#also some asks have been a hot topic and ppl decided to come to my inbox abt it

[so-very-small]

hiii im sorry for sending an anon ask instead of dming you but i kinda wanna remain anonymous qwq are you done with the g/t guilty pleasures? i remember i sent two of mine, one sfw and one nsfw, and i dont think i saw you respond to them yet. are there some you wont respond to? thats okay if so!! I just wanna know c:

no worries! im gonna answer all of the ones i have currently, there’s about 30 !! i think i know which two you’re talkin about, i’ll deffo make sure to get to those :)

but for my own sake im gonna put a cap on it now, so any guilty pleasures sent from here on out, i can’t guarantee they’ll be responded to

[golbrocklovely]

okay since a bunch of you asked, here is my review of kris' podcast with snc ! :)

first off, i highly recommend you go watch it. i'll link it right here. it was seriously so fun to watch and very silly. but it had some really good points in it too.

i'll give some overall thoughts and then i'll point out random things that i liked.

so i think the flow of their conversation thru out the podcast was really fun, even if they were hung over from the night before. kris is really good at interviewing ppl, or at least snc. so i'm interested to see her do other podcasts in the future.

the beer pong element was a fun way to break up the podcast without getting it too far off topic.

this podcast also really made me love kris. i've watched her from time to time, never been a huge fan or anything. just someone that i could occasionally throw on in the background or whatever. but her banter with snc… top notch. i want to be friends with her just so we could sass snc together.

they were all so giggly together and it was just so cute to see. 10/10 watch this podcast again.

also…. was it just me or was she flirting with colby??? i KNOW they are just friends. i'm not actually shipping them…. but if they ever got together i wouldn't be mad. just saying.

okay, here are some random things that i liked that happened during the podcast:

kris saying colby should do voice acting: YES. she is just like me forreal. especially with the mics she was using, my god his voice is hot.

the reoccurring joke that colby is conceited was kinda fun, until i started thinking of ppl taking it too seriously. that man already gets enough shit, yall better STOP before it gets bad lol

kris' hair looks so nice. i love that color on her. it really warms up her face.

when kris made the joke of "are you guys gonna quit now since you hit 10 mil", and colby said "he (sam) gets to decide that, not me." and then followed it up by explaining their dynamic as "he's the leader and i'm lazy as hell, i don't do anything." this man was feeling SPICY that day lol i love sassy colby it's kinda my favorite

"i'm the girlfriend." - colby brock

sam being the stern one and colby being the go with the flow one makes perfect fucking sense. have i not said this before a 1000 times lol

sam not respecting astrology ppl but then admitting that it's kinda true…. something is not clicking there, cheif

i said this in an ask but them not being able to see but refusing to get glasses; yall are too rich to be BLIND

what is with snc getting houses or staying in places with no ac??? that could NEVER be me omg

so snc ended up mentioning the conjuring house and that what happened there is gonna change lives and might get on national news……. i'll try to say this in a positive way: i LOVE that snc love to shoot for the stars when it comes to their content. and them believing in their own content, being passionate about it, is really nice to see. but like… bffr.

kris having a snapchat group with snc, that's adorable.

i highly recommend watching the part from 20:46 - 21:23. i want this shit to be permanently on repeat in my mind forever. everything about it was a masterpiece. - kris whooping snc's ass - colby complaining the table being too long - kris saying "i'm throwing the same shots as you boi, i'm throwing the same shots as you baby." - the look colby gives her when she says boi (😀), and then the look when she says baby (😏) - kris then saying to sam when he misses a shot "is your mom proud of you?" and then colby's face???? I LOVED EVERY MOMENT

colby saying he can't read comments bc they just make him feel bad breaks my heart. that sometimes he has to refuse to read them just bc they get to him too much. i need everyone to rewatch that clip back next time they want to say something about his appearance that isn't extremely nice. yall fucking suck.

snc strategizing pics on insta is so true. just watch jc's livestream when they hit 10 mil. it took them 20 minutes to post about it lol

re-rack, reconfigure, no no. the real word you're looking for is rearrange. that's what we used to call it.

i love snc with my entire heart, but sometimes it becomes very apparent that they only got a high school education. what do you mean you don't know what the word gaudy means???? ostentatious??? and then colby not knowing what the bible belt is???? cmon now lmao

colby talking about dating/his love life just a bit… kris really is trying to get on my good side sksksks

colby's raya profile saying he's a wwe wrestler, and then his caption being "6'0 on a good day with the right shoes"…. how does he get laid as often as he does???? i can't with him anymore

him also admitting to ghosting and getting bored talking to ppl. imagine being ghosted by colby. i would be embarrassed lol

it was interesting to hear their opinions on 25x25 now. i personally loved that content so to hear them say it wasn't as authentic as the haunted stuff is a bit confusing. i don't know if i would agree with it, but i like hearing what they have to say about it.

sam saying back to kris "if you make this shot, i think ppl will love you… finally." and then saying "make your mom proud"………… why do i find this hot something is wrong with me lol

if you're wondering if i could ever take snc in a fight, the answer is YES. i would absolutely murder them sksksks

snc listening to country music???? what has this world come to?? i mean i'm happy to hear they like country but it's just so surprising

colby saying his favorite movie is 'life of pi' but not understanding it and kris saying "you're so cute." i love that moment.

colby needs to make more music STAT

kris saying she's sleeping with socks on and colby not liking that: sir, you enthusiastically told xplrclub that you watch cist popping videos i don't CARE what you have to say.

colby also not wanting to saying anything to get canceled is very accurate

the little handshake they all did at the end of beer pong was adorable.

colby being good at moving his tongue fast………. i'm not even gonna say anything lmao

also his inability to do the cowabunga with his left hand. i fucking cried laughing at that.

[faggot-dot-jpg]

talk to me about ur ocs u seem silly (sory for showing up unannounced i opt to not control the urge to hear ppl ramble about their self-made lil guys)

WIDENS EYES SO SO BIG OMG

OKAY OKAY OKAY

SO I HAVE THESE TWO LITTLE GUYS

MILO AND AND JAX (no relation to tadc) (I will now stop yelling)

Milo is an angel and Jax is a demon (giggles)

they are both 20 yrs old, Milo is transmasc (he/him) and "straight" (he is actually so bisexual), Jax is gay (he/it)

(runs to my notes app) (lil warning, quite a bit of their story is Jax helping Milo through his fear of his own sexuality, so yea you can guess there gonna be certain themes)

Okay so Milo is like low-key famous up in heaven (he's the son of the king of heavens "manager" I forgor the word) (ITS ADVISOR, THE KINGS TOP ADVISOR TAHTS THE WORD OMG)

so he's constantly trying to keep his public image intact..

but that starts to get harder after he's sent on a mission to deliver a message to the king of hell

down there he sees the king's son (spoiler: it's Jax) and is like " Oh shoot oh no he's hot wth why do I like this guy I'm straight wait what"

OH YEA SILLY HEAVEN LORE DROP: Being queer is totally fine up there, Milo has been out and transitioned for years, but from a young age all angel's are taught that engaging in sexual activity or having sexual thoughts is a big no no

lore drop over, back to the other lore drop :3

so for the next month or so Milo is having progressively more risqué thoughts and even dreams (woagh that's crazy) and he's getting real stressed out because I LIED MORE HEAVEN LORE: when angels start losing their "purity", small parts of their body start changing to red, ie some of the hair, eyes, any markings. SO HES ALL STRESSED CAUSE HES STRUGGLING TO HIDE THE CHANGES :((

ANYWAYS- He gets sent on another mission to hell, this time to ask if preparations for Jax's coronation have started, and gets suckered into helping. The two start getting closer~..

ONTO JAX LORE!!!!!! YIPPEE

Jax is the Prince of Hell, and has been conditioned by its asshole of a father to eventually become king since he was very young. His father would often push Jax past its limits both physically and emotionally. When he couldn't deal with this, his father decided to start just straight up abusing him. (I wanna kill, him. YES I KNOW IM IN CONTROL BUT HES IMPORTANT TO THE STORY FOR NOW 😭)

Because his mother was an incubus (she's uh- out of the picture... also incubi and succubi can be any gender so fun fact!!!) it decides to deal with his issues by whoring around (he's so silly!! <- the poor guy needs severe therapy and to get away from his dad)

One day, an angel comes to deliver a message to his father (WOAGH I WONDER WHO THAT IS!?!??! 🧐🧐) and he becomes absolutely infatuated after seeing him once (bro is down bad frfr)

as it nears time for his coronation, the same angel comes to visit to help with preparations. once again, the two start getting closer~..

NOW GENERAL STORY STUFF!!!!! I cannot thank you enough for the chance to be so soso abnormal abt my silly little guys btw

Before they get closer, Milo is like "nuh uh being friends with a demon is wrong HECK NO" (he doesn't swear :3) but eventually they start talking, Jax opens up about his daddy issues (trauma is the first conversation topic as always with these DAMN QUEERS-) <- I AM A DAMN QUEER YALL

and Jax learns what life in heaven is like (and is absolutely horrified to learn that sexuality is frowned upon)

it now has a goal to help Milo understand that his teachings were incorrect

to directly quote my notes app: One night, Milo comes back to his guest room to see it destroyed.. (While they were working, one of Jax's old boy toys wrecked it in a fit of rage over Milo getting close to Jax) As they don't have any other rooms available, Jax offers to let Milo stay in his for now. Milo accepts, then panics once he learns that Jax only has one bed. Jax doesn't see an issue, and they sleep in the same bed with a little persuasion. (THAT SOUNDS WEIRD, I PROMISE JAX ISNT A CREEP OR NOTHIN)

uhhh umm the next part is kinda- uhmmmmmmm 😳 I don't think I'm gonna say it here

just know some of Milo's dreams come true :3c

SADLY I HAVENT WRITTEN THE STORY PAST THIS PART SO THATS IT FOR NOW :((

TY FOR ASKING

[meltwonu]

| 🍒 CH-CH-CHERRY BOMB! 🍒 |     [CHAPTER 16]

pairing; dom!seungcheol x camgirl!reader

this chapter’s notes; camshow, dom!seungcheol, oral(fem receiving), a little overstimulation, some hair pulling, dirty talk, possessive!seungcheol makes an appearance, sex toys, seungcheol riskin’ it all in this one 😏😳 yall!!! only 4 more chapters after this 🥺 it’s so crazy, I don’t even remember when I started this series but omg, my longest one yet! 💕 thank you so much for the support on cherry bomb, as always!! I love yall 💕💕 also my god has it been a week 😭 gonna do an inbox roundup tomorrow!💕 But for now, enjoy ch16 and have a good, safe weekend!! 💕🍒 

chapters; 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - x - x - x - x

“Let me get this straight… She asked you if you considered her your girlfriend and you said what?”

Seungcheol grimaces for the third time, brows furrowed when Jeongguk blinks at him incredulously. “I’m sorry, I just---I need to hear it from your lips again, hyung.”

“Ugh, I said ‘sure’, okay!? I got nervous! That was a big fuckin’ question!” Seungcheol tugs at his own hair, groaning as he slams his head down onto the concession stand. “Don’t even get me started on the look she gave me after. I had to sleep next to her, you don’t know how horrible that was after my fuck up.”

Jeongguk pats Seungcheol’s hair; shaking his head as he gently tries to comfort his hyung.

“What did she say afterwards?”

“She just said ‘oh, okay’ and then she changed topics.” Seungcheol lifts his head from the countertop, hair mussed as he stares back at Jeongguk who shoots him a pitiful look.

“And that was it? The two of you went to bed?” Seungcheol nods, “We ate a little and she started talking about work so I thought everything was okay? But the more I think about it the more I’m thinking ‘oh, okay’ isn’t really okay? Listen, I haven’t been in a relationship in a while and the last thing I ever expected out of meeting her was for her to be my girlfriend!”

Jeongguk laughs in return, “I can tell. You’re fuckin’ rusty as hell, hyung.”

“He said what?”

You groan as you pick up another plate. “He said ‘sure’ and then it got awkward. We ate dinner and then went to bed and this morning when he dropped me off, I felt like---weird? I was all shy all of a sudden, maybe even awkward.” Jun helps you clear off the table, taking a couple plates of his own before turning to face you.

“Like, ‘butterflies in my stomach’ kinda shy? Or, like, ‘that wasn’t really the answer I was looking for’ kinda awkward shy?”

Grimacing, you start to wipe down the table as Jun watches. “I’m not even sure. I mean… He didn’t say no, right? But I guess I was just expecting a little more than just ‘sure’. Nothing like, grandiose but… a little more than ‘sure’? It’s like he was replying to me asking if he wanted a piece of chocolate.”

Jun laughs, fingertips on his chin as he thinks of an appropriate response. “He might just be… awkward. I mean, what was the preface of this question? What conversation were you two having?”

Your lips press into a firm line, cheeks hot as Jun stares you down. “Okay… maybe you’re right. I didn’t really… work up to that question. I kinda just… asked it. I mean, you guys were asking about it in the comments too so I just thought--”

“Ah! There’s the problem though. I don’t think hyung was even in the chat at that point. So, just because all of us were talking about it doesn’t mean he knew, y’know? He might’ve just been caught off guard.”

“Ugh... fuck, you’re probably right.”

You and Seungcheol don’t talk about it.

Even though you can feel the tenseness between the two of you during dinner and even when he drops you off and picks you up from work Friday afternoon. It’s all clipped conversations and shy, awkward smiles like the two of you had met for the first time, all over again.

It eventually comes to a head when you’re only an hour away from needing to start your cam show, Friday night, and you realize that you weren’t sure if Seungcheol was going to be part of it or not. “Hey, ‘Cheol?” You ask, voice small as you stare at the back of his head. The male turns from his place on the sofa, eyes wide as saucers at your shy voice.

“Y-yeah?”

“Are you, um, going to cam with me tonight or…? I mean, I can do it alone, I just--I wasn’t sure if you wanted to, tonight.” Seungcheol bites the inside of his cheek; he really wanted to talk about it and he didn’t understand why this, out of all the things, was so difficult for him to talk about.

“I--I don’t know. I just, I’m sorry, can I just... apologize first?” He groans as he gets up from the sofa and rounds it until he steps in front of where you sit atop the bed sheets. “It’s been so awkward and I know it’s because of me, so you don’t need to say anything. I just--I should’ve said more than ‘sure’, I was just nervous!” His cheeks burn red; wide eyes avoiding your own as you stare up at him. “I really want you to be my girlfriend, if I didn’t already make that clear. I was just thinking about how I never really expected you to like me that much, much less start a relationship with me, so the first thing that came out of my mouth was just… that. It was dumb, I should’ve said something else, but I think my brain was just mush by then.”

Your own cheeks feel hot at his confession; trying to hide the beaming smile that threatens to paint your features. “No--no, I should apologize a little too. I asked you that out of nowhere and made you panic. I should’ve worked it up better than that too.”

“I guess we’re both a little dumb, huh?” He laughs under his breath as he scratches the back of his head in embarrassment. “We can talk about everything else under the sun but that was just… harder to talk about in the moment.”

“Yeah, but we’re okay now, right? We’re an official c-couple?” You bite your lip, looking up at Seungcheol who seems to be staring off into the distance. A grin finds itself painted on his lips as he meets your shy eyes.

“That’s right, babygirl.”

Seungcheol decides to let you do your cam show alone tonight; watching from the sofa as you get settled on the bed before nodding at him and starting your stream.

“Hey, everyone! Happy Friday!”

The comments and donations flood in as soon as you start and you already hit your donation minimum before you even open your mouth to speak again. It catches you off guard momentarily as your eyes go wide and your lips part in a shocked expression.

“Whoa, that was so fast! We already hit the donation minimum!”

sleepy_wonu has donated $75

sleepy_wonu: your channel has grown so much in the past few weeks im not surprised lol

universe_WZ: yea seriously, i remember when it took us like 30 mins before we hit minimum

artist8hao has donated $75

artist8hao: now theres ppl we’ve never even seen before in the comments lol

angelhan has donated $50

tangerine_kwan has donated $50

“Oh I know! Remember that one cam show where it took me, like, almost an hour to reach minimum? If it weren’t for ‘dom.cheol’ then, I don’t think that one would’ve taken off at all!” You giggle at the memory, eyes momentarily flitting to Seungcheol who smiles back at you.

kitty_junjun: speaking of? No loverboy tonight?

therealchan99: oh yeah i didnt even notice he was gone 😌

chwenon: lmfao

“Ah, he said he wanted to take a break tonight so it’s just me! Hope that’s okay with you guys?” You pout at the camera, fingertips roaming your lingerie clad body as you read off a few more comments. “I’m so used to his hands all over my skin though… He gets me to cum so easily, y’know?”

You pick up a dildo sitting next to you on the bed; bringing the silicone toy to your lips as you moan. “This is the biggest toy I have and it’s not anywhere near the size of his cock...” Wrapping your lips around the tip, you start sucking on the toy, imagining it was Seungcheol’s cock instead when it fills your mouth.

Your eyes flutter shut when you start grinding against the bedsheets underneath you and Seungcheol feels his throat going dry at the way you take more and more of the toy into your mouth until you’re gagging on it. Tears spring to your eyes when you feel your throat constricting around the silicone and you repeat this action a few more times before you’re pulling the toy from your mouth and sputtering to catch your breath.

gentleman_josh95: god youre so fucking pretty choking on cock

alphagyu97 has donated $50

alphagyu97: fuck i know

Setting the toy down, you immediately work to get your lingerie off; tossing it to the side before spreading your legs for the camera. “Mmh, I’m already so wet thinking about this toy filling me up…” You tease yourself with the toy, dragging the tip through your folds and collecting the wetness on it as you mewl.

xcaliburDK: but is it gonna be enough for you?

hoshi_tiger_xx: probably not, we all know the toys arent as good as the real thing lolol

You let out a whimper as you circle your clit with the tip of the toy. “I know… But I really want something inside my pussy…”

Seungcheol feels his cock throbbing in his sweats at the way your words only sound sweeter to his ears now that the two of you had cleared the air. He bites his lip, palming himself through the material as he watches you from his place on the sofa.

alphagyu97: is ur tight lil cunt ready to take it?

therealchan99: why dont u use your pretty fingers to get yourself ready hmm?

You nod shakily, setting the toy down again before bringing your middle and index fingers to your lips to wet them properly before snaking them down your body. “Ah, my fingers aren’t as big either…” Mumbling, you pinch and tease your clit, moaning out loudly before dragging them down and sinking them into your soaked entrance.

“Fuh--fuck, mmh!” Regretfully, your fingers aren’t as thick or long as Seungcheol’s but you curl and scissor the digits inside of you to prep yourself for the toy.

The sound of your moans and cries mix in with the pinging on your laptop from donations and comments and for once, Seungcheol realizes how weird it is to be on the other side and not with you. Admittedly, he’d gotten quite used to being on cam with you that it seemed awkward to just be doing nothing on the other side of the room.

“Oh, ngh, I--I want the toy n-now…” Mewling, you pull your soaking fingers from inside of your pussy; bringing them to your lips to clean them off of your wetness before grabbing the toy again. You run the silicone through your folds as you get it covered in your slick before positioning it at your entrance and slowly sinking it in.

It was definitely smaller than Seungcheol and didn’t have the same girth, but you still whine and whimper when it fills you up to the base of the toy. “Ngh, feels g-good…”

universe_WZ: i just kno that toy is noy as satisfying as the real thing huh princess?

xcaliburDK: right? Her pretty lil pussy is probably so used to being stretched by a big cock 

You thrust the toy into your pussy, soft cries spilling from your lips as you try to imagine it’s Seungcheol instead. In all honesty, you would’ve wanted him to film with you but you respected his decision to stay on the sidelines for tonight.

“Ah, it--it’s not the s-same… I--I need h-help…” You whine; shaky fingertips still working the dildo in and out of your soaking pussy. 

“P-please, ah… the toy’s not, mmh, enough to make m-me feel good...”

In the time between you picking up the toy and you actually sliding into your wet cunt, Seungcheol internally argues with himself on what to do.

And it’s not until you start begging to the air for more that he mentally says ‘screw it’ and gets up from the sofa.

Your eyes are clamped shut as you try to chase the pleasure and soon you feel the bed dip; confused eyes peering back at Seungcheol who’s entire body, including his head, is in the camera’s shot. “W-wait, you---”

“Me, what? You asked for me, right?” He turns his head, eyes staring directly into the camera as he smirks.

“Hi. I’m her boyfriend. But I think the rest of you know that already, right?”

The comments go wild with Seungcheol’s sudden face reveal, even though you and him are already lost in each other as he grips the base of the dildo and starts pumping it inside of you, angling it as best as he can to graze against your g-spot.

xcaliburDK: i think i need to quit my job tomorrow

chwenon: ??? didnt u just start

angelhan: damn i knew this dude was gonna be hot as hell

kitty_junjun: whoa nice to see ur face

kitty_junjun: i take it u lovebirds made up

xcaliburDK: yea i did but i think ive embarrassed myself enough for one lifetime

xcaliburDK has donated $150

xcaliburDK: for my shame

Your entire body is aflame with Seungcheo’s confidence and you feel the pleasure building up even quicker now that he was here with you. “Ah, f-fuck…” Whining, you bite your lip to prevent yourself from calling out his name; something you were used to by now.

“What’s wrong, baby? Call my name. Let them know who makes you feel this fuckin’ good. Let them know who’s cock you always crave and who’s cock fills you up better than this toy ever fuckin’ could.”

“Fuck, S--Seungcheol!”

Your orgasm hits you out of left field; thighs clamping shut around his arm as he continues to fuck you with the dildo as you ride out your pleasure. He turns to face the camera yet again, winking at it cockily before he turns back to you. “That’s right, baby. Now I’m gonna eat your ‘lil cunt out and make you cum on my tongue while you let the entire world know who gets you this fuckin’ wet.”

He doesn’t give you a second to come down from your high before he’s nudging your thighs apart and sliding the dildo from inside of you. A shaky breath falls from your lips as he readjusts you on the bed; this time giving the camera a side view as you turn your head to face the camera.

The comments and donations continue to flood in, except now it seems like they’re going twice as fast.

xcaliburDK: kjdkjghsdkhg fuck

sleepy_wonu: well can i say at least hes not an old weirdo lol

sleepy_wonu: ❤️

chwenon: im like, pretty sure ive seen this dude come to the convenience store i work at

chwenon: bruh i met a celebrity and i didnt even know it

xcaliburDK: dont even get me started

Seungcheol pries your shaky legs apart before he eases himself down between them. “I want you to be as loud as fuckin’ possible. Understood?” He smiles at you warmly, but his words have a certain edge to them that has you nodding profusely.

“O--okay…”

He wastes no time; skilled tongue flicking at your swollen clit as you jolt and immediately tangle your hands into his hair. “Oh, god, Seungcheol I’m--I’m, ah, sensitive…” He smirks against your skin, noting the way you already start to grind against his tongue despite your words.

Resting your thighs against his shoulders, it allows him to eat you out easier as he flattens his tongue and drags it from your soaking entrance to your clit; alternating the pressure as you whine and whimper above him.

When he notices you trying to keep your noises in, he pulls away slightly, flicking your clit with the tip of his tongue before speaking.

“I thought I told you I wanted to hear you, baby? Don’t get shy on me now.” He smirks, watching as the goosebumps rise on your skin. “In fact, why don’t you tell your lovely viewers how good I make you feel, hmm? Or tell them about the time you made me finger you in the restroom at work ‘cause your ‘lil cunt couldn’t wait.”

xcaliburDK: THE RESTROOM? At woRK?

artist8hao: ah one of the originals huh

gentleman_josh95 has donated $75

gentleman_josh95: for backstory

tangerine_kwan has donated $75

tangerine_kwan: seconded!

You bite your lip when you catch the comments, shy eyes flitting from the screen to Seungcheol who resumes eating you out. Your thighs tremble and threaten to snap shut around his head; body already on the edge of another orgasm. 

“I--S--Seungcheol was at, ah, w-work… and I--I couldn’t wait so--so I made him finger m-me in his work’s restroom…” You whimper, hangs tugging on Seungcheo’s hair harshly when his tongue dips into your entrance. “Fuck, I--I couldn’t stop thinking about, ngh, his--his fingers afterwards e-either… They fit my p-pussy so well…”

A garbled moan floats through the air when Seungcheol’s lips envelope your clit, sucking it into his mouth as your cry out his name.

Your back bows off of the bed, fingertips locked tight into his hair. “Fuck, Seungcheol, please… please…” You grind against him, toes curling against his back when your sensitive body gives into the pleasure and your orgasm washes over you a second time.

Cries of his name are all you can manage when your body goes rigid; head fuzzy when he starts to dip his tongue into your pussy again. He smiles against you, calmly continuing to eat you out as your orgasm continues to wash over you.

kitty_junjun: is it just me or is it nicer to hear her actually calling someones name

artist8hao: honestly i was just thinking that too

artist8hao: its more organic idk  

alphagyu97: ~organic~ ok nerd lol

chwenon has donated $50

therealchan99 has donated $50

When the  overstimulation starts to bite, your soft cries of Seungcheol’s name turn into hurried, jumbled noises and only parts of his name as you squirm and tug on his hair.

“Ah, ‘Cheol it’s, ngh, too--too m-much…!” He drags his tongue against your clit a few more times, relishing in the way you still grind against him. “I c-can’t cum again…” You cry, teeth chattering when he gently laps at your folds and collects your wetness on his tongue.

Seungcheol repeats this a few more times; letting you tug and pull at his hair as he licks you clean.

“Ngh, Seungcheol…”

He finally pulls away, using a hand to pry your fingers from his hair as he smiles at your tired body. “Cute.” Mumbling, he eases your shaky legs from his shoulders before he sits up; lips covered in your wetness as he grins at the camera.

Seungcheol picks out a few comments as he chuckles under his breath; already wondering what work was going to be like on Monday when he had to meet Seokmin. 

universe_WZ: u look like a dude that could fuck someone up 

kitty_junjun: he probably would too

chwenon: come thru the convenience store bro, I'll hook u up 

xcaliburDK: should I quit? be honest

Your tired groans bring his attention back to you; eyes trained on the way your tired eyes threaten to snap shut. 

“Okay, I think I need to go take care of my girlfriend now. It was nice meeting you all, finally.” Seungcheol grins, taking care of your stream before thanking your viewers and ending the stream. 

He turns to you, a genuine and caring smile on his face when your hazy eyes look up at him. 

“Ready for a shower?”

“Ugh, carry me, boyfriend~”

[curly-bangtan]

Heatwave Drabble #9: sweet night (M)

[Heatwave // Godless // Heatwave Drabbles] <- must read first!

Pairing: Taehyung x reader

Summary: After a series of miscommunications and immaturity that lead to a rip through both your friendship and ambiguous relationship, this last turn of events could be the deciding factor of whether or not you’ve lost each other from your lives forever.

Genre: angst, smut, fwb au, roommate au, f2l

Warnings: SO much angst and feels, slight slow burner and a lot of build up, unprotected sex, hot tub, oral (m&f), food play, crying, i don’t want to give too much away eeee

Word count: 23.8k a monster i know ;-;

A/N: The end is finally here!! It’s late but trust me when I say I worked all day on this and did not do an ounce of revision today because I wanted to get this done. I’ve been writing this series, and this ending in particular, for so long and have been so nervous about getting this perfect. So please enjoy~

(quite a few ppl also couldn’t be tagged from the taglist and it’s 3am so i honestly dk how to fix it ;-;)

.

You used to think heartbreak was for the weak, after all you can only hurt as much as you let yourself be hurt. So... maybe you are weak. Because that ever-constricting ache in your chest has not diminished even a bit since that day you left him.

Four weeks. Not a word to each other.

It’s a hollowing feeling - someone you’ve had in your life every day for the past few years, a constant companion, suddenly completely absent in a blink of an eye. You don’t think you could put it into words even if you tried how this affected you. Life feels so foreign, your personality dulls.

The anger you felt for him dissipated quicker than you’d anticipated, but the anger at yourself only grew. No matter how you look at it now, you can only see it as being your fault.

But the decision to part ways was for the best, you have to keep reminding yourself. You shouldn’t be around each other anymore.

