#also really weird posting this to my side blog when my main blog/handle is different

[hinadori-chan]

We’ll Be Okay - Kintsugi

Keigo Takami/Reader

Description:

Depression is hard. And yet, just a little bit easier with someone else. Especially when that someone else knows exactly what you're going through.

In this one-shot, you follow your day as both you and Keigo help each other with your latest episodes. The two of you determined to see each other through the night, loved and intact.

Word Count: 8,759

Read it here!

[thesearemymonologues]

This is going to be my first post, so I may as well introduce myself. I'm Fronde, a long time Tumblr user, but not a very active one. I don't really post anything in my main account, I just reblog. I'm a 20-something human and English is my second language.

So, why did I open this blog?

I was reading a Young Adult novel in which the protagonist likes to write her thoughts in some kind of Tumblr-like social media. This reminded me of the many blogs I used to have while I was a teen and how much I miss writing daily. They were private (I only let my friends read them), but it was a nice excuse to ruminate about my dreams, about how I felt about life - the seasons, the books I read, the little things. The novel I was reading these days inspired me to come back to this hobby. I've never written in Tumblr, and I don't know if this will become a habit, but I feel excited to start this and I think that's beautiful enough to give it a try. I think it'll help me sort out my thoughts when they don't let me focus on my tasks and it'll be a good practice to write in English.

I didn't know how to call this blog, but while I was thinking about a handle my mind drifted to Taylor Swift's classic monologue song. So I found it fun to call these my monologues.

As of what you can expect here, I'm not really sure myself. These past blogs I talked about never had a theme other than me musing about anything I was interested in. I may talk about my hobbies, about experiences I like (visiting a new place, like a cafe, a cathedral, an archive), probably about things that aren't ever that important. This is going to be as random as your regular shower thoughts. I do want to try and be more creative with my prose, though I need to read a bit more in English and it'll take some time for me to become more skilled.

To be honest, I'm not really sure how should I tag these posts, or if there's a community of similar blogs. I suppose this isn't really different from a personal blog, but it's more focused on writing my own stuff rather than just reblogging. I guess it'll be a matter of time until I learn my way around here. If anyone wants to interact, be free to do so - I've opened the asks and, even if these are called monologues, it's always nice to know about other people's opinions.

Welcome to my monologues! ❤️‍🩹🎉

As you can see, I'm using Kirchner's 'Marcella' as a profile picture. I feel like Marcella looks a bit sad in the painting, so I'll probably change it in the future. I do think the nostalgic and pensive vibes of Marcella suit this blog, but I wanted to be clear that this is not going to be that emo. Life is weird and confusing, but it's also full of wonders. These years, I prefer to stay on the optimist side of things - it's kind of a form of resistance. It doesn't mean I won't ever write depressive thoughts, since sometimes all I want is to complain shit away just so I get it out of my system, but I'll try to maintain a balance.

[yeolmae-s]

a chanbaek analysis from a veteran exo-l (part 2)

CLICK HERE TO READ PART ONE

Writing this was a bit harder in comparison to the first part, because I wanted to organize things into a neat timeline, but I ended up not having enough patience for it lol specially because both of ChanBaek's main archive blogs seem to have deleted their pages documenting each date of EXO's early years. Therefore I apologize in advance if this part is a bit more messy. Also, please don't forget that all of this is my opinion and I don't mean for any of it to be taken as truth!

I kind of want to jump from MAMA era directly into Wolf era, since we don't really have a lot of cover regarding their debut phase besides Chanyeol's overeagerness and Baekhyun's awkwardness towards it, so to sum it up, I felt as if Chanyeol was more confident and consistent on what he thought an idol should act like, while Baekhyun (sweet, innocent Baekhyun who was a trainee for less than a year!) was still unsure on how to act on camera.

On the few early variety shows/interviews EXO appeared on, the members always pointed out how funny Baekhyun was, how good he'd be at variety and at doing imitations, but he never really lived up to all the praise on camera, although off of it, he most likely was as good as his members claimed.

He was a bit stiff on his early days in comparison to what we see today, and that's normal, I guess, since he debuted really quickly, but when you compare him to Chanyeol the contrast is so interesting, because the latter was able to latch on to a persona as soon as the public gave him one, while to me, Baekhyun was still doubtful regarding what to put on display. In the end, deep inside, Baekhyun is a private person, and was even more so when he wasn't confident enough to talk to fans like he does today.

Once again, I’m sorry for not being able to upload the gifs directly into the post, so I’ll just link them like I did on my last one.

This is another one of the moments where Baek appears to tell Chanyeol to just. Hold on for a bit.

There's another one similar to this where Chanyeol does the same thing (try to whisper on Baekhyun's ear) and Baekhyun fake laughs and stares at a fan's camera right after. Then, his expression just goes blank. It's really interesting to watch because you can just see the gears spinning on Chanyeol's brain as he stares at Baekhyun for a second and clearly thinks alright, fanservice time, and leans in to whisper something: it happens so fast you just know it wasn't genuine whispering, just a playful interaction for the fans, and Baekhyun's direct stare to the camera as soon as it happens just confirms this for me. 

1: Chanyeol spots his target.

2: He’s really thinking this through.

3: Baek's in a perfect position for whispering-time, so he leans in and does his thing.

4: Baekhyun laughs.

5: And stares directly at a fan's camera.

6: Immediately regrets his life choices. Chanyeol looks pleased.

It's actually better to watch the whole thing, so I'll leave it here. (starts on 0:28!)

(Random note: on this date EXO perfomed a cover of H.O.T's We Are The Future, and I feel like a lot of new EXO-Ls have not seem it and I adore this performance, so I'll link it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1-z4s3fdgo)

Now let's jump on to Wolf era, shall we?

Wolf era

I can't help but laugh when I think about how wild 2013 was for both EXO and EXO-Ls. They had their first hit song (which was Growl, not Wolf) the fandom grew considerably, shippers where just discovering the cute ISAC moments between "BaekYeol" and "HunHan"... Or at least that's how everyone remembers most of what happened during that year.

Are we forgetting the rumoured ChanBaek fight?

Considering their past interactions on airports, SMTOWN concerts, ISAC and other events, ChanBaek was now widely known to be close to each other. Baekhyun even said Chanyeol was the one who made him open up, and both of them mentioned feeling this "connection" to each other as soon as they met (although jokingly).

After Mama, the fandom was content-less for a considerable period of time, and what most people did was sharing around old performances and repeat overused memes.  I think that in every fandom there is a period where fans establish their main inside jokes and basically just get together to create a collective line of thought for perceiving their idols. That being said, one of the most well established facts in the fandom was that Chanyeol and Baekhyun were close. That was a fact.But then Wolf came, and they suddenly were not. 

This gif is a good example of how awkward their interactions were. Not even my delusional shipping brain in 2013 was able to come up with an explanation for it.

They simply did not acknowledge each other at all, and Chanyeol appeared to be closer to Kyungsoo (I think Baekhyun interacted a lot with Tao, but that may have been during the Growl era, not Wolf. As I said before, I'm a Chanyeol stan guys, sorry lmao).

Point is, these two boys who seemed to be best friends suddenly were clearly distant from one another.

What added fuel to the fire of the rumours was their appearance on Sukira, a radio show, where Sehun cried because the members sometimes had fights. Here's a fanacc:

[130530] EXO at Sukira

Sehun cried because the members sometimes fight.

Sehun: "Let's be loyal to each other, don't fight, and go until the end"

D.O: "We've been under a lot of stress lately because of the comeback, so I wish we won't fight in the future and do our best"

Here's a video cut of this part of their interview. 

I think this ask on lets-talk-baekyeol, a popular ChanBaek analysis blog from back in the day, shows how curious a lot of fans were.

What happened back then?

There's really no answer for that. On my opinion, not even Chanyeol or Baekhyun could give us a concrete answer on it, because I don't think an actual fight happened. For me, it was most likely a personality clash, a disagreement that probably wasn't even voiced out loud, just both of them noticing how uncomfortable things got, if Baekhyun's reactions to Chanyeol's fanservice is any indication. I somehow doubt there was a specific episode that created this distance between them, specially because during Growl, they went back to being friends, although not as touchy on camera as before, as if one of them had established their limits (oh, I wonder who!), but I still have this feeling that all of this was unspoken, because unspoken things seem to be a pattern on ChanBaek's relationship (something I'll touch on later, hopefully).

But it was during Growl era that I noticed something else about Baekhyun.

Wolf era

EXO'S Showtime was a such a gift. I recommend reading lets-talk-baekyeol's blog for this. I don't really agree with everything they say they do present a lot of relevant points. I may repeat them here, since I noticed them myself as well, but credits for them nonetheless.

I remember finding the lack of ChanBaek interactions during the episodes really dissappointing, but considering the Wolf Era drought, this was better than nothing.

My 13 year old self was devastated when Baekhyun appeared so quiet during Chanyeol's birthday episode, and during a recent rewatch of it, I think realized why.

Baekhyun doesn't like superficial things. It's not that Chanyeol is insincere, but he's just better than Baekhyun is at handling people pleasing, even when he doesn't really mean what's he saying/doing. The Chanyeol birthday episode was heavily centered on Chanyeol's random admiration for Kai, which I think we can all agree that it was a little bit scripted or a really spur of the moment thing that they just ran along with and oh man. Baekhyun did not want to be part of it.

During ChanKai's hug, this is what he looked like on the background, and the poor boy even refused to eat cake. He's just in the back, which is weird, because he's such a talkative person and Chanyeol is one of his closest friends. The only moment where he seems to be genuinely comfortable is when Chanyeol blows the candle and it's really cute. To me, it seems that he was kind of embarrassed to witness so much acting from everyone else and was unable to participate because he struggles with things like this, but the moment Chanyeol blows his candles to comemorate his birthday seems sincere enough for him to fondly smile.

This ties in so well with everything from Mama Era. He's just unable to keep acting/people pleasing on the same easy way that Chanyeol does, but this time he's not as nervous about it as he was on his earlier-early days, where he probably felt pressured to actually do stuff. Now he just doesn't do **it, he just doesn't do something that he dislikes doing, and that sadly creates a distance between them on camera and probably on a deeper level in their relationship as well, because both are just realizing how different their perceptions over their jobs is.

There's also this moment that the mods on lets-talk-baekyeol pointed out.

On the Christmas episode, when the members leave the couch to go get their presents, Chanyeol stays seated while Baekhyun gets up to fetch his. This is the sitting arrangement before (almost) everyone got up:

But when Baekhyun comes back, there's free space next to Chanyeol, however he's hesitant to sit by his side. He actually hesitates and doesn't sit down. Jongdae even gives him a little push right after.

Baek just seems hesitant to do things on camera, to interact with Chanyeol in front of an audience. For this moment, I feel like he's afraid to sit next to Chanyeol and end up having to over act. It's not that Chanyeol himself makes him uncomfortable, but the image of the friendship that they ended up creating for fans demands a lot from him.

And when I say hesitant to do things on camera, I really do mean it, because when Baekhyun thinks he is not being recorded/seen, here's what he does:

Here and here.

Their relationship clearly changed, and I think the reason for it is actually simple: both of them were under the impression that they were compatible with each other when they actually were not. Their personalities are extremely different, even if the way they present themselves is sometimes similar. Wolf and Growl era was our way, as fans, of watching them navigate around each other and finding out how their relationship was supposed to work.

And you know what's nice about that? The members watched all of it unfold. Their reactions to some of ChanBaek's interaction is a gold mine when it comes to analyzing them, because they clearly know, just as we do, that their relationship is kind of complicated. But I want to talk about it on the next part.

I am sorry for cutting this off again! I don't know if the next part is going to be the last, because after Growl there's Overdose and we all know what happened on 2014 [coughs] dating scandal [coughs] god help me I don't want to talk about it [coughs] so there's a lot to uncover and I need time to organize stuff.

Thank you for reading!

[kitkatopinions]

So let me get this straight: Hazel after killing all the huntsmen in Mistral and brutalising Oscar for most of v8 (and people dont come with "Ozpin took most of it" its still Oscars body???? Hello????) gets an redemption via death but Ironwood who we know since v2 and was always an ally and a really cool character till v8 dies as a iredemable villain???? How? Why? Its just so dumb... love you blog btw

You know, this reminds me of seeing posts that were like ‘RWDE posters are mad about Ironwood not getting redeemed and yet they don’t like Hazel or Emerald being redeemed???’ And just... Yes, Kathy, the two are incredibly different.

Ironwood has been a hero for seasons who has displayed flaws and made mistakes but was not ever treated as a possible future villain by the narrative, and he was treated as pure evil before he tried to do anything more evil than ‘saving the people he can since he can’t save everyone,’ but then started getting pushed into the maniacal heartless abuser villain role at lightspeed within one season + one episode of the show and (I cannot stress this enough) two or three days of in show time. Our main characters treated him like a monster without knowing about the more villainous actions for the better part of the season, without any of them wondering if there was some mistake, no sympathy given to the fact that Ironwood had his back against the wall or was suffering from mental strain or a horrible injury, no recognition of anything that the mains did badly that maybe contributed to the situation they were in. His ‘fall to villainy’ was outlandish, over the top, out of character, and lacking in any real emotional depth, they blamed him for all of Mantle’s problems despite him having done his very best to ‘go for both’ and Jacques Schnee and Watts being the actual ones responsible for the state of Mantle - as well as huge systemic issues that Jacques was purposefully trying to preserve. He then was (most likely) killed off by the writers who then laugh at how it was ‘always planned’ while no single person in the group of protagonists gives a care.

And on the flipside, you have Emerald and Hazel! Both of them spent seasons being three times worse than James at his worst (seriously, he at least had good intentions.) Emerald and Ironwood’s direct kill count is the same (one,) and Emerald contributed to the deaths of hundreds more at the Fall of Beacon, knowing what it would lead to, and only gives small, rare indications that she feels remorse for it (it’s almost sad.) And Hazel is hinted at being responsible for many of the deaths in Haven and spent his time blaming Ozpin for the fact he was actively trying to murder children. Both of them continued their villainy right up until the very season they got redeemed as they both continued working with Salem to bring down yet another kingdom and while Hazel was beating a fifteen year old, Emerald was eagerly volunteering to help Cinder try and murder Penny yet again. And then when it was revealed that Salem wanted to destroy everything including them, they turned out of self preservation without apologizing for their terrible, harmful, murderous actions. And then the narrative acts like Hazel was some martyr who taught Oscar a valuable lesson about not letting anyone else die and isn’t it sad he died before he could do the bare minimum to earn any sort of redemption. And Emerald winds up having friendly laughs and getting endearingly teased by the people she’s arguably hurt the most, with the girl she’d murdered right there laughing with them. And now she can get away with now being part of the group without any indication she’s changed, no apology, anyone that protests her involvement being scolded for their lack of trust...

One of these things is an incredibly badly handled hero-to-villain story, where they failed to get the beats of emotional depth for a fallen hero arc and rushed it instead without care, leaving it feeling out of character and out of the blue despite the small bit of groundwork that they had in place for the narrative.

The other two are incredibly badly handled villain-to-hero stories, where they failed to get the beats of emotional depth for good redemption arcs and rushed them instead without care, leaving them feeling very insincere and out of the blue despite the small bit of groundwork that they had in place for the narratives (mostly on Emerald’s side, Hazel gave less indication.) 

Also we weren’t playing Yankee Swap, we didn’t trade in James as a hero for Emerald or Hazel, we just had three characters who were all handled badly.

But yeah, it’s really weird that the same volume where the writers were trying to force us to sympathize with Hazel was also trying to force Ironwood into an irredeemable category. The thing is, if I didn’t know about James’ never-mentioned-in-show semblance, I’d not be down for a post volume 8 redemption because I think trying to kill children and actively wanting to torture people as a full grown adult is kind of hard to get redeemed from. But Hazel did that, Hazel is just as if not MUCH MORE evil than Ironwood, so why on earth did the series treat Hazel as redeemable and kind of right and just needing a hand of mercy extended to him? Why was James ‘keep soldiers off the battlefield, turn my gun around because I don’t want to hurt Qrow even though I think he’s trying to murder me, look away from the Grimm while I shoot it’ Ironwood treated as the 100% deserving of pain and death and treated as totally irredeemable villain no one could sympathize with?

When you factor in his semblance it really just makes even less sense. I literally cannot comprehend why the RWBY writers do what they do. Also, thank you so much for the compliment on my bog! Sorry to kind of rant there haha. XD 

[oh-ranpo]

best day ever checklist.

Pairing: Owen Joyner x reader
word count: 7.6k+
an: I originally posted this on a different blog but I’m moving it here! for the sake of this, pretend he’s living in LA again lmao other than that, this is just pure cuteness that I dreamed up : ) let me know what you think!

You really should have known better. Falling in love with your best friend was a disaster waiting to happen. It was the storyline to so many romantic comedies, but honestly, in the real world, things didn’t quite work out the way they did in the movies. Sure, it was a nice thought, but experience had told you that it wasn’t real. It was like fairytales and pixie dust. Things like that just didn’t exist.

So, why would you do this to yourself? It wasn’t like you had done it on purpose, but it wasn’t like you tried to stop it either. The way you fell for him stemmed from a culmination of things. From laughing at his jokes, to laying your head in his lap while you watched movies. From late night drives around the city, to pulling pranks on your grouchy old neighbors that undoubtedly hated your guts. You and Owen were two peas in a pod, and you enjoyed his company more than anything else. However, you couldn’t have him in the way you wanted, and that point was made glaringly obvious when you saw the shared post on his Instagram story that morning.

She was pretty, you couldn’t deny that. Lush blonde hair, perfect eyebrows, and a bright smile almost as captivating as the boy in the picture with her. Almost. You couldn’t stop staring and your stomach wouldn’t stop rolling as you tried to place where you had seen her before. She didn’t look familiar, but if Owen was posting pictures with her, you had to have met her before. Unless he had been hiding her from you. But that was so very un-Owen-like that you knew that wasn’t the case. Her name on her Instagram handle didn’t ring any bells so maybe you had purposely blocked her existence out of your mind because you didn’t want to feel like you did right now. A whole lot of good that did you.

You eventually shoved your phone as far away from you as you could as you laid your head back down on your pillow in defeat. You hated this. You knew that you shouldn’t allow yourself to feel this much sadness over something that really had nothing to do with you, but you couldn’t help it. Your heart ached as you thought about the part of him that this new girl was getting to have, and you pushed your face deeper into the pillow as you let out a low groan.

After a few minutes of wallowing, you finally pulled yourself from your bed and started getting ready for the day. You originally had plans to hang out with Owen and some of his friends, but now you were wondering if that was such a good idea. Would she be there? Would you have to pretend that you were happy all day while you watched the two of them fawn all over each other? It sounded like a terrible idea, but you also knew, deep down, that you couldn’t cancel. You couldn’t let your best friend down just because you had caught feelings. No, you were better than that.

You were just finishing up with your hair when you heard Owen’s ringtone sound from the other room. You had forgotten your phone on your bed, and you hurried back to your bedroom to grab it, swiping accept on his call on the fourth ring.

“Hello?”

“Open your door, I’m outside,” Owen ordered, though you could hear the smile in his voice. You rolled your eyes, though he couldn’t see it, and turned to make your way to the front door.

“Do you have breakfast?” you asked, and Owen scoffed on the other end of the line.

“I know better than to show up at YN YLN’s house in the morning empty-handed,” he replied, and a bright smile spread across your lips as you lifted your hand to release the lock on your door, your hand then falling to the knob to pull it open.

As soon as your eyes met his, he lowered his phone from his ear and held out the brown bag in his other hand.

“For you,” he smiled, and your heart jumped in your chest. You happily took the bag from his hand and then stepped to the side so that he could enter your apartment.

He wasn’t wearing anything extravagant, but he still had a way of stealing your attention with the simplest of outfits. Today, it was a plain white crewneck sweatshirt, a pair of black jeans, and his favorite black baseball cap sitting backwards on his head covering up his soft blonde hair. It had gotten longer recently, and he had yet to cut it, which personally, you were grateful for.

You sighed happily as you peaked into the bag before shutting your front door, seeing that he remembered to get your favorite breakfast sandwich as well as an extra serving of hash browns. You turned to thank him, only to see that he had already made his way to the kitchen, and you quickly followed behind him.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” you asked, as he took a seat on one of the barstools at your counter. He looked up at you as he shrugged, his elbows leaning against the edge of the countertop.

“I figured we’d just hang out. You know, the usual,” he replied, and your brow furrowed slightly.

“I thought we were meeting with your friends?” you asked, and almost immediately, Owen’s cheeks turned pink.

“O-oh right. Yeah, they cancelled. Said they couldn’t come. But it’s alright that it’s just the two of us… right?” He sounded a little panicked, which was completely unlike him, as you quirked your head curiously.

“Of course, it is. Why wouldn’t it be?” Owen sat up a bit straighter as he shrugged again, but he didn’t say anything more.

Instead of focusing on his weirdness, you went back to unwrapping the breakfast that he had brought for you, and you moved to take the seat next to him after grabbing a glass of water. You hummed happily as you took the first bite, and when Owen looked over at you, you gave him a tight-lipped smile. He just laughed and shook his head in response.

If you were being honest, you had already forgotten about the Instagram photo. You had forgotten all about the pretty blonde girl and who she could be, because right now, it was just you and Owen. It didn’t matter if there were other people around, and a lot of the time, you liked it better this way. It was like this so often, it was second-nature at this point. It was easy.

“Actually, I was thinking that we could go for a drive,” Owen spoke as he noticed that you were almost finished with your breakfast. You nodded eagerly, excited for a day of just listening to music and driving around the city, one of your favorite ways to spend time with your best friend. In the confines of his car, it was easier to pretend like the two of you were the only ones in the world, and you didn’t have to share his attention with anyone else.

As this thought passed through your mind, you realized just how selfish that was, but you also couldn’t find it in yourself to care.

Once you were completely finished, you threw your trash away and then moved back towards your front door to grab your shoes. Owen was quick to follow you as he grabbed your keys from the table just inside the door, and you smiled gratefully at him when he handed them to you.

The two of you talked a bit as you made your way down to his car, and you were a little surprised to see some bags sitting in his backseat.

“What’s all of that?” you asked, as you pulled open the passenger’s side door and climbed into your seat. Your head turned to look over your shoulder to see what the bags could contain, but Owen had used double bags and even tied the top of them together so that you couldn’t see inside.

“Don’t worry about those,” he murmured, and when you looked over at him questioningly, he avoided your gaze. For a moment, he was back to acting weird, and you still hadn’t figured out why.

“Ooookay,” you replied dramatically before resting against the back of the seat, your eyes peering outwards across the hood of the car. You could feel that Owen was hiding something from you, and you had no good guesses as to what it could be.

But then you remembered his Instagram story.

You tried to pretend like you were just quietly looking out the window, but when Owen started to pull out of the parking lot to your complex, he noticed your sudden silence.

“Are you alright?” he asked, his gazing fixing on you for a minute before pulling out onto the main street. “You’ve been weirdly quiet this morning.”

You should have known that Owen would notice. Owen noticed pretty much everything when it came to you. Well, aside from you being hopelessly in love with him, anyways. While you thought he was acting strange, he was thinking the same thing about you. The irony almost made you laugh.

“And you keep dodging my questions,” you retorted sassily, and you saw his face flush once again. This was not the drive that you had been expecting or hoping for, and you couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed as you turned back to stare out the window. The music that was playing through the stereo of Owen’s car was the only sound that could be heard as a heavy silence fell over the two of you.

“I swear the bags will make sense later,” Owen offered a few minutes later, finally breaking the tension that had filled the air. It wasn’t like the two of you to argue, and you knew that if you hadn’t seen his story earlier that day, you wouldn’t be reacting to his passive response in this way.

You looked over at him, and when he felt your eyes on him, he glanced over again as he flashed you a small smile.

“I promise.”

You knew that you were being silly getting so worked up over it all, and you took a deep breath as you were ready to expel it away. You didn’t want your day to be ruined just because you couldn’t contain your feelings, and with one last shake of your head in attempt to loosen the grip of the thought from your mind, you smiled back at your best friend.

“I’m sorry, you don’t… you don’t have to explain it,” you sighed, and Owen glanced over at you again as he came to a stop at a red light.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, seemingly sensing that there was something else that you weren’t saying. If you weren’t upset with him about his avoidance of wanting to talk about the materials in the back of the car, he wasn’t sure what could have been causing your rapid shift in mood.

“No,” you answered quickly, maybe a little too quickly, before reaching for the volume control of the radio. “Besides, this is my favorite song. I can’t feel bad during my favorite song.” Owen didn’t miss the way that you admitted to feeling bad in the first place, but he knew that this was indeed your favorite song, and he wasn’t about to ruin it for you.

The two of you sang together for a little while, and by the end of the fifth song, you had caught on to the direction that he was driving. At first, you thought that he had just been aimlessly driving through the streets of L.A., but then you realized that he was indeed heading in a particular direction.

“Are we going to the beach?” you asked excitedly, turning the radio volume down once again just as Owen was in the middle of belting out the bridge to the song that was playing.

“Excuse me, you threw off my rhythm,” he huffed playfully, and you rolled your eyes.

“You didn’t tell me we were going to the beach! I didn’t bring anything with me!” you cried indignantly, though you weren’t really that upset. The beach was your favorite place, and despite whether you were dressed appropriately or not, you knew that you were going to have a good time.

“If I told you it would ruin the surprise,” he murmured under his breath, and when you asked him to repeat himself, he just shook his head. It was just another strange behavior from him to add to the day, but now you were too happy about your ending destination to even think about being upset.

You fell into a comfortable silence as you tapped your feet to the rhythm of the songs on the radio, your eyes watching as the familiar scenery leading up to your favorite place passed by outside of the car window. Owen didn’t seem to feel the need to fill the silence, but that wasn’t uncommon either. You were so comfortable with one another, you didn’t have to be talking the entire time to enjoy the time you spent together.

About fifteen minutes later, Owen was pulling into a parking spot, and you were just about to jump out when he reached over to stop you.

“I need you to stay in the car,” he said as his bright blue eyes met yours. Confusion washed over you as your hand that had just reached for the door handle fell back into your lap.

“But… why?” you asked, as you searched his face for any kind of expression giveaways that you might find there. You were sure, once again, that he was hiding something from you, but you didn’t really know how to feel about it.

“Just trust me, please? I just… you have to promise that you won’t leave this car until I come back for you.” His words were earnest, and you could see the pleading in his expression as he spoke them. He looked nervous for a guy that was just hanging out with his best friend, and you were dying to know why.

“Owen, what-“ you started, but his hand gently squeezed your arm, and the rest of your words died on your lips.

“Promise me.”

You felt your heart sink to your stomach as you tried to put two-and-two together. He had brought you to the beach but hadn’t even given you a heads up about it so that you could prepare. Were you actually going to be staying at the beach or was this just the first stop of the day? And why didn’t he want you to get out with him? Was he meeting someone else here? Was he meeting her?

Regardless of how nauseous the thought made you, you knew that you had to do as he asked. No matter what, he was still your best friend and you trusted him until he gave you a logical reason not to. So, instead of protesting more, you slowly nodded, and Owen flashed you a smile before quickly turning away to open his own car door. You watched as he stepped towards the backseat, and then pulled its door open so that he could grab one of the bags. There were three of them, and you were a bit surprised that he only took one, but then again, you had no idea what they were for anyways. Maybe he was making deliveries.

He moved quickly as he shut the backdoor and then hurried in the direction of the beach. He disappeared around the corner of one of the buildings that housed bathrooms and outdoor showers so that you could no longer see what he was doing. Somehow, this made the sinking feeling in your chest even worse.

You tried to push away the thoughts of the pretty blonde girl, but you couldn’t help it. While you waited, you pulled out your phone, and while you knew that you shouldn’t, you pulled up Owen’s Instagram story again. The picture was still there, and you let out a heavy sigh as you clicked on the picture to take you to her profile. If you were going to hurt yourself, you figured that you might as well go all the way.

Your breath caught in your throat when you saw that the picture in Owen’s story was the most recent picture she had posted. You clicked on the picture to see the caption, and you were a little disappointed to see that it was just a simple sun emoji. There was no giveaway to what kind of relationship they had, and as far as you could tell, it was the only picture she had of the two of them together. So, what were they?

By the time you closed the app, there was a sizable pit that had formed in your stomach and you leaned your head back against the headrest of the passenger’s seat. It had been about ten minutes now since Owen had disappeared and you were starting to grow concerned on when he might return. The longer he was gone, the more your doubts started to build. He had said when he was in your apartment that it was just going to be the two of you, so what was taking so long?

It was another ten minutes before you saw him round the corner again, heading back in your direction. He had his hands shoved in his pockets, and his eyes were focused on the ground in front of him. Your heart stuttered in your chest, much like it always did when you saw him, and when he lifted his gaze to meet yours through the windshield of his car, butterflies erupted in your stomach. He stuck his tongue out at you teasingly, and much to your surprise, instead of walking over to his side of the car, he came to a stop outside of your door before pulling it open.

“Let’s go.” It wasn’t a question, and while you had previously convinced yourself that this wasn’t a stop you were meant to get out at, you jumped at the opportunity. You quickly unbuckled your seatbelt, and Owen held out his hand for you to take as he helped you to your feet.

“Seriously, what is going on?” you asked as Owen dropped your hand and closed the car door behind you. There was an odd look on his face now, though he was trying to hide it with a smile.

“I’m going to show you, calm down,” he teased, as he shoved his hands back into his pockets and led you in the direction that he had just come from. You bumped his shoulder as you walked, and he pulled his hand out of his pocket so that he could wrap his arm around you, pulling you into his side. He ruffled your hair slightly, causing you to protest through a fit of giggles, but you didn’t move to pull away. Once again, you had your easy-going best friend back in a position that was so common it was second-nature.

You were so caught up in the sudden playfulness, that you almost didn’t see the set up in front of you. You didn’t see the white volleyball sitting next to one of the beach’s sand volleyball courts, and you didn’t see the basket with a small blanket laid out underneath. It wasn’t until Owen pulled you to a stop and finally dropped his arm back to his side, that you seemed to notice what was going on outside of him.

“What… what is this?” you asked, as you looked from the little set-up and then back to your best friend. He was rubbing the back of his neck nervously, but then gestured towards the paper that was sitting on the small blanket- something that you hadn’t noticed was there just a moment ago.

“If you read that, it might explain it.”

You didn’t completely understand why he couldn’t just tell you, but you were curious enough that you did what he said. When you leaned down next to the basket, you saw two of yours and Owen’s favorite sports drinks and a change of clothes for you. You looked up at him briefly, but he nodded for you to read the letter, and you sighed as you picked up the piece of paper.

Welcome to the best day ever! It read. The first stop on our adventure today is partaking in one of our favorite beach activities: volleyball! While this is stop number one, there will be a total of three stops that will take place throughout the day. If at any point you want to stop and go home… well too bad! Ha, just kidding : ) but seriously… change into the volleyball clothes I brought and prepare yourself for a wild and crazy day.

You didn’t understand. You had no idea why he was doing this. It wasn’t your birthday and you were sure that it wasn’t any kind of special day regarding your friendship. When you looked up at him again, he had slipped off his hat so that he could remove his crewneck to show that he was wearing a tank top underneath it. You swallowed hard as you tried your hardest to keep your gaze fixed above his neck, and when he looked back at you, you raised the paper questioningly.

“This doesn’t explain anything,” you said, and Owen laughed as he leaned down next to you.

“Sure it does. It tells you exactly what we’re doing, and what you need to do. So, take those clothes, head over to those bathrooms over there, and let’s get this day started!”

You gave him another pointed look before looking down at the clothes that he was talking about. They definitely weren’t yours, and for a second, your heart stopped. Did these belong to the other girl? Surely he wasn’t crazy enough to borrow something from her for you to wear… would he? He could be kind of clueless sometimes, and if you really thought about it, you might have believed it. But then, you went to pick them up and saw that they still had tags on them, and you knew that they had been recently purchased.

“How did you know my size?” You asked, as you looked over the tank top and the shorts. You were going to poke fun at him over the fact that the tank top said ‘Julie and the Phantoms’ across the front of it, but you had bigger questions that you needed answers to in that moment.

“You’ve been my best friend forever, YN. You think I haven’t caught on to something like that?” He teased, and you rolled your eyes. Then, another thought occurred to you.

“Not all of this stuff should have fit in that bag from earlier. How… how did you get this stuff here?” Your eyes met Owen’s, and there was a soft look in his eye despite another faint blush flowing across his cheeks.

“You sure ask a lot of questions when I’m just trying to do something nice for you. Could you just go change so that I can beat you at volleyball like I always do?” You scoffed this time as you grabbed the new outfit and rose to your feet.

“You wish, Joyner,” you huffed, and Owen laughed as you turned to head to the nearest bathroom building. You weren’t overly fond of the idea of changing in a public bathroom like this one, but you were also eager to get back to him, so you didn’t waste any more time.

The clothes fit perfectly, and as soon as you stepped back out onto the beach, your mind started working itself into overdrive again. Owen had arranged ‘the best day ever’ for you, and you still had no idea why. By all accounts, you felt like you weren’t the person this should have been meant for, considering the social media post in the past 24 hours. You had no idea what was going on, and you wanted to ask him about it, but he seemed prepared to derail the conversation at a moment’s notice and you weren’t sure that you would get the answer you were looking for.

