#also you made a c and not a b on the exam yesterday so maybe instead of ordering takeout like you said you were going to

[preserve-or-raze]

my tags got out of hand

i keep thinking about hobbies and how i often spill over myself to pick up new ones. i have adhd, i end up trying something for like a month and then just getting far enough in it that i move on, satisfied.

and that should be fine; but it's never fine.

i am a pretty decent artist; but i can't just make art for my dnd campaign, i should be selling dnd maps and character designs and scene setting pieces. i can't just make my friends matching earrings, i need to get an etsy and ship them internationally and take bulk orders. i make pretty good props and decorations and use them to throw my friends parties - but i should be running a party planning business and start taking paying clients and networking and putting my skills to actual use.

for some reason, i never figured out the specifics of pottery. it was a fun class and i enjoyed myself - and still, i'm embarrassed, years later, that i put in all that useless effort. everything i make has to be stunning. stellar. i should have applied myself more. maybe i'm too lazy. maybe i'm broken and selfish and needy. actually creative people would have kept going; they would be bettering themselves at every possible opportunity.

we find ourselves in this trap, even accidentally: we need to commodify our time, because it is a commodity. if we spend our efforts and our time not earning, isn't that the same thing as burning free money? and god forbid you ever take up a hobby that ends up being more expensive than you thought. you sit in your car and you look at the receipt and in your head you hear a conversation that isn't even happening - your mom or your friend or your partner all saying oh great. not this shit again. it's always something with you, and it never actually means anything.

i have realized this horrible thing, recently - i'll get excited to start a project, pick up a new hobby. and then i just... stop myself. i start thinking about the amount of time it will take, and how it'll look in my monthly budget. what if i can't even produce a good enough final product. sure, it's exciting to think about how i could make my friend her own custom dice. but i'm just polluting the earth if i don't get it right. better not bother. better not try.

restless, i get caught in the negative space. the feeling that oh god, i want to create. and that horrible sense - yeah, but i don't have the time to just put to waste.

[speedychildnight]

FOREVER MINE// CHAPTER 5

Chapter 5

He left your cheeks and started walking again. Soon tears made their way to fall. You hang your head while crying silently and walking behind him.

Jungkook also got shocked and that's the only thing which was roaming inside his head that's why he failed to notice.

After some minutes you both reached in front of your houses. By that time you already wiped your tears.

Jungkook: Ummm...Yn... actually I... wanna go home today. As you know I didn't go there for 5 days. I think dust covered everything. I just wanna clean the house a little bit.

He said to you and it hit your heart like an arrow but you didn't lift your head and just nodded then went to your house without saying goodbye.

At your house...

Yn: I knew it...he...he will break everything. But I also can't handle it anymore. I am also a human.

You cried out loud while Jungkook's brain was also in a mess.

Time skips....

You cried a lot...

Yn: All those times I was just being fooled. I know I am not his type. That's why he didn't answer. I get it as we are bff so he doesn't wanna break my heart and tell me that.

You're thinking about it only while sitting on the bed. Your eyes became sore, red and puffy. Soon you drifted into sleep being tired while crying this much.

At Jungkook's house...

Jungkook: Did I just overreact? She told me beforehand, right? Shit... Ahhh I am in a huge mess now.... Oh no I have to sleep.

After 10 minutes...

Jungkook: I don't think I can sleep like that. Oh shit, I have to go to my dear plushie.

He got out of his house and came to your house. Your mom already told him the password. But when he tried that he couldn't able to open it.

Actually, you changed it. Cause you thought Jungkook would never come. That's why.

Jungkook: Aish! This girl. Did she just change the password? OK, I have to work on plan B. Ok, Jungkook be ready.

He climbed the pipe and reached the balcony. He opened the window.

Jungkook: Look at this clumsy girl. She locked the door but left the window what if someone who will enter other than me? Anyway, let me sleep. I can't even able to sleep without her.

He came near you but was shocked when he saw a dry tear stain on your cheeks and your puffy eyes.

Jungkook (in thought): She cried?! But why? Is it because of me? Don't tell me that....oh no. I am sorry Yn.

He climbed to the bed hugged you tightly from behind and drifted into sleep.

Next morning...

Jungkook woke up and saw you were sleeping beside him while hugging him so tightly.

He stared at your face for some time then brought his hand to your hair and started caressing it.

You woke up feeling some touch. As soon as you opened your eyes you saw Jungkook and a tear slipped from your eyes.

He wiped the tear with his hand.

Jungkook: Why my chatterbox is crying?

Yn: J-jungkook y-you c-came?

Your voice was shaking from crying.

He wiped your tears and again asked...

Jungkook: Ynaah what happened??

Yn: J-Jungkook I am very very sorry for yesterday. Please don't break our friendship. Please, please.

You were pleading him more like begging.

Jungkook: Are you crazy? Why would I break our friendship? You're too precious to me Yn. And why the hell are you crying?

You decided to avoid this topic as you got your answer that he is not going to end this friendship.

Yn: Nothing. I am just silly. I just want our friendship to never break.

You said and hugged him very tightly. He also hugged you back.

................

Finally, the day came for which both of you were waiting. The exam day...

You both wished the best of luck to each other and went to the exam hall.

As soon as the exam ended Jungkook came outside while running to tell you that he did his best. But you were nowhere to be found.

He thought maybe you were inside so he waited for you until the last people went from there.

He called you several times but all the calls went to voicemail. He started to worry about you.

Without thinking he rushed to your house and there he saw you curled up.

He ran to you and hugged you tightly. After some time he pulled out from the hug and started scolding you.

Jungkook: Are you crazy or what huh? Don't you know how worried I got about you? Tell me how many times I called you huh?

He was scolding you nonstop until he noticed that you were giving no reaction.

Jungkook: Ynaaah what happened? Tell me.

You opened your mouth to tell something but again stopped.

He got that you're not comfortable to tell right now. So he didn't force you and escort you towards the dining table to feed you.

Time skips...

It's been one week since you're trying to avoid Jungkook. It's so hard to avoid him when you're living under the same roof even in the same room.

But Jungkook caught you. So he decided to talk with you right now. Cause he can't take your silent treatment anymore.

You both were eating lunch. But suddenly Jungkook spoke

Jungkook: Ynaaah you know there is a Tteok-bokki shop in front of Seoul National University. Very first we will go there after our admission okk?

It's that moment when your heart is clenched. So, you kept silent.

Jungkook: yn I am asking you something.

Yn: I can't go to the college.

And that's when finally your tears made their way down to your face.

Yn: I am sorry Jungkook I can't keep my promise.

His chopsticks fell from his hand.

Jungkook: What happened Yn?

Yn: P-pa-papa i-is a-alive......

[random-blfan]

Alsar 66: New Quest

8 am.

I walked down the street in the morning sun, opened the guild door for the first time in three days, and Tord-san-san was sitting at the counter with a sleepy face.

"Good morning, Tord-san. Yesterday, I heard from Mr. Malik that there is a  quest for us. Is it posted on the bulletin board?"

"Good morning! Yes, it's posted on the bulletin board ... The solo quest  has 3 subjugations of A rank class monsters. The party quest is an escort mission that requires an A rank member in the party. I think it's probably that quest. "

As he spoke he shook his head lightly to get rid of drowsiness, then greeted me vigorously as usual then told me the contents of the quest.

It's difficult for me to subdue by myself without any means of attack, so it seems impossible for me to solo. Is it possible for multiple people to take a solo quest?

"This solo quest, for example, is it impossible for me and someone else to take it?"

"No, it's possible. Just be sure to take the quest as a party, and any number of people is fine in solo quests!"

"Is that so ... Thank you."

I wonder who to take along to do the quest.

First of all, I'm terribly inexperienced, so I'd like to gradually gain experience with quests.

"Is it a party quest?"

"Yes. It's supposed to be a party that includes an A rank, but the only parties here in Pedrel that have A ranks are Ren's [Luche] and Janna's [Casablanca]. Though Janna-san had taken this client’s quest before, they didn’t get along at all ,it seems like it went terribly, so it can be said that it’s perfect for Luce. " (It's suggesting that the quest can pretty much  only be taken by them)

"Ehh ..."

Originally there are only about 50 people in A rank, but is it a dangerous quest to specifically ask for an A rank?

What kind of person is the client who didn't get along with Janna?

If we don't take this  quest, no one will, so that person will be in trouble ...

Should I consult with those three?

"I see.... Thank you very much. Then I'll consult with Chris and the others and decide whether we want to take it or not. I'll see you later.

"Okay. I'll be waiting for you!

The last time I saw him, he was kind of gloomy, but I'm glad to see that today's Tord-san is more cheerful.After all, cheerfulness suits Tord-san, doesn't it?.

With that in mind, I headed to the 5th floor, where those three should be.

But really, why the hell are we on the top floor ......?

The stairs are pretty steep for me, but I'm sure the adventurers who stay here have strong legs and feet, so I'm sure it's not hard at all.

"I think Fer-san was the closest to the stairs… Is Fer-san here?"

"Yes, it 's open."

I knocked lightly on the door of 503 and heard Fer-san’s reply from inside, so I opened the door and went in.

It seems that preparations are complete today, and while turning his back, he wraps a dark brown waist pouch-shaped storage bag, Magic Bag, around his waist.

"Good morning, Ren-kun. Did you see the bulletin board?"

"Good morning, Fer-san. No, I haven't seen it, but I got the specifics from Tord-san”

"I see.... In the meantime, I'll go get the other two and we'll talk over breakfast downstairs.

Fer-san turned around and came up to pet my head, greeting me with a fresh morning smile.

People in this world really like to pet my head, don't they?

I feel like I've been patted a lot since I came here.

I guess I'm small, so I'm easy to pet.

"Okay"

When I replied, Fer-san grabbed my hand and we left the room to go to the one next door.

"I'm going to talk to Sig, so Ren-kun ask Chris, okay? ... Sig? Are you awake?"

"Understood"

I walked down the corridor a bit, listening to Fel calling Sig through the door, and knocked lightly on the door of room 501 where Chris was sleeping and called out to him.

"Chris-san? Are you awake?

"Yes, I'm awake. ...Good morning”

“Good morning. You're all set for today aren't you?”

As soon as I called out to him, the door opened with a bang and Chris-san peeked out.

I was a little relieved to see that he wasn't naked today, but was properly dressed.

"Fufu, too bad for you I’m wearing clothes ~?" (He’s kinda suggesting Ren wanted to see him naked)

"HA!? Not in a million years! Let 's go!" (The line here is something more like: there’s no way that’s the case, or smth along those lines, sounds pretty tsundere to be honest)

"Yes, yes ~"

Perhaps Chris read my thoughts, he leaned against the door and made fun of me with a grin.

I turned my back on Chris and started walking, but I'm sure he saw my cheeks turn red. The evidence of this was the giggling that followed me from behind.

"Hey Ren. Good morning"

"Good morning, Sig-san"

"Your face is bright red, did Chris tease you again?"

"Uh ..."

Sig-san's room was next to Chris-san's, so we got there quickly.

Apparently the redness on my cheeks hadn’t disappeared , he looked at me while telling me so, and I looked down to hide it.

"Okay, Okay… We'll talk about the quest downstairs while eating breakfast, right? Let 's go, Ren-kun."

"Okay…"

Fer-san gently pats my head and puts his hand on my shoulder leading me to the first floor.

It seems like Sig-san and Chris-san are following us from behind.

It seems that Chris and Sig are also following from behind.

When I got to the first floor, I was escorted to a table in the dining area like the last time, and they pulled out a chair for me to sit on.

"Ren-kun did you eat already?"

"Oh, yes, so I'll just get a drink today."

As before, the three asked for breakfast, and I started talking about the request quest while drinking orange juice.

By this time, the redness in my cheeks had receded, so I spoke normally.

"-So it's a solo  quest, but I'd like someone to go with me ..."

“Though I saw it yesterday I thought that this solo quest is a tough one for Ren-chan to go…”

"Ah, is that so?"

Chris-san tells me when I ask the three of them.

I didn't check the bulletin board properly, but that's true ...

 "Ah, indeed. First, it takes time to get to the site, and It's a pretty steep mountain, Oscar and the others can't climb it, so it's going to be tough for Ren, who's not very strong yet, and I think the other two will be difficult for Ren as well, so leave it to us this time.. "

"That's right. There were three quests, so let's take one each."

"Then we'll go  separately, and while we're waiting, one by one we'll go on a date with Ren-chan"

If the three of them, who are senior adventurers, say so, then they must be right.

I can't help it, if I force myself to go and become a burden, so I'll just give up this time.

A date in the meantime...that might be nice too...

"Okay, then what about the party  quest?"

"It’s an escort to La Serna. It's a 10-day round trip. It's an easy job to take because the departure date and time can be anytime between July 10th and 15th."

"La Serna?"

It is the first time I have heard of such a place.

A 10 days round trip means it is farther than Calhea. (I wasn’t sure how to romanize カリェーハ but I left it the way the previous translator did…)

"Yes, the Calhea meadow and the village of Bayunov are north of Pedrel, but La Serna is the exact opposite, it’s a city in the south. The roads are well maintained and usually do not pass through dangerous places, so a B-rank or C-rank adventurers are enough as escorts.There are also stagecoaches that connect towns without hiring guards in the first place, so many people go by that”

"And yet, they’re asking for an A-rank, or rather, us, Luce?

According to Fer-san, if guards aren’t really needed then why are we being assigned to do it?

"Are you really worried?"

"Well, if there was a problem, the guild wouldn’t accept the requested quest, so it must be fine ... what should we do? Should we take it?"

Is the client someone very worried about the journey?

When accepting the  quest, the guild side also confirms the identity of the client, so there seems to be less trouble.

So I don't think I'm going to get involved in a crime, and it's a new place for me, who has rarely left Pedrel.

Maybe I want to go there ...

"I don't know if it's right for me to accept a quest like this, but I've never been to this place before, and I want to go there. Of course, I'll also do the quest properly”

"If that's the case, should we take it?"

"Let 's do it "

"Then let's finish eating and go to the reception."

So it seems that I don't have to worry about getting involved in crime or anything, and it's a new place for me as I've hardly ever left Pedrel.

I kind of want to try going…

I'm not sure if I can decide not to accept a request like this. But I'm still excited about the new quest.

As soon as we finished eating, they all went to sign up for a solo quest and I took care of the party quest”

The desired departure date is July 11.

The blueprints for the house would be finished by then, and the three of them were told that if the solo quests went well, they would be done by then, so we decided to do it that day.

I'm looking forward to dating each of the three until the 11th.

TN: Sorry about the late update,  I’m starting exams this week but I’ll try to have the next chapter as soon as possible.

Take care∼

[jalapeno-princess]

Misunderstandings

Mark Tuan X Reader

Word Count: 5.3k

Summary: You’re failing your marine biology class and your best friend Youngjae recommends you sign up for tutoring. When you walk in to the tutoring center and your eyes land on the handsome boy who claims to be your tutor, you grow excited to start your sessions but you don’t know whether it’s because you have hope to pass your class or because you get to spend time with Mark. As the weeks go by, you end up developing feelings for the older boy and little do you know, he ends up falling for you too.

A/N: My last day of class was yesterday and I wrote this story last week the day before my finals and I was failing my marine biology class (please do not sign up for marine biology unless you’re passionate about science because I did not understand a fucking thing but ya girl got a C GOD BLESS) the thought of Mark as a tutor makes me cry I would purposely fail a class just to have him tutor me

“Y/n, it’s really not that bad. A 64 is still passing. D’s get degrees—“ 

You yanked your quiz from your best friend’s hands and began to walk away out of frustration. You had taken your midterms just a few days ago and you‘ve been studying for all five of your classes for the last month. There was no problem with any of your four other classes. However, science was never your forte; specifically marine biology. 

When you were first signing up for classes, the idea of learning more about the ocean and marine animals intrigued you. Therefore, you didn’t hesitate to add Marine 465 to your schedule. Unfortunately, once you began the class you were ultimately regretting your decision. 

For the most part, you considered yourself to be pretty smart. Sure, some classes were easier than others but you always tried your best when it came to your education no matter how hard the subject was. You’d put in more time in studying and went the extra mile to make sure you succeeded no matter how difficult the class was. 

As soon as your professor started with his lectures, you felt extremely lost and no matter how hard you studied, you weren’t retaining any information. It was as if everything you learned about sea level rise, coral bleaching and erosion went through one ear and out the other. When you received the exam a few days prior, your heart immediately sank like it normally did whenever you’d take the first look at an exam and did not understand a single thing. 

You were sure you studied for this midterm the longest out of all your classes but no matter how hard you tried, you just weren’t meant to do well. You answered every single question to the best of your ability and you had a tiny bit of hope that you did decently; but when your professor passed back your graded tests right before ending class, you were on the verge of tears.

“Youngjae, I am a nursing major. I can’t get anything lower than an A. This is so disappointing. Might as well turn in my scrubs now and drop out of the program. There’s no use! Nothing is going to help me at this point. There’s only one more assignment and that’s the final exam. Even if I do well on my exam, the highest grade I’ll get is a B. A B isn’t good enough Jae. Fuck science. What does marine biology even have to do with nursing? I don’t recall having to give shots to sea turtles!” 

The older boy caught up to you and pulled you into his embrace in attempts to calm you down. After six years of friendship, he was completely aware of what a goal driven person you were. Whatever you set your mind to, you’d do anything in your power to achieve it. After taking a look at the grade you were given, Youngjae knew that chances of you getting an A were extremely slim; but it didn’t mean it was impossible. 

Your best friend saw you through both your highest and lowest points and he knew you could handle anything negative that life threw at you. Your marine biology class was no exception. 

“I really don’t know what to do other than withdrawal and retake it again next semester.” You released an exhausted sigh before taking a seat on the nearest bench. 

“Have you ever thought about tutoring? Oh come on, don’t give me that look. What? Is the great y/n y/l/n too good for tutoring? Even the smartest students ask for help sometimes y/n, it wouldn’t hurt for you to ask for help once in a while. Maybe you’ll have an easier time learning from someone one on one rather than when your professor teaches your entire class. I’ll even go with you if that’ll make you feel more comfortable.” 

You gave him a soft smile before ruffling his hair. “Fine. We’ll go tomorrow. But if one of those nerds wants to get smart with me, I won’t hesitate to throw hands.” Youngjae’s laughter engulfed throughout the front lawn as the two of you continued to make your way to your last class. 

The next day, you found yourself hiding in the library and began ignoring Youngjae’s calls and texts to find out where you were. Right after he dropped you off to your apartment the night before, you decided that you did not want to go along with having to seek help with your studies. To say you were a stubborn person was an understatement and you knew you were being childish trying to refuse Youngjae’s attempts at trying to help you with your grades; but you hated the thought of having to be tutored because it reminded you that maybe you weren’t necessarily great at everything as much as you wanted to be. 

Knowing how you could be, he knew exactly why you weren’t answering his calls and he was well aware that you were planning on running away from his recommendation. One thing Youngjae loved most about you was your confidence and how you had such a good head on your shoulders. It was also something he cared about the least seeing as how you refused help from others no matter how much you obviously needed it. He began to search for you throughout the entire campus and since he knew you like the back of his hand, it didn’t take him long to find you. 

When you felt an arm on your shoulder, you jumped in surprise but released a frustrated grunt when you realized who it was. “Youngjae—“ he shook his head before gathering up your things and reached for your hand. 

“You’re not getting out of this. Y/n, just because you’re receiving help from someone else, doesn’t mean you’re any less smarter than you are. Stop being so stubborn. The tutors are genuinely nice people and they just want to help you. If you keep this act up then just take the F already. I don’t know what else to do for you!” 

Seeing your best friend so upset over something that wasn’t even his fault made you feel like a terrible person. He was only trying to help you because he hated seeing you beat yourself up over something he knew you tried your best at. Which is why you pulled him in to your embrace and leaned your head on his shoulder while whispering countless apologies against the juncture of his neck and finally agreeing to receiving help from a tutor. 

You’ve never been to the tutoring center before because you instilled it in yourself that tutoring was the last thing you ever wanted to go through but you were desperate. 

“Hi, how can we help you today?” 

For a moment, you felt like a little kid. Since you only agreed to be there a few minutes ago, you didn’t really understand how the tutoring center worked. You turned around to Youngjae and gave him a knowing look to which he sighed.

“She’s not doing too well in her marine biology class and needs a tutor.” 

The girl at the counter nodded in understanding before taking a look at her computer. After a couple of seconds, she picked up her phone and dialed whom you assumed to be your tutor. 

“Mark will be here in a few minutes. Please sign in and have a seat over there.”

You did as you were told and sat down on one of the couches before beginning to pick at your nails nervously. Youngjae gently squeezed your thigh before gently shoving you. 

“Hey, it’s just tutoring. You’re acting as you’re going for a job interview or something. It’s going to be just fine.” 

You heard some sneakers against the ground and when you looked up, your eyes widened in shock. He wasn’t someone you’d expect to be a tutor. As much as you didn’t want to be stereotypical and assume that all tutors were someone who wore glasses and suspenders, that was your idea of what your tutor would look like. 

The boy standing in front of you was wearing converse, a pair of gray sweats and a flannel. His hair was dark brown with soft, fluffy curls and the toothy grin he flashed you made your cheeks warm. 

“Y/n? Hey, I’m Mark. Follow me.” 

Youngjae gave you a wink before shoving you towards the extremely good looking boy. 

“So, I was told you need some help in marine biology. Do you mind taking out some of your homework and maybe some of your notes so I can get an idea of what you might need help with?” 

You sat down at the table with all of his things and began to pull out everything he was asking for from your backpack. After you took out your work and handed it to him, he started to look over your papers and began writing something down. 

“These are really good notes, but I think you’re having a hard time with analyzing and understanding the material. That’s why I’m here.” 

For three hours, Mark tried his best in making the lessons easier for you to comprehend by drawing out some key terms that he thought would help you get an idea of marine life. Once he felt you had enough for the day, he handed you back your papers and gave you a soft smile. 

“Good work today. I’m sorry if you still are having a hard time understanding, but I’ll be glad to help you up until your finals. How does that sound?” 

The idea of spending more time with him sent a warm feeling to your tummy. Throughout your entire session, he was extremely patient with you and even threw in a couple of jokes to make the atmosphere more relaxing. He even let you take a couple breaks as the two of you began asking each other a couple of questions to become more familiar with one another. 

You found out he was an engineering major but he was minoring in marine biology. From the time he was younger, he was always fascinated with the ocean and wanted to find ways to help preserve it. Hearing him talk about how passionate he was in finding solutions for climate change and coral bleaching brought you in a daze. Before you could leave, you both exchanged numbers and planned another day to meet up again. 

Once you began making your way back to where Youngjae was, you could feel your heart rate increase at the thought of seeing Mark again. 

“So, how did it go?” You shrugged before motioning for him to get up. 

“It was okay. He’s nice and you can tell he’s very passionate about marine biology. But I just have a hard time grasping the information. I don’t know about this Jae. It’s useless. I don’t want to waste his time.” 

Youngjae grabbed your backpack and your books as the two of you began walking towards his car. If there was anything Youngjae hated, it was hearing you talk so negatively about yourself. 

“Y/n, you’re not wasting his time. He signed up to do this for a reason. You’re not going to retain all this information in one session. You’re going to have to meet up with him multiple times in order to complete understand everything your professor is teaching you. I wasn’t there to see how he goes about with teaching you, but I’m sure they don’t let just anybody become a tutor. Don’t give up before actually trying okay? He could be the reason you’ll get an A at the end of the semester so just hang in there.” 

You weren’t afraid of Mark not being able to help you raise your grade. It was obvious he knew what he was talking about. You were afraid of gaining feelings for him because you felt that he would only become a distraction. It was already hard enough for you to learn about marine life, what more if you were to develop a crush on the person whose supposed to be teaching it to you? 

Over the course of a month, you’d meet up with Mark on Monday’s, Wednesday’s and Friday’s from 2:30 to 5:00. It didn’t take you long to finally get the hang of understanding the lessons your professor would teach you in class and you were excited when you found yourself catching on to the information Mark was giving you. 

Unfortunately, your feelings for Mark only grew more and more with each and every session. You’d catch yourself stealing glances at him every so often and daydream about what it would be like to kiss his cute little heart shaped lips, to run your fingers through his curly locks, to hold his pretty hands and to be held by him. But it was dangerous to think like that. No matter how kind he was to you, he never showed any interest in you and you had to accept that all you’d ever be to him was just another person he’d tutor. 

There were a couple of times Mark attended class with you in order for him to find out why you were having such a hard time learning and the thought of him taking time out of his day just to sit in on your marine biology class made your heart flutter like a school girl. He only wants to see how the professor is teaching so that he can make the lessons simpler for you stop giving yourself false hope y/n. 

Finally, the day of your final exam came and you were extremely nervous to say the least. No matter how long you’ve been preparing for this, all the sleepless nights you’d stay up studying on top of your tutoring sessions with Mark; you didn’t think you were ready to take it. 

As you made your way in to the lecture hall, you could feel your palms getting sweaty as your heart rate began to increase and it wasn’t a good feeling. Right before class could start, you felt a vibration coming from your bag and when you checked your phone to see the notification, a huge smile rose on your face.

Mark🤓: Good luck today y/n. You’ll do great! I believe in you. Let’s meet up once you’re done with the exam. You got this!👍🏻

Most people would consider it such a simple text of encouragement, but to you it meant the world. He had faith in you and with that knowledge alone, a burst of confidence ran through your veins and as soon as your professor passed out the exams, you began answering every single question without hesitation. It felt as if Mark was right next to you, cheering you on and it was such an amazing feeling. 

Everything he’s been teaching you for the last two months just kept flowing through your mind and before you knew it, you were finished. You took a few moments to go over your test to make sure you answered them to the best of your knowledge and once you were done you handed in your exam and dialed Mark’s number. 

“Hey y/n! How did it go?” You hummed cheerfully as you made your way down the hall. 

“I’d like to think it went well, but we won’t know until next week. Where are you? I wanna treat you to lunch as a small thank you for all your help.” 

Although you couldn’t see him, you knew he was probably smirking at the idea of food. A lot of your sessions were held at the cafeteria and the coffee shop on campus because Mark loved to eat. His love for food was adorable, and so was he. Only then did it hit you that you would no longer be needed Mark’s help and you felt your chest getting heavy when you realized you wouldn’t get to see him anymore. Other than Youngjae, Mark was one of the only people who genuinely made you happy. In fact, he was one of your only sources of happiness and you wanted to be with him as much as you could. 

“I’m in the library, but I‘ll make my way to you so you don’t have to walk so far. Are you still in the science building?” You absentmindedly smiled knowing he wanted to make things easier for you by meeting you half way. 

“Yeah. I’ll be sitting by the front door. See you soon.” While you were waiting, you took out your phone and texted Youngjae that you were finished with the exam. He was quick to respond and asked you if you wanted to go out and celebrate to which you let him know that you were treating Mark to lunch. Knowing how your best friend could be and how he’s been teasing you about Mark ever since the day he began tutoring you, you weren’t surprised to read the messages he sent you.

🦦: Can I tag along? Or are you finally going tell lover boy how you feel about him? Come on y/n, it’s been months. The worst he can do is tell you he doesn’t feel the same and you can go back to being strangers. The y/n I know is an extremely courageous person who will do whatever she possibly can to get what she wants and a boy is no different.

🦦: But I’ve seen the way he looks at you when he thinks you’re not looking. He gets all starry eyed and shit. As if the sun shines out of your ass.

🦦: make me proud y/n 😉

It didn’t take Youngjae long to realize you had feelings for Mark. You’ve never really had a crush before, so Youngjae knew there was meaning behind the blush on your cheeks and how flustered you’d get after every session with Mark. He was also quick to notice how you were always holding your phone as if you were waiting for a text from someone. When he confronted you about it, he was shocked when you didn’t try to lie about it and he was also secretly very excited. He’s been rooting for the two of you ever since Mark introduced himself for the first time two months ago. 

If Youngjae had it his way, he would’ve went up to Mark and confessed your feelings for him a long time ago, but he was never one to get involved in your personal life if you didn’t want him to.

“Hey, ready to go?” You nodded in agreement as he grabbed your books and slung your backpack over his shoulder like he normally did. It was little gestures like this that made you feel like he had reciprocated your feelings but then again, he was a gentleman to everyone. You’ve witnessed how he’d hold doors for everyone, how he always greeted someone he knew and how he’d always lend a hand if he felt like someone was in need. It was just who he was and you couldn’t confuse his acts of kindness for romantic feelings. 

The walk to his car was quiet, but it was a peaceful kind of silence. However, once he opened your door and you both got inside, he turned on the radio and began to sing along. He did this every time the two of you would go somewhere off campus. Mark was an actual ray of sunshine and sometimes he’d even get you to sing along. 

Sometimes, you’d find yourself dozing off at the thought of holding his hand that he wasn’t using to drive and leaving a kiss on his cheek at a stoplight. A lot of the times you would day dream, it would be made up scenarios of him and what it would be like to date him. You were suddenly broken out of your thoughts when he softly tapped on your thigh to let you know that you both arrived to the restaurant. 

Lunch was amazing. He made you go over the test questions and your responses for a small portion of it before beginning many conversations with you about anything your hearts desired. Conversation flowed smoothly between the both of you as if you had been friends for years and every time he laughed at something you had said, you could feel butterflies fill up the entirety of your tummy. Mark had such a distinct laugh and for someone who looked as manly and broad as he did, you wouldn’t expect such a adorable and extremely high pitched laugh to come out of him. It was your favorite sound and you were happy knowing you were the cause of it. 

To your dismay, your time together was soon coming to an end and you were surprised to find out that you’ve been at lunch with Mark for almost three hours. People weren’t kidding when they say time flies when you’re having fun. After you finished paying, you walked back to his car and he began to drive you back to your apartment. The confession was at the tip of your tongue. Youngjae’s words filled your mind. The worst he can do is tell you he doesn’t feel the same. 

As much as you wanted to know whether or not he harbored the same feelings for you, you didn’t want to make a fool out of yourself if you found out he didn’t see you in that way. 

“Hey, everything okay?” You looked at him in curiosity and gave him a fake smile. 

“I’m fine. Just nervous about what I got on the exam but I’ll be fine. Thanks for dropping me off.” 