Whenever you see him around campus, you spin around and speed off the other way, hoping that he doesn’t see you too. Okay, you are weak, okay. But your heart twists at the sign of him, not just squeezes but twists into thorned knots. It’s the sort of pain that takes from you, makes you a different person unrecognisable to yourself.

You had moved in with Lotta. When she asked you what happened, all you had said was that you two had a massive fight and fell out. She knew better than to prod further from the telltale signs that you were close to tears from a simple question: the trembling throat, pursed lips, uncharacteristically quiet voice. And you were grateful because you knew you couldn’t afford to be asked about him without breaking.

The bed feels awfully cold in the nights of early February. And every night, you stare at his name on the screen of your phone, contemplating. One tap and you can hear his voice. One tap and your longing could be absolved. You always almost give in to this overpowering urge itching within your fingers. But you wouldn’t even know what to say to him.

Hi. How are you. I miss you like crazy and I think about you everyday but I know we should keep our distance but I’m just so sorry for everything.

You liked to think that maybe this break is just temporary, you both need space from each other because the toxicity built up so quickly that neither of you could think or breathe. But the longer time is spent away from him, the more you convince yourself that it wasn’t meant to be. It was never going to work; you knew this from the start but had been too optimistic.

And the mistakes you both made… You can’t forget them and the scars you’ve left on each other; you don’t think he’d be able to forgive you, not any time soon anyway.

You wonder if he’s doing the same, if he too is agonising over every wrong step he took to lead you two to this state, or if he’s cursing you for destroying everything. For his sake, you hope he’s moving on. Because that, for some reason, feels so much better than knowing that he’s crying over you.

The strange thing is that you had been the one to break things off. The look of lostness in his red-rimmed eyes laced with an unmissable reluctance will always be an enigma to you. Because he was furious, distraught. So why was he shocked by your ending? How was he not done with you?

That day you left, he wordlessly stood next to you as you packed your things. When you handed him his grey hoodie, the one you had gradually claimed as your own under mutual tacit agreement over your months together, it had truly felt like the end.

“Are... Are you sure? I don’t mind if you keep it.” He had said, voice raw from the arguing but also the tears he was fighting back.

You couldn’t look at him, you knew you would fall apart if you did. “I think it’s best if you take it back.” Why did he want you to keep it anyway?

Something was missing in both your voices when you spoke to each other, reflective of the heart-shaped void you had carved into the other. Everytime you think back to that moment, you want to kick yourself. You could have at least kept the hoodie - that way you could at least have a piece of him to cling onto in your lonely desperate nights.

Because now you have nothing. Nothing of his in your life, no reminder at all that he ever existed with you except the memories embedded so deeply in your heart that it hurts.

No one ever mentions him to you; you think they got the hint from Lotta not to. He’s a ghost.

Haunting you with his heartbroken eyes that shattered at the sight of Jimin. You’ll never forget that.

Sometimes, you’ll just be having dinner with her, and you’ll be crushed with this suffocating wave of missing him. It knocks the breath out of you. Because you can momentarily forget that it’s over, and mistaken Lotta as him. So when you look up and realise that it isn’t him, he’s not here, it’s as if someone is digging their nails into your scabbing wound and releasing the blood of your heartache once more.

And Lotta would look up and ask you, “What? Is the rice overcooked?” And you would want to cry because he would always overcook the rice.

And sometimes, you would just want to blurt it all out to her, right then and there. Tell her everything that had happened with you and him, because - god - keeping it inside is exhausting. But the words get trapped at your throat, unable to be enunciated. Which is just your forte, isn’t it? Not being able to say how you feel...

You are a competitive person, that has never been a secret. You are used to winning at everything you wish to win at, it is in your nature.

So losing Taehyung has been the biggest loss of your life. It had been a gamble from the start, whether it would work or not. There were so many signs pointing in the direction of yes, this is going to work, you love each other so much. Because still to this day, you believe that you are soulmates, and you were one step, three words, away from a happy ending. But then, caught up in this game you played, you hadn’t realised that he had been yours from the very start if you had only just accepted him. And that was your downfall: your failure to see his love for you in the form of his actions, rather than the words of validation you were seeking.

And thus, you had lost your lover, your best friend, your other half, completely of your own doing.

The realisation haunts you every night.

.

It’s Galentine’s Day. In this household, you don’t say the V word.

Lotta has booked a weekend trip to celebrate your mutual [forever alone] relationship status. Some strawberry farm in the countryside for friends to pick berries and make jam and bond over their mutual loneliness. Apparently that’s a thing nowadays.

It would have excited you before, a trip like this. The idea sounds much like a sweet attempt from her to cheer you up, (you haven’t been trying to hide how down you’ve been), so as much as you wanted to just wallow on this shitty holiday, you agreed to go with her.

And to be honest, this might be exactly what you need. A weekend away with your best friend away from the city could heal you. Best friend? Should you call her that? You’re not sure because that title has always referred to someone else previously, someone you shouldn’t be thinking about.

To your credit, you’ve been doing better. You think about him less and less each day; you stopped crying after the first week. You’ve always been a progressor with astounding growth. It’s not to say that you’re doing fine - that would be a reach - because small things such as a cup of hot chocolate would still remind you of him and the string of memories that come with it. But you think your heart is finally slowly starting to stitch itself back together.

Galentine’s weekend just so happened to fall on the weekend of Lotta’s Geophysics trip to Barcelona, as inconvenient as it is. But, rather than letting this disrupt her plans, Lotta had been adamant about going.

“My flight lands at 7am. That’s two hours before we are supposed to meet and depart from the coach station. That’s plenty of time.” She had waved away your concern when this topic of discussion came up last week.

“You never know with flight timings. We could just blow it off and have just as nice of a weekend at home watching movies.” Strawberry picking sounds great for the soul, but so does Netflix and ice cream. “We could have a Saw marathon like we’ve been wanting to.”

“Saw marathon on Valentine’s day?” Lotta scoffed at your suggestion

You blinked. “What’s wrong with that? We love scary films, it’s our thing.”

“It doesn’t matter, I’ve already paid for the trip and it’s non-refundable.”

“I’ll subsidise the cost, there’s no point forcing this trip if it won’t work with your schedule. You haven’t even let me pay you back for my half of the trip yet.” Lotta is like that with money, overly generous when completely unasked for. If you don’t mention paying her back, she would never have asked you to.

“It’s my treat to you, shut up. Just trust me, Y/N, I’ll make it to the coach on time, I always make it on time.” She shook you by the shoulders. “We’ll make our separate ways to the meeting point Saturday morning and everything else will go smoothly. There’s no reason to cancel the trip. Plus, V day is on Sunday, so do you really want to see all those shitty ass rom-com Netflix suggestions or would you rather be enjoying the great outdoors? Trust, we need a break in the countryside. It’s going to be an amazing weekend, you’ll thank me later.”

Right now, as you make a final check through your lightly-packed bag before you leave the house, you find yourself agreeing. You do need the fresh naturally strawberry-scented air to expel all these negativity from you. You want to feel yourself again, be happy and loud and excitable.

Collecting for your trip ticket that Lotta had left on your desk before she went to Barcelona, you decide right now that: yes, this will be an amazing weekend. Law of attraction and power of manifestation. Lotta’s flight will be punctual and you will make some fond memories together.

You’ll be okay.

You arrive at the meeting spot twenty minutes early because you are known to be prone to tardiness. The tour guide welcomes you keenly. He is a young, twenty-something you reckon, tall man, graced with dimples and honey skin. You think you would find him attractive in different circumstances, but you haven’t gotten to the stage of feeling attraction for anyone else yet.

“Your ticket with the barcode, miss?” His smile is charming, you guess. It’s more an observation than an enticing quality. You hand it over to him wordlessly and watch him scan the creased piece of paper. “Great, that’s perfect. And your partner?”

“Partner?” You frown, but realise what he means. This is a Galentine’s programme, of course he expects you not to be alone. “Oh, she should be coming, we came separately because she’s just getting off a flight right now.”

“Oh! That’s very sweet of her to rush back to spend this weekend with you.” The endearment in his smile heightens.

“Yeah… She’s the best.” There’s no particular reason for your awkwardness. You’ve always been a social butterfly, yet lately, you’re keeping more to yourself, avoiding unnecessary conversations because your mind is always too preoccupied.

“I am Jae, by the way, and I’ll be your guide for the weekend. I hope you have a wonderful time with us this Valentine's day. Hop on board.” Giving him a polite nod, you climb onto the empty bus, noting the swirly hearts beside the large red words ‘STRAWBERRY LOVE’ on the side of the big white vehicle. Kind of tacky, but the idea of this programme is kind of cute so you guess it’s suiting. After assessing row after row, you plop down at a window seat you deem worthy and settle your bag on the seat beside you, head leaning on the glass as you await your partner.

Dear partner, please don’t be late, you text her.

Soon, other participants of this trip start arriving, filing a crooked queue in front of the tour guide to register. You don’t pay much attention to them except to examine for Lotta’s face. The coach is set to leave at 9:00 on the dot in order to arrive at the farm at noon, it is now 8:56 and Lotta is still not here. You don’t want to lose faith in manifestation magic, but worry is settling in. If it comes down to it, you will beg Jae to wait for you. With your texts unread, you decide to phone her.

Come on… Just let this one weekend go smoothly for you.

Nervously playing with the ends of your hair, you exhale in relief when she picks up. “Oh thank god, Lotta. Where are you? The coach is leaving in like two minutes. You’ve landed right? I’m not sure if I can convince the people to wait for you that long but worse comes to worse, I could ask for the address of the farm and you can commute there yourself. ” A silence replies after your slur of panicked words. “Hello? Dude, hurry.”

“Wait, so he’s not there yet?” She asks hesitantly.

“Who? The tour guide? No, he’s here. Where are you?” Just then you hear a thunder of running footsteps. Expectantly, you look out the bus window for your friend’s arrival, only to find…

“Wait, Lotta… What the fuck did you do?” Something drops in your stomach.

“Look Y/N, don’t be mad. This is for your own good, you need this.” You can practically hear her stealthy smile through the phone.

An icy chill strikes down your spine. You simply cannot believe what you are seeing out the window. She-

“Lotta…”

“Trust me, okay? You have been so fucking depressed the past month. You need to fix this problem, please. I hate seeing you like this, so if not for yourself, then do it for me.” There’s some guilt in her tone, you’ll give her that. But you are in a state of utter disbelief, borderline shell-shocked, the groves of your brain tangled in itself.

“Lotta, where are you? Are you even fucking coming?” Absolute mortification fills your chest to the brim at your gradual realisation of her ploy.

This can’t be happening.

“I promise, this is all for your own good. Please have a great weekend. I love you. Bye!” And with that she hangs up, leaving you wide-eyed, jaw-dropped, staring out the window...

At a panting, slightly sweat-beaded Taehyung handing his crumpled ticket to Jae.

“Made it just in time, mate.” You can just about make out Jae’s words from the shape of his mouth as he greets Taehyung and proceeds to recite his ‘I’m your tour guide for the trip’ speech. Taehyung nods interestedly, reciprocating with that sheepish smile of his as he scratches the back of his bedhead.

What did your best friend do? Did she just… set you up…? As you hear his loud unmissable steps stomping up onto the coach, you know you’re doomed. It’s over for you. You might as well fling yourself off a cliff.

Looking around the bus, you realise that it of course is completely full except for the seat beside you.

The power of manifestation is fucking bullshit. You’re stuck with this bad luck for the rest of your life.

And this weekend, you’re going to die.

You see him as a blur at the start of the aisleway, a mere figure in swatches of peach and brown and black. You hear pounding, a booming pulse in your ear.

It’s Taehyung. Taehyung. Your, but also not your, Taehyung.

Each step he takes approaching the only available seat he sees, you shrink lower in yours and keep your eyes pressed shut, but for what reason you’re not entirely sure. There’s no hiding now.

Your confrontation is inevitable, a few steps away. Then he finally sees you.

“Y-Y/N?”

Your heart soars to your throat at the sound of his voice as everything around you vanishes. This can’t be real.

Slowly, you turn up to face him. When your eyes meet, it’s like someone has driven a sharp object into your chest and twisted. His face is exactly how you remember, but also not quite. His big brown eyes are wide with surprise in a pitiful expression of bewilderment. His sleep rumpled hair, grown out to almost cover his eyes, yet still very much permed in the style you loved. His lips are jutting out, slightly parted in confusion at your unexpected presence that reminds you of how it felt to kiss him.

And the look of disgust that you had expected - absent.

You want to throw your arms around him. There is always a warmth emitting from Taehyung - the kind of warmth you feel when you enter your house on a snow ridden day and the gust of heat accompanied by the smell of home simply swallows you like a wave. But there is also something different, unfamiliar almost, about him. He is rougher round the edges, hints of facial hair dotted below his nose, dressed in slacks that he only usually wore strictly as pyjamas and never to go outside in.

As your eyes fall to the rest of him, you notice his fists tighten around the straps of his backpack, the balls of his knuckles whitening.

“Taehyung-” Saying his name feels like a release. A rush of satisfaction at the way the syllables roll off your tongue so naturally, then a flood of emotion that comes with all the memories his name invokes.

Then you’re at a loss for words again. You are so utterly unprepared for this situation because you didn’t think you would meet him again so soon, not until you’ve moved on. You’re not ready to face him.

What do you say? How are you meant to act around him?

He looks equally as lost, though you read him easily. There’s a flash of hurt in his eyes, the same that you’re sure you had. But it dissolves much quicker with him, almost into relief and content as if he’s glad to see you.

You know from the slight downward angle his brows are pointing that he has definitely missed you. Perhaps in a completely different way from you missing him, but he’s missed you.

“If I could just have everybody's attention!” Jae’s voice booms from the speaker, startling every passenger. “Young man over there, please be seated.” You quickly snatch your bag into your lap to let Taehyung sit next to you. The seats aren’t the most spacious; despite pressing your side against the window as much as you can, Taehyung’s shoulder comes brushing past yours as he settles into his own seat. Your heart flutters. “As all our participants are now present, our ride will begin immediately. The duration of the ride will be three hours, but a pitstop will be made at around halfway for a quick snack or toilet break. Please ensure all seatbelts are fastened during the entirety of our journey...” He drones on.

Three hours, you bristle. Everything is happening all at once and your mind can’t catch up. You’re going to be stuck on this coach for three hours next to Taehyung. No, worse. You’re stuck with Taehyung for this whole weekend in a strawberry farm.

Glancing over, his lips are pressed into a thin line, no doubt with the same chaotic thoughts racing through his mind. There isn’t much leg room, and though his thighs are purposely clamped together to avoid touching you, you know he can’t keep them clamped this tightly for three hours without cramping. Your legs are going to touch at some point.

God, why are you even losing your mind over something so juvenile? You’ve been reduced to a pre-teen girl so easily flustered by the thought of touching thighs amidst this turn of events.

Everything is gonna be okay, you tell yourself. This is gonna be fine. You don’t have to speak to each other. Just put in your earphones and fall asleep against the window.

But you have so many questions, for Lotta, for Taehyung. Did she plan this? How did she know that he’d be here? Hell, did he know you’d be here? No, there’s no way. The shock on his face was genuine.

He stares ahead, though visibly extremely puzzled. You suppress the urge to glance over at him every second to check that it’s really him.

“Thank you everyone for joining us so promptly. As you already know, I am Jae and I will be the guide to your trip to our beautiful strawberry farm over this Valentine’s weekend.” You pause. Right, this is a Valentine’s weekend trip, you had momentarily forgotten. And you’re stuck with Taehyung here. Two days, two nights. You’re not sure if you could withstand his presence for that long. Will you ignore each other for the entirety of this trip? You would be fine with that, and in all honesty, you think you might prefer it over speaking to him because that would only sprinkle salt on your wound.

A sharp pain in your palm reminds you that you’ve been gripping onto the programme leaflet that was handed to you. You smooth out the creases of the paper and flip it open to skim through what you have to tackle ahead of you.

Day 1: Go strawberry picking with your partner at our scenic farm in the lovely spring weather while the sun is out. A heavenly spa awaits you afterwards to wind down and indulge together. For an amorous evening, go stargazing under our cloudless skies...

Alarm bells start ringing immediately, from the cursive font of the strangely-worded phrases, to the shades of reds and pinks of the background. You skim further down the page, the kernel of anxiety growing exponentially at your throat.

Day 2: Make delicious strawberry jam and learn our signature recipe for a splendid strawberry tart. When dusk falls, enjoy a romantic candlelit dinner with your partner amidst the symphonies of our string quartet.

Fuck. Wait, what the fuck.

You flip back to the front page.

Strawberry Love: The Perfect Couple’s Romantic Getaway Valentine’s Weekend

Strawberry… Love…

“What the fucking shit?” You can’t help but cry out loud. Lotta- She-

The passengers of the bus all turn to shoot you at look of concern at your outburst, Taehyung included. His eyes dart around the features of your face to search for an answer. “What’s wrong?”

What’s wrong… What’s wrong…? What isn’t wrong at this point?

You feel defeated, absolutely fucking defeated that you don’t even have it in your to be shocked or angry. There is no way you can ignore him for the whole weekend when the programme of your trip - a couple’s Valentine’s trip - obligates you to spend time with him. The thought of making stupid little strawberry tarts with Taehyung… Your blood can’t even boil, you’re just fucking speechless.

Lotta, that conniving genius that is your best friend. How did she manage to pull this all off? Galentine’s trip your fucking ass. She tricked you into a romantic holiday with Taehyung, fucking hell...

But that means - she knows. The mortification hammers into your stomach. There’s no reason for her to do this other than for the purpose of getting you two to make up. Lotta fucking knew about you and Taehyung.

How? For how long? And why does she think that this will benefit you in any way? You and Taehyung are over and you were slowly (fine, excruciatingly slowly) moving on. Until now.

Letting out a huff of your frustration, you turn to look at Taehyung, properly look him in the eye for the first time. You can’t stop your chest from constricting. He regards you with that confused expression of his, eyes holding your glare but barely just, bashful from your sudden undivided attention channeled towards him. “I need to know what you’re doing here first.” It comes out harsher than you mean for it to, but it stems from your desperation to stay inert while your emotional sanity is precariously threatened right now.

“Me? I… Well, Lotta told me that she had a ticket for this weekend-trip to a strawberry farm type thing that she couldn’t go to anymore, so she asked if I wanted to go in her place because she knows that I like strawberries.” He furrows his brows. “Okay, that sounds really stupid out loud but I swear I didn’t know that you were gonna be here.” He throws his hands up, nothing but honesty flooding his chocolate eyes.

But of course, Taehyung doesn’t lie, you are sure from the times you’ve witnessed him not being able to muster up an excuse to get rid of an annoying relative on the phone. What’s more convincing of his truth is that he would not be the most difficult person to fall victim to Lotta’s scheme - drizzle in mentions of food and he is completely your pawn. You almost feel bad for this unsuspecting fool; he still has no idea.

But Lotta, that sly bitch… You are going to wrangle her when you get back.

“Taehyung… She lied to you.” You sigh, watching his features slowly contort in deeper confusion.

“Wait what? So we’re not going to a strawberry farm?” He sits up in alarm, looking around the bus as if that would grant him any insight whatsoever. You almost laugh at his naivety because as much as you want to uphold your cold exterior, something about him, his ever present innocent boyishness maybe, never fails to penetrate through to you.

“No, that’s not what I meant. She lied to me too; she told me that this would be a girl’s trip because we’re both single and bitter for Valentine’s. Get it? It was just a setup. For you and me.”  As the clockwork finally turns as he processes your words, a visibly distressed grimace forms. “Look at the programme, Taehyung, it freaking says: Strawberry Love: The Perfect Couple’s Romantic Getaway Valentine’s Weekend!”

As those words resonate from your mouth and the realisation finally dawns on him, dread settles itself in the pit of your stomach, cold, dry and coarse. Saying it aloud somehow finalises it - this is actually happening, you’re going to have to spend this weekend with the one person you’d least like to be stranded with right now.

“Lotta… But why would she…?” Deep red roses effloresce across the apples of his cheeks, and you feel yourself unconsciously mirroring his reaction as your mind flashes back to the planned activities of this tour. You’ll be made to pick berries and bake pastries together. And the romantic candlelit dinner… You can’t even finish that thought. Because even now, you find your eyes roaming every inch of his face, trying to memorise his details because it’s been so long.

This isn’t healthy for your heart. You were on a path of recovery, a path of forgetting him and forgiving yourself, and now you’ve been flung back to square one.

The bus jolts. His leg lightly knocks into yours and both your attentions momentarily divert to the touch, glaring at where the thick grey material of his joggers meets the thin cotton of your trousers. A long second passes before Taehyung lifts it away from you.

“I don’t know why she’d do this. All I told her was that we had a massive falling out.” You mutter. Except you do know, you know her very well. This was no mistake, but the result of careful planning. She knew exactly what she was doing.

“So maybe she’s trying to get us to reconcile?”

As soon as those words come out, you both seem to freeze in your spots, blinking in bewilderment at the slightest mention of the elephant in the room. It might be wishful thinking but you hear a sliver of hope in his question, and you think he hears how it came out too.

Reconcile.

Could the two of you reconcile after everything you put each other through in your last few days together? The thought tears you apart emotionally. Of course you want to reconcile, of course you want to be with him. But haven’t you proven enough that what you had didn’t work? Afterall, everything you had together came crumbling down at the smallest hitch in your path. What is there to reconcile but a dysfunctional relationship?

And how could either of you forget the torment you endured? The noises of Taehyung with another woman through the thin walls, your betrayal of his heart when you mistakenly slept with Jimin.

Reconciliation doesn’t seem possible in the foreseeable future.

“N-not reconcile in that way, I mean, like, for us to make up.” Taehyung stammers, hand waving about in his nervous state. “I mean- no, not make up, but like… make… peace. Yeah, make peace. Sorry.” He winces timorously at his spectacular fumble of words. It’s surprising how nervous and timid he is acting. He should be brutish to you, savage and hostile. But he isn’t.

“Yeah, I got what you mean… Don’t worry.” You can’t stop the corners of your lips from turning up, just a fraction. “But yeah, I think she wants us to make peace.” You conveniently do not bring up how you’re certain that she knows about your history and that this holiday she booked for you and Taehyung is most definitely for the purpose of reconciliation in that way.

“Right.” His bottom lip pinched between his teeth in a manner that makes it feel as though it’s a sight you shouldn’t be looking at, Taehyung’s attention shifts down to avoid your eye. Though, there’s a clear glimmer of expectation as he asks, “So… do you want to talk it out?”

The bus bounces, violently this time, as it drives over what must be a pebble. It rattles your thoughts so physically that you have to grip onto your trousers for support.

This is the deciding moment. Now is when you can choose how you go about this which will determine the rest of your weekend together.

Do you want to talk it out?

The painful memory of the last time you had tried to “talk it out” rakes its claws down your back. All the yelling, the hurtful accusations hurled both ways, the reluctance to accept blame… It haunts you so much so that your voices still ring in your mind, echoes embedding the misery you had both felt and inflicted deep in your bones.

The three stages of your fight painted clairvoyantly in your mind.

One: The Hurting Each Other.

You fuck guys without learning their names.

Two: The Guilt-Tripping.

I didn’t sleep with her. I couldn’t even kiss her for more than a minute on her bed because it felt so wrong it made me fucking sick. I stayed on her couch and thought about you all fucking night. Happy?

Three: The Falling Apart

I… I thought it was clear how I felt…

Always replaying in a loop.

“I’m not sure what there is to talk out.” You say, hating how callous you sound but knowing that it’s a necessary evil to convey your intent. That was in the past. Taehyung is your past. Talking about it would only drag you back into that perpetual cycle and there’s not much left in you to afford that. You look out the window at the open plains of grassland to avoid the hurt you know he can’t hide on his face. “I think it’s better if we keep our distance as much as possible and not make it difficult for ourselves.”

“Okay.” You hear him reply, but only a quiet mumble. From the faint reflection of the window, you see him tighten his jaw and fit his Airpods into his ears. The monster that is your guilt and bitterness sinking its fangs into your throat.

It’s better this way.

And so the bus continues to speed off to the countryside, driving you further and further from civilization and your chance of escape from this doomed weekend with the boy you’re trying to stop loving.

.

You wake up to someone gently shaking your shoulders. “Miss…” You jolt upright.

The first thing that elucidates in your sleep-fogged vision is your tour guide’s kind face smiling down at you. The second, when you come to your senses, is that you are leaning against Taehyung’s frame, his shoulders much harder than you remember them to be. The boy himself is fast asleep beside you, arm loosely linked with yours because you know he has a habit of holding things in his sleep. You hastily pull away.

“We’ve arrived, Miss.” Jae says politely, that humoured glow in his pupils eliciting a bashful blush from you.

“Oh right.” You look around to find the coach empty except for the three of you. “That’s embarrassing, I’m sorry.” The last thing you remember was the angry texts you spammed Lotta with before the songs in your playlist all blurred into one.

“No worries. Forgive me, I’m still learning names.” The heat of the sun is seeping through the glass of the windowpane, licking tenderly at your skin to rouse you awake. “I’ve tried to wake your partner, but it seems...”

“I’m Y/N. And don’t worry, he’s impossible to wake up.” You pause. There is a chance for you to rectify his misconception that you and Taehyung are a couple, except it would probably require some explaining or white-lying and now is not a great time if you’re holding up the whole group. “I’ll do it.”

Despite the conversation being had right over him, Taehyung shows no sign of his slumber being disturbed. His head is tipped back, mouth hanging open with a small dribble of drool beading at the corner of his mouth. Still the same deep-sleeping idiot.

“Oi.” You nudge his ribcage, scaring Jae with your coarseness. “Wake up, Taehyung.”

Nothing but heavy breathing.

“Dude, we’re here.” You grab his face between your harsh fingers and begin shaking vigorously.

Not even a stir. You remember how you used to like to joke that Taehyung could sleep through a burglary, and just to prove your point, you woke up in the middle of the night one time and screamed at the top of your lungs. He did not even move a toe.

“Uh-” There is a hint of worry in Jae’s face; perhaps he thinks that Taehyung has a health condition.

“It’s okay, I’ve got the trick.” This time, you pinch his nose with considerable force and clamp your palm over his mouth, ignoring the smoothness of his skin under your touch and the feeling of his lips skimming your palm. You glance up to find Jae’s eyes almost bulging out of their sockets, swaying uneasily at your method to wake him. “Don’t worry, it works every time.”

But true to your word, in a few seconds, Taehyung is sputtering for breath, eyes flying open in befuddlement, scrambling to sit up. You let go of his nose and smile at your tour guide only to find him petrified.

“What?” In disarray, Taehyung wipes at the corner of his mouth and pats his hair back down from its messy temperment. His heavy body no longer slumped against yours, you feel a weight lifted off your chest, though the fact that you had fallen asleep on each other plays at your mind, lingering to taunt you.

“We’ve arrived.” Jae winces.

You stare at the patterned seats of the coach, trying not to pay attention to Taehyung’s embarrassed apology and explanation on what a deep sleeper he is. You’re not going to think about Taehyung and sleeping. Mindlessly, you trail behind the banter men off the vehicle. You’re not going to think about how good it feels to sleep beside him.

The sun greeting you when you step foot onto ground instantly refreshes your mood, banishing away those thoughts that were slipping through the cracks. There’s something so healing about the air of the countryside, fresh and unpolluted and full of the pleasant crisp scent that one would associate with green and yellow. Staring back at you is a seemingly endless field of bushes dotted with red, the sweet berry smell already perfusing into your nose.

You ignore the crunch of gravel sounding from Taehyung’s steps not far from you and proceed to join the waiting crowd, their phones out to capture the stunning scenery.

As everyone gathers, it’s difficult to concentrate on Jae’s briefing of the weekend planned ahead, starting with an introduction to the farm which you frankly do not care to learn about. You try not to glance over at Taehyung at the corner of your eye, at how his hair is still sticking out awkwardly in the back, his eyes slightly swollen from sleep. You try not to notice his hesitancy, standing a distance from you despite everyone else standing in their couples.

It’s like a buzzing in the back of your mind, a constant tug at your consciousness, not allowing you to relax as much as you want to in this serene environment. You want to stop thinking about him but you can’t.