When you returned to him, he was sitting on the edge of the blanket, his phone in his hand as he looked up at you. A bright smile spread across his lips as you threw your previous outfit on the blanket next to the basket, and you bent over to grab the volleyball.

“Well, shall we battle?” You asked, a teasing lilt in your voice as Owen pulled himself to his feet.

“You’re on, YLN.”

You ended up winning 21 to 16, much to Owen’s disappointment. Or, at least you assumed he was disappointed though he never truly showed it. You knew that he was competitive, but he didn’t seem bitter in the slightest, though you made it no secret that you were happy that you had won.

“Man, if this day is filled with more activities that I can kick your butt at, this really will be the best day ever,” you laughed as you made your way back to the blanket, and when you glanced over at him, Owen rolled his eyes.

“The sun… was distracting me,” he replied weakly, and you playfully shoved his shoulder.

“Just admit it, I beat you, fair and square.”

“I would never do such a thing.”

You reached down to grab the drinks that Owen had brought out of the small basket, and handed the one that you knew he had picked out for himself before twisting the cap off of yours.

“Thanks for this, by the way. My favorite flavor and everything,” you grinned just before taking a long drink. The California sun had been beating down on your for the past hour or so, and you were parched.

“I know it is,” Owen replied gently before taking a drink of his own. It was the little comments like that that were throwing you off because he wasn’t saying them loud enough for you to think that you were meant to hear them, but he also didn’t say them quiet enough that you couldn’t make out the words. For now, you decided to ignore them in hopes that maybe something in the next two stops would help you understand.

“So, where are we off to next?” You asked, as Owen flopped down onto the blanket and you settled yourself down next to him. He looked over at you, his baseball cap now sitting next to him as he carded his fingers through his hair.

“You really don’t want any of this to be a surprise, do you?” He asked, a smile in his voice as you shrugged before taking another sip of your drink.

“I just know you aren’t good at keeping secrets, and I don’t like not knowing what’s going on in that head of yours,” you replied honestly, and you watched as another unknown look crossed his face. He was quiet for a minute, but then he turned his eyes to look back out over the sand.

“Well, whenever you get changed, if you want to, we can head out.”

Your heart jumped in your chest as you reached over to grab the clothes that you had been wearing when you arrived, and you ran back over to the changing rooms. You glanced over your shoulder as you walked, and you just about stumbled over yourself when you saw that Owen had slipped off his tank top and was just sitting on the blanket, shirtless, with his crewneck in his hands. He was looking at something in his lap, you assumed his phone, and you had to tear your gaze away from him before he caught you looking.

You really had to pull yourself together.

You changed a little bit slower this time, and you didn’t allow your thoughts to drift. This day was confusing enough, and you had overthought everything to the point that none of it made any sense. Maybe it was simple. This was just a nice day that your best friend had planned for you. He wanted to make you smile, that was it.

By the time you returned back to his side, Owen had already cleaned everything up, and had it stuffed back in the two bags that he had previously had wrapped inside of each other.

“You ready?” He asked with another bright smile, and you nodded as you followed him back to the car. It was a short trip to the beach, but it was a nice one, and you made sure to thank him as you were walking.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he replied as he glanced over at you. “It’s just something that I wanted to do.” You wanted to ask him why but once again, you refrained, and just climbed into the passenger’s seat of his car with a soft smile on your face.

Your next stop turned out to be a nice lunch at your favorite restaurant. It had been ages since you had come here, especially with Owen, and you could feel the excitement rising inside you. You had been craving it for weeks, and you were sure the only reason he had brought you here was because he had gotten sick of hearing you complain about how much you missed it.

“Before we go in,” Owen started, his hand reaching out to stop you again as you reached for the handle of the car door. Like at the beach, you looked back over at him, but he was already digging into the backseat for one of the other bags. When he finally came back to the front of the car, he handed you the bag, but started pulling some of the contents out of it.

“Owen, what are we-“ Before you could even finish the sentence, Alex was swiping his baseball cap off his head and quickly replacing it with a black top hat that he had pulled out of the bag. It was soon followed by a monocle, and he also produced the red silk that you knew was one of his bowties.

You had already started laughing, but when you saw the rest of the contents of the bag, you really couldn’t stop. There was a big, black floppy hat, a pair of oversized sunglasses, and a bright red dress that you had never seen before.

“So, you’re going to have to somehow sneak this in so you can change in the bathroom but… fancy lunch date, anyone?” Alex asked, his voice light as you finally managed to look back up at him. There were tears building in your eyes over how much you were laughing, and you couldn’t help but think that he was the most ridiculous person that you had ever met. And you were lucky enough to call him your best friend.

“You’re a crazy person,” you giggled, and Owen shrugged as he turned to flip down his rearview mirror so that he could work his bow tie. “Why didn’t you just have me put this one at the beach?” The question caused him to freeze, and you knew immediately that he hadn’t thought of that.

“It’s more fun this way,” he reasoned, and you rolled your eyes as you wrapped your hand tightly around the handles of the bag and then reached for the car door once again.

“I’ll meet you in there then?” You asked, and Owen nodded, his attention focused on the task at hand.

You felt a little nervous as you walked inside and moved past the host to head to the bathroom. When you came out, you weren’t going to look like the same person at all, and you found yourself wishing more and more that Owen had asked you to do this before you left the beach. Then again, the embarrassment was half the fun and you knew that was why he had planned this.

After doing something competitive, he wanted to do something silly. It was part of the great balance of your friendship, and you appreciated the change of pace. You loved the way your heart was pounding when you stepped back out of the bathroom, now completely unrecognizable to anyone but the person you came with, and one quick glance around, you could see the top hat through the window leading to the patio area, and you chuckled before heading in that direction.

The top hat, monocle and bow tie didn��t exactly go with his crewneck, but Owen was sporting it confidently. You saw a few people glance over at him questioningly, and when you slid into the seat across from him, you earned a few looks yourself.

“You look dashing,” Owen cooed in a fake British accent, and you laughed into your hand as you tried to keep yourself quiet.

“You look pretty dapper yourself,” you managed to get out before erupting in another fit of giggles, and Owen started laughing with you. It was ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, but you were both having too much fun.

You took your time while you ordered, and Owen managed to keep up his fake British accent through the entire event. You were sure that the waiter didn’t believe for a second that he was from anywhere outside of America, but he was kind enough to keep his judgements to himself. You lost yourself in your little made-up world with him, and even tried out an accent of your own. It didn’t work out.

“Are there anymore random outfits to this day?” You asked a couple of hours later after Owen had paid (you had tried to pay for yourself, but he had managed to coerce the waiter to pretend like your credit card wasn’t sitting on the table next to his) and you were walking back out to his car.

“No, I promise that the clothes you had on this morning will be fine.” While Owen was waiting for the waiter to bring his card back, you had gone back to the bathroom to change back into your regular clothes. A few of the patrons were once again surprised at your change in attire, but just like you had managed to do all afternoon, you ignored them.

Once you got into the car, Owen informed you that the last event wasn’t until later in the evening, so driving around the city was the time-filler activity until then. You weren’t about to complain. After playing volleyball in the sun and then having a nice, filling lunch, you were a little tired and could use the break.

Somewhere in the first half of your day, while you were getting swept away in Owen’s activities, your stomach had started turning over itself every time Owen looked at you. It was something that had been happening more and more frequently when he was around, but now it was becoming more noticeable. His smile would cause an involuntary one to turn up your lips. His laugh would cause your heart to thunder in your chest, and sometimes his hand would brush yours as you both reached for the volume dial when a particularly good song came on, and you would have to refrain from jerking away, feeling electricity spread up your arm at the contact.

He was your best friend, but he was alarmingly more than that now. You wondered if he had any idea what kind of fire he was playing with setting up a day like this for the two of you to enjoy together.

In the midst of driving around to pass the time, Owen would stop at some of the stores he knew to be your favorites, and you would walk around for a bit. It was nice and relaxed and exactly how you would normally spend a quiet afternoon together. You knew that there was still more to this day that he had planned, but if it were to end at that moment, you would have been content.

When the sun started to set, you were informed that it was time for your next, and last, activity. By now, you didn’t really care what it was, because even without it, Owen had given you the best day imaginable. You didn’t even stare out the window to try to figure out where you were going. Instead, you turned up the music and sang One Direction songs to Owen while he sang them back to you. It was perfect.

It had been a long time since you had been to a movie under the stars, but when Owen finally put the car in park, you realized that was exactly what his final plan was. When you saw the sign and realized that it was for your all time favorite movie, the first thought you had was why you didn’t know that it was playing here. The second thought was how sweet and amazing your best friend was for bringing you here so that you could see it.

He didn’t try to stop you now as he quickly got out of the car and then moved to the backseat to grab the last bag. When you moved to join him, he took your hand without immediately dropping it - something that he hadn’t purposely done all day, though he had many times before - before leading you over to an empty patch of grass that was right in the middle of the viewing area. You had a perfect view of the screen, but you weren’t paying as much attention to that now. No, you were too busy watching the boy that you were with.

Owen eventually dropped your hand as he started going through the contents of the new, and last bag. There was a rolled up blanket, a hoody that you recognized as his, some snacks, and a couple bottles of water. Everything you needed for a night like this. You could feel the emotion start to overwhelm you.

He didn’t say a word as he laid out the blanket and then handed you the spare hoody.

“In case you get cold,” he murmured when you gave him a questioning look. Your heart stuttered in response, but you didn’t offer him a verbal one. You watched as he slipped his baseball hat off again, his hands pushing nervously through his hair before he finally looked back over at you.

“Seriously, Owen, what’s going on?” The lightness your voice was gone, and it was replaced with concern. Your best friend was nice and wonderful and all great things, but he didn’t do things like this without a reason. Was he sick? Was he leaving? All negative thoughts filled your mind and you immediately felt like you could cry.

“YN, there isn’t anything-“

“Is it because of her?” You cut off before you could stop the words from flying out of your mouth. You hated that you brought it up. You had managed to push her out of your mind for the last few hours, but now that you were faced with such uncertainty, it was the first place your mind went. Owen only looked confused.

“Her? Her who?” He asked as his hand dropped back down to his side, and your gaze fell to the blanket on the ground. You knew now that you had brought her up, you were going to have to face the truth of it all.

“I saw your Instagram story this morning with Serena. She’s… she’s really pretty, but I just had no idea-“

“No idea?” Owen asked, his voice still heavy with confusion. “No idea about what, YN?”

You squeezed your eyes shut as you felt tears start to build behind them. You wished that the night had ended after your Target run an hour ago. You wished that you didn’t have to deal with this on your ‘best day ever’.

“I had no idea that you were seeing someone.”

Despite being outside and surrounded by people, an eery silence fell over you. Owen wasn’t quick to reply, and the more seconds that ticked by, the more heartbroken you became. Maybe you would need to call an Uber to save you from this night.

“Y-you think… YN, Serena and I are not dating,” he finally managed to stutter a few seconds later. It felt like an eternity, but his words finally gave you the little bit of courage you needed to look back up at him.

In the setting sun, Owen’s eyes looked bluer than you had ever seen them, and your breath caught in your throat. Whatever shock he had been feeling from your words seemed to be fading as panic started to settle on his features.

“Oh my god, you really thought… oh, no, YN. No, no, no, that’s not what you were supposed to think at all!” Your brows furrowed as you stared up at him, but he had started to pace a bit in front of you, making you feel even more on edge. “Have you been feeling that way all day?” You nodded in response to the question, and Owen groaned as he slid his fingers through his hair.

“Owen, please explain to me what the hell is happening,” you insisted, and while you had hoped that he would stop moving, he didn’t.

“Serena- she’s a friend. She’s someone that I met while filming and we… I’ll admit, I guess when I shared it, I was hoping that it would make you a little jealous, but I didn’t think-“

Another wave of confusion flowed over you at his words. He was trying to make you jealous?

“Wait, what do you mean, ‘you hoped it would make me jealous’?” You cut him off, a hardness forming in your voice that you hadn’t known was going to appear. Owen immediately stopped his pacing at the sound, and his wide eyes stared worried back at you.

“It’s not… okay, yes. But it’s not like I wanted it to like, ruin your day or anything. I just… in hindsight, it was a dumb move, I’ll admit. I had this whole day planned for weeks now, and Jeremy even helped me set up the beach thing, and-“ Owen was rambling now, and all you could do was stare back at him while he worked through it. “- well he told me that I should just tell you that I liked you instead of feeling like I needed to do this big gesture, but it isn’t that easy, you know?” He had started pacing now, but you hadn’t missed his words. The blood rushed through your ears, and the world felt like it shifted a bit as they hit your eardrums.

I should just tell you that I liked you.

“You’re my best friend, and I-“

“Owen.”

“-saying something like that has the power to ruin things and I couldn’t stand-“

“Owen.”

“-I mean, I don’t even know if you feel the same way, and if this was all for nothing that’s fine, I just don’t want you to think I lied to you-“

“OWEN!”

Finally, you managed to grab his attention as he slowed to a stop and you were able to step towards him. The expression on his face was a mixture of wild panic and confusion, and you smiled a bit at how cute it was.

“Would you just shut up and kiss me already?”

It was a bold move, and it seemed to take Owen by surprise a little bit as he didn’t make a move for a solid five seconds after you spoke.

“You… I should what?” He asked dazedly, and you giggled as you raised onto your tiptoes, your hand gently cupping the back of his neck.

“Kiss me.” It turns out, he didn’t need to be asked twice.

His actions mirrored yours as one of his hands came up to rest just under your jaw as you leaned your body into his and he closed the distance between you. His lips were soft- softer than you had imagined they could be- and his thumb brushed against your cheek as gently pulled you closer. Lightning shot through your veins though he was the one grounding you so that you wouldn’t get shocked, and after a few seconds, you could feel him smiling against your lips.

“You should have stopped me sooner,” he murmured when he took a second to pull back.

“I don’t think that I could have, even if I tried,” you teased, just before he leaned in to kiss you again.

Kissing your best friend who you had feelings for was like seeing the Northern Lights for the first time. It was bright and beautiful and you swore you saw colors that you didn’t even know existed before. Owen had set out to make this the best day ever, and you weren't sure that he knew just how well he had exceeded at it. But, you kept kissing him, and eventually you sat down on the blanket for the movie and you kissed him more.

He was perfect, the day was perfect, and the pain you had felt that morning seeing the unknown girl on his story dissipated completely as you knew that the only person that had him in this way was you. He liked you back, and you didn’t have to second-guess it anymore. From the unannounced breakfast, to the beach, to lunch, to wandering around the city together, and now ending your night on a blanket in the park watching your favorite movie together… it was the perfect recipe for your own personal best day ever.

[ramblinganthropologist]

Fictober 2021 (3) - “I’ve waited for this”

Fanfiction

Fandom: Mass Effect (Actor AU)

Summary: Macen Virius was supposed to be breaking things off with his costar. Instead, he’s pretty sure he might have just caught feelings. Damn it, it was just supposed to be a sex thing...

---

There was nothing like the end of a long day of filming to make Macen want to go to fucking sleep.

Every muscle in his body ached as he left the set to change out of his costume. Moments before, he had been in the blown out remains of a battlefield. Post would add the effects, but his hands still ached from holding his prop rifle and clicking the useless trigger button. Honestly, if he had been human, he would have expected an imprint there.

He was going to have to ask his costar about that later…

“Where is he anyway?” Macen’s mandibles twitched as he glanced around. Everyone was heading off, but there was no sign of Mass Effect’s leading man. Usually, he stuck around to talk to his costar – then again, he didn’t see the other ‘Commander Shepard’ either. They must have both taken off early…

He envied that about humans. They got out of costume and makeup way too quickly.

In the end, he too was back in his regular clothes. As he walked, he rubbed his right mandible, trying to get the feeling back. Part of playing Garrus meant that he needed fake implants to imply he’d had half his face blown off. With how numb that mandible got, it certainly felt that way. No doubt about it, he was looking forward to the final season where all he would need is scar tissue. At least he’d be able to move better in that.

A beeping drew his attention to his wrist as he left the set. His omnitool was letting him know he had a message from a certain fake redhead. As humans put it, curiosity killed the cat (don’t ask him, he didn’t even know what a cat was) so he opened it.

Alex Jones: Hey, rehearsal at my place tonight?

Alex Jones: I can get takeout from that levo-dextro place again. You liked their noodles.

He had liked their noodles. What he didn’t like was… well, this.

“You’re getting too attached, Virius. This is just supposed to be about sex.” He shook his head, half considering calling things off so he could have the night to himself. Problem was that his stomach had started to growl at the thought of those noodles. Besides, tomorrow’s shoot was supposed to involve a lot of emotional moments – he needed all the feedback he could get.

With any luck, he’d end the night in his own bed without fucking the human. After all… he was a turian of self-restraint and control. He could totally handle this.

…

Yeah, he was just going to keep telling himself that and hope for the best. Damn sexy human…

---

An hour later, Macen found himself standing in front of his costar’s door, frowning as he stared at the metal. As hard as he tried to talk himself into ending things, doubt still gnawed at his stomach.

He should end things. It never ended well when he got too into somebody.

“He should understand… it’s just sex… he’s my costar, and it’s just sex.” Macen shook his head again, frowning as he started to key in the human’s door code. Alex had given it to him a month prior, mostly so if he was going to be late he could get in.

That probably wasn’t a good sign, but he had elected to ignore it.

The door clicked opened, and he stepped in. Much to his surprise, the sound of upbeat music met him in the hallway. Not only that, but someone was singing to it if his translator was anything to go by. The damn thing was working overtime as he sidled closer to the entrance to the living room, holding his breath as he peaked in.

Lucky for him, Alex’s back was to him. The human had cleared a space in his living room in order to have room for what he was doing then. However, Macen was having a problem processing what “that” was. Well, he knew it was dancing – a somewhat odd version of it – but it was just so… old fashioned.

Also, since when did Alex dance?

“Let’s chase the dreaming light, and I’ll truly be myself…”

Dancing wasn’t the only thing on the menu. Macen’s jaw dropped as he realized the soft, sweet voice he had heard in the hallway was coming from Alex himself as he worked through the song with flowing, easy moves. Something about it was so painstakingly familiar, yet he couldn’t put his finger on it as he stood mutely in the hallway, watching the scene in front of him.

He had to wonder… what did it look like from the front?

“There’s a scene I want to show you. You have to wait for it… so let’s make a promise!”

Alex moved into a different position, holding out his hand to an imaginary audience that Macen couldn’t see as he took a step up. Every one of his moves were precise, even though he was doing nothing more than dancing around his apartment in his socks. Clearly, he had been practicing…

But for what?

“There’s a gentle wind wrapping around me… isn’t it warm?”

Macen knew a bridge when he heard one, and he felt himself holding his breath as he watched. Alex was getting closer to his imaginary audience now, probably for whatever was going to come in the final chorus. Maybe it was because he was so focused on the man that he hadn’t noticed his heart had begun to beat faster, but it thudded all the same.

“They’re overflowing, these endless hearts…” The man suddenly turned on his heel, facing the entry way. “Please carry them to tomorrow!”

And then no more singing happened as the precursor to the final chorus played behind him. He was fixed on the turian standing in his living room, looking rather shocked as if he hadn’t given him the door code. Macen wasn’t doing much better, mind you – he still hadn’t managed to shut his damn mouth.

And people thought they were cool. If only the blogs could see them now.

At least Alex shut the music off as he regained sense. He reached for a towel to dry off his apparently sweaty face, cheeks a slight pink from exercise. Maybe it was the sweat that had made him shine in that moment. For all Macen knew, it had caught the overhead light when he spun around like that.

Meanwhile, his heart wasn’t slowing down. Still…

“Uh… I guess my text didn’t make it.” At least his mandibles were starting to work. “I didn’t miss the noodles yet, did I?”

The human put his towel down as he started towards his phone propped up on a stand. “They’ll be here in 15 last I checked.”

The music started playing on his phone as he frowned. “Damn, I knew I spun the wrong way…”

This caused Macen to cock his head to the side. “Were you recording yourself for social media or something?”

Doubtful; this kind of thing definitely wasn’t in the human’s wheelhouse. After all, he was supposed to be playing Commander Shepard. While the man had some oddities, he probably didn’t dance around like that.

…

Then again, who fucking knew. Dude was weird.

Alex was still checking his phone as he spoke. “No, just recording my practice to see where I need to improve for filming next week.”

Surprisingly, he was grinning as he looked up. “I’ve waiteda for this for a long time, so I want to get it right.”

Something about the way he smiled did awful things to Macen’s stomach. However, the statement set his mind whirring. While he wasn’t a complete Reaper War freak like some of his coworkers, he at least knew enough to be sure something like that hadn’t happened. After all, there’d be videos, right?

Definitely videos, no way Joker would’ve let that slip by.

“Ok, you’re going to have to fill me in on this one… since when did Shepard do a little dance?”

Alex chuckled – again, there went his stomach. “2185, to be exact. The Normandy ran into a rogue AI that accidentally found its way into Shepard’s music collection. They needed to distract it, so he wound up putting on a little show. He disabled the cameras beforehand, but he wrote about it in his journal, so we know it happened. And now I get to do it on TV and make all the people who think he was just a military guy hate me. I’m thrilled.”

Clearly – he was sparkling again, and this time it wasn’t from the sweat. Macen felt his heart beat harder again, and he tried to distract himself by looking towards the door. If those noodles could save his ass, he’d marry them.

Besides, he was supposed to be calling things off with the guy.

Alex was still looking through his phone as he spoke. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve done a dance routine for TV, I was worried I forgot how. I’m definitely a little rough, but it’s better than I thought it would be. Good thing the director let me know early so I could practice a bit more.”

Macen started to open his mouth to ask, but then the memory came to the surface. He knew where he had heard the voice before, and honestly he was surprised he had forgotten about it. Back then, he had secretly loved to watch it.

Secretly, of course, because Citadel Idol Heart was really more of a girl’s show. The popular teen drama about idols competing in a Citadel-wide talent competition in hopes of seeing their dreams come to life had run for a few years, and he had seen every episode. More importantly, he had once crushed on the main character, a blonde idol with blue eyes and the sweetest voice he had ever heard. Whenever she took the stage, he had been unable to look away.

Just like he couldn’t look away now…

“You… I forgot you were on CIH.”

It was now Alex’s turn to blink back surprise as he looked up from his phone. “You watched that?”

“Kind of…” His eyes darted. “Your voice hasn’t changed much. I mean it’s gotten older sounding but I’m glad to know it wasn’t autotune or anything…”

Things had officially gotten awkward. There he was, with the crush from his teenage years… and he was fucking the guy without even knowing it. Life was weird, and it was getting worse by the second. If only teenage him could see him now…

The man’s cheeks turned a light pink at the compliment. “Well, it’s not like I’ve gone on T or anything, so no big surprise there…”

He got up, probably to check for the noodles. “I take it you were part of the Melody fan club then. Unless you were an edge lord and went with Black Rose. Her fan club was the absolute worst and insisted we hated each other, but I was the best man at her damn wedding last year…”

The rest of his statement was drowned out by the opening of a door and the ruffling of a paper bag. At last, the noodles had arrived. Unfortunately, Macen realized he didn’t have much of an appetite. His stomach refused to calm, and his heart still pounded as he sat there, processing everything.

At least the application of a warm box to his mandibles helped.

“Macen, your noodles are going to get cold.”

He blinked and realized Alex was nudging him in the face with his food. That shot him back to reality as he took the box and proffered plastic fork that went with it. The human then settled in next to him – not across! – and started to dig into his own box.

Right… food. And they were supposed to be rehearsing. And he was definitely supposed to be breaking up with his costar.

“I had the pin.”

His comment left silence in his wake. Alex had stopped eating and was giving him a rather incredulous look. This caused Macen to duck his head in lieu of eating noodles. After all, it was hard to do so politely when you had a face like his. Really, he should have sworn them off… but they were just so damn good he couldn’t resist.

Damn humans and their noodles, they were out to get him.

“You had the fan club pin?”

Yep – there went his mandibles, flapping in the breeze. “I was a big fan, ok? What can I say, everyone loves an underdog story… and you maybe… looked good in that one outfit. The orange one…”

Melody in the orange outfit had been taped to his bedroom wall until he left for basic. Hell, it might still be there…

“God, you’re such a nerd.”

Alex was chuckling though as he put his fork down. It was a nice sound, though it did horrible things to Macen’s stomach once more. Thoughts of noodles evaporated as he sat there, taking in the sound of the human’s mirth. He really needed to laugh more often… maybe he should work on making that happen.

“Well… I can’t exactly let a fan down, now can I?”

He stood and crossed the room to the open space he had created. The music was soon queued up to where he had last stopped, and Alex took position once more. The smile on his face made Macen’s heart want to stop as he sat there, a noodle still hanging from his mandible.

“I can take off into the dreaming sky… because I’m not alone.” Alex winked as he moved, following the song. “Wherever it is, I feel like I can go across the distant sky…”

Then the music swelled as it led into the final chorus. Macen forgot how to breathe in that moment as he watched his costar dance and sing along to the ancient song. All he could think of was how much better he had gotten since the days of CIH…

And how much he wanted to kiss him.

“It’s not enough to put into words, so I’m putting it into a song I’m wishing will reach you.” Another smile as Alex twirled, then began his final pose as the song began to wind down. “Beating my heart~”

The last pose, with his head cocked to the side and hands clasped together, held as the music faded. Then there was silence in the living room as Macen struggled to remember how to function. Right then, there was nothing there but Alex and the table in front of him that kept him in place.

Shit.

“It probably needs some work, but I think I’ve got the basics considering it’s only been a couple hours.” Alex landed back on the couch, picking his food back up. “What do you think, Macen? Got anything you noticed?”

Yeah… his heart was still beating like crazy.

“Macen?”

The turian shook his head – probably launching the noodle in the process. At least it didn’t hit the man next to him, so he could thank his lucky stars for that. However, it was hard to think then as so many feelings and thoughts crashed together.

He was supposed to be calling it off… that was why he came over. This was just supposed to be a sex thing… but every bone in his carapace was telling him to grab the other man and kiss the daylights out of him. They hadn’t even ever kissed outside of sex or prepping for scenes…

What the hell was wrong with him?

“I uh… I don’t know the song, but maybe hold the last pose a bit longer. They might be able to make your eyes light up a bit more.”

Alex nodded at this. “I’ll make a note. Also, don’t you hate cold noodles? Last time you wouldn’t stop complaining when the delivery guy was late…”

Right then, Macen wasn’t sure what he hated or liked as he shoveled the food into his mouth. He just needed something, anything to keep him away from the thoughts currently blooming in his mind.

He knew this path – he hated it. It never ended well. And long ago he had told himself he was never going to walk down it again if he had any sense in his head. This was nothing more than a rehash on an old teenage crush… he could overpower it.

“We need our energy to practice.” He slurped down the last noodle, glad that none were sticking to his face this time. “Tomorrow’s going to be hell if we’re not ready.”

At least his costar nodded as he worked to finish his dinner. “Tell me about it, I have a damn imprint on my trigger finger from that damn gun…”

Well, at least on the bright side that question got answered. It did nothing to quell the bubbling feelings Macen was trying so desperately to beat down, but at least his curiosity was sated for the moment. Maybe that would get him through filming.

One thing was for sure… he was fucked. No way about it – he was just plain fucked. The universe was laughing at him, and he only had himself to blame. All he could do was hope he could hold back and wait for the feelings to pass.

If they didn’t… see the previous statement for clarification. Fuck… he was supposed to be a turian sharpshooter, not a lovesick puppy. He didn’t sign up for this.

[snarktheater]

Hey, d'you have any French book recs? I'm trying to work on my French, and rn I have downloaded one of my favourite book series' French translations, but I figured maybe books already written in French might work better? Also have you read the Ranger's Apprentice series? 1/2

RA's def flawed - the books' narration does like to point bright arrows at the protagonists' intelligence, and the last few books def have the tone of 'old white man trying to write feminism', although at least he's trying? - and it's aimed more to the younger side of YA, but it is still a very fun series, and I can ignore the flaws fairly easily, at least partly due to nostalgia? This rather long lol but I'm wordy.

I'll start with the second question: no, although every time the series is brought up I have to check the French title and go "oh, right, I've seen these books in stores". But I've never purchased or read them. It sounds like something I probably would have enjoyed as a teen but I just missed the mark, and these days I'm trying to drown myself in queer books, so that probably isn't happening.

As for your first question, geez, I haven’t read a French book in years, so this is gonna skew middle grade/YA, though that may not be so bad if the point is to learn the language. I will also say that as a result, these may read a little outdated.

I'll put it under a cut, even if Tumblr has become really bad with correctly displaying read mores. Sorry, mobile crowd.

It's also likely that old readers of the blog will have seen me talk about most of these. I don't feel like going through old posts.

One last thing: while I was curating this list I took the time to make a Goodreads shelf to keep track of those.

The Ewilan books by Pierre Bottero

(It's a testament to how long ago I read these books that these are not the covers of the edition I own, and I can't even find those on Google. I'm settling for a more recent cover anyway since it'll make it easier to find them, presumably)

There are at least three trilogies (that I know of) set in the same world.

The first trilogy is essentially an isekai (so, French girl lands in parallel fantasy world by accident) with elements of chosen one trope, though I find the execution makes it worth the while anyway.

The second trilogy is a direct sequel, so same protagonist but new threat, and the world gets expanded.

The third one is centered around a supporting characters from the previous books, and the first couple of books in it are more her backstory than a continuation, though the third one concludes both that trilogy and advances the story of the other books as well.

Notably these books have a really fun magic system where the characters "draw" things into existence. It's just stuck with me for some reason.

A bunch of stuff by Erik L'Homme

I have read a lot of this man's books, starting with Le Livre des Etoiles.

They also skew towards the young end of YA, arguably middle grade, I never bothered to figure out where to draw the line. They're coincidentally also using the premise of a parallel world to our own (and yes, connected to France again, the French are just as susceptible of writing about their homeland), but interestingly are set from the point of view of characters native to the parallel world.

It also has a very unique magic system, this one based on a mix of a runic alphabet and sort-of poetry. I'll also say specifically for these books that the characters stuck with me way more than others on this list, which is worth mentioning.

This trilogy is my favorite by Erik L'Homme, but I'll also mention Les Maîtres des brisants, which is a fantasy space opera with a pirate steampunk(?) vibe. I think it's steampunk. I could be mistaken. But it's in that vein. It's also middle grade, in my opinion not as good, but it could just be that it came out when I was older.

Another one is Phaenomen, which was a deliberate attempt at skewing older (though still YA). This one is set in our (then-)modern world and centers a group of teens who happen to have supernatural powers. I guess the best way to describe it is a superhero thriller? If you take "superhero" in the sense of "people with individualized powers", since they don't really do a lot of heroing.

...I really need to brush up on genre terminology, don't I.

The Ji series by Pierre Grimbert

This one is actually adult fantasy, though it definitely falls under "probably outdated". It is very straight, for starters, and I'd have to give it another read to give a more critical reading of how it handles race (it attempts to do it, and is well meaning, but I'm not sure it survives the test of time & scrutiny, basically).

If I haven't lost you already, the premise is this: a few generations ago, a weird man named Nol gathered emissaries from each nation of the world and took them to a trip to the titular Ji island. Nobody knows what went down here, but now in the present day, someone is trying to kill off all descendants from those emissaries, who are as a result forced to team up and figure out what's going on.

I'm not going to spoil past that, though I will say it has (surprise) a really unique magic system! I guess you can start to piece together what my younger self was interested in. Which, admittedly, I still am.

Once again, this one also has a strong cast of characters, helped by rich world building and the premise forcing the characters to come from many different cultures (though, again, I can't vouch for the handling of race because it's been too long).

The first series is complete by itself, though it has two sequel series as well, each focusing on the next generation in these families. Because yes, of course they all pair up and have kids. Like I said: very straight.

A whole lot of books by Jean-Louis Fetjaine

OFetjaine is a historian, and I guess he's really interested in Arthurian mythos especially, because he loves it so much he's written two separate high fantasy retellings of them! I'm not criticizing, mind you, we all need a hobby.

The former, the Elves trilogy (pictures above) is very traditional high fantasy. Elves, dwarves, orcs, a world which is definitely fictionalized with a pan-Celtic vibe to it. The holy grail and excalibur are around, but they're relics possessed by the elves and dwarves with very different powers than usual. Et cetera.

Fetjaine also really loves his elves (as the titles might imply), and while they're not exactly Tolkien elves, there's a similar vibe to them. If you like Tolkien and his elf boner, you'll probably like this too. And conversely, if that turns you off, these books probably also won't work for you.

This series also has a prequel trilogy, centered around the backstory of one of the main characters. I...honestly don't remember too much about it, but I liked it, so, there you go, I guess.

I said Fetjaine did it twice. The other series is the Merlin duology, which, as the title implies, is a retelling of Merlin's story. Note that Merlin is also in the other trilogy, but it's a different Merlin; like I said, completely different continuities and stories.

This one is historical fantasy, so it's set in actual Great Britain, and Fetjaine attempts to connect Arthur to a "real" historical figure...but, you know, Merlin is also half-elf and elves totally exist in Brocéliande, so, you know. History.

