name now.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah. Bohemian Rhapsody.”

“Oh, it’s perfect!” You try to stay out of the band’s business decisions as much as possible; it’s not your expertise, and it’s not your place, and there are already a few too many creative chefs in that kitchen. Still, you love when they share their magic with you. “Eccentric, whimsical, exhilarating. Just like the song. Just like Queen.”

“I’m so glad you approve. We’re going to make sure it’s the first single off the album. And I know exactly what song’s going to be on the B-side. Freddie and Bri don’t know yet, but I do.”

“Sounds like they’re going to murder you when they find out.”

“I’ll convince them.” His grin is crafty, daring. “Picture it: you’ve just finished the incomparable experience that is Bohemian Rhapsody. You’re a newly converted Queen enthusiast. What could possibly come next? You flip the record over. And the virile, screeching, pure rock and roll passion of I’m In Love With My Car is there to greet you.”

“Oh my god, Roger.” You shake your head in mock mourning. “They actually are going to murder you.”

“Listen, love, BoRhap is going to be a hit. I can feel it.”

“Sure,” you agree lukewarmly. You want to be supportive, you really do. But disappointment stings more than resignation.

“It will be,” Roger maintains, unmovable. “And it’ll sell mountains and mountains of singles...and with my song on the B-side, I’ll get half the royalties. Which means we’ll get half the royalties.”

“Which is how we end up with the hypothetical mansion.”

“I’m being serious.” Roger picks up his mini barbell weights from the water-splattered concrete and begins his bicep curls, flinching each time he lifts his right fist.

“Rog—”

“I’m fine,” he insists. “I’m going to make this happen. I’m going to get rich so I can provide for my family. You know about that, you know it’s on my list. And my family includes you now.”

“I don’t need a mansion, Roger.” I just need you. You stare at his right arm worriedly. “Are you sure—?”

“I’m fine!” he shouts, and you recoil. Brian peers over from where he’s taking pictures of blooming purple foxgloves. Instantly, Roger regrets it. “I’m sorry,” he says, setting down the barbells and cradling your face with his rough, bandaged hands. “I have to be fine, you know? I don’t have a choice. If I can’t play, I can’t be in the band. If I leave, John will leave too, and that’ll be the end of everything. Or worse, John will break the pact and stay and they’ll find a new drummer and forget all about me. Sail off into some blissful new future. And where will I be? Moping as I drag myself back to dental school? Becoming a freaking lab biologist? Resigning myself to being some excruciatingly ordinary bloke, someone who climbed just far enough out of Cornwall to know everything he’s missing out on?”

You try to imagine who Roger would be without the band, but you can’t. You’ve never known a pre-Queen Roger. “No,” you say, amused. “You’ll never be just some ordinary bloke. You’re too brilliant, too determined. Even if you do have a dodgy arm.”

He kisses you, and you can feel his lips curling into a smile beneath yours. “So you’ll let me buy you a mansion.”

“If you get I’m In Love With My Car on the B-side, and BoRhap is a hit, and Freddie and Bri don’t smother you with a pillow in your sleep...yes, you can buy me a mansion. Buy us a mansion.”

He winks, his sapphire eyes glinting in the late-summer sunlight. “Watch out, baby. I get everything I want eventually.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s done,” John tells the others as he passes out copies of his new song, the second he’s ever written. There are only four sheets of crisp white paper; as you watch from the studio couch, you wonder what the song is about, why he didn’t mention it to you.

“It’s done?!” Brian yelps. “What do you mean, it’s done?! Nothing’s ever done after the first pass! That’s how it works, that’s how it always works, someone suggests something and then we all dice it and slice it and flip it around and stitch it back together like the world’s most maniacal surgeons, and then, only then, maybe, it’s done.”

You glance up from where you’re sewing an eleventh patch onto Roger’s jeans. “Must we disparage the medical profession?”

“Sorry, love,” Roger tosses to you with a laugh.

“It’s done,” John repeats.

“Deaky, darling,” Freddie ventures gently. “We should endeavor to keep our minds open to collaboration—”

“Oh, should we, Fred?!” Bri exclaims. “How extraordinary, you never seem to encourage collaboration when it’s your song on the cutting floor!”

“Okay space boy, you listen here—”

“‘I’m happy at home’?!” Roger reads, revolted. “We’re not the bloody Bee Gees, Deaks!”

John explains measuredly and patiently, as if to a child: “That’s the way it goes. We record it as it is or not at all.”

“That’s not how we do things,” Brian mutters, deep frown lines chiseled through his face as he scans the lyrics.

“Then just fill the album with your and Fred’s songs like you always do, I’m sure that’ll keep me and Roger loyal.”

Brian glares at John. John stares back stoically, his eyes like steel. Brian looks to Roger for support; Roger lights a cigarette and pretends not to notice.

“Darling, please, you’re not being reasonable!” Freddie pleads.

“I need it.” John turns to Roger now. “I need it to stay the way it is.”

Rog just watches him for a while, exhales smoke, shrugs. “Okay,” he says at last.

“Okay?!” Brian howls. “What do you mean, okay?!”

“He said he needs it,” Roger replies simply.

Bri throws his hands into the air. “Bleeding christ! ‘He needs it.’ What rubbish! Do something, Fred!”

“Oh relax, darling.” Freddie sashays to the microphone and points to Brian’s Red Special. “Let’s try it out.”

“But—!”

Roger claps Brian on the back as he trots by him towards the drum kit. “Come on, Bri. Big smiles. Just picture the nice shiny pounds from all those album sales plinking into your bank account. You’ll have fifty Christmas hams at the wedding, one for every guest.”

You listen passively from the couch as they rehearse, trying not to let on that you’re paying attention, trying not to overstep. But you can’t help being struck by the lyrics, feeling the somberness of Freddie’s voice and John’s tentative notes on the electric piano slink into your bones; because it sounds so familiar, because it echoes so many things that John has told you.

When Queen takes a mid-afternoon break and John slips into the kitchen for a Coke, you follow him.

“Hey John?”

“Yeah.” He rests his hands on the dining room table. They’re sturdy and unmarred and completely unlike Roger’s; and you aren’t sure why you notice this, but you do.

“I completely understand if I’m being intrusive, and if I am please just tell me to shut up and I will.”

He chuckles. “You’re never intrusive. Go ahead.”

“I was just wondering...who is You’re My Best Friend about?”

Now his smile evaporates. “No one in particular,” he says briskly. “It’s just a song. Just something to put on the album. Maybe a single one day. A soulless royalties grab.”

That seems unlikely. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He takes a swig of Coke, peers down at the table, traces swirls of centuries-old oak with his fingertips.

“It’s just...you know...well...it kind of sounded like...maybe it was about me.”

He looks up. And for the first time, John levels some of his infamous, razored words at you: “Don’t be such a fucking narcissist.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Two days later, John doesn’t apologize. But he smiles at you over tea, offers to clean off the fingerprints of strawberry jelly that Roger left on the Canon, splashes you from the pool as you sunbathe beneath lapis August skies. And you agree, wordlessly and unconditionally, to forgive him. Because John is your best friend, whether or not you’re still his.

Nine weeks later, Bohemian Rhapsody is released as a single. (And, as promised, Roger ensures that I’m In Love With My Car is on the B-side.)

Twelve weeks later, Bohemian Rhapsody reaches the #1 spot on the UK Singles Chart, and remains there for over two months.

Fifteen weeks later, A Night At The Opera becomes the #1 album in the UK.

Fifteen weeks later, Queen’s future is suddenly crystal clear.

#queen fic #roger taylor fic

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