“In February, the weather is set to be nice and warm during the day and slightly chilly in the evenings, so I do hope that you have packed sufficiently as stated in the email. Now, if you look to your left...” Jae’s monologue drones on like white noise, because all you can focus on is not focusing on Taehyung.

Lotta has not replied to your hounding messages with anything of use, no answers to your plethora of questions. Just relax. Stop making such a big deal out of it, grow up and make up with him because you clearly aren’t over him. You wanted to tell her that things are not that simple, she doesn’t know how badly you both fucked up. Yet, you know her response would only be some pretentiously worded reply full of the condescending wisdom it always contains when she’s telling you off.

You’ll admit it, as stubborn as you are, Lotta’s advice is right 9 times out of 10. She was right when she said you shouldn’t have gone with Taehyung to Mykonos within two weeks of knowing him because he could have been a killer or psychopath. She was right when she pointed out that you act like Taehyung annoys the living shit out of you but you secretly care deeply for him.

But she’s definitely not right this time, you are adamant about it. It would be a miracle if you and Taehyung could even be friends within the next six months, let alone… And if anything were to happen, setting you two up on a romantic holiday together is certainly the wrong way to go about it. It feels so inorganic, like you’re forced to spend time with each other.

Out of habit, you steal a glance at him. It’s not a surprise to find him not paying an ounce of attention to Jae either. Taehyung is staring off into the strawberry field, face angled away from you such that the sunlight is hitting his skin in all the right places to glaze a golden aura over him.

It’s strange to see such a permanent sadness in his eyes, a melancholic nostalgia. You hate yourself - you did this to him, you broke him. Does he hate you? Resent you? You think you’d rather he did.

Soon, the group of you are whisked away down a pebbly path to a rustic looking hotel beside the farm where you will all stay in. It’s not the old run-down type of rustic, but more the luxurious kind that very evidently serves an aesthetic purpose. And that’s when you begin to notice, this “farm” is not really a farm at all, but more a boujee farm-themed resort. This trip could certainly not have been cheap. As much as you are here against your will, you can’t help but feel immense gratitude to Lotta for her willingness to spend such money on you.

You are stopped at a grand lobby, the style of which resembling a small piazza of Southern Italy - warm neutral-toned Roman concrete walls with a green flourish of vines and bushes. It’s absolutely stunning, a surreal setting that you only see in movies. It’s impossible not to feel the air of romance circulating this architecture. You glance over to find him, stood an awkwardly respectful distance away from you, gaping around at the interior of the building in awe. He is a sucker for art, especially architecture. You almost wish you were friends again only to hear him gush about the beauty of this place.

When Jae begins to hand out room keys, it suddenly occurs to you, perhaps the worst aspect of your predicament this weekend - you are sharing a room with Taehyung.

You are sharing a…

Heart sinking, you look over again to see if the same thought has dawned on him. It has. His eyes are fixed on Jae in an eerily blank way, his jaw tense, a single bead of sweat trickling down the side of his forehead which you will excuse as the heat.

When Jae approaches you, Taehyung automatically joins your side in a dazed worry. Eye contact made was brief, not enough for you two to communicate whether or not you tell Jae that this was all a mistake and you would much rather be apart.

“Here you go, Y/N.” Your guide flashes you that charming grin of his as he waves your keycards before you. Instinctively, you receive it in your palm. “You guys have got the deluxe suite - wonderful choice.”

“We-” You begin, but he doesn’t seem to take notice. You’re starting to notice that he perhaps likes the sound of his own voice a bit too much.

“As I said, strawberry-picking will start at half past so that gives you a bit of time to drop off your luggage and freshen up after the long ride.” He continues. This will probably be the only chance you get to tell him that you and Taehyung aren’t a couple before it becomes too late, and you’re going to miss this opportunity because of another one of his monologues. The desperate itch in your chest grows an uncomfortable size. “Please meet here at the reception on time. And as for your luggage - oh, I see you two are lightly-packed. Low maintenance, my favourite type of people. In that case, your room is on the ground floor, if you follow that lovely couple down that corridor over there.”

And just like that, he smiles, retracts his extended arm pointing towards the direction of your room and turns to guide another couple.

“Wai-” You call after him weakly, but he has once again launched into the same speech he’d recited to you to a new audience.

And there goes your chance of rectifying this weekend.

You stand there for a good minute, mind trying to piece together how, just how, you will manage to survive this weekend. Taehyung is quiet beside you, equally as baffled at what to do.

“Should we head to our room then…” He mutters after too long a moment of unmoving stature. “I kinda want to change into some lighter clothes and we don’t have that long.”

You nod without looking at him. Because you can’t stand looking at his face right now, the face that you’ll be stuck with for these two days, the face that you love.

Silence between you now grows more familiar as you walk wordlessly to your room, the round corner of the plastic keycard digging hard into your palm. It’s painfully awkward. Your echoing steps provide the only stable rhythm against the storm between you.

Beep. The door opens at your will with a swipe of the card.

You weren’t prepared for what exactly the deluxe room entails. Its size could easily be a tiny studio apartment: a small seating area consisting of a pearly white sofa and a glass coffee table so delicately built that you would not trust yourself near; a mini-kitchen on the left side of the room accompanied by a generously stocked beverage bar; a king-sized bed in the far right wine-red in colour and excessively buried in frivolous cushions. But the belle of the ball is really the glass panelled-wall at the back of the room that you face as you enter, spanning from ceiling to floor, opening up to the patio hand-plucked out of your dreams. Rose bushes, circular beige woven garden daybed, and not to mention the hot tub.

You are completely in awe. Your mind instantly flashes to Mykonos. This luxury is the furthest from a farm experience whatsoever. It really explains how every couple on this trip looks like the child of a wealthy politician with their finely manicured hands and sickly cologne.

“Woah.” An octave deeper than usual, Taehyung expresses his wonder as he surveys the extravagance that is your room. “This… How much must this have cost?”

“I have no idea.” You whisper, still in your state of near speechlessness while your feet take you to the glass wall.

This is a place of romantic films, a place for honeymoons. Everything is in a rose-gold tint, glistening almost mockingly under the soft February sun. Why are you here? You almost hear the slabs of sandstone ask.

Behind you, you hear him huff out the marvel that he is submerged in. His backpack slides off his shoulder, swung carelessly towards the loveseat. And plop he goes, starfished onto the bed.

Then the fear returns, reclaims its usual residence in your throat. As you pry your eyes away from the opulence of the veranda to look at Taehyung, his head lifts up at the same moment. The short-lived mist that clouded over your reality finally disperses.

You blink again at his sprawled out limbs. He blinks back.

It is as if a switch has flipped, the speed at which he jumps back onto his two feet, fright jarring his mouth agape. “I’llsleeponthesofa.” The slur of his words are unintelligible to your ears, but his display of alarm is almost comical, threatening a smile from the corners of your lips at the hysteria of your situation despite the same alarm you are experiencing.

“What?”

“I’ll sleep on the sofa.” His voice is firmer the second time he says it, tilting his chin up as if to reassure you of his confidence.

“It’s okay, I’ll sleep on the sofa.” You sigh because you know how much Taehyung is bursting to sleep in a king-sized bed. It was his first time in Mykonos, and you had not heard the end of how it was the best sleep he’s had in his lifetime. So imagine him now.

He bristles, a genuine look of offence fleets. “Of course not, I can’t allow that.”

“Why not?” Your tone with him is foreign, lacking the playfulness it once had - just an aloof callousness.

“‘Coz! I’m not gonna let you take the couch while I sleep on this massive bed.” He gestures at the couch for emphasis, letting his arm dangle afterwards. He is less different with you than you are with him, you note.

“You just answered my question with the very statement I was questioning you on.” You cross your arms and lean against the glass, allowing the warmth to bask through your shirt.

Taehyung frowns and mirrors your action, the muscle of his bicep flexing more than usual from the agitation in his motion. “‘Coz you’re a light sleeper. Just stop being stubborn and take the bed.”

You’re not quite sure why, of all things, ‘you’re a light sleeper’ is what moves you. The consideration he still holds for you inhibits any protest you wish to sound.

He cares about you, he clearly still does. Just like how you would willingly give up the bed for him.

God, you don’t want to fucking be here. You wish it didn’t have to be so painful, every single little interaction between you just reminding you again and again of how much you loved and hurt each other.

Taehyung takes your silence as compliance and begins to unpack, ruffling through his bag for a change of cooler clothes with his shoulders tense in discomfort. You know what the mature person in you should say: we can just share the bed. But you can’t think of a single reason why that would be a good idea.

With this Valentine’s trip completely planned for you two, it feels like the universe presenting you with an undeniable temptation. Everything around you is telling you to just get back with him, to give in to your inhibitions and fall back into him. You’ve got the champagne in the cooler, hot tub in the patio, rose petalled bed all laid out in front of you at your disposal. An inner voice chanting make up, make up, make up. Because what’s stopping you?

What’s stopping you is that look on his face when he saw Jimin fixing the back of his shoe beside you as you were walking him out. What’s stopping you is the sound of another girl moaning his name right down the hall from you.

So maybe some could see it as strength for resisting the yearning, for being able to put up a front and speak to him so indifferently. But you see it as weakness, because you still cannot move on.

.

Despite the sun blazing down your back, the cool gust of spring weather eases what otherwise would have been scorching heat. Never would you anticipate that you would be spending this weekend sifting through strawberry bushes to find large red ripe summer fruit, yet here you are. You don’t even think it’s strawberry season.

You’ve never been a country girl, but the dirt feels strangely comforting under your nails. Well, comforting is perhaps not the best word to describe your state of mind right now. As much tranquility as this farm is bringing you, with Taehyung always no more than two metres away from you, you don’t think you could ever relax.

In black sports shorts, plucking his own berries on the other side of the same very row of bushes, sweat trickling along the veins of his neck… Of course your attention is scattered.

Not to mention, you keep catching his shifting eyes. You thought you ought to say something, but what exactly? The awkwardness is prominent as it is.

A heavy exhale. You find a particularly large berry, leaves curling upwards to indicate its ripeness as the strawberry expert (yes, strawberry expert) had taught you. Pluck. And off it goes into your basket.

This is definitely therapeutic. You imagine every strawberry to be your feelings for Taehyung. This one over here shall symbolise his musky scent that you fall asleep to. Pluck. This one, his stupidly attractive perm, so long that even you would tell him to trim it because it’s covering his eyes. Pluck. His eyes… Especially when he’s confused as he makes that wide-eyed puppy dog face, which is very often. Pluck.

You glance up, you can’t help it.

And he’s already looking at you. Caught red-handed, literally red-handed because his hands are somehow stained with strawberry juice. Instantly he whips his head back down at his basket that is rested by his crouching knees, though there is not much in there for him to look at.

“Stop making this weirder than it already is.” He almost jumps when you speak, clearly not expecting any sort of interaction from your end.

Slowly, he glances back up at you, dark wavy fringe swaying from the slow tilt of his head. “I- Sorry, I wasn’t- Um, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

There’s something quite breathtaking about Taehyung under the sun, the way the rays reflect off his honey-tan skin to give an effulgent finish like a marble statue of some Ancient Roman God worshipped by priests and maidens. The coat of sweat gathered at his cupid’s bow could possibly be your undoing.

You love him, despite all the strawberries symbolic of his traits that you were picking.

And you hate yourself for that. You don’t want to feel like this anymore. You’re so sick of this heavily-hearted feeling of being dragged down by your emotions all the fucking time. You want to be able to look at him and feel nothing, look at him and not be intruded by the echoes of that night.

It makes you sick, the thought of him inside someone else. Physically sick to the core.

“Well, you are. So stop looking at me.” You state coldly. You just want to forget everything and let go of him, but his presence is not letting you do so. If being a bitch is what it takes, you’ll gladly be a bitch

“No, you have dirt on your face.”

Embarrassment slams into you like a wave, wielding you to shut your eyes and take a deep breath of humiliation. It’s instant karma for being a bitch. “Oh.” You say, carelessly wiping all over your cheeks with the back of your wrist, more with the intention of hiding the rush of blood to your face than to actually clean. You keep your eyes trained on a tiny pale berry in the bush, hoping that he’ll look away from you.

But he doesn’t. “You’re smearing it.” You look up to find his lips drawn in a tight line in attempt to hide his amusement. Everything is just working out wonderfully for you, isn’t it? Yet before your mind can process it, he rises from his crouch and leans over the short bushes.

When his thumb meets your cheek, it almost sears you. As his eyes are focused on the dirt on your face he’s brushing away, yours are locked on his gaze - gentle, warm, familiar. The collar of his shirt droops low, exposing his chiseled collar bones, protruding so enticingly as if for the sole purpose to catch your attention and remind you that it was one of your favourite places to bury your nose in.

Taehyung’s touch is heartbreakingly gentle; the rest of his fingers come under the side of your jaw for support, though only fleetingly. The whole exchange is brief, the dirt brushed away as swiftly as your relationship had crumpled.

You feel it in your nose first, that overwhelming wave of sadness, and then behind your eyes. You want to cry. You want to cry as he pulls away, as he realises that he has unconsciously acted out of familiarity, as a shyness reaches his eyes when he meets your glare.

It was only a mindless sweep of his thumb on your face, yet its impact is explosive under your skin, reminiscent of a time when such a touch had different implications, elicited a different response.

You quickly blink it away - the tears, but not the heartache. That wretched feeling in your throat does not permit you to thank him, so you just stare at each other, the world around you a mere blur of blues and greens. You watch his chest rise as he sucks in for air, wondering if the same memories are now visiting, no, haunting, him.

You can’t do this because you’re not strong enough. For you whole act of indifference in front of him, your constant resisting against the urge to fall back into him, you’re still not strong enough.

But to your surprise, or perhaps even gratitude, he’s the one who picks up his basket and paces away without another word. You watch the back of his calves, the slosh of his overgrown hair, as he walks away.

.

You stare out the glass door at the patio. It’s dark, you can scarcely see a thing with the lights outside switched off. It acts as a perfect canvas for your imagination, for scenes of your past together to materialise before you.

It’s not been a full day yet, and you already feel so drained. This is impossible. You want to call Lotta to pick you up, but upon deeper consideration, you don’t think you have the heart to. This must have cost her a considerable amount of money to book. She had the full intention that this will bring you and Taehyung back together, yet it is doing everything but. You don’t want to imagine her disappointment when you return in streams of tears.

After the session of strawberry-picking, your baskets were handed over for your fruits to be washed and prepared for your baking class tomorrow. Following that is your free time, when you are left to your own devices, at liberty to roam around the farm, dine at their organic restaurant by the hotel. Taehyung had taken Jae’s recommendation of visiting the spa; you opted to stroll (sulk) about, as far away from him as possible.

It’s unhealthy, this continuous bombardment of thoughts of him. Your month’s worth of progress has reduced to ashes.

Maybe you don’t even actually have feelings for him anymore. It could purely be a deception of the closeness you’ve developed for each other that you mistaken for love. You had spent almost every single day of the past two and a half years together, under the same roof, sharing a bed towards the last few months. It’s the safety and intimacy that your brain associates him with that forbids you from moving on.

Maybe you’re actually over him romantically. But the wanting, the missing him as your best friend still lingers.

The door to your room opens abruptly. Hair damp, Taehyung strolls inside in a white bathrobe and slippers, his clothes bunched up under his arm. Tiny beads of moisture dot the sparse view of his chest you have.

“Oh, you’re here.” He says, his step faltering at your clearly unanticipated presence. Or perhaps the sight of you, staring out into the dark, completely alone in this room is just awfully strange. “I thought you’d be eating at this time.” Eyes dropping to the ground as the door shuts behind him, his movements are clearly timid and weary, an rare expression on Taehyung.

“Not that hungry.” You mutter. “How was…” You ask out of habit, but immediately catch yourself. Quick eye contact before you both look away like docile animals. It’s too late for you to take back the question now anyway. “How was the spa?” And to make it appear that you don’t really care and was just asking out of courtesy, you turn back around to face out to the patio.

Completely unnecessary and petty move, whatever.

Except you see his reflection on the glass from the illuminated room all too well. Visibly easing that you’ve looked away, he plops his clothes down at the end of the bed and trails into the bathroom to fetch a towel for his hair. “Was really nice, they give good massages. You should give it a go at some point.”

“Okay.” He gives his head a good shake before drying with the towel. It feels creepy that he doesn’t know you are watching his reflection, so your eyes drop to your feet. You wonder if his masseuse was female. Not that it matters at all.

“What time are we meant to meet them for stargazing again?” He is speaking a lot - well, relatively. It saddens you that his usual tone of endearment when he would speak to you is now missing. It’s like speaking to a stranger, but worse, a stranger who takes a stab at your heart after every word.

“At 9, so that’s in…” You raise your wrist to find your watch absent from where it usually sits on your wrist. Right, you had removed it before strawberry-picking so it doesn’t get dirty and left it on the coffee table. Just as you turn around to retrieve it, you are met with Taehyung slipping his robe off. Your eyes widen.

The fluffy material glides down his shoulders like he’s made of gold, revealing the sculpture of his upper body that you scarcely recognise because he never used to be this toned. You thank any higher power there is that he is wearing his boxers, but they do nothing to conceal the faintest V at his hips and the bulk of his thighs. He isn’t bursting with muscle, but body definitely more well-defined than you remember.

“Have you been working out?” It just slips out. You wish, as the heat floods to dizzy your mind, that you had the capability of holding your tongue for once in your life.

Taehyung hesitates, Adam’s apple bobbing at his jugular. That shy awkwardness returns when your eyes meet. “Yeah. I mean a little, here and there…” Self-consciously, he brings his arm across his chest to rub at his bicep, but the gesture only flexes the muscle he has gained.

Your knees feel slightly weak. It’s the lack of dinner, you tell yourself. It’s not just your knees that feel weak though, your heart is thumping haphazardly into arrhythmia.

“But you hate exercise.” The stability in your voice surprises you.

“Yeah I did, but Seojoon said it’d help me take my mind off… things.” Lip between his teeth, Taehyung searches around for a top. Sheepishness in the form of a soft pink tint on his round cheeks turns you soft.

‘Things’, meaning you.

When you realise you’ve been staring, you immediately look down, fingers fiddling with each other like you’re some virgin freshly exposed to the spectacle of the male body. You’re anything but yourself, and so is he. Taehyung exercising? You almost scoff.

“You don’t have to… You’ve seen me naked, you know.” Taehyung mumbles, finally locating the sweatshirt he intends to wear. When you hear him pull it over himself, you sag in relief, the immense weight that his starkness strangely bestowed on you finally alleviated.

“Yeah, but it’s different now.” Now that we’re not together anymore. Not that we were ever together.

You know he feels it too, the sting of those words. The hurt in his eyes fill you with a sort of bitter self-resentment that you cannot wrap your head around. Stop looking at me like that. Stop making me feel like a bitch. Just stop hurting me.

“Yeah, it is.” But for some reason, it stings even more when he says it. His agreement should be a triumph, yet it feels more like the acknowledgement of the broken bridges between you.

When it comes from your mouth, it’s you convincing yourself more than anything. When it comes from his, it sounds like the truth.

.

Of the many things that are slowly killing Taehyung this weekend, the painfully awkward silence is among the most unbearable. It’s the loud kind of silence that he hates where there is clearly so much to say to each other yet none of it is coming out. There’s a vast ocean between you, roaring waves engulfing any sort of message he wishes to communicate.

This has to be one of the strangest experiences of his life - being set up by your friend on a couple’s trip to a resort disguised as a strawberry farm for Valentine’s day with you - and he has experienced a lot of weird shit in his life.

To be honest, he hasn’t been doing so great the past few weeks.

All the anger and bitterness had taken two days to melt away into miserable wretchedness. Two days, that’s all it took for him to not be angry with you anymore because there was one person he was angrier at - himself.

Because Taehyung was quick to realise that losing you is miles, miles, worse than what you had done to him. It was a sudden sort of realisation, the kind that hits you in the middle of doing something. What had he done?

The way he yelled at you, the things he said. His chest always sinks at the rememberance.

You didn’t know it was Jimin, you truly didn’t. But he exploded on you nonetheless, impermeable to your explanation. That wasn’t him. That raging bellowing man wasn’t him. If only he had just calmed down and talked it through with you, maybe he wouldn’t have been sleeping alone in your bed that your scent still clung on to.

And when he thinks about how you had heard him with that girl from the club, the bar, wherever his inebriated state took him that he doesn’t even remember…

Taehyung regrets everything.

How you got to this point was so extremely stupid. He should have just confessed to you, simple and easy, no complications needed. You are a commitment-phobe, he always knew he’d have to be the one to say it first. So why didn’t he? What the fuck was holding him back?

All he had to say was to not go on that date with Junho. That’s all you wanted. Why why why didn’t he just say how he felt?

Taehyung never knew himself to be a crier before this. He had shed a tear or two when he found out about Ryujin’s cheating and his friends’ betrayal; that was a stab in the back that left him gutted from the inside. Yet still, he got by, he survived because he found you. And he had naively thought, I managed to bear through this so nothing can really be worse than this now can it?

It can, and it did.

Once it starts, it won’t stop. The tears. A great tempest swallowing him whole and dragging him under until all he could hear was his own pounding heart. It is always before bed, when he would have the time to himself to truly think and reflect. But sometimes it comes during the day as well. He will be doing something as mundane as washing his hair in the shower, and he would suddenly break down because you had left him your shampoo that you would always get annoyed at him for using.

The house just feels empty. The absence of your voice, your warmth, your lips pressed on his neck every morning before his eyes even fully opened. Gone.

Yet, every corner is etched with the memories you share, your ghost lingering by the sofa that you adore whenever he’s watching TV, or curled up beside him every night in bed. It’s impossible to forget you.

Even as Seojoon moved in to fill your vacated room and help with the rent, the place was cold. It will never be the same because nothing could ever replace you. Everything he had and cherished - swept away just like that by none other than his own mistakes.

Yes, you had hurt him a lot. At the time, that pain felt insurmountable, like the worst thing you could ever do to him. But ultimately, upon the endless nights of thinking, he has realised that what hurt him the most was not you, but losing you. Not Jimin, not Junho, but how what could have been between you two fell apart so quickly by the poor choices you both made.

“Now if you look up to your left, you might be able to see one of our February constellations, the Pictor.” Jae announces, voice full of an enthusiasm that Taehyung could only envy as he guides the tour group towards the centre of a large plain field behind the hotel where you will all be stargazing. It is a lovely, breezy, cloudless night. You are several paces ahead of Taehyung, keenly reading the constellation manual leaflet lit up by your phone; he knows just how much of an astronomy geek you are. “It consists of four stars, as shown on your Star Guide, that are actually very dim and usually not easily spotted. The name Pictor means the Painter’s easel.”

Taehyung stops. Despite the darkness, he sees your shoulders tense too.

The easel you had gifted him on his birthday sits in his closet, stowed away from being a constant reminder of how much you loved him and how much he should have held on. It just sits there, collecting dust, untouched since the day you left.

The halt in Jae’s walking indicates your arrival to the intended location. “Here we are. Let’s settle down, love birds. I’ll set up this gorgeous telescope for anyone who wants to explore the sky in greater focus which I highly recommend.”

Spreading across the field, the group unrolls the picnic blankets you’ve all been given, dropping down to rest atop the covered grass.

No time is wasted from everyone else to snuggle up to their boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives. The atmosphere is sickly, even for Taehyung. The couples around him have done little to hide their affection for each other since the beginning of the trip. It is a romantic vacation after all, but is it really so necessary to display your love so publicly?

You stand static and poker-faced on the other side of the mat, clear signs of reluctance to participate plastered all over you.

Taehyung has never stargazed before, let alone in this context. The stiffness in your movement as you sink down onto your knees and lie down in discomfort makes him wince. He realises now that neither of you have a choice but to put away any ill feelings and lay beside each other.

As he gets down next to you, his head nearly tumbles out his chest at the sudden proximity that he has grown so unused to. In the dark, your scent washes up to him like a timid tide lapping at the shore, hair swaying off your shoulders as you get onto your back. The size of the mat does not permit him elsewhere other than immediately beside you, no more than five inches from touching shoulders. Five inches from touching.

Truthbetold, Taehyung feels himself going insane. It started from the moment he saw you on the bus, your wide eyes, parted lips, so pretty despite the look of terror you wore. He didn’t think he would have the chance to see you any time soon. He hadn’t truly comprehended the magnitude at which he missed you until he saw you again.

And he has been spiralling since. Every gesture making his senses scream in agony, the desire to just talk to you mangling at him. He misses you like crazy. Not necessarily in that way, but just your presence, your funny comments, your feign annoyance when he annoys you. He misses the companionship.

You are both on your back now, the blanket feeling either slightly damp or too cold for comfort. The star-speckled sky hanging above you both is endless, a panoramic painting from east to west. You stare at the sky like it’s your lover, so Taehyung does the same. Astronomy doesn’t interest him as much as the meaning and purpose behind the act of stargazing. The people he’s with and the memories he makes.

Wordless, you stare at the sky, ignorant to his presence. The soft hum of everyone else’s whispers accentuates that frustrating silence between you. Taehyung is so fucking tired of the silence because he’s bursting with things to say to you, to ask you.

“Are we just not going to speak?”

His question startles you for you almost, almost, turn to look at him. The slight angling of your head before you catch yourself does not go unmissed by him.

“What do you want to speak about?” Taehyung hates the coldness in your voice. The unfeeling sounds so real. Why are you being this way? Do you seriously want nothing to do with him? That possibility scares him above all else.

Someone giggles a few yards from you two. On this large grassland, the couples are dispersed in their own little bubble of sweet affection, but not enough for his ears to not pick up these little sounds that send courses of envy through his vessel.

“What do you think?” The four weeks you spent apart were four weeks of lamenting over all the things he should have said, and all that he shouldn’t. And Taehyung’s is done with regretting unspoken words. He just wants to get everything out in the open, out of his system, so he can move on.

“I mean-”

“Look, Y/N. This is stupid, the whole ignoring each other thing. Don’t you just want to say your piece and get that weight off your chest?” In the distance, crickets chirp faintly. The discomfort shuddering in the five-inch area between your shoulders is screaming volumes. Taehyung doesn’t turn away from the sky for the fear of the expression he would see you wear.

He expects a note of irritation in your voice, for you to start arguing with him which he truthfully doesn’t mind because that is at least progress. But instead he gets a quiet defeat. “I don’t want to reopen wounds that are already ripping open, Taehyung.”

It wrenches his soul, truly. He doesn’t recognise you when you speak anymore, both with the things you say, and the way you say it. “Talking will help it heal.” Because that’s both your final goals here - to heal, to be cured of the ailment that is heartbreak.

“How exactly is it going to change anything?”

“I don’t know. We’ve had time to calm down and think and I think we should have some closure so we end on a good note.”

It’s funny now, how Taehyung is the one pleading to speak to you when he should be the one who’s angry at you because you were the one to commit the last and biggest fault. He doesn’t see it like that though, that’s all in the past. To be friends with you again, that’s all he wishes for, he doesn’t care about anything else at this point.

“So this is about amicability to you? You want to end on good terms.” Neither of you still dare to look at the other, eyes locked on the stars but somewhere distant.

“Well, yeah. Do you not?” He asks. He hadn’t expected you to be this uneasy, he thought you would have liked the idea of peace amongst you. “Everything towards the end happened so quickly, wouldn’t you like some closure?

“I would rather take my time and heal in my own way. To be honest, I don’t have anything to say to you about that topic except that I’m sorry, but I’m sure you’re sick of hearing that. It’s pointless.”

You’re coping with this differently, Taehyung understands. But it doesn’t take much effort to be pleasant towards each other, to smile and greet each other like normal people instead of scrambling away from every eye contact. How do you suppose you’d be able to move on like that?

“So not even friends right now?” He tries one last time. A soft breeze washes over you, wafting your scent towards him.

“No, I don’t want to be friends right now.”

Your bluntness stings. Taehyung finally gives in and turns to face you. Your striking profile greets him, your eyes still stubbornly glued to the sky. Your unwillingness to budge or compromise even a little bit is frustrating.

“We were best friends for the past two and a half years. More than best friends, we were literally two peas in a pod; we lived together, ate together, studied together, slept together. And now we don’t even talk. You’re okay with losing that? You’re telling me that I’m the only one who misses it more than anything else?” His angry whisper sounds ridiculous as he tries to keep his volume down, conscious of the setting he’s in.