Okay, that's probably enough fantasy, let me give some classics too.

L'Arbre des possibles et autres histoires - Bernard Werber

Bernard Werber is a pretty seminal author of French sci-fi and I should probably be embarrassed that the only book of his that I read was for school, but, it is a really good one, so I'll include it anyway.

It's a novella collection, and when I say "sci-fi" I want to make it clear that it's very old school science fiction. It's more Frankenstein or Black Mirror than Star Trek, what we in French call the anticipation genre of science fiction: you take one piece of technology or cultural norm and project it into the future.

It has a pretty wide range of topics and tones, so it's bound to have some better than others. My personal faves were Du pain et des jeux, where football (non-American) has evolved into basically a wargame, and Tel maître, tel lion, where any animal is considered acceptable as a pet, no matter how absurd it is to keep as a pet. They're both on a comedic end, but there's more heartfelt stuff too.

L'Ecume des Jours - Boris Vian

(no cover because I can't find the one I have, and the ones I find are ugly)

This book is surrealist. Like, literally a part of the surrealist movement. It features things such as a lilypad growing inside a woman's lungs (and, as you well know, lilypads double in size every day, wink wink), the protagonist's apartment becoming larger and smaller to go with his mood and current financial situation, and more that I can't even recall at the moment because remembering this book is like trying to remember having an aneurysm.

It is also really, really fun and touching. Oh, and it has a pretty solid movie adaptation, starring Audrey Tautou, who I think an international audience would probably recognize from Amelie or the Da Vinci Code movie.

I don't really know what else to say. It's a really cool read!

Le Roi se meurt - Eugène Ionesco

Ionesco is somewhat famous worldwide so I wasn't even sure to include him here. He's a playwright who wrote in the "Theater of the Absurd" movement, and this play is part of that.

The premise of this play is that the King (of an unnamed land) is dying, and the land is dying with him. I don't really know what else to say. It's theater of the absurd. It kind of has to be experienced (the published version works fine, btw, no need to track down an actual performance, in my humble opinion).

The Plague - Albert Camus

You've probably heard of this one, and if you haven't, let me tell you about a guy called Carlos Maza

I'm honestly more including this book out of a sense of duty. The other three are books I genuinely liked and happen to be classics. This book was an awful read. But, um. It's kind of relevant now in a way it wasn't (or didn't feel, anyway) back in 2008 or 2009, when I read it. And I don't just mean because of our own plague, since Camus's plague is pretty famously an allegory for fascism, which my teenage self sneered at, and my adult self really regrets every feeling that way.

Okay, finally, some more lighthearted stuff, we gotta talk about the Belgian and French art of bande dessinée. How is it different from comic books or manga? Functionally, it isn't. It really comes down more to what gets published in the Belgian-French industry compared to the American comics industry, which is dominated by superheroes, or the Japanese manga industry, which, while I'm less familiar with it, I know has some big genre trends as well that are completely separate.

The Lanfeust series - Arleston and Tarquin

This is a YA mega-series, and I can't recommend all of it because I've lost track of the franchise's growth. Also note that I say "YA", but in this case it means something very different from an American understanding of YA. These books are pretty full of sex.

No, when I say YA I mean it has that level of maturity, for better or worse. The original series (Lanfeust de Troy) is high fantasy in a world where everyone has an individual magical ability but two characters find out they're gifted with an absolute power to make anything happen, and while it gets dark at times, it's still very lighthearted throughout, and the humor is...well, I think it's best described as teen boy humor. And it has a tendency to objectify its female characters, as you'll quickly parse out from the one cover I used here or if you browse more covers.

But still, it holds a special place in my heart, I guess. And on my shelves.

The sequel series, Lanfeust des Etoiles, turns it into a space opera, and goes a little overboard with the pop culture reference at times, though overall still maintains that balance of serious/at times dark story and lighthearted comedy.

After that the franchise is utter chaos to me, and I've lost track. I know there was another sequel series, which I dropped partway through, and a spinoff that retold part of the original series from the PoV of the main love interest (in the period of time she spent away from the main group). There was a comedy spin-off about the troll species unique to this world, a prequel series, probably more I don't even know exist.

Les Démons d'Alexia

Something I can probably be a little less ashamed of including here.

Some backstory here. The Editions Dupuis are a giant of the Belgian bande dessinée industry, and for many, many years I was subscribed to their weekly magazine. That magazine was (mostly) made up of excerpts from the various books that the éditions were publishing at the time; those that were made of comic strips would usually get a couple pages of individual scripts, while the ongoing narratives got cut into episodes that were a few pages long (out of a typical 48 page count for a single BD album). Among those were this series.

For the first few volumes, I wasn't super into this series, probably because I was a little too young and smack dab in the middle of my "trying to be one of the boys" phase. But around book 3 I got really invested, to the point where I own the second half of the series because I had canceled by subscription by then but still wanted to know more.

Alexia is an exorcist with unusual talents, but little control, who's introduced to a group that specializes in researching paranormal phenomena, solving cases that involve the paranormal, that kinda stuff.

As a result of the premise, the series has a pretty slow start since it has to build up mystery around the source of Alexia's powers, but once it gets going and we get to what is essentially the series' main conflict, it gets really interesting.

Plus, witches. I'm a simple gay who likes strong protagonists and witches.

Murena

There was a point where my mtyhology nerdery led me to look for more stuff about the historical cultures that created them, and so I'd be super into stuff set in ancient Rome (I'd say "or Greece or Egypt" but let's face it, it was almost always Rome).

Murena is a series set just before the start of Emperor Nero's rule. You know, the one who was emperor when Rome burned, and according to urban legend either caused the fire or played the fiddle while it did (note: "fiddle" is a very English saying, it's usually the lyre in other languages). He probably didn't, it probably was propaganda, but he was a) a Roman Emperor, none of whom were particularly stellar guys and b) mean to Christians, who eventually got to rewrite history. So he's got a bad rep.

The series goes for a very historical take on events, albeit fictionalized (the protagonist and main PoV, the titular Lucius Murena, is himself fictional) and attempts to humanize the people involved in those events. Each book also includes some of the sources used to justify how events and characters are depicted, which is a nice touch.

It's also divided in subseries called "cycles" (books 1-4, 5-8 and the ongoing one starts at 9). I stopped after 9, though I think it's mostly a case of not going to bookstores often anymore. Plus it took four years between 9 and 10, and again between 10 and 11. But the first eight books made for a pretty solid story that honestly felt somewhat concluded as is, so it's a good place to start.

[konglindorm]

The Missing Half

So if you’ve been around for a while, you’ve probably heard me talking about Prince Lindworm, and not just recently, as I prepare to release my book. I’ve been obsessed with this story for a long time, I’ve written several blog posts and essays about it, and it’s even the source of my username on many websites—konglindorm.

But today, I’m going to talk about something new: the second half of the story.

I honestly didn’t know until very recently that this story did not end with the lindworm being transformed and everyone living happily ever after. I’ve been working for a long time on my own translation of the story, from a 100+ year old Danish book, and last month I finally reached the end of it.

And then saw that there were three more pages.

Now, I’m preparing to publish my first novel, and I don’t have the time or the energy to translate another three pages. But I did a quick read-through, enough to get the basic idea, and I did some more research. Then I ran it through Google translate, which produced something that’s…pretty rough, but it’s useful to having something in English to glance back at as I work on this post.

So it’s not relevant to my retelling at all, and it’s actually a really common fairy tale type that I’ve encountered many times before, but I’m really excited about this. Quick recap, before we start: Barren queen wants baby. Queen is instructed to eat one flower if she wants a son, another if she wants a daughter, but not, under any circumstances, both. Queen eats both. Queen gives birth to lindworm. Lindworm eventually demands bride. Eats her. Demands second bride. Eats her. Demands third bride, third bride does some really weird stuff that somehow turns him into a human. Great rejoicing, etc., etc.

Now on to part two. I’m gonna be honest; some really weird stuff happens here. Which shouldn’t be surprising, coming from the same fairy tale that brought us “To turn a snake into a man, make him molt ten times, dip some whips in lye, whip him a bunch, and dunk him in a tub of milk.” My understanding of the story is hindered somewhat by lack of a complete and accurate English translation, but it looks like at some point our girl helps break the spells on two other enchanted princes by feeding them her breast milk? It’s, um. It’s something, and something I’ll need to fully translate eventually to understand better. I think I’m missing a fair amount of context and nuance.

(Between the two halves, I ‘m thinking I need to do a lot of research on the healing properties of milk in folklore. Is that a thing? Does it come up elsewhere? This story is Danish; anyone from Denmark know if there’s some cultural element to this or something?)

But for now we’re going to focus on the main thing, the basic plot of the second half.

Our girl gets pregnant. Lindworm and his dad go off to war, leaving pregnant girl with Lindworm’s mother the queen. Now, normally, that would cause some trouble in the fairy tale world, because usually, old queens are not fond of their daughters-in-law, and often try to frame them for horrible crimes.

But not our queen. She gave birth to a monster. Her only heir was a dragon, and he was eating people. Then our girl came along and turned him into an upstanding member of human society. This queen loves her daughter-in-law. So we need a different bad guy.

Our girl gives birth to twins. She sends a letter to the lindworm, letting him know. Normally, in this story type, the queen swaps it out with a letter saying she gave birth to something else, but not our queen, so that role is filled by the Red Knight. No information on who this dude is, what he has against our characters, or why it’s his job to run letters back and forth between the palace and the war zone.

He gets rid of the letter saying our girl had twins, replaces it with a letter saying she had puppies. Lindworm gets the letter, thinks, “well, that’s super weird, but who am I to judge, my mom didn’t give birth to a human either.” Sends back a letter saying, “Okay, we’ll sort that all out when I get home.”

Red Knight was apparently hoping for a less go-with-the-flow type answer, because he replaces that letter with one telling the queen to set our girl and her babies on fire.

The queen gets the letter, and I guess she’s probably thinking that maybe the transformation didn’t quite work after all, maybe her son still has some monster in him, because what the heck, dude? I’m not burning my grandbabies.

So she doesn’t know when the lindworm is coming home, and she’s afraid of what he’ll do to his family when he does; she sets our girl up with some supplies and sends her and the babies out into the world where they’ll be safe.

(This is when she turns a couple birds into princes by nursing them, and apparently hangs out with them in their palace for quite some time. Not clear on the nature of their relationships, a little concerned, will update you guys someday when I’ve sorted it all out; if anyone’s read this entire story in Danish and fully understands it, or if you’ve encountered a complete English translation, please do let me know!)

Lindworm comes home, looking for his wife. Queen is pissed at her son. Son isn’t sure what she’s so upset about; he thought he was pretty chill about the whole gave-birth-to-puppies thing. Queen isn’t sure what puppies have to do with anything, but setting your family on fire is in no way chill. They argue for a while, eventually get to the bottom of things, Red Knight is in big, big trouble. Lindworm goes looking for his wife and kids. Eventually finds them hanging out with these two other princes.

This is where Google translate really breaks down on me, and things just make less and less sense, and I can’t go down to the source material with my Danish-English dictionary and sort it out right now; I’m on a bit of a tight schedule. But it’s looking like the Lindworm and the two other princes sort of fight over our girl, all three of them drink her milk (it seems like it’s been long enough that she shouldn’t be producing milk anymore; it also seems like these two dudes are drinking her milk regularly? I am so concerned about so many things.)

Somehow the conflict is resolved, the other two princes marry other princesses, and our girl and the twins go home with the lindworm.

Now, there’s a lot to unpack here, obviously, and a lot of it is going to have to wait until another time. It is nice to know that King Lindorm is consistently just absolutely bizarre through both halves.

But what I really, really like about the second half is that some new dude is our bad guy, and the queen is fully and firmly on our heroine’s side.

Before I made any effort at even the crappiest translation of the second half, I did some research on what it was about. And I was so concerned about it as soon as I found out what story type it was, because some sort of mother figure is almost always the bad guy. (Shout out to the Grimms for not doing that in “The Girl Without Hands,” too.) And it just seemed really awful that the queen would turn around and try to sabotage our girl after she fixed the lindworm. So I was really relieved to find the Red Knight in my first quick skim-through.

I’m just really impressed with Grundtvig, Adjunct Levisen, and Maren Mathisdatter for deviating from the norm here.

(Another notable deviation, aside from “The Girl Without Hands,” listed above, is the French fairy tale “Bearskin,” by Marie-Madeleine de Lubert; I doubt it’s a coincidence that women were definitely involved in the telling/recording of 2 of these 3 stories where people are not out to get their daughters-in-law.)

Also, like. Can we just take a moment to appreciate the incredible stupidity of the Red Knight? The lindworm was born as a giant snake monster, and for some reason Red thinks he’ll be shocked and horrified that his children were born as puppies? The lindworm is pretty much the only person in the world who has no right to be upset by that. He, of all people, should know that these things just happen sometimes, and they’re totally fixable, though not, perhaps, without bloodshed.

(Also, also. As I said above, I don’t know who the Red Knight is or what he has against our characters. It’s possible that the text does tell us and it just didn’t come across in my incredibly quick and crappy translation. But my theory is that he’s somehow connected to one of our two dead and eaten princesses. In which case he’s entitled to be upset, even if he’s handling it poorly.)

Preorder my book here!

[jcmorrigan]

Do you support anti-harassment and pro-shipping?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: This is an issue I’ve been monitoring and grappling with for a long time, and I feel like while my core philosophy has been the same for a while now, the nuances I’ve held shift every so often. I don’t identify as an anti. I just don’t. I think shipping things - be it incest, adult/minor, or one of the many flavors of abusive - is an ENTIRELY separate issue from wanting to do that IRL. I think sometimes people just want to write taboo topics for various reasons. Because the topics themselves are taboo and that’s interesting, because they offer methods of coping, even because some people are kinda into projecting upon the person on the losing end of the power dynamic and being dominated and kicked around, since that’s not something you should really chase in real life (unless it’s during a roleplay with a network of safewords).

There are many ships I think are gross, but I don’t want people to stop shipping them because I don’t like them. I don’t like ships that involve anyone under 13 with anyone over 18. I don’t like ships that involve anyone under 18 with anyone over 30. (Aging up is a whole different matter; if you write the younger character older and legitimately have them behave the way you think they would as an adult, it’s all good.) I REALLY don’t like ships where a character is either confirmed homosexual or only shown onscreen to be attracted to the same gender in a big-deal reveal sort of way (if the character has crushes on many genders or the creator uses Word of God to say they’re bi/pan, it’s fine) and the ship involves putting them with someone of the opposite gender (shipping them with enbies is fine). And no, I don’t think it’s a double standard that I sometimes like to do same-sex ships for characters who are coded very very straight. But this is all to do with my tastes and beliefs, not with what I think the rest of you all should do. If you like something that falls in my personal no-no category, then go ahead and do it. I’ll decide how much I want to interact with you, and that says more about our potential chemistry as a unit than it does about you as a person. And if you have boundaries yourself - if age-gap ships skeeve you out - then that doesn’t make you a bad person or even an anti! Just block as needed, talk to friends if you feel betrayed by them, and recognize what it is you don’t like and that you don’t have to like it.

Selfshipping? Do what you want. Again, I might personally have reservations about shipping with somebody too young (I actually perceived my own main f/o as in his twenties when I first watched his source, then saw Word of God say he was NINETEEN actually, even though that invalidates many many jokes about how he’s bad at adulting, so I just said “fuck it” and he’s at least 24 to me because that makes more sense and is more of my comfort zone). But what I like shouldn’t dictate what YOU do. I might give you a little side-eye if you’re shipping with somebody young, but I don’t know your reasons for doing so and I don’t have the right to judge. I might distance myself from certain situations if I’m feeling skeeved out. Or I might not feel skeeved out depending on how it’s handled. I also again would raise a brow if you’re selfshipping with an opposite-gender gay character, but same principle: you have your reasons, you shouldn’t stop because some rando (me) has an issue with your ship, and if I have a problem with how you handle it, I’ll just peace out on my end and not make a deal out of it.

A lot of this comes from the fact that I have mega OCD and I already try to moralize everything I do and hyper-analyze my choices to make sure I am being a Good Person. If I try to follow the “rules” to make my ships palatable to everyone, then I start worrying that any deviation makes me unforgivable. The vast majority of ships in my deck are squeaky-clean and have no problems, but sometimes I’ll get, like...Ventus/Papyrus, where Ven is 15, and Papyrus is in age limbo but I always thought he was at least 18, and then I don’t want to spiral into a moral crisis because I really think it would be cute to put the anime boy with the skeleton and I think they’re both asexual anyway. Or when I aged up Zevon from Descendants in order to make him make more sense as Yzma’s son, and then I had to give him a ship with an adult and I found one I really like (Kamdor from Power Rangers). And this is not even scratching the very complex issue of “The writers of this piece of fiction were ACTUALLY horny for incest and I can see the subtext for it and now I gotta figure out what to do with this mess because I like the series and I do want the characters to have partners who will treat them right.”

That said...up until recently, I looked up to the more extreme proship community, even so far as to kinda be more of an “anti-anti.” But as time went on, that...didn’t seem to fit. I’ve unfollowed a few of those blogs now because first of all, proshipping as a “political party” seems to come with some things I don’t believe in, such as forming a parasocial relationship with AO3 or saying that freedom of fans to ship what they want means the creators of mainstream media should be allowed to portray whatever they want and that being “critical of media you consume” is an automatic dogwhistle for bullies. More importantly: I have at least one friend who I know leans more anti, and I value her a lot and I think it’s valid for her to have her boundaries. After a while, the things that anti-antis did to protect themselves from bullying started to feel a little bit like bullying right back. I can’t really call myself a traditional proshipper anymore, even though I’m definitely not an anti. But I don’t want to be an “anti-anti” either. Because actually, I USED to be an anti on a different social media platform long before Tumblr, and though I can’t tell you exactly why I was that way, I can understand what it’s like to feel that strongly about things that gross you out and want to get them out of your face. I don’t want to say I’m against a whole bunch of people who are probably as varied in intensity as proshippers are.

At the end of the day, what I want is for us all to CHILL OUT. Can we please, PLEASE just focus on having fun in whatever way that comes - problematic ships or no - so long as people IRL aren’t getting hurt? Can we respect that there are probably a LOT of people with OCD on social media who spiral easily if shamed too much (which is probably how the anti movement rose in the first place - I’m sure my anti phase was fueled by my secular scrupulosity)? Can we not assume that people who ship weird age gaps are Actual Pedophiles, which is an entirely separate issue? (Listen...I grew up in the Age of AkuRoku. I hated AkuRoku. But if all the AkuRoku shippers turned out to be pedos, well, the news sure didn’t cover it. I’m saying the majority of them didn’t. And it’s been a decade.) Can we not spread the fear of being cancelled or that having a certain fictional preference will ruin a budding friendship? Can we communicate with one another in private if a friend says or does something that makes you uncomfortable, such as shipping something that makes you question their moral stance? Can actual legitimate creators of media not take sides in the goddamn pro/anti war, thereby making groups of their fans feel alienated from being welcomed by the source? Can we just have fun PLEASE?

Also, just...stop fighting about Reylo. That’s the dumbest thing to fight over and we managed to somehow get the actual SW crew in on that dumbass fight. Some people like Reylo and some people hate Reylo and THAT’S IT. WE’RE DONE HERE.

It sure says something that I worry, before hitting the Post button, that this might ruin some of the relationships I have or inspire a mass exodus of the followers whose names I come to like seeing in my notifications. But it’s ultimately better for all of us if I’m honest.

[theydontknowaboutusimagines]

The Set Up - Harry Styles One Shot (Part 2)

Part 1

Harry sighed at his sister’s words. He knew that should never set him up with someone that wasn’t a good person, but he just wanted to find someone naturally. Then again, how many times had he gone out with someone through mutual friends, so why would this be different just because he was his sister and his mother behind it. 

Looking over at you, chatting and laughing with the man at the bar. His annoyance level was beginning to rise and he didn’t know why. Maybe it was because he was slightly jealous. He wouldn’t say he was a shallow man, but as with most human beings he noticed how beautiful you were. Your smile and what little bit of your laugh he could hear brought a smile to his lips. 

“Go and talk to her,” Gemma said. “Just have a few minutes of a chat. We’ll be leaving soon anyway, so might as well get it over with now.” 

He rolled his eyes, downing the rest of his drink and handing the empty glass to Gemma. 

“Oi, what am I supposed to do with this?” She asked. 

He shrugged with a smirk before making his way over towards you and the man. When he approached the two of you, he cleared his thought, making both of you look over at him.

“Uh, hey, Y/N,” he smiled. 

“Hey,” you smiled back looking over at him. 

“I uh, I hate to interrupt,” Harry started. 

“It’s uh, it’s okay,” Alex said. “When you said you came here with a friend, I didn’t realize-” 

“Oh, we’re not-”you started, but he had already excused himself. 

“Sorry,” Harry winced. 

“It’s fine,” you said. “So, did you need to tell me something? Is Gemma ready to leave?” 

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you,” he said. “I thought since I invited you to come along, it would be rude of me not to.” 

You sighed, looking at him, “Before we continue this, can I ask you something?” 

“Sure,” he said cocking his head to the side in confusion a bit. 

“Are you only doing this because Gemma put you up to this?” You asked. 

“So, you know about the whole set up thing, too?” He asked. 

“I knew it,” you sighed. “You know what, you don’t have to take pity on me for your sister. In fact, I shouldn’t even be here right now. I’ll just go and you can carry on about your night.” 

You grabbed you jacket and hopped off the stool to make your way towards the door, when he grabbed your arm. You stopped, feeling this weird sensation in your body from his touch. You turned around to look at him. You two were standing closer than you had been all night. 

“I’m not taking pity on you,” he said softly. “Do you want to know the real reason I came over to talk to you?” 

You sighed shaking your head, “Why?” 

“Because when I saw you talking to that guy, I was a bit jealous,” he whispered. 

“Okay, you’re drunk,” you said. “And if you’re just looking for someone to fuck tonight, you need to look somewhere else.” 

You went to leave again, but he pulled you back. “I’m not-Okay, maybe I’m a little bit drunk, but I’m not looking for someone to fuck tonight.” 

You rolled your eyes, “So, what? You saw me talking to some guy and got jealous, for god only knows and now what? You don’t even know me.” 

“Exactly,” he sighed. “I don’t even know you, yet I got fucking jealous over someone else talking to you because I wanted to be the one to talk to you.” 

“Well, now’s your chance, what do you want to know?” You asked. 

**

When you left your flat that night to go to the award show, you never imagined that you would find yourself grabbing ice cream with Harry Styles at one in the morning. After the little scene at the after party, he had asked you to join him for ice cream and you found yourself saying yes. 

Which brought you to where you are now, stopping at the supermarket to grab a pint of ice cream, since all the shops were closed. You were sitting out on a park bench taking turns taking bites of the ice cream. 

“So, my sister said you worked for The Mixtape?” He asked.

You nodded, “I do, although technically, I’m co-founder,” you said. 

“Wait? Really?” He asked. “That’s been around for ages.” 

“You know it?” You asked. 

He blushed, “I may have listened to a few podcasts and read the magazine a bit.” 

You smiled, “I started the blog when I was sixteen with one of my best friends. I mostly posted about my favorite songs, albums, how music easily music could take you back to a place or a memory. I would also talk about different shows or bands I had found. Then it sort of just took off... turned into more a website after we found a few other writers because it was too much for the two of us to handle. Next thing I knew, we were printing a magazine with interviews with different artists and other music fans. And now we’ve started a podcast to really dive into topics.” 

“Wow,” he said. “That’s amazing.” 

“Thank you,” you blushed. 

“Now, I do have to ask,” he said. “Since you own a music website, I assume you’ve listened to my music before?” 

“I have,” you nodded. “Let me guess, the follow up question is going to be... am I fan?” 

He laughed, “Perhaps.” 

“I’ll be honest with you. I am a fan,” you said. “But as far as keeping tabs on who are as a person, I’m not that type of fan. The only things I do know about you are from Gemma and your mum.” 

“Oh god,” he laughed. “I feel like I’d rather you google me.” 

“Stop it,” you giggled. “They never told anything bad... except maybe not to try anything you’ve cooked.” 

“I swear I’m never going to live that down. It was one time. I was watching a cooking show and I thought I’d give it a go, but I didn’t exactly have all the proper ingredients, so I improvised,” he laughed. “It was horrendous.” 

You giggled, “How old were you?” 

“Twelve, I think?” He said. “I was trying to be nice and cook my Mum dinner instead we ordered pizza.” 

“Well, it’s the thought that counts,” you smiled snagging another bite. 

You noticed him watching you, staring at you, with a smile causing you to blush, “Uh, what’s wrong?” You asked. “Do I have ice cream on my face?” 

“No,” he laughed. “Nothing’s wrong...well maybe a little.” 

“I’m not following,” you laughed. 

“I’m going to have tell my sister she was right,” he said. 

“About what?” You whispered. 

“That I would like you,” he said. “I know it’s a little premature and we technically only just met, but I would really love to see you again, if you uh, also want to see me again.” 

“I’d really like that,” you smiled. 

**

It wasn’t until a few days later when you met up with Harry again. You two had briefly chatted over the phone trying to figure out where and when you see each other. During your conversations, neither one of you mentioned or referred it to as a date, but you had to admit you were hoping it was. You both decided on some doing something casual, a simple dinner at a nearby restaurant and then you said you would take care of the rest of the night. 

Harry was on his way to pick you up and you could feel the nerves bundling up inside of you. You changed your outfit five times before finally deciding upon a pair of dark wash jeans with a gucci belt paired with a long sleeve see through black top. You wore your hair in a curly half up do with a bun on top, slipping on a  few of your favorite rings and necklaces. 

Once you were fully dressed, you took one last look in the mirror before throwing some necessities into your bag and heading into the living room. Just as you were grabbing your coat, your phone alerted you that you had text message. It was Harry saying he was outside. Instead of going through the letting him in process, you decided to just meet him there. 

Pulling on your coat, you grab your bag, locking the door behind you and heading down to the main floor. You looked around, seeing Harry parked just down the street a little bit. You smiled knocking on the door, which he quickly got out to open the door for you. 

“Thank you,” you smiled. 

“You’re welcome,” he smiled. 

The drive to the restaurant consistent of mostly small talk. A bunch of how was your day, how have you been, etc, etc. When you arrived, Harry gave his keys to the valet before following you inside. He had placed his hand on you back as the two of you walked in. 

“Reservation?” The hostess asked. 

“Yes, two for Styles,” He smiled. 

“Right this way,” she smiled taking two menus and walking towards the back fo the room. 

“Is a booth okay?” She asked. 

Harry looked at you and you nodded, “It’s fine.” 

“Your server will be right with you,” she smiled. 

“Thank you,” both you and Harry smiled. 

“If you’ll hand me your jacket, I can hang it with mine,” he said. “There are hooks over here.” 

“Oh, thank you,” you smiled slipping it off and handing it to him. 

Even though he was trying to be discreet, you could easily see him looking you up and down. You felt heat rush to your cheeks before sat on your side of the booth. Harry joined you on the other side taking the menu in his hands. 

“Have you been here before?” He asked. 

“Once,” you said. “Actually, it was uh, with someone from work.” 

“Uh-oh,” he said. “I feel like there’s a story there.” 

“Nothing gets past you,” you joked. “But yeah, there’s a big, fat, shitty story there.” 

“I’m all ears if you ever want to share,” he laughed. 

You laughed before skimming back over the menu as you gave the waiter your order. 

“Okay, so what’s the plan for after?” He asked. 

“Well, there’s pub that has a songwriter night a few times a week,” you told him. “I usually go to scope out any up and coming artists to profile on the site. I thought maybe we could check it out tonight, if that’s okay with you.” 

“It’s more than okay,” he smiled. “I’d love to go.” 

“Great because I already got us tickets,” you smirked. 

“What would you have done if I said no?” He asked raising an eyebrow. 

“Oh, I would have just found someone else to join me,” you shrugged. 

“You wouldn’t,” he gasped. “You know for a fucking fact that you wouldn’t have near as much fun with anyone else.” 

“Hm, I guess we’ll just have to see about that,” you smirked. 

“Guess we will,” he smirked. 

**

The rest of dinner had gone great, in between bites and sips, the two of you found yourself laughing and joking about different things. At one point, you two were laughing so hard, tears started filling up your eyes. After Harry paid for the bill, you both got up and he helped you slip your coat on. You smiled pulling your hair out from under the collar and grabbing your bag. 

“So, I need to tell you something,” he said as the two of you waited for the valet to bring around his car. 

“Should I be nervous?” You asked. 

He laughed shaking his head, “I have that exact same shirt, but it’s in white...” 

“Oh my god, you do not,” you giggled. 

“I do,” he laughed. “It’s a possibility for tour.”

“Well, if you do, you know I’m going to do a who wore it better, right?” you smirked. 

“You, definitely, you,” he smiled. 

“Thank you,” you said looking down a bit. 

The pub you were taking it him to was a few streets over, so it didn’t take entirely too long to get there. You smiled getting out of the car after he parked. He headed towards the entrance to wait in line, but you pulled him back. 

“Follow me,” you smirked heading towards the back door. 

“Well, someone’s a bit of a rebel,” he joked. 

“Or I know a guy,” you smirked. 

“Should I be jealous?” He laughed. 

“That does seem to be your thing,” you laughed. 

“I promise I’m not like a jealous, controlling type boyfriend,” he said quickly. 

“Boyfriend?” You raised an eyebrow. “Already throwing the b word around? What sort of girl to you take me for, Styles?” 

“I well, I mean, you know... Im just going to shut up now,” he said. 

You laughed, “I’m just taking the piss out of you.”

“You know my sister said you were nice, and I’m starting to think she was lying,” he smirked. 

“Remember how I said I could find someone else to join me?” you smirked. 

“Fair enough,” he laughed. 

You showed your tickets to the security guard, who let the two of you in, and Harry followed you over to the VIP section. 

“Damn, you are quite official aren’t you?” He asked. 

“That I am,” you smiled. “I mean it’s not exactly a suite or side stage tickets to an Ariana Grande concert.” 

He laughed, “Maybe not, but it’s cool nonetheless.” 

“Pst, I know,” you smirked. 

In the hour that had passed at the club, you two had seen about 3 performers, finished a small cocktail and somehow had inched closer together at the booth. His arm had made it onto the top of the booth, which made you even closer. You found yourself looking over at him throughout the night whenever you sipped on your drink or bopped your head to the music. Luckily, he never caught you, but there were times you could feel his gaze on you. 

Since the music was pretty loud in the smaller space, it was hard to make conversation. 

“Are you having fun?” You asked him once the performer was done. 

“I am,” he nodded. “I can’t believe I didn’t know about this place before now.” 

“Well, glad I could be the one to let you in on a little secret,” you smiled. 

“Maybe next time I can be the one letting you in on a secret,” he smiled. 

“Ooooh, so not only have you brought up the b word, but you also want to see me again?” You smirked. 

He blushed with a laugh, “I’d be a fucking liar if I said no.” 

“Well, that’d make two of us,” you said turning towards him. “If I said I didn’t like the sound of that.” 

Smiling over at you, you could feel him leaning closer towards you with a glance down to your lips. Instinctively, you moved your head closer to his, and just when you both were about to close the remaining distance between you, when music started playing again, causing the two of you to jump out of your little trace.

**

It had gotten late, so the two of you decided to head out. Ever since the almost kiss, the tension between you was growing. You weren’t sure if it was your own need or his as well, but you were practically itching at wanting to press your lips against his. Of course, you wouldn’t be opposed to taking it past way more than kissing, but this was still new and you didn’t want to just bed your best friend’s brother in case it didn’t work out. 

When Harry pulled up outside of your building, he turned the car off and looked over at you. 

“Do you mind if I walk you up?” He asked. 

“Not at all,” you smiled. 

He nodded as you both got out of the car and headed into the building. You typed in your code and then got onto the elevator. Neither of you said anything on the ride up, only once you were standing outside your door. 

“Well, this is me,” you said. 

He nodded running his hands through his hair, “Tonight was fun.” 

“It was,” you smiled. “Thank you for inviting me out.” 

“Anytime,” he smiled. “I meant what I said about seeing you again. I’ve uh, I’ve got to go to New York in a few days, but I’d love to see you when I get back.” 

“Sure thing,” you smiled. “Just let me know when you get back.” 

“Well, I uh, I was hoping I could call you, while I’m gone?” He asked putting his hands in the pocket’s of his coat. 

“You better or I’ll hunt you down,” you joked. 

He laughed, looking down as he shuffled his feed, “I should probably go. It’s getting late and I’m sure your neighbors don’t want to hear us talking out here in the hallway.”

“Right,” you nodded. “So, I guess I’ll just see you when you get back then?” 

“Yeah,” he nodded. 

You nodded again waiting for a spilt second to see if he would try to kiss you again, when it was apparent he was not, you grabbed your keys out of your purse and unlocked your door. 

“Goodnight,” you smiled with a wave. 

“Goodnight,” he smiled back. 

You turned to head inside, when Harry’s voice stopped you. 

“Wait,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. 

“Yes?” you asked looking back at him. 

He walked closer to you looking down into your eyes as he put his hands on the sides of your face. Your gaze dropped down from his eyes to his lips and back up again. Next thing you knew, his lips were against yours and you felt as if your heart was going to burst. 