He playfully pinched your cheek and made his way out of the car in order to open your door for you. Sometimes you hated how much of a gentleman he was, it only made your feelings for him grow stronger. 

“Of course! Thanks again for lunch. By the way, you have nothing to worry about y/n, I’m sure you did great. Don’t forget to text me as soon as you get the results. Until then, good luck with the rest of your exams. Have a nice rest of your day.” 

As you watched him drive away, you felt your heart sink. I like you. Why was it hard so hard to say those three words? Now you’d never know how he felt about you nor did you know when the next time you’d see him is. But if he liked you, wouldn’t he have made a move on you already? 

Exactly a week later, your professor emailed you and the rest of your class that grades were posted. Your fingers hovered over your log in but a part of you was hesitant to see what grade you were given. You were sure your heart was about to jump out of your chest and you had wished Youngjae was at your side when you were to find out the results. Or even better, Mark. 

You sent him a quick text to see where he was and what he was up to and he let you know that he was at his apartment. He asked if you wanted to go over causing heat to rise upon your cheeks. You’ve never been to his apartment before, so the idea excited you and you couldn’t wait to see him again. One week away from him was torture and you didn’t know how your life was going to be now that you no longer needed his help. He gave you the directions to his apartment and you quickly got ready so you could go and give him the news. The drive to his place felt like forever and you knew it was because you were on your way to see the boy who owned your heart. 

Once you parked your car and made your way up to his apartment, you could feel your palms getting sweaty and you soon grew nauseous. You giggled when you saw his doormat; of course he’d get one with marine animals on it. After taking a moment to breathe, you softly knocked on his door and waited for him to open it. 

As soon as he opened the door and you saw that he was only wearing basketball shorts you coughed up a bit and internally screamed at yourself for doing so. You knew Mark was built, but you didn’t think he was hiding a six pack and a very defined v-line under all of those flannels and sweatshirts. 

“Hey y/n! Sorry about the lack of clothing, I’m doing a load of laundry. Can I get you something to drink or eat?” You were still so focused on how attractive Mark was and how you were alone with him in his apartment to the point where you almost forgot the reason for being there. 

“No thank you. I um, I actually came here because I got the exam results and I didn’t want to look at them by myself so I thought I’d look at them with you. I’m sorry if I interrupted you.” He shook his head in disagreement before taking a seat next to you on his couch. 

“Don’t worry about it. I’m never too busy for you and I wanted to know what you got! I’m not even the one who took the exam and I’ve been anticipating your grade the entire week. But I know it’s because I saw how much time and effort you put in studying for this exam. So let’s see what your score is.” 

He sent you a wink and you were sure you were now red as a tomato from both the gesture and his words. You took out your phone and logged in to your school account. After you pulled up your name, you immediately handed him the phone and covered your eyes. 

“You look at it, I can’t do it.” He giggled softly at your worried expression before scrolling through your phone. When you didn’t hear anything from him after a few moments, your heart began to sink. That was all until you were being lifted off of the couch and pulled in to Mark’s arms. He wrapped his arms around your thighs and spun you around. 

“Congratulations y/n! You got a 98! See, I told you there was nothing to worry about! I knew you had it in you. I’m so proud of you.” 

Right as you were about to respond, his lips were on yours. It was as if time stopped and the room began spinning. You could’ve sworn you were dreaming yet you found yourself deepening the kiss as your arms made their way around his neck. His lips tasted like a mixture of mangoes and Cheetos puffs; an odd combination but one that you were now in love with because it was unique, just like him. All too suddenly, he pulled away and placed you down while beginning to pace back and forth around his living room. 

“Y/n, I’m so sorry. That was so uncalled for I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know what came over me. Please don’t tell your boyfriend—“ 

You looked at him in confusion before asking him what he was talking about. “That guy you’re always with. The one who waits for you during our tutoring sessions. Is he not your boyfriend?” It all made sense now. The reason why Mark wasn’t taking things further in your relationship was because he thought Youngjae was your boyfriend. That took a weight off of your shoulders. 

“No. That’s my best friend Youngjae. He’s been telling me to confess my feelings to you for over a month now but I was afraid you didn’t like me. I’m hoping that kiss meant that you do or else I’ll be taking my leave now.” 

You began walking towards the door but you were soon colliding with his broad chest while his hands made their way down to your waist. 

“I like you a lot y/n. More than I’d like to admit if I’m being honest. I just assumed you and Youngjae were a couple when I first saw the two of you together. I realized I was developing feelings for you around our third meeting when you went in to detail about why you want to become a nurse. Seeing how wide your eyes got in excitement as you described your love for helping others made my heart combust. You’re so adorable, you know that? Extremely beautiful too. And as I got to see how dedicated you were to your studies and your education, it made me come to terms with my feelings and I finally accepted them even if I felt like it was wrong having a crush on you while thinking you had a boyfriend.” 

He stole one more kiss from the corner of your lips and placed some hair behind your ear. “I looked forward to every single tutoring session and I don’t know if you noticed, but I would throw in some topics that had nothing to do with what I was teaching you that day just to prolong our time together. You are the most unique and interesting person I’ve ever met. You do this thing with your nose when you’re deep in concentration and the image would never leave my mind. You’re an extraordinary person y/n and it would mean a lot to me if you agreed to being my girlfriend.” 

You grinned at his confession before nodding in agreement and reconnecting your lips together. 

“I’m really glad Youngjae forced me to get tutoring.” He snickered before bringing his fingers up to your face and tracing your features. 

“And I’m really glad you suck in marine biology—ow—what? I’m just being honest babe—stop that!” He pulled you on to his lap and placed his head on your shoulder. “Since were a couple now, can I use some pickup lines on you?” You playfully rolled your eyes before sarcastically groaning. 

“Are you an octopus? Because you octopi my thoughts.” 

You hid your face in his neck from embarrassment. “What? You have to be honest y/n, that one was cute. And it’s the truth! Okay fine, how about this one, let’s cuttle—don’t look at me like that, I thought that one was pretty clever. What about whale you be mine—“ 

You brought your hand up to his lips to prevent him from talking. This boy was honestly going to be the death of you. But you couldn’t wait to see what the future held for the two of you. 

“You’re lucky you’re cute because those pick up lines are terrible.” He let out a scoff before picking you up and throwing you over his shoulder. 

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. Let’s go baby, we have some celebrating to do.”

[thepandemicinterviews]

Lily, December 13 2020, Sydney

The Guardian recently asked their readers how they would describe 2020 in one word. The top two words were ‘shit’ and ‘fucked’. I, too, am partial to the simplicity of a swearword, as you’ll see towards the end of this interview with Lily. I noticed as well our constant usage of crazy and insane to describe anything from literature to dreams to the general feeling of this year. Much like shit or fucked: when faced with utter absurdity, it is difficult for our brains to not reach for the most compact yet forceful words to express a sense of awe (in one of my psychology classes this year, we learnt that awe is apparently a combination of fear, joy, surprise, and embarrassment). There is no value judgment here: crazy, in the sense used below, is not good or bad. There are some emotional reactions that resist language – these overused words are a placeholder for silently screaming. Anyway, let’s lean into the madness and await catharsis. It’s okay to surrender every once in a while.

Today I thought of a better word to describe 2020. Tragicomedy. Merriam-Webster defines tragicomedy as ‘a drama or a situation blending tragic and comic elements.’ Tragicomedy goes hand in hand with a sense of alienation from reality. Amidst long stretches of despair and disconnection, there has been no shortage of satirical articles to help us along. Empty laughter is still laughter. And then there are tears, the ultimate symbol of the tragic. To quote myself in the interview, there’s a lot to cry about.

I honestly feel that tragicomedy is the literary genre that most resembles real life. Or perhaps it is a lens through which to narrativise real life, one that allows for the interlacing of misery and humour. Perhaps some of us are more inclined towards drama than others.

Lily and I were Tumblr mutuals for a few months or a few years, I’m not sure, before finally meeting through real life mutual friends. I was immediately drawn to Lily’s intelligence, her love of literature and all that is slightly intangible. Her unpretentious brilliance and interest in the lives of others resounds loudly in our interview. I feel blessed, and I feel warm, to have recorded this conversation.

With the close of our-year-in-chaos, 2020, as our backdrop, Lily and I ponder dreams, crying, pleasure, and the mysterious early months of the coronavirus. For those who make it to the end of the interview: sadly we did not see any shooting stars as we got the day wrong. But that shouldn’t stop us, or you, from wishing and dreaming for a less tragic 2021. 

C: Hi Lily. What’s been on your mind recently?

L: Oh man. A lot of things. Who am I? What am I? And what is this? [Laughs.] I think at the moment I’ve just been very surprised and overwhelmed by being a person. It’s been a very strange year and I’ve been reading a very strange writer in a very strange context for that writer. And I think I’ve just felt sort of strange coming out of that experience now that things are open. And it just feels very strange to be among people again, sort of, and really missing that. But also finding it all very odd. I think when you spend a lot of time, you forget what it is you are. In both a good and bad way. Do you agree Chloe?

C: Well, I’m thinking about how the person you are, or how you conceptualise who you are, when you spend a lot of time with yourself and not with other people – it can change a lot as soon as you start spending a lot of time around other people. Who you are, like what you think you are.

L: I think a lot of what has happened this year is people have spent a lot of time with themselves, and for some that has meant lots of really wonderful things like hobbies and things that they would’ve never taken up if they were living their day to day life with lots of friends and family. Loneliness can always have a very creative effect on people. But I think simultaneously now that we’re all among each other again a bit more, lots of the self-focused things that people were doing during lockdown have made them maybe slightly more intolerant to other people? That’s my experience. At least, both for myself and for others. I don’t know, it’s so strange. I used to never be bothered by other people’s daily things. It used to just not bother me, but suddenly it’s like really irritating.

C: You’re standing too close to me…

L: Exactly, you’re standing too close to me, did you just sneeze. All of these absurd reactions.

C: Literally a year ago today we would have never considered someone coughing on the train concerning.

L: No, exactly. In fact, I used to take pride in not being concerned by anything like that. I was like, the poor person is sick! Good on them for being out and about. That’s really changed. Now it’s like, oh my god, if you get me sick and then I kill someone.

C: There’s so much involved.

L: I actually had a funny experience the other day where – and this is partly why I actually felt like it was sort of fate, Chloe, that you asked to interview me at this point in the year. It’s true, because I think in the early part of the year, I don’t know, I was just – there were a lot of different experiences I was just sort of overwhelmed by. I underwent so many transformations in mood throughout this whole period. And I only think now that I’m sort of coming to a breaking point in my experience of this whole thing.

C: That’s amazing.

L: It is good! And I think yesterday, I just felt really happy. I just felt relieved somehow. I just had this sort of sense of relief in my heart that we’d come to the better side of what all of this is.

C: And the rest of the world is undergoing the worst they’ve ever seen.

L: Undergoing the worst, I know. And that’s so alienating. I think that’s actually probably been my worst and main feeling this year is just feeling sort of alienated from my own experience, from other people. Not really knowing how to talk to people in Melbourne, not really knowing how to talk to my family in the UK and in America. Because I’ve just felt like what was going on for me was just really different. It’s been that combined with I think just, in many ways, it’s just been overwhelming but sort of alienating being inside a lot for a long period of time. Or sort of the opposite of alienating such that you don’t get used to the amount of alienation. Like when you go out in the world and you are different from it, I think there’s a slight sort of alienation but in a really productive way, a way that’s really fun and enjoyable. But this year being inside a lot, you sort of lack all feelings of alienation and completely dwell in your own space, such that you go outside and you’re much more alienated because it’s no longer that nice, sort of productive space anymore. You’re not really a part of that. You feel like you are your house. Space is such a strange thing. When you move through lots of different spaces in the world, you sort of feel more like you’re simply you, in your body, as opposed to an entire space. And I think that’s a nice balance. Being able to envision yourself in different spaces and that’s not too alienating, you just feel part of it, I think. Did that make any sense or was that completely chaotic?

C: It was very chaotic, but I’m thinking about like space at a warehouse party where there’s no space and everyone’s… But there’s enough space that it’s comfortable but you know, you’re surrounded by people and that being allowed.

L: Yeah, it does weird things to people. I think I was originally going to tell a story but then that ended up breaking up into a million different thoughts.

C: Do you know what the story was?

L: Yeah, I do. It has to do with how I sort of came to a breaking point and it’s the significant thing that has happened at the end in terms of Covid this year, in terms of my life this year. Not like in itself as an event, but I felt like a sort of lead up to some event like this. Which was, a couple of days ago I had my first ballet exam. So I did that.

C: First ever?

L: First ever ballet exam. Which was really fun. It was really stressful, but it was fine.

C: Were you with other people?

L: Yeah, I was with two fourteen year olds. So I did that. I hadn’t had any breakfast because I was nervous for the exam. And then I went to the library and I had a talk at 2pm in front of the English faculty and all my Honours cohort. And it was just on something you’d learnt, so of course I hadn’t written it. I just thought, I’ve learnt so many things, I’ll be able to just come together and say something. And I ended up sort of thinking what could I use to reflect on my year. And I found some sort of quote from one of my second year essays. It wasn’t even a particularly good essay, but I was like yeah, I think that quote that I wrote about in that essay really fits this whole theme. And we’re at this talk and the first two speakers at the event were quite funny. Very well curated talks. One girl even said afterwards that she’d recorded herself speaking, which I found fascinating that she’d recorded herself. I was like, wow, these five to seven minutes were…

C: That important to her.

L: They were that important! She was going to make them good. I, on the other hand, wrote my speech in forty minutes when I hadn’t had lunch or breakfast. It was like 1:30pm. Anyway, I loved those two speakers. I still pretty much had faith in myself to speak on the spot and say something, which was maybe cocky. It was so strange when I got up and started speaking, and the first thing I said was, it’s so nice just to be here in this space among humans. I just started going on about how everyone looked so different three-dimensionally. It was so nice to hear voices, I just wanted to hear voices. That was sort of why I wanted to do this [laughs]. I just missed hearing the human voice. And I just started crying! Like, really crying. So much, at one point I was like okay, I’m just going to take a few breaths. I took a few breaths, and as I went back to talk I sort of like – you know when someone sort of cry-coughs in this weird way? And as I sort of cry-coughed trying to speak, a big bit of snot flew out of my nose, onto my hand!

C: How many people are here?

L: Like all of my English professors. The room was full with thirty-five people maybe. People who are my teachers. Everyone was there. When I saw the snot – there were no tissues, because obviously everyone’s like, no one should be sick if they’re going to be out, so we didn’t have tissues around. What they did have was a bloody Covid anti-bacterial cloth [laughs]. I sort of looked at it, went to grab it, and then was like, okay, no. That would be too much.

C: So good. A real Covid story!

L: Yeah. But I genuinely, I just kept crying, it was horrible. I completely lost the thread of what I was saying. I was like, I read Middlemarch in [so-and-so’s] class, and it was really good. And I thought that Dorothy and Will’s love was real – I just said all these ridiculous things. And I told everyone that before Honours, I used to dream about my essays, but I found instead this year it was really boring, which is probably the worst thing that I said!

C: You didn’t have any dreams about your essays?

L: I used to dream about my essays.

C: But not this year?

L: I probably have dreamt about them this year, but I’ve had fewer essays. And they’ve just been research essays, where the sensation of dreaming, it’s more like a nightmare. It’s like, oh my god, did I say that?

C: Do you dream about them after they’re written or are they like dreams that are conjuring up ideas?

L: Okay, I have to admit I still do have dreams in the nice way. But like probably two. Whereas I used to just have dreams, they used to be relaxing, that was the main thing that happened with essays.

C: What did one of the dreams look like?

L: Where you feel like you’re – I’ve always just described the sensation of just like getting deeper into something. You’re just like, yes, I’m going to get the mystery of this whole subject! I can feel the mystery in my fingers. Just this really sort of crazy sensation that makes you not want to wake up because it’s so good.

C: Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever had an essay dream. It sounds fantastic. Mine are like quite just not clear.

L: How do you feel in your dreams?

C: I feel like I’m just not really there. I don’t really have thoughts, I’m just… It’s not linked to me.

L: Yeah, they’re not linked to you. They’re not like intense.

C: They’re intense, but they’re not linked to my real life in the way that digging into your already existing essay is.

L: Right. They’re sort of glimpses of worlds. Is that how it feels? Are they like human worlds or are they like colours?

C: Oh yeah. No, I have dreams about things that are happening.

L: Not like directly happening to you.

C: It all feels a bit vague and murky. It’s not like a sharp, like, we’re writing an essay.

L: It’s funny, I mean I wouldn’t describe them as sharp because they’re still vague, but I think it’s more like a degree of intensity. Because you wake up in the morning, you don’t know what – like what can I say except that I was dreaming about the essay. Sometimes I can articulate clear ideas but they’re always just completely nonsensical if you go to say them. They just sound like very weird words. Someone’s always doing something unexpected, something that just doesn’t really fit or even necessarily reveal anything deep and meaningful. There’s this really chaotic element, and then there’s this sort of sharp sensation that it’s linked to something that is going on, maybe, with your life. And maybe that’s what – you have a dream, you don’t necessarily feel like it actually reflects anything in your real life in a clear – yeah, it’s not connected to that. It’s something else. But I think my dreams are vague. I don’t know anyone who has non-vague dreams. Can you imagine?

C: No, my friend has like really detailed and long dreams. And she can write it all out and it’s like a whole page.

L: I can write out my dreams. But they’re just crazy.

C: So you remember them?

L: I do remember them, yeah. If I write them.

C: But I wake up and I can’t remember it to the point of writing it. I can kind of feel it.

L: You feel that you had a dream.

C: I can feel it, and I maybe get little glimmers of a memory, but then it goes.

L: Yeah. I find those little hauntings so strange when you get a glimmer of a memory of a dream. It’s so crazy. I think because I dream a lot, I often have them throughout the day but I can’t remember when I dreamt that dream. But it gives everything an eerie feeling. Like what the hell. It’s like I’m living another life sort of in their dream and it’s affecting me emotionally. But just like, what’s the relationship between that dreaming world and that world that you didn’t consciously produce.

C: And for some people the lines are more blurred.

L: For sure. I think it’s always scared me, I feel for me they’re quite blurred. And I think it’s a scary sensation, you really can’t go too far with that.

C: Yeah.

L: I think honestly the thing that’s blurred the lines for me the most is literature and dreaming. I always find it really surprising that other people don’t realise how crazy literature is. It’s insane. What’s disconcerted me and what particularly disconcerted me on that day at the talk at the English department was I was like, how do people study this stuff? Like what is going on here. All of these people are dressed up like this is their job? This is the craziest thing in the world! Literature is insane! Do you guys know what you’re doing?

C: Let’s stop pretending. Stop wearing those suits.

L: Why are we pretending? I think particularly while I was crying, I was like, if you think this is crazy, have you ever read a book? You guys, you’ve all read books. This is normal, this is fine, this stuff happens. Much worse happens!

C: No, it’s the best place to do that.

L: Yes.

C: Citi did a similar thing in her acting class. She was meant to be doing some kind of role play. And then she just started laughing, and then crying, and she couldn’t stop.

L: No! Yes. Ugh. I hate that, I hate that. I mean, it’s sort of – I love criers, I love people who cry. I think crying can be incited by so many things. Crying, I think, it’s often its best and its worst at times when you’ve experienced some bit of rejection or grief. Like it doesn’t have to be a real rejection, just you perceive rejection. And if one other disappointment just really sort of crushes something of you at that moment, and it needs to be released in tears. And it can feel really good. It’s intense, though.

C: It’s intense in front of other people.

L: Yeah. Why does it feel so embarrassing? It’s all snotty.

C: Imagine if people just cried all the time around each other.

L: Some people can’t cry. My boyfriend’s like, I don’t cry, I can’t cry.

C: That’s fucked.

L: I don’t understand. I definitely cry once a week.

C: Same. There’s a lot to cry about.

L: There’s a lot to cry about. I used to have amazing crying fits before I was in a relationship. Now you can’t really have crying fits unless you’re by yourself.

C: You live with someone.

L: You live with someone and they’re like, what is wrong? And you’re like, I just need to do this.

C: It feels good.

L: Yeah, it’s hard for people to imagine. Some people just completely freak out about crying. When I came home I told my housemate what had happened, and he said, that sounds terrible, I wouldn’t have liked to be in the audience. There are just a lot of people for whom criers are just really embarrassing. And they’re just like, oh my god, I can’t believe you’re expressing emotion, I would never do that.

C: And that’s literature. It’s so tied to expressing emotion in socially not accepted ways.

L: Yes, for sure. All the different ways that people cope. Which is so strange to think. I can’t imagine being a person who doesn’t think about that all the time. How do people cope? What are they doing? There are so many ways of doing it, but you don’t know unless you talk to people or you read books, what’s going on for them. And often people don’t at least talk to each other in that sort of way. It’s more of a thing now amongst the young. But still, even though, lots of people have a lot of trouble. And you can always get better, really. It’s kind of like, I don’t really know entirely what’s going on with me obviously. No one knows for sure. Like we were talking about earlier, sort of with psychology, there’s only so much you get to know yourself without someone else.

[Both deeply sigh.]

C: Just seeing that in writing, like, both sigh deeply [laughs].

L: That was a massive sigh! I think we both needed to take a breath as well.

C: My yoga class today I found that I could breathe in time to [the instructor] a lot easier, a lot more naturally. Like my breathing improved. So that was nice.

L: That’s beautiful. The breathing is so nice, right? I used to hate breathing, but I like it now.

C: It’s a muscle that you have to train.

L: Yeah, it’s true. When it’s properly trained. I think running has really helped train my breath. I love the feeling of deepening your lungs. A sort of internal stretch.

C: Beautiful. Internal stretch. Good band name, perhaps?

L: It’s a bit scary! Chloe! This is hilarious.

* * *

L: I’ve really just missed overhearing conversations actually. That’s the one thing I wanted to tell you was that there’s something particularly beautiful about your blog to me, because the thing that I’ve missed most is not hearing other people have conversations. For almost no point as well, like a conversation that’s purely just about like, who are you, who am I, what’s going on? You know what I mean?

C: Yeah, and people have a lot to say if you ask.

L: Exactly, exactly. If you are just a bit curious.

C: Often in social settings, in a group, you don’t really get to ask about people’s thoughts and feelings.

L: Yeah, it’s true. I think often we just wait for people to come to us to say things that they want to say. There are so many things that people would just never say for that reason because they’re not going to think that you’re interested.

C: It’s amazing what a bit of interest can do to someone. That’s all like counselling. Someone actually cares.

L: Someone cares. Interest makes people interesting, usually, as well. Because they don’t just give you the sort of one word, ordinary answer where it’s just for the sake of it. If you actually seem interested, they might try to give you a real answer.

C: Ask further questions.

L: What’s the most interesting question someone has ever asked you? Or is there any question that someone has asked you and you’ve been like, wow, that was really psychic?

C: I can’t think of anything right now.

L: It’s hard to come up with on the spot.

C: Can you think of anything?

L: No, actually. But I think one thing that I’ve noticed, I used to not answer people’s questions because I thought they weren’t interesting. But then I went through this period of really liking it, and now I think this year almost I haven’t been that interested in people’s questions. Which I think is strange. It’s strange not just really really liking people’s questions. Maybe people haven’t really asked me any questions. Because I haven’t had that experience this year very much of having questions posed to me, and finding that interesting. I was noticing the other day, I was just like, what has happened? Has someone done this to me? Do I not like questions anymore? But I think that’s just, when you’re not at university and you’re not meeting people very often, people you don’t see day to day. People day to day, who live with you day to day often don’t ask you big questions. They’ll ask you little questions and because they observe you every day, they don’t necessarily realise that there might be all kinds of things going on inside of you unless you express that.

* * *

L: Pleasure is a very good thing. I don’t like it as much as I used to though. I don’t know, in some ways I like it more.

C: What kinds of pleasure? Just like pleasure in its purest form?

L: Yeah, enjoying food, sex, music. Very sort of sensory excitement. Genuine pleasure.

C: Those are the three pleasures! Food, sex, music.

L: There are other pleasures, but… Reading novels is a different sensation, it’s not quite as immediate. You have to build a sort of story. And of course, we can feel ourselves as part of stories as well and that can be very pleasurable sometimes. It’s like, I’m this sort of person, I have this sort of trace, these are my people. That stuff can be really meaningful even if not sort of directly pleasurable in the same way. I think that’s the really nice thing about direct pleasure, it takes you away from that more satisfying pleasure, like you’re on the sort of story narrative. People need a break from that, because often people don’t feel like they’re in a very good story.

C: I have just over – I don’t know, maybe it’s not over, like maybe it’s just normal and good – I just always create these narratives for what’s going to happen, what that means, and it never works that way. So I should stop narrativising but, you know, it’s instinctual.

L: It’s so instinctual. But the horrible thing about it I find is that it’s not just sort of narrativising what has happened, it is narrativising what’s going to happen in the future. When it comes to the future, it’s terrible because you just have so little control over it. So basically whatever you imagine is just not going to happen. Unlike with the past where it’s already happened.

C: Exactly. Sometimes I’m like, if I’m imagining this, it won’t happen. The chances are.

L: It’s true.

C: I just had a bit of a rollercoaster and I’ve come to the point where I’m like relationships don’t happen. Like it’s impossible. I’m not going to try to date anymore because it’s just futile.

L: Dating is one of the hardest things to try to plot and plan. Like you can meet people, but I think the worst thing is that a lot of people who are looking to meet people are a little bit – like they’re looking to meet lots of people, or they’re not necessarily looking to have a proper relationship. And if they are, often that doesn’t work out either because two people who are just looking to have a relationship aren’t going to work out.

C: Yeah, it takes away the spontaneity.

L: Yeah, not just the spontaneity but sometimes then you are with someone who you don’t want to be with. So how’s it going to last? Whereas, if you’re sort of compelled to be together…

* * *

L: Wow. I can’t believe we’re coming to the end of this sort of historical event, this year, 2020. Though it’s so weird it was called Covid-19. That always screwed me. It made no sense.

C: It’s because it existed in December 2019.

L: I know.

C: But no one knew. It’s crazy, have you gone back to any old news articles about it? You should.

L: I have something to confess, which is I was obsessed with the news story so early on, when there were like twenty cases.

C: No, me too! Like it all hit one day, when I was reading all these New York Times briefings on the plane. I was like, whoa, it’s spreading. But it was still such low numbers in those days. We had no idea.

L: I was reading about it before they knew that it was contagious. Like far before they knew that. Where they thought people only got it directly from an animal – there was that whole story. And the reason why I was so obsessed with it is because I was convinced that – well, I was very very unwell at that time and I thought I had Covid. In a way that made no sense whatsoever, made everyone think that I was crazy. Actually used all my data while I was travelling on reading about the twenty cases in the entire world! And I was just like, I am dying! The story gets me! We’re all going to die! Sam was just like, this makes no sense. You’re completely insane. It’s so weird. I still find that so strange. I was convinced when it was completely crazy. It’s because I was extremely unwell and probably did have Covid.

C: Do you think?

L: Yeah, well they know now through the poop samples that people in Italy had it in December as well.

C: Really?

L: I was there all through January, in all the busy museums, and I got this very very strange sickness where I just started with a cough and a fever, and it was a really really awful cough. Like I coughed blood, I was really really unwell. And I’d never been sick in that particular way with a cough and a fever. And like a horrible cough. I felt like I was going to die, like my lungs were going to collapse or something. I was so confused. That’s why I was so obsessed with the story, it just seemed really dramatic.

C: That sounds like you had it!

L: And Sam had the same thing, it was really weird. We had the same identical coughing and fever.

C: Okay, you definitely had Covid then.

L: Yeah, I think it probably was Covid! But it was unthinkable!

C: Yeah, you’re perfect for this interview. This is great content.

L: I’ve definitely told so many people that story this year because it’s just so dramatic. But when I came back in February, people were still like, it’s just a media… Like it’s not here at all.

C: Yeah, respectable people. It was like, it’s anti-China.

L: Which was a reasonable sort of thing to think. You know what I mean.

C: Yeah, because they were blocking international students. Like that was a trigger.

L: Yeah, and of course there’s been a lot of Australia-China stuff for a long time, so it makes sense.

C: And now the fact of anyone coming into the country without being in hotel quarantine is unthinkable.

L: Is unthinkable, yeah.

C: Crazy how we’ve just switched.

L: We’ve just completely adapted. Now like, yep, this is the way it is. Hard to even imagine post-pandemic life. Where we don’t have to wash our hands, or sign in to a restaurant, get a Covid test if we get a cold.

C: I haven’t been tested. I haven’t had a cold.

L: I haven’t been sick basically at all this year, except for last weekend, where I had a day where I sort of sneezed twice. I felt kind of unwell, I had a bit of a fever. Well, I felt I did and a sore throat. But it just sort of cleared away the next day. Sam was really unwell, so I thought I had got his – Sam was like, he’s been coughing and…

C: Did he get tested?

L: He’s been tested like a million times. He’s been sick a lot this year which is hilarious, because I haven’t been sick at all and I always get sick. But for some reason he’s gotten sick heaps this year. It’s sort of completely reversed. But I think actually, he said that in previous years he would never sort of give himself the permission to be sick because he would just keep wanting to go on and do stuff. But now because you can’t do that, because you’re like, well you might kill someone if you…

C: Yeah, it’s so extreme.

L: It’s so extreme. So when he’s felt sick, he’s been like, okay, I’m sick. And I think he’s actually been sick in this sort of – it’s very very odd.

C: Like he’s willed it onto himself.

L: Well, he’s just like, well now it’s okay. I’m going to say I’m sick right now. I’m just going to be sick. Whereas previously he’d almost pretend like he wasn’t, because he would prefer to keep living his life as normal. You can’t just keep living your life as normal if you’re sick anymore.

C: It’s rough.

L: I forgot what the question was.

C: There was no question. I don’t feel like I’ve asked any questions except for the first one. And that’s all we need! It was the perfect opener. Maybe I’ll do one last question. What kind of writing or any kind of art do you think will come out of, or be used in future works…?

L: About this period?

C: How do you think it’ll affect the literary landscape or film landscape?

L: Yeah. It’s a very very good question. I think a lot of things could happen. Because this year has pushed so many people to spend so much time with people they wouldn’t usually spend so much time with. As well as taking them away from other people. And force them to interact in entirely different ways. So I think there’s going to be a lot in terms of the sorts of relationships people have during Covid. I think the whole experience of people starting to date someone at the beginning of Covid, Covid happened, then they basically moved in with each other and got married. That is so weird! I think people are going to be writing about that sort of experience for a long time, because I think that would be so bizarre emotionally.