But then he sees you blink, hard. Then blink again. Your pursed lip trembles. Another two consecutive blinks. When you look at him, your eyes are so glassy that they reflect the entirety of the galaxy above. “How am I supposed to be your friend right now when I can’t even look at you without feeling this great pang of sadness every time?” Taehyung immediately wishes he hadn’t pushed you.

“I… just would rather have you in my life as a friend than not have you at all.” His voice softens to a tone more apologetic. He is the reason for the tears you’re holding back right now and he despises it.

“I would rather not have you in my life at all while I slowly get over you than have you as just a friend because my heart can’t take this constant torture. I just want to be over you but I can’t do that if I have to pretend to be okay around you. And I just don’t get it Taehyung. How are you so willing to be friends again? After what I did, how could you look at me and not hate me?”

Taehyung frowns at you because he doesn’t see how you can’t understand it’s not about that anymore. It’s not about the blame, the who did what to who. He doesn’t care anymore but the fact that you do is alarming. You still can’t let it go.

“Okay, so is this about you not forgiving yourself?” He prods, and watches the brief flash of confusion on your face.

“I-” You’re quick to dispute but stop. Because it’s the truth.

A long silence ensures. You stare at the collar of his sweatshirt, zoned out. Taehyung knows you’re in deep contemplation, you know his points have strong grounds. There is no reason for hostility or callousness between you because it would only hurt each other more.

“Look,” He takes a deep breath. “I just think that it’s unhealthy for you to act like this. You’re burying and burying what you’re feeling without actually facing it. Trying to be friends is a good first step in accepting that we’re not together anymore; being cold to each other isn’t. Think about it.”

Another long pause. He watches you blink, watches your chest rise and fall at every breath.

“I understand your point, I know my coping mechanism isn’t healthy but it’s all that I know right now. We’re different, we’re hurting differently and healing differently. I’m sorry for acting out on you when it’s myself who I want to punish. But I seriously don’t have the strength to be your friend right now, I wish I did but I really don’t. Just give me time.” The fact that you’re not arguing with him says a lot; you have both matured from this experience. It’s sad that this is what it took for you to do so.

“Okay. I respect that.” Taehyung says. “I’m sorry for pushing this onto you, it’s selfish of me, sorry. I just… I don’t know, I guess I’m pathetic. You were my best friend and I want to salvage it as much as I can. I just miss you, that’s all.”

You don’t say anything, but Taehyung is okay with that. Because he knows you miss him too, you miss the friendship, the having each other to lean on.

The difference between you and him is that you can’t compartmentalise your lingering feelings for him and put that aside right now, whereas he can. You need to rid those feelings before you can be his friend, and he’s okay with that.

He stares at Pictor, it’s four weak stars that dim beside much brighter constellations yet somehow call to him. And he almost smiles.

.

You stare at your own reflection in the mirror.

That conversation with Taehyung resonates with you more than you’d care to let on. You let every single word he said sink in, your inner turmoil contemplating the points he made. Because he definitely has a point.

What resonates with you most is the word closure.

He’s right, everything between you ended so quickly that there was no time to process and accept it until it was already over. Maybe that’s why you’re finding it so hard to let go. If you were to be friends again, you could at least normalise his presence and gradually move past this.

Twisting the faucet on, you splash some water on your face to clear this dilemma from your head. And after wiping yourself dry, you exit the bathroom into your room with a great sigh.

Taehyung is wearing the grey hoodie - that’s the first thing you notice. As in the grey hoodie you would always claim as your own because of how soft its material is. The grey hoodie that you regret giving back to him. The grey hoodie that he would always wear when you guys gamed at midnight and it would always end with you on his lap, his locks tangled in your fingers while his mouth explored yours.

You take it back, fuck being friends, you’re back to square one.

He glances up in the dark, eyes surveying your silhouette from head to toe as he places a pillow on one end of the couch. Ever since that conversation, there’s the most subtle difference in his permanent expression - his lips look inclined to smile, his eyes hold an understanding for you that makes you feel vulnerable.

And, god, it makes you want to try. He deserves it, to have his best friend back in his life even if that best friend is you, the person he trusted the most in the world only to turn around and impale him in the chest with those stupid decisions of yours.

The omnipresence of your awkwardness hasn’t faltered though. “Taehyung, I said I would take the couch.” You protest, though you’re starting to see that it’s futile. You may be the more stubborn one between the pair, but there are certain things that Taehyung would never back down from.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen, Y/N.” The corner of his lip turns up properly now, like he’s silently snickering at a joke he thought of. “That’s just - not gonna happen.”

“What’s so funny?” Switching the bathroom lights off behind you, you ask. You hadn’t packed well for this trip, you are only in a flimsy camisole and a pair of sweats, the cold air coaxes goosebumps on your skin. His gaze follows you as you draw the curtains shut over the glass wall, leaving only a strip of moonlight streaming in.

“Nothing.” Taehyung places both hands on the top of his head, an action that causes his hoodie to slightly ride up his torso. You fix your eyes on the floor as you approach him and the sofa. “It’s just funny how you think I’d ever let you sleep on the couch while I sleep on the bed.”

There is a dead end down this path you’re going, neither of you would let the other win. So you simply ignore him and situate yourself on the couch, stretching your legs to span it wholly. “Good night.” Fixing the pillow he had placed, you shut your eyes.

“What, no.” You can hear the smile wipe off his face, almost making you chuckle out loud. “Y/N, get up.” Hastily he hovers over you. But when you show no sign of acknowledgement, he shuffles away. A moment later, you feel a great gust of air, then the softest silkiest duvet landing over you.

Your eyes fly open. And there Taehyung stands with his arms crossed smugly. “If you take the couch, you also take the covers.”

“No! You’ll be cold.”

“You’ll be cold. You’re not wearing enough.”

You give up. “Oh, for god’s sake, Taehyung. Fine. Let’s both sleep on the bed, okay?” His entire expression dilates. He doesn’t even blink as you get off the couch and cross your arms back at him. “Problem solved.”

Taking his wrist in one hand, dragging the plush duvet in the other, you walk to the bed and sit him down. No noise of protest emits from him, so you go back to retrieve the pillow from the couch in a huff.

“Are you sure?” His voice is suddenly timid, unsure. And he’s right to be so, because you’re quaking on the inside as well at the prospect of sleeping beside him.

It’s not going to be good for your heart, you know that definitely. But like he said, you need to face this. If you touch a paper cut enough times, it stops hurting. “It’s just sleeping, it’s no big deal.” You lie. “You want to be friends right? Well let’s start with this. Let’s stop being stupid and childish.” You can’t look him in the eye as you rearrange the bedding back to its original state before Taehyung messed it up.

His reply merely a quiet yeah… before you both hesitantly crawl under the covers and tuck in. Heat flushes to your face as you do so because the action feels so familiar, yet everything about it is different.

Absolute silence. Backs facing each other. An arm's length or two between you but it feels like more. You don’t even shut your eyes because why pretend that you’ll fall asleep?

Your own palpitation is so vigorous that it’s audible. The thoughts whizzing around in your head are unstoppable, a persistent prodding at your skull. His scent is strong, that sweet honey musk that used to seduce you to sleep now the very thing that’s keeping you up.

It must be, what, ten? twenty minutes? of just laying there as you ponder your future with Taehyung, if you want a future at all. He’s right, you miss his friendship above all else. As much as you love Lotta, there is an intangible quality missing between you, that extra spark that existed between Taehyung which boosted your dynamic up to an incomparable level. You understood each other without having to speak, care about each other more than yourselves - that love was almost familial. Losing that has been too much.

Then you hear Taehyung shift onto his back. “Y/N?” Your heart skips a beat.

“Yeah?” You answer after a pause, mind racing through all the possibilities of what he could say. You hate this permanent uncertainty of what he’s thinking.

Silence follows for a short while, the endless possibility of what he’s going to say flooding your mind. Then, “You know how I can’t sleep without holding something?”

You stop breathing.

Because you see very clearly where this is going, and it’s down a road that you don’t know if you can withstand.

He can’t sleep without holding you. Holding you.

You take a deep breath and clamp down on your lip, grateful that your back is facing him so he can’t see the pathetic weakness on your face. Can you do this?

Can you do this without wanting to cry? Can you do this without succumbing to your momentary desire to just turn around and kiss him because you won’t be able to think straight with his arms around you? You’re really not sure.

“Yes…?”

“Can I…” Something rustles the covers, perhaps his arm, or maybe he’s inching closer. In the pitch black night, every movement feels amplified, more impactful. “You know…”

“Can you what?” You’re not being difficult, you’re giving him the chance to take back on this request. To just say nevermind and turn back around. Because you’re not equipped for his touch; you don’t want it, you don’t want the pain that comes with it.

Another pause. Take the chance, please. But his deep hesitant voice sounds in the dark, “Can I hold you please?”

You shut your eyes. That feeling in your nose again, that rush. Hold it in, don’t cry, stupid emotional bitch, don’t cry. What’s there to cry about? You wonder if this torment will end, and you wonder if you could ever stop feeling this much for him.

“I swear I’m not trying anything, I genuinely can’t sleep.” His voice has a way of penetrating deep into your bones, begging you even if it’s not his intention to.

You could say no, right? Just say no.

But that isn’t facing it, that isn’t overcoming your heartbreak. If your goal of this trip is to come out of this weekend completely devoid of feelings for him, then you need to let him stop affecting you.

“Okay. Please don’t make it weird.” You whisper, not daring to move a muscle.

Taehyung sags in relief, the bed dipping with his weight. “I won’t, I promise.” The sound of him shuffling closer to you constricts your throat. You close your eyes, awaiting the warmth of his front to meet your back, counting down in your head for that dreaded moment to come. “Come closer.” He murmurs.

When his hand fits around your waist, you know it’s an act of unconscious habit rather than intent. Slowly, he drags you into the enclosure of his chest, his scent and heat enshrouding you until you are completely engulfed by him.

He exhales, the fingertips of his breath caressing your hair ever so gently.

Every fibre in your body is tensing, eyes firmly shut and toes curled inwards. His hand feels enormous on your waist, holding you the only way he has ever known how to. With a unique type of affection that is so pure and devoted, yet also with a hint of protectiveness and possession.

Taehyung lets go of your waist only to encircle his arms around you entirely, his legs curling up under yours until you’re both cocooned together.

“You okay?” The back of your neck feels tender, sensual even, from the tickling heat of his breath. You’re too keenly aware of how close your heads are positioned, of the searing sensations that his hands are causing.

No, you’re not okay. Your skin has been lit on fire. Memories that you’ve long since tried to bury are surging back at full force, slamming into you one after the other. He’s too close, he’s everywhere. There is no distance separating you right now, yet you still feel miles away from him; you can’t comprehend his intentions nor decipher his thoughts. The fit of the crook of your back into his chest is perfect, a heartbreaking kind of perfect. This feels so so familiar. This is exactly what you had yearned and dreamt for every night for the past month - to be in his arms again. So why does it hurt even more than being alone?

Instead, you nod, “Mmm, yeah.”

A compulsion is yanking at you to lean back into him.

Taehyung exhales again and rests his cheek on the back of your shoulder where he always used to perch. If you were naked right now, he would be speckling this shoulder with soft dainty petal kisses. You hate that there is still a part of you, and mind you a very significant part, that wants it.

Your hands are inches away from touching each other; just one lift of your wrist and your fingers can clasp. The urge indunates you.

It would be so easy right now to just succumb - let your hand crawl into his because you know he would hold it, turn around and start kissing up his jaw until your tongues are tangled. You think it’s purely physical, these impulses, at least that’s what you want them to be. You just miss the intimacy, that’s all. But then why does it feel like you’ve swallowed a kaleidoscope of butterflies? Except their wings are made of glass, and everytime they flutter, you feel the shards scratch along your insides. There is desire laced in the pain. You don’t know which one is worse.

What baffles you the most is how he is alright with this, how he initiated this. He said he wants to at least be your friend, but this surely feels like a breach of friendship to anyone. Holding each other in bed is not being friends. But then again, you both have always had a warped perception of what friends should be doing.

You don’t understand how it’s so different for him. How the areas where you are touching, even if separated by layers of clothes, doesn’t tear through his sanity. If he doesn’t feel the same crack in his heart, then what does he feel?

With every heavy breath he takes, you take a silent one, eyes shut and praying to be swept away by the sleep that you don’t believe will reach you. You haven’t slept well since that night. Taehyung, on the other hand, you know is instantly sound asleep. It never used to take him more than five minutes as long as you were in his clutch.

But then, maybe there is a soothing essence in his presence with his overwhelming pleasant scent and rhythmic breathing, or maybe you’ve just exhausted your body with constant overthinking, a hazy fog drifts over your consciousness. You’re so tired, physically and mentally drained... And Taehyung feels so warm and snug around you...

The last thought you have before you drift off into reverie is that you feel his fingers slide between yours, holding not firmly but with intent. And you don’t know if it was you or him who moved it so.

You wake up from the damp heat gathered in all your crevices, the thin coat of sweat mildly irritating your skin. You are facing the glass door to the patio, and though the curtains conceal much of the windows, strips of sunlight topple past the cracks and unfurl into your room.

Taehyung’s arm is around you. Still.

After these years of living together, you know everything about Taehyung like that back of your hand. You can tell whether he’s awake or not from his breathing. And he’s most definitely asleep, though only lightly.

You look down and examine your position. In the course of the night, his forearm has travelled progressively higher until it is just about cradling your breasts. One of his legs is thrown over yours, entrapping you in his embrace. In his tangle of limbs, you slowly try to twist onto your back while prying him off.

He stirs, pulls you in tighter.

Which lands your rear in the unfortunate position of right atop his crotch. His crotch that is very much awake and way too excited.

Lethargy immediately expelled, your eyes open wide.

Morning wood is a usual occurrence for Taehyung, especially after a night of merciless teasing, but randomly a lot of the times. You shouldn’t be as surprised as you are, nor aroused. He has mentioned before how uncomfortable it can be, a blaring hard presence, a sore tension waking him up in an unforgiving manner. Which means that he can precariously wake any second n-

“Mmmm.” Voice an octave deeper than its norm, he hums, announcing his returning consciousness.

Taehyung’s morning wood and morning voice. You are being tested right now.

Your concupiscence has been gradually building up in the last few weeks from the lack of any sexual activity save for your own fingers and toys. It’s human nature, and completely goes against your will - but you feel the old friend that goes by the name lust stirring at the pit of your stomach.

At your proximity, the tip of his member digs deep between your cheeks, prodding at your entrance incontestably. Your whole body stiffens as the slowly waking Taehyung nuzzles his face in the crook of your neck habitually, arm tensing around you. Ever so slowly, you look back to steal a glance. His wildly curly hair falls over his forehead gracefully, lashes fanned out from his closed lids. He’s too beautiful for his own good.

Your core dampens and you quickly turn back around.

Fuck, please, no. You can’t be thinking about him like that. It’s so wrong. But his erection burrowed between your ass is banishing any clarity or sense from your head.

But God, you fucking miss this.

You’re going mad from deprivation. The dry spell of the past month had been voluntary, on the basis that you knew it wasn’t a healthy coping mechanism because you would only picture Taehyung over the faces of those nameless men. And because you knew no one knows you as well as he does, thus no one will succeed in satisfying you as well as him. Your sex drive was non-existent right after the break-up; sex simply didn’t cross your mind once while you were nursing your broken heart. And then it came ebbing back, though faintly and infrequently, you regained your libido and would find yourself fantasising on some lonesome nights.

But now, the situation at hand is that: you’ve allowed Taehyung to cuddle you in his sleep and you’ve consequently woken up to his undeniably hard cock poking between your legs. And he is seconds away from fully waking up as well.

So what now?

“Taehyung.” You say firmly, pushing his arm away from your breasts. It’s best if you call him out for it now rather than let it hang awkwardly in the air unsaid.

“Hmmmm..?” He rumbles sleepily. You don’t have to turn around to be able to envision his face, eyes slowly blinking open but reluctant as ever, true to his deep sleeper title.

“Taehyung.” This time you nudge back gently for emphasis. What it achieves is additional friction. Your whole lower half achse to grind back onto him, to slide over his hardened cock, to reach back and pump it in your hands.

Fuck.

You can’t.

You could, so easily, but you shouldn’t. You and Taehyung are completely over in every sense of your relationship. You can’t let this moment of weakness strip away all your efforts in moving on.

“Wha…” He mumbles, finally peeling his arm off you to stretch out. A loud yawn ensues. You take the opportunity of his loosened hold around you to twist back and pin him with a glare, hoping that your thirst is masked.

“You’re hard.”

Eyes still puffy, he stops mid-stretch at those two words. And looks down.

Did he… not notice? Or did he, in his morning hazy, momentarily get the situation confused and forget that you weren’t together?

Taehyung scrambles away from you so abruptly that he almost falls off the bed. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t- It just- I can’t control it, Y/N, you know I can’t.” His stammering is followed by his jerky movements to readjust his bulge as discreetly as one can allow in such situation. The detonation of terror on his face exacerbates your embarrassment. Because you simply don’t know what to do with yourself - with your core tingling in arousal simultaneously as your brow twitches in annoyance. When your vexed eyes meet his, you see another wave of panic crash onto him.

How did you get in this situation in the first place? If only you had just slept on the couch last night…

“Yeah, I know, stop reacting like that. Don’t make it weirder than it already is.” You berate, yanking the covers with all your strength over your shoulder and roll away from him. The distance is more for your own good. You can’t be near him right now, you can’t think about his fucking cock slipping into you.

You want to fuck. You want to fuck Taehy-

Stop that fucking thought.

“I’m sorry.” His morning voice, oh god. Burying your face into the pillow does little against the fluid pooling in your panties.

“Can you go to the toilet and… fix yourself.” When the words leave your mouth, the imagery of him fixing himself flashes before your eyes. And something pulses violently down there. Fucking fuck.

“Um, okay, sorry.” You try to not peek at him as he gets up from the bed, slightly limping as he makes his way to the toilet. But you succumb nonetheless.

His cheeks are scarlet, veins bulging on the side of his forehead, and you’re not sure if it’s from his embarrassment or the discomfort of the boner. Your eyes drop from his profile because his morning face has always been one of your weaknesses, except unfortunately for you, your eyes land on his bulge.

Another pulse down there.

You hate yourself. You feel dirty for even thinking about him like that because it’s so wrong. But then again, he’s probably thinking about you like that as well, hence the raging erection.

When the bathroom door shuts behind him, you let out a sigh. You don’t know how long you can keep hold of your sanity for like this. You’re swimming in a sea of confusing emotions: the constant melancholy you have of missing him and missing the way things were before you had fucked it up; the desperation to move on and understand that he was only a chapter of your life that is now closed; the bitter resentment that you have for yourself as a consequence of not being able to do so; and now the inescapable desire aching between your thighs because of how inherent these memories are of how he would fuck you until you cry like nobody else could.

What doesn’t help is the hint of a slow pumping rhythm from the toilet, and Taehyung’s ragged breathing.

Fuck.

You don’t want to think about how he’s jerking off on the other side of the wall right now, gripping his cock as he leans against the sink, head thrown back. But that’s exactly what you’re thinking about.

Is he thinking of you as he’s doing it? You’re not sure if you want him to, because while you wish he wouldn’t, you also hope that this lust you feel is reciprocated still, that you’re not the only one going crazy with arousal.

Your hand almost trails down to your core when his pace quickens, but his sharp inhale strikes at your inner righteousness. You stop, sit up and rush out to the patio for some fresh air.

Happy Valentine’s Sunday indeed.

.

The dough feels sticky in your hand despite the layers of flour you’ve doused your fingertips in. Baking has never been your forte, you simply don’t have the patience or precision for such a crafty hobby. You glance over to check on Taehyung’s progress at the other half of the counter.

He has the easy job. Of course, when it came to allocating roles between the pair of you in this baking session, the jam-making landed on him because there’s no way he would succeed in making the strawberry tart.

You can’t help but smile at the way his lips are puckered and brows drawn in concentration as he chops the berries as finely as he could. But the way the top half of his hair is pulled back into a little sprout of a ponytail… You gulp.

Neither of you have spoken a word of this morning’s awkward event; it had been a tacit agreement not to as soon as you made eye contact when he stepped out of the bathroom. It has set a lewd tone for the rest of your day. At every blank moment where your mind isn’t preoccupied, especially when you’re doing something as frivolous and kneading dough, your thoughts would wander to the memories of his warm rigid-

You stop yourself. You’re in public and he’s chopping strawberries right next to you.

You’ve noticed how, every time you’d have those sinful thoughts, your mood would lighten a little. The pang in your heart that used to always plague you would profoundly diminish. Of all things, of course sex is what eases your sadness the most, that’s just so characterisitic of you isn’t it?

“Is everything going well?” One of the baking assistants comes over to your counter for the seventh time now (yes you’re counting). She is a petite, rather pretty, pleasant looking girl. And you have not failed to notice how every time she checks up on you two, her attention is always solely on Taehyung. Here you are struggling with your asscheek of dough yet she only cares to ask how Taehyung, the strawberry chopper, fares?

“Yup.” Taehyung spares her a brief glance before dumping the diced pieces of fruit into the saucepan.

“Would you like some more flour?” You almost scoff out loud. You’re the one working with flour over here! Why is she asking him?

“No, thanks.” He doesn’t look up this time.

The assistant smiles to herself as if he’d said something particularly sweet to her. Until her eyes land on you. “Uh- What about you, ma’am?”

“All.” You land a punch on the buttery dough, death glare and all. “Good.” Another punch. Eyes not once wavering. She has the brains to scramble away.

You don’t have the right to assert this sort of possessiveness over Taehyung. But it’s the principle. This is a couple’s romantic holiday; she must be under the presumption that you and Taehyung are together, so how does she still dare to ogle over him like that?

“She’s flirting with you.” You rumble when she’s out of earshot.

Taehyung looks up at you from stirring his jam mixture, his lips still slightly pouted from his focus. “What? Who?”

“That baking assistant who came over just now.” You grit, trying to suppress this irrational vexation.

“Oh. Really?” Clueless, he scans across the room. “Was that the blonde or the brunette one?”

It’s a relief how truly oblivious he is that you don’t bother answering his question. It’s also completely unlike him. Since when did Kim Taehyung not notice when a girl takes interest in him? How fascinating must those strawberries be to capture his undivided attention like that?

“Would you like some flour?” You mimic, batting your lashes at him.

A wide grin spreads across his cheeks. To be honest, you don’t know what prompted you to display such friendliness to him all of a sudden. Perhaps what happened this morning, or even the fact that you slept on the same bed last night, breached one of the walls towering between you. It’s progress.

“You’ve got flour on your face.”

Fuck, again? You need to stop handling stuff like dirt and flour because they keep ending up on your face. “Ugh.” You huff, trying to let the embarrassment brush off. “Where?”

From the mischievous smirk that his grin morphed into, you should’ve known. Before you could suspect, Taehyung dabs one of his fingers into a small pile of flour and smears it down your cheek. “There.”

“You-!” You gasp, your own finger already caked in flour flying for a counter attack at his face.

But his reflexes are fast as he catches your wrist in lightning speed and tugs you towards him, his other hand simultaneously slathering another streak of white down the bridge of your nose. You tumble into him, foolish grin on your face as you twist your wrist out of his grip and manage to smear your floury thumb onto his chin.

Taehyung catches you before you could trip over your feet, smiling so wide for the first time this weekend that you can’t help but giggle. His grip on your waist feels warm. You’re close enough that you have to crane your neck to see him, close enough to see the individual hairs of his brows.

Yes, something has definitely shifted since last night.

The desire is a flame, devouring all your other senses until all you can focus on is his touch, his molten chocolate eyes, his tongue swiping out to wet his lips. You just want to…

Kiss him.

You admit it, you want to kiss him so fucking badly.

Ignition in his eyes, he stares at your lips too, smile slowly faltering. The hammering of your spastic heart cancels out all other noise in the room; you don’t see anything else except him. He doesn’t move, and neither do you. That lustful monster in your mind screams, Damn the consequences. Just kiss. Fuck being friends and fuck being strangers. Kiss him.

“Alright, lovebirds over there. These pastries won’t make themselves. Let’s get cracking!” Both of you jump and the sound of the head chef calling.

A bucket of ice cold water showers over you, extinguishing that prosperous flame. And reality materialises once again around you.

Not just the physical reality, but the reality of your situation as well - you can’t, you shouldn’t be acting like this around each other. There’s being friends, and then there’s this. The line is fine, it has always been.

It’s difficult to separate the weeds of these conglomerated emotions. You miss each other, want to kiss each other. You want the hurting to end, he wants to be friends. Your break up had been too messy for either of you to have a clear vision of what you need to do to overcome this.

Except maybe there is a cure-all solution to this.

You return to your ball of dough as Taehyung goes back to stirring his boiling jam. Yet your attention is now scattered, because a seed of an idea, most probably a very bad one, has been sown in your head.

.

It is most definitely a reckless idea, one that has the potential of going very south.

You bring it up during dinner, the supposed “romantic candlelit dinner with a string quartet” which neither of you are remotely dressed well enough for. “Taehyung, you know how you talked about closure and all that yesterday?”

Taehyung pauses, forkful of tenderloin steak stopped in midair. “Yeah..?” The hope in his voice is infused with an uncertain hesitation.

“I think we should have sex. One last time. For closure.”

The violin strikes a particularly high pitch in the background. Taehyung doesn’t move a hair for at least a good ten seconds before he blinks at you. This was definitely not what he’d anticipated from you, you can tell. But well, of course it isn’t. The idea surprised yourself.

“What? I think I heard something else, say that again?”

Oh boy. “No, you heard it right. I said I think we should sleep together for closure.” You sound unsteady to your own ears. “Release all this pent up sexual frustration we have for each other one last time and then be done with this. You said you want to be friends, right? I actually think it’s going to work for me, I’ll be able to move on afterwards, I’m almost certain.”

Frowning, Taehyung puts his fork down. “Really…? You want to have sex?”

“Yes.” You’re not even going to be shy about it at this point. You weren’t sure how this scene was going to play out but you’d envisioned it to go much smoother than this. “Do you want to?”

“I mean…” Colour of wine stains his cheeks. “Yeah… But are you sure? You were just saying last night how you can’t look at me without hurting. Do you understand why this is confusing for me?”

“I know it sounds contradictory and counterproductive, but-” You halt when you realise that there is no but. You don’t know how to verbalise the explanation that convinced you in your head. “Look at it as break up sex. It’s a common thing because it works. Like you said, we ended so quickly, in a blink of an eye. Just see this as the closing chapter of our relationship. If you don’t want to do it, just say it. I just had to throw it out there.”

Worry drips down your throat when his blank expression remains unchanged - worry that you’ve made a fatally wrong move to make things irreparably awkward now, if he so wishes not to follow through with your suggestion.

But then he nods, ponderously and maybe not entirely convinced, but you’ll take it. “I think you have a point… The thing about closure and ending this better than we did the first time round.”

“So… You’re down.”

“Down.”

So, the rest of dinner flies by with the two of you wolfing down your meal as hastily as you can. The entire time, your mind is buzzing with a strange sort of excitement for you are confident that this is necessary in accelerating your process of recovery.

You and Taehyung started with sex, so naturally, you should end with sex.

If you are eating cookies from a jar and that jar is suddenly taken away from you, you would be overcome with a surge of anger and unjust. You will always remember that awful person who took it from you. But if you are told that the jar will be taken away and the cookie in your hand is the last one you can ever have, you will cherish this last cookie and take your time eating it. It would taste different from all the other cookies you’ve had in the past - better, sweeter, because you know that it’s the last one.

Taehyung is quiet, indecipherable as you stroll back to the room. You understand his doubt, you really do. Because a night ago, if he’d have offered you the same suggestion, you would’ve thought he’s insane. But after the incident this morning, and the sparse flirtation throughout the day, there is a clear indication of unresolved sexual tension on both ends.

End this once and for all with a bang.

“Are you really up for it, Taehyung?” You check one last time, swiping the keycard at the door. “If you’re not comfortable, then we shouldn’t.”