**

Sooo... this one shot has now turned into more than one part. I don’t see it being super long... but we’ll see where this goes. 

[stereksecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, kevaaronday!

For @kevaaronday. I tried to use all the tropes you liked, though I played a bit with the coffee shop!AU request. It ended up being pretty long, but I hope it pleases. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Read On AO3

*****

Food, Drinks, and Pings

Stiles just wanted to clear things up—he did not work for Hale Corp, and he certainly did not work for said company’s inhouse café, The Family Bean. He was a writer, who just so happened to have been roped into the gig because he was best friends with the soulmate-fiancée of the best friend of one of the sons of the company’s owners.

See, one of Stiles’ best friends from high school was Erica Reyes, blonde, vivacious, and both crazy and powerful enough to castrate someone with her fingernails. She might look like she just stepped off the catwalk, with her hourglass figure, fluffy hair, and red lips, but she had a knack for business that led to a scholarship at a reputable business school. Stiles, on the other hand, took to writing like a duck to water, thanks to his overactive imagination and ability to turn a phrase. He could write anything and so he did—news pieces, articles, blogs, reviews, as well as a modestly famous soulmate series published under a pseudonym.

Erica’s soon-to-be husband and soulmate was Vernon Boyd III, a tall, dark, and delicious drink of chocolate, who was so fit he could bench press a baby elephant without breaking a sweat. He was the perfect picture of seriousness and silence, that Stiles used to wonder how he functioned as Hale Corp’s Director of Operations. After getting to know him better, he realized just how smart and charismatic Boyd really was.

Boyd’s best friend from childhood was Derek Hale, one of the sons from the famous and powerful Hale Family, owners and leaders of the mass media company, Hale Corp.

Stiles knew of the Hale Family, and who didn’t? You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t know the famous family of business tycoons and titans, a family so rich they could buy a person’s soul even. Nor would someone fail to hear about one of the most powerful love stories that rocked the world.

Talia Hale was the eldest child of the main branch of the Hale family and was poised to take over the world. Desmond Fitzgerald, in contrast, was the only child of elderly parents, and they lived at a shabby, squat house with no electricity, scraping by each and every day. 

Talia’s father, the late and great Everett Hale, had visited the local community college as part of their charity program. Talia had tagged along, nineteen and already learning the ropes, and had tripped over the custodian who had been on his hands and knees straightening the welcome carpet.

Take a guess who the janitor was.

An accidental brush of skin, the burning of a Mark, and that was it.

Talia and Desmond turned out to be soulmates, and their Marks, her howling wolf and his crescent moon, had become one of the most romantic symbols of their time.

Now, where did Stiles and The Family Bean came in, you ask?

Aside from writing, Stiles knew his way around a kitchen. His mother had passed away when he was seven, and he had grown up with a Sheriff father who only knew the basics. Stiles had to learn how to cook a meal or risk them subsisting on fried everything and endless takeout orders.

So yes, Stiles knew how a kitchen worked. The thing was, Erica didn’t, and had spent high school eating Stiles’ meals and hanging around his kitchen. Nothing soothed her viciousness and temper like one of his desserts.

So whenever Erica was close to breaking someone’s jaw and risking a lawsuit, she’d invite Stiles over and he would come and work his magic at The Family Bean. It wasn’t like it was such a hardship. The place had a gorgeous kitchen, a full pantry, and a really comfy setup with cozy booths and colorful tables and chairs. 

It wasn’t only Erica who benefited. Stiles often found inspiration at the tail end of a whisk or in between beating a dough into submission while listening to Erica’s gossip. He had come to depend on her brand of sass whenever he was suffering from writer’s block, or dealing with annoying clients, or avoiding his editor, Danny Mahealani. 

It got to the point that Erica had HR make him a permanent guest entry pass—written down for Stiles S, Food Guy—and everyone knew him by name, the security, the delivery boys, the café’s actual employees, and some of Hale Corp’s employees.

That was what he meant by his original statement: He did not work for Hale Corp or The Family Bean. He was just Erica’s food guy and personal chef. Just another title to add to personal punching bag, platonic soulmate, best friend, and partner-in-crime, among others.

Boyd was surprisingly calm about the guy constantly hanging around his soulmate. Then again, no one would choose Stiles’ skinny ass for Boyd’s lusciousness, so Stiles could understand that he wasn’t much of a threat. Erica said that Boyd knew they were a package deal, and it helped that Boyd had been won over by Stiles’ banana bread. Either way, Boyd was cool and didn’t punch Stiles in the face for his and Erica’s weird platonic love affair.

So, in the end, that was Stiles’ life—work, his Dad, Erica, and his other friends.

Then the Hales happened.

It all started on a fine Monday morning with Kira Yukimura. She was pretty and petite, and the goddess who was actually the one in charge of The Family Bean’s kitchen. She wore floral dresses with studded combat boots, and held katana wielding lessons on Saturdays and a kids’ kitchen workshop on Sundays. Stiles adored her.

So when he walked in that day—after spending the entirety of the weekend not writing, because his protagonists, Peter and Wade, were being idiots—only to hear Kira’s cries for help, he was more than happy to tag in.

“I’m not crying.” She glared at him from where she was assembling sandwich orders, her gaze as sharp as her swords.

“But you still need help,” Stiles said. He put his laptop bag in one of the employee lockers, rolled up the sleeves of his red sweater, and put on an apron. “Erica wants to do lunch, but I decided to come in early.”

Kira nodded towards the window. “All right, because I got a purple ticket for you.”

Stiles jumped up. “Ooh, cool! I’ve never handled a purple ticket before!”

Kira gave him a relieved smile. “Well, today’s your lucky day. One of my employees called in sick, another is late, and I’ve got five packed tickets from different departments, three of them being rush orders, not to mention today’s purple ticket is a little too vague. I’m both swamped and stumped.”

“I’ve got your back, K.” Stiles gave her a salute and bounced over to the ticket tacked up on the holder.

Purple tickets were orders sent straight from the Wolf’s Den. It was the codename for the top floors occupied by the Hale Family and their closest associates. Boyd and Erica’s office were there, too. Stiles had only ever seen it through photos. There was a lot of security posted there, as if guarding the gates of heaven.

Anyway, purple tickets meant VVVVIP orders, note the number of ‘very’s. Kira usually handled those, but she obviously needed help now.

“Now, what do the Lords and Ladies want?” Stiles murmured to himself.

The Family Bean:

MH: hot chocolate

CC: pancakes

SHB: waffles

VHB: dirty chai

LH: anything 

“You know who’s who?” Kira called out.

“Yep, I got it,” Stiles replied. He learned about this from Erica.

MH was Matthew Hale, the firstborn son and heir to the kingdom. CC was his seven-year-old daughter, who everyone called by her nickname. SHB was five-year-old Spencer, and VHB was his mother Valerie Hale-Barone, the firstborn daughter, second eldest, and the lawyer of the family. LH was Laura Hale, the third eldest and the maverick of the family. She was the only one not directly working for Hale Corp, and was more involved their side projects.

“Purple tickets are usually like that,” Kira said, looking at him with amusement. Stiles realized he had been frowning in confusion. “Despite being insanely rich people, they’re surprisingly not very picky about what they eat. Laura, in particular, will eat anything. It’s just difficult to give them variety or find a balance between upscale and too simple.”

“And now you want me to take a crack at it?” Stiles asked.

“Sure. It’ll be in my name anyway, and I don’t mind if you go wild,” Kira said encouragingly. It made Stiles grin. Most would be horrified at handing over their precious menu to someone who wasn’t a baker, much less someone who wasn’t a legitimate employee. But Kira had always been a rebel.

Under Kira’s guidance, Stiles filled up a purple delivery bag for the Hales. The dirty chai latte was pretty straightforward, though he didn’t know how Kira usually made it, so he went with his own style. He also made a raspberry hot chocolate, strawberry cheesecake pancakes, mixed berry waffles, and, for the anything portion of the ticket, a berry breakfast parfait made of yoghurt and fruits and graham crackers.

“Tastes awesome and looks pretty as a picture too,” Kira said, nibbling on her own waffle as she sat atop the counter, swinging her legs to and fro. Stiles could see a hint of her soulmate Mark under her dress just on the outside of her thigh. “I still believe you should have been a baker rather than a writer.”

Stiles grinned as he hung up his apron. “I’m both, but one pays the bills and the other’s a hobby. It’s surprising how most people would think one’s the other.”

“Kira?” a voice called out.

Kira perked up and immediately slid off the counter. She straightened her skirt and stepped out the door of the kitchen. 

“Good morning, Derek,” she greeted.

Stiles peeked out unashamedly through the service window.

Tall, dark, and incredibly handsome, DH or Derek Hale was the middle child of the family. He was the Chief Financial Officer, and was said to be shyer and quieter compared to his more unruly and flashy siblings. It made sense why he was childhood friends with Boyd. The two seemed to share a calm, quiet demeanor.

Stiles had always thought that Derek was quite handsome in an already attractive family, and every once in a while, he would get front row seats—or the view through the service window—to the man in the three-piece suit with the godly shoulder to waist to ass ratio. It was quite inspiring.

“I heard Val and the others had a purple ticket sent down,” Derek was saying to Kira. “I’m on my way up and I thought I’d bring it along and save you a trip.”

“Oh, thanks, Derek. I’ll get it from the back,” Kira replied. “How about you? Do you want anything?”

Derek thought about it. “Just a drink. Anything you want to make me.”

“So long as it’s sweet?” Kira teased, which made the man chuckle.

It was like a bulb lit up in Stiles’ head. 

He met Kira at the door when she walked back in, and it said so much about how awesome she was because she immediately said, “Yes, Stiles, you can make whatever you want. I mean, you’ve already tried your hard at the purple ticket. Might as well go all the way.”

“Thanks, K. You’re a goddess.” Stiles bounced off to the machines. He had always liked a challenge.

In the end, Stiles added his specially made ‘very merry berry frappe’ into the bag. He made sure to put it in a cup cozy to hide the purple color. He wasn’t sure if Derek would mind, but it just wouldn’t do for one of the bosses to be seen with a colorful drink. He let Kira whisk the bag away and they watched Derek exit The Family Bean.

“I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave,” Stiles murmured, eyeing the man’s backside.

“I’ll drink to that.” Kira giggled, clinking her extra glass of frappe against his. “And you’re teaching me the recipe by the way.”

“Not on your life.”

It took eight days before Stiles could once again visit The Family Bean. He had had a burst of inspiration following his last visit and had locked himself up in his apartment. His Dad John and his editor Danny were used to these binges, so they had taken turns visiting him to make sure he was alive and eating actual food rather than inhaling takeout, junk food, and soda. 

He had sent off the first few chapters to Danny yesterday and had then slept for about eighteen hours, before Erica had barged in to make sure he hadn’t died. She had been pissed at him last week, annoyed that she hadn’t sampled Stiles’ berry-filled menu, but she’d gotten over it and had even brought groceries before dragging Stiles to The Family Bean for some fresh air and free lunch.

And if that wasn’t enough to perk Stiles up, she and Kira proceeded to tell him how well-received his menu was.

“The kids absolutely loved it, and Laura practically licked her parfait cup clean,” Kira said as they sat around the table for lunch. She had prepared honey sesame chicken, egg rolls, and sweet potato salad. She definitely had Stiles beat when it came to savory meals.

“Valerie was surprised that her dirty chai tasted great. She wasn’t biting people’s heads off more than usual,” Erica shared. She was running her fingers idly over her soulmate Mark, the three claw marks that spanned across her forearm.

Stiles felt pleased at the compliment, but he couldn’t help sending Kira an apologetic look. He didn’t want to usurp her clients and her kitchen. 

Kira just laughed. “It’s fine. I know it’s due to your magic fingers and secret recipes. Just teach me how you do Valerie’s dirty chai and we’re good.”

“Sure thing, but it’s nothing special” Stiles said. “I did bring dessert, as thanks for letting me play around last time.”

Kira bounced on her seat. “Tomato pie?” 

“With extra bacon and jalapeños, just how you like it.” Stiles grinned and showed her the pie, making Kira squeal.

“You gals eat up. I’ll mix us up some lattes, if you want anything,” he offered.

Stiles went to the kitchen to fix up Erica’s usual iced cinnamon honey latte and Kira’s vanilla almond. He was in the middle of finishing them up when he heard voices out at the main area. He recognized Boyd’s low voice and decided to make him a cup of blond roast with soy milk. He paused when he heard unfamiliar voices and took a peek out the service window. He instantly recognized the small group that had joined Kira and Erica.

There was Boyd, who immediately sat down beside Erica and kissed her cheek. His soulmate Mark was obvious, a rose on the back of his left hand. Stiles liked their marks, very beauty and the beast.

Having come in with Boyd was Derek, who looked just as handsome as he always did in a fetching dark blue suit. With him were his younger siblings, twins Cora and Cameron Hale, the artists of the family, who made music and art, played a bevy of instruments, and also drew and painted. Stiles was only two years older than the twins, but they had more talent in their pinkies than Stiles had in his whole body.

The twins’ Marks were one of the most popular, not just because the two were celebrities, but also because they were incredibly visible. Even from a distance, Stiles could see the compass between Cora’s collarbones and the lighthouse that popped up over Cameron’s collar at the left side of his neck. 

Suddenly feeling shy, Stiles stayed in the kitchen and watched and listened.

“Nice spread, Kira. Is that for us?” Cameron asked.

“No, you Hales have your own food upstairs,” Kira said. “I heard Wild Flour Italian sent lunch over.”

Cora rolled her eyes. “Jennifer Blake owns that joint. She’s been trying to get us to come over. No doubt she’ll just use it as some sort of advertisement. I’d rather take a bite of this.” She pointed at their table.

“That pie looks good,” Cameron said. “Can I have a bite?”

Stiles saw the gleam in Erica’s eye.

“Go on,” she said. “They’re good.”

Stiles watched as Erica and Kira offered the Hales a slice each. For some reason, he felt anxious to hear about how his food will be received. It had been nice to hear the rave reviews from Kira and Erica, but it was different seeing their reactions in person.

Cora let out yum-yum noises, which buoyed Stiles’ spirit. 

“Okay, that’s pretty tasty. I love the caramelized bacon.”

“Wait, is this tomato in pie? Like a tomato pie?” Cameron asked, inspecting his plate. He took a large bite.

Kira bounced on her seat in excitement. “Yes, isn’t it good?” 

“Who made this?” Derek asked. He didn’t look displeased, but he didn’t look happy either. He had a really good poker face. It might be good for business, but it was hard for Stiles to interpret. Stiles noted that he kept on eating the pie though.

“My Food Guy,” Erica said with a smug grin.

“Her Food Guy’s the one who made the berry-eautiful purple ticket that received quite the sensational reviews,” Kira added. She glanced at the service window and Stiles knew she saw him hiding there.

“The one who made my drink, too?” Derek asked.

Kira nodded. “The same one.” 

“Spence went gaga for those waffles,” Cameron said. “And Mattie couldn’t believe someone got CC to eat fruit.”

A loud ring cut through their conversation and everyone started pulling out phones to check. It was Derek’s.

“Mom’s calling. Time to go,” he said, standing up.

In reply, Cameron started shoving the rest of the pie in his mouth and also popped in a couple of egg rolls.

“Where’s the Food Guy, though?” Cora asked, head turning to the kitchen. Stiles ducked down behind the counter. “If he makes stuff like this, I wanna meet him.” 

“You can order a purple ticket if you want, but he’s not here all the time,” Erica said, and Stiles glared at her in his mind.

“He works part-time?” Derek asked.

“Not quite,” Kira said. “He’s—”

They were interrupted once more by a ringing phone, and this time Boyd spoke.

“Talia wants you all upstairs. Now.”

Stiles peeked out again. Cameron attempted to bring the entire pie tin, but settled for polishing his slice off. He then joined Cora in writing up a purple ticket order. After a moment, Derek put an order in too. The Hales left in a hurry and Stiles leaned right out of the service window just as Kira came bouncing towards it.

“There’s the man of the hour,” Boyd said, with a smirk.

Kira giggled. “Order up, Food Guy. You got a purple ticket.”

“I’m so proud.” Erica mockingly wiped a tear away. “Stiles, my Food Guy, charming the Hales off through the power of food.”

“Oh, fuck you all.” Stiles glared, ducking back into the kitchen.

At the last minute, he reached out and grabbed the purple ticket from Kira, ignoring the others’ laughter.

Over the next three weeks, Stiles prepared four more purple tickets. According to Kira, his drinks and desserts had become quite attractive to the Hales, both because of the taste and the mystery.

“At this point, they don’t even want me handling the tickets. They always ask if The Food Guy is around before they send their orders down,” Kira said. This time, she was the one helping Stiles prepare and pack. 

The Wolf’s Den was going to be holding meetings nonstop, so Stiles had to prepare a variety of drinks and snacks. It would have been easy if they had simple requests, but the Hales were a mix of eclectic and frustrating.

“I’m glad you’re cool about this, but the Hales are bound to find out that the one making all their desserts isn’t even an employee,” Stiles said, as he added an extra shot of syrup in Laura’s honey and milk iced coffee. Just like her usual orders, she had asked for ‘any drink that’s sweet’ which was such a large ballpark that Stiles wanted to clock someone over the head, maybe her.

“I’m more surprised that you keep making these for free,” Kira said.

Stiles shrugged. “It’s a challenge, and I like challenges.”

“Really, just for the challenge?” Kira asked. “Stiles, Valerie fell in love with your version of her dirty chai. I did it the exact same way you did, but she insists that it tastes different. Same with Cameron’s favorite spiced coconut coffee. Same with all the desserts you made for the kids…”

Her face turned serious. “Don’t you think there’s more to this? Don’t you think it’s a ping—”

“It’s just for fun, Kira. It’s nothing,” Stiles said, heart rabbiting in his chest. He pushed it down firmly. “Plus, it’s surprisingly inspiring for my stories. Right now, I’m writing a new story for my spy series and I’m trying to solve this thing going on between James and Quentin.”

Kira’s face fell but she smiled, if a bit awkwardly. “Ah, well. Whatever you say, Food Guy. I’m just happy I get free labor out of it.”

“So you’re the Food Guy?”

The two of them jumped up in surprise and they turned around to see that someone had come in through the kitchen doors.

“Nathan, hello!” Kira greeted. “We didn’t hear you come in.”

Nathaniel Hale was the youngest of the brood at nineteen, and with his dark hair and piercing blue eyes, he was quite the heartthrob in an already beautiful family. If that wasn’t enough, he was an athlete and a rising star in soccer.

Stiles didn’t really care at the moment, too busy wondering if the kid had heard what Kira had been saying.

Nathan leaned against the counter. “Everyone was arguing over who was going to pick up the ticket this time. I walked out while Laura was arm wrestling with Cam.”

Kira laughed while Stiles looked away, suddenly awkward.

“Uh, that’s cool and all, but I’m not remotely interesting enough to warrant an arm wrestle.”

Nathan shrugged. “Your stuff tastes amazing.” He smiled at Kira. “No offense, Kira. You’re still queen. But you… you’re interesting.” He gave Stiles a look. “You know, I’ve been ordering the same caramel vanilla iced coffee from The Family Bean for years now. You made it once and now everything else tastes different.”

Stiles couldn’t help flinching. Oh yeah. Nathan had definitely heard Kira.

But Nathan turned to Kira, breaking the stare. “Anyway, is the ticket ready? Can I take it up?”

Kira smiled and handed over the bag. “You just want to lord your victory over the others.”

“Of course. That’s what having siblings is all about.” Nathan scoffed, but grinned. “Anyway, thanks.” 

Kira smiled. “Enjoy your meal.”

Stiles watched Nathan leave and rubbed his left shoulder. He had a weird feeling about all this.

A single touch was all it took to find someone’s soulmate. However, people couldn’t just go around touching one another. Some did, but there were laws against touching people without their consent. So Nature, in all its wisdom, gave people the capability to locate their soulmates by following a trail.

The best trail was through family members. Take for example one other famous Hale love story, that of Valerie. Her husband, the Italian magnate Piero Barone, was from a family of vintners. During Talia and Desmond’s trip to Italy, they met Piero at a wine tasting event and immediately felt what Mark experts called a ‘ping,’ a connection between them that hinted at the identity of Piero’s soulmate. Piero followed the Hales to America, met the family—all of which gave off similar pings—was finally allowed a Touch Test with Valerie, and the rest was history.

There were other kinds of trails, like what happened between Boyd and Erica. They both attended the same university, though Boyd had graduated several years earlier. However, even without knowing Boyd, Erica inadvertently joined the same groups and organizations that he had, and even lived at the same apartment that he had rented when he had been a student. Then after Erica graduated, she decided to take a year off to travel. Months later, when Boyd went on sabbatical, he ended up following almost the exact same itinerary. They finally met by chance during an alumni event and got to talking, which revealed all of the things they had in common. Before the event was even halfway through, they had done a Touch Test and found their match.

Stiles’ favorite trail story was of his parents’. John and Claudia met when they were children. Having no siblings, they didn’t have the benefit of a family trail, and being young meant there weren’t a lot of experiences that could link them. However, they had always known there was something special about one another. They grew up together, grew apart, and met later on in life. They still didn’t have the same life experiences—she was a librarian, he was a deputy—but the moment they saw one another again, they just knew.

Sometimes people just knew.

“Well, well, well. I didn’t know we were serving twink in the menu.”

Ordinarily, that comment would have had Stiles lashing out with his sharp tongue, but upon looking up, he hesitated. First of all, the other person was clearly drunk and it was only, Stiles checked his watch, three-forty-seven in the afternoon. Second, the other person was none other than the infamous Peter Hale, Talia’s younger brother.

The eternal bachelor, he was called, well known for his many dalliances and relationships. He was also the Hale with the most well-known Mark, not because it was at a visible spot, but mostly because he tended to flaunt the large image of a bird in flight that was across his chest via his tendency of wearing unbuttoned shirts.

In Stiles’ opinion, Peter reminded him of one of his book characters—the rich and powerful Anthony, who, underneath all the bravado, was desperately looking for his soulmate, only to find it in the fair-haired, gentle-hearted Steven, who wouldn’t take his crap. He wondered who Peter’s soulmate was.

“Oh, for god’s sake. Uncle, come back here!”

Stiles looked up to see Derek jogging over to them, looking both pissed and worried at the man leaning against The Family Bean’s pristine counter.

Peter ignored him. “Oh, lay off, Derek. I want a drink, and this twink is going to make me one.”

Derek turned to Stiles. “Peter, do not call—” He paused, dark eyes widening.

Stiles felt his heart jerk in his chest and his left shoulder burn. He felt like he had been hit in the head, so did Derek going by his gaping.

Peter suddenly tilted sideways, interrupting their stare down. Neither Stiles nor Derek were able to catch the man before he ended up sprawled across the counter. The sight of him had Stiles dredging up some semblance of control. He sighed.

“You are very rude, and also very drunk, but because I feel sorry for you, Mr. Hale, I’ll make you a free drink.”

Derek let out a gurgle and then a cough, obviously holding back laughter. Peter propped himself up on wobbly elbows. 

“You feel sorry for me? Don’t you know who I am, kid?”

Stiles was both annoyed by Peter and buoyed by Derek’s reaction. It was probably what sharpened his tongue.

“You’re Talia Hale’s younger brother, but between the supposed—ahh, what was it—Big Bad Wolf of Media and this so-called twink, I’m not the one nursing a hangover at this time of the afternoon.”

Stiles shook his head and walked off, ignoring Peter’s angry, garbled words and the sudden chuckle from Derek. The latter made Stiles’ shoulder ache.

Stiles ignored that and prepared a quick takeout bag. He could hear Peter and Derek arguing out on the main area. It was the work of minutes to prepare a quick smoothie and throw in some crackers and fruits. He walked back out and handed the bag to Derek, but then quickly tucked his hands to himself. The other man’s piercing stare was making him sweat.

Peter grabbed his drink and took a gulp of the smoothie, before asking, “What’s your name, kid?”

Stiles rolled his eyes. Not even a thank you. How rude. 

“Not a kid, and there’s no need to know my name since you’re just going to forget it.”

Peter smirked lasciviously. “Oh, that mouth on you.”

“I’m also not into geriatrics,” Stiles was quick to bite back.

Peter’s jaw dropped. “Geria—”

Derek suddenly burst into laughter and the sound of it seemed to fill Stiles’ heart and mind, making his face flush and his body warm. Derek smiled at him and Stiles felt warmth bloom in his chest.

Stiles cleared his throat, trying to will the blush away. He rubbed his shoulder. “Well, anyway, I’m happy to help. I’ll tell Kira you guys dropped by. See you around.” He glanced at Peter. “Not you. Drop dead.” He stepped back.

“Wait!” Derek lurched forward, startling Stiles and also Peter, who, true to Stiles’ words, slid off the counter to the floor. They ignored him.

Derek leaned forward over the counter. “I’m sorry if I’m forward, but are you—”

Stiles shook his head vigorously. “I’m sorry. I have to go.” 

He ducked back into the kitchen, ignoring Derek’s calls and Peter’s drunken warbling. He leaned against the door and slid down until he could curl up into a ball. He placed a hand over his burning shoulder.

Sometimes people just knew.

Stiles was tempted to stay away from The Family Bean after that. He really wanted to. But it was hard to stay away.

Even harder to stay away from a ping.

Stiles wasn’t stupid enough to let that slip away.

Still, it was hard to face up to it and admit that he had a soulmate.

So for the next two weeks, Stiles stayed away from the front of house, always hiding in the safety of the kitchen. He kept on making purple tickets whenever they came, but he avoided coming out for any reason, especially after Derek started coming by nearly every day. Sometimes he even brought his work over just so that he could stay as long as possible.

It confused Kira and Erica, but they assumed Derek just liked the food. The other Hales also started coming by and many times, Stiles could hear them asking Derek why he was hanging around The Family Bean instead of working in his office. Always, Derek kept mum.

Because as it turned out, Derek hadn’t told anyone about the ping.

In fact, Stiles had a feeling that the only person in the Hale family who knew was Nathan. Maybe because he had already been suspicious of it. Out of all the Hales, he was the only one who didn’t ask Derek about why he kept hanging around the café.

The other one who knew was Boyd.

Derek had been called to a meeting one day, so Stiles had felt it safe to come out and work at one of the booths. He had already fallen so far behind on his writing commitments. After a few minutes, Boyd had dropped by and had joined him. Stiles knew he was typing gibberish on his laptop, but he kept on as an excuse not to look at Boyd, who was looking at him intently.

Finally, he spoke, “Looking back, I guess it wasn’t just your banana bread that won me over.”

Stiles jerked, sending a series of characters across the screen.

Boyd kept on. “I always had a good feeling about you from Erica’s stories, but when we met, that was definitely a ping.”

Stiles bit his lip. “Does Erica know?”

Boyd shook his head. “I love her, but Erica would have thrown a party if she knew.”

Stiles sighed, both in relief and in trepidation for the moment Erica find out.

Boyd studied him. “Derek’s a good guy, you know.”

“I know I got that impression from all the stories you and Erica had of him,” Stiles said. “I always thought it was surprising considering he could afford not to be a nice guy.”

Boyd studied him, making Stiles shift in his seat. “Is that the reason you won’t meet with him? Or do a Touch Test? Because he’s a Hale?”

Stiles almost protested, but he deflated. “…I don’t know.”

Boyd hummed under his breath. “Well, you’ve always played your cards close to the chest when it comes to soulmates, but I know you’ll figure it out.” He stood up. “But you better make it soon. Erica and the rest of the Hales are bound to figure it out.”

Stiles groaned and sank down on his seat. 

“Noted.”

The day after that, a still-conflicted Stiles was once again at The Family Bean. Kira had gone up to the Wolf’s Den to deliver the latest purple ticket, so he had to stay and man the counter. 

The door let out a little tinkle, and Stiles froze the moment he saw the woman entering the café.

He’d know Talia Hale anywhere.

Stiles almost panicked, but then he remembered that she didn’t know who he was. He took a deep breath.

“Um, good afternoon, Mrs. Hale. What can I get you?”

The woman smiled, quite warm and friendly despite her fierce reputation. “Just some tea, please. And are there any new desserts?”

It had been a moment of weakness, but Stiles had actually brought over some peanut butter stuffed cookies and added it to the purple ticket in the hopes that a certain Hale would like them. He still had a few cookies left, but he wasn’t sure if he should offer them to her.

“I smell cookies,” Talia said pointedly. “I’ll have some of those.”

Stiles gulped. “Ah, we have some peanut butter stuffed cookies. Let me get those for you.”

He swallowed his nerves and served the woman, who took a sip of tea and a bite of the cookie right there on the counter.

She smiled, studying the cookies. “Very tasty.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Stiles smiled politely. He turned away to leave and maybe gather his strength in the privacy of the kitchen.

“When we started hearing about The Food Guy, I admit I was quite intrigued. It’s very rare for someone to grab the attention of my entire family.”

Stiles paused and turned to her.

He should have known.

Stiles nodded stiffly. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

Talia smiled, sharp and knowing. “And you, Food Guy.”

“Any reason for the visit?” Stiles asked, shifting on his feet.

“I wanted to meet you,” Talia said, taking another bite of her cookie. 

Stiles frowned. “That’s all?”

“Were you expecting anything else?”

“Uh, well, I…”

Talia shrugged and sipped his tea. “I don’t blame you for any misgivings you might have should you prove to be soulmates with my son. I’m well aware of the reputation of my family. My late father, Everett, embodied the might of the Hale name better than anyone. You should have seen him back in the days.”

Stiles held up his hands. He couldn’t help the feeling that he had to explain.

“It’s not that there’s a problem with Derek or your family. Being a Hale isn’t the problem… not entirely…” he hesitated, but then plunged on, urged by the ping he could feel inside him and the desire to make someone understand. “My mom passed away when I was seven. She was soulmates with my father. He was—I was—we were never the same after.”

A heavy silence fell, and Stiles was both nervous and intrigued. Talia’s face changed. Something in her eyes darkened and she pursed her lips.

“Forgive my sudden melancholy, but I was just reminded of something.” She sipped her tea. “I was reminded of my youth. My father, Peter, and I had never been the same after mother walked away.”

“Walked away?” Stiles was taken aback. It was rare to hear any mention of Talia’s mother, but everyone had chalked it up to grief at her passing. “But you all said she died—”

Talia interrupted him delicately. “People think of Marks as the be all and end all where the only answer is yes. But even soulmates are a choice…”

“Desmond grew up without a penny to his name, so he rejected me as he could only see himself as an embarrassment to the Hale family. My opinionated father had, unfortunately, been a contributing factor to that line of thinking. I grew up with a rather jaded view of Marks and pings, and I had seen his rejection as a challenge and not a privilege. Desmond and I, our story had been tempestuous, quite unlike the romanticizing people had done.”

She finished the last of her tea. “If I may be allowed to request one thing, all I ask is that you make a choice so that Derek can do the same. No one in this family will certainly blame you for it.”

Talia pushed her empty cup and plate towards Stiles, and smiled. “Have a good day, Food Guy.”

Stiles watched Talia walk away.

He had some thinking to do.

Stiles took a deep breath and tried not to crush the boxes in his hands. He was nervous and his left shoulder was throbbing.

“Ready?” Kira asked him. She was carrying the other delivery boxes.

“As I’ll ever be,” Stiles replied.

Kira smiled, both encouraging and proud, and nodded to the guard on duty. The man held open the double doors for them, and Stiles was instantly met with a wall of sound.

“Purple ticket delivery,” Kira called out, leading Stiles inside.

The office was spacious, as it should be if it was going to accommodate all of the Hales, and all of them were there. There was a long table at one end where Talia, Matthew, and Boyd were talking and laughing. Desmond was on one couch, talking to Piero and Erica. Laura and Cora were seated on armchairs and were arguing loudly about something. Peter was egging them on. CC and Spencer, were seated in front of a television at a kids’ play area set up in the corner. Cameron was with them, all of them singing along to whatever cartoon was playing. Derek, Valerie, and Nathan were huddled around a table, looking at blueprints.

“Oh, yes! The food’s here!” Cameron cheered, which sent the children shouting as well.

Kira navigated the area like a champ, while Stiles slowly shuffled after. “You guys ordered a lot. I had to ask for help. This is Stiles.”

Stiles didn’t miss the way Derek’s head suddenly jolted in his direction, nor Talia’s proud smile, nor Erica’s sudden screech of “Stiles!” which had everyone else turning their way. Stiles winced. He was going to get his ass kicked later for not telling Erica about this.

“Well, well…” Peter grinned. “Hello there, twink.”

Stiles shuddered. “Still not into creepy old geezers.”

“Oh, wait, wait! Is he the guy who called you a geriatric?” Laura asked, before shrieking in laughter.

“And the one who said Peter should drop dead,” Cora added, cackling. 

Laughter rang around over Peter’s protests, and it made Stiles’ heart stutter. He felt warm all over, like the pings going off in his head were doubly delighted at the Hales. He glanced at Derek, who was smiling warmly.

Stiles winced when he caught Erica’s gaze though. She looked between him and Derek and her eyes widened. But Boyd was suddenly there, hand over her mouth and whispering to her.

Stiles helped Kira take out all of the food and the ravenous Hales were quickly upon them.