C: It’s like the first ever universal experience that we, in our generation, have experienced.

L: It really is. And I think that’s why in the beginning I was almost slightly excited. Like I remember looking on people’s Facebooks and being like, wow, I’m bonding with everyone!

C: Yeah, absolutely! But now it’s split off in so many…

L: Yeah! I think what’s so strange is that we had that experience, and for that reason at the beginning of the pandemic I was like, maybe people will become closer to one another, and be more reflective. I don’t know, like they’ll feel closer to each other. But I think actually it’s come out the other end and there’s a lot of alienation. And yeah, I think for that reason, there’s probably going to be lots of weird art about that as well.

C: Covid and conspiracy theories and Trump, all in the same very concentrated time. It’s like they all bounce off each other to create awfulness.

L: Under these sorts of circumstances, you can see why people would believe all sorts of insane things. It’s been an insane year. And I think a lot of the problems that we had before in terms of people being isolated, and they’re in their own sort of groups, whether they be good or completely awful. Just becoming completely radicalised. That has all been pushed to a much greater extreme than we could’ve foreseen. It was something that was happening much more gradually. I’m very very interested, and I kind of hope that we’ve reached a crisis point, and that this year leads to things getting better not worse. Like it hasn’t sort of just pushed the worst along. That’s the thing I hope the most for.

C: Well, definitely looks like some things have happened. Like Trump is no longer going to be president. Huge. Also, other thing that comes to mind is that Medicare-funded psychology sessions is up to 20. So maybe there’ll be more good things.

L: There will, yeah. Lots of things have shifted. Lots of people have gotten things that they wouldn’t have had otherwise this year. And I think myself included, I don’t think I would’ve learnt Italian this year without having a lot of money from the government.

C: And time.

L: And time! And I wouldn’t have felt as bored so as to be compelled to do it.

C: And now you’re going to be studying Italian!

L: Now I’m studying Italian next year! And I love languages! Lots of people have gotten weird good things out of this year. You can’t plan, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Sometimes I think – at least there was a point in the year where I really felt this – that Covid was just mixing everything up. Like it was just mixing everyone’s life up. And that mixing could be really good. It has been, for many people, as well as bad. It’s hard to know what to focus on sometimes.

C: And ultimately it is just completely out of your control. Like there’s no personal agency, really. That’s the messaging, but it depends so much on like actually having these laws enforced. Because in America, they don’t. So it’s on them to be really judgey about like mask-wearing, which is good, but it shouldn’t be on the individual.

L: No, it just creates a horrible culture as well amongst people. I think when you perceive other people to be in control, they just start becoming enemies, or you feel this really intense moralising impulse, which you don’t feel when you’re part of a community where it’s organised around being good.

C: Yeah, has leadership.

L: Yeah.

[Both deeply sigh again.]

C: Any last words?

L: Any last words. What are you thinking? You started this by asking me what I’m thinking.

C: I’m thinking how nice it is to be able to talk about it all. People don’t talk about things enough.

L: I agree.

C: 2020’s just been the most insane year, and we’re just like completely desensitised. But like, shit’s fucked. Shit’s fucked in the US. People are crazy. Like 50% of the population is fucked.

L: It’s completely awful.

C: Is that a good note to end on? Probably not.

L: I really don’t believe that that’s a good note to end on! [Laughs]. I don’t know, I was thinking before Covid, I think I was really focused on people suffering actually. But I think since Covid, I’ve just retreated into myself a bit. And I’ve avoided, because I’ve just gotten so tired of hearing about more numbers. I’m just really fatigued and I kind of just want to pretend like it’s not happening. Which doesn’t feel good, it actually feels horrible to be disconnected like that.

C: Just like imagine being the leader of a country that has 300,000 Covid deaths and like not caring at all. Like it’s fucked. Imagine 50% of the population feeling the same way.

L: No, it’s very much a sign that people are just not connected to reality. Not to other people’s emotional realities. People have started just seeming like objects, like they’re playing out in some world. But I think every single human being is unimaginably special, which sounds really – I hope it’s not too kooky of an idea. But yeah, people are just really special, and impossible to describe. It’s so weird but I think that a lot of what has gone on in people minds is that people have just started to seem replaceable or just sort of like shells of themselves, like characters rather than actually a living person who wants things for themselves, and things for others, and has all of this stuff going on.

[Long pause.]

L: There’s no way to end this is there?

C: So… do you have hope for the world?

L: Well, I don’t know, do I? I’m not a pessimist. I just feel very confused now though. I really don’t know. I’ve come out of this year very confused about what’s good and bad. I think this year has raised a lot of questions like that because we’ve had that thing where we’ve had our government be much more controlling, and that’s happened all around the world. Is that good? It has been good? Because we’ve seen what happens when you don’t do that. That’s also a very strange experience, which I have mixed feelings about.

C: We’ve had it really easy in Sydney though.

L: It’s true, we haven’t had to be controlled very much at all.

C: But for a few weeks there it was like, can I sit on this park bench?

L: You couldn’t.

C: It was crazy.

L: I remember that. Or when someone got fined for sitting down to eat their kebab.

C: Yeah, that’s so ridiculous.

L: You couldn’t go out with more than one person from your household.

C: Well, I was still working a little bit, so I still got the train and served people in the shop. So I feel like I didn’t really have a full lockdown experience.

L: It’s so weird that so many shops were open.

C: Yeah, we never had shops shut here. In New Zealand, they did the full like four weeks, no shops, no takeaway, just cook at home, go to the supermarket, that’s all you do. Four weeks.

L: That is crazy to think of. No, things have pretty much carried out as normal here in comparison. It’s just been an atmosphere among people. Like we’ve been allowed to do lots of things but there are places where you can’t sit near people. There’s a lot of cleaning happening.

C: It is pretty chill now compared to a few months ago. It’s all dependent on the contact tracing. You know, how interesting it is to think about all the maths behind it and tracking down this invisible thing that’s been passed around.

L: Yeah, it’s incredible. The sky looks like a sunset almost, it’s so bright.

C: Yeah, it’s strange.

L: On Thursday night, there’s going to be forty shooting stars per hour apparently.

C: When?

L: Thursday night between 2am and sunrise.

C: Oh wow. Are you going to be up for it?

L: I think I will. It’s the day before my thesis is due. So I think I’ll probably be up anyway.

C: Okay. I have work the next day but do you think I could see it from here?

L: Apparently you can see it all over Australia.

C: I don’t know if I can usually see stars from here though. I don’t think I can. Maybe in the backyard, a little bit. I’ll try and remember. We can text each other.

L: I really want to stay up for that. We’ll see some of it. I’ve never seen a shooting star.

[purplesurveys]

1165

survey by xxbieberburnham

A - Accidents

Have you ever been in a car accident? Very minor ones that only caused small dents, and nothing that wrecked either car or put someone in the hospital entirely.

Do you have a lot of scars? I have some, not a lot.

Have you been in a fist fight with someone? Nope.

Have you ever seriously hurt someone by accident? I remember striking my ex in the face accidentally while we were horsing around. She was wearing glasses at the time so she ended up getting a cut in the area in between her eyes.

Have you ever had stitches? No and like I always say, I hope I’ll never need to get them.

B - Beauty

Would consider yourself beautiful? Not beautiful, but I will feel pretty on some days. Not always, though.

Are you self consicous of how you look? These days not so much, because I don’t even get to go out in the first place and there’s been little need to fix myself up most days unless I’ll get on a video call for work. I don’t get self-conscious around my family either.

Do you wear a lot of make up? I never wear makeup.

Would you ever consider getting plastic surgery? Nope. I considered having my breasts done when I was a teenager, but the thought literally never crosses my mind anymore.

What do you think makes a person beautiful? Physically, I think it differs per person. More than that, it’s the things they do when no one is looking.

C - Consequences

What is the longest you've been grounded for? Maybe around a year? Due to issues at home and, honestly, poor parental skills on my mom’s end, I ended up being a rebellious problem child and wasn’t the easiest to temper or raise.

What would you do if you became pregnant? Keep it and try to seek support from family and friends.

Do you ever think about how your actions affect people? Always a people pleaser, y’all. Of course I do.

What do you think is the worst punishment someone could give you? I guess anything that involves taking away basic essentials, like cutting off access to food and water.

What is one thing you wish you didn't do because it wasn't worth it? Stayed in a relationship that I knew was going to end at some point. She always made it clear she’d end it one day and I was just too afraid of confrontation to face it sooner (and too stubborn to handle the truth).

D - Dealing

When you're mad at someone how do you show it? Cold shoulder.

Name a time when you had to be strong. The week of my grandfather’s death, wake, and cremation was on the same week of my entrance examinations for several universities, including the two toughest ones. I had already been in the headspace to just focus on the exams and shut out everything else for the meantime then the death happened, so my life turned into a rollercoaster of emotions quickly. I ended up entertaining relatives and fervently going through my review modules at the wake.  

Have you ever dealt with divorce? Well I’ve never been married and I also live in a country where divorce is illegal, so no.

When people don't accept you, how do you react? It will definitely affect my self-esteem to an extent. I imagine being bothered by it.

Have you ever lost someone to death? Yes. Just yesterday I found out one of grand uncles did from Covid. We are very close with that side of the family, so I am still in shock and have yet to process it.

F - Family

Is there anyone in your family you don't talk to? I barely talk to one of my uncles and only do so when we greet each other at family gatherings. Still, I haven’t looked him in the eye for years now.

If you had to choose: friends or family? Probably my friends.

Do you have any siblings? Yes.

How often do you spend quality time with your family? Pretty regularly now with Covid still on the loose. We have dinner together every night, then after that we usually hang out in the living room doing our own thing. Also breakfast on weekends.

G - Growing

How tall are you? Do you wish you were taller or shorter? I’m around 5′1″. I’m fine with this height.

Do you think you've grown up in the past year? So much. I think my surveys show that too.

Do you think you're mature for your age or still childish? I want to say I’ve matured in some ways, but I don’t think I’m fully there yet. For one, I’m still scared to learn how to cook lol and I can’t even light up a match.

Are you scared to think that one day you'll turn 30, then 40 & 50? Sometimes I’ll get in those moods because it makes me realize how fast life is and how quickly people turn old. But I hate getting stressed and mulling over things I can’t control, so I also immediately return to the present and just enjoy where I am now.

Do you believe you still have a lot to learn? I’m barely in my mid-20s, so I know that for a fact.

H - Hope

Love - real or not? I want to say it’s still real. Some people just get lucky early, I guess.

Are you a pessimist or an optimist? Realist.

Do you believe in fate or that everything happens for a reason? I believe whatever things that happen are consequences of, or are at least linked to, what’s happened in the past – wherever that falls under.

Do you believe that after we die, your spirit is still alive? I don’t believe in spirits, so no.

What gives you hope when you just feel like dying? My next paycheck. Hahahaha

I - Idols

Who is your idol? I don’t have any.

What makes this person an idol to you?

Has this person done anything good to help other people?

Does this person have good style?

What does this person do for a living?

J - Jokes

Tell me an inside joke between you and your friends. “Packs a punch” is one of mine and Angela’s long-standing inside jokes. I think I’ve shared this story before, but basically in one lunch break in high school I was tasting this juice that one of our friends brought; I remarked that it “packs a punch” which no 16 year old Filipino student uses in a casual setting, so it quickly became a hit in our circle and now Angela brings it back semi-regularly to tease me.

Are you usually the person to make people laugh or the other way around? It’s mostly the other way around but occasionally I’ll be able to blurt out a joke that ends up working well.

Do you cry when you laugh hard? Haha yes. That’s the best kind of laugh.

Do you get in trouble for laughing or talking in class? Almost never. I hated causing trouble, and if I was ever called out in class it was always a classmate talking to me that I was just too shy to ask to keep quiet.

Are you good at making jokes? Depends on the person. I hold back if necessary.

K - Knowledge

The prupose of school: learn, hang with friends or cause trouble? Learn and gain new experiences, then gain friends.

Do people refer to you as dumb, smart or average? I dunno, you’ll have to ask them.

What kind of grades do you usually get? I mostly bummed around in high school just because I didn’t think grades from that early on in life wouldn’t matter in the long run, but I still did well enough to pass all my classes. I exerted a lot more effort in college since that’s when educational backgrounds start to matter, and got even better results from there.

What is your favorite subject to learn or talk about? History.

L - Love

Are you currently in love? Nope.

Do people around you show a lot of love? The people in my life who’ve chosen to stay, yes.

Is love worth it? Not always, but yes, mostly.

Do you hate it when people say "I love you" & they've been dating for a day? It might confuse me a bit since I personally don’t take that phrase lightly; but I wouldn’t be one to judge.

Does it take a lot for you to say you love someone or is it just a word? Like I said, it takes a lot for me to be able to say it. The two times I dated my ex she was always the one who ended up saying it first.

M - Money

Do you believe money makes the world go round? Yes, and that it can buy happiness.

How much money do you have on you now? I’ve been using paper money less and less frequently now, actually. I’m all cashless these days, so my wallet is literally all out of bills and the coins there are probably just piled-up centavos I’ll never use.

Are you saving up for anything? My birthday treat. I already somewhat failed lolol - I got BTS coffees, Ivy Park shoes, and four boxes of wings just this week, but I told myself I am no longer touching my bank account until it’s time to pre-order food for my birthday.

Would you rather win 1 million dollars or find true love? Give me the million dollars. 50 million pesos would last me like ten lifetimes.

On a scale 1-10, how important is money to you? 10.

N - Nothing to lose

Would you ever go on a game show? If it’s a game show I enjoy watching, like Jeopardy or Family Feud. I might not be interested  if it’s anything else I’m not too familiar with.

Do you play the lottery? Never.

Ever been to Las Vegas? Nope.

Have you ever made a bet and then lost? Nah, I don’t really make real bets; I just use the saying with my friends but we never follow through with real money.

Do you give your all in a relationship? To a fault.

O - Openess

How long does it take you to open up with someone? It depends on how long it takes for me to be comfortable with them...some people can seem standoffish, so I’d be wary about opening up about my life to them out of shyness and uncertainty if they’d be down for such a conversation. Then others can be rays of sunshine who are very easy to talk to.

What does it take for you to fully trust someone? If they’ve proven to be reliable in crises. I’ve always said I’m more of a follower than a leader, so if I see that someone’s capable of handling any sort of issue that I can’t find a way out of, I will find it a lot easier to start trusting them.

Do you trust people too easily? Probably.

Are you comfortable with everyone? Definitely not. I like keeping my circle small.

Do you tell your parents and friends everything? Just my friends.

P - Positive

Is your outlook on life positive or negative? I like to keep it positive but still grounded to reality at the end of the day. I don’t wanna drag myself down with my mindset, but I also don’t want to give myself exuberantly high expectations.

Have you ever had a moment with someone & it didn't end positively? I’ve had very few negative one-off experiences with some strangers, but yes, they’ve happened.

Do you agree with: best to have loved than never loved at all? As negative as my experience turned out to be, I still think it’s better to experience love. I grew up in a lot of ways and also learned new things about myself because I loved.

Do you see most things as negative or positive? Idk, depends on how they realistically look like.

Has anything bad happened but something good came from it? Yes.

Q - Questions

When faced with a problem, do you solve it on your own or ask for help? Ask for help.

Do you like to take quizzes? Maybe not quizzes but surveys.

If you could ask the president one question, what would it be? When he plans to stop being a disgusting misogynist pig. And also if he has an actual Covid response action plan because I am not seeing anything fucking moving in the last year.

When someone does something wrong do you ask them about it or let it go? Depends on how close I am with them, or how attached I am to the issue.

Do you own plaid shorts? Not shorts but skirt, since I had to wear a school uniform in my old school and our school skirt was plaid.

R - Respect

How do you show respect for someone? I talk nicely about them, even (and especially) behind their backs. I also refuse to act or talk like a superior around them.

What can someone do to lose respect for them? If their stances on politics and certain advocacies are questionable; if I see them treating any employee under any industry shittily; and if they excessively badmouth people behind their backs.

Do you respect your parents, teachers or authority? Yeah. I’m afraid of getting into trouble and being reprimanded, and I always like looking good in superiors’ eyes so I’ve always been a bit of a goody two shoes.

If you're disrespectful to your parents, whats your punishment? I’m 23, have a full-time job, and give them a portion of my salary twice a month so they know they can’t really do anything about it anymore lmao. I’ve definitely noticed they’ve cut back on sermons directed to me. The most that can happen these days is that I would get a mild scolding, but that’s it.

If someone is mean to you, are you mean back? Of course, but I do it very passive-aggressively. I want to make sure I get the last laugh.

S - School

If you're still in school, what grade will you be going into? Not in school anymore and no plans to apply for a postgraduate course any time soon.

When will you graduate high school/college? I graduated high school in 2016, college in 2020.

After high school, what do you plan on doing? I went straight to college, as is the common practice here.

Do you like or hate school? I honestly enjoyed it for the most part; the only thing I really had a problem with was the demanding schedule and workload – back in college, I frequently had classes at 7 or 8:30 AM (which required me to start driving by 5 or 6 AM) and then I had extracurricular activities that would end at 10 PM at the very latest; meaning I was usually in my university for 17 hours every weekday. 

The upside to all of this is that I got to attend my dream school and was surrounded with my close friends, so despite the taxing schedule I have little to no complaints about my college experience, even in retrospect.

Have you ever been expelled or suspended? Never.

T - Temptation

Have you ever done something wrong but inside it was okay? Sure, I’ve definitely had my sneaky moments. Some of them I felt guilty doing and decided I’d never repeat, like cheating on a test; some of them I felt like needed to be a part of my youth years to enjoy life a little bit more and so I was ok doing them, like skipping classes to go see my girlfriend at the time or hang out at a bar with friends.

Has anyone ever pressured you to smoke or drink? I never like using the word pressured because my friends were nothing but. They did invite me to try out drinking and smoking, but they never forced me to do anything I was uncomfortable with. My decisions were always mine to make at the end of the day.

Did you ever cheat on someone? Never.

Do you give into temptation easily or are you independent? I think I’m a good balance of it? like I will say I’m influenced easily, but I still have the self-restraint to refuse things I’m adamant about avoiding.

U - Unique

Do you do a lot of things because your friends are? That’s the case sometimes, but not for all.

Do you follow trends or do whatever you want? Again, I can be both. It’s nice to like things that can be my own thing, and it can also feel cool to follow trends because it’s easier to relate to others who are into the same things.

Do you give in easily to peer pressure? No.

What makes you different from people your age? I dunno if there is anything that sets me apart. You’d have to ask other people.

V - Value

What's the most expensive thing in your room? Right now, probably the laptop I was given by my employer for work. I never use it though because my laptop works just fine, and I’m already used to how my own laptop works like and feels like; I have little time to get accustomed to a new laptop, given how hectic my work schedule is. It’s also an older MacBook Pro model, so I don’t want to use it even more than it’s already been used by past employees. I had to sign some contract that basically tells me I have to pay for it if I ever do some damage to it, and the current value is a little above P50,000.

What's more valuable: your life or the ones around you? Others’. But I’m also slowly learning to value my own as well.

What's something you value? Not because it’s expensive but it means a lot? Handwritten letters and notes from friends. Ever since I got a corkboard for Christmas last year I’ve been saving up the ones I’ve received and putting them up on the board; I hope to one day fill it up.

If there was a fire in your house/apartment what would you grab? Kimi. Someone else in the family is in charge of Cooper.

Do you think the past or future is more valuable? I think the present is, actually.

W - Wishes

If you had three wishes, what would they be? A sushi platter, a box of macarons, and my bank account replenished hahaha.

Would you rather wish yourself to be happy or others? Again, others’.

Do you believe that wishes come true if you really believe? Sure, but you also have to do something about them if you really want them to come true. Things won’t always come your way.

Have you ever had a wish come true? Yes.

Do you find wishing on things to be a waste of time? Not really; it makes me feel hopeful and gives me a reason to keep doing the things I’m doing.

Y - You

Are you more independent or social? Social. I love being around people. But I also like recharging by myself.

What's something that makes you mad when you see it? Animal abuse, more than anything.

Do you have potential to do anything you want? I hope so.

Do you believe people are born a certain way? No.

What color are your eyes? Dark brown.

Z - Zest

Are you currently happy with your life? I could be doing more if the pandemic wasn’t around, to be honest. But given how much has happened and what I’ve been through, I’m still happy with what I have for now.

When change occurs, do you get scared? Yeah, I’m very resistant to change and I try to avoid or outright deny it as much as possible. I know it’s a problem point of mine that I have to fix.

Do you like to try new things or meet new people? Try new things, yes always. Meet new people, not all the time.

What is the most motivational thing on earth? Money.

Do you have a motto? Nope.

Last questions

Do you hate how the letters on the keyboard aren't in ABC order? No, I’ve long been used to the QWERTY order and never found myself complaining about it either at any point.

Do you drink water? ...What?

What did you have for breakfast? I skipped it today, but this morning I did have a box of these chocolate Korean snacks that was part of the ~care package~ she had sent over to my house last Thursday.

Do you like convertibles? They’re cool. I don’t need to have one of them, but they look nice.

Do you like the American or British way of spelling words? I don’t have a preference in the sense that I dislike one of these, but I tend to follow American spelling.

What colors are on your country's flag? Blue, red, white, and yellow.

Can you skateboard? Nope, I haven’t even tried getting on one.

Do you like long hair? Sure, but not too long.

Do you like Fiber One bars? I’ve never tried them but judging from the name I doubt they would be favorites of mine.

What does your sleeping bag look like? I never need to use a sleeping bag, so I don’t have one.

Do you like to save your results after a survey? Yep, which is why I opened a Tumblr for it.

Do you like Sour Patch Kids? Just some flavors. I leave the other ones because I find them too sour for my liking.

If you could have your own show, what would it be about? Fooooooooooood triiiiiiiiiiiiiiip.

Ever rode on a jet? Not yet.

[katastroficwriter]

Fic title, "vulnerable"? :)

vulnerable

Summary: Kiibo and Ouma should never be together.

Especially when exploring a decrepit high school with rotting floorboards.

In which Kiibo and Ouma dug themselves a deeper hole than expected when they accidentally crashed to the bottom of a run down school with no other way out.

Tags: Supernatural, Heart-to-heart conversations

                                         ———————————-

“So ghosts, am I right?”

“GAAAH!!! SHUT UP! STOP TALKING ABOUT GHOSTS! I DON’T SEE NO GHOST! GHOSTS AREN’T REAL! YOU PROBABLY JUST MADE GHOSTS UP!” Momota’s sudden outburst easily grabbed everyone’s attention from whatever conversation they were having..

The next thing they saw was the face-splitting grin that slowly took over the supreme leader’s face.

“What’s the matter, Momota Kaito-chan, “Luminary of the Stars”? Scared of a few ghoooooosts~?” he cooed mockingly. “Then again…you know what they say! The more terrified they are…the louder they howl. Wow~!  You’re such a big coward, Momota-chan!”

“SCARED? ME? Of-of-of c-course not! Why the hell would I b-be s-scared of something that doesn’t even e-exist!” the astronaut stammered, taking a couple of steps back. “And I’m no coward!”

“I beg to differ, Momota-kun. There have been countless traces of the souls of the dead roaming in plenty of villages I’ve visited in the past, ku ku ku…” Shinguuji added, waving his index finger a little. “It was truly a wondrous experience. I still remember it as if it were only yesterday.”

“See? Even Shinguuji-chan says they’re real,” Ouma snickered. “And that’s why I want to see them for myself!”

“I-It has to be a lie! You probably roped Shinguuji into this! As long as you’re involved, it has to be a lie!” Despite the strength in Momota’s accusation, everyone can tell how badly his legs were shaking like a newborn fawn’s.

“You’re just afraid of the truth, that’s why you always dismiss it as lies,” Ouma tapped at his lips with a deceitfully serene smile.

“Everybody settle down!” Akamatsu huffed, placing her hands on her hips. “Anyway…what’s with this sudden interest in ghosts, Ouma-kun?”

“Finally! Someone asking the right questions. I knew I can count on you, Akamatsu-chan~” Ouma waved his arms up and down with uncontained excitement. “You see…I wanted to propose a class bonding activity in the form of a test of courage!”

“A test of courage? Hah! I’ll ace that like how I aced my astronaut exam!” Momota slammed a fist against his chest, color returned to his face.

“After your shameful display? I highly doubt that,” the supreme leader made a show of flicking dirt off his nails.

“Ouma you bastard–”

“But a test of courage in Spring? Isn’t that a little…off-season?” Shirogane spoke, raising her hand. “Wouldn’t Summer or Autumn be a more suitable time for those kinds of things?”

“Oui, Oui! Shirogane-chan!” Ouma crossed his arms over his chest. “But you see, the abandoned Saishuu Academy would be demolished next month! We absolutely cannot afford to wait for Summer or Autumn!”

“Saishuu…Academy?” Saihara lifted the bill of his hat as he spoke. “Why there?”

“Huh? Is there something going on with Saishuu Academy, Saihara-kun?” Akamatsu tilted her head to the side.

The detective tugged his hat lower, “Um…none that I know of. It’s just…my great-great-grandfather used to go there during his time.”

“Exactly!” Ouma pointed at the detective. “Saishuu Academy is one of the, if not the oldest school in the entirety of Japan! It’s bound to house a lot of ghosts in it!”

“What makes you so damn sure about that, you gremlin? It’s not like people fucking died there!” Iruma scoffed.

“Shut your stinky mouth and listen, pig, you might actually learn something if you do,” Ouma slammed a hand on his desk.

“H-hiiee!” 

“The school has a clean record, sure. But I’ll have you know that Saishuu Academy was in fact built over an execution ground for criminals! A prison! There’s plenty of deaths on that land, that’s for sure!”

“Nnngh…you’re probably just lying again!” Yumeno pointed an accusatory finger at the leader, though her bravado was belied by her pale face. “Y-you’re just saying that to d-disrupt my mana flow!”

“Oh, but what Ouma-kun said is in fact true,” Shinguuji chuckled. “I even have records of it in my lab. I would present it to you all, however, it’s a very old record and thus very fragile to the elements. I do not wish to damage it.”

“S-stupid! This idea is stupid anyway! Why do I have to go through a test of courage when we already know how courageous I am!” Momota slammed his fists together. “G-ghosts or a-ayakashi, or y-y-youkai, they aren’t r-real and are just stories invented to t-torment the feeble-minded!”

“No need to be shy, Momota-chan, we all know you mean you,” Ouma smiled. “Anyway! If anyone wants to join in the fun, just go meet me and Kiiboy by Saishuu Academy’s school gate. I’ll only wait for 10 minutes. I’m entering the school whether or not you all come, just saying.”

“Wasn’t this supposed to be a class bonding activity?!” Chabashira raised a fist.

“That was a lie, really. I’m just making this announcement in case I die while exploring the place, nishishi! That way you’ll know where to look for my remains.” The leader hopped off his seat and approached the albino robot, who was currently sitting idly by the wall in sleep mode while he charged.  “Speaking of which, I really love nature so make sure you spread my ashes in the forest, okay?”

“B-bullshit! Stop fooling around!” Momota gritted his teeth.

“That aside…did Kiibo-kun already agree to this? I didn’t think he’d be the type to go on trips like this one,” Amami rubbed his nape.

“Oh, he doesn’t have a choice, really,” Ouma proceeded to poke and prod random buttons on the robot’s body. “I just needed something to take paranormal photos of! Kiiboy’s a machine, so he can definitely detect ghosts and print out a photo for us or two!”

“H-hey, you should stop messing with Kiibo, what if he blows up or something?” Momota shuddered had the thought. He still needed to go to space! There’s no way he’s going to die from an explosion!

“…Mmm? Huh? Up already? But I’m only at 79 percent…” Kiibo mimicked a yawn. “How did–”

“Morning sleepyhead~ Wanna go on a test and courage with us later?” the supreme leader flashed the android a toothy grin.

“O-Ouma-kun? Test of courage?” Kiibo’s brow furrowed as he began perusing the recording of the conversation which he slept through. “What for?”

“Just for some good ol’ class bonding,” Ouma tucked a strand of hair behind an ear. “You have no choice by the way, I only asked you for the sake of formality.”

The albino frowned at the remark after reviewing the entire conversation he missed. “You might as well have forgone the pretense of being polite, Ouma-kun. Go use your smartphone instead. After all, it’s still a machine which can also take photos.”

“Whaaat? No way! It has to be you, Kiiboy!” Ouma shook the robot by his shoulders, fake tears streaming down his cheeks. “Your flashlight function is way better than a phone’s! And you don’t need to hit a shutter just to take a photo! You’re more useful and convenient than any old smartphone for this!”

Kiibo paused at the unexpected praise. “…You’re just saying that to butter me up.”

“I’m nooot! I don’t just mean your camera function, I also mean your recording device! You can pick up subtle sounds right? Maybe you can pick up the messages of the dead too! That would be so cool! Come on Kiiboy, pleeeeeeease?” Ouma gave the android his best puppy dog eyes. “And didn’t the professor fix your shitty battery usage problem? That makes you even more useful!”

“Well…true…” Kiibo rubbed the back of his head, still a little weirded out from the leader’s behavior. “…Fine, I guess. But only to keep you out of trouble.”

“Yippeeeeee!!!” Ouma released the robot’s shoulders and started jumping around. “You’re the best, Kiiboy!”

“Kiibo-kun is so easy to sway as always,” Yonaga chimed.

“He still has a ways to go,” Hoshi tugged his hat lower. “He’s too soft, which is exactly why Ouma never stops bothering him.”

“That said, who’s going?” Amami asked, turning to look at the others. “I hardly know anything about the school since I’m almost always overseas, so I’m kinda curious about it. I’m going.”

“I will. I can’t help but worry,” Akamatsu raised her hand. “If something goes wrong, having more people around would make it easier to find help.”

“I will too! It would just be like Ghost Hunt! I’m so pumped!” Shirogane bounced in her seat excitedly. “I actually learned some basic warding spells from some monks for my cosplay research. If something does turn up, we won’t be completely helpless!”

“I’ll pass, this is a waste of time,” Harukawa played with one of her pigtails. “Not to mention dangerous. This is just asking for trouble.”