When you look back as you push open the door, you catch his eyes, filled with purpose and trust. “No, you’re right. We need the closure.”

As the door closes behind you after you enter, it feels final - your fate is sealed, this is happening. You both stop in the middle of the room, facing each other. Shoulders tense and fists clenched. The bed has been made from this morning, a strawberry gift basket sitting on the coffee table in the corner of your eye.

Your breath feels shaky.

“So…”

“So…”

His throat is trembling too.

You break into a smile at how pathetic you’ve both become around each other, and once you do, Taehyung observably loosens up. “What are we being so nervous for?”

He smiles too, and takes a step towards you. “I don’t know.”

Bittersweet. It’s the best way to describe how you feel right now. Because this is it.

“Do you want to get in the hot tub? It feels like a waste if we don’t use it before we go. It’s our last night here.” The buzzing beneath your skin grows as you ask, and a spark lights up in his eyes at your idea.

“Say no more.” He presses a kiss on your forehead. It’s utterly out of the blue and fleeting, but enough to make your heart leap, both from the bewilderment and the knowledge that this will be one of your last acts of affection.

Taehyung walks past you towards the glass door, peeling off his shirt in the meantime to reveal the new tone of muscle on his back that he’s acquired in the past month. “I’m going to get some alcohol.” You maunder.

Your fingers are shaking as you rummage through the wine cooled for the drink you best see suitable. A strawberry champagne catches your eye. How fitting.

You can’t explain how jittery you feel as you completely strip off your clothes. This is the last time with Taehyung. The profound significance, the pressure, the emotions, tide after tide hitting you.

Two glasses of champagne in your hand, you inhale sharply, and let it all out.

This is it. This is the conclusive ending you asked for.

Warm water bubbling up to his chest, you find him seated in the hot tub awaiting you. The boxers discarded by the side implies that it was a last minute decision of his to go completely naked. And when he notices your nude form strutting out to the patio to join him, he sucks in. The way his eyes rake down your body then back up to your face sends flutters to you core, but also a nostalgic pang.

Eye contact does not break for a second as you climb into the hot tub and sit yourself adjacent to him. The chilly evening breeze with the heated effervescing water provides the perfect ambient temperature. Taehyung accepts the champagne you hand him, finger brushing over yours in a way that could only be intentional. He’s savouring every touch.

“To Mykonos, to the heatwave, to us and our last time.” You toast. The lump in your throat almost doesn’t permit the words to be said.

“To Mykonos, to the heatwave, to us and our last time.” He repeats after you. Clink. And down the drink goes.

A sigh, from both of you. The champagne is bittersweet, too. And you feel that surge behind your nose again, the sting behind your eyes.

“Isn’t it funny how the universe plays out?” Taehyung says, gaze falling to your lips, then your neck, then collar. He slides closer to you. “The first time we kissed was in water, the Mediterranean Sea. And now, the last time will be in water too.”

You don’t say anything for you need a moment to collect the tears. Then you place your glass on the edge of the tub and waddle through the water until you are perched on his lap. He receives you like you’re made of glass, gentle hands coming around your bare back to pull you down onto him. You brush away his dark untamed curls from his face, appreciating the thickness of his hair between your fingers because you don’t think you’ll get to touch it again. His hands trail low to the small of your back; you feel yourself brush up against his member, already hard and poised.

You want to tell him that you love him, that you will always always love him. But you know you would break if you say it.

So you just lean down to kiss him.

People like to describe their kisses like electricity, fire, a bolt of lightning striking down their spine. But for you, it really isn’t like that at all. When your lips meet, it feels like your first sip of cocoa on the first day of winter warm but not hot enough to burn, feels as though you’re interlocking fingers in a crowd of busy bodies and his thumb brushes over yours to tell you it’s okay, I’m right here and I won’t let go.

And you both pull away at the same time, a string of saliva between your mouths.

Because you both feel it, and it’s too much.

But this is the last time, you remind yourselves. Last time.

So your lips fall back onto him, fuelled by a passion you’ve never felt before. His mouth is velvet, fitting over yours so perfectly that it hurts. His hand finds your face, wet from being submerged, and he holds you more tenderly than he would an infant. Your chest is imploding from every ragged breath you take between hot kisses and you just let it.

Arousal pulling at your strings, your hand snakes down his front, dips into the water and wraps around his cock. “Ah…” Taehyung groans into your mouth. Your touch swipes across his tip. “Fuck, baby.”

Baby.

That is your undoing.

His teeth find your breasts, taking your nipple and teasing it until you’re whimpering in need. The roughness of his tongue tingles your sensitive bud so much that your eyes roll back and your vision is black and dotted with stars. The water providing you with a newfound ease, you pump him relentlessly, sitting up so you can slide his tip over your clit and along your folds. Because neither of you can wait, you’re cutting to the chase. Anything else can wait until subsequent rounds.

Every time his head brushes past your clit, a convulsion shoots up you. Your thighs quiver around him as he digs his fingers into the flesh of your ass. And when you inch by inch sink down onto his cock, the euphoric stretch in your walls numbs all other sensation.

You have missed this so much. It’s been so long.

“Fuck, you’re tight.” Taehyung’s voice is shaky, breath hitched.

“It’s ‘coz I haven’t…”

You don’t have to finish the sentence for him to understand and reply, “Me neither.”

The boost of reassurance and confidence that it grants you makes you roll your hips over his. From the absence of sex the past month, your cunt has grown unaccustomed to his size. Your entire core aches, but in the best way you could ask for. The water sloshes as you gain a steady rhythm. You have to bite down onto his ear to stop the volume at which you want to cry out because you remember that you are outdoors.

Taehyung’s face burrows into your neck, panting hard, but thrusting harder. You think back to every single one of your times together, from beginning to now. Your arms encircle tighter around him as you kiss the shell of his ear.

The initial pain in your walls is beginning to trickle away, leaving in its wake the claws of pleasure running up and down your body. Taehyung’s cock performs wonders on you that no one else can - it’s just a fact that you have to accept now. Nothing will compare.

Yet you can come to terms with it. You can gladly accept that Taehyung will be the best thing you’ll ever have.

But then you feel the dampness. At first, you mistaken it as droplets of water splattering onto you so you ignore it. And amidst you bouncing onto him, you don’t notice how Taehyung’s shoulders are shuddering.

You stop.

And feel the streaks of his tears running down your neck from where his face is pressed onto.

You can’t describe the shattering in your heart when you look down to find him crying into you. You can’t speak, can’t move, can’t even cry back at him.

It leaves you in wreckages, how he’s holding you close to him still, clinging on despite your how you’ve stopped, muffled sobs cracking out of this throat.

It takes a while for you to regain your voice, but his tears are still ceaseless. “Taehyung…”

When he looks up, you’re struck with another ammunition of distraught. The redness of his eyes, the sad distortion of his beautiful features, the endless endless tears...

“Y/N, I can’t. I really can’t.” His voice is hoarse, as if he’s been screaming silently.

“I-I’m sorry, you should’ve said. I’m so sorry I didn’t realise.” You’re stupefied from the horrendous sight of a completely broken Taehyung underneath you. You immediately climb off him.

“I-” He sniffs. “I love you so fucking much. I love you more than I love myself and I can only ever love you more each day.” You feel it again, the surge in your nose, the sting behind your eyes. You’re choked up, speechless, resenting yourself for putting him through this. You want to bury your head in the water and cry until you pass out. 

“Y/N, I didn’t ever want to lose you because I know I would lose myself. But then I lost you. And I lost myself.” His sobs strangle you by the throat.

“Taehyung, I’m sorry. About everything I’ve done. It’s all my fault and I will always hate myself for hurting you so much.” A single tear rolls down your face, you can’t hold it in anymore. Then a second, third. At the unstoppable oceans pouring from his eyes, you feel destroyed.

“I don’t even care about that! I’m not hurt by Junho or Jimin, I don’t care. Having to wake up every day knowing that you’re not beside me has been the most painful thing I’ve had to deal with. You are my home, Y/N. I don’t want to live in a life that you’re not a part of. I just can’t live without you and I can’t stand it. I can’t- I can’t...”

“Then don’t.”

Confusion draws his browns into a frown. “What?” His face is still warped in pain. You can’t stand it anymore either.

“Then don’t live without me.”

Your teeth dig into your lip to stop your own bawling.

All this conflict back and forth has taken such a toll on you and what for? At the end of the day, one unwavering fact stands true and untested: you love each other no matte what. So why should you let mistakes of the past keep you apart?

“What?” He says again, though understanding starts to seep through.

“I love you, Taehyung. I can’t not love you. I’m not myself if I don’t. So let’s stop this bullshit. I can’t live without you and you can’t live without me. So then let’s not leave each other again.”

You stare at each other, on this cool February night, warm water gurgling up to your collars, the cloudless night sky flaunting it’s collection of stars. And you promise to stay by each other for as long as you live.

“Okay.” That’s all Taehyung can muster.

“I’m yours, Taehyung. My heart is completely yours forever.” His violent flow of tears subside into gentle trickles.

“Okay.” He stands up in the tub, and you mirror his action. Water weeps off your skin, inviting the cold to infiltrate.

Nothing more needs to be said. Your mouths find each other the way they always do, the crashing of your lips, scraping of your teeth. A new tear rolls off Taehyung’s face and onto your fused lips, but it’s different this time. They’re tears of insuppressable joy, knowing that the taste of your tongue is entirely his, the porcelain of your skin is entirely his. You’re shivering from the temperature of the night, but you don’t feel the cold.

His hands come behind your thighs and lift you up to his face level, wrapping your legs around your torso the way he did in Mykonos. With careful steps, he carries you back into the room, past the bed, that poor couch that was collateral damage to your mutual pining, and sets you down onto the bathroom countertop.

When he finally breaks away from the kiss and takes in your beauty under the bright light of the room, there is no less than absolute adoration in his eyes. Never anything less. “I love you and I’m yours.”

Taehyung wraps the only massive white towel he can find around your wet naked body, disregarding the cold attacking his own. You frown at him, hooking him between your legs so you can fling the towel over his shoulders as well.

“I love you and I’m yours.” You say back, blotting his body dry. It’s such a simple statement, yet the meaning it holds for the two of you is so heavy. They’re the very words that you have never found the strength to say to each other, until now.

“Say that again.” You melt under his smile, not a single trace of worry to be found in your brain.

“I love you. And I’m yours.”

You twist your neck back to follow his glare at reflection in the mirror of your huddled bodies under the towel. Cheeks pushed up from glee, heads leaning against each other, and just like that - all your heartache vanishes without a trace.

“Mine?” Taehyung pecks your brow, still smiling.

“Yours.” Legs clamping around him tighter, you turn to face him. “And how are you this hard again already?” His cock’s ability to stay erect is astounding, truly.

“Don’t you know? You could breathe and my cock would be hard.” Laughter erupts both your chests and it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.

Allowing the towel to drop around you, your hand slips between your bodies to clutch onto his length. Responsiveness ripples through his toned abdomen. “I want to suck…” You nuzzle your nose to his, your breaths amalgamating.

Taehyung sighs into your mouth. “But I want to-” Your grip tightens around him as you drag out a pump, eyes wide with feign innocence. “Okay, what the fuck, that’s not fair.”

“You’ll get to do whatever you want to me after.” You trail your mouth along his jaw.

“F-Fine.”

He lets you slide off the marble counter with the skin of his neck pinched between your teeth. When he realises that you’re marking him in clouds of purple, his head falls back and gives himself up as your canvas. You understand the appeal of hickeys now. For you two, it’s an agreement, a promise, an exchange of trust. You continue down his front, teeth grazing his nipples, lower and lower, kissing along the protrusion of his pelvic bone. Until you arrive at his cock.

“Do you remember the whole ice cube thing during the heatwave?” You run your finger up his length, over his oozing slit. The heatwave feels like an eon ago, but also like just yesterday.

Stiffening, Taehyung looks down. “Yes…”

“How about I pay you back for that one?” You take his shut eyes and sparse nod as compliance because you know he’s not capable of words right now.

You dash away to collect a glass of ice from the drink cooler, but on your way find something even better. Something you’ve always wanted to try.

Taehyung is slowly touching himself when you return, mildly surprised by the second item you brought back with you. “Whipped cream? Isn’t that from the gift basket?”

“You up for it?” A smirk stretches.

“Very up and very hard.” He lets go of his member and watches you drop to your knees.

To moisten him first, you slowly lap circles around his head, applying considerable pressure and letting the tip of your tongue tease at his sensitive opening. You look up when he moans, and takes his girth into your mouth, sliding his cock further and further down your throat until he pokes the back. Then you pull up with a pop, echoing within the walls of the bathroom.

You take two ice cubes from the glass, one placed between your lips, and the other to massage over your clit. The icy sensation strikes a numbing sensation into your core when it touches your bud of nerves. The cube in your mouth, you begin to trace slowly from the base of his shaft all the way up.

A string of profanities leaves Taehyung at the temperature, and seeds a satisfaction between your legs.

The ice is melting quickly from the heat of your mouth so you waste no time to guide it down to his scrotum resting on your palm. “Fuck.” He whines, his whole length twitching.

When this cube dissolves into nothing but a puddle of your tongue, you take another, ruthlessly educing those curses from him. His tip is the most sensitive part of him, so that’s where you focus on, smearing the edges of the cube around the curve of his head. His thighs tense in euphoric spasms.

The whipped cream comes next. With a few shakes of the canister, you hold his cock pointed towards yourself and view the spiral of white untainted cream unfold onto his head.

“Ah!” Taehyung yelps.

“You good?” You glance up to check that he still has a rein on his sanity.

“It just scared me.” You chuckle and place a kiss on his shaft.

“You should be scared.”

Eyes lock on his, you watch him watch you vulgarly smear the cream all over his cock with your lips. Its sweetness oozes into your mouth and sinks into your tongue. “Mmm.” You hum at the pleasant taste. Then you start to suck, the cream providing you with a lubrication that your spit has never been able to replicate. His cock glides into your mouth with such little resistance that you gag around him.

“Oh fuck, that feels so good.” He can’t look away from you, your hollowed out cheeks and large eyes as you bob your head deeper and deeper. Ribald wet sloppy noises squeaking from your mouth. “Uh fuck.”

Taehyung’s fingers entangle in your hair, guiding your motion in and out. The cream swirls in your mouth, the taste prompting you to suck harder until your mouth adheres like a second skin to his cock. He’s soon panting, even as you come up for air and to spray more cream on him.

“Yeah, keep going. Can I come in your mouth?” His eyes are almost screwed shut, but still open to keep watching. The rise and fall of his chest, and the bulging vein down the side of his cock - he’s close.

You keep sucking, relishing in the taste of the cream, the ease at which his tip glides along your throat, your own fluid dripping from your cunt.

“Fuc- Ah!” Gripping your hair tight, he thrusts hard into you as he cums, ribbons of his own cream mixing in your mouth. Taehyung’s dick pulses violently at the shaft. You watch his jaw fall open, brows pinch together, as the liquid dribbles down your throat.

You pull his length out of you with a great gasp and swallow all the remnants. “Shit. How was that?” Out of breath, you wipe the mess around your mouth with the dropped towel.

“Give me a second to recover from that, baby.” Arms on the countertop to support him, Taehyung lets his head droop back so far that his hair touches his elbows. You wet the towel at the sink and clean his slowly limping member. “Fuck that was…”

When his eyes open again, there is a fury that you know to be afraid of. He hauls you up onto your two feet and latch onto your lips, not caring about the filthy things they’ve just done to him.

“I need to be inside you.” He grumbles. “Give me five, ten minutes and I'll be ready again.”

“Hmm.” Arms sliding around his neck, you let him walk you onto the bed, hovering over you while his hands fondle your breasts that have become lonely. The insides of your thighs are slick with your arousal - that doesn’t go unnoticed.

Scissoring your folds open with his long digits, this thumb finds your clit, bulging and throbbing with desire. The vibrations coursing into you as he starts to rub compels you to arch back. You are really just a plaything when under his touch, as malleable as dough.

“Taehyung!” And for some reason, you calling out his name flips an animalistic switch in him.

With your neck fully exposed, he ceases the opportunity to nibble all over your unmarred skin, leaving angry blotches in return of your marks on him. This thumb is working quickly, the pressure at your clit superimposing second by second.

“Wait.” He lifts his head up abruptly, though fingers still going. “Do you want to sit on my face?”

Your heart jolts in excitement at the mere mention of it. “Didn’t even have to ask.” It has always been something you’ve wanted to try but never gotten around to.

Swapping positions, Taehyung reclines onto his back while you situate your knees on either side of his face. His hands grip onto your waist, guiding your descent onto his thrill-teeming face.

An incredible shock of pleasure fires up your spine when he takes your clit between his lips and sucks. This position grants him an unobstructed access to your pussy, no awkward angle, no cramping neck. So the assail he commences is totally, and unfortunately for your lucidity, merciless. His hands grapple onto your freely hanging breasts, rolling your nipples between fingertips.

Crying aloud from the ecstatic twisting sensation, you feel your eyes water. It’s almost too much, the mind warping accumulation of tension in your cunt. “Like that, Taehyung.”

One of his hands leaves your breast only to insert his digits into your dripping slit. Your thighs are aching, close to giving way; you don’t think you can withstand this tremendous stimulation.

His tongue doesn’t stop and neither do his fingers. Breathing through his nose heavily, he continues to coil your core into loops and loops of hypertension

You’re so close, so close.

And you’re there.

The pulsing waves of your orgasm sweep you away. You don’t even hear your own moans, just the roaring of your blood in your ears. Your whole body writhes above Taehyung, but your muscles don’t permit you to move off him while so ransacked by this high.

It last long, nearing half a minute before your senses come back to you.

And finally, you sag and topple over, trusting Taehyung to catch you and roll you onto your back.

“What the fuck.” You pant, low frequency pulsations still resonating down your legs, in awe of how he never fails to tip you over the edge. And the striking difference between the male and female orgasm is that, unlike Taehyung, you immediately want more when you’re done. “Taehyung, please, I need you to fuck me.”

His reply startles you. “No.” You open your eyes and find him regarding you with such reverence that only confuses you more.

“No?”

Cupping your face in his palm as he props himself on his elbow over you, Taehyung leans down and kisses your nose. Then your mouth. “Y/N.” Your temple. “I want to.” Your ear. “Make love to you.”

He paints a constellation of wet kisses all over you.

“How does that sound, baby?”

You immediately pull him back onto your own lips, a desperate craving as you kiss him back hard. “I love you.” You really do. It’s the one thing you’re the most certain about in this world.

“Ahhh.” Readjusting over you yet still keeping the close distance between your faces, he takes his cock in his hand and pumps. “You know you do to me when you say those words?” He kisses you again, so softly that his lips feel like rose petals. As he lines his tips along your entrance, you shut your eyes and prepare for it.

“I love you.” You repeat. And he sinks in.

It feels different, so entirely different from the previous time tonight. There is not an ounce of concern, of doubt, of hesitancy. You feel safe underneath him, secure.

His tender moans unravelling into songs of vulnerability. “I love you, too.” He whispers into your ear, and you understand what he means by how much these three words have an effect because them alone are almost enough to capsize you again.

His thrust, though lacking its usual roughness, does not lack in anything else. Every time he plummets into you, his mouth finds yours. Your hands are interlocked, pinned down onto the pillow. The surprising intimacy of that act overflowing to the brim. And you swear you could see heaven right then and there.

You feel nothing but love and devotion throughout.

He makes love to you over and over again this night, Valentine’s night. And despite your usual preferences, the sensations between your legs, in your chest, in your mind, are unrivaled.

Transcendental.

When it’s all over, when you’re nothing more than sweaty skin, damp hair, and hearts full of love for each other, you spend your time taking in each other’s details. His unblemished complexion. The beauty mark under the lashes of his right eye. The perfect shape of his cupid's bow that doesn’t seem humanly possible. Everything.

“What we had didn’t work, but we’re not going to repeat those mistakes again, I won’t hurt you again, I promise.” You whisper softly as you caress his cheek. “It’s all or nothing. And you have all of me.”

The glaze over his sincere eyes hasn’t left yet, though you don’t suppose your eyes are completely dry either.

You continue, “Seeing you break down like that today was… the hardest thing for me to witness. So much worse that our stupid pointless fights, and the nights where I would cry myself to sleep. And I can’t apologise enough for causing you that much pain.”

Taehyung’s eyes trailing down bashfully, and you almost worry that he’d cry again.. “I… I can’t believe the day finally came where I cried during sex…” You let out a round of laughter at what he chooses to dwell on.

“I love you so much that it makes me sick. I’m honestly disgusted and mortified by myself.” You snicker in his hair.

“Look, what about me? I love you so much that I cried during sex. Not even just a tear either. Full on sobs. I think I’m the bigger loser here.” The fact that he can joke about the situation reassures you that he’s over it. The mood once again lightens.

“All this just because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants during a heatwave.”

He pulls you closer into his rumbling chest, laughing to himself as he toys with your earlobe between his teeth.

You fall asleep in each other’s arms, for the first time as each other’s lovers. And for the rest of the nights that come after.

.

A/N: Alexa, play ‘Fuck it I love you’ by Lana Del Rey.

Thank you everyone for the incredible love and support you’ve unfailingly shown Heatwave. As my first fic, I am of course so very attached to these characters and ending this series is such a bittersweet feeling. It’s been such a lovely journey to write this couple and although I don’t plan on writing anything for them in the next few months, I won’t close off that possibility completely.

Love you!

- Kristy

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27/04/20

© Copyright 2020

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[ratplagues]

🔥 any dishonored thing of ur choosing -deathoftheoutsider

wah okay!! i will talk a bit about the outsider and void then..i dont really wanna frame it as a Hot Take bc i have no interest in starting shit or whatever like ill interact with whatever i want to in this fandom and ignore the rest and everyone else is free to do the same but.

I do not think The Outsider is a “character” in the conventional sense, much less that it does his character or the allegory he wields any justice to be shipped with anyone in the series (at least without seriously considering the implications and framing it in a way that completes the allegory. more on this later)

the outsider and his void are an allegory for Otherness; i’m namely gonna frame it as queerness and neurodiversity, but really anything could fit as long as it’s about you feeling seen as a marginalized and othered person. he is written to represent this allegory, not to be a person with a satisfying narrative arc or dimensions. this is why some people feel that he lacks depth-- he’s not supposed to have depth compared to others in the series, he’s mostly a vehicle for what he represents, and is supposed to be easy to identify with or recognize.

he was born to a life of hardship, suffered at the hands of the rich and powerful, was ignored, cast out, etc. etc. a familiar story. poor, queer, nd, really whatever you wanna frame it as. he was a nobody outcast. in comes the envisioned, they pick him to serve as their martyr and idol without his permission. he then had his name cut away and forgotten, and was thrust onto a pedestal to spend the rest of eternity being worshipped by other outcasts who had suffered at the same hands he had. he has something greatly in common with those who worship him, including the very people who stripped his mortality from him in the first place, but because of this shared hardship (and nothing else), his own autonomous personhood was disregarded completely in favor of The Community needing someone Just Like Them to idolize. if this sounds familiar, that’s because it should!!

his humanity was taken from him, and in his place, an idol was created. his human body is frozen in stone in the center of the void-- retired. out of commission. no longer needed. he was immortalized, transcended. this is traditionally desired, although dishonored is trying to convince you that it is not actually desirable. in the age of internet content creation, you can be immortalized without even being present, without knowing about it. you become what you can do for other people, and what you cannot. people fall in love with an idea of you, the idea of you being like them, and other people come to hate you deeply without even knowing you. people came to hate the outsider more deeply than he ever had been when he was human-- he wasn’t seen when he was human. a pedestal only helps you to be seen. the outsider had the choice made for him to achieve immortality in exchange for the simple joys of being un-known.

he spends all of doto trying to convey this idea to billie through the hollows:

"There is freedom in being hated. There is license in being cast out. Some learn this lesson a little too well."  "These people lay their thoughts, their petty wants, their murderous desires in front of me to witness. I cannot turn away." "We carry what was done to us through the rest of our endless days. No one asked if we wanted it." (i like this one. he speaks for the community-- this is a shared experience, one everyone can recognize. however, as a Queer Figure, he never asked for this. he never asked to be immortalized. i like the double meaning here)

not to mention, the entire extent of the outsider’s Sole ability and influence on the real world is to “choose” people and give them untold power over others. this is a fun ironic twist on what marginalized groups endure from powerful people, (dishonored is largely about power imbalances and socioeconomic hierarchies) but it’s also fun to think about in the context of the role model/fan framing-- so many worshippers give their lives to be “chosen” by him. it’s easily framed as an exaggeration of otherwise very real power imbalances and often the flagrant breaching of boundaries existing between creators and fans.

and on the subject of the VOID...ohht he void.....

the void should be a haven for queer folks. for nd folks. it’s wanted by so many to be a safe space, it should be, it’s the Other World! it’s renounced by the abbey, crusaded against, even. but it isn’t. it’s just this limitless, eons-old horizon that hungers and starves for something to fill it. if the outsider is the lament of queer idolatry, the void is the lament of queer Hunger. it is roaming, and restless. it does not belong to the outsider; the outsider cannot survive without it. it’s the desire to belong, not a place of belonging.

the void craves this idol, this outsider-- i, for one, have often experienced hunger for a truly moral and just role model, someone to make the world Right, and i know this is another shared feeling. those who worship the outsider, who drive themselves mad trying to see him or be chosen by him, are suffering from this idol hunger. you see this in a lot of queer and nd kids and young adults. i grew up just having my life and interests like, punctuated by different fixations on different people that i didn’t know at all, only fell in love with the idea of. it happens a lot.

there’s a couple more doto quotes that really highlight this for me:

"They carve my mark into the old bones bleached by the sun. They carve my mark into their skin. They learn true hunger in the Void." "All these charms, these runes and fetid offerings on shrines made for me, will be nothing more than objects worn of meaning. Bones and dead things, thrown into the dirt."