“Food Guy’s stuff tastes awesome,” Nathan said, licking his cupcake’s icing. He waggled knowing eyebrows at Stiles, who bit back a grin. Cheeky kid.

“Please pass our compliments to the chef, Kira,” Desmond said, reaching for his drink.

Kira giggled. “You can thank him yourself.” She waved at Stiles with a flourish.

Stiles felt a little like a deer in headlights when all their gazes alighted on him.

“You’re Food Guy?” and other iterations of the exclamation rang around the room.

Stiles flushed. “I’m glad to hear you all like what I’ve been making.”

“Oh, wow! How wonderful!” Piero piped up. “I haven’t felt a ping in such a long time. How nostalgic, don’t you think, dear?” He turned to Valerie.

“That’s a ping?” Matthew asked, confused, before his face cleared and he rubbed his chest. “Oh, hell, this is a ping.”

“Is that the tingly feeling here, Uncle Mattie?” Spencer asked, pointing at his tummy.

Erica finally managed to get out from under Boyd. “Stiles, did you ping with Derek? Is that why you’ve both been hanging around The Family Bean? You’ve both been pining over each other!”

Stiles groaned, while gasps and shouts suddenly rang around the room.

Kira sighed. “Way to ruin it, Erica.”

“You mean I was pinged through a tomato pie?” Cameron was asking, wide-eyed. 

Cora started laughing. “Oh my god! Uncle Peter flirted with Derek’s soulmate!”

“That’s Uncle Derek’s soulmate?” CC asked.

“Yes, he is.” Nathan looked like he was immensely enjoying all this, and Stiles was starting to realize that he was a little shit.

Derek stepped towards Stiles. His face was a little red, but he was smiling and Stiles thought he was the handsomest man he had ever seen.

“My family’s a mess. Please ignore them,” Derek said, ignoring the protests from his siblings.

Stiles chuckled. “At least they keep things interesting. It’s just me, my Dad, and her.” He jerked a thumb at Erica.

“Oh, fu—dge you!” Erica said, glancing at the kids. She turned to Boyd. “And I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”

Boyd rolled his eyes. “I was giving him space to process things.”

Stiles ignored them and turned to Derek. He only had one chance to do this.

“Ah, sorry, it took a while. I was figuring stuff out, but I thought we should get to know one another first.”

“Of course,” Derek said immediately. He reached out a hand. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you, Stiles.”

Stiles glanced at Talia, who was whispering to her husband. She winked at Stiles.

“Soulmates are a choice.”

Stiles smiled at Derek. He could feel his Mark tingling in anticipation.

“Me too, Derek.”

He reached out and took his hand.

[dinokolombo]

Pouli Island

Welcome to my first story that I’ll be posting on this blog. It’s pretty basic, vacation goes downhill into horror town. I’m pretty new to this whole writing/social media thing so if anybody has advice it’ll be greatly appreciated!

Rating: T (sexual themes, language, suspense, horror imagery)

Length: 9081 (~45 min at 200 WPM)

    It was around noon when we had reached the island. The warm summer breeze blew over crystalline waters. We were on a small boat, part of a rental service that brings people who can’t afford an entire cruise vacation to the island. It was still fairly expensive, though. Tracy sat next to me in the cabin of the ship when Vanya poked her head in through the doorway.

    “Hey, lovebirds. We’re almost at the island. Get your shit ready.”

    Once Vanya left, Tracy grabbed my hand tightly. “I’m so excited! Thank you so much for this trip, Tommy. It means a lot to me.”

    I smiled at her. “I just wanted to give you a break from work, that’s all. You deserve it with everything you’ve done for me.”

    She wrapped her arms around me. After a short hug we got up and left the cabin. It had been almost four years since I had even seen saltwater. I took Tracy to the front of the boat to meet up with Vanya and Rose. The boat slowly came to a stop at one of the private docks, which were on the westernmost side of the island. The captain called out to the four of us.

    “Welcome to Pouli Island! Make sure you folks don’t forget anything, we won’t be back until three nights from now!”

    “Thank you so much, sir!” Rose shouted back. She turned to Vanya. “Let’s go explore the town! I want to see all the people!”

    Vanya groaned. “Calm down a bit, Rose. We just got here, we still have plenty of time before we have to check into the hotel.”

Rose basically ripped Vanya off of the boat, dragging her down the dock excitedly. Tracy took my hand.

    “Come on, I can hear music!”

    I could hear it too. Small drums, guitars, and all other kinds of instruments seemed to be playing an upbeat tune from the town. Once all four of us got off of the dock and made it into town, I saw the source. A handful of people were playing in the plaza. There was a traditional island beat to the music, like playful waves moving up and down a sandy shore. There was one instrument that stood out, however. A flute, playing quietly behind the others, released a melancholy tune that weaved through the other notes in the music. Tracy didn’t seem to notice. She was bouncing to the joyful bongos, swaying to the playful guitars. I couldn’t help but focus on the flute, though. It was entrancing, absorbing. Before it felt like I was completely lost in the music, the band stopped, and the small audience around them clapped. Each player walked away in different directions, and the audience dispersed. 

    “Wasn’t that really good?” Tracy was still bouncing a little, as if the music was still playing.

    “It was nice.”

    “Nice? That’s it?”

    “I mean, I liked it, I just think the flute was out of place.”

    She raised an eyebrow. “Flute? I didn’t hear a flute.”

    “It was really quiet.”

    Tracy chuckled. “Come on. There’s more of the city to see.” She kissed my cheek, once again taking my hand and guiding me deeper into the town. She didn’t usually act this loving, although when she did it was mostly in private. Now she was willing to show it in front of complete strangers, in a foreign place. It made me happy, yet anxious at the same time. 

As we walked through the town, we got to see more of the local culture. Foods of various kinds were served all over the place, ranging from grilled meats to fresh vegetables and even frozen treats like popsicles. Children were playing with a ball in the streets while their mothers sat at nearby tables and laughed over a cup of coffee. Everything seemed to be full of energy and happiness, until we were almost out of town. In one of the many narrow alleyways, a small old woman ran into us, holding her hand out as a signal for us to stop. Tracy greeted her.

    “Hello, ma’am!”

    The woman looked up at her, then at me. She smiled as she looked into my eyes. “Child, have you seen them yet?”

    I pulled my head back in confusion. “What?”

    “The shadows, child. The ones who walk this island.”

    “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”     “You’ve seen them elsewhere, haven’t you? In the corners of your vision. At the foot of your bed. Always watching…”

    “I’m sorry, what are you--?”

    Tracy cut me off. “Ma’am, please. We’re trying to enjoy our vacation.” She walked past the old woman, signalling for me to follow closely.

    As we walked away, the woman called out to us. “They come at night, child! Be careful!” Tracy began walking faster, and we eventually turned back onto the main street and started our way out of the town. It was clear she was upset. When we reached the dirt road that left town and stretched all the way to the hotel, we stopped walking. I texted Vanya that we were waiting for her, then turned to Tracy. 

    “Hey, you okay?”

    She sighed. “Yeah, that lady was just ruining the whole vibe. I was getting into exploring the city and talking to locals, then she had to make things weird.”

    I agreed with her, yet at the same time I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that maybe something wasn’t right with this place. It was as if a strange energy flowed through everything, everyone. As if that flute was constantly playing in the background of every interaction, big or small. It made me nervous, but I hid the feeling away. This trip was for Tracy, after all. It wouldn’t be right for me to act in a way that would make it less enjoyable for her.

    When Vanya and Rose finally met up with us again, we began the long walk from the town to the hotel. It was on the opposite side of the island, although the island wasn’t too big. Taxi services were available, but they’re fairly pricey, and I had already spent a decent amount on the ferry service to the island itself. Thankfully, Rose talked the whole way. She explained every little thing that she and Vanya did at the town, like how they missed the band because she wanted to chase a blue butterfly down an alleyway, or how a man tried to get her number but was met with a very angry Vanya. The goofy stories made the walk go by quickly, and before we knew it we had reached the entrance to the hotel. 

    The lobby was a massive hallway. It was two stories tall, with a crystal chandelier hanging from the tall ceiling. It was mostly empty, save for a few families sitting on couches to our right. Vanya immediately went to the receptionist, so the rest of us walked towards the far side of the large room. The wall facing the beach was entirely made of glass, giving us a good view of the beach. The sun was setting now, the water reflecting flame-like hues from the darkening sky. Tracy and Rose continued to look out the window while I scanned the rest of the lobby. Small staircases on either side of the room took you to the second floor of the lobby. There, rows of doors led to various rooms. A hallway also stretched from the second floor to the mall attached to the hotel. I looked down, seeing the many rugs covering the lobby floor. Most had the stereotypical beach aesthetic, with shells, fish, and coral being evenly spread about to create the sense that we were walking on an ocean. In all honesty, it wasn’t a look I was very fond of. Having grown up surrounded by similar sights, they’d completely lost their appeal to me. Vanya finally walked away from the receptionist’s desk, holding two keycards in one of her hands and a pamphlet in the other. She approached me first, as the other two were talking by the glass wall.

    “Take this.” She handed me one of the keycards, marked “406”. “They also gave me this paper about the island, you want it?”

    “Nah, maybe one of them does.” I gesture towards Rose and Tracy. Vanya took long strides towards them. When she reached them, she held out the pamphlet. Rose swiped it from her hand, read it for a moment, then handed it to Tracy. She folded it neatly before tucking it away in her pocket. The three of them exchanged some more words before Rose dragged Vanya towards one of the elevators. Tracy skipped towards me.

    “Do you have our keycard?”

    “Yeah, Vanya gave it to me.” I show her the blue card. “You ready to head to the room?”

    “You know it, walking around town made me exhausted!”

    We tried to get on the same elevator as Rose and Vanya, but Rose had already closed the doors in her excitement, so we got on the second elevator. The walls looked like copper, and were as reflective as a mirror. I grabbed onto one of the small railings as Tracy hit the button to our floor. The elevator moved slowly, playing a soft song similar to the ones we heard in the town. Almost by instinct, I tried listening for a flute, but there was none. When we had reached our floor, we stepped out of the elevator and turned left. I used the keycard on the door labelled “406”, hearing a click in the handle. I opened the door and walked into the dark room, examining my surroundings. A small kitchenette was to the left of the entrance, with the bathroom being across from it. Walking further into the room revealed a king-sized bed to my right, with a small table and a large flatscreen against the opposite wall. A glass door on the farthest wall lead to a small balcony, which overlooked the beachfront.

I threw my bag under the table and jumped onto the bed, groaning loudly. Tracy jumped on top of me, making me groan even louder. 

    “Why are you so heavy?”

    “Excuse me?! That’s a little rude, you know.”

    I chuckled to myself. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

    She scoffed as she got off of me, sitting upright at the edge of the bed. “You better be.”

    I shuffled over, sitting next to her. “How are you liking the trip so far?”

    “I like it, but it only just started. I’m sure it’ll get a lot better once we actually go to the beach.”

    I frowned. “Did you not enjoy the town? It seemed like you were having a good time.”

    She shook her head. “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I loved the town! I’m just more excited for the beach.”

    My frown disappeared. “Well, I hope it lives up to your expectations.”

    She looked into my eyes, smiling. “Even if it doesn’t, I’m sure it’ll be fun to spend some quality time with you.”

    I chuckled to myself before standing up and kissing her softly on the forehead. “I’ll be right back, got to use the bathroom real quick.”

    “All right! I’ll get a cup of cold water ready for you.”

    “Thank you.” I walked away from the bed, past the small table, and into the bathroom. It was a little small, although that was to be expected from one of the cheaper rooms in the hotel. I pulled my pants down and sat onto the toilet, relieving myself. The silence of the bathroom was eerie, almost piercing. I could hear Tracy pouring water into a cup and giggling to herself, but it sounded distant, as if she was three rooms away from me. When I was finished, I pulled up my pants and washed my hands. The water that came out of the sink was cold, almost freezing. It reminded me of the mountains, the place I called home. It always fascinated people how I had left the lush tropical paradise I was born in so quickly. Many of them didn’t realize that paradise tends to get boring quickly. I walked out of the bathroom and saw my cup on the table. I walked over to grab a sip, the cool water flowing down my throat. I sighed deeply before turning to Tracy, who was completely covered by the blanket except for her face.

    “What, are you cold?”

    “Maybe a little. Why don’t you come here and help me warm up?”

    I understood the situation then. I laughed. “You know, you can be direct with me.” I walked over to the bed, taking everything off but my underwear and sliding under the covers. Tracy held the blanket tight against her body, making sure I didn’t catch any previews.

    “There’s no fun in being direct. Besides, I know you love it.”

    I slid close to her, feeling her body against mine. She definitely wasn’t cold. She wrapped her arms around me, and I did the same back. We shared a deep and passionate kiss, before she pulled away suddenly. “I just realized we forgot to take showers.”

    “We could continue this there…”

    “You know, you’re a genius.”

    I got out of the bed first, making sure my phone was plugged in and face-down. “I’ll wait for you there.”

    “Just go already!” She giggled to herself as I rushed to the bathroom. 

~~~~~~~~~~

    I woke up the next morning exhausted. We had stayed up late the previous night, yet I still managed to wake up early. I turned to see my phone, face-up. Hmm, that’s weird. I thought to myself. I don’t remember moving it. I tried to think about the night before, but my mind was occupied by other thoughts. After shaking them away, I grabbed my phone and checked for any notifications. Nothing. I put it back face-down and wiped my eyes. To help me wake up, I looked around the room, at the pictures of various parts of the island hanging around the place, and at the wallpaper that was tearing slightly at its old edges. My eyes then locked onto my water cup from the night before, seeing that it had been moved to the opposite side of the table. I got up, looking around the room and checking to see if anything else had been moved, but there was nothing. I turned to the door to see any signs of forced entry, only to see it completely unlocked. I panicked, searching through our bags to see if anything was stolen, but nothing was touched. My sudden movements caused Tracy to wake up with a jolt.

    “Jesus, Tommy, you scared the shit out of me. What are you doing?”

    I realized I was crouched on the ground like an animal, so I stood up before responding. “Some things were moved around, and the door was unlocked, so I’m making sure nobody broke in.”

    She had a sad look in her eyes. “Are you sure you weren’t sleepwalking again? I’m sure everything we did last night didn’t let your brain properly prepare for sleep. Plus, you can’t open the door from outside, even if it’s unlocked. That’s what the keycards are for, right?”

    Maybe she was right. I put everything back into the bags I was looking through and walked back to the bed, sitting down on my side. “Sorry, guess I was spooked for no reason. How are you doing?”

    “Well, I’m a little tired, but I’m all right.” She put her hand against my head, probably to check if I was sick. “What time is it?”

    I checked my phone. “Around seven thirty. I’ll start brewing some coffee for us, I’m pretty sure Vanya and Rose will be up any second now.” 

    I stood up from the bed and moved into the small kitchen. I checked the cabinets until I found a coffee machine, placing it carefully on the table and plugging it in. After filling the reservoir with water and putting a coffee packet into it, I pressed a few buttons to get the water boiling. At this point Tracy was out of the bed, doing her morning stretches. She walked to her bag, giving me a kiss on the cheek as she passed by. She picked it up and grabbed her swimsuit out of it.

    “I’m gonna change real quick.” She walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. I decided to do the same, grabbing my black swimming trunks and sliding them on. I had forgotten about the netting in them, and they were immediately uncomfortable. I took them off and cut the netting out before putting them on again. Much better. She walked back out the door wearing a thin yellow beach dress.

    Tracy and I sat at the small table, sipping on warm coffee and waiting for either Rose to text us or for Vanya to bang on our door. We heard them in the room next to us, room 405. It sounded like they were making jokes and laughing together. Rose was the only person who could ever make Vanya smile. Even though we’re best friends, the most I could get out of her was a snort. Despite their laughter, it was clear that they were moving around and getting ready for the day. 

    Tracy put her empty cup down. She always drank coffee very quickly. “So, what do you have planned for us today?”

    I put my cup on the table as well. “We’ll be swimming at the beach for a while, one of the small ones the hotel owns right here. Then I have a few jet skis I rented out for two o’clock, so we can ride those for a little bit. For dinner we’ll be eating at the beachside restaurant, and then we’ll go to the game room to relax for a bit before we hit the hay.”

    Tracy giggled excitedly. “I hope today goes super well! I’ve been waiting for a long time to see a beach. Wait, how many jet skis did you rent? One for each of us?”

    “Oh, no way. They’re pretty pricey, so I rented two, one for each couple. Plus, I wouldn’t trust you on a jet ski.”

    “Are you saying I’m a bad driver?”

    “Yes, absolutely.”

    She jokingly slapped my arm while I laughed. “You’re such a jerk.”

    “I love you too.” My phone vibrated on the table, grabbing both of our attention. It was a text from Rose.

    Vanya and Rose were waiting outside of our door. Rose looked like a native, wearing a straw hat and a pink beach skirt over her swimsuit. Vanya, on the other hand, was wearing her black wetsuit. They contrasted each other like night and day.

    “Good morning, guys!” Rose was as chippy as ever. “Are you ready to head to the beach?”

I checked the time on my phone. Seven fifty. “Yeah, they’ll be serving breakfast in ten minutes. Let’s head down to the dining room.”

    This time we all managed to get on the elevator together. That same island music was playing, and like before I tried hearing for the flute. Nothing but drums and ukuleles. When we reached the ground floor, we walked through the massive lobby and turned into a large room filled with tables and chairs. The hotel serves three meals a day here, and all of them are complimentary with the stay, despite the many restaurants on the island. We all got into a surprisingly small line and grabbed breakfast before sitting back down. We mostly ate in silence, so I turned to a small T.V. that was against one of the nearby walls (there were many in the room). It was playing an ad for the resort and other places on the island. The monotonous tone of the woman’s voice was as uninteresting as anything could be, until she started explaining the island’s history.

    “Many years ago, native islanders had settled onto this island and given it its name. They were only here for about two years before suddenly disappearing. Researchers have tried to find out why, only to find nothing. Many believe the secret lies in the untapped wilderness to the island’s north, while others say the answer lies all around us. Could you uncover the mystery of Pouli Island?”

    For some reason it reminded me of the old woman from the town. I shook my head and scarfed down what was left of my breakfast. Everybody else had finished before me. “Are we all ready to head out?”

    Vanya groaned. “I might’ve eaten too much. Do we have to go swimming right away?”

    Rose suddenly got excited. “We can tan for a bit before swimming!”

    “Rose, I’m wearing a wetsuit. Plus, I don’t really tan, that’s why I’m so pale.”

    “The only reason you’re pale is because you never go outside! Although I guess your wetsuit will get in the way…”

    Tracy laughed. “We did bring sunscreen, right? Vanya and I will definitely need it.”

    I looked through the small bag I brought with me. “Yep, we have sunscreen.”

    Tracy stood up first. “Let’s get going, then!”

    We all followed suit, grabbing our things and leaving the dining room before walking out of the lobby’s main entrance. We followed a brick path that quickly turned to soft sand. It took us around the hotel as we walked by several tiki huts. It was still fairly early, but many of the huts were already occupied by people drinking and playing music. We walked past them until we got to a calmer side of the beach. Only two other families were there at the time, so we had plenty of space. The ocean was absolutely beautiful. It had the iridescent shine of an aquamarine gemstone, and was so clear that we could see fish swimming through the coral reef in the distance. The sand was soft, almost impossibly soft. There were no sharp edges whatsoever, as if the hotel hired people to meticulously pick up shells that would be unpleasant to visitors. I laughed at the idea. Tracy heard me as she was laying out a few towels for us.

    “What’s so funny, mister?”

    “Ah, nothing. Just thinking silly thoughts.”

    “All right, put some sunscreen on already. I want to get in the water with you!”

    The women had already applied sunscreen, and Vanya was racing Rose to the water. I guess Vanya’s stomach didn’t hurt anymore, either that or her competitive spirit made her forget all about it. I took off my shirt and put sunscreen over my entire body. Even though I had more tolerance to the sun than the others, I knew living in the mountains and snow for so long meant that I could still get burnt easily. Once the lotion dried, I ran with Tracy to the water and jumped in. The cool water was refreshing after being in the hot sun. I opened my eyes underwater like I used to when I was young. The water was still perfectly clear, and I could see the fish moving between our legs. We swam in the water for hours, occasionally stepping out to play in the sand. By the time we finished constructing a gigantic sandcastle, we were completely exhausted.

    I went to my phone to check the time. One o’clock. “Hey, why don’t we go grab lunch? I’m sure there’s something by the jet ski rental place, so let’s look over there.”

    Tracy was the only one that heard me. Vanya and Rose were still in the water. “What time is it, babe?”

    “One.”

    “You said the jet skis were rented for two, right? We might as well head over there.” She grabbed a towel and started drying herself off. “Do you wanna grab the other two? Or do you want me to do it?”

    “Nah, I got it. Hey, Vanya! Rose! We’re gonna go get lunch!”

    Rose jumped out of the water. “Yay, food!”

    Vanya laughed at her, trying her best to cover it up. We all dried off and headed over to the jet ski rental place. I was right, there were plenty of little bars serving all kinds of food and drinks. There were a lot of people here, and it started to make me a bit nervous. I could tell many of them were drunk, their words were slurred and their movements were uneven. Their conversations carried with them that same strange sound from before. That same flute, echoing through sentences, footsteps, even the waves seemed to carry it. I grabbed Tracy’s hand, and without saying a word she squeezed my hand tightly. She knew I could get nervous from time to time, and she knew how to comfort me. We reached one of the more empty bars and began to order food.

    Vanya spoke first. “I’ll have the beef bowl, extra beef.”

    Rose was next. “A caesar salad, please! Oh, could I have a side of fries with that? Thank you!”

    Tracy’s turn. “I’ll just have a burger. Yeah, everything on it is fine.”

    The man working at the bar turned to me, and I froze. I was so focused on staying calm, I forgot to think of what to get. Tracy quickly spoke up for me. “He’ll have the same thing as me, just no tomatoes.”

    The worker nodded and disappeared into the back before walking back out and helping other customers. I sighed.

    “Thanks, Tracy. I owe you one.”

    “It’s no biggie. Everything all right?”

    “Yeah, yeah, just a little shook for some reason. I’ll be fine.”

    She smiled at me, holding onto my hand tightly. “I’m so grateful you did this for me, you know that?”

    “I know, I know. Like I said yesterday, I just wanted to give you a break from work.”

    She kissed me. It was a little unexpected, so I kind of fell backwards. “I really appreciate that.” The worker came up to the four of us, handing out our meals. My burger was absolutely delicious, I could tell the meat was fresh. I even tried a bit of Vanya’s beef bowl, and that was good too. I guess when you pay for quality you should expect it, but the food was so good I completely lost all of my worries. Once everyone was finished eating, we were all energized again. We walked away from the bar and to the jet ski rental. There were two people working there, a man standing by the jet skis and a woman at a counter. I got into the line for the counter when the woman screamed suddenly. 

    “Tommy! Your rental for two o’clock is ready! If you’re here, go see Dylan by the jet skis!”

    I slipped out of line and rejoined the group. “Come on.” I motioned for them to follow. I walked up to the man, who I now knew was Dylan.

    “Hey! You Tommy?”

    “Yep. Just here to grab my two rentals.”

    “Sweet. Do at least one of you know how to drive?”

    “Two of us, me and her.” I pointed to Vanya, who nodded. Vanya had the most experience with jet skis, but I’ve ridden a few in the past.

    “Awesome! Here are your keys.” He gave them to Vanya and I. “Once you get them started, just go ahead and take them out of the bay slowly. When you’re out past the green buoys, you’re all good to go full speed!”

    “Thank you.” The four of us walked past him, getting onto our jet skis. Vanya and Rose were quick, with Vanya being able to start the engine and pull out of the bay almost instantly. Tracy sat behind me as I put the key into the ignition, starting the engine. I slowly pulled on one of the handles, moving it back and feeling the engine hum under my legs. I moved away from the small pier the jet skis were lined up on, following Vanya and Rose. We cruised away from the beach, moving at a steady pace until we passed the buoys. Vanya turned to me, a competitive smile on her face.

    “Hey, how about a quick race?”

    “You sure, Vanya? It’s their first time, I don’t want to scare them.”

    “Oh, they’ll be fine!” Vanya went full speed in a circle, causing Rose to squeal and cling onto her tightly. “See? Come on, they’ll love it.”

    I turned around. “Are you cool with going really fast?”

    Tracy nodded. “Be careful, okay?”

    I planted my feet and grabbed the handlebar. “Might wanna hold on tight.”

    The speed was incredible. We zipped over the water, flying at sixty miles per hour over the surprisingly flat water. I managed to win the race this time, which obviously bugged Vanya, but everybody had fun nonetheless. Taking a look around, I realized how far we had gone from the original beach. There were no buildings on the island here, just dense forest. We were surprisingly close to the island’s mountain, its peak towering over us. A breeze came out of the forest. It was cold.

    Tracy tugged on my shirt a bit, grabbing my attention. “How long are we allowed to rent the jet skis for?”

    I stared into the woods, feeling the cold air. “I’m not sure but we better head back.” I heard a strange noise. I tried to listen to it, but Vanya interrupted my concentration.

    “That race kind of scared Rose, so we’ll take it easy back. You guys can go fast if you want.”

    I continued looking at the forest. “Nah, we’ll stay with you guys.” I turned away, and we moved slowly back to the beach. As we moved away from the trees, I could still hear the sound over the loud engines. Soft and shrill, as if it was produced by that cold wind. It was almost like the sound of a flute, beckoning us to come closer to the forest. 

    When we finally reached the beach again, we moved into the bay and parked our jet skis on the pier. The rental guy walked to us. “How was the ride?”

    Rose jumped up and down like a kid. I could tell the guy watched her chest move. Vanya seemed pissed. “It was so much fun! We went super fast, and made it all the way to where the forest is!”

    The guy was shocked. “The forest? You all went that far north?”

    Vanya got in front of Rose, blocking the man’s curious eyes. “Yes. Were we not allowed to?”

    He shrugged. “Well, normally we try to tell people to stay close to the beach, but it’s too late now. I’ll take your keys back.” Vanya basically tossed hers to him as she pulled Rose away. I handed mine to him.

    “Sorry we left the beach, we got distracted while racing.”

    “No worries, man. Take it easy.”

    Tracy and I met back up with Vanya and Rose. I checked my phone to see the time. Three. “Dinner doesn’t really start until later. You guys wanna swing by the game room now?”

    Tracy nodded. “Could we head to our rooms first? I’d like to get out of this swimsuit.”

    “Yeah.” Vanya said. “We should probably just take showers now so we’re not covered in salt by the time we sit down for dinner.”

    We walked around the beach again, going into the lobby. It was freezing inside, so we wrapped ourselves in our towels (except for Vanya, who’s wetsuit kept her relatively warm) and rushed into the elevator. When we reached our floor, we all stepped out and hurried into our rooms. I closed the door behind me.

    “Quick, you or me first?” I asked.

    “Why not at the same time?” Tracy answered.

    “Again? We’re about to go eat dinner.”

    “I didn’t mean it like that.”

    “Oh, sorry.”

    “Ah, whatever. Maybe I did mean it like that.”

    “Then let’s get in because I’m freezing!”

    “Sounds like a plan!”

    The game room was on the second floor of the lobby. It was completely empty, so we basically got to play whatever we wanted. There was a pool table, ping pong, air hockey, and even a few board games tucked away neatly in one of the corners. I personally wanted to play backgammon, but nobody else knew how to play, so that was shot down quickly. We started by holding a small chess tournament. I went up against Tracy and lost horribly.

    “How many times have you played chess?” She asked me.

    “I don’t know, a few times.”

    She laughed to herself. “Okay, that explains a lot!”

    She then went up against Rose, who was surprisingly good at chess. Vanya was furious at her loss, and dragged me to the air hockey table.

    “I’m mad now. Let me beat you so I can feel better about it.”

    “Vanya, it’s air hockey. I'm a killer at this.”

    She moved to her side, grabbing her striker aggressively. “I’ll kill your face.”

    “We’ll see about that.”

    While Rose and Tracy quietly continued their game, Vanya and I played what had to be the most intense air hockey game of my life. She’s a strong woman, and could hit that puck so fast I couldn’t see it. Somehow, I managed to still hit it back to her, almost at the same speed. It would go back and forth, barely managing to stay on the table, until it would finally go into one of the goals. When Rose and Tracy finished their game, they came up to the table and watched us play. The score was a tied six to six. One more would win the game. Vanya held the puck in her hand.

    “This is it. You ready to lose?”

    “Normally I would say yes, but I actually think I’ll win this one.”

    Vanya grunted. She carefully put the puck down on her side, grabbing her striker so tightly her knuckles turned white. In a flash her arm moved, sending the puck bouncing off the walls and straight towards my goal. I managed to hit it hard enough to send it straight back. We continued like this for almost ten minutes when I finally managed to slide the puck into her goal. She screamed in frustration. I screamed in excitement.

    “Woah, you guys are intense!” Rose had wide eyes the whole time we were playing. “I couldn’t even see the thing moving around!” Vanya sighed in frustration, and Rose gave her a hug. “You did great, honey.”

    I walked over to the other side of the table, extending my hand out. “Great game, Vanya.”

    She shook my hand. “Whatever. I let you win.”

    Tracy looked at the time on her phone. “It’s actually pretty late, guys. I think it’s time for us to eat dinner.”

    Rose raised her arms in the air. “Woo! Fancy restaurant time!”

    The restaurant wasn’t as fancy as we hoped. The main dining room was full of tables, many of which were occupied. There was a large stage near the front of the room, with a string quartet currently occupying it. We sat down and gave our waitress our order.

    “Tracy, are you enjoying the island?” Rose asked her.

    “Oh, yeah! It’s great!”

    “That’s good to hear! What about you Tommy?”

    “I’m actually having a lot more fun than I thought I would.” I looked around at the walls and ceiling. The architecture was fairly plain, and the paintings on the walls seemed to be of different places on the island. The girls continued to talk while I listened to the music. It was very quiet and mellow. When our food arrived, we were all somewhat upset with the bland taste, but tried our best to enjoy it nonetheless. Halfway through our meals, an announcement cut off the music.

    “And now, we’ll have a special performance from our guest for the night, Lady Ombre! She’ll be playing a Pouli Island classic, something even the original islanders would play. Take it away!”

    The room darkened, and light focused on a woman dressed in black on the stage. She had a wooden flute in her hand, and when she brought it to her mouth, she began playing a soft yet melancholic tune. It was entrancing, drawing everybody in the room to watch her performance. It was as if the notes themselves were trying to reach out to me. I began to feel anxious. I looked around the room quickly, seeing everybody watch her. I could also see things in the corners of my eyes. They looked like people, standing in the room, staring at me. The song reached its climax, the notes becoming faster and more aggressive. The shadows began laughing, as if they knew something I didn’t. Then the song was over, and the lights slowly came back on. The shadows were gone, and I let out a sigh of relief. Applause rose from across the dining room, then people went right back to their food. I wanted to ask the others if they saw what I did, but I brushed the thought away. Even if it was real, they probably wouldn’t believe me.

    After finishing our meals, we walked back to our rooms, completely exhausted from the day’s activities. Very few words were exchanged, we mostly just walked in silence and said good night when we reached our rooms. As I closed and locked the door behind me, I heard Tracy flop onto the bed.

    “I am so unbelievably tired. What time is it?”

    I checked my phone. “Almost eleven. We should probably go to bed.”

    She took off most of her clothes, leaving her underwear on. She slipped under the covers. “Are we going to the beach again tomorrow?”

    “Nah.” I stripped to my boxer briefs and joined her in the bed. “We’ll be walking around the mall and checking out some of the small stores they have, grab a few souvenirs, that kind of stuff. It’ll be a more relaxed day than today.”

    She yawned loudly. “Thank goodness!” She turned onto her side, facing me. “Not that I didn’t like the beach, but it is super tiring to be out in the sun all day.”

    “Heh, I agree. It’s the reason I moved up north.”

    “This place is nice, but I definitely prefer living in the mountains. All of this would just get stale too quickly.”

    “Yup. I lived here for about nineteen years before I finally left.”

    “Must’ve sucked.”

    “It wasn’t all bad. I just wanted a change.”

    She moved close to me, hugging me tightly. “Well, I’m very thankful you moved. Otherwise we would have never met.”

    I smiled, then gave her a small kiss on the head. “All right, it’s bedtime.”

    She gave me a kiss on the shoulder before moving away to her side of the bed. “Good night!”

    “Good night.” I turned off the lamp next to me, the room turning dark. The only light source was the moon, which peered through the glass door and windows. Tracy was out instantly. I followed closely, the sound of wind outside lulling me to a deep sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~

    The sound of a door closing made me spring awake. I felt Tracy jolt up as well. I reached over and turned on the lamp, seeing our bags opened and things spread about everywhere. I jumped out of bed and ran to the entrance, seeing the door unlocked. I swung it open to see if I could catch who was in the room, but there was nobody in the hallway. I closed the door before moving back to the bed. Tracy seemed really tense.

    “Babe, what was that?”

    “I don’t know, I think somebody somehow got into our room.”

    “Should we call the police?”

    “Don’t worry, I’ll call them. You just breathe and relax.”

    I didn’t actually know the number for the police, so I called hotel security instead, and they arrived with a few policemen. While Tracy stayed in the bed, I explained to the officers what had happened.

    “We both woke up to the sound of our door closing, and our things were thrown around in the room.”

    The officer I was talking to looked down at me. He was surprisingly tall. “So you heard them leaving, but not entering? How would they get into your room?”

    “I’m not sure.”

    “Did you lock the front door?”

    “Yes, I’m certain of it.”

    He leaned towards his partner, muttering a few words before turning back to me. “I’ll inform hotel security to guard your room and keep a watch on this floor. I’ll also have a few of my men stationed outside just in case. You two can go to bed now.”

    After they left, I locked the door, even putting the chain onto it. I got into the bed, and Tracy gave me a big hug. She had been crying.

    “I’m so happy you're okay.” She said it very quietly, almost a whisper. 

    “Yep, everything is okay now. The police and hotel security are going to keep us safe until we leave.”

    “What if they come back?”

    I held her tightly. “Like I said, everything is okay now. We’re safe, there’s nothing to worry about.”

    Despite the situation, we both managed to eventually calm down by watching some funny videos on our phones. After I turned off the lamp, we shared one more hug before falling asleep in each other’s arms.