“I’ll pass too, unfortunately! I have to offer a special prayer for Atua tonight. I can’t afford to miss it,” Yonaga squished her cheeks together.

“I’ll go. I would love to do some recording of my own. Maybe I would be able to discover something new to add to the one I already have,” Shinguuji chuckled.

“Hyahaha! I’m cumming alright! I’m gonna take my ghostbusting gear with me!” Iruma grinned. “Ghosts or not, as long as I can test out my babies then it all checks out!”

“Gonta and Toujou-san are still away on a trip. It’s a shame that they can’t go,” the artist sighed. “Everyone seems so lively about the idea!”

“I don’t want to risk my entry in the next Tennis Tournament if I get in trouble for this,” Hoshi murmured. “Take care though. Don’t want any of you getting hurt.”

“That’s sweet of you, Hoshi-kun,” Akamatsu smiled.

“Well I’m not going! Tests of courage are nothing but a sneaky ploy for degenerate men to get handsy with girls!” Chabashira huffed.

“Mmmm…I’m going, I want to test out my exorcism magic I’ve been honing…” Yumeno rubbed her chin with a thoughtful look.

“If Yumeno-san is going then I will too~!!!” Chabashira pumped her fists in the air.

Saihara chewed on his lower lip before nodding to himself. “I’m going too. I’ve never seen its interior before, but I’ve heard rumors that it had plenty of secret rooms.”

“Wh–you too, Shuuichi?!” Momota gaped.

“It’s totally okay if you don’t come, Momota-chan! Just because your bestie is going doesn’t mean you have to. You don’t have to push yourself so hard,” Ouma cooed.

“Why I outta–”

BING! BONG! DING! DONG!

Ouma said nothing but smirked at the astronaut as he was literally saved by the bell, much to the other Ultimate’s chagrin. Their homeroom teacher entered a few minutes later, successfully ending their discussion about their plans later.

—————————————————-

“I’ll have you know that I’m leaving as soon as an hour is up,” Kiibo spoke as he carefully avoided stepping on rotten floorboards.

“What? Why?” Ouma stared at his partner in disbelief. “Don’t be such a spoilsport Kiiboy! Live a little!”

“Yes, I want to live, that’s why I do not want to stay here any longer than what’s necessary,” huffed the android. “I don’t want to worry the Professor for staying out too late. Not to mention this entire building is a hazard to everyone.”

“Tsk, fine, whatever. But you better get some good shots of ghosts you hear? I don’t want to leave this school empty handed,” Ouma pouted.

“That’s hardly something I can control, Ouma-kun,” Kiibo sighed.

Before entering the school premises, everyone drew lots for their pairs: Kiibo and Ouma; Shirogane and Shinguuji; Saihara and Yumeno; Chabashira and Iruma; and lastly, Akamatsu and Amami. It turned out that Momota’s evident fear of the supernatural made pairing up easy for everyone. They were all going to enter the school in that order, but they were free to explore any of the academy’s floors.

“Still, this really is a big school,” the android said with awe.

“Mmhm! It has tons of stuff in it. A church, a dormitory, clubrooms–” Ouma looked around the area, taking note of tattered and worn school festival fliers still posted on the cracked walls. “The land the property was on is really big, they were going to tear the school down and build a new mall.”

Kiibo looked at the fliers with dismay, “That’s…a bit of a shame. To have a place so full of memories get torn down for something like this.”

“Yeah. But time waits for no one. Money makes the modern world go round. Something abstract like memories don’t have economic value,” Ouma frowned, but eventually relaxed. “Anyway, detected any ghosts yet?”

Kiibo reviewed his memories and shook his head. “Sorry, still nothing.”

“Gahhh that’s so lame. How about we take the other way around?” Ouma huffed.

“N-NGAAAAAH! WHAT IS THAT? A ZOMBIE?!”

“Yumeno-san calm down! That’s just an old human-body model!”

“SAIHARA WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO YUMENO-SAN?!”

“Quite the loud bunch aren’t they?” the raven-haired Ultimate shook his head. “Maybe that’s why ghosts aren’t showing up. Maybe inviting them wasn’t such a good idea.”

“I think it’s better this way,” Kiibo chuckled. “The more the merrier, as they all say.”

“Nishishi! Maybe so,” Ouma huffed in amusement. “Mm? Hey, have we checked this room before?”

“Hmm…I don’t think so,” Kiibo looked up at the rusty signage above the dislodged door. “The library, huh.”

“Oooh! They probably have valuable books left behind, that’s a nice find. Let’s go in!” Ouma grabbed the android by his wrist, skipping through the doorway.

“Wait, not so fast Ouma-kun! The floor might give out–”

*CRACK*

“Huh?”

“Ouma-kun, hold onto me–!”

The floorboards had collapsed under their combined weight the moment they took their first step inside the old library. Down, down, down, they crashed. How many floors have they gone down exactly? None of them could keep count with both of their eyes shut tight. The only thing Ouma could register was the feeling of falling and strong metal arms wrapped around him protectively.

————————————————————-

CRAAAAAAAASH!

Akamatsu’s head perked up at the loud noise. “Oh no…”

As though reading her mind, Amami pulled out his cellphone and sent everyone a text.

‘Yell out your names if you’re safe. If you’re inside a room, get out so we can hear you.’

The pianist and the survivor nodded at each other before initiating the roll call.

“AKAMATSU KAEDE!”

“AMAMI RANTAROU!”

There was a beat of silence until the next person followed.

“YU-YUMENO HIMIKO!”

“SAIHARA SHUUICHI!”

“IRUMA MIU!”

“CHABASHIRA TENKO!!!”

“SHINGUUJI KOREKIYO!”

“SHIROGANE TSUMUGI!”

Silence followed.

“That can’t be right…where’s Ouma-kun and Kiibo-kun?” Akamatsu’s forehead creased with worry.

“That could only mean that they were the ones who crashed. We better look for them fast, they’re probably hurt,” Amami hastily tapped another message, telling everyone to meet up at the entrance hall. “Let’s go.”

“Okay.”

Akamatsu and Amami carefully proceeded towards the meeting place, mindful of their footsteps now more than ever. Shirogane and Shinguuji arrived at the designated place before everyone else, followed by them, and the others arrived shortly after.

“Ouma’s probably messing with us again,” Iruma scoffed, tapping her finger against her arm.

“I agree! What if he didn’t do his roll call on purpose to spook everyone after destroying part of the school!” Chabashira nodded.

“I don’t think Ouma-kun would do anything to risk his own safety,” Saihara murmured. “Not to mention, Kiibo-kun was with him.”

“Correct! Even if Ouma-kun decided not to do roll call, Kiibo-kun still would have done it himself,” Akamatsu’s brows furrowed in concentration. “Was anyone near the crash?”

“I was on the first floor with Shinguuji-kun,” Shirogane raised a hand. “We heard something crash nearby but we didn’t see anyone at all. If Kiibo-kun and Ouma-kun did fall…shouldn’t we be able to find them on this floor?”

“That’s a good point.” Amami rubbed his chin. “How close were you to the crash, exactly?”

“Not very close, but I can pinpoint us to its general direction,” Shinguuji raised a hand.

“Alright. Everybody stay close. We can’t have anyone else getting hurt,” Akamatsu took a deep breath and slapped her cheeks. “No use panicking! Focus, focus!”

“Shouldn’t we call the fire department for help?” Saihara asked.

“But what if they were taken by ghosts? No one would believe our story!” Yumeno interjected.

“Shh! Everyone focus!” Shirogane turned to look at the others. “Now’s not the time to entertain thoughts like that. We need to try looking for them first before calling the fire department.”

“I’m on board for that. We practically broke some rules just entering this shithole,” Iruma flipped her hair.

“We’re here. I’m not sure of the specific source of the sound, but it should be around here,” the anthropologist proceeded to tie his hair in a neat ponytail.

“Okay, let’s split the rooms among ourselves. Got it?” Akamatsu regarded her friends with a look of determination.

“Got it!”

Their search didn’t end up being completely fruitless when Saihara managed to locate a hole in the infirmary’s flooring. But that very same discovery led them to their next problem. If there was a hole on the flooring of the first floor…then where does it lead to exactly? They were met with darkness even after flashing their lights on the hole. Ouma and Kiibo should have landed on the first floor if not any of the floors just above them.

“This is a big problem.” Amami concluded.

————————————————————

“Ouma-kun. Ouma-kun, wake up.”

Ouma hissed in pain as he shifted to his side. “O-oww…what–what happened?”

“The floorboards collapsed from under us and we fell a couple of floors down,” Kiibo replied, helping the supreme leader sit up. “Take it easy, you have a slight head injury and a twisted ankle.”

Ouma instantly raised a hand to touch his head, only to feel his scarf wrapped around his head. “What floor are we on, exactly?”

Kiibo pursed his lips. “…We would be in the equivalent of the basement floor. I reviewed my memories and we already went past the first floor by a couple of levels.”

“The basement level? The map didn’t have anything like that at all,” Ouma withered in pain, resting his weight on the robot.

“That’s what I thought too. This was probably one of the secret rooms Saihara-kun meant,” the albino paused to point at the spot across them. “…Though judging by the look of those rusted iron bars…we’re actually inside an underground dungeon.”

“If it weren’t for the fact that I’m in pain and we’re currently stuck, I would have thought that this was cool,” Ouma groaned. “Tch. There’s no use texting the others, there’s no way there could be reception in a place like this.”

“…I’m sorry, Ouma-kun.” Kiibo looked down.

The supreme leader raised a brow. “For what?”

“If only I had the ability to fly, I could have gotten us out of this mess right away,” the android explained. “I don’t have the strength to carry you out of this room either.”

“You could have just explored the area, searched for the exit and then come back for me afterwards,” Ouma huffed.

Kiibo shook his head. “That’s a risky idea. I don’t want to leave you alone during a crisis like this. What if more of the school gives out? If I left, there’s a big chance that we’d be separated by debris and only one of us could get out.”

“That’s…true. Heh. I guess my head isn’t working as well as I hoped right now,” Ouma chuckled half-heartedly. “I’m…sorry too. I got us into this mess in the first place. I wasn’t being careful earlier, so we fell. We’re more or less even.”

Kiibo was taken aback by the sincere apology, but did not dare to comment on it. They couldn’t exactly afford to bicker during an emergency like this one. It was clear that Ouma was too hurt to put up his usual mischievous demeanor, too.

“I’m glad you were my partner.”

“Huh?” the albino stared at his companion in confusion.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Ouma huffed as he slowly sank into a lying down position, resting his head on the robot’s cool lap. “If I had fallen with anybody else in our group, one of us would have already died; or worse, both of us would have just died and rotted together with this school. Look at you. It was a nasty fall, but all you have are scratches. You really are something, huh.” He grinned up at the albino.

Kiibo chewed on his bottom lip, a little embarrassed from the praise. “I don’t mean this in an offensive way, but–”

“Go ahead and say it.”

“Okay.” The albino took a deep breath. “Ouma-kun, did you rig the pairing lots so that I would be paired up with you? You did point out all of the convenient tools and functions I had for your exploration idea…”

Ouma simply chuckled in response. “You probably won’t believe me, but that was all luck. I never really cared about who you get paired up with, I just wanted the ghost pics.”

“I see…I thought just as much,” Kiibo nodded along. “I wonder if…the others are looking for us right now.”

“They are. You’re with me after all. If it were just me alone, they probably would have just left me behind,” Ouma sighed nonchalantly. “Then again if I were alone, I’d already be dead. Nishishi!”

Kiibo frowned. “Even if you were alone, we would still look for you, regardless of whether you’re dead or alive.”

“And what makes you say that, Kiiboy?”

“We’re friends, Ouma-kun. If such an obvious answer wasn’t clear to you, then you probably need to rest as much as you can right now,” the robot’s frown eased after finishing his sentence.

“Heh…I guess I can do that,” the raven-haired Ultimate shifted in his position a little, careful not to aggravate his aching leg as he did so. “I don’t wanna sleep in a shithole like this though, so you and I are going to be talking for quite a while until we get rescued.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Kiibo smiled.

Being stuck in a very deep hole was probably the worst time to start getting to know a person more. But since that person is Ouma, a crazy situation like this is probably the only thing that could get him to talk sincerely. From his love for shounen manga to his hobbies, these were all things Kiibo had hoped to learn from the supreme leader at school and not in some hidden dungeon.

“Kiiboy, can I level with you for a moment?”

“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing for a while now?” Kiibo lifted a brow.

“Just shut up and listen to me,” huffed the other teen.

“Alright, sorry.”

Ouma released a sigh before speaking. “…I honestly think I’m going to die here. But even if I die, surely you won’t. That’s why I want you to record something for me.”

“…You mean a will?” Kiibo’s forehead creased with worry.

“Haha! Not quite,” Ouma shook his head. “Just some things I wished I was able to tell everyone before we both got into this mess. A confession of some sort.”

“Ouma-kun…”

“I want you to show it to everyone in the worst case scenario,” Ouma continued. “But if I ever survive this, whatever I’m going to say is going to be just between you and me. Understand?”

“Y…yes, I understand,” Kiibo nodded, though his worry was still very much present on his face.

“I’ll start now, ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“Then I guess I should start about my parents…”

——————————————————————-

It had already been more or less two hours since Kiibo and Ouma crashed. The firemen struggled with trying to figure out how to pull them out from such a deep and dark pit. The realization that their two classmates had fallen lower than what they had expected brought chills down their spine. It took the firemen another hour to finally be able to rescue the missing Ultimates, much to everyone’s relief.

The EMTs carefully strapped Ouma to a stretcher and ushered him into the ambulance so they could take a better look at his wounds. Everyone then got off with a heavy scolding both from the rescuers and their respective parents for doing something dangerous without even contacting an adult. Though for Kiibo’s case, he was praised right after for his quick thinking during the emergency, otherwise the supreme leader would have been in a critical state.

“I hope you all learned a valuable lesson from this experience,” a fireman huffed.

“Yes, sir…” the teens all responded in unison.

“Let’s go home and get you fixed,” Iidabashi gave his son’s hair a ruffle. “Also cleaned up, you’re terribly dirty.”

Kiibo’s gaze lingered at the ambulance before turning to look at his father. “…Okay.”

The premises of Saishuu Academy was completely locked down the next day in light of the incident during the previous night. Both Kiibo and Ouma were sought after by the Newspaper Club, determined to secure an exclusive interview from them regarding their experience of being trapped. Unfortunately for Ouma, his twisted ankle prohibited him from escaping their pesky advances. And just as unfortunately for Kiibo, he still had the stamina of a senior citizen, but his father did improve his strength in order to assist him in emergencies.

“Ouma-kun, may I speak with you for a moment?”

It took Kiibo about two weeks before he could muster the courage to talk to the raven-haired Ultimate. They had to keep a facade that things were back to normal after all.

“Depends on what you wanna talk about,” Ouma leaned against his chair. “If it’s about that then no. I don’t want to hear anything about that stupid school anymore.”

Kiibo shook his head. “It’s…kind of related, but it’s not about the incident.” He pulled out photos from one of his pockets. “I thought that maybe…you needed to see this.”

Ouma lifted a brow, curious, as he accepted the photos.

The android shifted in his place. He specifically chose to speak to Ouma today since everyone was out eating at the cafeteria and the supreme leader had slipped away from the group not completely unnoticed. It was the only chance where they’ll have some form of privacy during school hours.

“UWAAAH! WHAT THE HECK! THAT’S SO CREEPY!!!” Ouma shuffled out of his seat in a panic, haphazardly throwing the photos on the table.

“…You did say you wanted photos,” Kiibo murmured as he picked the photos up. It was a photo of his memory during the incident; specifically the time right after they landed in the hidden dungeon. For a brief moment, he had caught a glimpse of a woman cradling Ouma–she disappeared as soon as he blinked though. That was why he wasn’t able to record her face in high definition.

“Y-yeah! But not when it involved me!” Ouma pointed an accusatory finger at the photos in the albino’s hand. “Have an exorcist burn it!”

“But Ouma-kun…” Kiibo shuffled through the different photos and picked one out to show the other Ultimate. “I think…it’s your mother.”

Ouma’s eyes visibly widened at the photo. It wasn’t taken inside the dungeon, no, the setting was entirely different. In fact, it was right when Ouma got brought inside the ambulance. A translucent woman stood waiting outside of the ambulance. Thanks to the lighting, her face was properly recorded. Even more so when she was looking right at Kiibo, giving him a wave. 

Jet black hair, soft, lilac eyes…

Her features alone were a dead giveaway that she couldn’t be anyone else but Ouma’s mother. 

Ouma shakingly took the photo from the android, this time staring at it with awe instead of fear. “…It’s really her…”

“Yes. That’s why I thought that you needed to see this,” Kiibo scratched at his cheek nervously. “…Do you really want to have these burned?”

Ouma let slip a sincere smile, “…Maybe not.”

Kiibo perked up, pleased to be able to make him smile.

Bonus:

“I’m only keeping this one. Buuut—!” Ouma snatched the photo of the hidden dungeon and showed it to the android. “You definitely have to show this to Momota-chan!”

Kiibo shook his head, “I don’t see why you need to–”

“Show me what?” both Ultimates turned their heads to face the astronaut.

The android paled at the very sight of the grin that took over the supreme leader’s face.

“Kiibo showed me this really cute photo he took on the way to school! And I thought you’d like it too!” Ouma chimed, slightly limping his way towards the taller Ultimate to hand him the photo.

“Momota-kun, wait–!”

Alas, Kiibo’s words fell on deaf ears.

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!”

“Nishishi! So ghosts, am I right~?”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, OUMA!!!”

———————

If you’re wondering why I never explained what those memories were…that’s because Ouma survived. Kiibo’s not obligated to show you what it was.

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 58: An Exam Cometh!

Presenting the next raw and unedited chapter of my on-going, next-gen, My Hero Academia fic, Their Hero Academia!

Earlier chapters can be found here

There was a somewhat somber mood in the classroom as 1-A settled in Tuesday morning.  The funeral yesterday had been the cap to a long week that stretched back to the Nomu attacks and had been a roller coaster for many of them ever since.  But things looked to Isamu like they were finally getting back to normal.  The class was back together again and even if they weren’t all up to their usual selves, they were getting there.  Even Shinso had been in a slightly cheerier mood last night, joining him and Midoriya for a few rounds of Smash Fighters 3000 in Midoriya’s room.

The room fell into a hushed silence as Aizawa entered.  They knew by this point not to screw around once he was there.  Well, most of them did.  He was pretty sure Mineta and Sero hadn’t gotten the same message as everybody else.  

Aizawa stood at his podium for a moment before speaking.  “Only three seconds to quiet down.  An improvement.”   His eyes swept the room and his face relaxed a fraction of a centimeter.  “I know your Internship experiences were harrowing, but I’ve also had the opportunity to review the feedback your mentors provided, and you all acquitted yourselves well, even in the face of some concerns over discipline.”   There was a glance reserved for Mineta and Sero again at that.

“However, that does not change the fact that your final exams will be in two weeks.  Your subject exams will be the Monday through Thursday of that week, with the practical Heroics exam on Friday.”

That wasn’t a surprise, really.  The dates for final exams had been in the syllabus on the first day of class.  But that seemed like both yesterday and a lifetime ago.  There was the phrase “time flies when you’re having fun”, but had the term really been fun? It seemed like much of it had been long moments of calm split by absolute and total panic.

Then again, in the time since that first day, he’d made friends, won the Sports Festival, interned with Deku, seen a monster, gotten a girlfriend…

Yeah, okay, there was some fun there.

Up in the front row, he saw Izumi raise her hand.  Once Aizwa gave her permission to speak, she asked, “Will you be telling us any details of the exam, Sensei?” she asked.

A good question, and Isamu sat up a little straighter in his seat to listen.  Regular final exams would be difficult enough—they weren’t kidding when they said U.A. was academically rigorous!—but he couldn’t imagine what the Heroics exam would be like.

And then something happened that sent a chill up Isamu’s spine.  Aizawa… smiled.  It wasn’t a normal person’s smile, but a rictus grin, and it looked deeply unsettling on his face.  It was the smile of someone about to deliver a devastating smackdown onto a foe and take utter delight in doing it.  A shrill scream split the air.  It was Sero.

“Dude,” Sato said, “what was that?”

“He’s smiling!” Sero wailed. “We’re doomed!  Dooooomed!”

“I’m too young to die!” Kaminari wailed.

“I’m too hot to die!” Mineta shrieked, joining in the wailing.

Even Midoriya, in the front row, seemed afraid.  “Oh no, oh no, oh no, not good!”

Isamu felt his own heartbeat quicken, but he took a look to the opposite end of the row to decide what was the most appropriate reaction.  Kirishima-Bakugo looked deadly serious, as opposed to her usual pissed off. And even she seemed slightly ill at ease at the prospects hidden behind that smile.

“Funny you should ask, Todoroki,” Aizawa said.  “You all did an impressive job working together during the Sports Festival.  I don’t know which one of you came up with it, but it was impressive tactical thinking.  And since you all like working together, the teachers decided to change up some of the conditions of the Heroics exam.”

There was a mad glint in their teacher’s eyes now. ��“Either you all pass… or no one does.”

***

That night, Class 1-A gathered in the Common Room.  As usual, Isamu sat on one of the couches with Shinso, Izumi, and Sora Iida.   Midoriya and Tokoyami were at the front of their room, with a whiteboard.  One of the other couches was occupied by Sero, Sato, Ojiro, and Tensei Iida. A third couch was occupied by Aoyama, Koda, Shoji, with Aoyama looking rather small compared to his two classmates. Mineta and Kaminari had pulled up chairs, while Kirishima-Bakugo stood behind the couch Isamu and the others were on, together with the class, but apart as always.

Most of them were chatting away, while Midoriya and Tokoyami, the Class Representatives (Yeah, that was definitely not a job he wanted.) tried to get everyone’s attention, unsuccessfully.  “Hey!” Shinso shouted, putting just a little something into his voice to make it echo and pierce the noise.   “Toshi and Asuka are trying to talk!”

That got everyone to quiet down.

“Sorry Mom and Dad,” Sero said.   That got a laugh out of several people, until Kirishima-Bakugo moved to behind him and gave him a smack upside the head.

“Thank you, Shota,” Asuka said.   Frog-Shadow was out again, sitting on her shoulder.  “So we’ve got two things to discuss.  The first is the formation of study groups for the subject area final exams. Math, Science, Literature, History, Science, and English.”

“We’re hoping to have someone who’s doing well in each class lead some study sessions or make themselves available to answer questions,” Midoriya said.  

“We’re all going to die,” Ojiro wailed.

“Kimmie, it’s not that bad,” Sato tried to reassure her.

“This is just going to tank my grades, Kenta!”

“They couldn’t be any worse than mine, Kimmie,” Sero said, grinning.  

She punched him in the arm. “That’s not something to be proud of, Takuma!”

“Hey, leave him alone,” Kaminari said.  “He’s the only person who’s grades are worse than mine!”

“See,” Sero said, “when it comes to being the worse, I’m the best!”

Both of the Iida twins thrust their hands into the air.   “We volunteer for science and math!” Sora Iida said.  

Midoriya flushed a little at that.  “Ah, actually, Sora, I was thinking maybe not you?  Not that you aren’t smart!  But, ah, you’re both a lot smarter than most of us. I don’t know if you could dumb it down?”

The hands went down. “That is… acceptable,” Sora said.

“We would not wish to hinder anyone’s progress,” Tensei agreed.  “And we do have additional Support Class projects to complete.”

Reluctantly, Isamu put his hand up.  “I can probably handle science,” he said.  “It was mostly physics this term.  I’m good at that.”  He had to be, thanks to his Quirk.  Knowing how much force to apply and where it was going to send him flying and how much he needed to break at a certain speed was vital.

“Excellent, thank you,” Tokoyami said.  She handed her marker to Frog-Shadow, who looked at it curiously.   “If you’d write that down?”

“Why me?”

“Because you asked to be more involved,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, right!” Frog-Shadow bubbled, before flying off to write his name down.

Mineta stuck a hand in the air.  “I can take English,” she said.  “Vocab and translations, anyway.  Grammar’s still a little weird.”

“I guess that works,” Midoriya said, though he didn’t look like he believed it.  “Just… be on your best behavior, okay?”

“When am I not?”

“If that’s your best behavior, Horse-Girl, I’d hate to see you worst,” Kirishima-Bakugo growled.

“Allow me to provide what Mineta cannot,” Aoyama said.  He looked pretty smug about it.  Of course, everyone knew that he and Mineta didn’t get along. He was probably relishing an opportunity to show her up in something.  “I am reasonably trilingual, after all, n'est-ce pas?”

“And I can take History,” Izumi volunteered.

“Great!” Midoriya said. “Now we’re getting somewhere…”

***

Eventually, they came back around to the subject of the Heroics final exam.  Midoriya cleared his throat and looked a little red from embarrassment.   “So, this is probably my fault, guys.  The whole Sports Festival thing was my plan.  Sorry I got us into this mess….”

“Oh, bullshit,” Kirishima-Bakugo said, causing all eyes to fall on her and Isamu to jump.  “Maybe you threw some gas on the fire, Toshi, but you have to know Aizawa was planning something like this.  Him and his “logical ruses.’”   She crossed her arms and nodded, as if that explained everything.

“She does have a point, Toshi,” Izumi said.

“She does?” Midoriya asked, surprised.  Then he looked over at Kirishima-Bakugo, who was glaring at him.  “She does!”

“You couldn’t have known,” Isamu said.  “And it was a good plan.  I don’t know if I’d have won if you hadn’t gotten us that far.” If he’d had to race and fight at the same time, without Mineta watching his back (making innuendos the whole way), he doubted he would have done half as well.  

But it wasn’t surprising that Midoriya thought it was his fault.  The guy always seemed to fall into a pattern of trying to take care of all of them, which meant he was just as likely to try and shoulder all the blame.

“None of us blame you, Toshi,” Tokoyami insisted.  

“Besides,” Isamu offered, “I talked to Kana over in 1-B…”

He was interrupted by Ojiro. “Did you hear that?  He’s using her first name now!  Squeeee!  They’re getting closer!”

Okay, he was going to pretend he didn’t hear that.  He really didn’t need to end up the topic of conversation on her web show.  “As I was saying, I was talking to Kana and she says Super-Ball told 1-B the same thing.  Only not as scary as Aizawa was.  They’re pass or fail as a group too.  She said Super-Ball said it was about building up their teamwork skills.”

“My friend, Mizuno, from 1-C said much the same thing,” Koda said.  “Battle-Fist also emphasized the need for better teamwork.”

“Looks like you sparked a revolution, Midoriya,” Sero said, only to be silenced by a smack from Ojiro.

“Okay,” Midoriya said, nodding, taking a couple breaths to steady himself.  “So sounds like it was something they were going to do anyway. Not my fault.  Good.  Then if the Heroics exam is going to be a pass/fail for everyone, we’re going to need a plan.”

“How are we going to do that?” Shoji asked.  “We don’t know what form the exam will take.”

Midoriya nodded again, now in his element when a plan was required.  “We don’t,” he agreed.  “But we do know, whatever it is, it’s going to require us to work together and it’s going to be bigger than anything we’ve had tossed at us before now.  That’s the only reasonable extrapolation of the pass/fail condition.”

“So that means,” he went on, “we need to train like we’ve never trained before.  Until anybody here can work with anybody else.

“Right now,” Toshi finished, “it doesn’t matter who your best friend is.”   He looked over at Sero, Ojiro, and Sato.   “It doesn’t matter who you don’t get along with.” This look was given to Aoyama and Mineta.  “Or how mad everyone might make you.”  A look went out to Kirishima-Bakugo.

“Right now, we’re all in this together.  We’re Class 1-A and we need to come together.”

Shinso let out a cheer and a clap.   Even Isamu had to admit, he felt pretty inspired.

“Fancy speech, Toshi,” Kirishima-Bakugo said.  “But you got a real plan to back it up?”

Midoriya looked a bit deflated at that.  “Not entirely,” he admitted.  “But Asuka and I were going to discuss some likely scenarios.  If you want to help, you’re more than welcome.”

“Damn straight, I will. I’m not letting any of you pull me down with you.  We’re gonna pass even if I have to kick your asses every inch of the way.”

Midoriya’s confidence returned.  Even Isamu knew this was just her way.  “Well, you heard her, people.  We’re going to pass!”

Somehow, this became a rallying cry.

“We’re going to pass!   PLUS UTLRA!”

***

Izumi’s room always reminded Chihiro of the fact that while she was extremely well off, Izumi’s family was so rich it practically made the word useless.  There was a four poster bed, an ornate oak desk, wood paneling added to all the walls… even the desk lamp looked like it cost way more than things like that should.  “Don’t touch anything,” she warned Mika.

Mika shot her a dirty look. “I’m not a child, Chi.”

“You’re not always graceful, Mika.  Like a bull in a china shop.”

“That’s hurtful.  And possibly racist”

Chihiro facepalmed at that.   “I’d like to apologize for her in advance,” she said.

“Please, do not worry about it,” Izumi said, standing as they entered.  “May I offer you tea and sweets?”   She indicated the tea tray and plate she had already laid out.

After she and Mika had accepted Izumi’s offering, all three took seats.   “So what’s up?” Chihiro asked.   Izumi asking to talk to her was one thing; they were good friends.  But other than when she was around, Mika and Izumi didn’t usually have too much to do with one another.

“I need your help,”

Okay, add that to the list of things she never thought she’d hear.  “I’m guessing not with homework or anything?” Chihiro said.   “Because that’s definitely not me.”   Izumi was way towards the front of the class anyway.   So was Mika, for that matter.   She belatedly realized she was the dumbest person in the room.   On the other hand, she might still win the medal for most common sense.

“Not homework,” Izumi assured her.  “The matter is more personal.”

“Is this about a guy? Or a girl?” Mika asked.  “Because I was ninety-nine percent sure you didn’t go for that.”

Startled at her friend’s abruptness, Chihiro smacked her upside the head with one of her Cords.  “Don’t be crude.”

Izumi, fortunately, took it all in stride.  “You are correct that I do not “go for that.’”

Huh.   Chihiro had always known that Izumi hadn’t displayed much interest in anyone, but given that her other best friend was interested in everyone, she’d figured it was just less interest, not none.  How had she been that clueless?