“They learn true hunger in the Void.” is something that i wanna touch on real quick. people can spend their lives obsessing over the idea of what they think the void will cure for them, will fix in their lives, only to find out that it’s just a hollow manifestation of the emptiness they’ve felt all their lives. it’s not the needs met, but the need itself. you have to make the home, it doesn’t already exist and you can’t fucking run to it. it is heartbreaking, frustrating, one of the bleakest messages i’ve ever encountered in a game, but i’ve never felt more seen. by submitting to these ideas, the idea of a perfect unhuman human and the idea of a perfect otherworldly home, you are surrendering your humanity. you’re not only being transformed by the powers gained (if they are gained), you’re essentially dissolving with hunger after never having these needs met. you see so many people in these games whittling themselves down to nothing but base need. empty apartments occupied only by shrines, sometimes containing their corpses. journals of people dedicating their lives to the worship of the outsider, always ending darkly.  "I will find this empty place. Somehow the key to open the Void will fall into my hands. In time, I will learn the secret and he will call to me as he called to her."

not to mention The New Envisioned-- prolonged exposure to the void will always, without fail, turn a human into silver void stone. these creatures can no longer interact with or acknowledge the mortal world. they have surrendered themselves to hunger, and cannot be saved. this is celebrated by the cult, honored by them, even. i honestly like....i pity them, and i hate them, and i recognize that i’ve been those people, lmao. when i was at my worst as a teenager, i wasnt so much a person as i was just a shell full of hunger and heartbreak. my personality was defined by who i was a fan of. i think i definitely was Less Human then. the cult of the outsider is a universal experience!!

dishonored, at its core, is a celebration of humanity. it asks you to celebrate human emotion and weakness despite greed and bigotry. the powers are not to be wanted, they are to be ignored, refused. it is human to hunger, but it is Queer and Divergent to make hunger your life’s meaning, to need to learn the secret, find the key, be chosen and loved and cherished, to be made whole by some perfect thing. to find your humanity in something un-human. dishonored sees all that, mourns it with you, and then asks you to find humanity in each other !! love the spine of your lover, the blood draining down the docks, the pause to stretch languidly in the sun of a work day.

and finally...on the topic of outsider shipping....i dont think that, in his god form, it does him much justice to be shipped with anyone. he’s not much of a person, just a projection of his former self and a vehicle for his allegory as discussed-- im sure he could be shipped like this, but it just isn’t satisfying to me in any way. however, let’s talk a bit about his lethal and nonlethal ending. DOTO asks you to make a choice. is it better to give him an abrupt and merciful ending, after deciding that the fury he’s endured at the hands of others’ famine is too much trauma for any mortal to live with? or will you decide that it’s only fair to give him a chance to live the life he never got to, to return his humanity that was taken without his consent? if you choose to free him from the void, i think you can very very easily make the argument that he can be shipped with corvo, or anyone else that can easily be shipped w/ ppl. he’s finally free to live his life as a queer man, can explore the simple and complex joys of being human with other people, navigate the hills and valleys he never got to before. corvo’s just a nice pick bc 1) experienced human/inexperienced human is good, 2) they know each other, but they don’t. this is a good setup. 3) corvo is an older queer man and uhh you cant convince me otherwise lol! and older queer/younger queer is a self indulgence for me. also corvo is just nice. i think he would enjoy helping the outsider navigate his new humanity.

just some thoughts i have running through my head all hours of the day :) this is really long cuz its a combination of a lot of infodumps from discord lmfao

[frillshark-fr]

How do you get people to always buy your dragons? Genuine question

i was gonna say something like “haha i have no fucking clue” but that would be a lie i think about this a lot actually so i might have some insights i’ve been breeding dragons as my primary activity on FR since i started playing FR (in 2014...) and people have only started actually buying dragons from me consistently like, 5-6 months ago, despite 2-3 attempts at running a genuine hatchery onsite that always died due to lack of interest & not really being worth the effort. 

so ive thought a lot about what the hell is happening now and why my dragons are suddenly consistently selling and I think ive come down to these being the main points of advice i can give: 1. make friends! be friendly! don’t be weird! be a cool and fun person to interact with! 2. post consistently. post your dragons consistently. post about other stuff consistently. just be an active member of the community 3. POST YOUR SHIT IN THE “#FLIGHT RISING” TAG. THIS IS PROBABLY THE ONLY TRUELY HELPFUL THING I SAY IN THIS POST 4. make pairs that are sexy as hell and be openly proud of them. make dragons and pairs that you like, not what you think will necessarily sell. people can tell when you like stuff and being genuinely passionate about something, whatever the fuck it is, will get other people passionate as well longer versions/explanations under the cut because man this got a mile long. i wasn’t kidding when i said i think about this a lot and i am so sorry if you wanted something concise and useful

1. to be a little glib. i am mutuals/friends with more clout in the FR community than I do kjdshfdsfdhjhkfdf shoutout to everyone who draws their dragons really good on a regular basis because i am riding on your coattails to sell my dragons. i love you this was never my intent, obviously! DO NOT BEFRIEND PEOPLE BECAUSE YOU THINK YOU WILL GET STUFF FROM THEM IT’S JUST A REALLY BAD THING TO DO TO PEOPLE!!! i wouldn’t be friends w/ people if i didn’t genuinely like and get along with them! no amount of pixel cash is worth putting up with people you dont like or abusing people you admire!  but i’d also somehow feel wrong to just... neglect mentioning this factor. idk it’s probably a self-esteem thing sjdkgfhdsf i just Don’t feel like my #success has been totally out of my own effort because its not like im #hustling or whatever i just posted dragons and stuff happened

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2. being consistent! just. posting consistently! posting Every Hatchling I Have and Talking About Them On Tumblr!  Once I had a couple nests just sell super fast likely due to aforementioned clout, i was emboldened to just post more of my nests more often and I swear this has more effect than anything else. i just needed the self-esteem boost to Start Doing That posting consistently makes ppl follow u for ur content which gets even more people to look at your dragons which gets more people to buy your dragons.

-

2a. Also just post a lot in general, even if you aren’t necessarily posting about your dragons for sale. it definitely helps! just be friendly and active and people will come

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3. post your shit in the tag. not in “#dragon-sales” or “#fr-dragon-sales” or anything weird like that because I don’t know if anyone actually looks at those, but people definitely browse “#flight rising”. no matter how many followers you have, more people will see your content if you post it in #flight rising than if you just chuck it into the void. 

-

3a. however! do not put links into the post if you want it to actually show up in the tag. tumblr is cool in that it doesn’t actually matter that much when you post something, the same way it really matters on twitter bc twitter has algorithms that decide for you what it thinks you want to be seeing whereas tumblr just shows you everything in chronological order. if you post something into the tag at 1am... it will still be there at 2pm when people log on and start scrolling.

the only thing tumblr seems to consistently hide from a tag (and possibly a dashboard, but idk) are posts with links in them, as a half-assed attempt to limit spam. instead of linking to your sales tab/to the dragons directly in the post, reblog it with the links instead. to reduce latency between a post going up and the links being available, i type out the links in the initial post, cut them, post the thing into the tag, then very quickly reblog, paste the links, and post the reblog jdhfsdf. i don’t know if that benefits anything really? but it can sometimes take me a while to type links, so if i posted, pressed reblog, typed up all the links, then posted, it’d be like ~15 minutes where someone may see the post, think “oh i would like to buy those dragons”, then can’t find the link, think “oh well, i will just find it later”, scroll on, and just... completely forget about it. so uh. go quick?

-

3b. the armchair sociologist in me also thinks self-reblogging has the added benefit of like... you know how people are more likely to tip a barista when a dollar is already in the tip jar? or how people are more likely to take one of those little tabs on a flyer if one of them is already missing? i think that works with notes, too. i don’t know why i think that or why it happens i just swear once a post gets 1 note, suddenly it gets Even More Notes, and if it doesn’t get any notes for a while it will sit at 0 notes until the end of time. so giving yourself 1 obligatory note makes people more likely to interact. i think

-----

4. all of these are hard to quantify but this one is especially so: have cool and unique dragons. make your pairs sexy as hell. don’t put all your eggs (hah) into the one basket of selling dragons that are technically “popular”. we have all seen triple white/triple obsidian/triple orca/triple any other popular colors and cherub/pere/stained or wasp/bee/glim pthahlos or whatever. they’re pretty! we get it! but everyone has had one and everyone has had those pairs and market for dragons like that can be super oversaturated. try to break free from that and sell dragons that people can only get from you. I can’t tell you what to do though bc that rly depends on you. make pairs that you find exciting or interesting and people will feel that. i have a very specific theme and aesthetic that i don’t feel like is especially common on FR and i am genuinely very enthusiastic about it. marine shit is my Thing:tm: both on and off FR and dragons are one of my many ways of expressing that   if you have a Thing:tm:, either some fr-centric aesthetic (like being super into plague or earth or light or something) or something more general (such as any of the -punks or -cores)... just fuckin roll with it honestly. if you’re goth? make got h dragons. like scene stuff that looks straight out of a middle school in 2010? rock that hot-topic lair. outdoorsey type? make dragons that look like you’d meet them on a hike in the woods. it really works with anything!  people can tell when you really love something and i know that seeing someone really love something, even if it’s not necessarily MY thing, makes me really excited too!! 

-

4a. never show fear. people can smell fear. never be like “well this one isn’t that good” because suddenly now you’ve planted the idea that it’s ugly in other people’s heads when they may have really liked it had you not accidentally suggested to them that it’s an ugly dragon. people are EXTREMELY suggestible to even VERY minor cues so be always a little bit bolder than you think you should be you’d be surprised at how many times ive been like “eh, this one’s kind of a dud, i’ll probably have to exalt this one when the auction expires” and then that hatchling is the first to sell. never ever ever ever decide what other people like for them. always act like your dragons are the hottest shit in all the land and Believe It. this is what people mean when they say “fake it till you make it”

- 4b. also, idk if it’s true of everyone but it’s really off-putting to see someone having serious pity-parties for themselves, on sales posts or otherwise. ive had bad experiences with people who are uncomfortably quick to self-depreciate (because they were using their genuine self-hatred to manipulate me or my friends), so i might be a little more trigger-happy about avoiding this behavior than others, but don’t weaponize your sadness to guilt people into doing what you want. it’s really not cool.

-----

okay i think that’s my entire manifesto on how i do dragon selling. anon i am so sorry im sure you were expecting like “believe in yourself :)” and here i am dissecting dragon selling like it’s a frog in a science class

edit: AFTER ALL THAT I STILL THOUGHT OF ONE MORE THING. It’s not really a Point, just a Reminder:

i don’t post about all the times i have to exalt dragons that don’t sell. you are seeing me being very selective about what i post. you dont sit and stare at my lair or click through offspring lists or check old sales posts. there are a lot of times where someone just doesn’t sell. even now when i’m selling stuff pretty consistently i will still sometimes have dragons that don’t sell for seemingly no reason. even dragons I think are sure to sell will sometimes just... not. and that’s ok! you gotta just be.. ok with that. it’s par for the course. i typically list dragons for 7 days on the AH, give them a couple more days after their auction expires (partially because i forget, partially to give them a grace period for people to pm/ask me about them), and then exalt them after that point. w/ some dragons that i don’t think got a fair shake for one reason or another (such as the sales post not showing up in the tag or something) i do a little clearance (like the halloween dragons i recently posted) but for the most part if they don’t sell, i just exalt them. 90% of the time i don’t even bother to level them up i just press the exalt button and call it a day. it’s fine

[astro-break]

Thoughts on the 8th ep of Hypmic Rhyme Anima. Spoilers beware

Ep.1 | Ep.2 | Ep.3 | Ep.4 & 5 | Ep. 6 | Ep. 7

Love that every time its a MTC centric episode im so busy that i can’t watch it the day it airs

I like how the beginning of the episode kinda mirrors the events in MTC’s story in ARB

hey hypmic you wanna try making it Less obvious who the culprit is? like damn you’re just giving away secrets like its candy. First Ramuda, the Ruikawa and now these two assholes. Might wanna keep your cards close before you spoil the ending of the anime oh wait they already did that nvm :p

Samatoki please have some sense of self preservation and ask what its about before accepting something. but I guess it also speaks to how trusting he is of those he lets close to him which also explains a bit more as to why he hates Ichirou’s guts

Love that Jyuto is actually choking the information out of someone and Samatoki is actually gathering intelligence and creating boards out of it. Most people expect the opposite from their characters and it such a great dynamic

I find it hilarious that Rio uses older computers but that brings up the question of “How far into the future really is hypmic?” bc those computers look to be from early 2000′s which would be A N C I E N T and completely unusable for hacking come a time when WWIII happens

Iris on a bike has no rights looking as hot as she does. The vehicle CGI is really nice too and so is her character model on top of the bike. Loving how Iris completely owns the two cops

The MTC love here is jsut. through the roof i can die happy now that i’ve seen Samatoki aggressively caring for his teammates animated and voiced. like, please. just. help. I can.t/ MTC care so much for each other I would hug them all and tell them good work, you can finally go rest now uughghghgh MTC guys. MTC

But mannn Iris is so cool, approaching MTC without any fear

I find it hilarious that Saburo would pose as a game dev from dubai which yknow doesn’t make any sense if you think about it. but whatever it just makes me laugh at how easy it is to fake a lot about yourself because yeah! it is easy! 

The whole conversation about cops and good cops seems a bit off considering ACAB but considering Japan who has largely swept both BLM and ACAB under the rug it isn’t surprising. That isn’t to say that Japan doesn’t care, its just that these movements aren’t on the spotlight so topics like these don’t carry as much weight

lol yeah he should have expected to be stabbed from the front lol

SRKHFSKJD Rio please stop living in the water, i can’t believe he did that lol

Love the SamaJyuto subtext in the translation lol

Jyuto’s sequence is kinda cute in a way ahaha

The kurosawa-esque b&w screens are a nice touch to the song as well as the MC Name drops and hypnosis speaker drops. Idk about Rio’s 2DIE4 reference though since it doesn’t really rhyme nor does it add much to the rap itself

The song itself is pretty nice but it isn’t a bop like Fallin’ was. It has a different more gritty feel to it that i don’t hate but isn’t my style

Of course Iruma pulls this situation into his favor, its so typical of him.

Rio didn’t speak much here and took a general backseat to everything. I wonder if it was because during the time of recording this episode, Rio’s VA, Kamio Shinichiro, went down with The Virus (you know the one) so he couldn’t record much. Who knows but best boy. just let me hear best boy’s voice please

Ramuda’s phone vibrate actively annoys me oh my god it makes my skin crawl

If Ramuda’s sleeping on the couch then that really does confirm that Ramuda lives in his studio. Not surprising considering everything we know about Ramuda but at the same time, please get like a futon or smth sleeping on a couch will only hurt your back

Ramuda just busting in is fun

but im not sure how to feel about two divisions shoved into one. like this is basically telling us who is the important divisions, Ikebukuro and Shinjuku. Obviously BB are the protagonists of the series what with the staff coming out to even say that Ichirou is the hero, and if you know what happens then you know why Shinjuku is also highlighted which. also gives away the ending of the anime. again. I’m just glad that the team decided to stick with the irl results bc if they didn’t, they’d have a lot of angry fans

Back to my main point tho, this just. pisses me off. I love FP and MTC and to see them sidelined like this doesn’t feel fair. they deserve full eps to themselves bc if I’m being honest, these two teams have some of the best inter team dynamics out of the current cast. I understand that budget issues and episode constraints exist but this is just kinda frustrating that my main division has been tossed aside and the team that gets the most overall development gets thrown away too

Im not surprised that they cheated because gambling anime is about who can outcheat the other and the mind games played. thats the thrill of gambling series is the psychological factors in it

Ramuda emulating Gentaro’s speech is cute

The mindgames are not present at all and I expected that lol

thats.... midly gay gentaro lol do you always go around pressing shit into people’s mouths while leaning in close? thats pretty gay lol i love the homoerotic subtext present in this episode. First SamaJyuto and now GenDice

no speaker summon sequence? thats slightly disappointing but whatever. the anime is really doing FP dirty by cutting a lot of corners with their episodes

I never noticed that Ramuda and Gentaro hold their mics in their left hand while Dice holds it with his right. neat detail

I love how even in a battle FP still keeps their preppy attitude

Gentaro looks so awkward to the little sway and kick thing in the song lolol

This is probably one of the songs that I like the least. Jackpost is a very Dice song and not really fitting for either Ramuda and Genaro. I think i’d like it more if it was a dice solo or dice centric but the emphasis was pretty cleanly spread so that makes it pretty hard to enjoy

Oh hell yeah FP meshing as a team is just, so cute. Though that foreshadowing with Ramuda and his candy is just. wow

Yup they kept the og brackets so I think the anime’s going to stick with the IRL results. Which means that any tension they try and build won’t work for ppl who are already familiar with the series but I hope they don’t take that fact as an excuse to slack off

[orderofthedyingstar]

RECAP: SESSION 14

The party is off on the road to Asaraoi, the last major town before it’s just the Long Road between them and the capital city of So’Joh. Rhododendron asks Jun about how his journey out of So’Joh went, but he doesn’t supply too much information beyond saying that there were bandits and a druid colony in the forest near the Long Road. He also supplies some information about the upcoming ‘Night’ of Endless Rains, and how they’ll probably end up getting stuck in Asaraoi since they’re so close to Yulong’s Fingers and that entire portion of the country will be completely flooded (and underwater). Rhododendron also tries to ask Junzabout a dance show he’d attended a while back but like always Jun is very reluctant to talk about his time as the Royal Seer, but does mention that Inigo was at the show with Umbra. He keeps making the noise from the horses’ hooves louder to avoid talking, much to Marlee and Verrix’s confusion.

Rhododendron: “VERRIX!” 

Verrix: “Hmm? What?” 

Rhododendron: “What do you think we need? Verrix?!” 

Verrix: “What??” 

Rhododendron: “What do you think we need in Asaraoi??” 

Verrix: “What did you call me?!”

The party plans on getting their final round of supplies before the Long Road, including a map of So’Joh. Verrix is still bitter about his cloak, which got fixed when Dilong saved their lives in the temple, but with silver stitching. While reviewing their supplies, Inigo says that he has a tinder box and then immediately drops it over the side of the cart. Jun mentions that he wants to break into the palace for the supplies he needs, including a glass eye worth 100gp. They also debate asking bandits on the road about Umbra, to which Jun offers to pick through the brains while Rhododendron suggests that Verrix use his powers of persuasion - which Marlee expresses some doubt in. Inigo still isn’t able to recall very much from his past memories.

Jun supplies a little more information about So’Joh and Nartai, including the fact that the criminal organization the Masks are a prominent figure in the capital - but Verrix isn’t worried about them. Rhododendron asks Jun if he’s worried about running into anyone in So’Joh, and but he says that he wouldn’t be recognized since he had someone help him (“paid a lot of money to”) change his appearance. Rhododendron pesters Jun about his appearance, and he continues to avoid giving an answer. Eventually, after repeated bothering (and some guilt-tripping) from Rhododendron, Jun gives a bare description of what he looks like, including that he has a tail. Rhododendron asks Jun if he thinks that the royalty in So’Joh are looking for him, to who he says that he doesn’t think that they care. Rhododendron thinks that the Emperor is probably looking for Jun on some level (and assumes that the child who died was the crown prince, which isn’t true since the child was a princess and wasn’t first in line to the throne, but Jun doesn’t correct her*). He tells her that he’d rather be dead than be the Royal Seer again.

*he usually uses ambiguous pronouns w no descriptions when giving info about ppl he doesn’t want to talk about, and rhododendron has a habit of filling in the blanks w her assumptions and he just tends to go along w them lmao

Rhododendron also manages to remember that the 80-day timeline on Queen Lunette’s return reward has passed, but the party hasn’t heard anything yet about the outcome of that. They wonder about who her replacement might be, and Jun expresses some concern that the Emperor of So’Joh might try to get involved with Gosha.

The party finally arrives in Asaraoi, where Verrix stocks up on some explosive crossbow bolts and Rhododendron gets rations and basic supplies for the road. She also asks around about a glass eye but doesn’t find anything even close to what she’s looking for. Marlee pesters Verrix about working on the book he’s ‘writing’ again, and Rhododendron gets him a forgery kit and a bracer for Inigo (but she doesn’t give them those gifts yet). Inigo looks at the wanted posters and wonders if he knows any of the people on them, while Verrix manages to recognize Jun’s description of what he actually looks like - and finds out his legal name; he points it out to Rhododendron.

The party also finds out that the people of Asaraoi sacrifice a volunteer from the town every year during the week of the flood, and are understandably horrified by this (or, Rhododendron and Verrix are). They talk to one of the clerics at the local church about it, and she’s very nonchalant about the whole thing. She also mentions that the town (as well as the town of Moyoto) pay the ‘Bloody Price’ (in sacrifice, again)  to the local giants of Giant’s Pass to keep them from attacking their towns. Marlee gets increasingly annoyed/bored with the cleric’s retelling of the Night, and she insists on being the one to talk about the myths behind it.

Marlee: “Anyways, she didn’t know what she was talking about.”

Marlee talks about how Yulong, the goddess of the ocean and storms, worked with Laoteng and Nyvarstra to give people life. She’s known for having a volatile temper, shifting just as frequently as the ocean’s tides used to. Yulong once fell in love with a mortal (that Marlee says was probably ‘young and hot’) and Yulong’s grief was so much that she flooded the entire world for weeks until Ardrin and Nyvarstra punished her for harming mortals indiscriminately and trapped her deep in the ocean. Marlee thinks that Yulong was being overly dramatic.

Rhododendron: “Have you ever been in love, Marlee?” 

Marlee: “Y - no, but I would like to.” 

Rhododendron: “I don’t really think you’re an expert on the subject.”

Marlee: “She still took it way too far, like it couldn’t have been that good. Like two weeks? She was like, drowning people, oh my gods. She needs to, like, chill.”

Marlee also mentions that there are different versions of the story, such as their love being forbidden by Laoteng or Zelia also having been in love with the mortal and killing them for revenge over not choosing her. Rhododendron remembers that the party still needs a map, and Marlee points to an excessively massive one on the wall, saying that they’re easier to read (and glossing over the fact that she might actually need glasses).

Rhododendron: “We don’t need more details, we’re going straight to Nartai, which is the biggest detail on the map since it’s the capital - ” 

Marlee: “Oh my gods, we can go shopping??” 

Rhododendron: “How about we go shopping after we find Raz?” 

Marlee, delighted: “Oh! Ah, your little boy-toy, oh that’s cute.”

Rhododendron: “I…don’t want Raz to be my boy-toy…”

Rhododendron escapes the conversation after that, taking Jun with her and leaving the rest of the party behind with Marlee at the tavern. She also wants to investigate the church again to see if they can find the town’s sacrificial volunteer.

Rhododendron: “We’ll have to explore the realm of your available emotions eventually.” 

Jun: “I’m good, we can stick with none.” 

Rhododendron: “I don’t know, it’s probably be good to know if you can feel…certain things…” 

Jun: “Hmm, no, not really, I can’t really see any benefits.” 

Rhododendron: “You don’t want to know the spectrum of pain you can feel?” 

Jun: “Uh. What I felt in the temple was enough. Don’t gotta experiment with that.” 

Rhododendron, upset: “Okay, whatever. Let’s just go. To the church.”

Rhododendron talks to Asaraoi’s sacrifice, who seems pretty calm about the whole situation. They ask her about where she grew up, and whether or not she loved the people in that town and what she’d be willing to do to prevent her family from getting hurt - what lengths she’d go through to keep the people she loved safe. They never really reach an understanding over the matter, especially since worship of Yulong is very limited or nonexistent in most of Gosha. The volunteer cleric tells Rhododendron that she looks lost, and that maybe she needs some sort of Guidance. Rhododendron is relived that the sacrifice is willing rather than forced, and also decides that they need to bunker down their horses in one of the warded stables before the floods come. They return to the party to discuss where to store the horses and Marlee offers to pay for them since the rest of the party is ‘so broke’.

The party decides to stay in the cart outdoors for now, and Rhododendron gives Verrix the paper and ink she bought (for writing the book) in front of Marlee before taking it back later. Marlee tries to teach Inigo some basic hand games (like patty-cake). Rhododendron tries to get through another section of the book Marlee lent her, getting progressively more embarrassed as the material gets increasingly strange. Jun lends Rhododendron his spellbook to hide the cover of the smut book from curious passerby, which she snoops through - she finds out that it’s a very old children’s textbook on Arcana that he’s written notes in and shoved extra papers into. She asks him about why he’s carrying a children’s spellbook with him, and he admits that it hurts to think about too much and would rather not continue on with the topic.

Rhododendron: “Why are you a wizard still?” 

Jun: “Cause it’s useful.” 

Rhododendron: “…And why does that matter?” 

Jun: “Cause there’s probably people that want to kill me.” 

Rhododendron: “But you’re not in a country where people want to kill you anymore.” 

Jun: “Kind of about to be, though.” 

Rhododendron: “Yeah, but you don’t have to be, is the thing. Why are you here?  Why are you helping me? Why have you stayed so long? Why are you still seeking magic when you don’t have a heart?”

Her line of questions triggers an emotional response in Jun (very bad CON save), who doubles over in pain while his eyes roll in the back of his head. Both Verrix and Rhododendron freak out, with Verrix insisting that she’s killed him. It takes about an hour and half before Jun’s pupils reappear and he passes out. Marlee checks in on them a few times during this, and tries to ask about what happened but Rhododendron refuses to give her an answer (even though Marlee says she is “the epitome of good”).

Marlee: “Do you need me to heal him?” 

Rhododendron: “I don’t think so, I tried a few times and it didn’t do anything. It just kind of burned up in my hands.” 

Marlee: “Ow, always kind hurts though, like a slap.” 

Rhododendron: “That is not how I cast Cure Wounds.” 

Marlee: “Oh, well. Maybe one of us is doing it wrong. Could be me.” 

Verrix: “Yeah, maybe.”

After turning down Marlee’s offer to cast Cure Wounds or Lesser Restoration on Jun, the party decides to take a long rest, leaving Inigo and Verrix on the first watch. Inigo teaches him the hand games that he and Marlee were doing (both of them roll extremely well). Marlee and Rhododendron take over the watch after them, and Rhododendron tries to ask Marlee about the smut book…

Rhododendron: “YOU’RE INTO THIS?!” 

Marlee, completely deadpan: “Ya, it’s hot.” 

Rhododendron: “Are…you hoping this will happen to you at some point???” 

Marlee: “It could.” 

Rhododendron: “Oh my gods, oh my gods. I don’t even know what to say to you right now. I’m not even halfway done.” 

Marlee: “Oh my gods, you’re not even at the best part.” 

Rhododendron: “What’s…the best part…?” 

Marlee: *winks*

There’s a day left before the rains start, and Jun still won’t wake up. The party heads into a room at one of the inns in town, crowding into a room with a couch and a bed. They debate trying to protect the door against thieves before deciding that they 1) have way too many people in here for a thief to want to rob them and 2) don’t look rich. Verrix still sets up a simple trap to make noise with some spare junk to rattle if someone tries to get through the doorway. When they look out the window they can see the sacrificial cleric walking through the town as the rain starts to pour. It takes a few hours for the rain to start flooding the town about four feet from the ground. Rhododendron, Inigo, and Marlee play go-fish and strip poker while Verrix stares out the window and watches fish (and jewelry) and shapes in the darkness float past.

As the next few days pass the party splits up to spend time away from each other in the main hall downstairs, with Marlee trying to pair random strangers up with each other. Rhododendron spends some more time going through Jun’s spellbook. On the forth day Jun finally wakes up, and he admits that he’s having a hard time telling what is real after having prophetic dreams for the past few days. After Rhododendron spends some time doting on him, they speculate about Inigo and Umbria’s connection to Zelia, a whether or not that’s going to come up at all as they get closer and closer to confronting Umbra. Jun still struggles with understanding how much information to share, and doesn’t really want to share things about the future that might not come to pass.

Rhododendron: “You don’t have to lie to me.” 

Jun: “I just don’t really know what to say, there’s just stuff you shouldn’t have to worry about.” 

Rhododendron: “I mean…you don’t really have a stake in my heart, though.” 

Jun: “I don’t understand…?” 

Rhododendron: “You don’t get to decide how I feel, is what I’m saying.”

Jun: “That is true, I can’t even decide how I feel.” 

Rhododendron (after Jun’s tried to escape the conversation several times): “……Jun? Remember that I trust you.”

Verrix goes around and pickpockets some merchants while Marlee continues to cause personal drama amongst the others trapped in the tavern with them. He also uses his weighted dice to scam some people out of a few silver, and then runs up to the room to hide out from people in case they figure it out. When a merchant knocks at their door Verrix ducks under the bed to hide with Marlee’s armor while Rhododendron (poorly) attempts to lie to the merchant. Verrix refuses to crawl out from under the bed even after the merchant leaves, insisting that he’s totally fine down there. After failing to convince Verrix to come out from under the bed, Rhododendron leaves the room to search for Jun, who left a while ago to go get tea. Verrix gets bored and tries to put on some of Marlee’s armor, but he can barely even drag the helmet halfway out from under the bed (and critically fails to shove it back under the bed, so he just kicks a blanket over it).

Rhododendron fines Marlee and Jun talking about all of the ‘couples’ that she’s helped create, and both of them tell her that they haven’t seen Inigo in a while. She goes looking for him and finds him up in the attic, which is used for storage. He says that he just wanted some space to think, since he saw someone downstairs with a tattoo he recognized - a skull with a dagger through both of the eyes - since he also has the same tattoo. Inigo isn’t able to remember anything about the significance of the symbol, but mentions that Marlee suggested Remove Curse or Lesser Restoration to try and fix his amnesia, although he’s hesitant since the memories he’s gotten back haven’t been the most pleasant.

Rhododendron: “Listen, Inigo, I have heard quite a lot about the person that you used to be, but I think you should keep in mind the kind of person that you are now.” 

Inigo: “Stupid?” 

Rhododendron: “I, uh - ” 

Inigo: “I’m kidding! I mean, I’m not but I am.” 

Rhododendron: “I just mean that at your core this is the person that you are, and you shouldn’t forget that, even when you remember who you are.”

Inigo: “That’s a lot of forgetting and remembering, but I’ll try.”

After talking about Inigo’s lack of memory and who he might have been for a while, they briefly touch on Raz’s situation and Inigo asks if her ‘little wizard’ is awake yet.