~~~~~~~~~~

    We gave ourselves the morning to relax and drink our coffee while watching a movie on the room’s T.V. Around 10, Vanya knocked on our door, and we let both her and Rose in. While they sat at the table, I filled them in on what we experienced the night before.

    Vanya scratched her head. “Well, at least you guys are safe now.” Rose was shaking, her normally immovable smile gone.

    “Yeah.” I replied. “The police said they’ll keep watch of the outside and this hallway, just in case.”

    “That’s reassuring.”

    We all agreed that taking the day easy was the best option. We sat in the room talking and watching the T.V. until around noon, when we all decided to go to the lobby and grab lunch. On the way to the elevator, we noticed two security guards keeping watch over our hallway. I waved to one of them. They didn’t wave back.

    After having sandwiches at the dining room, we headed to the second floor of the lobby, which had a hallway connecting it to the nearby mall. The walls of the hallway were adorned with pictures from around the island, with little snippets of information to match every photograph. I didn’t look at them too long. They made me feel anxious, as if there were something hiding in the dark corners, waiting to jump out from the still frames.

    Entering from the second story of the mall was an interesting experience. The second floor was more like a raised walkway, with openings to see down into the first floor. Stores were everywhere, ranging from souvenir and jewelry shops to game stores and small restaurants. One of the stores even had two floors to itself. We walked around the mall for a few hours, window shopping and seeing what we would want to bring back home with us. At one point, Tracy motioned for me to come see something.

    “Look at this necklace.” She pointed into one of the display cases of a small kiosk. It was a silver necklace, with a black jewel adorning it. The jewel seemed more like a rock, completely opaque and only shining with certain angles of light. The kiosk owner came up to us, a big smile on her face.

    “Are you interested in our obsidian pendant? The obsidian rock is actually obtained from the northern part of the island, where lava has cooled and hardened. The silver is eighty percent pure, with a small bit of titanium mixed into it to ensure more durability and to prevent oxidation. If you’re looking for even more toughness, we also have obsidian pendants with pure titanium, however they won’t be as shiny.”

    I turned to Tracy. “I think it’s pretty. Not too flashy, either.” I turn back to the kiosk owner. “How much would it cost?”

    “The pure titanium version will cost around three-hundred, while the silver one will only be about fifty more.”

    I went wide-eyed, looking at Tracy. She already had her card out. “I’ll take it!”

    The kiosk attendance snatched her card quickly, her smile never wavering. “And will you be taking the silver or titanium variation?”

    “Titanium, please.”

    Tracy put the necklace on while we walked away from the kiosk, holding the obsidian up to admire it. We met up with Vanya and Rose in a small bakery, sitting down at a table they had been waiting at. Both of them seemed to love the pendant as well.

    “The obsidian jewel is beautiful!” Rose exclaimed. “And I’ve heard that its energy can protect you from darkness.”

    Tracy nodded. “I don’t really believe that stuff, but I will say I feel safer with this around.”

    Vanya shook her head. “Energy or not, it’s gorgeous. I don’t even like jewelry and I would wear that.”

    A waiter brought us croissants, which Rose ordered for us while we were at the kiosk. After we finished those, we started heading back for the hotel, since there wasn’t actually much to do or see in the mall. When we got back to our floor, there were new security guards in the hall. It made me much more comfortable, and I could tell by the girls’ joyous expressions that they were still able to have fun despite the previous night. I waved to one of the guards. They waved back this time.

    We all decided to hang out in room 406, sitting down on the large bed and watching a movie on the T.V. It was a gritty action movie, and while they generally weren’t my favorite, I enjoyed relaxing with Tracy and the others. When the movie was over, we ordered pizza through room service. We got a large pepperoni pizza, along with a personal vegetarian pizza for Rose. We put another movie on (this time a comedy), and when it was finished it was almost eleven P.M. Vanya yawned loudly.

    “Rose, I think it’s time for bed.”

    “Oh, come on Vanya! Just one more movie, please?”

    “We need to be up early to catch the boat going home, come on.”

    When Rose didn’t move, Vanya picked her up and carried her out of the room. Tracy laughed loudly. I’m sure the guards outside laughed too. Wiping tears from her eyes, Tracy looked at me. “We should be heading to bed too.”

    “Agreed.”

    Before we got too comfortable, I went to the front door, locking it and putting the chain on. For extra security, I even made sure the balcony door was locked. I slipped my shirt and pants off before getting into bed with Tracy, who had already fallen asleep. I noticed the pendant on the nightstand next to her, the titanium reflecting the moon’s rays. I laid flat on my back, staring at the ceiling for a while before closing my eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~

    When I opened them again, I was confused. It was still night, and no noise had startled me awake. I tried getting up when I realized I couldn’t move. I panicked for a moment before remembering that it was just sleep paralysis. I breathed slowly, taking a moment to scan the room before seeing it.

    It stood at the foot of our bed, about the size and shape of an average man, yet it wasn’t a man. Despite the moon’s light, it was completely black. It twitched around, shaking frantically and moving its head and arms in ways no human could. A soft noise came from it every few seconds, like a quiet grunt. I tried my best to make it disappear, assuming it was another hallucination, but it stayed there. I even tried closing and opening my eyes, only to see it still shaking in the room. Now I was really panicking, trying my best to break out of my paralysis. It suddenly took a step, moving to the right side of the bed, Tracy’s side. It took another step. Its steps were stuttered and uneven, and it would stop for a moment before taking another one. It walked slowly towards Tracy. I followed it with my eyes, seeing as it stood over Tracy before leaning over her in a jerky movement. With an immense effort, I managed to turn my head, which caught its attention. It raised its head at me. I couldn’t see its mouth, nor its nose, but I saw its eyes. Large, almost circular eyes. It was as if its eyelids had been cut off. 

    After staring at each other for what felt like an hour, it suddenly stood up straight and stuttered away, walking frantically to the door. By the time I could fully move, I heard the front door close. I scrambled to it, seeing it was unlocked. I undid the chain and swung the door open, running out to the blinding beam of a guard’s flashlight.

    “Sir, is everything all right?”

    “Did you see a man leave this room?!”

    The guard lowered her light. “No, sir. So far you’re the only person who’s left any room tonight.”

    I shook my head. “Th-there was a thing in my room, and it ran out here. I swear!”

    The guard got closer to me. “Sir, I assure you, there has been nobody else out here but you. Please, return to your room. We don’t want to bother the other hotel patrons.”

    After locking the door behind me, I returned to the bed. Tracy was wide awake, shaking. “Did something happen again?”

    “I… I don’t know.”

    I explained what I saw to her. Her fear seemed to fade away. “Well, you do have a lot of sleep paralysis, and I’m sure what happened yesterday night really set it off.”

    “But Tracy, I promise you this wasn’t normal sleep paralysis. This thing seemed real!”

    She shushed me. “No need to be loud, everybody else is sleeping. I want to believe you, but there’s no way somebody could’ve gotten in, let alone run out without being seen by one of the security guards.”

    I shook my head. I know what I saw had to be real, because I’ve had hallucinations, and they weren’t like that. Either way, I decided to drop it. “Let’s just go back to bed. We can talk about this another time.”

    She hugged me, easing the worry I had that I had made her angry. “Good night.” She went back to her side, taking a moment to look at her pendant before falling back asleep. I laid down on my back again, but the image of those eyes never left my mind. I didn’t fall asleep for the rest of the night, staring at the ceiling until dawn. The silver light from the moon was slowly replaced with golden sunlight, and around eight I heard a knock at the door. When I opened it, Vanya was standing outside alone.

    “Tommy? You look exhausted.”

    “Thanks. Where’s Rose?”

    “Getting ready. Tracy?”

    “Sleeping. I’ll get her up.”

    After everybody was up, Rose and Vanya stayed in our room while I explained what happened the night before. Vanya scratched her chin, thinking about the situation. “And you don’t think this was a hallucination?” I shook my head. Tracy sighed.

    “Tommy, it had to be a hallucination. I think the trip triggered some memories or something that’s making your conditions worse.”

    Vanya looked around the room. Her eyes locked onto the sliding glass door, which she approached with powerful strides. “Tommy, did you lock this door?”

    “Yeah, I did.”

    She pulled on the handle, the door opening with ease. She closed it, locked it, then pulled on the handle again. The door opened again, unlocking itself. “Maybe they got in through here.”

    Tracy stood up. “That can’t be possible. We’re almost five stories off the ground, plus there were guards everywhere. Even if they got in, how did nobody see them leave?”

    Vanya shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, how was both the front and sliding door unlocked when Tommy locked them both?”

    “Guys, stop!” Rose was standing now, tears forming in her eyes. “This trip has already been scary enough, can’t we just get along until we’re home?!” Hearing her shout made me feel horrible. I had never seen Rose this upset before. I think it had a similar effect on the other two.

    Vanya scratched her head. “Sorry, Rose. You’re right. Whether there was somebody here or not, everybody is okay, and that’s what matters.”

    Tracy nodded. “Let’s just enjoy the rest of the day together.”

    After checking out of our room and giving back our keycards, we began the walk back to the island’s town. The trip was mostly silent, with tension still existing between Vanya and Tracy. It was clear they were both upset they couldn’t win the argument from before.

    When we reached the town we wasted no time, walking along the main road straight to the docks. The city was as loud as always, with music pouring onto the main street from several different alleyways. We got to the docks to find our boat waiting for us. The captain called out to us in his booming voice.

    “Good morning! Climb aboard, I’ll be taking you home whenever you’re ready!”

    The girls all went below deck, but I decided to go to the back of the boat instead. I watched as we drifted away from the dock, the boat turning and moving away from the island. As we moved further away, the music from the town seemed to slowly fade, being replaced by the sound of strong wind coming from the island. When I looked at the docks one more time, I noticed a figure there I recognized. It was the old woman, waving at me. It was then that I realized that the wind sounded like a flute, as if the island itself was trying to pull me back with a soft melody. I shook my head and walked into the cabin with the girls, closing the door behind me.

[readyplayerhobi]

Peppermint | 01

; Hoseok x Reader

; Genre: Fluff, future light angst

; Word Count: 10.6k

; Synopsis: Achieving your dream job is something that very people manage to do, which is why you’re all the more happier when you land a job on the film team at Poppin’ Culture; the biggest pop culture website, blog and YouTube channel around. What you don’t expect however, is to fall for the exceptionally shy and awkward colleague who is not even remotely your type. Or is he?

; A/N: This is just what I’ve been writing to try and get back into the swing of things. It’s just...light and fun. Was supposed to be a one shot but it’s getting long and it feels like a good place to end as a first part! Please send me thoughts, comments and encouragements as it’s a struggle to write lately ;-;

01 ; 02

-

“And this is our main office. It’s open plan, as you can see so I hope that doesn’t bother you too much. We’ve found it works better to just throw ideas out in the open or to just get reactions so feel free to shout out if you need something. Everyone’s very friendly,” Seokjin smiles at you brightly, his thick lips turning up and making his eyes sparkle behind his glasses as he leads you into the wide open space. “And this is your desk. Feel free to decorate it however you want. Nothing will beat the car wreck that’s happening on Jimin’s desk.”

“Hey! This is artistic mess. Everything has a place and there is a place for everything.” The bubblegum pink haired man in question half stands, a finger pointing threateningly while his pearly white teeth peek out from beneath plush pink lips. You can’t help but smile, as his slim frame and cute cheeks make him look distinctively non-threatening and ruin any hope he has of convincing you otherwise.

It could also be the fact he looks like a hipster from Seattle with the thick, black plastic frames delicately placed on his nose and the retro 80s film shirt with an open black and white plaid shirt over the top. Still...he’s rather pretty and you wonder momentarily if you’ve somehow entered another dimension with astonishingly beautiful people.

Either that, or you’ve walked into the set of some reality TV show but you’re not quite willing to break the Matrix programming just yet.

Seokjin snorts and rolls his eyes, lifting a ring laden hand to brush his black hair out of them. It’s hindered slightly by the tan beanie on his head and you’re momentarily distracted once more by his impressive frame. The white shirt with the Jaws film poster on it stretches rather enticingly over his broad shoulders while his black, ripped jeans are snugly secured with a leather belt that has a Superman belt buckle.

Honestly, how were you meant to work in this place?

He’d already introduced you to Namjoon, the creator of Poppin’ Culture who oversaw all aspects of his slowly booming media empire along with Namjoon’s wife, Chaeyoung. She oversaw the HR aspect of everything and had been your first point of call before Seokjin had come down to retrieve you upon getting the call that you had arrived.

Seokjin is the editor of the Poppin’ Culture website, which is the big daddy of the whole enterprise. It had originally started 10 years ago in Namjoon’s university bedroom apparently, just posting reviews of retro films and any new films that came out.

A decade later and it was the biggest source of pop culture news, blogs and entertainment in the Western hemisphere. The website scores over 250,000 hits a day with the blogs averaging a pretty healthy number too and the YouTube channels generating a steady enough income to keep a small team afloat with ease.

His sheer love of all things cultural meant that Poppin’ Culture had expanded far beyond its original remit of film and now had something for everyone. There was the film blog, the gaming blog, the music blog, the television blog and even the book blog. And you’d heard rumours of them branching into sports with talk of a fighting blog and channel appearing soon which would be interesting.

Sports were a whole other thing in the world of things people obsess over.

Either way, you’d been rather desperate to get a job here when the opening had appeared on the job listings website for a new in house content writer. When you’d found out that you’d got it, you were pretty sure that you’d almost deafened Sunmi with your screams of excitement.

As a film major with an English literature minor, it was perhaps the dream job to combine both of your loves together and work with people who were just as enthusiastic about the world of film as you were. Your friends and family had long since grown bored of how you picked apart the latest films or their trailers, but now you would have an audience of thousands that would not only be receptive to it, but interested too.

In your earlier meeting with Namjoon and Seokjin, they’d laid out your responsibilities for you pretty clearly. Given that you were in your six month probation period, you would be expected to create two blog articles a week with the possibility of writing a video script if it was approved by the video team.

Two articles may not sound a lot, but you’d already been informed that you would also likely have to do some indepth research into the topics to provide factual information, along with making sure it wasn’t something that had been done before. Not only this, but you would be expected to be constantly scouring the internet to find new topics of interest and trying to catch the latest leaks before they even happened.

While you’d been hired for the film team, you’d been told that most people tended to dip into other areas to help out or if they had some particular interest in it. As such, you could be expected to possibly be asked to find out the Top 10 Facts About The NES or 15 Things You Never Knew About Taylor Swift or something.

Wasn’t the most scintillating of things to you, but you were willing to branch out and help if necessary. It was a small team and you understand that sometimes you’d need to pitch in when it was required of you, which in turn meant you knew that you could rely on the same help.

“Jimin is our music guy. He’s the one who usually writes the music blogs and videos but he also does the gaming stuff sometimes. Also has a regular book blog where he reviews obscure international books because that’s his thing.” Seokjin says, rolling his eyes as he leans against the desk.

Jimin’s desk is littered with piles of CD cases - who even uses CDs anymore? - along with three different pairs of headphones. He also has a ton of Funko Pop! Vinyl figures that you recognise to be musicians along with a set of Assassin’s Creed characters. You recognise them because Sunmi’s ex-boyfriend had them too.

“Really? You’re going to come into my space, and ruin my time while insulting me? Am I going to wake up tomorrow morning to find you shitting on my lawn too?” Jimin slumps back in his chair, pulling a pair of pink and white headphones over his head to rest around his neck while eyeing the taller man with narrowed eyes.

“You live on the top floor of an apartment building ‘Min. What am I? A wizard?”

“I wish. Maybe you’d wingardium leviosa your ass off my damn desk.” He grumbles, nodding his head at you. “Have you ever read In The Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami?”

The question is so sudden that you’re left standing with wide eyes, shaking your head slowly. You’d not read a lot of translated work in college, though you were hoping to change that. Jimin sighs and slumps in his seat, clicking on his mouse a few times.

“Fucking weird dude. Still not entirely sure what went on it.”

Before you can even respond, Seokjin is leading you over to the desk behind Jimin. This desk is even messier, only you really can see the artistic mess here. It’s covered in pencil sketches that are stacked haphazardly while a high tech looking electronic drawing pad takes up most of the space with even the keyboard pushed away.

The guy sat comfortably in the green and black gaming chair has a black beanie on his head too, only he has platinum blonde hair that covers his eyes. And what pretty eyes they are when he looks up at you; as if someone has reached up into the sky and plucked two of the brightest, shiniest stars and placed them directly onto him.

“Oh, hey. I’m Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook. I’m the graphic designer here...with a side passion of actual drawing obviously. I mostly use Photoshop but I like to get a bit hands on.” He talks rapidly, his voice quite deep but soft. Pausing, he bites on the black lip ring embedded in the right side of his lower lip before sitting back.

The vibrant and colourful tattoos that run up and down his arms do nothing to hide the obvious fit physique he has and you find yourself dragging your eyes away from that ridiculously broad chest. He’s only wearing a black shirt but my god.

Seokjin lets you both talk for a little, discovering that if you need anything made graphics wise then to let Jungkook know. Apparently he’s the head designer and has two more people under him; Jennie who deals with a lot of designing and Soyeon who handles their website and online shop.

You’re then introduced to Yoongi who is in charge of sound for the videos. He’s pretty quiet but friendly and bright, secluded away in the corner of the office with a soundboard in front of him, while his co-worker Lisa, a video editor, is entirely the opposite. They’re both sat on the same bank of desks, and the difference between Yoongi’s monochromatic desk and Lisa’s bubblegum pop explosion is almost amusing.

The video game team was made of Miyeon, Yugyeom and Baekhyun who all took up the corner on the opposite end of the office to you. You weren’t a huge gamer, but apparently the video game side of Poppin’ Culture was one of the most popular and profitable so you could understand why they had the largest team compared to the others.

Your desk is opposite Jimin’s, allowing you a view of him if you look to your right and it looks sparse compared to everyone else’s. The guy behind you is Taehyung and you’re pleased to discover that he’s friendly and warm with a bright box smile that makes you feel at home instantly.

Taehyung is the other content creator on the film team and someone that you’ll be working closely with, though apparently he also works with Jimin on music. From the short conversation you have with him, it seems that Taehyung mainly specialises in foreign film and you surmise that you’ll be left with most of the more mainstream options with the Oscar bait films being split between you both.

He seems enigmatic enough, with the white ribbon wrapped around his neck and billowing white button up shirt that ends with a pair of baggy, tan trousers. He’s not wearing any shoes, or socks, and you wonder if that’s a violation of something somewhere but no one seems to be saying anything.

His entire desk is full of various plants, artistic photographs in elegant frames and beautiful old film posters in miniature form. A photo of a black and tan Pomeranian is eagerly introduced to you as Yeontan, his dog and you can’t help but laugh at how excited he is to show off his lil pup.

But perhaps not as excited as you when you discover that Friday’s are ‘Bring Your Dog To Work’ day. Apparently Taehyung, Yoongi and Jennie all bring their dogs and it usually ends up just being people playing with them.

Yep, definitely the best workplace already.

“Hey Hoseok, come here before you sit down.” Seokjin calls out to the late entry into the office before looking at you. “I’ll introduce you to our head video editor. He’s the one who usually helps with recording videos, then he’ll edit it all together. He works closely with Jungkook for graphics and if you write a script then he’ll work with you to see if you want anything extra added in like humourous cuts, edits and so forth. He’s got Lisa on his team and a guy who works part time, Taemin.”

The man in question almost shuffles forward, a delicate looking hand gripping the brown fabric strap of his shoulder bag tightly while he looks down at his scruffy, black Converse clad feet as Seokjin introduces you to him. He looks about the same height as Seokjin, though all you can see is a head of messy chestnut brown hair and black circular lens glasses that looks like they’re going to fall off his nose.

“Nice shirt.” You say with an encouraging smile, wondering why Hoseok looks like he’s trying to crawl through the floor mentally. He looks up at that with almost shockingly wide eyes and you almost groan out loud.

This place is blessed or cursed. You’re not sure which yet.

He’s wearing a faded Jurassic Park shirt, the famous logo sliced by ‘dinosaur’ claws, while a pair of ever so slightly baggy and ripped denim jeans are kept up by an oversized tan fabric belt, the end trailing down to his knee. A knit grey cardigan covers his arms and you find it oddly endearing how it’s slipping off one slim shoulder, obviously far too big for him.

The shoulder bag he’s carrying also has the Back to the Future logo on it and you point at it with a grin. “Great Scott! I like your bag too.” You point then at your own chest, your shirt emblazoned with the Back to the Future logo and frown as his eyes dart down before his cheeks flush bright red.

His obvious shyness just seems to make him more endearing to you, and you let out a quiet laugh. There’s an almost awkward silence for a moment as Hoseok just stands there, giving Seokjin tiny glances before he finally sighs and points to the desk behind yours. Hoseok almost bolts there, disappearing behind the iMac and you look back at Seokjin with a raised brow.

He kneels down so he’s closer, the music of the radio that’s blasting out 80s classics drowning out anything he might say to you. “Hoseok’s a good guy, he’s just a little socially awkward. A hard worker, and he’ll do anything you ask but...it’s a little hard to get him to open up. Keep trying though, he will occasionally have a full conversation with you and I keep trying to make sure he’s included so he doesn’t feel left out. Don’t take it personally, it’s just how he is.”

Nodding, you turn on your own iMac and wait for it to boot up before going through the process of getting everything ready for you to work. Given it’s your first day, Seokjin just gives you some simple tasks to go through to help familiarise yourself with their method of working before leaving you to your own devices.

It’s as you’re sat reading through the style guideline for the blog that you watch as Hoseok suddenly appears in the corner of your vision. He’s rolled over to the edge of his desk, hands flipping through the stacked letter tray there as he searches for something while he presses his lips together and blows his cheeks out. You can’t help but watch him with idle interest as he does so.

He’s definitely cute, in fact he’s more than cute. Hoseok is actually stunningly beautiful and from the side, you’re getting to see his arresting profile with ease. A strong jawline swoops in bold lines on his face while his nose is a straight slope with the gentlest turn at the end, his lips thin but full enough to look delightfully kissable as he pouts suddenly without thinking as the tiny frown of concentration causes his strong brows to fold in.

As he finds what he needs, you watch as he disappears back behind his screen before sighing quietly to yourself.

It’s probably not very moral, but you definitely had enough new material to keep your spank bank going for a good few months now. If nothing else, you should thank Namjoon for that.

-

“Did you watch Roma yet?” Taehyung asks, rolling his chair backwards until he appears in your vision. His wispy blonde hair lays straight on his forehead as he rests his hands behind his neck, letting his long sleeved blue sweater stretch across his torso. It’s unusually tight for someone who basically lives in baggy clothes; you’re pretty sure he’s even worn his pyjamas once.

Over the last three months of you working at Poppin’ Culture, you’d understandably grown close with Taehyung as you’d bonded intensely over your love of film. It turns out he was also a film major with a photography minor, meaning he was exceptionally invested in the artsy films or just films with great cinematography.

You’d already been subjected to two passion filled rants of his about Mad Max: Fury Road and Blade Runner 2049 as being prime examples of great cinematography in big budget cinema. It was okay though, as you’d already chewed off his ear about why you thought Aliens was one of the best sequels ever made in history and he’d listened with interest.

There was nothing better than someone who was willing to indulge in your long winded talks about your favourite films; from cult classics to obscure favourites to Hollywood blockbusters. Your rapport with him was so good in fact, that Seokjin had had you do a test video with him to see how well you worked in front of the camera.

The results must have been positive as you’d been given a weekly film podcast with Taehyung that talked about the week’s releases along with any news in the film world. If there was time then you both would regale viewers with your favourite films and analyse them.

So far, it was doing pretty well and you were pleased with the numbers it was pulling in. Not to mention that people seemed to like your inclusion into the videos, which was why you’d ended up in a few other videos around music or even gaming just to voice over them. Taehyung had obviously been a hit.

He had a face for the camera and you’d already jokingly suggested in many a team meeting that they should make merchandise with just his face on it. His little fan club even named themselves ‘Taes Baes’.

“No, I haven’t had chance yet. I’ve been watching The Sinner, I’ve only got like two episodes left but I’ll check it out at some point! Alfonso Cuarón makes such good films; Gravity is still amazing and I’m still mind boggled at the sheer complexity of how that must have been to film with all the CGI they had to do but I feel like Roma looks a little more stripped down.”

Taehyung is nodding slowly, biting his lip almost absentmindedly as he listens to you. “Gravity is great, but you should definitely check out Children of Men. Much better, but Y Tu Mamá También is also phenomenal if you don’t mind the sexual scenes. But yeah, watch Roma. Definitely going to be a bit hit with the awards season and I can see him getting Best Director at the Oscars.”

“Really? It wouldn’t surprise me.” You muse, leaning back in your own chair and crossing your legs as you watch him now.

“Yep. And if he does win, then that’ll be his second Best Director win and it will also mean that Mexican directors have won five out of the last six. They’re killing the Oscars game lately. I still wish Barry Jenkins had won for Moonlight...way better than La La Land.” He sighs wistfully before nodding at your computer screen inquisitively, the beginnings of your latest blog post on the screen.

“Oh, I’m writing why I think Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse deserves the Best Animation at the Oscars. I liked The Incredibles and Ralph but if they win over the magnificence of Spider-Man then I will flip this table.” Pointing to your desk jokingly, Taehyung giggles sweetly.

Your desk has also changed over the last few months as well. A few cute Funko figures of your favourite Star Wars characters have popped up along with one or two more stylised figurines like your Xenomorph alien. Along with that, you’ve invested in some funky letter trays and pots to just bring some brightness to portray your personality a little more.

“I’ve not watched it yet. I know, feel free to pinch my arm. Hoseok has watched it though, he mentioned it the other day. Hey Hoseok, come here bro.” He calls out loudly, turning slightly to watch for the quiet man who spends his days on the computer behind yours.

Slowly, and adorably you might add, Hoseok’s meek face peers around the side of both his and your monitors as he stares owlishly at Taehyung beneath those outdated glasses. You’d say they were ugly, and they were, but he seemed to pull them off.

His hair is hidden today beneath a sand coloured beanie, leaving his entire face exposed and you coo softly at his tiny folded ears. It wasn’t something you’d noticed till Jimin had one day pointed over to the video editor, whispering words of adoration to you as he stared a little moon-eyed and lamented how his own ears didn’t look that cute.

It was beyond endearing, along with the slight pout his lips were pursed in. He probably hadn’t been listening to your conversation and so had no idea what was going on.

You’d noticed that Hoseok either kept an earphone in at all times or covered them with over-ear headphones when he wanted to work hard and not be disturbed. He certainly wasn’t rude but he definitely didn’t seem to be hugely confident in making conversations with people.

That didn’t stop people from trying to include him though, and you got the definite sense that everyone in the office adored Jung Hoseok and simultaneously wanted to hug him and protect him. You certainly did, and you were quite pleased that no one bullied him.

He, unfortunately, had the demeanour that would attract the attention of assholes but Seokjin and Namjoon ran a tight ship here. You did kind of wish that he got included in more outside events though.

“S-sorry. W-wh-what?” His voice is soft, the perfect mix of deep and high as he stutters out a response to Taehyung. The long sleeved shirt he’s wearing is almost salmon pink and has some generic looking cartoon on the front. It looks warm, and you find yourself lamenting the fact that you hadn’t brought a cardigan with you today.

“Spider-Man, the new one. You said to Jungkook that you’d watched it right?” There’s a moment of hesitation as Hoseok’s eyes flick to you before he’s nodding slowly. Almost immediately you grin brightly, not noticing the way that Hoseok pauses with his breath caught before his shoulders shift up to his ears.

“Oh my god, wasn’t it so good? The animation is just beautiful, it makes me want to scream. Like those cityscape shots? Could easily be mistaken for a photo if you just showed someone it. And the perfect blending of the different art styles of the Spider-People and god the music was so good. Miles is amazing and if it doesn’t win then I’m gonna Hulk out,” You pause and look at Taehyung who’s smirking in amusement. “Seriously, I don’t even know how to describe the animation. Think 3D...but not. You get me, right Hoseok?”

Hoseok’s eyes go astonishingly wide once more as you question and his mouth opens and closes a few times as he struggles to find an answer for you. He just settles for nodding quickly, reaching up to pull his beanie off and sort out his hair.

The chestnut locks have gone a bit wild under his hat and you have to bite your lip to stop laughing at how it goes all over the place, though another part of you wants to aww at how cute he looks.

“One day Hoseok, one day I’ll get you to spout poetic bullshit about a film you love.” You tease lightly, tapping at your gel wrist rest that lays alongside your keyboard to ease the pressure on your wrists as you type. He swallows audibly, causing you to laugh out loud while Taehyung chuckles and shakes his head.

“Hoseok has fucking terrible film taste. He thinks Batman v Superman was actually good.” Jungkook calls out and you turn to look at the graphic designer. He’s reclining in his chair, hands over his stomach with an ankle hooked over his knee while he observes the scene on the other side of the office.

Jimin is in the exact same position behind him while he nods his head sagely and you gasp in horror, a hand to your chest as you look back at Hoseok. “Say it isn’t so Hoseok.”

The man in question looks like he wants to sink through the floor as he gives a meagre shrug. Your wail of horror has him cringing while everyone else in the office sniggers and Taehyung pats your back in consolation.

“This can’t be. Why? Is it because your mom is named Martha too?” Jungkook lets out a bark of laughter at that while Jimin creases, folding over in his chair as his forehead rests against his knees from the force of his laugh.

Hoseok attempts to speak a few more times before he frowns deeply, taking a deep breath and shaking his head. “N-no. That was d-d-dumb. I just like Batman. I-i-it’s not my favourite f-f-film but it’s not terrible.”

You lean back and stare at him, raising a brow slowly as you narrow at your eyes at him. “What is your favourite film then?”

This is probably the most you’ve talked to Hoseok in the whole three months about non-job related work. You’re actually surprised he’s engaging this far, and you study him closely to make sure he doesn’t look uncomfortable or unhappy. The last thing you want is him to get upset.

But he doesn’t back down from your question, instead staring at something on his desk intently before looking back at you. You almost lean back in reaction, the intensity of his gaze far stronger than you’d expected and you’re surprised to feel a slight stirring of sexual lust for him. While you’d always acknowledge he was handsome - wasn’t everyone in this place? - you’d never quite seen Hoseok in a ‘oh holy cow’ light until right now.

“I-I-I don’t have one. B-b-but I like Jurassic Park and Blade Runner. And the Godfather. Oh, and Big Hero 6.” He adds as an afterthought, and you feel oddly proud that he didn’t stutter throughout the rest of the conversation. It was obviously just a nerves thing, but you kind of hope that he’ll get a bit bolder if you keep trying with him.

“Good choices. Solid. Not pretentious like the avant garde master here. He probably watches his porn in French black and white too.” A casual thumb thrown in Taehyung’s direction gets you the finger in response.

“It’s black and white softcore German, you heathen. No one does the group sex quite as good. The camera angles when there’s so many bodies.” He kisses the tips of his fingers before blowing them in the air, causing you to stare at him with a slightly grossed out face.

Looking at Jimin, you shake your head. “You know, I’ve only known the two of you for three months now. But I can easily see how you started dating. You with your weird music and books and Taehyung with your pretentious films.”

Taehyung gasps theatrically before smiling, fully aware that you’re joking around with him. Jimin on the other hand, snorts loudly and sticks his tongue out at you. “Hey, there’s nothing weird about my music choices. And what the hell. You’ve been listening to Billie Eilish non-stop lately according to your Spotify. And while she’s incredibly talented, I wish she’d lighten up a little.”

Turning to look at the cotton candy haired guy, though his hair was mostly hidden today by a black ball cap, you raise an eyebrow slowly. “Firstly, don’t insult Billie like that! Her songs are beautiful and soothe my soul. And also, this coming from the guy who listens to Morrissey. Unironically, I might add. Your opinion is invalid in this conversation.”

“...You know what. I can't even argue that. You right.” Jimin shrugs in defeat and sits back while Taehyung makes consoling noises at his boyfriend from his seat.