“So what do you need?” Chihiro asked.  

Izumi closed her eyes for a moment and took a breath.  When she opened them, she looked as serious as Chihiro had ever seen her.  “I need to find my grandfather.”

“What happened?” Mika asked. “Was there a big tax scandal?  Is Grandpa Yaoyorozu hiding out from the feds in the tropics?”

“No,” Izumi said.  “Not him.  My grandfather on my father’s side.”

“Endeavor?” Chihiro asked. “Why?”   A thought occurred to her, something that had come up during her Internship with Aunt Momo. “Wait, does this have anything to do with Plague?”

Next to her, Mika had pulled out her phone, but right now, her friend’s rudeness wasn’t her biggest concern.

Izumi’s eyes went wide. “How do you know that name?”

“Daddy called Aunt Momo. Said you’d found out about somebody with that name.”

Izumi took another moment to collect her thoughts.  "What I am about to tell you cannot leave this room."

"Izumi, you're scaring me."  Her friend was never this intense.  Whatever it was, this all had to be deadly serious.

Izumi locked eyes with her. "Promise me, Chihiro."

Chihiro was worried now, but kept eye contact. "Okay. I promise."

"Do you remember when I was sick?"

That did very little to narrow it down.  Izumi had had plenty of health issues over the years.  Chihiro had visited her in the hospital countless times.  "You're going to need to specify, Izumi. You've been sick a lot."

"The time I was very sick.  The time that really started it all."

Oh yeah.  That one.  Chihiro looked at the floor.  "I remember."

Izumi sighed.  "During my internship, Uncle Denki let it slip that there was possibly something more... complicated behind it."

Daddy was in on whatever this was?  "Complicated? How?"

"Complicated, as it was the implied that it was a villain, this “Plague,” who got me sick."

“Okay,” Chihiro said, her head spinning as she tried to make sense of it.  Nervously, she tapped the ends of her Cords together.  “Okay, did you talk to your parents about this?”

Izumi shook her head. "I did not. After the Nomu attacks, Mother and Father...they wanted to pull me from the school.  I exhausted myself.  Again."

Of course they did. She knew it was ongoing drama with Izumi and her parents.

Before she could speak, Izumi held up her hand. "I managed to talk them down. For now. Part of me suspects that at the next big incident, the next time I falter, they'll try again. That's why I didn't ask them. I couldn't. I didn't want to bring up the pain they went through again."

Izumi pointed to a plush rabbit on her bed, one which looked fairly new.  “I am certain he visited me in the hospital.  Things are… becoming complicated.”

Izumi inhaled deeply before continuing. "I've been thinking a lot since then. I've been remembering things. Things I thought I forgot. I want to find out what happened to me, but I can't go to my parents. I can't go to anyone, not your father, not Uncle Deku, no one, because they'll go to my parents. I know I can count on you to keep my secrets, both of you.

“I cannot burden Katsumi with this.  She has enough to carry right now without carrying me as well.  You don't have to help if you don't want to get in trouble-"

“Found him,” Mika said, looking up from her phone.

“…How the hell did you do that?” Chihiro asked.  It could not possibly have been that easy.

“Daddy never changes his login ID or password for anything,” Mika said.  “I just used one of the databases available to Heroes to look up an address.  It’s not even that far.”

Chihiro just stared.  “Every time I think I’ve got you figured out…”

Izumi looked equally startled, worried, and pleased.  “Thank you, Mineta,” she said, quietly.

Mika shrugged.  “Hey, what’re friends for?”

***

Normally, Toshi did his morning jog with Katsumi, sometimes joined by Kana Tetsutetsu.  He’d also occasionally convinced Haimawari to join them, though that was fairly rare.  But this morning, he was alone.   Katsumi had begged off for wanting to focus on weight training instead and Tetsutetsu was apparently busy with some emergency in her dorm, according to her text.

Which was fine.  He could be alone with his thoughts.   Like the thought that he didn’t have idea one what they were getting into with the exam and it would definitely be his fault if they all failed, bringing shame upon the Midoriya name and leading to Sora dumping him and Katsumi killing him.

Well.  That had escalated quickly.

“Mi… Midoriya!” The sound of his name drew him out of his panic.  It came with labored breathing and he came to a stop, turning and seeing Shiro Monoma, dressed in workout clothes, running up behind him.  Monoma’s not out of shape, but it’s a wiry build, more suited to agility and gymnastics, than Toshi’s more muscular one.  

“What’s up, Monoma?” he asked.  Monoma hadn’t done anything antagonistic yet, which was a good sign.  In fact, Toshi couldn’t remember seeing him at all during the past week, or even hearing him, which was even stranger.  He didn’t have the same extreme dislike for the other boy that Katsumi did, but he would hardly say they were on friendly terms, even though they were neighbors.  Honestly, he mostly did his best to ignore Monoma’s jabs at the class.

“I need to talk to you about the exam,” Monoma said.  

“I don’t know what they’re going to do any more than you do,” Toshi told him.  “I can make a few educated guesses though, based on our Heroics classes and all though.  Happy to talk, if you want.”

He stole a glance at his watch.  “Can we run though?  I want to get this in before classes and my heart rate’s already dropping.”

Monoma looked rather pained by the prospect, but nodded.  “Okay.”

Since he wasn’t completely unfeeling, Toshi did tone his run down to something slightly less than his usual, letting Monoma keep up.  “So like I said, I don’t really know, but I can guess.  Got to be something large scale, if they’re going to be able to score all of us on it.  And that means something with a lot of different moving parts.  Probably Villains to fight, people to rescue, maybe something to find like a bomb…”

Monoma was, to his credit, keeping up with Toshi, though he looked like he was pushing himself a bit to do it.  “That’s… good thinking…,” he said, between breaths.  “But not what I wanted to ask about.”

“Then what?” Toshi asked.

“I need to know,” Monoma said, with such seriousness that it took Toshi aback for a moment.  “how you got… everyone to work… together.”  

Toshi took pity on him and slowed down a little more.  “Everyone. Teamwork from the get go.  How do you get them to follow you like that?  How did you get all those different personalities to work together like that?”

Shiro’s voice turned bitter. “I try and I try to make everyone better.  I want them to succeed, I really do.  But no one listens to me.  I can’t… Hardly any of my class made it through the final round.  And I got lucky as it was.  I’m worried about them and the final exam.”

“Them?” Toshi asked. His phrasing there was odd. “Them,” he’d said.  Not “us”.

Monoma frowned.  “I had hoped to keep this a secret.  Almost no one knows about this.  But I’m leaving once this term is over.   I’m not cut out for this.   But with how the exam is going to work…  I can’t cost them their futures just because mine’s going to be something else.”

Toshi couldn’t keep the surprise off his face, but fortunately, Monoma wasn’t looking at him to see it. “You’re…” he began.  He actually came to a stop.  Running was a good way to lose himself, and he needed all his wits now.

“I am,” Monoma said, finishing the thought for him.  He bent half off, breathing hard.  He righted himself after a few breaths.  “Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

Now Toshi frowned, but he nodded.  “Not my place to do that.  But I think it’s a mistake.”

Monoma shook his head. “It’s not.  But what about my class?  And what about the exam?”  There was a moment of silence, and then, “Please.  I can’t let failure be my entire legacy here.”

If he lived long enough to become the new Number One Hero, Toshi never would have thought he’d have heard Monoma talk like this.  Usually, the blond boy was full of bravado and confidence, always trying to prove his class’s superiority over 1-A.   And to be fair, 1-A contained the children of a large number of highly ranked Heroes, something that few of Class 1-B could claim.  None of their parents were low ranked, but there was a certain degree of disparity there.  And a much larger portion of Class 1-B had no Hero parents at all.

“Okay, the first thing you have to remember,” Toshi told him, “is that we’re almost all childhood friends.  Some of us more than others and in some different combinations… but we grew up together.  Our parents are close and they passed that onto us.  Trust’s easy that way.”

Given that his parent’s Class A had gone through hell together over three years in a way that their contemporary Class B hadn’t, it was easy to see where stronger bonds might have been forged.  

Monoma nodded.  “My father’s class drifted more during the years. Kana is the only one I was anything close to growing up, along with Mika and Akaya.”

“The other big thing is… Look.  My dad’s the Number One Hero.  I wanted to do the best I could, but the Sports Festival was never about winning for me.”   And sure, he’d managed to share third place with Kocho.  He was proud of his accomplishments, and he’d gone in intending to give it his all, but it hadn’t been his main goal.  Toshi would have been just as happy not to have placed, if it meant other of his friends did.

“So I went in it from the start doing it for them.  And they knew that, so they went along with it.  It wasn’t even about beating your class or anybody else in the race; I just wanted to make sure everybody had the best chance they could.  Somebody like Ojiro or Sato would have had a real hard time doing that in the obstacle course.  So I asked everybody to take a step back now so that they could all have something later.”

It hadn’t quite been as easy as he made it sound.  Convincing Aoyama had been one of the most difficult parts, but the promise of future glories had eventually been enough.

Monoma looked as though he’d been punched.   “…Shit.” His expression devolved further, becoming truly miserable.  “During the Sports Festival, I was so concerned with… things turning out a certain way, I pushed for flare and making a splash.  And not all of them even made it past the Obstacle Course.  Maybe I really do drag them down.  Maybe she was right.”

Toshi frowned.  This was turning pretty dark on him.  And he wasn’t sure who “she” was.  “Look,” he said.  “You want what’s best for them.  That’s admirable.  But if you go so hard on trying to show somebody up, then that’s all you’re going to see.  That’s what Endeavor did for a long time, and you know what happened to him.”

Monoma sighed, then nodded. “Then I am more certain than ever I’ve made the right choice.  But at least I know what I can do for them to help everyone else pass.  Thank you, Midoriya.”

As Monoma left, Toshi wasn’t certain at all that he’d said the right things there.  It certainly didn’t seem like a victory.

***

In the teacher’s lounge, Aizawa looked over the finalized draft of the Heroics practical exam. Talking All Might into it had been difficult, but worth it.  He’d staked his job and reputation on it, but he believed the results would be worth it.

His students, all the students, were talented.  But even with recent events, what they needed was a stark dose of reality to push them further along their paths.

He looked at the profiles spread out in front of him.  The people he’d found would be just the ones to do it.

[nctrenjunie]

Desire~ Jaehyun (M)

Author: Sera

Genre: Smut

Words: 2.9 k

Comment: Finally, finally I got this done. I really really like this somehow and I hope I could satisfy the anon who requested it. I wanted to finish it yesterday and post it then but again...I fell asleep.

Request: Helloooo! Can I request a aehyun jealous smut where y/n and him recently broke up/are on a break and they see each other at a party each talking to different people and get jealous? Thank youuu

The three bottles of Hugo that you downed earlier after your last exam started to kick in. Not in a bad way but more in a positive one. The three bottles and a long talk with your friend actually persuaded you to go to one of those parties you normally avoided really fast. But here you were. Dressed in something that's not your pajama for once at this hour and a closed beer in your hand. You didn't know if you wanted to drink more. Right now, you felt wonderful. The pumping feeling from the previous alcohol still in your head, making you feel comfortably dizzy. Also adding how relieved you felt, knowing all your exams ended and you could finally relax. All your worries disappeared. Maybe because of the alcohol, maybe because of the weed smoke you could smell through the whole apartment or maybe just because you didn't see any of those toxic people you knew, for now.

It was one of the first parties you attended. The atmosphere was either relaxing or really steamy. You could decide where to start of with your friend. Making your way to the dance floor and start to dance to music you didn't really like or go to a group of people who discussed about playing beer pong. Seeing some familiar faces in the group you decided to start relaxed, taking your friends hand before walking to the table. Seeing both of you they started to greet you and your friends with bright smiles. Your friend started to hug everyone making you do the same as a girl already brought her arms around your waist. After finally greeting everyone you started to notice how easily it was to talk to them. You were surprised from yourself how your introvert ass could actually hold a five minute talk with someone you didn't even know. The game finally started and you opened the bottle of beer you still had in your hand. After some rounds your teammates already drank their bottles empty whilst yours was still full because it tasted like shit.

You thought about your next step. Route A: You settle the beer bottle down on the table and excuse yourself before going home. Route B: You tell them the beer doesn't taste and instead of drinking it you make your way to the dance floor and enjoy yourself on another way. Or Route C: You try to feel even better, gulping down the bottle of cheap beer before moving on to the dance floor as you try to do as much as possible tonight because you knew there won't be any party soon that you would independently want to attend.

You decided to go with Route C. The probability of having a bad headache tomorrow morning grew bigger as you exed the beer down your throat. You heard cheers, surprised cheers as the other saw you gulp it down. Maybe you should regret it you thought to yourself but you knew you couldn't. You wanted to do something new, Not forever but you just wanted to experience something that you didn't until now.

Excusing yourself to the bathroom you looked at yourself through the mirror. You looked normal, like always. You ran your with cold water filled hands over your face before sighing relieved. Yes, you felt dizzy but you weren't drunk. The desire to explore this world grew bigger inside of you. You wanted to keep this satisfied feeling the party gave you, you wanted to discover everything you could get on this party, just for tonight. You promised to yourself, just tonight, to get to know new thing as long as you don't get too drunk too think.

You smiled at your reflection, taking a breath before getting back to the party. You looked through the crowds, searching for your friends before someone tapped on your shoulder.

“Hey, are you looking for your friend?”

You looked bluntly at the boy in front you, admiring his beauty. Recognizing his face from the earlier beer pong game you pulled yourself together and smiled back at him. You saw his lips move but couldn't quite sense his words over the loud music. Noticing your confused expression he pulled you out of the green light into the apartments kitchen. The brighter light made it able to see his face better. He looked handsome and his smile lifted your already high mood even higher.

“Sorry its just better to talk here because of the loud music. I saw your friend talking to someone she knows. She told me you didn't have to search for her before she entered one of the bedrooms with her company.”

“Hmm, that's typical for her. Sorry that you had to look for me because of her.”

You weren't pissed by your friends action neither surprised, that's just how she was. Chuckling at the thought of her you got pulled out of your thoughts again as the boy next to you said something.

“No it's okey, now I actually have an excuse to start a conversation with this beautiful lady next to me.”

Small laughs left your mouth at his words, eyeing him up and down. It has been some time since the last time you flirted with someone. Your thoughts went back to your ex boyfriend or still boyfriend. You didn't even know. The love between both of you was something beautiful that neither of you wanted to break but as you initiated a relationship break because of his jealous behaviour it became kind of stormy in your spring like love. It wasnt that you didn't love him or he you. There were just these unnecessarily fights that you couldn't handle anymore. As you started to go on a break with him you actually didn't know how to start to talk to him again. And since he also didn't talk to you, you practically broke up right? Okay, you didn't broke up but you were still on a break and you thought back to the promise you made to yourself. Cutting of your processing thoughts you looked back at the boy.  

“Are you talking about me mister?”

Thankfully he laughed back at your comment before keeping the conversation. He was actually funny not only good looking. Some time passed and you already downed a whole chips bag whilst sitting on the kitchen counter, talking to the sweet boy you got to meet tonight.

Everything went well, you had a great time until you heard the oh so familiar laugh from the other side of the kitchen. There he was. One of your hands went up to your mouth sliding a nacho in your mouth as you gazed around the room, looking for the person with the soft laugh that made butterflies fly in your stomach every time you heard it. But the butterflies slowly died as you saw him standing there. A beer in his hand, his sleeves were rolled up, showing of his veiny arms. Fuck he looked gorgeous. You were to mesmerized by seeing him again before you finally saw his eyes staring into your direction. His eyes were obviously on you. Checking you out like he did the whole party without your notice.

You felt a little betrayed as you saw a girl standing next to him, trying to talk to him. But you somehow did the same. You tried to ignore it for now unlike him. It made him feel sick. Not only the good looking guy you were talking to the whole time but how happy you looked without him throughout the party.

He didn't think it would be that bad but he wanted you more than anything since both of you went on your break. He wanted you to want him, making you need him as much as he needed you. But why did you look so happy even tho he wasn't near you like this guy right now? That's when he realised. To say he wanted you or needed you would be an underestimation. Oh no, he desired you. He desired everything of you. It was almost like an addiction, almost like only you could feel the void in his body. He felt it through his whole body as the desire poisoned his mind making him think unclear. You were like a goddess to him. Everything was just so mesmerizing. The touch of your fingertips in his hair that he haven't felt in like ages to your long self talks about ordering indish or vietnamese food.

You still felt his gaze on you noticing the jealousy mixed with something else fill his and your atmosphere. No, you didn't want to lose your happy mood over him now. Deciding to flee from his stare you asked the boy if he wanted to dance, already pulling him with you to the dance floor, back to the red light.

The loud music added to your already pumping and dizzy mind as your body got closer to the handsome guy. Sweat started to form on your forehead, as it started to get hot, moving your body to the wild music in the middle of a big crowd. Your mood started to light up again until you noticed a vibrating phone in the jeans of your dance partner. He looked at you sorry before picking up the call on his cell phone. You looked at his face, his expression changing from confused to worried.

“What do you mean with he's throwing up? Like is he okay?...Ok...yeah ok...yes I'm on my way.”

He looked at you sorry, worry still plastered on his face. Explaining you the situation before trying to squeeze himself out of the crowd. Standing there alone you decided to just keep on moving, not wanting to let your mood fall down.

He noticed it as he payed a friend twenty bucks to call this guy. Yes, that was when he noticed that his desire towards you was almost selfish. Selfish for trying everything to be near you again, near his desire. On the way through the crowd dancing around him he smiled pathetically at himself, noticing how helpless he fell for you. He wrapped his arms around your waist from behind feeling how you lightly shuttered under his touch before you turned around.

Your eyes met his as you opened them, looking at him perplexed. Jaehyun pulled you closer to his body. One of his big hands went up to your chin, pulling your head closer to his so his lips could whisper easily in your ear.

“Fuck baby Ive missed you so much. I hope you didn't forget me because I didn't forget you. I was kinda surprised as you walked into this party. You could have told me you know, I'm still your boyfriend right?”

You smiled daringly at his question, moving yourself up on your tiptoes to his ear before placing a soft kiss against his cheek. A smirk plastered over his face while he tried to suppress the aching feeling in his body from your body touching his.

“I don't know baby. I haven't seen you in a while and I remember seeing a girl next to you earlier. Where did she go?”

“Are we getting jealous? Isn't that the reason we've fought all the time? If you are talking about this girl let me talk about this boy. Hmphh, his hands were on your body, and you talked to him for a really long time. I hope you didn't plan to fuck him tonight because that would make me really happy darling.”

“And what if I did? He's so funny. I didn't get his number but I can just ask my friend later you know.”

Jaehyuns cheeky grin disappeared from his face. He looked at you blankly. The grip one of his hand had on your waist got stronger, bringing you even closer to his body. Jaehyuns hand went down from your cheek joining the other one on your waist before moving on to your underarm. The skinship you shared with him seemed to tense the situation even more as his hand intertwined his fingers with yours.

“Are you playing with me right now? You walk into this party like it's totally normal and then you talk to some random guy and dare to dance with him after seeing me, your boyfriend?...Let me show you who you belong too.”

With these last words, he pushed himself through the crowd, dragging you behind him. You could feel by the tightened graps on your hand how pissed and impatient he was. You finally got out of the crowd, Jaehyun kept walking fast until he found an empty room. Opening the door he closes it immediately behind you and pushed you against it, trapping you between the door and his body. You smirked at him, already planning to tease him. Jaehyun looked at you, never taking his eyes of you. Why was he so obsessed?

His two eyes were filled with desire

His heart was filled with desire

And at the end of this thrill no one

could ever predict how much

he loved his desire.

That was when his eyes turned blind, closing them. His hands were on the back of your head, yours on the back of his neck as he crashed his soft lips against yours. You could say it was rough but passionate, as if he was craving to feel your lips moving against his.  He moved one of his hand down into your pants, fast, achieving a gasp from you. Taking the chance he moved his tongue into your mouth, intertwining the muscle with yours. His hand kept moving down into your underwear, placing one finger on your clit. He didn't want this to end to fast but he was too desperate to care about it. He needed you, right now.

Sweet moans left your mouth as he rubbed circles on your clit whilst you moved one hand down to his pants. Unbuttoning them you took his already hard on out of his pants. You started to move your hand up and down his dick, getting a groan from him. Sweat lingered on his forehead that made his already shining skin shine even brighter. Fuck he looked gorgeous. You started to get wet, already feeling your orgasm near. His tongue was still in your mouth, rough kisses still shared before he pulled away. A string of saliva still connected both of your lips. Now he fully pulled away from your body, letting you wait for his touch again even tho he was the one who desired your touch, your everything right now. But you needed him too so you decided to take things in your hand.

“What? If you think you can tease me I can just go back to the party, looking for the boy that had his hands on my hips, asking him if he wants to fuck me.”

At your words he groaned, flexing his collarbone. He pulled your pants down aggressively as well as his before taking one of your legs up, putting it over your shoulder. Pumping his dick again he positioned himself in front of your heat, putting the tip already into your hole. You left out a slight whimper because of the stretch, already anticipating his cock ramming into you. One of his hand went up your torso, kneading your breast before moving up to your neck, choking you slightly.

“Baby girl, not even I know how much I need you but I hope you're okay with being mine and me being yours so stop talking about some stupid guy that couldn't even fuck you half as well as I do.”

Jaehyun rammed his dick into you, not giving you a chance to get comfortable with the stretch. You felt your wetness slipping around his dick and your walls already clenching around his dick. The room was filled with his groans and your moans that were suppressed by his veiny hand choking your neck. You whine, feeling every inch of his cock ramming inside of you. His thrusts were rough and fast, still loving and passionate. He pounded into you like you were his slut, still respectful and careful because you were his goddess. Jaehyun couldn't take it anymore, already feeling his high approaching.

“Fuck baby I cant take it anymore. You are so tight...ah let me cum inside of you yes? I will fill your tight pussy with my hot cum. Would you like that mixing both of your cums together?”

His words made you clench your walls even tighter around his dick as you were ready to cum. You nodded leaving out loud pleades and yesses with your moans. Jaehyun moved his hands down from your neck to your clit, stimulating it with hard pressure while rubbing it. That's when you felt your high, like an explosion in your stomach and the butterflies coming back to life. Whilst Jaehyun felt his orgasm some seconds after you, cumming in your pussy, filling you up with his hot seed. Loud pants and some gentle kisses filled the room as he pulled out of you, mixed cum dripping out of your pussy down your thighs. His lips were still on yours as well as his forehead against yours. You pulled away, whispering a small “I love you” seeing how his lips lit up into a small exhausted smile.

“I love my desire.”

[childofthenight2035]

Letters To Who You Were

A/N: This is a Chan fic that I thought of writing for a helluva time now, so enjoy! Don’t forget to check out my masterlist! Unrequested

Pairing: Bang Chan x gn!Reader

Summary/Prompt: You receive letters from someone you’re sure you don’t know.

Genre: Angst, Confusion, Time travel, Fluff(?)

Word Count: 12.6k

Warnings: Mentions of death, depression

-

Bloody Mondays. You hated them.

Chucking the alarm across the room and satisfying yourself with the sound of the battery falling out, you heaved yourself onto your elbows, staring at the pillow groggily.

“Why?” you whined, throwing off the covers and sitting up.

You squinted at the curtains, knowing the sky was too dark to get up, but you had to. You had class. Anthropology of all things. Eight o’clock. Ugh. You loved the subject, but not at six in the morning.

Your bus was at four past seven. You needed to get the heck up.

After a quick shower and a banana, you stumbled out of the apartment, still pulling your shoes on. You set your foot down and realized that you were not, in fact, standing on the cement floor of the landing. You were standing on something else. Paper. A couple envelopes lay under your shoe. Cursing, you bent down to retrieve them and continued your dash to the bus stop.

You managed to catch the bus, after all. Quite the day’s work.

Huffing, out of breath, you collapsed into a window seat towards the middle of the bus. The letters were still clutched in your hand. Flipping them over, you observed what was written on the front. One had the stamp of the Water Authorities on it. Clearly your water bill. You didn’t even want to know. Stuffing it into your backpack, you focused on the other one. It wasn’t official. Your address was handwritten on it. No sender’s name. No return address on the envelope. Hm.

You tore it open. In (somewhat) neat handwriting, was a letter. Addressed to you.

Y/N,

You’ve probably forgotten me. But you’ll remember—through these letters.

 What the heck? You’ve probably forgotten this person? Childhood friend? Okay…

 We’ve been through so much in the year that we were together. It seems like only yesterday. It’s already been a year but I don’t think that I could ever forget you. Not the way you sleep with your limbs splayed out like a starfish; not the way your eyes crinkle when you smile; not the way you chew on your bottom lip when you’re nervous. I could never forget all that.

 Whoa. Wait. Smiling and chewing your lip was one thing; but you did sleep like that. Who could possibly know—was this your old roommate or somebody, pranking you? What did they mean, in the year we were together?

 You’ll think I’m crazy. I know. You’ll claim that you don’t know who I am. But I’m not crazy. I’m the sanest person in the room right now.

Have you gotten that raise yet? I may be a little off, but if you haven’t, then I think you’ll get it within the week. It looks like a good week, huh? I know getting an A in your anthropology class isn’t easy. I’m proud of you.

I realize you must be confused now, but I promise you that you’ll understand. Just give me some time, for once. You were always so busy. Is that why we couldn’t make it? Is that why you couldn’t afford a second chance?

Read these letters now. Someday we’ll meet.

Chris

 Hold up. You didn’t know any Chris. Your previous roommate definitely didn’t go by Chris. Maybe Gail, when she was drunk, but Chris? Who’s that? Also, when had you ever gotten an A in anthropology? It wasn’t that easy, especially not for you. And you’ve never gotten a raise yet. What the fuck was going on?

You read the last paragraph again. Just give me some time, for once? Well damn. Ouch. Sorry. Is that why we couldn’t make it? Make it? Make what?

This was going to drive you crazy the whole day, you just knew it.

You slowly closed the letter, troubled. Were your friends pranking you? Was that what this was? Putting it into your bag, you zipped it shut and stared out the window. Youngjae had asked you for your address recently. Hey, maybe that was it! So he was pranking you, huh? Maybe they were all in it together? You relaxed. That’s what it is. Idiots.

…

“Yah, Youngjae.” You plunked a hand onto his desk and pointed at his face. “What do you think you’re playing at?”

His eyebrows disappeared into his bangs, grabbing your finger and twisting it so you squirmed in pain. “What do you think you’re playing at, huh, disrespecting me?”

He let go of your finger and you slid into the seat next to him.

“It’s a weak idea, bro. Come on, why prank someone if they can tell it’s a prank right away?”

He looked confused. “Prank? What prank? On who?”

You tsked. “Come on, man, April Fools’ is months away. Give up.”

He stilled, glancing around like he thought you were crazy and wanted a quick escape. “I honestly don’t have a clue what you’re saying.”

Your smile faltered. “You didn’t send that letter? Or Jisung? Or Minho? Or even Yeji?”

“What letter? Y/N, are you okay?”

You searched his eyes for any sign, his lips for an uncontrolled twitching, his hands for nervous fiddling. Nothing. You silently brought out the letter and showed it to him, crossing your arms and watching for a change of expression as he read it. Nope. Only confusion.

“What the heck is this?” he asked you curiously. “Who’s Chris?”

You slumped. “I thought one of you guys might have sent that as a prank.”

He handed it back to you. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you asked for my address last week!” you defended.

He threw his hands up. “That was for the ad you asked me to put in the campus paper for a roommate!”

“Oh.” You pouted, sitting straight, facing the front of the class. Your anthropology professor hadn’t yet come in, and the students were being loud. As usual.

“And besides,” he added, nudging you in the ribs (‘ow!’), “I wouldn’t go as far as even imply you got an A in anthropology, like, what even—hey!” You swiped his pen from where he was doodling on his notebook.

“You’re being mean.”

“I’m telling the truth. You know it. Give me my pen back.”

“Silence!” A voice boomed. The entire class rushed back to their seats or straightened up or shut their mouths. Youngjae took the chance and stole his pen. Your professor gazed around at all of you, her expression stern and disapproving. “I have your exams graded.” A collective groan sounded around the room. “The overall performance is lower than usual—“ your heart sank, “—but some of you have done better than I thought.” She proceeded to sit at her desk and call out the names. She also had the irritating habit some teachers have of announcing the grade as well. Your heartbeat was already picking up pace.

“Jacob! B, better than I expected, good….Eric! C, you can do better than this….Kevin.” You cringed at her expression, feeling desperately sorry for him. “D. You didn’t open your book at all, did you?”

Four names later, “ Youngjae! A, good work.”

“As usual,” you grumbled, but feeling proud of him nevertheless. He worked for it. You squeezed his arm when he came back to sit with his paper.

“Y/N!” You stood, hearing Youngjae whisper a ‘good luck’. You made your way to the front of the class, heart pounding. Your professor looked up at you and you winced apologetically for the abomination that was your paper. “A.”

What. Wait, what?

“What?” You accidentally blurted out. She smiled thinly.

“Well done. Keep it up.” She handed you your paper and you traipsed back to your seat, your head throbbing, unaware of the eyes on you.

“Oh my gosh you got an A,” Youngjae muttered, seizing your paper and staring at it like he couldn’t believe his ears or his eyes.

“I did. I got an A.” Your voice came out awed, in a hushed tone, drowned out by the sound of your classmates meeting their fates. A particular sentence, scrawled onto paper, read on a moving bus, flashed from your memory banks. You gasped. “ Youngjae!”

Yanking the letter from under your desk, you spread it out on the table. Youngjae understood what you meant just from glancing at it.

It looks like a good week, huh? I know getting an A in your anthropology class isn’t easy. I’m proud of you.

“Whoa.” He was shocked, too, but quickly composed his flow of reason. “Someone saw your grades. That’s the only explanation.”

“It’s still creepy,” you countered, falling silent and putting both papers away as your professor stood to teach. Still weird.

…

“I asked the others if they sent any letter; they didn’t,” Youngjae informed you, huffing as he and Jisung caught up with you on the way to Sociology after his Korean language class. You groaned.