Rhododendron: “Do you not know his name?” 

Inigo: “No, I know his name, it’s just - you kind of dote on him a little.”

Rhododendron: “I don’t dote on him!” 

Inigo: “I’m just saying, you don’t see Verrix doing the same thing.”

Both of them also express their frustration with being stuck in the inn for the better part of a week, and Inigo admits that he’s been helping her with her chaotic destroying and re-pairing up of the couples in the building. Rhododendron begins to worry that Marlee will get this bored while they’re all trapped out on the Long Road together, and try to start things amongst the party members. The two of  them leave the attic, and Rhododendron goes to investigate the halflings downstairs to see if any of them have the tattoo that Inigo was talking about. She eventually finds them, but they aren’t exactly forthcoming on information (CRIT MISS Persuasion).

Rhododendron goes back up to the attic to send up a quick prayer to Yulong while the rest of the party regathers in their room to watch the floodwaters slowly receded. She returns to the room afterwards, and then reminds Inigo, Marlee, and Verrix that they need to wait until most of the crowd has left the building until they try to get their horses back since they’d spent too much time causing trouble. Marlee offers to officiate some weddings to fix some of the broken up couples, but Rhododendron tells her that would probably just make things worse. Rhododendron and Jun find their horses (Tulip and Carnation) just fine, although there are a few less lucky steeds that got partially eaten by the creatures that were moving around during the floods despite the magical wards on the stables.

The party reunited after the crowd has left the inn, and Rhododendron gives Inigo the bracer she got for him (and he starts to feel a little bad about causing trouble in the tavern), making Marlee and Verrix suspect that she has feelings for him.

Verrix: “Did she give you a present too?” 

Marlee, delighted: “She. Did. Not!”

As the last of Yulong’s tears of grief dissipate from the Material Plane, the party prepares themselves to head into So’Joh and begin their months-long journey on the Long Road.

[killers-high]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless /

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO? (i mean, he’s rather liked overall but there’s not that many ppl who rp him?)

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  OH YES / NO / IDK.

Are they underrated?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO / KIND OF?

Were they relevant for the main character?  YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. --> hard to say. kinda yes, but then not that much. there are characters who sure were more relevant.

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO.

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. <-- depends who you ask, heh

How strictly do you follow canon?  — In general I keep my Kenpachi close to canon, but I’m not very strict about it. I like to fill up the holes left in canon story with headcanons, and I’m open for plots that are canon-divergent as long as they simply make sense, logic-wise. I’m also willing to deviate from canon when comes to shipping -- for me it’s about chemistry and chemistry only; I have a few ships I like when comes to dynamics and such, but I wouldn’t turn down a character my Kenpachi grew to like/love only because it’s not on my ship list. Of course all the canon relationships are relevant and you can totally jump straight to the kind of interactions your character used to have with mine in the manga, but anything more than that needs to be developed first. Also, I acknowledge the relation between Kenpachi and Unohana as canon, but I see it more as a mother-child relationship; even if there’s some twisted kind of affection in it, it’s hard for me to imagine them living together as a happy little family. I know, the idea is cute, but personally I think there’s far too much bitter feelings between them so it could ever work this way.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.  —  Uh, I’m not sure what makes Kenpachi interesting for other people as a character, so I’ll just say a few words about what could make my version of Kenpachi possibly interesting to interact with, I guess. Kenpachi is a guy not only of great power, but of great experience as well. People tend to see him as a bloodthirsty berserk with all brawn and no brains, but there’s so much more to him than meets the eye -- he’s more clever than he likes to show, and while his kind of wisdom might be not so obvious and ‘classical’ kind, he has it and he uses it both in his fights and in interactions with others. Although he might make an impression that his own strength is all he cares about, it’s only partially true. Kenpachi likes to help others become stronger and watch them grow just as much as he likes to improve his own power; he hates to see wasted potential, and he often provokes or challenges people into situations that, in his opinion, will help them to discover their strength or improve as a person. He’s not a touchy-feely guy and he hardly lets it show, but he cares about the ones who are close to him and would risk own life without a second thought to protect them -- however, this other, more private and more vulnerable side of him usually stays hidden from the world, as he’s not willing to show it to anyone except those who worked hard to gain his trust.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  —  Kenpachi is not interested in people who aren’t willing to fight -- not only literally, but also fight for themselves, for their goals, dreams, fight to overcome their weaknesses, their bad experiences, their fears. He has little patience for those who whine and do nothing to improve their life, so instead of support they get as much as disdainful look from him. He’s hardly interested in interacting with anyone who can’t offer him either a good fight or a good challenge of some other kind -- or a way to kill boredom at least -- and can be pretty unresponsive if the way other character approaches him doesn’t pick up his curiosity. On top of that, he can be a bit of a handful at times -- he gets annoyed pretty easily, tends to be restless and snappy when bored, he speaks before he thinks and since he’s pretty foulmouthed and pulls no punches he often hurts others even while it was not his intention.

What inspired you to rp your muse?  —  My muse himself. Kenpachi was my favorite character from the first time I’ve seen him (around 2008 or so), and when I discovered Bleach rp on tumblr (by accident while hunting for pics lmao) I decided to give it a shot.

What keeps your inspiration going?  —  I don’t really need inspiration to write him. I can do it at pretty much any time given, likely because we’re similar character-wise and it takes me like zero effort to get in his skin. The only thing I need is a rough idea for some plot and BOOM here we go. Unless it’s a chat rp, then I don’t need even this.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES? / NO. <-- you tell me

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO.

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO.

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day?  YES / NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO.

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO.

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  —  I don’t have any problem with criticism in general. If something about my character or the way I write him bothers you, feel free to tell me. I can’t promise I’m gonna care though -- Kenpachi is a very personal muse for me, and the way I portray him sometimes can differ from other portrayals or from what’s ‘canon’ simply because he shares a lot of qualities with me as his writer. Fact that you criticized my portrayal doesn’t mean I will change a single thing about it, but sure I won’t get offended or stop interacting with you only cause you said a word or two. The only criticism I never publish/respond to is shit aimed at stirring up drama, as people who write such are not worth my time.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  —  FUCK YEAH. Some of them really force me to think about stuff I wouldn’t have thought about otherwise, and make me discover my character anew in some places I thought I already know him ins and outs. I like all the questions, no matter the topic, and I do my best to answer them with details.

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  —  Sure I’d be curious about what their reasoning is, like, what makes them think things aren’t the way I see them? What is their headcanon on this particular topic? Do they disagree completely, or just some part of it doesn’t lie well with them?

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  —  Depends how they carry it out. If it’s like ‘okay i don’t think so but it’s cool, everyone can have own opinion’ it’s totally fine, i’m far too old to bang heads over such silly shit (there’s no ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ portrayal btw -- everyone does it their own way and there’s nothing to whine about). If they come to my askbox solely with the purpose to pester me about it, and do it in a way that makes me question their age and/or mental health, I’m gonna block their ass out of existence.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  —  I don’t care and it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever notice they do unless they make effort to bring it to my inbox. In the end it’s their problem, not mine; I’m just gonna continue doing my thing while they’ll be wasting time and energy on writing shit nobody cares about.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  —  Sure. English ain’t my native so if I write something that makes no sense just lemme know -- it’s a way to learn, too, and if you tell me there’s a chance I don’t make the same mistake again.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   —  Yeah, I’m pretty laidback and I don’t give a flying fuck about 99% of things that tend to raise a lot of hackles. It’s nearly impossible to offend me, and I have a lot of understanding for the fact other people have their own lives, likes, problems, ideas, families, health issues, work routines and whatnot, so I never pester anyone for replies or anything rp related. However, I’m a confirmed extrovert in this kingdom of introverts which is tumblr, so I tend to hang out on Discord/chats a lot and then think I must be a fucking pain in the rear for my more introverted friends cause I’m always the one to message them first, and it makes me want to melt into a sad pool of shame for being such a needy fucktard.

tagged by: @hirako5hinji [thank you!]

Not sure who did it already, so if you see it on your dash and wanna do it, feel tagged B]

[sophygurl]

Okay, time for me to try and remember all the stuff I wanted to make sure and say about my lovely time at WisCon 43 this past weekend. 

Generally, I was just so pleased to once again get to extrovert all over the place in a space filled with amazing people. I got to hang out in my adjoining room full of my pals where we got to touch base with one another between running off to do other things and download our days to one another each evening. I got to enjoy several nice meals with friends I rarely get to see and acquaintances that I admire and respect. I got to have fascinating conversations with combinations of friends, acquaintances, and strangers in the lobby and at parties and in the hot tub. I got to sit on panels with intelligent and creative people with all different perspectives. I got to show off fun outfits and feast my eyes on everyone else’s cool shit and do the smile-and-wave at people I only see once a year even if we never got the chance to actually sit down and talk. I got to meet lots of new people and have adding frenzies on twitter and just generally delight to my heart’s content in awesome smart nerdy people who are also feminists with intersectional leanings - many of whom were also disabled and/or queer in a variety of ways. This is all what I just adore about WisCon so much. And it did not disappoint. 

Being my 10th WisCon, I have stopped being utterly shocked that people might know/remember me. But I’m still a little bit amazed and delighted by it - especially when it comes from folks who I admire a lot and also have not spoken to more than once or twice. I know some people are just better at remembering and recognizing people than I am? But it still never fails to impress me!

I was a little less schedule-y with myself this year than usual. Which is not to say that I didn’t have full written schedules of all the things I wanted to do (planning is my favorite of my OCD symptoms so...). But I was a lot more flexible about doing things like walking in late to a panel because I got excited to sit outside and talk to someone I ran into in the halls beforehand or leaving a panel early if I felt like I wanted to take my time getting to the next thing. I may have still written down all of the things I wanted to be doing in any given time slot and prioritized them in order - BUT I played it by ear at each time and often did a totally different thing. lol

I still did lots of panels! In fact, I find I get to so many panels that I don’t spend as much time just doing hang-out activities as much as I’d like because there is only so much time in a day. I once again never made it to the trans/genderqueer/non-binary space and only went to the disability space the one time for the organized dinner. Ah, maybe next year!

I also still took notes during the panels I went to, but not as copiously as usual, and my handwriting is getting worse all the time so we’ll see how/if my panel write-ups go this year. 

Getting my new walker the day before the con made a huge difference! It’s been two years since my previous walker broke down and I for sure noticed the difference in how much easier it was for me to get around to have one again. 

On the other end of things, I have really gotten used to my hospital bed and having to sort out how to sleep in a regular bed again was an adventure in positioning various cushions and pillows and blankets around and requiring more lidocaine for nerves that got bungled up. But it worked(ish). 

I also broke the toilet in our room. As in, neither plunging nor snaking did the trick and the maintenance guy had to take our toilet apart and cart it off and put a different one in it’s place. The replacement toilet was not currently in use for reasons that soon became obvious - lots of gurgling noises and self-flushing going on. But at least it flushed! 

A few more specific things:

I found a pair of hot pink denim capri’s at the clothing swap that I’m excited to try out! 

I discovered that my habit of suggesting lots of panel descriptions is more of a thing than I realized. Like, I knew I wrote a lot - I just didn’t realize how much more than the other average con-goer that was. I can’t decide if I should be more embarrassed or pleased/proud of this? But either way, it’s not going to stop me and I already have a huge list of ideas to write up for next year, so. 

Only made it to one party, but glad I got to that one. I find I don’t have the physical energy for dance parties anymore and have never been a huge fan of the sit around and make small talk parties, but the Secret Superhero party that Alexandra Erin and co. throw every year is a good one because 1) they give people Stuff To Do which helps cover for all manner of social awkwardness and 2) there’s already built-in a few people I know and can reliably socialize with a little bit so I have less of that tendency to walk in - peek around - see no one I know (or only see ppl I know already talking to other people) - get intimidated - and leave. 

Had planned to go to a lunch meeting for people to yell about The Magicians (of which I have a feeling my opinions would have largely been contradictory), but accidentally wandered off to lunch with other people without realizing I’d done so! Hopefully the 3 people I wandered off with did not feel as though I’d tagged along uninvited, but I certainly enjoyed the chance to get to know them all a little better. 

Once again did not make it to the Vid Party, but DID make it to the Vid Deep Dive panel, which was great. And have watched a bunch of the vids on the list now and am super excited about vids in general again and am hopeful that this will lead me to actually using my YouTube and AO3 accounts to specifically watch and fangirl over vids more. Vids are like magic to me and vidders like wizards - I am so in awe of their talent I cannot. 

Had some really interesting conversations about religion and fandom throughout the con - starting with my panel on the use of religion in SFF TV shows, dovetailing into a fascinating conversation down at the pool, and ending with some thinky thoughts coming out of the Antisemitism at WisCon panel. Possibly more on that later. Also possibly some more panels on the subject for next year?

Lots of panel topics and conversations this year ended up being about the combination of two subjects very close to my heart: 1) hope and/or redemption, and 2) community. Again, possibly more later and certainly some intriguing panel ideas for the coming year. 

I did buy two books this year! Budget does not always allow for book buying, but I did good on the food budget, so I allowed myself two during the sign-out. They were both from people I like to presume to call friends, which is always a nice plus - to buy directly from someone you want to support financially as well as personally. I got First Dates, Last Calls by Alexandra Erin which I’m excited to read and The Apocalypse coloring and activity book by Theo Nicole Lorenz which I’m excited to color!

I had wanted to get Laurie Mark’s final book in the Elemental Logic series Air Logic, along with the 3rd book (since a friend is planning to gift me the first 2 in the series), because Air Logic has just come out and the author and/or publisher were going to be at-con but by the time I got the Dealer’s room they were not there and by the time I left the sign-out they had not gotten there so it was not meant to be. But I still plan to get those books because I ADORE the series so far and am excited about the 4th. (I actually asked my library to purchase the book and am on the first on the holds list to get it once it’s in, so at least I’ll be able to read it soon if not actually own a copy)

As evidenced by my post the other day, I was thinking a lot about conversations being held about making sure more diverse voices are being heard during panels. I don’t have a lot of advice re: making sure more folks from more marginalized groups show up. But I find I did have a lot to say about making sure the panels folks are on end up being inclusive of many voices whether or not those ppl show up to be on the programming itself. And - I suspect - doing the latter well enough will help to foster more of the former as people will feel safer to come and share their perspectives as well as not feel like they have to always BE The Diversity Voice on every panel they choose to attend/be on. But I am a cis white chick, and I feel like it was mostly trans and poc folks these conversations were about, so I am eager to hear what other people have to say about all of this as and if they’re willing to share. 

I tend not to make it to GoH speeches or the Tiptree Auction because I have trouble with sitting still in a large room crowded with people type events. But as expected, even reading the text of Charlie Jane Anders’ speech made me weep with hope and joy and I hope G. Willow Wilson shares hers at some point so that I might also weep at hers. Those GoH speeches are always so inspiring and thrilling. I love this community. I am so grateful I became a part of it. I hope we can just always always keep growing and doing better to and for one another. 

Panels that I may or may not end up writing up a little about in the days to come: 

(the tail end of) Capitalism is Fueled by Anxiety

Favorite Queer Depictions in Fiction

Polyamory and Alternative Relationships

(the first half-ish of) New Pop Culture for Old Farts

Learning to Hear the Dog Whistle

Mental Illness in SFF

Vid Discussion Deep Dive

Antisemitism at WisCon

(parts of) The 116th Congress

Plus the five panels I was on, which will be less notes and more impressions: Killing Eve, Use of Religion in SFF TV, How to Write a Panel, Found Family, and Speculative Fiction on TV [also the spontaneous The Umbrella Academy panel which was small and informal but still really cool!]

[anonymoustalks]

It was difficult being vegetarian on dorm, i said i would return once i was done

(6-20-20) You both like conversation.

You: hi

Stranger: Hey

You: anything on your mind?

Stranger: Blank slate over here

Stranger: Very zen

Stranger: Tabula rasa

You: that's nice

You: I've been thinking about my self-esteem

Stranger: How high it is?

You: mhm right now it's kind of on the low side

Stranger: Ooof

Stranger: Everyone has those moments

You: so on omegle I often go to the #politics tag

You: and I often get called dumb

You: and I'm reflecting on that i think

Stranger: Talking politics online is a mistake

You: mhm ^^ yeah it's poor judgement

Stranger: Yeaaa

Stranger: How old are you?

You: 26

You: I like to find strongly opinionated people

You: and talk to them

You: because I want to understand them

Stranger: People who talk politics online arent here to come to an understanding

You: but I think in part through the way I talk, I end up getting called dumb a lot

You: mhm

Stranger: Welp, calling someone dumb isnt cool

You: yeah a lot of them are mean

You: but I want to know why they're angry

Stranger: Read books or articles

You: mhm I guess

Stranger: Not random internet weirdos opinions

You: I feel like I'm just skeptical when I read books/articles by professors or whichever about "white rage" or things like that

You: so I think it's valuable to talk to people from places where I've never been to

Stranger: People have trouble articulating thoughts and opinions, especially with topics that make them angry

You: mhm

You: I try to ask them about what their life is like

You: and things they care about aside from the hot button issues

Stranger: Truu

You: A lot of them are just really mean though

Stranger: Welcome to the internet

You: yeah

You: anyway enough about me

You: what do you normally talk about on omegle? ^^

Stranger: Oof, anything really

Stranger: Books, shows, hobbies

You: mhm

You: I like to talk about values

You: or like things that are important to you

You: kind of like if there is one thing in the world

You: that you would never give up

Stranger: No wonder you've had so many bad experiences

You: lol why?

Stranger: Lol

Stranger: Whats your values?

You: mhm, I think I value empathy

You: and just being kind

Stranger: I can see that

You: as for things I wouldn't give up...

You: I guess my individuality

You: (whatever that means)

You: sorry it's super abstract haha

Stranger: Lol, thats cool

Stranger: Values usually are

You: um, for physical things, I wouldn't want to give up the internet lol

Stranger: Is the internet physical?

You: fine lol, I guess that's abstract lol

Stranger: Lol

Stranger: You dont want to give up the server rooms and cables

You: lol

You: I'm not christian, but I find the concept of giving things up during lent fascinating

Stranger: What about ramadan you western centric shill

You: haha

You: I actually don't know anything about ramadan

Stranger: Ohhh

Stranger: I dont know a ton about it either tbh

You: I think I just remember people talking about fasting

Stranger: Mhmm

Stranger: They fast and avoid water during the day

You: mhm

You: I think lent interests me because I had a lot friends who would be like "I'm giving up chocolate"

You: or something random or specific

Stranger: Truue

You: it made me think about what I would give up, if I were to give something up

Stranger: Depends what the goal is right

Stranger: Whats the goal of lent?

You: mhm

You: umm

Stranger: Like am i trying to be closer to god?

You: (I don't know so I went to wikipedia lol)

Stranger: Trying to understand sacerfice

You: yes sacrifice

Stranger: Truu

Stranger: No idea what i would give up

You: mhmm

Stranger: Social media?

You: I hardly use social media haha

You: I went vegetarian for year and a half in college just because

Stranger: Oh nicee!

Stranger: That can be difficult

You: idk I didn't really have a sophisiticated reason for it

Stranger: I was vegetarian for four years

You: ohhh cool

You: why were you vegetarian?

Stranger: Ethical reasons

You: mhm

Stranger: I didnt like the meat supply chain and resources used for it

You: right

You: for me I had a bad break up and just spontaneously and randomly decided I didn't want to eat meat

Stranger: I'm the opposite of you, i stopped being vegetarian when i went to college

Stranger: Ohhh, yeah breakups suck

You: was there a reason why you stopped?

Stranger: It was difficult being vegetarian on dorm, i said i would return once i was done

You: ahh

Stranger: But i started getting really into fitness

Stranger: Hard to hit the macros with a vegetarian diet

You: right

Stranger: Why'd you stop being vegetarian?

You: mhm... I think I just stopped being vegetarian randomly

You: ...it's probably not very sophisticasted either

You: I've thought about it once or twice why I ended up vegetarian

Stranger: i feel like its appropriate, randomly stop what you randomly started

You: I guess I must have treated it like how ppl sometimes get a haircut after a breakup

You: like I think I wanted a different feeling to my life

Stranger: I didnt know that was a thing lol

You: ohh yeah like it's a stereotype

Stranger: I know about delete facebook and hit the gym

You: haha

Stranger: Didya get a fancy new doo?

You: no not really

Stranger: Rip, you had the perfect excuse to experiment

You: yeah it's true

You: I wanted to dye my hair in college

You: but never got the courage for it

You: and then towards the end, I was worried about jobs after graduating

Stranger: You play it real safe

You: yeah I do haha

You: are you risky?

Stranger: I dont think im risky exactly

Stranger: Just more than you lol

You: lol

You: can you give some examples?

Stranger: I have alot of extreme look changes

You: ohh

Stranger: Its fun

You: yeah it sounds like it would be

Stranger: And if it goes bad its fun to joke about

You: oh haha

You: I get self-conscious easily

Stranger: Yeah i get it

You: a lot of times I convince myself that a lot of peers secretly hate me

Stranger: Ooof, i've done that too

You: I think I need to be friendlier

Stranger: Also imposter syndrome

You: but I'm a huge introvert

Stranger: Mhmmm

You: and yeah imposter syndrome

Stranger: It can be hard to put yourself out there

Stranger: What did you go to college for?

You: biology

Stranger: fancy

You: it's like one of the most common majors lol

Stranger: Lol

Stranger: Did you like it?

You: mhm I liked it enough

Stranger: Thats dope

You: what about you?

Stranger: Finance and accounting

You: oh wow

Stranger: I was actually a biomed major before switching

You: ahh

Stranger: Hated itt

You: I know nothing about finance and accounting haha

Stranger: Especially labs

Stranger: Ughh

You: yeah labs are terrible

Stranger: "I know nothing about finance and accounting haha" Sometimes i feel that way too

You: oh my ^^

You: are you in that as a career right now?

Stranger: Yup yup

Stranger: Well right now im just doing contract work

You: mh so you're wealthy then? (jk jk)

Stranger: Was switching jobs when this shit went down

Stranger: Lol i wish

You: mhm

You: what exactly is contract work?

You: like I know contractors

You: but in terms of finance and accounting...?

Stranger: I do some tax services for clients of an accounting firm i used to work for

You: ahh

You: independent contractor?

Stranger: Yeaa

Stranger: What do you do?

You: ohhh does that count as self-employment?

You: I'm in grad school

You: ...for biology

Stranger: o lawd

Stranger: They got you in the grad trap eh

You: lol

You: haha

You: mhm yeah dunno when I'll be finished lol

Stranger: They almost got me too, but i was broke for too long

You: mhmm

Stranger: fuck you pay me

You: lol

Stranger: i joke, are you enjoying it?

You: yup, well, as much as I can

You: there's the typical stress and things

Stranger: Mhmm

Stranger: So its a masters?

You: phd

Stranger: ooooo

Stranger: You fell hard for it

You: yeah lol

Stranger: Lol, thats cool af

Stranger: Doctor stranger

You: lol I feel like I'm never going to graduate lol

Stranger: You got this

You: you're really supportive and nice (random)

Stranger: Lol thanks

Stranger: People usually say i have a bristly personality

You: really?

You: I think you have an active and engaging personality

You: but also very nice

Stranger: I like poking funnnnn

You: and the active personality gives the perception that you're really listening

You: which matters a lot

Stranger: I'm a good listener i feel like

You: mhm, you seem like one

Stranger: You're pretty chill too

You: thanks ^^

Stranger: Despite fighting politics online

You: lol I don't fightttt

Stranger: Despite trying to bridge the political divide online

You: that sounds terrible lol

Stranger: It is

Stranger: The internet kinda sucks with politics lol

You: mhm

You: I feel like it's hard to have deep conversations irl

Stranger: Depends

Stranger: Some people are more receptive than others

You: mhm true

Stranger: I get online its easier to be yourself, but its also easier to be an asshole

You: mhm true

You: I think I worry a lot about interpersonal relationships irl

Stranger: How so?

You: mhm, like there's a group dynamic I guess?

Stranger: Ohhh

Stranger: So where are you from?

Stranger: Did i ask that already?

You: and the there's work colleagues

You: nope

You: new england somewhere

Stranger: myseriousss

Stranger: Are you lost?

You: new england is small enough it could be like a state if you put it all together haha

Stranger: Go pats

Stranger: With that i exhausted my sports knowledge

You: lol I'm not very knowledgeable either

You: although we hold football watching parties at my house

Stranger: I know people hate the patriots

Stranger: Because they dont inflate their balls or something

You: huuh, see I have no idea what that means

Stranger: Not cool new england, inflate them please

You: lol

Stranger: Wow, you're worst than me

You: yup!

You: I'm also bad with tv shows, movies, and music

You: basically it's hopeless if you want to have a normal conversation with me

Stranger: Im listening to music right now lol

You: lol

Stranger: I love talking about all those topics

Stranger: But i can talk about anything tbh

You: I just don't know anything ^^

You: what do you listen to?

Stranger: Like right now or in general?

You: either

Stranger: Pick one so i can start

You: general!

Stranger: You got it

Stranger: I loveeee

Stranger: Folk music

Stranger: Blue grass

Stranger: R&B

Stranger: Motown

Stranger: Soul

Stranger: Rap

You: cool

Stranger: Thanks

You: I have no idea what blue grass is haha

Stranger: Should i ask what you listen to lol?

You: um the answer would be whatever youtube plays

Stranger: Wise

You: basically pop bc I don't know anything else lol

Stranger: Lol thats fine

Stranger: Pop is fun

You: where are you from?

Stranger: Canada

You: ohh cool

Stranger: Thanks

Stranger: Its pretty nice this time of year where im from

You: mhmm summer

Stranger: Yeaaa

You: I'm like looking up your genres lol

Stranger: Lol

Stranger: Want me to recommend a song?

You: yeah that would be nice

You: I found Wanderlust 🌲 - An Indie/Folk/Pop Playlist | Vol. I

You: because I guess I automatically go to playlists lol

Stranger: always alright- alabama shakes

Stranger: Lol, playlists are a good way to discover music imo

You: I often don't go back to figure out what songs are what though

You: this was my problem with the radio

You: I recognized songs

You: but had no idea who the artists or songs were

Stranger: I do that with albums when i listen to them cover to cover

Stranger: I never know the song names, just how they go

You: mhm

Stranger: So what area if your phd in?

Stranger: Is that too personal to ask?

You: immunology

Stranger: fancyy

You: it always sounds fancy, but I have no clue what I'm doing

Stranger: Give me some fire immunology facts

Stranger: Loool

Stranger: Ohh

You: uhhhhh

You: random facts uhh idk

Stranger: Lol its ok

You: lol kay haha

Stranger: I kinda put you on the spot

You: mhm it's fine, although I was racing in my head to find something that actually makes sense lol

Stranger: Sorry im so dumb : (

You: no, as in immunology seriously doesn't make sense

You: like it's basically jibberish

Stranger: Lol i get alot of it would go over my head, im just kidding

You: like CD45RA+ AB T cells

Stranger: BRAH

Stranger: Thats my favorite cell

You: lol

Stranger: I like how they

Stranger: Multiply

You: lol

Stranger: coolest ribosomes in the game

You: you're so chill

Stranger: I know

Stranger: My cell knowledge is sublime

You: lol

You: is there a reason why you like to come on omegle?

Stranger: Uhhh, i like talking to people

Stranger: So the quarantine kinda sucks for me

You: mhm

You: I forgot it was the quarantine

You: I was just thinking it's a friday night and you seem too cool for omegle on a friday haha

Stranger: Lolllll

Stranger: Trust me, im a massive dork

Stranger: Just a pretty social one

You: right

Stranger: Recommend me a song?

You: ohhhh so tough again

Stranger: Im not letting you off the hook this time

You: :c

Stranger: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You: *goes to dig through youtube history*

Stranger: Lol fair enough

You: do links work on omegle?

You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0OX-a17Hfk

Stranger: idk

Stranger: Did you send one?