The delicate snort from behind your monitor makes your eyes widen, causing you to shift over slightly to watch Hoseok as he giggles. His white teeth peek out at you as he bites on his lower lip to try and contain his laugh.

And from how pretty and sweet it sounded, you wish he wouldn’t. The soft noises he lets out are oddly infectious, causing you to laugh in turn with a pretty dopey expression on your face and making you completely oblivious to the sly look Jimin and Taehyung are sharing.

“You love Imagine Dragons too, right? Hoseok listens to them all the time.” Taehyung says helpfully, gesturing with his chin towards the man behind your monitor.

Spinning back, you look at Hoseok with a happy grin and clap your hands together excitedly. “Oh my god, yes! I’m in love with Bad Liar right now, and Zero is so fun. I think Jimin keeps laughing at me for dancing in my seat.”

Hoseok doesn’t respond to you properly though, just nodding his head and smiling slightly as you playfully glare at the slim man across the office.

“On the subject of dating though...Hoseok. Have you ever had a girlfriend before? Or boyfriend, if that’s your thing.” Jimin asks, his tone not even slightly sly and you look at him in surprise. If he was trying to not be obvious, then he was being about as subtle as the Seattle Space Needle. Surely they’d already know this right?

As far as you’ve gathered, Jimin has been at Poppin’ Culture for four years and Taehyung for three. The two had started dating two years ago and despite your teasing, you were already confident that they were two of the cutest couples you’d ever seen.

Hoseok though, had apparently been with the company for years. He’d gone to college with Namjoon, Chaeyoung and Seokjin and had a film production degree. Namjoon had started Poppin’ Culture when he was 19, in his second year, and Hoseok had come on board once they’d branched out to a YouTube channel.

Still, you’re surprised by the way Hoseok’s cheeks go bright red and his eyes dart to you for a moment before he’s looking down at his desk once more. A wet tongue peeks out of his mouth quickly as he licks along his lips to wetten them, coughing to clear his throat before he’s looking back up at Jimin with a frown.

“Would you like the name of my e-e-ex-girlfriend? I’m s-s-socially awkward, not inept.” You suck your lower lip between your teeth as you look at Jimin with a ‘wtf’ look. As nice as he was, he was a bit blunt and you felt that situation could have probably done with a little more tactful handling. Hoseok looked like he could fry an egg on his cheeks and Jimin winces at the glare both Taehyung and you give him.

“Sorry man. I was out of line. I didn’t mean to insult you.” The apology is sincere in tone, with Jimin ducking his head and turning back to his work. You watch carefully as Hoseok eyes the younger man before letting out a quiet sigh and nodding his acceptance.

The atmosphere is slightly awkward now, and you’re desperate to make Hoseok less uncomfortable which is why you find yourself blurting out words you immediately want to swallow back up. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve not had a boyfriend since I was 20 and I’ve not been laid in four years.”

Almost immediately your hand is slapping over your mouth as your eyes widen in horror, apologies falling from your lips like honey as your cheeks burn with embarrassment.

Not only are Hoseok’s eyes resembling dinner plates, his jaw dropped open in shock, but so is just about everyone else’s in the office. Well, that’s certainly one way to make him feel better about himself you guess.

“I’m sorry for your loss. Everyone, we need to be careful with her. She’s going through some tough times. Only 26 and already looking at a life of non-sexual fulfilment.” Taehyung drones deeply, his voice faux-sincere and you glare at him while pushing his hand off your shoulder.

“I will delete your folder of obscure foreign films.” You hiss at him through narrowed eyes, causing him to burst out into laughter as his hand slaps his thigh in amusement.

“Oh god, you crack me up. I need to thank Seokjin for hiring you, seriously. God, get on with your Spider-Man boner before you accidentally reveal something else way too intimate for the workplace to know.” He snorts before rolling back to his own desk. The office thankfully goes back to normal after that, the low level of chatter competing with the soft sounds of today’s playlist.

Looking at your screen, you’re distracted momentarily by the sight of Hoseok still in view just around your monitor. He’s looking at you in that way people do when they’ve checked out, their brains focused on something else entirely and you watch him back in amusement until he realises.

Almost immediately he cringes, bowing his head slightly and giving an uncomfortable smile before sliding back out of view. Smiling, you shake your head and pop your headphones back into your ears as you get back to work.

You’re oddly pleased to see Hoseok stand up for himself bluntly, and you remind yourself not to baby him. He’s a grown man after all, older than you.

The flashing of your phone lets you see that you’ve got a new notification from Facebook, and you roll your eyes as you click on your screen to see what it is. What you see however has you slowly smiling as a flutter of butterflies take flight in your stomach and you tap accept eagerly.

You have a new friend request: Jung Hoseok

-

The next few weeks roll by quickly with Taehyung and you becoming inundated with awards season nominations, ceremonies and just general Oscar bait films. It had even resulted in a whole ‘Top 10 Oscar Bait Films’ video on the Poppin’ Culture Film YouTube channel which had proven remarkably popular, even spawning a sequel that was generated purely from user comments.

You’re actually surprised with just how much you continue to love your job, even with the sheer pressure of blog and video deadlines constantly breathing down your neck. And it doesn’t take you long to realise that it’s because of the people you work with who make working that overtime all the more sweeter.

Jimin is genuinely hilarious and when paired up with Jungkook he becomes hysterical. Lisa has easily become your female work best friend, with the two of you Skyping all the time on your work computers and soon venturing out into the world to go to dinners, concerts and the cinema while Taehyung is an incredibly hard working colleague who always keeps a close on eye on how you’re doing.

It’s genuinely one of the best places you’ve ever worked and you thank all your lucky stars that you’d been accepted because you were pretty sure that you were making some of the closest friends you could.

And then there was Hoseok.

Jung Hoseok still remained a mystery to you and you weren’t entirely sure why you so desperately wanted to figure him out. Or maybe not figure him out, because you kind of liked how shy and mysterious he is.

The rest of your colleagues have been pretty open books and you were pretty sure that you were on the verge of receiving daily updates on Jimin and Taehyung’s sex life - you were that close with the two. But you still knew almost nothing about Hoseok and it drove you wild.

What was even more annoying was the fact that only you were apparently bothered by it too. The others just shrugged and said that he’d always been quiet and introverted, so they just made it clear to him that they were there if he wanted to talk or make friends with them. Apparently he never went out on the workplace socials and he rarely talked to others via text or Skype.

Which kind of infuriated you, because it probably was true that Hoseok preferred to be alone and lost in his world of music. But there must be something horribly isolating about never getting invited to things or never being included, which is why you kept trying to include him in your own conversations. The others would sometimes talk around him, but you always tried to make sure that he felt comfortable and included in your conversations.

Taehyung had honestly admitted in a meeting that he wasn’t entirely sure why you kept asking Hoseok things, pointing out that you might be annoying him. But you’d countered with the fact that you always gave Hoseok plenty of options to slip out of the conversation, yet he would continue it on sometimes.

It had been then that Taehyung had flushed a pretty golden pink, nodding his head as he acknowledged the fact that Hoseok had opened up more in the last few months of you being here than in the years he’d been here. That on its own had made your heart hurt. No one could enjoy being so easily disregarded, no matter how quiet and introverted.

Currently though, you were slouched on your couch with your best friend, Sunmi, as you both ate pepperoni pizza while watching Avengers: Infinity War for the bajillionth time. You, because you just loved the film, and her because she really loved Chris Hemsworth.

Honestly? Mood.

“I swear, this is the most badass entry scene of any entry scene in all of film,” You blurt out randomly, lifting your fist as Thor appears on screen in the middle of the battlefield and shouting out alongside him. “Bring. Me. Thanos!”

Sunmi snorts elegantly from your side, taking a bite of greasy pizza and chewing slowly while she eyes up her fictional man with pleasure. A hum of delight leaves her when Thor meets up with Captain America and you laugh, poking at her side.

“Imagine being in a Chris sandwich.” She looks at you and wiggles her carefully put together eyebrows before giggling.

“I wish. God, they can wreck me any day. You know, I can’t believe that you get to watch stuff like this and then write about it or make a video about it. Why can’t I just laze around and do that? Do they have an opening for me?” She pouts at you, placing the crust back in the box before wrapping her hands around your wrist and playfully whining.

You laugh loudly and take a bite of your own slice. “For what? Sorry Elle Woods, but you’re going to have keep your bending and snapping for the judge and jury. I doubt Poppin’ Culture - The Law Version will be very popular.”

“What about if I wear a hot pink bikini?” She says seriously, her face carefully blank as you give her a droll stare.

“Yeah sure, lemme give PornHub a call. I’m sure they’ve got a whole audience just waiting for their law lectures from Bikini Girl 3.” Sunmi shrieks with laughter at that, rolling backwards until her head is hitting the arm of the sofa and relaxing into the pile of cushions there.

Reaching her foot up, she prods at your thigh annoyingly until you push her away with a sigh.

“So, how is your work though? You’ve been spending a lot of time there. Which, by the way, is ridiculous. I only spend extra time doing work if I’m getting paid for it because I do not enjoy my job that much.” Sunmi sighs heavily, letting her arms fall behind her head as she turns her gaze back to your large television screen.

“Okay firstly, it was your decision to take a law degree. Your parents are assholes but they’re not dickish. They would have been fine with you being a doctor instead. Secondly, you make so much money an hour that you shouldn’t complain. You can literally buy a pair of Jimmy Choos with an hour.” Closing the pizza box, you lean forward and place it onto your wooden coffee table before leaning back and patting your stomach affectionately.

“Firstly you bitchass, I don’t make a lot because I’m still not fully qualified yet. It costs a lot to be a lawyer and the work is boring because I’m in property law. Yawn. Secondly, I hate property law but I would’ve passed out being a doctor. Blood and snot? No thanks. Maybe I should just give it all up and go back to college to become an artist.” She says dreamily and you look over at her with a raised brow.

“Do it. If it’s what you want. Your life shouldn’t be made on a decision you did based on what your parents wanted for you, as much as you might want to make them happy. They’re not your life, and you’ll burn out quicker if you do something you hate.” Sunmi just hums before shifting the pillows until she’s looking at you.

“Still. It’s nice that you’re enjoying it. I’m happy for you. I need to meet this Lisa, so you better set up a playdate or something. If she’s banging, I may just bang her. I mean, if you’re alright with that. And she likes girls.” Sunmi wiggles her brow and you laugh, shaking your head slowly.

“I think Lisa swings both ways honestly, so go for it. She’s pretty and cute with a really nice and fun personality. I wish I could introduce you to Jimin and Taehyung as well. They’re funny individually but hilarious together. Urgh, I wish I had someone the way Jimin eyefucks Tae across the room.”

“Does he realise you can see that?” She asks, an incredulous look on her face and you nod with a laugh.

“Oh yeah. He just gives me an innocent smile. They’re fun though and make me laugh, it’s like a family.” You sigh softly, slumping down further into the couch pillow. Sunmi’s quiet for a few seconds before speaking again.

“What about that quiet guy? Hoseok right?” Pausing, you chew on your lip as you stare blankly at the screen and wonder how to describe him to her.

“Hoseok...is sweet. Quiet but sweet. He doesn’t get involved in conversations of his own accord still, but I include him and he’ll get more involved now. We even have whole conversations just him and I, particularly about our love of 80s films though they’re not very long conversations. It’s nice, I’m literally watching him become more integrated and it’s kind of annoying that everyone just let him stagnate in his isolation. Like, seriously. Did no one ever think that maybe he doesn’t get involved because people have let him isolate himself? It’s hard to pull yourself out of that, and he’s obviously trying.” You don’t even realise you’re half ranting until you see Sunmi’s bemused smile, causing your cheeks to heat.

“Anyway, yeah. He’s a lot more caring than people think too. He just doesn’t show it in ways that you or I would, nor does he talk about them. Like...the other week I came in one morning to find a tube of dissolvable vitamin C tablets on my desk. When I asked where they’d come from, Hoseok Skyped me and said that he thought I looked like I was lacking a bit of vitamin C and to take one with water every day. And then when I was feeling a bit tired, he made me a cup of green tea. I swear Sunmi, he was so sweet and adorable because he kept stumbling over his words while telling me that green tea was healthy and rejuvenating but he didn’t like the taste so he always has peppermint and he hoped I liked peppermint too.”

Sunmi says nothing for a moment and you look at her in confusion, wondering why she’s suddenly decided to be quiet. It’s not like her to not get involved in your conversations, only she’s staring at you with wide eyes and a pretty mouth that’s fallen open.

“Oh my god. You like him.” Her words cause you to pause, frowning immediately as you shake your head in denial.

“What? No I don’t. I mean, yeah as a friend. Or I hope as a friend, but not anything more than that.” She lets out a peal of high pitched laughter while sitting up, looking closely at your face with those mahogany eyes of hers.

“Yes, you do. Oh my god, he is not even remotely your type from the sounds of it yet you’re falling hard girl. Show me a picture of him.” You want to keep denying her, mind spinning from what she’s come out with as you wonder where she’s got this impression from.

But once Sunmi has made up her mind, then it’s game over for everyone else. Sure enough, you find yourself scrolling through your phone on Facebook to find a nice picture of him to show her. And as you look through his, admittedly few, profile pictures, you pause for a moment as you realise that maybe she’s right.

Only people who like someone try and find the best looking picture of them, too afraid that their friend or family member will laugh and think their crush ugly. The swooping sensation in your stomach is confusing, and you don’t know whether it’s shy excitement or just plain old nausea.

Finally deciding on a picture of Hoseok that has obviously been taken in a coffee shop, you turn the phone screen so she can see. It’s got dim lighting, and has looks to have been taken on a Polaroid style camera from the style of it but he looks good.

In fact, he looks beautiful and his bright smile kind of takes your breath away.

He’s just wearing a plain white, long sleeved shirt with dark brown hair parted in the centre, the strands laying carelessly on his forehead while those beautiful chocolate eyes stare out from behind the lenses of his glasses. The table blocks anymore view of him and yet you can’t help but feel the fluttering in your stomach slowly spread along your veins.

Hoseok’s smiles are still rare, but they’ve slowly been becoming more frequent as you continue to talk to him. And every time you think he should smile more often, because he has a face that’s made for a smile.

His mouth is stretched wide with perfectly white, straight teeth showing and the force of the expression causes his eyes to narrow, soft tan cheeks looking adorably kissable.

Oh, you’re totally fucked.

“Holy shit…are you kidding me? This is Quiet Guy? Shy Guy? Holy fuck girl. He’s gorgeous! Look at that smile, oh my god. And he has such pretty eyes, that’s just not fair. Oh, please go for him. I know I said that he’s not your type because you normally like either those hipster guys or bad boys but he looks like he’d be so good for you. He looks kind, like you’d call him and say you’re sick and he comes right over to make you food and wraps you up in a blanket before cuddling with you, telling you that you need body heat to stay warm.” You look at her with a raised brow as she takes your phone and scrolls through his photos.

“And he obviously likes you.” Her words throw you then, causing you to frown as you stare before finally asking why she thinks.

“Because you said it yourself. He talks to you, even when he doesn’t talk to the others. You’ve said he keeps conversations going with you. He added you on Facebook first and he’s taking care of you in a weird but cute way of flirting. Like I said, he looks like he’d be a good boyfriend because he’s already trying to make sure you’re healthy and okay.”

She hands your phone back and points at the screen, where a new photo of Hoseok is. It’s not from his profile pictures, so you just presume it’s one that someone took of him and tagged him in. He’s asleep on his side on a couch, his right cheek smooshed into a pillow while his other looks soft and round. Pink lips pout in his sleep, the ends turned up while his lashes remain firmly closed and his hair is all over the place.

You have the strongest urge to reach through the screen to kiss his cheek.

“I think you should think on it, because I know you. And you’re probably having a little internal argument right now about whether or not you like him. But...if you decide that you do. Then I think you should go for it, because he looks nice. Get to know him a bit more, get him to open up his walls to you a bit more and then see if he really is interested. It’s been a while since you smiled like that about someone, and even longer since you searched through their pictures to find me the most flattering.” Dammit, you knew she’d figure you out.

You don’t respond though, simply locking your phone and placing it down on the cushion next to you as you both turn your attention back to the film. But you can’t help the what if’s that float around in the back of your mind, wondering if perhaps she’s right not only about yourself, but also him.

Did Hoseok like you?

-

Quite understandably, your interactions with Hoseok are suddenly tinged with a film of awkwardness as you contemplate the fact that you quite possibly like your shy colleague. And that’s to say nothing of how closely you watch his interactions with you to see if there’s a chance that he likes you in the way you like him.

Honestly, anyone would think you were 14 and not 26.

But he made you feel like a teenager though. The fluttering of nervous excitement in your stomach whenever he would look at you with that soft, bashful smile he’d give you whenever he caught your eye in the office. The way you would feel sad resentment when he was ill or was working from home and so didn’t come in.

How could you not though? Not only was he soul wrenchingly handsome and pretty, he was also thoughtful with the few conversations he would engage in and he was so sweet and kind.

When you’d complimented him on the peppermint green tea he’d brought you the other week, you found yourself with a mug being made every time he got up to go to the kitchen. You’d be completely absorbed in your work, staring at your screen intently with headphones in to keep distractions at bay, when you’d suddenly smell the pleasant scent of peppermint drifting to your nose.

And then you’d look to your side and see a fresh cup of tea sat there, steaming slowly in your Star Wars mug.

A quick glance behind your screen would let you see Hoseok staring firmly at his screen, refusing to look at you and yet his cheeks tinging a rosy glow that made your heart tug. It was only fair to respond in kind, and so you’d taken to making him a cup of your favourite tea as well, delicious salted caramel, and leaving it on his desk.

He hadn’t complained, so you took that as a sign that he enjoyed it too.

Maybe others would look at your interactions with laughter or bemusement, but you liked them. If he was flirting with you, because let’s face it you were flirting with him, then you were quietly excited and hopeful. You could cope with glacial, as long as it would hopefully result in something at the end.

Currently, you were attempting to film a video talking about the films that were snubbed completely at the Oscars. Taehyung had written up the script for you but was suffering from a winter cold at home. You’d claim man-flu, only you’d video called him and seen the dark circles under his eyes, sallow skin and bright red nose as he’d sniffled and snorted his way through your conversation.

As a result, you’d had to grab your emergency make-up kit from your drawer and rush to the bathroom to apply it. Today had been a lazy day; meaning you were just wearing a pair of ratty black jeans and an ancient Star Wars shirt that had once been black but was now an odd shade of grey.

Once you’d felt that you looked at the very least passable to the potentially thousands upon thousands of people who would be watching your face, you rush back through the office to place your kit back before heading over to the recording room. Tapping on the door lightly, you open it up to find Hoseok and Lisa inside as they set up the camera and lighting.

Already, the big ring lights are glaring and you’re feeling hot as you move over to the two, watching as they mess with the camera before checking over the computer on the desk next to it. Lisa moves around to the front, standing over the duct tape X on the floor and clipping the tiny microphone onto her shirt while waiting for Hoseok.

He’s wearing a plain white shirt today with a yellow and black check shirt open over the top and a plain pair of jeans. For some reason, he’s apparently decided to emulate Jungkook and is wearing some tan Timberland’s as well, though they surprisingly work well with the outfit.

You’ve noticed that Hoseok isn’t exactly the most fashionable person, but he’s yet to wear something that you find genuinely offensive. In fact, you often find that he manages to look hot even when he really shouldn’t. Maybe it’s just a talent attractive people have?

Hoseok gives a small nod to Lisa as his eyes flicker up from the screen, the light being reflected in his glasses. Lisa begins to talk random nonsense, performing a soundcheck to make sure the microphone is working properly while also making sure the camera’s fine.

Once done, she helps you to thread the microphone through your shirt and clip it on while placing the main pack into your back pocket. You stand on the X while going over the script that you can read on the screen reader facing you on the table.

Lisa slips away while you’re busy practicing, going through quick vocal exercises to warm your voice up as you continue to read over what you’re going to say. In your mind, you’re already visualising what the video will look like and you kind of feel sad that Taehyung can’t do this. It’s a good script.

“Okay. Are you ready?” Hoseok’s voice is soft and light, every word sounding like it has been cautiously thought of before he speaks it. You smile slightly as your head nods forward in response to him before clearing your throat and clenching your hands a few times while letting out a deep breath.

“Am I in the right place?” Looking down at the floor, you make sure that your feet are squarely on the spot and Hoseok looks through the camera before giving a cute okay symbol with a wink and pressed smile. It causes you to bite your own lower lip, desperately keeping inside the ‘cute’ that wants to escape.

“Okay, recording in three...two…” He stops speaking after that and mouths out the final one before pressing the button to record, a red light sparking to life on the camera and immediately you’re smiling brightly.

There’s no real pressure on you to do a good take in one shot, because Hoseok will be editing the scenes together and making some shorter to suit the video anyway. But you don’t really like wasting unnecessary hard drive space for him if possible. Plus, it just means he has to stare at your foolish facial expressions for longer and you’d really rather not.

On that note, it’s a little unfair that he gets to watch your face up close with a 4K camera. Actually, you’ve never thought about that before and almost immediately your brows crease at the thought of him seeing every pore and blemish on your skin. Christ, the camera does not do anyone justice and you want to whine at the thought of him seeing all your bad points in such harsh lighting.

When you don’t actually start speaking and instead start making a distressed face, Hoseok’s head peeks out from behind the monitor and he frowns at you in turn. Eyes focusing on his pretty visage, you have to squint slightly to see him properly from behind the astonishingly bright lights set up but you shake your head to reassure him.

Rolling your head on your shoulders and blowing bubbles with your lips, completely unaware of the tiny amused smile on Hoseok’s lips as he watches you through the monitor, you force yourself to get back into the zone.

The rest of the hour spent recording goes more or less like usual, with multiple outtakes when you mess things up and cause yourself to laugh. One of the hardest things of recording videos is just being able to being able to speak properly. You’ve had to learn to over-enunciate sometimes to avoid slurring your words together, because that just encourages hate from viewers.

And you are not in the mood to get hate. It’s already hard enough being a female commentator on the channel, and you’d had to grow some pretty thick skin in both the comments and on your own social media.

But there were plenty of equally great people too in fairness, and you’d even kind of got to know some regular viewers from the constant interactions you got both on your videos and on your own Twitter account. It was nice to have a mini fan club of people who were willing to defend you against the trolls and raise you up when you’re feeling down, though it’s not nearly as many as Taehyung’s extortionately big legion of fans.

There’s only a few major mishaps this time, with a few pronunciations of your words going horrifically bad and you find yourself cringing. Hoseok has a good chuckle on occasion and the bright bubbles of his laughter make you smile in turn, heart sparking with happiness at making him laugh.

Once Hoseok gave the signal to indicate that he was pretty happy with the recording, you let your shoulders drop while your head falls back on your shoulders, a deep groan leaving you as your entire body relaxes. Reaching to pull the microphone and its pack from under your shirt, you move over to Hoseok as he turns the light and camera off before he’s checking over the computer to transfer the new video files to his solid state drive.

“Did everything look good in it?” You ask, leaning your hip against the desk while your arms cross over your chest. Hoseok pauses for a moment at your close proximity before looking up at you slowly, his beautiful brown eyes looking sweetly innocent and big as he takes you in.

It’s still ridiculously endearing how shy he gets around you, but what you like even more is how it’s only when he’s not doing work related things. The last hour has been spent with him practically bossing you around, barking out polite requests when you’ve moved out of frame or have said something wrong.

He wasn’t mean about it or anything, he just took his job very seriously and it’s what made him such a damn good videographer and video editor. He knew what he needed and wasn’t afraid to tell people what to do in regards to that, so the sudden reversal back into the meek Hoseok tugged at your heart.

“Y-yeah. You did good. Less bad shots today.” You pout at him theatrically before pushing lightly at his shoulder, just enough to make him rock where he stands.

“Hey! There’s no need to be mean. You make it sound like I’m as bad Yugyeom! I don’t mess up that bad.” Lower lip sticking out, you look down at the floor until Hoseok lets out a soft and breathy laugh, shaking his head while adjusting his glasses slightly.

“I-I didn’t mean-. I’m not saying anything else,” He looks at you and gives you a wry smile. “I-I’m not stupid. I think I’ve dug enough of my own grave here.”

You can’t help but laugh out at that as you lean forward, body moving of its own accord before you move around him and rest your hand on his shoulder. It’s warm and solid beneath your palm, even through the layers he’s wearing and you swallow in sudden awareness of the firmness of him.

He freezes in place subtly as well, the muscles under your fingers tensing a little as neither of you move for a moment. It’s the first time you’ve ever touched him, and neither of you really seem to know what to do.

Swallowing, you let out a chuckle that’s a little higher pitched than you perhaps intended but you try to make it sound as natural as you can. Even if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed now when your hand feels warm and bizarrely sweaty.

“Funny, you’re way funnier than I thought Hobi!” The nickname you’d overheard Seokjin calling him once slips out without meaning to and you cringe with gritted teeth behind his back, taking your hand off his shoulder to pinch your leg at your stupidity. “Well, I hope it goes well. Let me know if there’s anything you need from me or just when it’s done so I can look it over? Thanks and bye!”

You can’t stop how fast the words fall from your lips, a faucet stuck on full when what you really want is a vault so tight not even the crown jewels of England can get out of it. Giving him an awkward smile, you book it out of the recording room as quickly as you can and leave him alone.

In fact, you go so fast that you don’t get to see the way Hoseok watches after you with widened eyes of shock which soon melt into half-moons of unguarded happiness in the quiet room. His hand shakes as it moves up to press at the place your own hand had been, the skin feeling prickly underneath and his breath shakes as a hesitant smile slowly paints its way on his face.

You don’t see that, nor do you see the way he pauses on a close up of your face with a fond smile before closing the programme down and leaving.

[enniewritesathing]

Stuff where I talk about things

or the spoiler post, or some clarifications because there’s no dialogue/text with this with a dash of behind the scenes

under a cut because... well, I like to talk

Were!John leaping into the air like that?? funniest thing I’ve done, hands down. I was struggling thinking ‘okay, so how is this guy gonna die’ and the gremlin was like ‘well... maybe off the top rope shit?’

that’s what i named that whole sequence

I didn’t show that guy’s head being caved in or even the aftermath of it. I did pose it but it looked... weird. Granted, his head got smashed in but stll.

There was a good second of silence after the guy handling the anesthesia asked a series of questions.

“Hey, if a werewolf dies, it’s said they turn back human. So, why hasn’t [John] turned back yet?” [Famous last words]

You may ask how come no one figured that out? Would have the monitor picked up on any heartbeat? Or the screen at the head of the surgical table for any motion? The lead was too far away from the screen and also the bracelets that were on John’s wrists were taken off. 

that and were!John did play dead. Like his cover should have been blown when his eyes were closed.

I had to go find and get screens from various ECG readings and I gotta tell ya, I have learned a lot! I wanted to find some that had more readings (BP/Respiratory Rate/etc) but nothing I could use, low quality... and I couldn’t make them myself. Oh well. That would’ve been neat, I think.

That was the first ‘meeting’ between John and were!John. 

Also, I have to say, I didn’t think the difference between them would be that stark? John looks really young when he doesn’t have any body hair on him??

The shot of were!John daring the cop to shoot him is another good shot that I love. You know he called this man a “p*ssy”.

Were!John knew that the gun wasn’t going to shoot on the basis that he counted the bullets that were fired. It sounded different when lead researcher shot and killed the cop.

I really did feel bad when some parts called for John to be crying. No less than, what 4 times? I’m terrible! My boy D:

Posing 5 rigs and then setting them up? What a fucking nightmare. 0/10 what was I THINKING

The sequence that ended with were!John holding the heart of a seriously dead man... the beginning of it, he tried shifting the blame to the lead researcher, but were!John smelled the medicine used on him. That he was told to. Sure, but the counterpoint is that he could have refused to. The fact that he did it twice and then have the audacity to get all high and mighty about it when it was thought that were!John died. Just as complicit as everyone else in the room.

I’m glad this heart cc was made because the other one would have looked goofy looking. 

I had the idea of him taking a bite of it and looking very deranged and, y’know be Like That... but then I thought, he wouldn’t waste food much less a heart as they are extremely tasty when fresh. 

The pic of him in the dark? Probably the scariest shot of anything.

Would have he tried and killed the remaining person? Nah. For one, they weren’t a threat (despite the fact that Actual Security was with them, pointing shotguns in his face no less). Two, were!John was asked if he was done. And he was. He was exhausted. All of his anger was gone. And three, he sensed that he didn’t want to bring any more harm to were!John, treating him with actual kindness.

“You’ve made quite the mess. You must be tired, Johnathan. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

okay, back to the first ‘meeting’. were!John is mostly “hey, what the fuck is going on, why are we dying here??” and John... explains the situation and were!John is upset because he knows what’s up. 

They argue in how to stop the situation, or rather John is arguing with were!John to not kill whoever’s behind them dying. 

“If I don’t put a stop to this, then you will die. We will die.” The point is driven by the fact that John dies about twice during their meeting, and the last part of it he’s really weakened. This is when he cries because of the sheer pain that he’s going through. He doesn’t want to kill, but if it makes the pain stop, then...

This is the part that were!John tells John: “It won’t be you doing it.” It’s a very important distinction. “This isn’t your burden to carry.”

I would also say that this story tells it from were!John’s perspective and give his side of it. He is far more complex than what was said about him in the first place. He is... what’s the word I’m looking for, gentle? towards his human side. 

The plan was essentially, “the next time you die, let me jump in and handle business, but whatever you do, just stay put, don’t listen to any voices, don’t follow no one, etc.”

When were!John took over, the room turned black. When he gave John back control, the half he stood on was black, and John’s side was white. When were!John left, the room was back to white. I thought it would be a cool idea for ~subtle symbolism~.

Meanwhile, back at the surgery, it’s obvious that when John wasn’t turning back (forcibly), there were some arguments.

Basically, “eh, if he dies, we can bring him back and try again nbd, we’ve got ALL night and he’s been shown to be alright after. We’re going to reverse this.”

Funny how that worked out.

for real though, posing 5 rigs? setting them up? keeping track of who’s who?? 0/10.

And on another note, this story would not have been possible without all of the CC involved. It is a grocery list of things that I’ve been waiting on for a while, no matter how niche it was, but I’m glad someone made it and decided to share it. 

The time for were!John to do his business? ‘bout 10 minutes.

Oh!! I forgot about!! Using TOOL!! It’s a pain in the ass! I don’t know my angles! And I didn’t know what axis was what! That probably took me longer than I needed to! But stuff got flipped like I wanted it to or else the environment would’ve looked real goofy.

I think that’s it... for now... 

My favorite shots?! 

the mentioned were!John jumping off the top rope

The smile

The look of pure terror when the guy with the undercut realized that John wasn’t dead after all

Actually just all the looks of terror. I put extra thought into that.

that single shot of were!John crying before vindication. 

John on the floor looking shocked at seeing were!John.

were!John holding John as he (essentially) died and the taking over!!

how exhausted and done were!John looked as he stood up

what’s ya’lls favorite shot/sequence? :>

I’m not gonna lie, when I made the pose of John arching his back and popped in-game, I thought... okay that’s a little extra, but we’ll keep it.

when I was making poses for that part, I had an outfit that had tears (apartment!John is the other John and... what I’m saying is, it’s hard to keep track of two in one spot) and I left it in as a goof but then I was like “YO THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING”

i mentioned in a earlier post that John is an angry crier. and guess what??

he cries because he is angry. he is wrathful. 

And also the person who survived here was Brian’s contact in the story. Brian threatened to kill him/finish what were!John started if he came near John in any capacity. I mean... look at him. Dude’s a shrimp.

TIL there’s a photo upload limit and I busted it twice so, I guess if I have something as big as this, I better update as I go along.

This story and making it is probably the most ambitious thing I’ve done so far on this blog and I am glad I am done.

I may be missing something here but that’s what I’ve got on my mind.

EDIT: Okay, few more things.

Were!John knowing that John will most not likely remember any of this because of some amnesia side effects from the medicines and all of that.

But not really. John gets nightmares/night terrors from all of this. He tells what he remembers to Brian in the main story. It’s incomplete but he still knows. Hearing this prompts Brian to tell John to talk to his were self. They gloss over it in the story, but I would say that were!John tells him what exactly at some point.

And another thing, in the majority of this story, were!John’s sclera is black. What does this mean?

I didn’t know this CC existed but had I known about it, it would’ve been in the main story where were!John charges towards the bear that was gonna kill/eat Brian.

On that note, his sclera was white when he chased and cornered Brian before he figured out whoops, that’s his mate.

And I probably made that part a plot hole because given how were!John behaves in this story and then go buck wild when he first gets out in this story... I mean, it had been two years. maybe he was that excited and temporarily lost his goddamn mind?? Would he have done something to Brian if he wasn’t his mate? I don’t think so. If Brian wasn’t so scared, he’d do something as drastic and slap him hard enough to knock him out of it.

I guess?? well, plot hole I guess! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[hexadecimalmantis]

Argonaut Games Research

This post was originally going to be an absurdly long documentary video, but I realized it would have been a bit boring, so I ultimately decided on making a glorified blog post. 