“It’s not my old roommate Jeongyeon either, I called her.” You scratched the back of your neck. “This feels weird! Someone who’s close enough to know how I sleep? To notice me so well that they know how I smile? How I chew on my lip?” You shuddered. “Do I have a stalker? This is scary now. Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Well, someone could know you sleep like that from that pic of all of us sleeping on Minho’s Instagram,” Jisung suggested. “But what if it was a one-time thing? You’re right, I think you have a stalker.”

You grabbed Youngjae’s arm. “Could you stay with me, then? Until I find another roommate?”

“Wait, but what if your new roommate turns out to be your stalker? Oh, that would be epic.” Jisung pressed his hands together and rubbed them.

“Jisung, not helping!”

“Y/N, you know we hostel people aren’t allowed to stay anywhere else without permission unless it’s break,” Youngjae explained patiently. “One night might be okay, but if it’s more than that, they’ll chuck us out and honestly, I don’t think I could afford off-campus housing right now. And my parents wouldn’t like it.”

“I’m technically broke now, so…” Jisung trailed off. “You know my parents aren’t sponsoring me this year since I told them I’m dropping English and taking Music. Until I prove that I’m good at it.”

“I know, I know,” you sighed, regretting having brought it up. “It’s okay. It’s probably just Jeongyeon and she doesn’t want to admit it. But then, how did she know I got an A?”

…

Two days later, you practically flew into your Anthropology class, to find Youngjae.

“Whoa, what happened, calm down!” he exclaimed as you dropped into your seat. “What happened, Y/N?”

You steadied your breathing, a hand on your heaving chest. “I…I got a raise.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you serious?” When you nodded, he broke into a smile. “That’s great news! I thought that coffee place never gave anyone raises!” You didn’t react. He faltered, looking at your tense expression. “What’s the matter—oh.” You pursed your lips. He finally remembered. “The letter.”

“How could anyone have known that?” You were chewing on your lip again and Youngjae tapped your chin, reminding you to stop before you tore the skin open.

“Does anyone there know a Chris?”

“The manager’s sister has a son named Chris, I asked. But,” you added quickly so Youngjae wouldn’t overreact, “they live abroad. And how would they know me?”

Youngjae sat back in his chair, thinking. “Hmm. Whoever’s writing it knows English well, but from the seals of the post office, I don’t think it’s international mail.” He waved it away. “Don’t think about that now. Did you put up the flyers in the coffee shop?”

“Yes, sir, I did.” You were grateful. “Thanks for getting Yugyeom to make them for me. Although I guess you should be thanking me for a chance to go to him, huh?”

“What?” he spluttered, smacking your arm. “I said I don’t like him, okay?”

“I know.” You smiled smugly, satisfied at the red blush dusting his cheeks. “You love him.”

…

On Thursday, it happened again.

Your classes were only in the afternoon, so you didn’t rush. But the floor in front of your door presented you with another letter. You brought it in, curiously. You hadn’t thrown away the first letter, even though you had the strangest urge to do so. Instead, you kept it in a box on top of your fridge.

You tore the new letter open. In the same handwriting, it read:

Y/N,

Yesterday was my sister’s wedding. I had no idea that she had invited you, but now that I think of it, I’m not very surprised. She was always fond of you. She took your side even when we fought, did you know that?

I don’t think you saw me. I got one glimpse of you and I ran. I’m a coward. But, did you, perhaps, know somehow that I was there and that I was looking for you? Were you looking for me?

Disgrace. That’s what my mother said to me. That I’m a disgrace. Just because I didn’t have the courage to greet guests and risk you seeing me, just because I can’t stick to something for long, because I’m a loser. And I don’t blame her.

Is it just me? Am I the only one hurting? Seeing you so happy hurts me. It makes me think that this fight isn’t affecting you at all. I can’t help it. I’m selfish.

My sister says that you were so polite and wanted to see me. She says that if only I had come out to talk to you, things would have been alright. Now I wish I had. Maybe I wouldn’t need to write anymore letters if I did.

I wonder if you kept that painting you said your friend gave you on your birthday. And speaking of birthdays, I hope you have a terrific one. You deserve nothing but the best.

It’s difficult. It’s like talking to a person with amnesia. Writing to a person who doesn’t know who’s writing to them is confusing. I know. There are things that I can’t say. But you’re smart. You’ll figure it out eventually.

Chris

 You were beyond confused now. You were thoroughly disturbed. You had not gone to a wedding. You knew no girl whose brother was called Chris. You had not received any painting for your birthday. It was next week, so maybe you would? But how would Chris know that? If he even was called Chris?

Beyond all that, what scared you was that you felt this. You could feel the hurt in it. You could feel it as if it was…your own.

The words that called himself a loser, a coward, a disgrace…you understood. But what was the next part about? Him asking if the fight was only affecting him but not you? What fight? What on earth was going on? He wished he had talked to me; he wouldn’t have needed to write any more letters if he had?  And that last paragraph? It’s difficult. It’s like talking to a person with amnesia. Writing to a person who doesn’t know who’s writing to them is confusing. I know. There are things that I can’t say. But you’re smart. You’ll figure it out eventually.

So he knew that you had no clue who he was. From the last letter, you assumed that it was a person you had forgotten about, but this one implied that you had never known him? There were things he couldn’t say? You would figure it out eventually?

What?

…

From the look on your face, Youngjae knew something was up. When he asked, you only pulled out the letter. He groaned.

“That ass wrote again? This is some elaborate prank, huh?” He took the letter, still chuckling, but as his eyes scanned the paper, his smile disappeared.

You didn’t speak, upset that you didn't understand what was going on, upset that someone was clearly having some fun at your expense, but also upset that, at the same time, it didn’t feel like a joke. This felt personal and…real.

“Oh my god.” His little whisper had your attention on him.

“What? What is it?”

Youngjae didn’t seem to hear you. “How the hell…who could have known about that…”

“ Youngjae, what’s wrong?”

He reluctantly pointed at a sentence in the letter. “That’s…that’s me. I’m that friend. I just bought you a painting for your birthday next week. How the hell….” He trailed off, astounded.

You were speechless. Okay, that was scary.

“Damn it,” he spat, banging his fist on the desk, startling some students in the class. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“ Youngjae, I still haven’t seen it, so it is still a surprise,” you reassured. “And I think that’s not as important as the fact that this person might be stalking you too.”

Youngjae had his focused face on, probably thinking who could have had the chance to see what he bought for you. “Minho wouldn’t do that, right?” he asked quietly, referring to his roommate at the dorms, the second oldest in your group. You shook your head.

“Minho’s petty, but I don’t think he would go this far for a joke. No one else knows about the painting?”

“Other than the guy at the store, I don’t think so.” He ran a hand through his hair, agitated.

Both of you were too disturbed to communicate throughout the lesson, you almost blacking out when the prof asked you something.

“It’s not even details like that,” you told him after class, walking across campus to his dorms. “ Youngjae, when I read that letter, I felt it. It hurt me. It was like I knew this person, but my brain is struggling to remember who he is. It felt real.” You grasped his arm. “I haven’t been in like, some accident and lost my memory, right?”

Youngjae laughed at your comment, some of the tension dissipating. “Of course not, dumbass. As if we would let you.”

…

Another letter was waiting for you on Tuesday. The weekend had flown by with your coursework and your job, but luckily you had managed to complete everything.

You tore open the letter, glancing at the other two in the box on the fridge; two letters you had read over and over again, hoping for some meaning to this. The third letter wasn’t addressed to you by name.

 Red.

That was my favourite colour.

The moments until the ice broke between us were so awkward and cliché. You even popped the favourite colour question. I’ve never understood why that question became the standard first when getting to know someone. Can you automatically analyse a person  based on their favourite colour?

You told me yours and then asked for mine. I scoffed at you. I didn’t feel like telling you, right? Don’t you remember? I told you, “Guess.” And then I had to endure you following me around and naming random colours. And then you asked me why.

 His favourite colour was red. Nothing very special in that. But he was talking to you with such a sense of familiarity, as if the two of you had actually been close once upon a time. There was such…nostalgia in what he said. And he was asking if you remembered? No, Chris, you didn’t.

 Red showed me passion. It showed me heat and power and rage: just like the sun. Because I wanted to shine. I wanted my name on billboards and neon signs, spelling it out in fierce red letters. Red reminded me of the deep maroon stain on the carpet in the living room, the stain that you made by dropping a scented liquid candle on it in your first year. Red showed me blood and it reminded me of my heartbeat and how I’m still alive.

 You let out a shaky exhale at the words, both awed by the poetry in them and frightened at the fact that there was, in fact, a stain on the carpet in the living room made by you dropping a candle on the floor. This person knows you here, knows you now. And that was scarier than ever. Up until now, you had the chance that he was someone you knew long ago who decided to fuck with you with knowing your grades, had a pull with the coffee shop owner and saw your best friend buying you a painting. But now…the paper crinkled from how tightly you were holding it. This person knows you in this time of your life. He’s been to your apartment and knows how you sleep. And yet…as much as this makes you afraid, you can sense that he’s hurting. He doesn’t mean harm.

 Red reminded me of your blush.

Red is no longer my favourite colour. It stopped being so when you walked out the door with your suitcase and your tears. And without my apology.

My favourite colour is grey.

I see nothing but it nowadays. There’s no black or white anymore. It’s only grey. No clear differences, just a mess of confusion. Who was right? Were my actions justified? Were yours? What have you believed in the year you refused to speak to me?

Stagnant. Disinterested. That’s what my life is like without your presence. How did I ever think I could manage without you?

I’m weak. Too weak.

Chris

 Against your will, a tear escaped the corner of your eyes.

“Why am I crying?” you mumbled, wiping your face with the sleeve of your sweater. Your heart ached; your mind was searching again, searching for a face, an identity, but you were clawing blindly in the dark, only gaps where information should have been.

You and Chris had clearly fought. You walked out with your suitcase and your tears…and that meant you lived together. Was it here? In this apartment? You definitely haven’t had a roommate called Chris. Briefly, you wondered if this was addressed to another Y/N who had lived here with him long before you came, but the details proved otherwise. This person was watching you, here, now.

His life was stagnant without you. Was this person delusional? Crazy? Was your presence just in his head? What did he think of you, exactly? What was the nature of your relationship with him, in his head, at least?

You didn’t know. And if he was insane, you weren’t sure you even wanted to know.

…

Your heart broke at lying to Youngjae. When he asked you if you had any more letters, you shook your head.

“Maybe he’s given up,” you said cheerily, aware of the way Youngjae was observing you.

Well, maybe you should have known that lying to your best friend doesn’t get you very far.

“I’m not pressing you for information, Y/N,” he said gently. “I’m just saying, we’re all here for you. You don’t have to do anything alone.”

…

 Your birthday party passed in a haze. It wasn’t really a party, just you and your circle of friends chilling at your apartment, and them emptying your kitchen of food.

Youngjae gifted you a Van Gogh painting. Or, a copy of a Van Gogh painting, you should say. It was clear that both of you remembered Chris’ letter, but you laughed it off, saying that at least Chris didn’t tell you which one it was.

Jisung presented you with a track he had composed for you in his class. He winced, knowing that he was being cheap, but you hugged him gratefully all the same. You would’ve done so even if he hadn’t given you anything. Their presence was enough.

Minho, unfortunately, couldn’t show up, since he had a dance routine due that day, but Yeji showed up, bringing you food that Minho had made the day before, and although it served your friends more than you, you thanked them for it. You blew out a weak candle you had found somewhere in the kitchen while the others sang, your only wish being that you wanted answers to the letters you had been receiving. You cut through a rice cake and stuffed a piece into each of their mouths. And in return, of course, like the great friends they are, shoved a whole rice cake into your mouth and smashed another one on your head.

You didn’t mind. Not too much, at least.

After all, what were friends for?

…

Saturday. You had work in twenty minutes. It was only a five minute walk from your apartment, but you decided to leave early.

You were hardly surprised at a letter on the floor in front of you. It was more of anticipation. Anxiety. Fear. But you picked it up nevertheless.

It was a dull cloudy day that reminded you of the winter that was to come. As much as you were excited about snow days and Christmas, the cold was really a bitch. Ripping the envelope open, you pulled out the letter and began your walk to the coffee shop.

 Y/N,

There are fifty thousand things I want to tell you, but nothing more than this: I miss you.

Don’t you remember?

You would force open my door at two in the morning and wallop me with your pillow because I was snoring so loudly that you couldn’t sleep. But hey, you were worse. I remember you one night, yelling in your sleep that you needed a pencil. Were you dreaming about your finals? I don’t know. You had no memory of whatever it was the next morning.

 Despite the cold, despite your nerves, you couldn’t help but smile fondly at his words. You’d been told before, that you sometimes talked in your sleep, but couldn’t recall ever yelling for a pencil. No one had told you that, at least. This definitely confirmed that you had shared living space with him, whether as a friend, or as a roommate, or even…a boyfriend? Your eyes ran over three words again: I miss you. And then he asked, don’t you remember?

“I wish I did,” you whispered bitterly. “I really wish I did.”

 I still remember the night you found the courage to come to me because it was a terrible thunderstorm and you were scared. I wanted to make fun of you, but the look on your face stopped me. I’m glad I didn’t. That night you began to trust me. We stayed up all night through that storm, do you remember anything? There was the loudest clap of thunder and the power went out. Neither of us said it, but I knew we were afraid. We sat there on the sofa in silence, in the dark, until you suddenly spoke: “Please tell me we’re not going to die.” And I started laughing. And that was all. The ice was broken.

 “Oh.” You were probably just roommates. That night you began to trust me. “Wait, what am I saying?” you questioned yourself. “I’ve never had a roommate called Chris. Why am I acting like I do?” You smacked the side of your head. “Snap out of it.”

But even still, you couldn’t shake off the feeling that you did know him.

 But I never got around to telling you it. When the thunder died away, I forgot that there might be more storms to come. I never told you we weren’t going to die. And now I think that I’m going back on that promise I never made.

I can see those thunderclouds again, Y/N. I hate this. I hate my life. I hate a life without you.

Chris

 You were outside the shop now. You swallowed your emotions down, taking a deep breath, trying to compose yourself. Calm down, Y/N. It’s just some deranged psycho writing letters to someone he thinks he knows. Relax. You don’t know him.

.

Seungmin, another barista, waved to you as you entered. You returned the gesture, stowing your jacket away and putting on your apron.

“You okay? You look sick,” he commented as you washed your hands.

“Just the cold, I’m okay.” You glanced at the your flyer pinned to the bulletin board across the room. Seungmin noticed where your eyes were.

“Oh, by the way,” he continued, gesturing to the ad, “you know my friend Hyunjin, right?” You nodded. “He’s kinda looking for a place to stay.”

Intrigued, you perked up your ears. “Yeah? Tell him to call me.”

“Are animals allowed?”

“No. My landlord is pretty strict about that.”

“Ah.” His shoulders slumped. “Never mind, then. Hyunjin won’t leave his dog behind.”

You smiled gently, recalling the time Hyunjin had brought his little black and white puppy into the coffee shop for about fifteen minutes before the manager saw and threw them out. “It’ll work out somehow. He’ll find a place.”

“Hm. I guess so.”

The ringing of the bell indicated someone had just walked in. Taking a glance at the door, you smirked. “I think you should take this order, Seungminnie. I’ll be out back.”

Seungmin looked up from where he was trying to solve the crossword (which he simply never can) and saw Jeongin, a freshman that he had been long crushing on. He threw you a dirty look that didn’t hide his blush and reluctantly moved to the counter to take the kid’s order—hopefully without making himself look like a fool.

You busied yourself in the kitchen, making way for the deliverers bringing the day’s pastries. Half your mind was on the letter and every time you thought about it, a weight pressed down on your chest. It was a horrible feeling. You couldn’t wait to get to the bottom of this. None of the others knew you had been receiving more letters. Youngjae probably sensed that you had, but you weren’t about to involve him in it. This felt too personal to share with even him.

You sighed. This entire ordeal was eating you alive and you felt helpless in it.

…

There was no letter the next week. Chris seemed to have finally fallen silent. And you didn’t want to admit how attached you had already gotten, from just four letters. It was a sort of feeling you couldn’t control. You wanted to be scared, you wanted to burn the letters and pretend they never existed, but something warned you not to. Something told you that you might need them, sooner or later.

He took up most of your time; most of the thoughts in your brain had something to do with him. You wondered what he might look like, what kind of person he was. There was a lot about you in the letters, but precious little about him. He was observant. He was lyrical. Poetic. Emotional. Ambitious. What did he like to do? What was his passion? What relationship did he think the two of you had? You couldn’t help but wonder.

You didn’t want to admit it, but you sometimes addressed him when you talked to yourself around the apartment. For you, he was associated with only you, only these rooms. Maybe that was one reason you didn’t share this with the others. Chris seemed to belong to only you. Only known to you. And at some point, you would begin to feel like you only belonged to him. Whoever he was. You wished you only knew.

…

The next Saturday was a work day for you. There was no letter in front of your door when you left, but when you returned after a hectic day and rude customers, just wishing for peace, you were surprised to see an envelope with familiar writing scrawled across it. Snatching it up immediately, you dashed inside to read it.

 Y/N,

Do you remember the first time you spoke to me about your parents? It was so sudden. I didn’t know what brought it on. One moment you were busy around the kitchen and the next you were on the floor crying. The only thing that I could understand was that they had called, your mother said something and you were upset.

You went into a pathetic rant about how your parents had locked you in the four walls of your home, not bothering to listen to you, emotionally abusing you because they wouldn’t listen to you about your stress. I honestly didn’t know what to do. I could only hold you as you cried your heart out on my shirt.

 Your breath hitched.

This…this was real. This was too real. That was exactly how you felt. Even you couldn’t have organized your thoughts so well. How does Chris know me so well? Who are you? Already tears were forming at the corner of your eye at the emotion you felt from reading those sentences about your parents.

 Would you believe it if I saw you as cold and distant until that day? We were always civil, but you seemed shut off, closed to me. I know that you didn’t mean it. I realized that you were scared to open up. I can understand how hurt you must have been when your parents refused to care.

I can only say the same thing that I said then: They may never understand you, they may never accept you, but it doesn’t matter. There is enough love in the world that you are not at all restricted to seeking support from your family. That’s why humans can pack bond. There are people who know what you’re going through, and if there isn’t anyone else, I will be here. I always will.

 You choked back a sob. Whatever your rational brain said, you knew that Chris wasn’t out to hurt you. It was as if he knew what you were going through, and wanted to reassure you despite you not knowing him. You were grateful for that, regardless.

 Is it weird? Is it awkward that you know me but at the same time you don’t? Will you not be suspicious when you see me? I don’t even know if you will. I don’t know if I’ve messed things up by writing this. But even if I have, it’s okay. If it means that you’ll be alive, then I’ll be okay not having you as a friend. Even if we’re awkward and don’t get closer, it’s okay. I’m scared of what will happen if we do. I’m scared of getting stuck in this vicious cycle. It’s better if you stay away and survive than get to know me and ruin your life.

Chris

 Wait. Wait. Let’s try that again.

Is it awkward that you know me but at the same time you don’t? Yes. It is awkward, Chris. Am I living in some parallel dimension where I don’t know you but you’re living in the other side where I do know you?

Will you not be suspicious when you see me? When, you noticed. Not if. You paused, staring at the paper in your hands. When I see him? So you were right? You’ve never seen him? Or at least, you haven’t seen him recently? Yes, Chris, it will be suspicious. If I ever do see you, you better have some answers. How do you know all this when we haven’t met?

I don’t even know if you will. I don’t know if I’ve messed things up by writing this. Okay, now he doesn’t know if I will see him. What does he mean by messed things up? What has he messed up other than my sanity?

But even if I have, it’s okay. If it means that you’ll be alive, then I’ll be okay not having you as a friend. You noticed that your fingers were trembling. You tried to calm yourself, to understand what he was trying to say. Even if he has messed things up, it’s okay. He will be okay not having me as a friend if it means I will be…alive? Am I not alive?  Your parallel universe explanation popped up again. Am I not alive in his dimension? What?

Even if we’re awkward and don’t get closer, it’s okay. I’m scared of what will happen if we do. So he thinks we’re friends? And he’s scared about my life if I’m his friend? Is he a gangster or mafia leader or something? He’s okay with us not getting closer?

I’m scared of getting stuck in this vicious cycle. Vicious cycle. What cycle? You ran those words through your head, over and over again, trying to make sense of it. They sounded oddly familiar, but you just couldn’t place it. You felt like they were associated with Youngjae, for some reason. But why?

It’s better if you stay away and survive than get to know me and ruin your life. So he’s scared that I’d ruin my life if I got closer to him. And yet, you could almost hear the undertones in that sentence. The bitterness. He wanted to be close to you, desperately. But he was too scared to.

“Why do you have to be so fucking cryptic, Chris?” you mumbled.

You shook your head. You still had no idea what was going on.

…

That afternoon, Minho and Jisung came over to your place without any prior warning. You raised your eyebrows at them when you saw them shivering on your doorstep, backpacks on. They pushed past you into your living room and relished the warmth with loud exclamations of relief.

“Can I help you?” you asked, knowing your idea of peace was shattered. You closed the door before the cold could get in and make things worse.

“ Youngjae hyung kicked us out,” Jisung said, pouting. “He has a math test on Monday and he said he would fail if we kept disturbing him.”

You remembered telling Youngjae so many times to think again before taking math, but then, each to his own. “And you couldn’t stay in your room because…”

“Felix has his boyfriend over,” he explained. “And I’m not particularly fond of watching.”

“So we thought you’d be the best option.” Minho pulled his jacket off and tossed it onto the sofa before trudging to the kitchen.

“What makes you think I’m okay with watching you two?” you retorted, following Minho. You could already hear Jisung turning his laptop on, probably to play a game or watch a movie.

“You’ve been okay with it for seven years now,” Minho shot back, opening the fridge and closing it again in dismay. “You don’t really have much choice.” He stood on his tiptoes to grab at the box on top of the fridge, and you snatched it away in horror.

“What are you looking for?” you snapped, cradling the box in your arms. “You know you can just ask.”

“Don’t you have, like, real food?” He opened the cupboards and, finding a box of pretzels, turned to you in disgust. “Seriously?”

“You don’t have to eat it, you know.”

“Nah, I will. Food is food.” He reached into his backpack, brought out a packet of unpopped popcorn and set it on the counter. “Pop this, will you?” He gathered up the pretzels and the cereal box he found and walked out. You carefully set the box back on the fridge and let out a groan of frustration.

You reluctantly shoved the packet into the microwave and stared at it, still enjoying the ‘pop’ sounds it made. Your mind drifted back to the box on the fridge. You had to admit, you thought about this mysterious Chris more often than you liked.

“Who are you, Chris?” you muttered, eyes still on the spinning paper, your words drowned out by the noise. “Where are you?”

.

You found Minho and Jisung curled up on the sofa, intently watching what you assumed to be a movie. Plopping down on it and carefully setting the popcorn on the table, you peered around Minho at the screen. You were surprised to see that the movie was over halfway done.

“How did you guys watch it this far so fast?” you questioned, settling back into the cushions.

Without even taking his eyes off the screen, Jisung replied, “We were watching this at the dorm when hyung kicked us out.”

Nice. “What are you watching?”

“The Lake House.”

Not very helpful. “What’s it about?”

As Jisung opened his mouth to answer, Minho reached over and slammed the space bar, pausing the movie. Obviously he was irritated at the interruptions. Jisung held his hand to calm him down.

“It’s like this time-travel thing,” Jisung began, but Minho cut him off, choosing to explain in his quick, no-nonsense way.

“A house by the lake. Two people accidentally corresponding by writing letters but they’re actually two years apart in time.” He shrugged. “So things that she,” he pointed at the screen, “writes about haven’t actually happened for him, because he’s two years in the past. It’s trippy. Watch it sometime.”

“Ah.” You nodded and they resumed the film. You tuned out the dialogue from the laptop, mulling over what Minho and Jisung had just said. Corresponding by writing letters. Things that she writes haven’t happened for him because he’s in the past…

Time travel.

You sat up, the significance of that concept weighing heavily down on you.

The sound shut off once again. “You…okay?” Minho asked uncertainly.

You didn’t know how to respond for a moment. You barely heard him, blood pounding in your ears. All that was in your mind were the letters and Jisung’s voice: It’s like this time travel thing. You swallowed the revelation and the sheer possibility down.

“Yeah,” you gasped, “I just….” You stopped, the rest of the sentence dissipating into thin air.

Vicious cycle.

Those were words from your textbook.

You could still remember your professor lecturing your class on the beliefs that humans have had over the years. There was even a story, a legend, a myth, about time travellers. The class had erupted at that, referencing old pictures of people that bore eerie similarities to people living now. Social media made fun of them, calling them immortals and time-travellers. The story in your book spoke of a person who kept trying to change the past and alter the future and ended up going in circles with no result. Moral: don’t mess with things beyond human comprehension.

Vicious cycle.

“Y/N?” Jisung’s concerned voice broke you out of your thoughts. “Are you okay?”

You looked over at them, your eyes blown wide. Worry was etched on their faces. You forced a smile.

“Yeah, I just…I just remembered I have a paper due Monday.”

They laughed at your shock, and when you gestured to them that you’d be in your room doing that, they waved you away, calling out their thanks for letting them stay. You nodded absently, quietly padding to the kitchen and retrieving the letters from the box. Five of them in all.

The boys were immersed in their movie and didn’t even notice you slipping away into your room. You locked the door, finally allowing yourself to breathe.

You looked at the letters with a shaking heart. Was that what was happening? You couldn’t believe it. You didn’t want to believe it. You sat down on your bed, taking out the first letter and scanning through it. You put the idea into your head.

Time travel.

Could it be true?

Maybe it was. It would make a lot more sense with regard to the letters.

That’s how he knew, you thought. If he was your future roommate, he would know how you slept. He would be around you enough to notice how you smiled and that you chewed your lip when you were anxious. He would know that you recently got a raise and an A once in your class. He would know that the painting that hung on the living room wall was one that your friend gave you for your birthday. He would know that the stain on the carpet was your fault—and a candle’s. You could almost see yourself telling him all that.

It would explain how he knew you sometimes talked in your sleep and got scared of thunderstorms. He would know about your feelings towards your parents. Of course he would.

I realize you must be confused now, but I promise you that you’ll understand. You did. At least, you hoped you did. If that was even possible. You couldn’t see how time travel existed, but what other explanation could you give this?

It’s difficult. It’s like talking to a person with amnesia. You saw how it would be. If this was indeed future Chris writing letters to past you that didn’t know him yet…you understood how it would be difficult. There are things that I can’t say. But you’re smart. You’ll figure it out eventually. Have you? Have you figured it out?

It would explain why he said you had attended his sister’s wedding when you knew for sure that you hadn’t—yet. It would explain his anguish at the fight you were to have. His pain was contained in all of the letters you had received so far. Was the fight that bad? You couldn’t help but wonder what it would be about. Evidently it split the two of you—or, it would split you beyond repair. Chris was clearly hurting very much without you.

I never told you we weren’t going to die. And now I think that I’m going back on that promise I never made. This line still spooked you. Was he dying? Were you dying? What was going on? If he was really from the future, what was happening there that had him contact the past? Did he think he could change it?

Today’s letter made much more sense.

I don’t know if I’ve messed things up by writing this. But even if I have, it’s okay. If it means that you’ll be alive, then I’ll be okay not having you as a friend. Even if we’re awkward and don’t get closer, it’s okay. I’m scared of what will happen if we do. I’m scared of getting stuck in this vicious cycle.

He wanted to change the past? In a way that didn’t involve the two of you anymore? Wait. So, in his past, the two of you had evidently been quite close, as friends? more than friends? you didn’t know. But because of that, your fight had been severely worse? And that led to the fight breaking you up for good? And now, he couldn’t handle it, and he wanted to change the past so you didn’t become close, you didn’t fight and nobody got hurt? Was that it?

You rested your head against the wall, stunned by the turn of events. What was going on? What was happening?

…

 Your two-week winter break had you bidding Youngjae, Jisung and Yeji goodbye and sent them off home on the train. Minho’s family had gone to Japan to visit friends, and besides, he had his dance performance to think about. He confessed to you that he would much rather stay at the campus than waste his time in Japan seeing people he couldn’t care less about. Rather than be stuck in an empty dorm for the week, he decided to move in with you briefly, helping out at the coffee shop when he wasn’t practicing. You were grateful for his presence. Alone, he never got on your nerves. And he could cook better than you could.

“Why not stay at Jisung’s place for the holidays?” you asked him one evening in the kitchen.

“I didn’t want to intrude.” He sighed, pushing his glasses up with the back of his hand. “Jisung deserves some time alone with his family.” He cleanly chopped up an onion and tossed it into the pot simmering on the stove. “Don’t ask about me when you haven’t gone either.”

You threw a piece of pepper at him, which he caught and ate. “I hate travelling in the cold. That’s all. You know that.”

“I do know that. And you would have been very lonely.”

“Aww, you stayed for me?”

“Shut up and cut the vegetables. I can still leave, you know.”

“I know.”

…

Two nights later, you received a text from Jisung.

you seduced my man to move in with you huh I see how it is

You rolled your eyes. as if. he was begging me to let him stay

Jisung’s reply was quick. whatever that’s not what I wanted to tell you

okay what is it

felix has new neighbours and theor son is joining the university for the next sem and he doestn have a place to stay so

You raised your eyebrows. This was news. oh okay then ask him to call me then

okay I will I wasn’t sure I shud be giving ppl your number without telling you

You smiled. Jisung was considerate after all. thnx sungie

You had just placed the phone down when the thought occurred to you. A thought that had been haunting you a while ago. Chris was apparently your roommate at some point in the future. Was this person…Chris? You tapped out another message for Jisung. wait sungie whts the guys name

idk lemme ask felix hold on

You waited impatiently, anticipating (or dreading?) the reveal of the person’s name. You became alert when Jisung started typing.

flix doesn’t know hes asking his mom wait a sec

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Really? Does it have to have so much suspense? But what if it was Chris? What were you going to do? Were you going to tell Jisung not to give him your number? Or were you going to let Chris into your life anyway, despite all the warnings? The ‘ping’ of your phone startled you.

his names chan smthg

You relaxed. Oh. Well then. It wasn’t Chris. That decided things for you, then.

okay give him my number then

will do

You shut off your phone screen and lay back onto your pillows. Maybe Chris was right. Maybe by sending you the letters, he had changed time and now he wasn’t the person being your roommate. If the letters hadn’t been sent, would Chris be the one ready to call you?