You: yeah I did

Stranger: Naww lol

Stranger: Just tell me title and artist

You: v=W0OX-a17Hfk

Stranger: That works too

You: it's entirely instrumental

You: idk most of the stuff I listen to is just background music

You: for when I'm doing something

Stranger: I feel that, i listen to stuff without lyrics when im working too

Stranger: I like the art work

You: but yeah, I don't have much of a sophisticated taste in music or anything

Stranger: Dont worry, no music degree on the wall here

Stranger: I just know if i like something or dont

You: mhm it feels like most people have a strong sense of what they like an dislike ^^

You: for me it's kind of uhh... blank haha

Stranger: Lol

Stranger: I'll listen to any genre if i like the song

Stranger: This musics chill, i like it

Stranger: Reminds me of harvest moon

Stranger: Used to play as a kid

You: ohh

You: I've never played

You: I did briefly play rune factory on an emulator

You: but otherwise yeah I don't have a long list of games either ^^

You: I think I'm kind of boring overall

Stranger: lol you're not boring

Stranger: I wouldnt be talking to you if you were

You: oh lol

You: thanks

Stranger: Noo problem

Stranger: I'm kinda glad i found someone around my age to talk to tbh

You: ohh I forgot that I told you my age lol

You: do you normally get ppl much younger?

Stranger: I dont go here often tbh

Stranger: But yeah, alot of young people

You: mhm

You: I feel like you're probably the most normal person I've gotten in a while

Stranger: Lol im glad

Stranger: What do you usually get?

You: mhm angry people

Stranger: Also the political tag probably skewed your sample

You: a lot of people trolling or just having fun some way

Stranger: I seriously dont get the fun in trying to upset people

You: yeah I've been trying to understand that too

Stranger: Modern bullying i guess

Stranger: idk

You: like it doesn't work to ask "why do you like to be mean"

You: so I will continue with my research!

Stranger: Lol plz dont for your own sake

You: lol

You: haha

Stranger: Put the scientific method to bed

You: lol

Stranger: Do you know reddit?

You: yup

Stranger: Ask me anything

You: the subreddit?

Stranger: Naw, im doing an ama

You: ohhh

Stranger: You're the only one attending

You: lol

You: okay, I hope you don't mind if I push the pedal then

You: what do you regret most?

You: (I ask heavy stuff often lol >.<)

Stranger: Loll

Stranger: I felt like i should have ended my last relationship sooner than i did

You: mhm why?

Stranger: I was just kinda hoping the problems would get resolved

Stranger: And that kinda lead me to hold on

You: what kind of problems?

Stranger: Drawing the line here lol, i dont wanna be sad all day

You: ahh okay sorry lol

You: yeah I'm really nosy

Stranger: Lol its okk, i just dont wanna dwell in it

You: how long ago did you break up?

Stranger: How about you, whats your biggest regret?

Stranger: Few months ago

You: ohh

You: (I hope you're okay)

Stranger: I'm getting there

You: for me...

You: I guess not asking for help when I needed it

You: I don't have many regrets though

Stranger: Mhmm

Stranger: I never asked for help growing up

You: mhm I'm the same

You: or at least, I'm still really bad at asking for help

Stranger: I didnt wanna bother people, kinda just dealt with it on my own

Stranger: Yeahhh, its hard

You: right

You: and like I have a stupid amount of useless pride for something not important

Stranger: Sometimes i just try to remember that people do want to help alot of the time

Stranger: Oh truue

You: mhm right

Stranger: I also dont like looking dumb lol

You: yeah haha

You: okay for the next AMA: Make a confession of some kind that you don't ordinarily tell people

You: (though I guess this isn't a question)

Stranger: More like a demand

You: lol

You: clearly I'm not in the habit of doing ama's

Stranger: So like im pretty healthy and take care of myself alot

Stranger: And i come across as super confident

Stranger: But im like pretty insecure about my looks

You: mhm

Stranger: Like im pretty critical to myself

You: yeah we're often our own worst critics, right?

Stranger: Yeahhh

Stranger: How about you?

You: ohh

You: umm, how bad do I want to go lol?

Stranger: Lol, your call

You: I think I use omegle to boost my ego. Like I'm not interested in hooking up with anyone, but when people express interest in me it boosts my ego and then I can ditch them

You: >.>

Stranger: Ooof

You: was that heavy one?

Stranger: Lol no, i get it

Stranger: Im just preparing to be disconnected on lol

You: ohh I don't usually dc at all haha

Stranger: Mhmmm

Stranger: Well i think you're pretty cool tbh, take these ego points

You: oh haha

You: idk I think I'm selfish in a lot of various ways

Stranger: I feel like being able to refelct on it is like a good way to begin to address it

Stranger: Some people lives their entire lives without realizing what drives what they do

You: mhm

You: next AMA: What's something you dream of doing?

Stranger: A thru hike

You: thru hike?

Stranger: Its like a long hike that takes weeks or months

You: ahh wow that seems cool

Stranger: It isss, ive been on multiple day hikes

You: mhm I want to do one!

Stranger: But a thru hike would be amazing

Stranger: You can tag along lol

You: I have no idea how you would prepare for one haha

You: lol

Stranger: Lol

Stranger: You know how some people randomly plan holidays or online shop

Stranger: Just to waste time

You: mhm

Stranger: I plan thru hikes and my gear and food list sometimes lol

Stranger: Its pretty dorky

You: I think it's cool

You: wait so for a multi-day hike, how is that planned?

You: like do you usually go with someone?

Stranger: Solo or people

Stranger: I started going solo because its kind of hard to get people to come along

You: what do you pack?

Stranger: And being alone in the wilderness is kind of amazing

You: mhmm

Stranger: Pack alottt of stuff lol

You: lol

Stranger: I subscribe to the ultralight philosophy of hiking

You: mhhhm

Stranger: Where you try to keep gear minimal and light

Stranger: So you can go long distances and bee less tired

You: right

You: what do you see as essential?

Stranger: Tent

Stranger: Sleeping bag or quilt

Stranger: you're so lucky you're american

Stranger: You have better access to gear than i do lol

Stranger: Sleeping pad

Stranger: Backpack

You: really? for some reason I feel like canada has the outdoorsy stereotype haha

Stranger: Its legit amazing here nature wise

Stranger: Just harder and more expensive to get some gear lol

You: mhm

You: how much water/food do you pack?

Stranger: 2000 cals a day usually

Stranger: and i keep filtration tablets on me

Stranger: So i can reup on water

You: mhmm do you usually reup water?

You: I can see water getting a lot

Stranger: Streams usually

You: to carry

Stranger: Dont carry a ton, just reup on water

You: mhm

Stranger: being in nature is fun

Stranger: It feels like a reset for the brain sometimes

You: right totally

You: so do you usually pick hikes with nearby streams/water?

Stranger: Well there are usually trails people do

Stranger: Some people plan their own using a topical map

Stranger: I dontt

You: ah

Stranger: Topographic*

Stranger: Idk what topical is

You: on the surface of something ^^

Stranger: Lol oh

You: I guess it would just make sense to go a visitors center and ask for recommendations

Stranger: Naww, i usually just research it online

Stranger: I rambled a ton my bad lol

You: oh not at all

Stranger: What's something you dream of doing?

You: mhm I want to be lazy and copy yours lol

You: but I guess it's probably something vacation related

Stranger: The more the merrier

You: I'm super bad at planning

You: or more specifically, I procrastinate forever

You: so I don't plan vacations normally lol

Stranger: Loll

Stranger: I kinda like to wing it with a general idea of what i want to do

Stranger: I like exploring cities

Stranger: Where do you want to vacation?

You: ahh

You: mhmm I dunno lol

You: I so bad at being decisive lol

You: I do like outdoorsy things though

You: less so cities

You: I've never been clubbing or anything like that and I don't think I'd want to lol

You: I also don't drink very much

Stranger: Its overrated

Stranger: Im more outdoorsy too

Stranger: BUTTT

Stranger: Im a foodie

You: ohh

Stranger: and love stuffing my face when i visit a city

You: mhm that's cool

You: I think I like food until it gets too expensive

You: and then my heart sinks too much to enjoy it

Stranger: Brah fuck tourist traps

Stranger: I want hole in the wall joints

You: mhm those are great ^^

Stranger: Montreal is legit my favorite city

You: mhm montreal is great!

Stranger: Have you been?

You: yup!

Stranger: yessss!

Stranger: Have you tried the bagels lol

You: I think so

Stranger: Ughhh so good

You: ahhh yeah

Stranger: I bought two bags to bring back home lol

You: yeah I remember it now that I've googled it

You: they're fantastic

Stranger: Yeahhh

Stranger: Best souvlaki i ate was in montreal

You: ohh

You: I didn't know that was a huge thing there

Stranger: Idk if it is tbh

Stranger: But the place i went was fire

Stranger: Hard af to order tbh though lol

Stranger: They didnt speak english or much french

You: ohh interesting

Stranger: My cousin told me usually their daughter works the counter

Stranger: Im guessing thats why lol

You: lol

You: I took french in high school

You: but I forgot it all

Stranger: Welcome to the club

You: mh, it's kind of disappointing in a way

Stranger: Can always brush up on it

You: very true

Stranger: Do you know any other languages?

You: Chinese

Stranger: Mandarin or Cantonese?

You: mandarin

Stranger: Nicee

You: you?

Stranger: I can understand some hindi?

Stranger: Cant really speak much

You: ohh cool!

Stranger: Lol thanks

You: I can also understand better than I can speak

You: although my accent is okay

Stranger: First generation eh

You: mhm

You: uhh I mix up the generations

Stranger: Mhmm

You: I'm second generation

Stranger: Ohhh ok

Stranger: yeah i dont get generations either

Stranger: That means you're born here but your parents arent?

You: yup

Stranger: Ohhh, same then

You: I can never remember if that's first or second generation

Stranger: Preachh

Stranger: Alrii, hit me with another ama

You: mhm

You: let's seeee

You: bah I just thought one but it's basically the same lol

Stranger: Loll

You: biggest mistake lol

You: but that's so close to regret

Stranger: Should i ask?

You: sure

Stranger: OOff lemme think

You: looool

Stranger: lol

Stranger: Uhhhh

Stranger: Celeb crush lol?

You: ohh

Stranger: Sorry, i was struggling

You: no it's fine

You: I've never been a tv or film person so I never know actors

Stranger: Ooof i forgot

Stranger: Lemme think of another then

You: can I cheat and steal your question lol?

Stranger: Lol

Stranger: Nuhh uhhh, if you dont answer it

You: lol so cheap

Stranger: No one to blame but yourself

Stranger: Shoulda gave into celebrity culture like the rest of us

You: I'll just continue to live under a rock lol

Stranger: Ok patrick

You: lol

Stranger: Lol i got one

Stranger: What spongebob character do you relate to the most

You: mhmmm this is a struggle again XD

You: I know like three characters so uhhh

Stranger: loll

Stranger: That should make it easier!

You: oh the snail!

Stranger: Lmaooo

Stranger: I was about to say you're a total gary

You: lol

Stranger: What spongebob character do you think im most like

You: mhm you're outgoing and friendly

Stranger: aww shucks

Stranger: You dont really know me

You: idk I feel like there's so little to chose from so just spongebob

You: mhm very true

Stranger: lol

You: AMA: What do I not know about you?

You: or what I am I getting wrong about you?

Stranger: Oof

Stranger: Thats hard

You: ^^

Stranger: mmmmmm

Stranger: I mean theres alot you dont know about me

Stranger: Uhhh, i'm pretty good at vollleyball and basketball?

Stranger: Such a basic answer

Stranger: I blanked out lol

You: ohh those are cool sports

You: did you play in high school?

Stranger: Naw

Stranger: I was almost in the football team

Stranger: But gave up when i found out how often id have to stay at school

Stranger: Im lazy

You: ahh

You: what did you do afterschool in high school?

Stranger: Study, tv, games

Stranger: I legit sucked in highschool

You: hm sucked?

Stranger: Was super boring, didnt really like going out of my comfort zone

You: ahh

Stranger: What were you like in highscool?

You: I feel like I'm still bad at going out of my comfort zone

You: um, I was basically like the walking stereotype

You: swimming, piano, study, manga, writing

Stranger: Oof, i remember the manga kids lol

You: lol

You: that was mostly at home for me though

You: I read it when I was supposed to be studying

Stranger: We had a circle who hung out in the library

You: ohh

Stranger: I read a little of bit of a manga to try it

Stranger: I've watched some animes though way later on lol

You: mhmm

You: I never watched anime in high school because manga was much more discreet lol

You: I could read it on my computer without my parents knowing lol

Stranger: Loll

Stranger: tiger parents

You: mhm kind of yes and no

You: yours?

Stranger: They were pretty strict

Stranger: Moving away from them really allowed me to grow as a person

You: mhm same

Stranger: Sooo, what mangas did you read

You: ohh I read everything

You: like I was addicted lol

You: I read enough that I forgot what I read and the just all blur together lol

Stranger: Loll woww

Stranger: Do you read books?

You: yup!

You: or well, I mostly stopped reading when I went to uni though

Stranger: Boo

You: yeah I know >.>

You: too many readings for uni instead

Stranger: Pick up reading again imo

You: mhm it would be good

You: what do you read?

Stranger: I jump around alot

Stranger: Some of my favorites are science fiction, mystery, fantasy, historical fiction, dystopian

You: mhm

You: I love dark stuff lol

Stranger: spoooky

Stranger: So like

Stranger: I looooove horror movies

You: (I can't watch horror lol)

Stranger: But i havent read many horror related books lol

Stranger: Loll

Stranger: Thats cool

You: mhm for me I mean dark as in heavy haha

Stranger: Oh truuue

Stranger: Have you read The Road?

You: nope!

Stranger: Pretty good

Stranger: What genres other than dark do you like lol

You: mhm do you like survival?

Stranger: Like not dying?

Stranger: Love it

You: lol

You: I meant as a genre kinda (if that is a genre?)

Stranger: Oof idk, i dont think ive read survival

Stranger: Like man vs nature type of deal?

You: oh as kid I read hatchet and some other similar ones

You: yup

You: as for other genres, in high school when I was still reading a lot, I read a lot of fantasy and generic stereotypical trashy romance stuff

Stranger: Loll

You: oh and animals

Stranger: Like peppa pig?

You: I was the first one in my friend group to pick up twilight lolololol

Stranger: Lolll

Stranger: I never actually read the books or watched the movies

You: lol

Stranger: Do you recommend them?

You: uh, retrospectively no ^^

Stranger: lolll

You: but I did like paranormal romance as a teen

You: as for animals I read stuff like warriors lol

You: and also redwall actually

Stranger: I remember redwall

Stranger: Pretty dark

You: hm? I thought it was fairly normal lol

Stranger: Lol

Stranger: What about watership down?

You: yup I loved that one

You: well, it's a classic

Stranger: Yeaa

Stranger: I didnt read it, i kinda just assumed you would have

You: I did roleplaying forums when I was in high school lol

Stranger: omg loll

Stranger: Was that your rebellious stage?

You: lol not really

You: I was "writing" so

You: lol

Stranger: Truue lol

You: I did like wolf roleplays lol and stuff

You: I was nearly a furry lol

Stranger: Oh lawd

Stranger: Or actually

Stranger: oWO*

You: lol

You: I had a lot of really good memories from then

You: they're sort of like my defining experience on the Internet I think

Stranger: Thats cool

Stranger: A tight knit community can be nice

You: mhm, and it was actually writing, which was nice too

You: it was fun to sort of put characters and stories together

Stranger: Do you still write?

You: mhm super on and off

Stranger: Can iiiii

Stranger: Read it?

You: nope! XD

Stranger: Ughh

You: lol

Stranger: Worth a shot

You: I did nanowrimo freshman year of uni

Stranger: brah im canadian

You: it's an internet thing!

Stranger: Ohhhh

Stranger: Thats cool af

You: yeah but the thing I wrote was total trash lol

Stranger: Can i read that?

You: lol absolutely not lol

Stranger: But i want to so badd

You: when you rush to write 50k words in a month, that's like 1666 words a day

You: so basically you vomit over the page

You: and like your subconscious shows up on it which can be really bad

You: like it's like bad fanfiction but even worse

Stranger: Damn

Stranger: Exposed your Id for the world to see

You: yeah lol

Stranger: Idk if im mixing up id ego andsuperego

Stranger: I dont remember which is which lol

You: I don't remember the difference between them either

Stranger: Oh well

Stranger: Ugh i want to read it so bad lol

You: Ama: worst trouble you've ever been?

You: *been in

Stranger: I got hit for plagiarism once on a throwaway course

Stranger: I didnt do it thoughh

You: what?

Stranger: Lol it was a roman literature course

Stranger: And i used the wrong translation reference

Stranger: And the prof was a stickler for it

Stranger: I could have fought it but i didnt care enough

You: ohh

Stranger: Whops

You: yeah...

Stranger: Thats not even that bad tbh lol

Stranger: I mean maybe if you're a phd, but i was in business school and it was an elective

You: mhm

Stranger: You?

You: oh which one should I pick lol

You: I'll pick a parents one

You: so in high school, I also drew on deviantart

Stranger: whats that

You: ohh it's like the art website

Stranger: ALSO IM LEARNING TO DRAW

You: deviantart is like one of the biggest art websites, or at least used to be?

Stranger: Waitt

Stranger: Is it that like sex drawing site?

You: mhm no?

Stranger: Lol okk...

Stranger: Go on

You: although I guess people do draw some nsfw things

You: anyway

You: so I had a friend on that site, who had really serious problems

You: he cut and wrote really bloody and graphic pobik

You: poems

You: and we would pm and message each other

You: and my parents found out

You: and then freaked out

You: because they thought I was going to elope

You: to denmark

Stranger: LMAO

You: which is where the guy was

Stranger: Did you?

You: we were like 16

You: lol no

You: and it wasn't romantic

Stranger: darn

Stranger: Still a chance

You: yeah so I got banned from the computer

You: so like overnight I disappeared from the Internet

You: and I got really worried for him because basically I just disappeared one day

You: and like, he's not really stable you know?

Stranger: Mhmm yea

Stranger: Was he ok?

You: mhm like a year or two later he turned out okay

Stranger: Oohhh niceee

You: yeah

You: I only have one sad internet story

You: well with a bad ending

Stranger: Ohhhh

You: but yeah, for some reason I end up finding ppl with problems a lot

Stranger: You found me

You: D:

You: do you have many problems?

Stranger: Loll, i regular amount of problems i think

You: oh okay, I got worried ^^;

Stranger: Lol, i'm good

You: mhm that's good

Stranger: Could use some ice cream

Stranger: Mango

You: what time is it for you?

Stranger: 3am

Stranger: You?

You: same late

Stranger: Your schedule is fucked up too eh

You: mhm

Stranger: Yayy

You: we are doing shifts at my lab right now

You: since we're kind of half capacity

You: and I've been doing a lot of 2-10pm ones

Stranger: Oh truuue

You: the other one is 6am-2pm lol

Stranger: I've just been staying up because i can do contract work whenever lol

Stranger: Oh wowww

You: mhm

You: well it's the easiest way to fit 8-hours twice in a day lol

Stranger: Lol yeahh

Stranger: So what hobbies you have?

Stranger: Do you still draw?

You: uhh they're almost the same as in high school

You: except I'm less active lol

You: and I don't draw

Stranger: Damnn

Stranger: Highschol you was cool af

You: mhm I didn't really share those hobbies in high school lol

Stranger: Probably a good idea at the time lol

You: did you have a bad experience in high school?

Stranger: Longgggg story

You: ohh

Stranger: Ill shorten it i guess lol

You: okay

Stranger: I didnt get to go to the highscool everyone i went to middleschool with went to

Stranger: My parents didnt like that school

Stranger: I went to some catholic school instead and i was pisssseddd

You: ohh

Stranger: So first year i kinda was being a dick

Stranger: After that i kinda coooled off and made friends who i enjoyed hanging out with

You: mhm

Stranger: Wasnt as long as i thought it would be

Stranger: Im just really good at summaries i guess

You: ohh haha, I was expecting more haha

Stranger: sorry

You: mhm it's fine ^^

You: did you stay in touch with your middle school friends?

Stranger: Nooo

You: aww

Stranger: To be honest

Stranger: My parents made the right call

You: mhm how so?

Stranger: That other highschool and my friend circle was not great

You: mhm

Stranger: At the time it was the end of teh world

Stranger: You know, teenager things lol

You: yeah haha

You: did you have siblings?

Stranger: I doo

Stranger: One brother

Stranger: How about you?

You: younger brother!

Stranger: Damn same thing

You: lol

Stranger: Was he a snitch?

You: mhm not really

You: he was adorable actually

Stranger: Thats coool

Stranger: You guys still close?

You: I would say so, kinda

You: I'm not a very lovey-dovey person when it comes to family

Stranger: Mhmm, i get it

You: but yeah, I'm fairly close with my brother, kinda

Stranger: Lol yeah

Stranger: Im also 'kinda' close

You: I guess it's "kinda" for me because we get along really well whenever I'm home

You: but we don't talk a lot when we're apart

Stranger: Lolllll

Stranger: Same

Stranger: WE message eachother on our bdays

Stranger: or if something is up with the parents

You: lol once a year?

You: mhm yeah

Stranger: Yeaaa

Stranger: Hit me with another ama?

You: mhm I didn't prepare one lol

Stranger: Oof

Stranger: Go find a celeb and develop a crush

You: I'm still curious about your ex

You: sorry to dig it up again

Stranger: Its okkk

Stranger: It is what it is

Stranger: I think we just were headed in different directions

Stranger: And the idea of what was held us together

Stranger: When was your last relationship?

You: mhm I need to count lol

You: 5 yeas

Stranger: oh woww

You: is it surprising?

Stranger: Lol idk kinda

You: mhm I kind of had these little fluffy things in between since then but I'm not really counting them

Stranger: Yeaaa

Stranger: I understand

Stranger: Do you date and stuff?

You: mhmm not actively no

Stranger: Truuue

You: how long was your last relationship?

Stranger: 3 years?

You: mhm

Stranger: My longest one

You: mhm it must have been hard

Stranger: It wass, but i knew it had to be done

Stranger: Wasnt fair to either of us

You: mhm

Stranger: Sorry to be such a downer lol

You: no it's fine

You: life has its dark parts and lighter parts

You: I'm very familiar with that

Stranger: Just like cells

You: cells?

You: ohhh

You: those cells lol

Stranger: I'm an amateur cellologist

You: lol

Stranger: My favorite is CD45RA+ AB T cells

You: lol I stuck a bunch of letter together

Stranger: But he's so darn cute

You: mhmm sooo

You: I just realized that the number online right now is way higher than it was this afternoon

Stranger: No idea, i didnt really note it

Stranger: West coast probably hoped on

You: yeah

Stranger: East coast best

You: lol

You: what sites do you frequent aside from omegle?

You: reddit is one...

Stranger: Lol yea

Stranger: Thats the big one

You: mhm what subs?

Stranger: Askhistorians

Stranger: Fitness

Stranger: Books

Stranger: campingandhiking

Stranger: cooking

Stranger: changemy view

Stranger: dataisbeautiful

Stranger: explainlikeim5

You: those are really great subs ^^

Stranger: Lol i just looked down the list

Stranger: On my subscribed

You: was there more or did you stop at E? xD

Stranger: A ton more lol

You: oh lol

You: so many

Stranger: I'll stop though

You: yeah

Stranger: Those are kinda my big ones

Stranger: How about you?

You: mhm I don't use reddit

You: I did briefly in uni

You: actually around the 2016 election I was pretty active haha

Stranger: Ooof

Stranger: You're a big politics buff

You: I was a mod at the NeutralPolitics sub ^^

You: I'm like weirdly proud of that even though it was like only for a month

Stranger: Loll

Stranger: Thats really cool

Stranger: Not as cool as me being a mod of ultimate muscle subreddit

You: whaaat?

Stranger: A niche anime on fox that nobody has watched

You: lol

Stranger: I might make you assistant to the mod if you play your cards right

You: lol

You: mhmm it's getting kind of late I think

Stranger: Yeaaa

Stranger: Any chance you have discord?

Stranger: I had fun talking

You: mhm I do, but I don't share ^^

You: sorry

You: and I had fun talking too

Stranger: Dont worry, i wont out your fanfics

You: lool

You: I have a rules with myself for omegle

You: one of them is that I just don't continue anything offline

You: #pastmistakes

Stranger: Oh nooo

Stranger: What did you do lol

You: lol uhh it's pretty bad lol

Stranger: go onnn

You: umm, it's horrible enough that I probably shouldn't share ^^

Stranger: brahh, i had to talk about my ex

You: mhm but I had some heavy periods in the past

Stranger: dishh

Stranger: Get extra absorbent

You: omggggg rofl

You: basically times that were really emotionally low

You: it's easy to end up with people online for various reasons

You: and not turn out that great

You: I guess is probably the short story ^^

Stranger: You fell for some guy and it got weird?

You: pretty much

You: I actually crush over guys pretty easily online

Stranger: And i'm like super crushable

You: aww

You: but I just think it's better not to

Stranger: Many a maiden had fallen victim to my charm

You: lol

Stranger: I get it, i dont wanna cause you any distress

You: mhm, anyhow, have a wonderful night

Stranger: You tooo

You: goodnight!

Stranger: Gnight

You have disconnected.

[aitian]

monday jan 28 12:32

today was ok. i woke up knowing i would have to commute on my own to hubterbcollege for the first nycaasc meeting. the walk was so long through central park & not even the nice park area just the nasty sidewalk under tunnels where the cars zoom through.

nycaasc was awkward. everyone leading was awkward, & i felt awkward tension in the room listening to so many ppl say things i did & didnt agree with & embody things i hate/enjoy abt my asian-americaness. & esp being near Emily he was weird bc i knew they were into it but i dont think i was. so it felt like pretending. & i should have just left bc today was :/// but i kept hanging out w them like goingto a photo gallery then taking the bus back & going to their dorm to cook & eat w them & their roommates that i feel foreign & out of place being near bc its such a WOMXN space rather than a gender inclusive space of that makes sense & idk i feel so not welcome. but yea i felt boring & small & unwanted mostly but also a burden for taking up space & being all of the things above idk. bad vibes i guess.

i have been trying so hard to have good times too. on Saturday i bought alcohol w eelia & tasha & it was awkward & awful bc eelia was another at her mom for asking her to do work & tasha was being rly disrespectful of boundaries & coming onto eelia so much & i felt like a weird third wheel but in the middle of it if that makes sense. but yea felt ok but whatever & i spent the whole time checking in on eelia bc im a good friend but expecting reciprocity is always hard like today i wanted to go to jjs bc i didn’t eat well but instead i felt stupid for asking (begging) eelia to do smth she didn’t want to do & she said it was me who was being inconsiderate to her but whatever i guess that’s true & im stupid for wanting to not b hungry even tho i literally agree to like sit w her when i don’t need to eat and etc haha resentful

another thing that happened was i msged someone who interns at aaww for design for an internship lmfao & their answer was haha no things r strange yay cool idc which was a great thing to wake up to. i got into contact w them bc of emily li. i had some good hanging out w emily last week, esp friday we went to chinatown & it was comfortable like we can have silence & be ok type comfortable. & that night i went to amandas party & got so drunk off wine like i think i had a whole box. that was a rly good day.

& i met raphael who is so gay & so pretty & the first topic of conversation was how amazing his boyfriend is haha i want to die. idk y but there r so many unavailable attractive asian boys in my week. thomas is v cute & i think maybe confirmed queer?? not sure but he is at least friends w many gay asian ppl. & there r two very hot asian boys in my frosci class they r actually so hot. & finally the boy i took secret pics of that time i studied for lit hum with thomas on accident is in my new lit hum class. he was asked to be a scribe last time & it was so embarrassing bc the teacher had to spell everything out for him. columvia rly out here making a fool of anyone who doesn’t come from a bg of the white american education.

my first week was full of classes. very busy & i hung out w ppl every day. all of my cser classes made me feel like i didn’t belong, like they were not meant for first yr students who r depressed & unable to handle an intensive workload. all of my art classes made me feel like i was a fool for trying, like i am a fool for thinking it might be a space for me to learn from. i got put on the printmaking waitlist bc many many mfa students & upper yr students showed up. i am dropping drawing bc i do not need a while woman & a white woman space to tell me what actions of mine r valuable. & the only way i would succeed in that class is if i become exoticised in a way that feels appealing to them. so yea i have decided that i will not study art in my life i guess. wack.