When I joined BioMedia Project last year, I was tasked with researching Bionicle: The Game and its sequel Bionicle 2: City of Legends. I have talked about both games in great detail many times before, and I think we all know about the issues that plague both of them by now. Bionicle: The Game is seemingly incomplete, and filled with content that was cut early on, and Bionicle 2: City of Legends never made it past a private movement demo. For context about Bionicle 2: BioMedia Project managed to obtain an Xbox build of the movement demo a few years ago. It has a few issues, such as broken audio and some missing graphical effects. I began reaching out to former developers in an effort to piece together the entire story of Argonaut Games, and uncover more secrets about both games. (Initially) With the assistance of Liam Robertson of DidYouKnowGaming?, I began contacting some of the developers. For those of you that are unfamiliar, Argonaut Games was split into two different facilities during the development of Bionicle: The Game. The first being Argonaut London, and the second was Argonaut Sheffield. I decided to reach out to the former developers from the London branch first. I initially didn’t get any replies, but I remained persistent. After waiting a few weeks, I eventually I got a reply from a former artist. Keep in mind that personal details about the former developers I contacted will be expunged in order to protect their identities and to prevent harassment and spam.

This is the first message I received after I inquired about Bionicle: The Game:

“Hi, yes I was lead artist on Bionicle. I'd say that it was a game that we cared a lot about, and to be honest we had high hopes for, at least initially. As always with game dev there wasn't just one cause of the games problems, but probably the biggest was we fell in love with the games setting and bit off far more than we could chew. We should have started with far more cautious goals, but we wanted to tell the whole story. I'm surprised if there was that much unused content on the disc TBH but the original scope of the game is definitely visible in naming conventions etc. we had intended each character to have toa levels and toa nuva (if thats the right term?) their powered up versions - before adding the 7th. Given that they have different abilities that was a huge ask of the team.

(Redacted)”

This message was about what I expected, the devs were a bit too ambitious and were unable to complete their ideas during the given development time. I later asked about the developer signatures stored within the BIGB archives, and asked them if they had worked on any of the Kopaka areas, since I found their signature within a subset of those files:

“the 'signatures' probably just refer to the designers - which is a relatively small subset of the team as a whole. I oversaw the project from an art perspective, so characters env, frontend etc then I ended up doing some animation work on the bull, onua, the weird door thing. I didn't work on Kopaka - that work was done up in Sheffield, I used to visit their studio to review stuff & sign it off.”

I’m sure the Bull was probably the Kane-Ra seen in Onua Nuva’s level. There are some pre-release trailers that show a Kane-Ra attacking the player with unique animations too. After that, I asked him about Argonaut Sheffield and their work on Bionicle 2: City of Legends. To my surprise, I got this:

“No, I didn't I thought they were disbanded alongside Argo”

This essentially meant that nobody from Argonaut London was aware of the development of Bionicle 2: City of Legends. With this information, it was easy to conclude that Bionicle 2 was created solely by Argonaut Sheffield as speculated. After failing to get more replies from former developers from Argonaut London, I shifted my focus to Argonaut Sheffield, intrigued by the messages I received from the former artist.

After a bit of waiting, I got a reply from another former artist.

“Hi,

Yes, I worked on Bionicle as a character artist along side artist (redacted). He was my mentor back then as it was my first industry job. I think we modelled about 130 odd characters/modular models back then between us. The character concepts we're drawn up by (redacted).

Argonaut Sheffield was previously Particle Systems who made I-War, the PC Sci Fi game and some other iterations. It was a technically adept small team and great to work with. I didn't have much to do with the London branch. We went on to try and make some failed movie tie-ins alongside them at a later date. Catwoman, Zorro, Star Wars, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and also Bionicle 2.. which was going to be a fluid parkour type platformer. Which never materialised as after being there just shy of two years, London shut us down.

I'm actually working back in the offices where it all happened now. Which seems strange. I did work at Sumo Digital as a lead Char artist for ten years in between. I know there's a basement full of hard drives still here as one of the old directors still rents some space here.

(redacted)

(redacted)

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

(redacted)”

I received concept art for both Bionicle: The Game and Bionicle 2: City of Legends in this message. The art was later posted on my Twitter: https://twitter.com/HexMantis/status/1099883979942084608

Aside from the plethora of art, this message provided some insight about how Argonaut Sheffield came to be. It was previously known as Particle Systems before it assimilated into Argonaut Games. After this exchange, I reached out to a former programmer from Argonaut Sheffield. This time I provided a set of questions for the developer to answer in an effort to obtain specific information. After waiting for nearly a month, I got a reply:

The questions I asked will be enclosed within [ ] to avoid confusion.

“Hey!

There's some incomplete credits here (redacted)

but you could try contacting (redacted) as he was the lead programmer there. He used to work at PKR too, also owned by (redacted).

(redacted)

[Asked about the main development platform for the games]

1) Yep it was PS2. The PS2 version was handled by Argonaut Edgeware and programmers in Sheffield did ports for the other platforms

[Asked about the cut content from Bionicle: The Game]

2) Sorry, I wasn't involved with that bit. I was responsible for adding the hyper threading features on the PC (redacted)

[Asked about interactions with the London branch]

3) Yep, we worked together on it. Designers and Artists in Sheffield were working on assets for the main game.

[Asked about I-Ninja’s compatibility with Bionicle: The Game]

4) I think they should be compatible with each other. I-ninja came out a bit later though.

[Asked about Bionicle 2: City of Legends]

5) Maybe, not sure as it was a long time ago and I then moved to the Edgeware studio. If they did I guess it was just a prototype for a pitch

Good luck with your fact finding!“

I later asked if they knew of any early builds of either game, and I got this reply:

“Hey!

Sorry for the late reply. I believe everything was archived by Argonaut and EA. I'm not sure if anyone archived it personally at Argonaut or not but there were a lot of people working on it. They created archive PCs with everything you need to make the game from the source assets.

Thanks,

(redacted)”

The concept of the supposed “archive PCs” was interesting, but I doubt any of them are still around after all this time. After this, I contacted another former programmer from Argonaut Sheffield. This time with a focus on Bionicle 2: City of Legends:

“Hi William, I must admit, I'm curious where you found my name in the demo. Do you have a source code drop to go with it, or did I leave my name in an error message in the binary package itself?

Either way, yes I did work on the demo, albeit briefly. The engine the demo is built on is largely the same engine used in Bionicle (the original PS2/Xbox/PC game), Catwoman, and I-Ninja. It has an older pedigree than that too, but those were the games it was used on while Argonaut Sheffield was part of the Argonaut group. I was one of the programmers who ported the engine over to PC & Xbox for the original Bionicle, which is why I was involved in the demo in some capacity.

I'm still in touch with a lot of the designers who worked on the movement demo; the lead designer, (redacted), has said that I can pass on his contact details if you'd like to get in touch with him. You can contact him at (redacted).

Cheers,

(redacted)”

I was not surprised to get confirmation that Bionicle 2 used the same engine as Bionicle: The Game, since most of my existing programs I wrote for Bionicle: The Game were compatible with the Xbox demo. I asked if a PS2 port of Bionicle 2: City of Legends ever existed, since the Xbox demo we have has DualShock button mappings present in the game:

“Ah, I'll bet that's because I'll have compiled and built the disc image, so it's embedded my PC's name into the image. The level select would have just been for test levels where I was looking at specific bugs, performance problems or new features.

I really can't remember if we did PS2 or PC builds of the demo, other than the development binaries the design team would have been using. It's unlikely we'll have done a full ISO for the PS2, because the spiders caused real performance problems and we'd have wanted to show it to the publishers on the fastest available hardware.

By the way, the Xbox version will have reference to PS2 hardware because the original engine was PS2 only. The easiest way to port the engine was to, as far as possible, just get the Xbox and PC versions to pretend they were doing exactly the same thing as the PS2. For example, the game scripts don't need to know that when they get a button press from Cross or Circle, they're actually getting button presses from A or B. So although the names are going to be PS2-centric, they're still doing Xbox specific stuff.”

I was surprised to find out that the Morbuzakh Spiders were the primary reason for shifting Bionicle 2 to the original Xbox. I guess it makes sense, given how little time Argonaut Sheffield had to optimize the game. Switching to the original Xbox appeared to be a quick and easy way to avoid the hassle of optimization.

I later asked about the audio issues present in the Xbox demo, and for some general information about Bionicle: The Game.

“Hi William,

I'm afraid I've got no idea why the demo would be silent - it's been far too many years for me to remember the exact details, and I have no idea which version of the demo is the one which has been circulated. The full code for the audio system will have been present, because it was just a continuation of the engine used on Bionicle, and I'm sure the designers would have had at least some placeholder audio to hook up.

Audio is habitually the last thing to get hooked up in any game development, and since most developers prefer to have a silent build and listen to their own music while they work, it's not unusual for it either to be neglected in early internal builds, or for it to have been hacked to be silent (assuming the demo was one built locally rather than for showing to a publisher).

In terms of the development situation on Bionicle, although we weren't directly in the body of main developers, I think most of us were aware that the game wasn't progressing as well as it should. As well as the code team doing the porting work, our design and art teams were making the 'adrenaline levels' - which were the short lava/ice/tree surfing levels. They were only supposed to be short breaks between much larger levels, but it became increasingly obvious towards the end that these relatively small levels were still a large percentage of the actual content, and the other larger levels weren't coming online as fast as they should. QA in particular do full play-throughs on a regular basis, so they have a very good view of how fast the game as a whole is coming together.

I'm not 100% sure on all of the reasons for the delays in development, having been a relatively junior developer in a satellite studio at the time, but the reasons discussed at the time with leads and producers are fairly common ones that I've seen and heard about on other projects since. Inexperienced publishers or IP holders who haven't worked with game developers before often don't understand the lead times involved in producing content.

It's very hard to explain to customers who are used to working with companies like advertising agencies, who can turn around a complete change of direction in a matter of days, that you need to make and lock down decisions months or even years in advance. I think the penny finally dropped for Lego about three months out from submission that if they kept holding up approvals and kept requesting changes, they weren't going to get any game at all on the shelves - which of course meant we all had to crunch like hell to get the content in good enough shape to ship!

Cheers,”

An example of the aforementioned “Adrenaline sections” is the Tahu Nuva level from Bionicle: The Game. This level is actually internally named “Ta Adrenaline” as well. It’s obvious at this point that Tahu Nuva was originally going to have more than just surfing sections in his level, given the evidence in this message and the fact that he has a full set of unused walking animations.

I eventually contacted the designer mentioned by the former programmer, and got a reply after a month. (This designer was kind enough to restate my questions in his message):

“Hey,

I'm so sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. I was launching a game and I completely forgot about this.

1. What was your role as a designer like when working on both games? What kind of work did you do?

I was lead designer at Argonaut Sheffield, and we were brought in to help out on Bionicle the Game. We were responsible for what was known internally as "the adrenaline sections". The game was split into third person. exploration and combat levels (which were developed by the main Argonaut office in London), and the fast moving on rails sections that we created. As well as leading the team on these sections I was directly involved in the Tahu Nuva Boss Race near the end of the game.

2. Were you aware of content being cut or removed when working on Bionicle: The Game? Did you work on anything that didn't make the cut?

Like with any game there's work that involved that never sees the light of day. There were a lot of changes to the design over time, sometimes for practical reasons, other times because Lego wanted them.  I seem to recall that in the original design you would play as each Toa normally and each one again in their Nuva form in large open levels - with the platform adventure and the adrenaline sections seamlessly blending into each other. Quite soon after we were brought into the project a much clearer separation was made between the two, but I'm sure there was lots of the preparatory work for that ended up on the disc.

3. Do you know if any other character models aside from Matau (The green character) were created for Bionicle 2?

No other characters were made for that demo. I think we had a matter of weeks and everything had to be done very quickly.  That build represents a build that we sent to Lego (And Giant who eventually became TT Games) for approval and hopefully for more funding for the company. And we spent a lot of time agreeing the visual look of the character, as it was very different from what we'd done in the first game.

The work done on Bionicle 2 was entirely done up in Sheffield so we had a lot more control over the content. We knew that the Bionicle audience was getting older, and their gaming needs were becoming more sophisticated and we wanted to do something that would appeal both to that audience and be an interesting game in its own right. We felt that the first game had been so compromised by production issues that it ended up being very disappointing. We wanted to make something fluid and interesting that was a joy to play as a platformer, and had the dynamism and the sense of scale that the Bionicle world deserved.

4. Do you know if any other builds of the Bionicle 2 movement demo exist? Like a build that has working audio?

I don't remember for sure if we ever ended up with a build with audio. But it feels a bit unlikely that we would have got to the stage that we did without their being something in there, especially if the audio assets were on the disk. Somewhere in the depths of my home I think I have a PS2 version of the demo, so I may see if I can get that up and running and find out. As I think - so far - the only people who have had access to the game have played on Xbox, right?

Thanks”

Of course LEGO was being difficult during Bionicle: The Game’s development. They did something similar with Bionicle: The Legend of Mata Nui, and that certainly did not end well. This message was a big deal for us at the time, not only did we get a lot of information about both games, but we also got confirmation that a PS2 build of Bionicle 2: City of Legends actually exists! Unfortunately, this developer never replied again, and I was beginning to lose motivation.

I decided I had enough of Argonaut Sheffield at that point, and shifted my focus to Argonaut London once more. After waiting a bit, I got another reply from a former AI programmer.

“Hi William, sure thing, although it was a long time back so may not remember too much :)

probably easier to use my email (redacted) though as I rarely login to Linkedin.”

We later communicated via email:

“Hi William,

on the unused level front, it’s entirely likely that a bunch of the designers and strat coders ’play areas’ would have ended up in the build. Not sure if you’ve had any background info on how a lot of the Argonaut games were built, but here’s a brief rundown :)

So, when I started at Argonaut in 1997 , I joined the Croc 2 team, who were using the first updated iteration of the engine they built for Croc that had its own scripting language written (originally for the level designers to use) to write all the gameplay elements, while the engine coders focused entirely on the main engine for the PS1 (and a separate small team handled porting the engine to GameCube/Dreamcast, PC etc.). The idea being that ASL (Argonaut Strategy Language) Strats would be cross platform as they were just interpreted by the engine.

As it turned out, ASL strats were a bit too complex for the level designers to write themselves without coder assistance, so Argonaut let them focus on the actual level design itself (using the editor that just became known as the Croc Editor) and got gameplay specialist coders (like myself) to work on the strats. This worked out great as we could focus on individual items or groups of them independent of what was happening with the engine and we could quickly tweak a strat and run it on the devkit without doing a full build of the game (which took *AGES* back then ;) ) as well as some basic debugging capability.

This meant that most of the level designers and strat coders usually had a level slapped together with all the bits they were trying out. I don’t know if my one with all the Matorans following you in a chain still exists, but there were some pretty strange ones. In theory these wouldn’t end up on the disk but the build system was pretty clunky, so it’s entirely likely that some ended up there.

So by the time I got drafted onto the Bionicle PS2 project, I’d worked on Croc 2, Aladdin Nazira’s Revenge, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Bionicle Matoran Adventures on GBA. All but the last one using revisions of the Croc Editor and ASL.  (The Emperor’s New Groove, Harry Potter 2, Malice, Catwoman & iNinja also got written with the engine). I say revisions as not a lot was actually added to either over time. Also, by Bionicle PS2 I was kind of an emergency response coder for strats, as I got parachuted in after the project started to help fix a lot of problems with how ASL was being used and design issues with the levels.

There were a lot of issues with Bionicle (not as many as Aladdin or Catwoman started with and my 4 days on Malice were certainly interesting, but they’re entirely different stories ;) ). Mostly from inexperience as the team working on it had a lot of new hires or ones that had been drafted from other teams that didn’t use ASL or the Croc Engine, so they weren’t familiar with its limitations. There were some HR issues going on too, but I’m not going to get into those. The team were mostly all professional and good at what they did, but struggling with a relatively clunky engine. By this point Argonaut had split off most of the engine coders to the “Tools” team and we had to officially request any engine or editor changes we wanted through their chain of command (and they weren’t interested in working on the ‘old’ engine).

There were also some issues with inexperience in games from the Lego UK side too. So a lot of the overall design rules were a bit flaky and lead to a lot of levels and gameplay getting changed. The “No Weapons” rule was one we thought was pretty odd, considering the swords, pikes etc. in use. Apparently they’re tools, not weapons. So we weren’t allowed to use them as direct combat weapons for gameplay, only for magical ranged effects. There was also a lot of issues of really big levels being designed without consideration for what could actually be rendered on screen at the required frame rate on PS2 with the old Croc engine. Even updated to PS2 and with everything the engine coders could do to optimise it, the engine and ASL were struggling to do what the designers wanted.

I don’t think it’s a case of biting off a bit more than they could chew (we successfully wrote Harry Potter from scratch in 9 months in time to release with the film using the engine but that was very much a dream team of all the right people with the right skills and a publisher working well in sync). More a case of it being a new team of people not so experienced with the system and a publisher that wasn’t entirely sure what it wanted. So things were that bit harder to get done in the time available.

In theory, some older gold disks are likely still around. (redacted) was one of our engine guys on the project and “Master of the Build” (he was the only one who had enough tasteless Hawaiian shirts for the numerous submission build days). I’ll have a dig through my CD collection, but it’s unlikely I’ve got any Bionicle builds surviving. I *might* still have some strat code floating about on an old hard disk. I do seem to have some of the Catwoman build code that used mostly the same (although slightly updated) engine though.

One thing that I think got axed was my chain of Matorans. The idea was a level where you’d be picking them up from around the level and they’d follow you to a rescue point. Normally this wouldn’t actually be that difficult to code, but ASL never actually had any arrays! I’d been asking for them for a couple of projects by that point but they never got added, so my Matorans were each working as their own array elements and frantically messaging one another in a chain, which never quite worked reliably enough with ASL, so we shelved the idea.

(redacted) was one of the strat coders working with me on Bionicle. I think he’d just joined Argonaut then, but luckily, knew his stuff.

(redacted)”

I guess a few of the unused levels I found in the PS2 port of Bionicle: The Game are examples of “play areas” given how small some of them are. This message also provided some insight about ASL, the proprietary language both games were created with. This gave me a good idea about how difficult ASL was to use as well. The fact that Arognaut also had many new hires that couldn’t handle ASL’s idiosyncrasies certainly didn’t help Bionicle: The Game at all.

I later reached out to another former AI programmer affiliated with the previous one. They had some interesting things to say:

“Wow, I'm really surprised that anyone is that interested in Bionicle, because I didn't think it was a very good game, but I'm happy that you felt strongly enough to do this, I guess. That's quite an impressive bit of digging.

[Asked about ASL]

Q1) ASL wasn't a great language to use, it was being developed at the same time as the engine so it was constantly changing and was occasionally broken as well. The turnaround from making a change in code to testing it on the target device was quite slow. And coming from C++ the lack of modularity was frustrating. There was some talk in the team about wanting it to be object oriented, but anything that made it cleaner and less prone to repetition would have been good. My memory of it isn't that good since it was 20 years ago. I remember the collision and animation systems being awkward and crude as well though. Do you know about the other games that the system was used for? Catwoman took the animation engine a bit further, but it was really horrible trying to program the animation blending for finite state machines with a language that was so hard to debug.

[Asked about scrapped content in Bionicle: The Game]

Q2) I don't remember much about what was scrapped. There were different teams working on different levels and playable characters, I mainly worked on the Tahu levels and the final boss. I think there might have been some stuff scrapped from the other characters. One or two of them were developed by the team who were doing the cross platform conversion for us, and we didn't see much of what they were doing and only saw it quite late.

[Asked if any early builds of Bionicle: The Game still exist]

Q3) I have no idea - perhaps Sony or EA have archives of the earlier builds. Someone on the engine team might do, I can't think how or why a strat coder would have one.”

The issues with the collision system they mentioned are definitely present in Bionicle: The Game. It’s quite easy to glitch out of bounds, as speedrunners have demonstrated many times. We later talked about general programming concepts and discussed ASL further:

“Reassuring to know that I'm not imagining Bionicle being pretty bad! I think object oriented was just flavour of the month in 2003, Java was a highly respected language at the time and we thought it was the future. It would have been nice to work in a language that was used in other places, because having ASL on your CV was a pretty crappy prospect for seeking other work. At least if you used Fortran or Pascal it was recognised by employers as a mainstream language. WTF is ASL? I worked in two other organisations that had proprietary languages and it was annoying. The good thing about starting work at Argonaut at least was that ASL was a proven language that you could make games with, and it did let you get down to the relevant bits of gameplay you wanted to take control of. Before that I worked at Phase 3 studios where they had never made an action game before, and we spent a lot of time programming systems that had hardly any effect on gameplay. So I was grateful for ASL and the toolchain for making it easy to do some limited things. I was very impressed by someone on the iNinja team for getting ropes to work with a vertlet algorithm, we stole that later for the green Bionicle to use. I think the High Voltage Software studio might be using a different language with the same initials? I can't see how it could possibly be Argonaut's language. I'm pretty sure there was some talk about opening it up as middleware to sell other studios but I don't think we ever got there. Many of the staff from Catwoman went on to work at Rocksteady, Sony and Ninja Theory, but I think they just started using whatever engine was in place there. You could find hundreds of people who had brushes with the language.”

I asked about other studios using ASL for their games:

“What release date were the games? Argonaut folded in 2004 I think, so the creditors might have managed to sell off the technology as cheap middleware of last-gen consoles

or perhaps they were licensing the tech while we were using it, and I just hadn't been aware of it”

I sent him some notable examples of games using ASL from other studios, such as The Conduit and Ben 10: Protector of Earth:

“That fits the picture then - liquidation in 2004, sell the technology in 2005, two years of learning the systems and developing content, release in 2007

The PS3 would be the current gen console by then, but the PS2 had a large enough user base to make it a viable market, especially for movie tie-ins and children’s games”

I later asked if there was any possibility that Argonaut received parts of ASL from other sources:

“That's an interesting question... I don't know but I think Argonaut were using strats since 1993 and the language gradually evolved from Starfox to Croc and so on. I think it was around before High Voltage existed. It does seem like a massive coincidence that the header is VOLT but there aren't many words that sound cool to programmers so I still suspect it is just a coincidence. Programming was Argonaut's strongest suit, it doesn't make sense that they would buy tech in like that. I was only at the company for two years or so, ask someone who was there longer.”

Then out of the blue, another former designer from Argonaut Sheffield reached out to me about Bionicle 2. After that, I asked them a few questions:

“Hi William,

Great to hear from you. Let me see what I can do to answer your questions!

[Asked about the development process of Bionicle 2]

1. Designing the demo was a bit of a break from the usual licensed Dev. We had creative control so got to decide what direction we'd like to take things in (hence a departure from the 'standard' platforming fare of the time!) My role was predominantly as a technical designer - that was, creating ideas and prototyping/building in the tools. For the demo I was responsible for populating and scripting some of the functionalities in the level.

[Asked about the broken audio in the Xbox port of Bionicle 2]

2. Not sure on the silence in the build tbh... I seem to remember doing some work on creating and implementing some spot FX and seem to remember we put some audio track on the front end screen. With this being a closed pitch demo, I honestly can't remember if we'd created the track or sourced it from elsewhere!

[Asked if they knew about any other builds of Bionicle 2]

3. I believe a have a variety of unreleased games and demos on various formats somewhere. Most of them will be PS2 from that period.

Thanks”

When they mentioned owning a variety of unreleased games and demos, I was immediately intrigued. I later asked if they had a PS2 build of Bionicle 2 and offered to send him a copy of our Xbox build of the game in exchange for it, and to my surprise I got this:

“Hey William,

Cool, I'll have a search when I get some time and attempt to extract it for you!

Thanks”

I was ecstatic. Finally, after months of searching, I was about to get something tangible! But the days passed, and those days turned into weeks. I was beginning to lose hope until I got this message:

“Hey William,

Quick note on my progress - I've not forgotten! I delved into my garage over the weekend and came away with 3 CDs labeled bionicle 2 with various dates on!

I'll attempt to create an ISO of the latest date and share with you when I get a mo (most likely the weekend again!)

Thanks”

Not only did he have a build of the game for the PS2, but THREE of them! After seeing this, I decided to wait for the weekend to arrive. Unfortunately I would be very busy on this particular weekend, but Bionicle was still my top priority! So I proceeded to bail on my friends to wait for an obscure as hell prototype game from a discontinued children’s toy line to show up in my inbox. However, on Sunday, the weekend was coming to a close, and I had heard nothing from the former designer. My waiting and persistence later paid off after I got this message:

“Hi William,

Give this a go - no idea if it works - let me know!

(redacted)”

At last! I finally got it! The latest known PS2 build of Bionicle 2: City of Legends! But there was a problem. The game didn’t boot. Just my luck. But I wasn’t ready to give up. I ended up rebuilding the entire iso with some proprietary tools, and by some miracle, it booted up in my emulator. It’s about what you would expect: It’s similar to Xbox build in many ways, but it is also different. Unlike the Xbox port, the audio works, and there are some extra graphical effects and animations. I was also able to get the game to boot up on a real PS2 without issue.

I can’t say exactly when BioMedia Project will release this build to the public, but I'm sure it will happen soon. Until then, feel free to watch some gameplay footage of the demo on my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/Dvmzz92F3oo

These past couple of years have been pretty crazy for Bionicle. The Legend of Mata Nui was found TWICE, and there has been so much more activity within the community as a result. I’m glad I was able to make my mark and get this unreleased build of Bionicle 2: City of Legends into the hands of the Bionicle community where it belongs. If you made it this far, Thanks for reading. If you liked this post, don’t forget to share it. I spent a lot of time researching this, and I would really appreciate it. Special Thanks:

BioMedia Project

Liam Robertson

Fraug L. Coolman

[oracleofimladris]

An Apology

To everyone who’s been around to day and who’s had the misfortune of wondering what in the hell has been going on.

Below the cut as this is going to be lengthy af, just for the record.

Simply put: I was not aware, that on a website where the main medium by which people communicate is reblogs, that there were people who assumed that their followers would not reblog their posts.

Sometime last night or this morning, I reblogged a post from elerondo in the form of a family tree - which I mistakenly assumed was a canon depiction, but was in fact, a personal headcanon (a headcanon they did not which to see reblogged at all).

After doing this, as it was still quite early, I continued with my morning roll-call of social media (tumblr, facebook, instagram, snapchat, discord, etc), and proceeded to the bathroom, and then to shower. Upon exiting the shower, as I sat my ass down, wrapped in a towel and drying, I checked my phone again, and noticed at some point in the last hour, I had received a tumblr message - or three to be exact. You see, I couldn’t have noticed this earlier, as I don’t have notifications enabled on any form of social media. I don’t like to be tied to my phone, and I found that when I did previously, I spent more time on my phone than I would have liked.

The messages are as follows:

Now, these could of course be interpreted as polite, however, I personally felt more like this took the tone of a 3rd and final warning, as opposed to a first interaction. 

Note: I have never before today spoken to the owner of this blog, as you can tell from the lack of messages prior to this morning.

Now, despite the very stiff tone of those messages, my initial reaction was to immediately delete the post, and to then go back to the message to reply and say that I had done so, only to find that I could send a message back.

I thought several things:

- Maybe they don’t have messages enabled (unlikely as they had sent me a message).

- Maybe they enabled it to send the message and disabled it immediately after (again, unlikely, I told myself, as tumbler would probably has deleted the message or something).

- Maybe I have universal messages enabled, whereas they only have “followers” enabled (which, again, is strange, because I was following them, but still, I thought maybe I didn’t remember the options clearly, and opted to send an ask instead).

The ask would have read something as follows:

The post was deleted. Could you at least tell me why, since I’m not a fan of one-sided conversations that benefit no one, and I can’t seem to send you a message back?

Note: I can’t confirm the exact wording as I didn’t copy the message before sending it.

Note: I thought it funny that the blog wasn’t loading as I went to send the ask from mobile, but let’s all be honest here, who hasn’t experienced technical difficulties with tumblr - especially tumblr mobile?

I thought it was weird, but I was in the bathroom, in the innermost part of our appartment, in a giant building made on concrete. I could be sitting by the window sometimes and not get cell reception, much less expect the wifi to travel all the way down the hall is still function at maximum capacity. So yeah, I let it go.

I got up. I dried my hair. I got dressed. I made my bed and sat down at my computer... But a thought was still nagging at me. The blog was still not loading properly on my phone an hour later, so I loaded the message on my computer. Fine. I checked the blog. Fine. I clicked-through on the pm. Bingo!

Nothing. Or whatever the tumblr message is for “you’re not seeing anything here because you’ve been blocked.”

At this point, I won’t lie, I was pretty insulted. In under an hour, I’d been sassed and blocked by someone I’ve literally never spoken to in my life, for doing nothing more than what’s expected of all of us on this god-forsaken hellsite - reblogging a post.

I was upset - angry, even - but I was nearly content to leave it be. However, going back to my first point that the messages struck me as though they were saying “you should know this.”

So I went back to the post and read it over again... No warning. I checked the tags... No warning. I checked the blog description... No warning. I checked their about page... No warning. I checked their rules page... No warning. Something similar about “interactions” - threads? - but nothing about headcanons. No warning whatsoever that this person didn’t want their headcanons reblogged.

Hence the posts you saw from me here, and on my other blog, regarding the reblog function being the cornerstone of tumblr (and elerondo, more like elerond-no). 

I decided to take the matter up with a few friends. I thought, yknow, maybe I’m over-reacting? Maybe I imagined this entire slight? Maybe the message I sent is what made them block me? I don’t even know...

I recounted what happened - to a handful of people now - and each of them weighed in, each of them claiming that they hade never before heard of people not wanting their headcanons reblogged - despite this clearly being what OP was upset about.

Note also that while I made these posts on my own blogs, blogs that were blocked by the OP, I was greeted with notes from a certain thisblogisgettingdeleted.

Now listen, I wouldn’t normally have made a fuss of it, but as this person insta-blocked me (effectively making sure I wouldn’t have a means to reply to them with), but made the very clear effort to make sure I knew they’d seen my messages, I felt rightly insulted.

At this point, I decided that since the only way to communicate with them would be through a blog that wasn’t blocked, I’d need to create a new one, and in order for the message to be posted if they ever replied to it the message would need to be anonymous.

That said, it certainly didn’t come out as nicely as my first message would have:

I made this side-blog for the express purpose to reiterrating my original message, and informing them that they were mistaken in assuming that it was “common knowledge” that people shouldn’t reblog headcanons. And that I thought their manner of going about things was childish at best, though obviously left that part out.

To this, they responded as follows:

Now, I don’t know if everyone is reading this the same way as me, but my first and foremost impression of this, upon reading it was that “first of all, I wasn’t passive-aggressive. I was full-on aggressive,” struck me as an odd choice of words. 

Surely, being full-on aggressive shouldn’t be something to brag about?

Note the following “you can’t accept that I blocked you,” preceeded by their creating of a side-blog to not only revisit my blog, but to interact there as well.

Followed closely by myself not being civil for not sending them a simple message... Note the steps I had to go through for them to even get this one.

Here they mention messaging me with their request, and their request not being met... An hour, guys. A single fucking hour - in which I shit you not, I was in the shower. That’s what I was given to respond to this. And yo, that’s the amount of time between when I checked my tumblr. That’s not even guaranteeing they sent me that message right after I switched apps. For all I know it could have been 30 minutes, or less.

Note: “do not reblog my ooc posts if it doesn’t include you,” still does not refer to headcanons, and I foresee them having this exact problem again in the future.

Now I was presumed to be online because I was still reblogging things... A mistake on our dear OPs part. Dears and dolls, if you’ve been following me for any significant period of time, then you know my queue is always full. Ergo, my blog is always running, even when I’m not around.

For this person whom I have never spoken to to assume anything about my life, much less to assume that I’m around to cater to their every whim, frankly astounds me. Even if I was online, which I wasn’t, I wouldn’t necessarily have seen the message right away eg. if I was on my computer and had a dozen or more tabs open, if I was in the process of looking at another blog, which cuts off the tool bar, or whatever other scenario.

Following this post, several comments were added by both OP and a follower of theirs:

After comments like these, I’m supposed to believe that “a message saying [I] have deleted of sth would have sufficed for [them] to unblock?”

Highly. Doubtful.

That said, I took it upon myself to also message the person in these comments, as they clearly weren’t going to waste any more time than OP did in finding out what happened.

As you can see from the following, they fare no better:

Blocked. Again.

Deserved? At this point, I don’t even care.

For those who were around to see it, my response to elerondo’s post was made on my personal dump as it was the only place associated with my main blog that would be able to post it.

For those who didn’t, you can find it HERE, or below:

In the end, I’m not writing this because I want this shit to keep going. I’m writing it because I got a lot of advice from various different people and the truth is this...

TL;DR:

The apology is for those of you who’ve been wondering what’s going on all day, not for the persons involved.

I did not send the message anonymously because I wanted to be anonymous. I really don’t care either way, because what I did was was not wrong. In no way is reblogging a god damn post on tumblr, of all places, wrong. However, the initial response I got, and the confirmation that it was indeed meant to be aggressive, have shown me that elerondo - and likely the company they keep as well - have no interest in being polite, or even in remaining civil, but instead are quick to insult and play the victim.

In essence...

Talk shit.

Get hit.

And if you can’t handle it, you probably shouldn’t be on the internet.

Sincerely,

Me.