That’s not how time works, you thought. No one is told what would have happened.

But you sure wished you were.

…

The next letter arrived in the morning, when Minho stepped outside the house to buy some breakfast. He didn’t think about picking it up, just shouting ‘you’ve got mail’ into the apartment before continuing on his way to the store.

You dashed to the front door and snatched it up, tearing it open once in your room. You had to know. Maybe he would finally crack and tell the truth instead of hiding things in code.

 Y/N,

I’ve never seen darkness like this.

I saw you again today—on the train back to Seoul. Where had you gone? I pretend like I don’t care, but I do. Deep down, you know I do, right? Honestly, I’m so tired of this. I’m tired of this existence. Why are we even fighting anymore? I know that you’ve forgiven me—you told my sister at her wedding. I want to forget it, too. I’m just too anxious to face you.

 You couldn’t help but feel like your suspicions were true. Back to Seoul. Where had you gone? Maybe back home? Where had Chris gone, if he was on the same train? From what he said, both of you wanted to patch up the fight but didn’t have the guts to?

 Did you see me? I felt like you did. Your eyes ran over me as if I didn’t exist, but I felt even more broken than I already am. Is this just a stand or do you really hate me now? Do you really not want to see me anymore? I don’t blame you.

I could have spoken to you. I could have stopped this feud but I’m a coward.

 Maybe you did see him. You could feel the ache in your heart as usual, but this stung a lot more, for some reason. Is this just a stand or do you really hate me now? I don’t blame you.

“I don’t hate you, Chris,” you whispered.

 You were sitting by the window, like you always do, wearing that sweater your mother bought you years ago, the one you thought was silly because it was orange and green. I agreed with whatever you said about it because I didn’t know colour schemes very well. But what I never said was that it looked good on you.

 “Sap,” you muttered, laughing under your breath. “Of course you would think that stupid sweater looks good on me.” The sweater in question was tucked deep in your wardrobe. It hadn’t seen the light since you first moved in. You wondered how Chris would know about it.

 I realized again that you’re so beautiful. I used to have a crush on you, you know? Back in the year we first met. You were such an odd character. You never did what you didn’t want to and you said what you meant. You were never good at hiding your emotions. You closed off a lot—I understand it was because of your parents—but I’m glad you finally opened up. I wish I were half as good at expressing myself. Y/N, can you promise me one thing? Even if after all this, I still show up at your apartment, even if we still become friends, even if we do fight, could you knock some sense into me?

My life is despicable and worthless without you. I’ve hurt you so much. But I can die in peace knowing that I’ve spent a year in your company. Even after I’ve wasted away, keep smiling.

Chris

 You couldn’t help the tears that escaped your eyes. Why was it that you felt such raw pain from these that you had to cry?

He used to have a crush on you. So that confirmed it, didn’t it? You were only friends. You could hardly imagine the depth of that friendship to end up like this from a fight. In your books, only one thing could break you apart from a relationship: betrayal of trust. Was that what happened? Or, what would happen?

You were such an odd character. You never did what you didn’t want to and you said what you meant. You were never good at hiding your emotions. True. Perfectly true.

Y/N, can you promise me one thing? Even if after all this, I still show up at your apartment, even if we still become friends, even if we do fight, could you knock some sense into me?

If you show up, you thought. But you’re not going to…right? Chan is. But you couldn’t tell anything. Maybe Chan wouldn’t last very long. Maybe the person to come after Chan was this Chris. But you were too weak.

“I promise, Chris.” You closed your eyes.

Even after I’ve wasted away, keep smiling.

You did.

…

 Monday came around again. But this time, you didn’t particularly hate it. It was the day after Christmas. Still the holidays. Classes wouldn’t start up until the next week.

Minho idled on the sofa, using his laptop, headphones around his neck, a true picture of professionalism. He could be doing anything for all you cared. Seated at the dining table, you were busy typing out an essay due for your anthropology class when break was over. Little by little each day. You simply forced yourself to not procrastinate until Saturday.

Your phone vibrated. An unknown number was calling. You picked up.

“Hello?”

A voice you were not familiar with spoke. “Is this Y/N?”

You narrowed your eyes. “Yes. Can I help you?”

“I was, um, calling to ask about the opening for a roommate?” the male voice answered hesitantly. Thick accent.

“Oh! Are you Felix’s neighbour? Chan…something?”

“Yes, I am!” he sounded relieved. “Bang Chan. But you can just call me Chan.”

You scribbled his name down on your notepad. “I suppose you’d like to see the apartment?”

“Yes, I would, um…” A pause. “When could I come over?”

“Um…” You thought about it. Youngjae and Jisung would be back on Wednesday and Minho would clear the area by then. “Is Friday okay? I assume you will be starting your classes on Monday?”

You heard the rustling of paper. “Yeah. Yeah, I am starting on Monday. Friday’s cool. Um, what—what time?”

“Any time is fine. I’m free all day on Friday.” You wrote down Friday on the paper. “We can talk about splitting the rent then.”

“Rent won’t be a problem,” Chan replied. You raised your eyebrows. Rich, huh?

“Very well. I guess I’ll see you on Friday.” You noticed Minho looking over at you. You rolled your eyes. “Take care. Bye.” You hung up the call, feeling like this Chan was someone you weren’t going to get along well with.

“What’s up?” Minho asked.

“Candidate for roommate,” you told him, setting down you phone and turning back to your essay. “Mister Bang Chan.”

“Ah. You got me safely out of the way first, huh?”

You winked at him cheekily. “Of course. The number one spot goes to you. I didn’t want him to feel incompetent.”

…

The next day, Minho packed his bags and left. You were sad to see him go, but you knew he had work to do. Youngjae was coming back tomorrow, and he would most definitely have a heart attack if he saw their dorm room in the state that Minho had left it in.

And speaking of work, you had enough as well.

Your essay was halfway done and you stepped outside the flat to take a break, get some fresh air, maybe get a coffee or hot cocoa or something. But of course, fate had it in for you.

You sighed at the all too familiar handwriting lying on your doorstep and brought it inside, opting to read it before going out. It would make you upset for sure, why not get it over with and then grab some coffee?

You slit the envelope open. The first thing you noticed was that handwriting was different. Shaky, almost.

 Y/N,

You’re not going crazy, I’ll tell you that. I am.

I heard the news today. I couldn’t believe it at first, I was in shock. But it’s true. It happened.

Had you really been drinking? That’s what they say, the police and the doctors. That’s what they reported in the paper.

I still can’t believe you’re gone.

 Wait, what? What do you mean, I’m gone? Your heartbeat picked up tempo.

 Was it just a car accident? Or was it suicide? Why had you been drinking? I don’t understand anything. My world is slowly spiralling into darkness and these letters are my only hope. My one chance, the only chance.

 The words spun around your head. Car accident? Suicide? Drinking? These letters are my only hope. The only chance.

 I haven’t spoken to you in almost a year, but it was comforting to know that at least you were alive and breathing the same air that I was. But now you’re gone and I can’t breathe anymore. I’m trying to grasp what happened and I’m trying to convince myself that it couldn’t possibly be true. But it is.

Reading all these letters, I know you might have understood what’s going on by now. You were always so smart. I’ve put the newspaper cutting in the envelope. I don’t know if you can see it or if I’m breaking the law.

Don’t ever drink and drive. Promise me.

Chris

 You stayed motionless, just standing there in front of the sofa, clutching the letter in your hand. Did…did you die? Your fingers fumbled around for the envelope, shaking it open. A piece of paper slid into your palm. The envelope fell silently to the floor.

Your face was staring back up at you.

You didn’t dare to read it, but some phrases registered in your memory before you could turn away. Killed in a car accident. Drunk driving. Research assistant. Road safety. Enquiry. And your name.

You shuddered, sinking onto the sofa, world swaying under your feet. Your hands were shaking badly and you squeezed them together, trying to release some of the tension. You were in shock. This proved everything. He was trying to contact you from the future.

“Oh my gosh,” you finally broke, burying your face in your hands.

So this was it. This was the reason he was writing to you. I don’t know if you can see it or if I’m breaking the law. Of course, the laws of nature. Don’t meddle with time. He thought he could have prevented your death? If only you two weren’t fighting?

Don’t ever drink and drive. Promise me.

Perhaps.

Maybe things had changed.

Chan was coming over on Friday after all. Maybe he should stay.

…

Wednesday saw Youngjae and Jisung stopping by your place with food that their parents had sent along for you. Thanking them profusely, you stored the dishes carefully away in the refrigerator. Since Minho had gone, you knew you would be facing a shortage of food. You wondered how well Chan could cook, if he could at all.

“Missed us?” Jisung asked, launching himself at you in a tight hug. You laughed, patting his head.

“Of course I did, Sungie,” you murmured fondly into his hair. He could be such a pain sometimes, but only when he was gone did you realize how much you all depended on him to keep the mood light. “My sunshine baby.”

“Aishh, stop it!” he whined, pulling away from you. “I’m not a baby.”

You giggled, ruffling his hair. “You’ll always be my baby.”

Youngjae engulfed you in his arms, rocking back and forth. “Your parents are a tiny bit mad that you didn’t come home, you know.”

You squirmed out of his hold. “I guessed. I just didn’t feel like visiting at the moment.”

He squeezed your shoulder comfortingly. “I know, Y/N. I know.” Briefly you considered telling him about the letters and your conclusion, but you thought it might sound rather far-fetched for rational Youngjae. Especially after what happened yesterday.

“Hey, did that guy ever call you?” Jisung interrupted, stealing a carrot from your fridge and gnawing at it. You pursed your lips.

“He did.”

“Who are we talking about?” Youngjae was confused.

“Felix’s new neighbour’s son is attending uni here and he called asking if he could check out the apartment.”

“Oh. Hm.” He seemed wary about this new person. “When is he coming? Or did he already?”

“Friday,” you told them. “So I don’t want any of you near this place, you hear? I’m keeping it spick and span. You are not ruining this for me.”

Jisung pouted, the food in his cheeks only making him look cuter. Youngjae put his hands up in surrender. “Understood.”

…

By the end of the night, the apartment was relatively tidy. At least, clean enough for a college student. You hoped Chan wouldn’t mind too much.

Thursday morning was cold. Just. That’s all that came into your mind when you woke up. Stretching around on your bed, instead of relief, you were hit with the strangest sense of foreboding. Something…you didn’t know what, but something told you there was a letter today. You jumped out of bed and raced to the front door.

You heart stuttered when you saw the envelope, addressed to you in his handwriting.

 Y/N,

Today was the funeral. I couldn’t bear to see you. I waited until the coffin was lowered to come near the vicinity.

 The funeral. Your funeral. You felt odd inside, reading about your own funeral, but felt even worse at Chris’ plight. He couldn’t bear to see you.

Your parents are devastated. Can you blame them? You left them around seven months ago and you haven’t spoken to them since, have you? I don’t know what to feel. I can only pity them but I feel so helpless inside, so guilty, like I could have prevented all this.

 You left your parents seven months ago? And didn’t speak to them after that? You placed a palm over your heart. Why? Did you fight with them, too? You couldn’t imagine the pain that must have caused. To not even say a good word to each other before you died? Chris felt guilty. Could he have prevented this?

 Today I thought a lot about the first time we met. Do you remember? You heard my name and went into a rant about some letters I had apparently written to you. I had no idea what you were going on about, but now, I realize it must have been these. I asked you to show me those letters, but you said you had thrown them away. Have we been stuck in that cycle forever?

 Your eyes darted to the box safely on the fridge. No wonder you had felt the urge to throw them away. Time was wired that way! In Chris’ past, you had thrown them away and when he showed up, you had gone off on him about the letters. But since he hadn’t written them yet, he had no clue what you were talking about.

Vicious cycle.

It made sense now.

 I saw your friends today. They say you were celebrating one of their promotions, and that you refused to go home with them. You had become reckless, they said. Ever since… They didn’t say anything about…us. They didn’t need to. I could see it in their eyes, the blame piercing into my heart. This is all my fault.

 My friends? Did he mean Youngjae? And Jisung? Minho? Yeji? They blamed Chris? And Chris blamed himself for your recklessness? He thought that if you hadn’t fought, you wouldn’t have attempted to drink and drive? You wouldn’t have attempted….suicide?

 Couldn’t I have stopped this? If only I had tried a little harder, if only we both had made a little more time...Wouldn’t things have changed?

I can’t breathe. There’s nothing but darkness in front of me now. There’s this horrible weight pressing down on my chest.

 “But what did you do, Chris?” You couldn’t help but ask. “What did you do that was so unforgivable that I killed myself over it?”

 Y/N, by the time you finish reading this, I will be dead.

 You gasped, clapping a hand over your mouth. No. No, no, no!

I know I’ve never said it to you very often, but you mean so much to me. I’m sorry that I let things come to this.

I’ve hurt you in the worst possible ways. But didn’t we deserve a chance? Just one more chance? Just one more chance and we could make it, couldn’t we?

I don’t deserve you and you don’t deserve anything I’ve given you. Even if I don’t deserve a chance, you do.

 “You do deserve a chance, Chris,” you choked out, openly crying now. “You deserve everything.”

 I can’t do anything but this. I don’t know how many forces of nature I’m breaking to get these letters to you. Everything is in your hands now, along with this letter.

I’m dying, Y/N.

I’m dying now because I can’t live without your presence. I’m dying now because my presence killed you.

I’m dying now to save you.

To save us.

Chris.

 Your blurry eyes fixed on the full stop after his name. He never did that before. You knew why he did it now. He was done. No more letters. This was it.

You clutched the paper to your chest, legs giving way, sinking to the floor with your back against the door, sobbing uncontrollably. You didn’t know him, but you felt it deep in your heart. In your soul. You felt just as you would if one of your gang had committed suicide. Y/N, by the time you finish reading this, I will be dead. And the oddest part? That weight on your chest had gotten heavier, but now you felt empty. He really was gone. You were the past, and he had destroyed the future. Everything is in your hands now, along with this letter.

You cried until you had no tears left.

You cried until your head spun from dehydration.

But in the end, against the cold door, you calmed yourself.

He’s alive. It was his future self that had died. This was the past. Or now, the present. He was most certainly alive.

You didn’t know where he was. Where he would come from. But hopefully, your paths would cross some way or other. At least, they would pass close by. You would find him. Whatever the cost, you would find him. Just to observe him from afar. Just to know if he was safe.

You swallowed thickly, rubbing the dried tear tracks off your face.

You would find him.

Sooner or later, he would come to you.

…

By the time the sun came up on Friday morning, you had composed yourself. Or at least, until Chan came and left. The apartment was pretty presentable, from your point of view.

You half-hoped Chan didn’t like it, so there would be a chance that Chris would show up. But then again, would that be playing right into the cycle you were trapped in? What if Chris coming to you ended up in misery whichever way the tape played? Maybe you should just keep him away and let Chan be your roommate.

You tugged at your hair in frustration.

When the time comes, I’ll know what to do.

Someone knocked twice on the door.

You immediately panicked. Fuck.

You cleared your throat, letting out steady breaths.

Cautiously, you opened the door.  

A pale-faced (you didn’t think it was from nerves) young man stood on your doorstep. At first glance he was quite ordinary. Dark brown hair, plaid button-up over a white tee, under a black overcoat. Jeans. He looked like any other college student. He had the type of face you could certainly get used to seeing. Seeing you, the corners of his mouth turned up in the sort of forced awkward ‘first meeting’ smile reserved for situations like this.

You returned the smile. “Chan, right?” you confirmed.

He nodded. “That’s me.”

You opened the door wider for him to enter, shivering slightly at the draft sneaking inside, and shut the door as soon as he came in. You noticed that he had been careful to shake the snow off his shoes before he stepped inside.

Considerate, you thought. Time to get to business.

“Nice to meet you, Chan,” you welcomed him, extending a hand. “Y/N.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He took your hand and both of you gasped at the shock that travelled through your forearms, jerking apart at once. He laughed nervously. “Weather does that sometimes, aye? The shocks.” He stuck his hand out to try again. This time you were able to shake it properly. “It’s nice to meet you too, Y/N.”

You nodded and as you drew apart, you didn’t bother to tell him that summer storm weather caused the shocks. Not winter. It didn’t matter anyway.

“You can hang up your jacket there,” you offered, gesturing to the hatrack in the corner. He obeyed after a moment’s hesitation. You noticed his physique as he shrugged his jacket off. “Um,” you weren’t sure how to go about a tour. “You can look around, I suppose. Take your time.” You pointed to the kitchen. “I’ll be here.”

He gave you a thumbs-up that he seemed to instantly regret. Turning away, you watched as his figure disappeared down the hall into the spare bedroom.

You sighed, planting your hands on the kitchen counter. You didn’t know what to do. Despite your curiosity about Chris, you figured that it probably wasn’t smart to risk both of your lives by insisting that Chris live here.

After all, he had said himself that he might have messed things up. That he might have changed his past. Your present. Chris might be anywhere. He could be a world away. He could be down the street. Maybe it was safer that way. You technically didn't know him, anyway. You only thought you did because of the letters. You didn’t know what he looked like, his personality, his past. You didn’t know how he would treat you. And what you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you.

Maybe you should just let it all go. Chris is probably safe now. Sooner or later, you would forget about him. Why not sooner? You raised your eyes to the box on the fridge. One day, you wouldn’t need them anymore. One day, you would be fine with throwing them out, with burning the memories that wouldn’t exist because the past was changed. But until then…you would wait.

“It’s a nice place.”

You were so deep in your thoughts that you hadn’t heard Chan enter the kitchen. His eyes roamed the small room, a dopey smile on his face.

You allowed your expression to soften.

“You look upset,” Chan observed. “Is something wrong?”

Yes, something was wrong. But how do you tell this beautiful stranger your story? Where to begin? You shook your head. “You know how time breaks friends apart?”

He winced. “Only too well.”

The two of you stood there in silence, his gaze trying to reassure you. You didn’t need to say anything at all. He understood. Maybe you could get used to having him around. Maybe Chris was right. Maybe staying away was the best decision.

“So,” you broke the silence. “You like the apartment?”

He nodded. “I really do. But…um, how far is the university from here?”

You shrugged. “Fifteen minutes or so. There are buses from here direct to uni.”

“I have a car,” he informed you. “Hey, I could drive you there. We could go together.”

You felt warmth in your chest despite the cold weather. “We’ll see.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I’ll bring my stuff over tomorrow. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

He teetered on the edge of speech but then turned away as if to leave the kitchen. But then he stopped. “You’re—from abroad, right?”

“I am.” You tapped your fingers on the counter. “Aren’t you, too? You have an accent.”

“Yep.” He pressed his lips together. “You can call me by my English name, you know. If it’s more comfortable with you. Chan is my Korean name.”

In hindsight, you had no clue what you walked into, no idea where things were going.

“But I don’t know your English name?” your voice carried a questioning lilt. “Felix didn’t mention…”

In hindsight, you were ashamed that you didn’t consider the possibility.

In hindsight, you should have known better.

He smiled broadly.

“Chris.”

.

The smile fell off of your lips at once. And so did his.

Chris.

Suddenly the name was all you could hear over the blood throbbing in your veins.

Chris.

And all you could see was the name, scrawled on the bottom corner of paper in handwriting that you had become all too accustomed too.

Chris.

You heard him too well.

I’m dying, Y/N.

I’m dying now to save you.

To save us.

 His expression morphed to one of confusion. “Um. Y/N? Is…Is there something wrong?”

You turned your face away, so he wouldn’t see the droplets running down your cheek.

“No,” you breathed out, trying to keep your voice steady.

Even after I’ve wasted away, keep smiling.

Despite your suffocation, through your tears, your lips curved upwards.

“Not at all.”

…

fin.

[stevenbasic]

This is the best part of my job, Melissa thought to herself, as the doctor read off from a list of supplies needed for the exam room, When I get to sit with him, alone, do this kinda stuff. Manager-stuff.

“Insulin syringes, 30 gauge needles, a couple winged infusion sets…” he recited.

It was going to be her job to find these products, see if the practice could get them at a better price through another vendor - super important since patient numbers, and thus revenue, had started to dwindle a bit. She was excited! Other people might think it’s boring but I love it, she thought. She loved being given new tasks; she loved learning new things. Just yesterday they were reviewing payroll together and she went home all smiles. Well I don’t know if I love payroll taxes and section 125’s (I almost understand what those are haha) but I love..well….this, she thought, Being able to be useful to him. Me helping him, him needing me.

She was confident in this, confident in herself slowly rising to the challenge of this new job. She was also, after this past weekend, confident in something else:

Sheryl is not the right woman for him, she knew. Perched on the armrest of the easychair in the exam room, she crossed her legs.

Melissa knew she was not the smartest cookie. Like, with numbers and grades and spelling and all that. It sometimes took her longer than other people, she’d accepted that. She was trying - by getting this job, if it turned out how she hoped - to change it. She realized that what success she had in high school and community college didn’t entirely come from any innate intellect. She had recognized early on how a consciously flirty personality along with her ever-developing bustline could so easily change a D or C into a B...or even an A.  But aside from all that she also knew she possessed an innate sense for people. It was easy for her, manytimes, to know what others were thinking, to read them. After about on month on the job here she knew, for example, that most of the girls here didn’t really like her that much, despite the friendly faces (some of them) try to put on. A few seemed alright with her - some the younger ones, mostly, the girls closer to her age - but the old women here don’t like her at all, despite the fake smiles. There were a few girls in the office, though, she hadn’t quite figured out yet. Marisela, for example...she’s a tough one.

She also knew that Dr. J is one-in-a-million. He’s honest, he’s caring, he’s giving, she thought to herself as she looked up from her notes at him. He’s tolerant and patient and omigod so smart. He deserves a woman who can support him and care for him and love him unconditionally, and even though she just met her that one night Melissa knew Sheryl is anything but that. Sheryl is hiding something and is...well...she’s not right for Dr. J.

It hadn’t taken her long, though, with Dr. J’s wife. Despite all Sheryl’s efforts to appear warm and hospitable, Melissa saw right through her this past Saturday night, at their place for dinner.

Randi says I have a crush on him, she thought to herself with a smile, watching him rustle through the top drawer of the exam room desk, looking for the stethoscope that’s around his neck. She always laughs her friend off but she admits herself she does have strong feelings...but doesn’t know if they’re for him or about him.

He’s a Doctor, he’s the owner of a big practice, he’s my boss...but then again, she thought, as she brushed a stray piece of lint off her chest, he’s just a man.

I think he watched me do that.

He’s a man who...needs help, she knew, He needs someone to take care of things for him. He needs taking care of.

As he’s handing her an empty box of latex gloves, she noticed her hands may be bigger than his. He’s delicate, where she’s always been...strong. Her thigh is probably twice the size of his.

“Can you get these in a, uh, ‘Small’ next time?” he asked, almost making her giggle. With her pen she made a note.

That’s weird, she thought, as she looked back at him, Why do I suddenly have the  urge to see him without his shirt on, to see if he has any chest muscles, any shoulders or biceps? And why did it excite her that she thinks he doesn’t? That her hips are wider than him? That, with any sort of real heel on, she’s taller?

Guys she’s been with, old boyfriends...they aren’t many but they were usually tall, bigger guys. Guys that try to pick her up, hit on her….same thing. Like she tells her friends: she attracts meatheads, that’s why she’s stopped dating. But it’s been in her mind recently that the idea of someone a little, well, smaller is strangely exciting. As he was flipping through a small mess of papers in the desk drawer she looked at his thin neck, and felt her own trapezius flexing with authority. She knew, from watching herself pose in the mirror, that her body could be...impressive. Maybe intimidating, even.

He has a pencil neck. Her thighs twitched. Oh gosh.

Catching her breath starting to quicken, Melissa refocused. Alchohol wipes, tongue depressers, cotton swabs. But she could feel it. She wanted to go to the gym, to start lifting even heavier. She’s thinking about her weekly appointment at the Evolution clinic later today...though they’ve told her she’s already gained 8 lbs since starting at this job, she’s actually secretly hoping it’s even more tonight. Why? she asked herself, Who in their right mind wants to get bigger? She’s been in this position before, and she thought she was past it. She certainly thought she was past being excited about it. What she had been excited to see is if this job was going to bring other changes to her...but so far it’s all tits and ass and dammit I need new shoes again. She drew a deep breath of private exasperation, felt her top stretch tautly over her chest, her once more too-small bra bite into her. At first I was mad, she remembers, irritated when they told her she was starting to grow again. But now…

She glanced up and caught him not looking at his papers. He’s looking at my breast, Melissa thought to herself, glancing away so as to not make him uncomfortable. She rolled her eyes and smiled to herself, feeling the little shiver of thrill sparkle through her...

-------------------------------------

thanks to @carouselbegins for the image!

[withlove-so]

hi! if requests are still open, can i ask for one where ashe and annette get into some kind of shenanigans? thank you in advance c:

Boy oh boy was I excited that this was my first request! I love the thought of Ashe and Annette hanging out and doing their best together! I don’t know if this is really what you were asking for, I got kinda out of hand when I started writing so I just couldn’t help it, haha! I got the idea from this blog post here, I saw that headcannon and ran with it! I hope you like it, even if I was a bit off when it came to the request.

                                                      ~O~O~O~

The library is one of the most peaceful places in the entire monastery. Every student can come together to learn and study at their own pace. It’s a place where they can support each other and definitely not stress out about any… up coming dates. Because every student is prepared for any hardship. Including exams.

“By the Gods Annette, how did you get so many red marks?”

They are always prepared.

“Oh come on! Don’t talk like you aren’t in the same boat Ashe!”

Always.

                                                       ~O~O~O~

Ashe always gives everything his all, even when it comes to something he isn’t fond of like studying. If he wants to live up to Lord Lonato’s name, he has to make sure he can become his absolute best self. Although… it turns out that the task was easier said than done. He’s already been studying for multiple hours, yet nothing seems to stick! He even asked Annette for help hoping that he could process the information better.

“So… when it comes to spell casting, you just need to… feel it? I don’t think I really get it.” Ashe had been assigned to take a magic exam, most likely because it’s his worst subject. Annette attended a magic school, so who better to teach him than her?

“Well, why don’t you think about it like pulling back a bow? If you think to hard about it, you’ll start to strain your arm and you might mess up your shot, right? Magic is kinda like that! The main difference is that you just… I guess you get this feeling in your gut. It will spread through you until it reaches your finger tips, and if you concentrate it in once place, such as your hand, you get magic!” At her words, Annette snaps her fingers and a small flame appears at her finger tip. “Of course, magic is a lot easier if you have a spell book to read off of.” Ashe could tell she was trying her best to explain magic but, despite all that, it still doesn’t make much sense. He understood the premise at least, so it was a start. Her explanations and his attempts seemed to drag on for so long, it was starting to get to the point he thought it would never end!

“Oh, oh! Wait, I think I feel something! It’s some feeling in my gut so maybe if I…” Ashe holds out his hand desperately, yearning for a flame, or any spell really. But as he was trying, a quite sound just came out instead.

“Was that… your stomach?” Annette giggled, seemingly entertained by his misled confidence. “Perhaps we should call it off for- oh. Oops.” Annette’s words were cut off when she looked outside. It makes sense when Ashe looked himself. It was pitch black outside! They had been studying for so long they completely missed lunch! Maybe even dinner! Gods, what were they going to do now. As Ashe’s head was spinning, a idea popped into his head. Of course, there was one thing they could do.

“Hey, Annette, how about we clean up real quick. I think I know what we can do about food.”

                                                      ~O~O~O~

After Annette and Ashe finished up cleaning, he was already standing excitedly by the entrance. She couldn’t help but shake her head, it was like watching a child waiting to get his favorite candy. She was also upset that she didn’t get the chance to study her archery skills with Ashe, but she felt like that was her fault anyway. When Annette was in her magic classes, she loved helping Mercie with her magic as well, and it felt like she was living in those days again. And how could she not get so wrapped up in teaching when Ashe was so eager to learn?

“Annette! Do you have everything? Come on, I wanna show you something!” Ashe was tugging at her arm now, she must have been reflecting for too long.

“Yes, yes, I’m done, let’s go.” Annette did her best keep all of her belongings together while Ashe dragged her along. She couldn’t help but get caught up in his excitement herself. At that point they were both running down the halls of the monastery, laughing all the while. Perhaps to the annoyance of the other house members. Felix certainly didn’t hide it, since as they were running by he called out of his room, “Piped down! By Gods, people sleep here.”

Despite being the one especially noisy one, Ashe seemed really good at keeping quiet after that. His foot steps were light and floaty, almost like a dancers, and he communicated almost perfectly using just his eyes. Meanwhile, Annette couldn’t take a step without causing the floorboards to creak or nearly tripping on her feet. Where could Ashe have learned to sneak like that? She didn’t have long to reflect when Ashe pointed toward one of the dorm rooms. She assumed it was Ashe’s room as they stepped inside. The dorm didn’t look too different compared to the other rooms, it was just a simple gray room with a bed and a dresser, except there was one glaring difference. In the corner of his room, there was a large bag in the corner of the room. Ashe dug around in the bag, eventually pulling out a small pack.

“Here. It’s some food from the dinning hall. Don’t worry though! It’s fairly fresh, I got it yesterday. It’s some rice and an apple.” Ashe handed it to her like it was nothing but…

“Why? Why do you have so much food in here? You know, you don’t really have to hoard all this, the monastery will be able to provide us food.” Ashe just looked away at Annette’s question. They were both silent for a bit while Ashe grabbed something from himself, so Annette just started eating. She started to feel bad about asking about it, maybe it was more personal than she thought?

“In my past, uh, food was a lot tighter than it is here. We never really knew for sure when our next meal was so. You would have to hoard and ration whatever you got. I guess old habits die hard, huh?” He seemed to chuckle it off like it was nothing, but Annette was horrified.

“You had to go through all that?! That sounds absolutely awful! Why did you have to live a life like that? If, uh, you don’t mind me asking that is.”

“Well, when you live on the streets, it’s just how it is. You do what you have to to live. Ah! But don’t let me bring you down with my past problems. I haven’t had live like that since Lord Lonato took me in.”

“… Do other people live like that too?” Annette hopped dearly that he would say no, but obviously that wasn’t going to be true.

“Huh? Of course, but that’s just how it is. You shouldn’t worry too much about-”

“Of course I should! What if Lord Lonato hadn’t helped you? You’d still be out there now… You wouldn’t be here with me, or learning magic or- or…” Annette trailed off, suddenly feeling a bit embarrassed at her aggressiveness. But she couldn’t help it, the thought of Ashe out there in the streets sent irritation crawling down her spine. And what about everyone else out there?

“I want to help them.” Annette surprised herself when those words left her mouth. It apparently surprised Ashe as well, he looked at her like his eyes were going to pop out. “Oh, well, I mean I know I can’t do anything now, b-but I’d like to, you know.” She trailed off slightly at the end, considering she didn’t really have a plan or anything. She almost thought about apologizing for being so presumptuous when Ashe wrapped his arms around her out of nowhere. He didn’t say anything, just sat there with his head resting on her shoulder. The two just sat there in a pleasant silence as Annette made a promise to herself.

She knew now, more than ever, that she was going to do everything in her power to help these people.

[comp6841]

Midterm Prep Questions

Thought I would post up some of my solutions and processes to the questions and ciphers Jazz posted online. (I did it yesterday, but I keep forgetting and leaving stuff as drafts) I’ve been working through some of the other prior mid-sem exams as well (I might post up my thoughts on these in future maybe if I have time).

Some Questions

What are the six most common letters in English text?

It is easiest to just remember the name “Etaoin Shrdlu” to know the 12 most common letters in the English language by frequency - so they would be “E”, “T”, “A”, “O”, “I” and “N”.

What are the important properties of a cryptographic hash function?

It is important to remember that this is referring to the properties, not the types of hashing attacks, so our 5 main ones would be:

Deterministic - hashing the same message gives the same output

Difficult to reverse - extremely difficult to find a message, given a hash (i.e. difficult to preimage attack)

Avalanche property - a small change in the message should result in a large change in the hash (i.e. on average, changing 1 bit in the input should result in changing half the bits in the hash output)

Hard to find collisions - hard to find 2 unique messages with the same hash (i.e. difficult to collision attack)

Relatively fast - quick to compute hash value for a given message

What are the CIA properties?

I didn’t actually specifically write out this acronym in any of my notes actually, but it basically stands for a policy regarding information security:

Confidentiality - data is not made available to unauthorised individuals or processes

Integrity - completeness and accuracy of data is maintained over its foreseeable life cycle

Availability - information should be accessible when authorised and required (a lot of this centres around system redundancy)

I’ve seen in some cases the 3rd one being referred to as authentication  (however this falls under confidentiality) or as authenticity (this falls under integrity).

Substitution Ciphers

Just a heads up that there will be spoilers on the ciphers below...

Cipher I (link)

Some of the ones he posted are definitely hard as fuck, mainly because of the weird sentence structures, but also the topics which are discussed. Usually I have a focus on finding the shorter words, but the “thy” in the next cipher threw me off for a bit.

Cipher II (link)

Cipher III (link)

I started out focusing on the short words at the start of the 2nd line - I figured there would only be a limited number of combinations. (mainly looking at 1-3 letter words which had letters in common, but were unique) My idea was by trying some of these to be able to determine some of the longer words - this strategy worked and I was able to realise the top-right word was “attentively”. I think that the reason this strategy works is because the bits of entropy per letter are lower in these longer words - so if you compare a longer word with a shorter word with the same % of letters filled out, the longer will be much easier to guess.

Cipher IV (link)

The first thing I noticed in this cipher was that we had three 2 letter words starting with the same letter in the 4th row which were “AQ”, “AX” and “AH”. I knew that this was pretty much only possible if the first letter was “I”. (either “IT”, “IS” or “IN” probably) After fiddling around with the the results of these words I was pretty much able to determine all the 2 and 3 letter words in the cipher - it wasn’t too bad from here onwards.

Transposition Ciphers

Cipher I

HWOVEEFRIHGTMSOSNTRESHSOLUDESEOTITTHTAITNHPERCOESSHDEOSENTOBCEOEMAOMNTS EARNIDFOYUAGZLEOGNEONUHGITNONAAYBSTSHAEBSYSIWLGLAEZBCAKNITYOOXUX

Seeing as they didn’t give us the spaces here, my tactic was pretty much pray that it must be a transposition cipher - it’s pretty damn hard to solve a substitution cipher without a computer otherwise. In the first one I tried looking at the words I would be able to form with different key lengths and whether they would make sense further in the puzzle. I used a nifty tool so that I would be able to drag around the columns to try the combinations, which gave me the answer. Obviously it would take a bit longer in the exam, but the general idea is the same.

So the permutation to reverse is (1, 0, 2, 4, 3, 5).

Cipher II

ETHOMPSTREDFIOIWUSYAHOFRANMIAGUCAESNCOISSSTFOFDENENDIIGETDILRBETAYELIWFTHU AYLTRAMGUNEXTSXX

I applied a similar tactic in the 2nd miscellaneous cipher to break it with the permutation to reverse being (2, 0, 1, 4, 3).

Identifying Ciphers

Cipher A wdlxnofderfxtiuewggiigugtgdeoaqcghwhxgqjsfuhibkflyzsponmxkepddfvpgrgoqxmdiphaqwlulddlte wadaoojpyucihpubpikwogzgalbnkqpsjmhpdlovamktzdtvawlojodpncgvfksbxzziiwvhrqusebenddum ihsccvwuqvhdxgncryakekpypdmwklbowxvurfuxsvqdywkfjgooiulktskzjoihmerqcihwvahxvskgfflmon uexalbzevzydotnzjpllebtivstmsaoffwokqyhgtqvztcsryxyrbvqfqsakiswrksthrslareuacgiqeamcygveyrx

Cipher B tbuhtoewsrntemeoyycumaneeitwllwalyaesboysurleofyluiiewntaioforyrulseifancevsrnnaodfersstoll neoyyneuoearogginhtaewtyooyrulseafynduoarwgysoeapystuoersfldanapystuoersevendivylsuolwi blheareiettcooyrulseafwndtiachdnosohtysaredanofaoldnudotbaerdnhunlonyoaevndliilaynmousu etberyadotrbuynrouesilfynrouwolnfmaoehcwlouydbouceeomenfwioyauhndfotribstceeomsashexx

Cipher C zwmmitcgklmtftdbbgweafdttmcossascablztbgwkltsybgwsotofcaomygkbgwkltsyofeaxtkflafrygktlmlsg ftsbgftbgwaktugofumitcabmgbgwkltsyafrbgwkcabugtlhalmbgwkltsyafrhalmbgwkltxtfrtxoslbgwcossz taitktmoemgbgwkltsyafrcomeiafrlggmilabtkafryggsafrrgwzmtkafrwfigsbgftafrxossaofbgwdwlmztktar bmgzwkfbgwkltsyofbgwkgcfysadtigcegwsrbgwztegdtftcoybgwiarfgmyoklmztegdtalitl

In this question we were given 3 ciphers - we are told one is a substitution cipher, another a transposition cipher and the 3rd is an Engima machine. Basically my strategy here was to determine the transposition cipher, as it would be easiest to determine. 

The way I did this was by taking a sample from the first row of each of the ciphers and determining the frequency of the letter ‘E’. For each of the ciphers I got the following frequencies:

Cipher A - 6%

Cipher B - 12%

Cipher C - 2%

Now if you know your letter probabilities then you would know that in normal English text, the frequency of ‘E’ is around 12%. This clearly identifies the transposition cipher (Cipher 2) - as it is the only cipher which doesn’t change the frequency of the letters. I solved it by a similar means as the above section:

Now that we know what the plaintext is, we can easily identify the substitution cipher - a characteristic of the Enigma cipher is that when you get a ‘double letter’ they won’t both map to the same letter. So if we just look at the 3rd and 4th character positions where we have ‘t’ in the plaintext, we can see we have ‘m’ in Cipher C - so this is obviously the substitution cipher. By process of elimination, Cipher A is the Enigma text.

[three-houses-text-files]

annette/byleth

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c-s support + paired endings + night of the ball

c

Annette: Hello, Professor. Do you have a moment?

>Of course.

>What do you need?

A: Well, I have this book of battle tactics that I borrowed from one of the knights. A: There's one part that I just don't understand. Do you think you could explain it to me?

>Leave it to me.

A: Great! Thank you so much! It's about this diagram here...

>I'm not sure I can.

A: Oh. Well, maybe we can figure it out together. It's about this diagram here...

A: I don't get why the knights are grouping up in that forest there. I just can't see the advantage to a formation like that. A: Yay! I finally get it! You really are a great teacher.

>I'm always happy to help.

A: I knew asking you was the right idea.

>You're the one who did the work.

A: No way. I couldn't have done it without you.

A: I just love learning new things. A: That's why I came to the Officers Academy. I want to learn magic, battle tactics, martial arts, and, and... Well, all kinds of stuff! A: I'm learning more now than I have in my whole entire life! A: Speaking of, I'd better go visit the library for some research before magic practice, which is just before sword training...

>Don't overdo it.

A: That's just not possible! I always find it's more tiring to laze around doing nothing. A: I've never been any good at that. I have to have something to do. A: Like, on my days off, I need to get up early and take care of the cleaning first, or I just...can't relax. Know what I mean?

>Not really.

A: But a day without accomplishments is completely wasted!

>I know the feeling.

A: Oh, I'm so glad you agree! You be surprised how rare it is to find people like us. A: Mercie never sets foot outside her room on her days off. I don't get that girl sometimes. A: Not to mention... Oh wait... Oh no! A: I was supposed to be on cooking duty today! I completely forgot! A: Sorry, Professor, but I have to run! Thanks again for your help!

>...

A: Argh! Who put this stupid barrel here?!

>...

——————————————————————————————

b

A: I'm so sorry, Professor... I somehow overslept and missed our training session. A: I didn't mean to cause you and the others so much trouble. A: Imagine if that had happened during one of our missions. It really is inexcusable! (pre-skip) A: Imagine if that had happened when I was needed in battle! It really is inexcusable. (post-skip)

>Don't worry about it.

>You need to rest more.

A: It's just...when I'm studying tactics, I lose track of time, and... A: Oh, who am I kidding? I've always been like this. A: Before I came to the Officers Academy, I was a student at the school of sorcery in Fhirdiad. A: Even back then, I was pulling all-nighters well before the exams. A: And I never even noticed I was harming myself. I'm just too focused on my goal. A: I know I've already told you this, but I really love to learn new things. A: It's a passion of sorts. I first realized I had the learning bug when I was about four or five years old. A: My father was so happy to see me using magic... A: Seeing him happy made me happy too, and that made me want to work even harder. A: If only things could have stayed like that...

>What do you mean?

A: When I was about 13, my father left home. A: He was a devout man, so I figured he'd gone to the monastery. A: That's why I went to the school of sorcery, so that I could eventually get accepted at the Officers Academy. A: I studied harder than ever, and sure enough, I finally earned a referral. A: Unfortunately, my passion for learning became more of an obsession. I got so focused, I kind of forgot how to relax. A: It feels like I've been running in circles ever since.

>Rest is just as important as work.

A: That's true. Just look at today. If my hard work stops me from working hard, what good is it?

>You're impressive just as you are.

A: No way! I still have such a long way to go.

A: Still, I guess I'm doing something wrong if I'm working so hard I can't even work hard anymore. A: OK, it's decided. From now on, I'll try my best not to try my best!

>You have my support.

A: Yay! With you on my side, I'm sure I'll succeed!

>That's confusing.

A: I'm sorry! All I meant is that I'll try... I mean, I'll slow down a bit.

A: From now on, if you see me going overboard, just let me know. I'm a new woman, after all!

——————————————————————————————

a

A: ... A: Oh. Hi, Professor.

>You look down.

>Did something happen?

A: Do you remember what we talked about before? About doing my best to not do my best? A: Well, I've been pretty busy recently, and despite my best efforts, I've been trying way too hard... A: I was busy all day yesterday with training and work. I just couldn't help myself! A: That's why I decided to take a day off today. It's just... A: Now that I have a day off, I don't know what to do with myself! A: Please, you have to help me! What should I do?

>Nothing.

A: I can't relax if I'm doing nothing! I need something to keep me occupied or I'll go nuts!

>Have a nap.

A: I tried that! I couldn't calm down enough to fall asleep.

A: I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm cut out for not doing my best... A: Oh! A: You're a professor! You must know some secret technique for deep relaxation, right? A: If you do, please teach me! I'm begging you! A: I'm at my wit's end!

>Have a cup of tea.

A: Got it! I'll try that right now!

>Have some sweets.

A: Mmm! This candy is so sweet and delicious! And it goes so well with piping hot tea!

A: Ooh, and speaking of the tea, your brewing skills are incredible! A: I'd love to be able to make such nice tea, but... A: Oh, Professor! Will you teach me how to brew tea like this? A: I'll do my best to learn, and then I'll make delicious tea for you as thanks!

>Is this doing your best...

A: Oh... Um, sorry. Back to my old tricks, it seems... A: Oh! Why is it so difficult to not do my best?! A: I try and try to not try, but it just doesn't work!

>Just be yourself.

A: Professor... A: You're right! Doing nothing is just not my style. A: To be myself, I've got to do my best every day!

>That's the spirit!

A: OK! Then you really must teach me how to make such delicious tea! A: You will, won't you? Please! Oh, and also... Well, thank you. A: You've listened to me and helped me face my troubles. A: Now I feel like I can talk to you about anything. A: Honestly, I wish we could go on drinking tea like this forever...

——————————————————————————————

s

A: There you are! Everybody's been looking for you. A: It must be hard being so popular. I bet it's a whole lot of work too... A: If I'm being honest, I'm a little bit envious.

>It's hard work.

A: Oh, but don't you enjoy keeping busy?

>I like to keep busy.

A: So do I! Like I said, I'm envious. A: After each battle, there's always more to do, so every day is exciting in its own way. A: Though it's true I haven't been able to relax for a while...no matter where I go or what I do. A: OK, so I finally realized why it is I feel this way. It's because...I need you.

>What do you mean?

A: When I'm with you, I feel like I can be myself. A: It's not a matter of doing my best or not doing my best... What really affects my happiness is whether I'm with you or not. A: Hehe! A: Um, actually, I've practiced what I'm going to say to you countless times... A: But of course, now that it's time to say it, I'm feeling shy. Terribly shy...

>I feel the same way.

A: You... You what?! A: Oh goodness! You really mean it!

>I love you, Annette. Marry me.

A: Oh! I...

>Yes?

A: I'm sorry! Why am I crying when I'm so happy? A: I've been so worried about this! I was thinking about what I'd do if...if...if you said no! A: But then...you asked me! I didn't even have to ask you! A: I'm just so relieved! A: I love you! So very, very much! A: We'll be together forever! And ever! I promise to make you happier than anyone's ever been, my darling!

——————————————————————————————

paired endings

After ascending the throne as the first leader of the United Kingdom of Fódlan, Byleth announced his marriage to Annette. His wife actively contributed to his endeavors, and it is said that her wisdom was heavily relied upon during Fódlan's restoration and development. Despite her lofty position, she was known to occasionally step in as a guest speaker at the Royal School of Sorcery, where she educated many renowned sages. Though her talents were widely respected, it is said she was always a bit accident-prone. Charming tales endure of her husband saving her from countless kitchen explosions, but it is unknown whether these are fact or purely fiction. (golden deer + church route)

After becoming the new archbishop of the Church of Seiros, Byleth announced his marriage to Annette. His wife actively contributed to his endeavors, and it is said that her wisdom was heavily relied upon during Fódlan's restoration and development. Despite her lofty position, she was known to occasionally step in as a guest speaker at the Royal School of Sorcery, where she educated many renowned sages. Though her talents were widely respected, it is said she was a bit accident-prone. Charming tales endure of her husband saving her from countless kitchen explosions, but it is unknown whether these are fact or purely fiction. (blue lions route)

When the fighting was over and the Officers Academy was reopened, Byleth was reinstated as a professor. His wife, Annette, took on a position alongside him teaching sorcery, and the couple spent many years educating and guiding generations of students. In their later years, they attempted to retire to a quiet life in a village near Annette's hometown. That quickly proved to be too quiet of a life for them, and so they opened up a local school and resumed teaching. They continued on as educators until the end of their long and happy lives. (black eagles route)

night of the ball

A: Professor! I'm happy to see you here. A: Everybody's been asking about you. You're really popular with the students.

>I had to escape.

>I'm worn out.

A: Oh, really? Huh. A: Uh, actually... I've been trying to find you too. A: But if you're not interested in dancing, that's OK. A: We are supposed to be at a ball though... If you're not going to dance tonight, when and where will you get another chance?

>Here.

>Now.

A: Wait...really? There isn't any music... A: But this is too special to pass up! Maybe...I could sing a little something. A: I may not look like it, but I'm a practiced singer. Though...people do tend to think my lyrics are a little odd. A: ♪Fry the food, it tastes so good... It fills up our hungry tummies...♪ A: Now I'm hungry.

>What an interesting song.

A: It's about this yummy stew one of the monks taught me to make a while back. A: Oh, I know! I'll make it for you! It really is just about the tastiest thing in the world. A: Um... If I'm bothering you, please tell me now and I'll leave you alone. A: ... A: Say, Professor... Did you know that if you make a wish here at the Goddess Tower, it will for sure come true? A: That why people usually meet up with someone they like here. For a rendezvous! A: And they make a wish that they'll stay together forever. A: So... Uh, I thought you might be waiting for a girl here. And that I'm messing it up.

>I've never heard about that tradition.

>Nothing of the sort.

A: Hehe, that's just what I'd expect you to say! A: But since we're already here, let's go ahead and make a wish together.

>What kind of wish?

>Sure.

A: I've already decided what it will be. A: Dearest Goddess... I wish for the professor and I to always be the best of friends! A: How's that sound? Can we wish for that?

>I'd be happy to.

A: Really? That makes me so happy!

>It's a little embarrassing...

A: Oh no! Actually, when I said it aloud, I could tell it was an embarrassing wish... Oops!

A: Well, I'd better be going now, and you should think about returning to the ball too. But make sure you save me a dance!

[multifandom-kpop-scenarios]

*slides in casually* so i see you added stray kids to the pending list and it's my time to shine. can I get a fluffy high school scenario where y/n crushes on the cute kid on the dance team(felix) and is best friends hyunjin(also on dance team) and seungmin. hyunjin tries to help you "get to know felix." please let the shenanigans ensue.

Hello! Thank you for requesting from us! I am so very glad to be given the chance to write for Stray Kids. I hope you enjoy it!

Admin Rex

Hwang Hyunjin: one of your best friends, member of the dance team, and might possibly be a demon of sorts. He thinks he’s a cherub, though. You disagree very strongly. Kim Seungmin: your other best friend, also a dance member. Could be less of a demon than Hyunjin, but you’re not easily fooled. You’ve known both of them for years now. Currently, you are glaring at them. Hyunjin laughs as carefree as he normally does, boisterous as always. Seungmin attempts to hide his cackling behind his hand, but is kind of failing, as you can see his eyes have turned into crescents.

“Guys, please, it really isn’t that funny.” Your ears are starting to become hot, with frustration or with embarrassment, you aren’t sure. Your plead only makes Hyunjin laugh harder. Seungmin, ever the almost-saint, calms down enough to stop laughing, “I’m sure you knew this would happen.” You sigh, eyes slipping closed. What’re best friends for! a cheery voice that decidedly sounds like Hyunjin echoes in your mind. That’s how he’d convinced you to tell them what was bothering you.

“But, (Y/N), you guys have chemistry together! It’s so perfect.” Hyunjin manages to get this out between short gasps after calming down enough to talk. The only reason they find this so funny is because they are close to the person you currently had a crush on. Seungmin nodded in agreement with a smile, “You know, you could just talk to Felix. He’s really nice.” If Seungmin hadn’t known you for 8+ years, he might be affected by the scornful look you send his way; instead, he only shrugs. Hyunjin immediately sits up straight, “Oh, yeah! We have a dance competition coming up. You should come.” Instantly, you try to reject the offer, but Hyunjin pleads with you and even gets Seungmin to join, and now you can’t really say no, can you. As Hyunjin gets ready to explain the competition to you, the bell rings, effectively ending lunch. “I’ll just tell you after school. Wait for us?” You nod and begin to head off to class. Before you can walk away, Hyunjin asks, “Can we tell Jisung?” You whirl around to make eye contact with Hyunjin, who laughs with a “guess not, then.”

History is your next class, and you’re thankful that you aren’t doing too much. For now, you wanted to lament over why you told Hyunjin and Seungmin about your crush on Felix. Eventually, but not fast enough, the bell rings and you rush to head to your next and final class. Chemistry was something you found yourself enjoying, but that could be because you had both best friends in the class - though you’re debating if this is still a valid reason - not to mention Felix was there, too. Your seat is towards the left middle of the class. Hyunjin sits right beside you, and Seungmin sits directly in front of you. Thankfully, Felix sits in front of Seungmin, and Jisung, another close friend who is on the dance team sits next to Seungmin and in front of Hyunjin. Class starts almost as soon as the last bell rings. You are given a distraction in taking miles of notes in a minute. Hyunjin and Seungmin leave you to your note taking.

You honestly should have known that your best friends would conspire against you. After class, you waited for them so you could walk home together. They had to go do something for the dance team, or so they said. Turns out, they decided to invite Felix and Jisung to lunch. You really don’t mind, though. If you’re being honest to yourself, you’re glad to get a chance to talk to them. Suddenly, you feel very grateful for Hyunjin and Seungmin’s meddling. Needless to say, you already felt incredibly nervous.

In all hindsight, you probably shouldn’t have been nervous about grabbing lunch. Sure, you were a stuttering mess when Felix first talked to you(then again, you were always a mess when talking to him), but it was fine. Turns out Felix and Jisung were just as weird as Hyunjin and Seungmin. That made it feel easier to talk to them, at least. You weren’t that worried about leaving as soon as you could and actually ended up staying longer than you and then others anticipated.

Around 5pm, you decided you really had to get home. You had an essay due the next day and hadn’t started it yet. When you began cleaning your mess, the other four decided to help out, too. You moved to leave, waving at them before exiting the fast food restaurant. You couldn’t help but feel relaxed, even excited about what the next day could possibly hold (despite still needing to write an entire essay).

The next day passed in a blur, thankfully. Soon enough, you were sitting at a table for lunch with Hyunjin and Seungmin. They had gotten there before you, which was odd since they typically took their time picking their meals, and we’re leaning close to each other. They seemed to be whispering conspiratorially to one another, eyes darting around until they landed on you. Hyunjin smiled his signature smile, “Hey, (Y/N)! You look tired. Something happen?” He looks concerned after noticing you. “Had an essay due today, I didn’t start it till yesterday.” You respond slowly, seating yourself next to Seungmin. You looked from Hyunjin to Seungmin and back, unsure of what their motive was.

“Good afternoon, guys!” You instantly knew what they were up to. Jisung was waving exuberantly at your group before plopping down beside Hyunin. Felix followed, not as loud, but still energetic. “Good afternoon, (Y/N).” Your brain might have short circuited and your heart might have stopped for .03 seconds. You were a mess at first, but you could feel yourself beginning to relax, the atmosphere one you were quite used to seeing as you were friends with Hyunjin and Seungmin. The table was quite lively and animated, something that isn’t uncommon, but it was nice all the same.

Eventually, and very unfortunately, the bell rang, signalling that lunch had ended. You helped them clear the table of trash and last minute homework. You dispersed, but Felix lingered a bit shuffling behind you. You slowed down enough to walk beside him, looking at him with slight confusion. He smiled a small smile, “You have history, right? I do, too.” You nod, at a loss for words. You were surprised that he was going to walk with you, but you’re more surprised that he noticed you were in the same history class. The walk is quiet and vaguely uncomfortably tense. You reach class with 2 minutes to spare, and seat yourselves. You head to the back of the class and Felix sits in the front. You kept thinking back to walking with Felix - you could definitely get used to that - and felt elated to know he recognized you.

Class passed extremely fast for you - were you daydreaming? Maybe. - and you were packing your notebook and pencils in no time. As you slid your notebook in to your backpack, a pair of stylish shoes entered your peripheral. You didn’t need to look up to know it was Felix. “Are you ready for the chemistry exam?” you asked him, meeting his shocked eyes. “We have a test?” Felix looked panicked. You nod, and can tell he’s now stressing out over it. You want to console him, “Don’t worry, it’s a partner test.”

Felix is quiet after this, but he seems like he’s considering something. Almost seems like he’s still worried about something. The test, maybe? Felix surprises you once more, “Can I be your partner? Please?” You can feel your face heat up slightly, “Of course!” You can already hear Hyunjin whining about how he’s been tossed aside for Felix. Though you won’t tell Hyunjin outright, you would never cast him aside like that.

When you walk into the chemistry class with Felix right beside you, Hyunjin and Jisung are grinning and waggling their brows at you. Luckily Seungmin jabs both of them in the ribs and they’re no longer laughing at your expense, but now, you are laughing at them - oh, how the tables have turned. You take your seat behind Seungmin, and Hyunjin instantly turns to you, likely to begin his interrogating. Before he can begin, you cover his mouth gently to stop him, “Not now, Hyunjin.” He begins to giggle. Seungmin rolls his eyes and turns to join in the one-sided bickering between Jisung and Felix. Jisung seems to be winning whatever they were talking about. At that moment, the teacher enters the class and begins his spiel on how he hopes you all prepared for his test. When he begins to talk about the group test (only groups of two or three), Hyunjin turns excitedly to you. You shake your head, trying to do your best in looking apologetically, just as Felix steps up to your desk. Seungmin, Hyunjin, and Jisung look at you (and Felix, in Jisung’s case) in betrayal.

“Hyunjin, dude, you have Seungmin and Jisung to work with. Don’t look at me like that.” You huff as Hyunjin stands up to let Felix sit next to you. As you begin to get to work on the test, you can see your three friends huddling and sneaking glances at you and Felix. You ignore them in favor of explaining to Felix why the answer is B and not C. You can’t help but notice that Felix kept getting distracted, and you’re not really sure why. Were you not talking clearly or loudly enough for him to hear you? ”Felix, are you good?” He looks up, eyes wide as if he was startled. He nods his head rapidly, and the tips of his ears are turning red - gosh, he’s so cute, you think. Without many more instances like this, aside from HYUNJIN, SEUNGMIN, AND JISUNG. You and Felix get your paper checked by the teacher and aced it, thankfully. The class was dismissed, and Hyunjin, Seungmin, Jisung, and Felix had to leave for practice, or “Chan will have our heads.” You wandered home, thinking of Felix, and his freckles, and his blushing, and you’ve fallen hard. You shake your head and set your mind on getting home in time for warm dinner.

Over the next two weeks, you decide that Hyunjin and Seungmin chose to include Jisung in their little missions. So far, they’ve managed to ditch you and Felix in the mall, causing you both to get lost and have no idea where to go. They’ve also taken you to a fair and got you to go on the ferris wheel, but not before you made Hyunjin take Jisung on one of the faster roller coasters. Seungmin also managed to accidentally lock you and Felix in a car and genuinely couldn’t get you out. There’s a few other things, but you honestly didn’t want to get into it.

It was a Thursday when Hyunjin brought the dance competition up again. You were sitting at lunch with all of them, again. You didn’t want to admit that you actually forgot Hyunjin and Seungmin invited you to it. “Did you buy your ticket, yet?” Hyunjin looked at you, a small smile on his lips. As soon as he asked, you felt a bit guilty. You slowly shook your head. “That’s okay. Seungmin knew this would happen, so we got you a ticket. Don’t worry, you can pay us back in lunch.” His grin caused his eyes to turn in to crescents, and he swiped the tater tots from your tray. Jisung laughed as Seungmin stole a few from Hyunjin’s handful. Your mind wandered back to Felix as you began to eat your burger. The dance competition was tomorrow, and you felt nervous wondering if your friends - their dance team is known as Stray Kids - would win. You didn’t doubt them, far from it actually. But you still felt nervous.

When you entered the venue - your school’s gym - it was booming with the bass of the music and the cheers from classmates and rivals alike. The energy was wild, and you felt your nerves jump up a few notches. You didn’t care much for atmospheres like this one, but you wouldn’t miss your friends’s dance competition for the world. A few individual dancers were dancing against one another, and it wasn’t for another hour that you finally caught sight of Felix. His dark hair was mostly hidden in a beanie, and he had a red track jacket on. You always liked the color red on him. Felix looked like he was searching for someone, and when he finally saw you, his grin seemed to light up the stage. He tapped the others and pointed at you, soon they were all waving at you.

You grinned. It wasn’t long before their personalities went from bubbly to the serious dancers you only saw at practice or on stage. You felt that you had to hold your breath as they moved fluidly, and totally controlled. Felix looked so graceful, so ethereal that you might have forgotten how to breathe. You really couldn’t look anywhere but at Felix’s form. After what seemed to be an eternity, their performance ended. The judges seemed to be in deep discussion about the winners before announcing Stray Kids is the winner! They celebrated, as did the crowd. Felix looked around, locating you before running down to meet you. Your heart was practically beating in your throat. He smiled before pulling you into a hug. You hugged him back, though a little hesitantly. He was laughing, and your brain clearly wasn’t working properly when you decided to blurt, “Felix, I like you.” He paused before pulling away, “That’s good. Like, really good. I was hoping to get to tell you first.” He smiled, and your heart just did a flip because he likes you! He likes you back! Felix laughed at your shocked face, and heat was beginning to creep up onto your cheeks. He hugged you again, “I really like you, (Y/N)!”

After, when you and Felix were walking home together, Jisung texted you: Just so you know, Hyunjin never told me you liked Felix. I knew Felix had a crush on you. Have a good day! :)

[yyh-revival]

Ok so about hxh I don't dislike the show it's a good show. But the reason I prefer yyh is the set up makes more sense. It makes sense for a place like the demon world to have a fucked up tournament like the black tournament. The stuff that Koenma's dad pulled to fuck over demons given the system and that kind of character. You know what doesn't make sense? Giving known assasins and psychopaths more access and power. In HxH becoming a hunter means you get access to all sorts of locations pt.1

That regular civilians dont have access to and a liscence to kill without getting into trouble and all sorts of other shit. And they give that power to Hisoka who never tries to hide the fact he just likes killing people and randomly killed one of the examiners last time. And Illumi a assasin who freely admits that he wanted the liscence for a job. He says this to the people in charge of the exam. And he still gets his liscence what the fuck. Not to mention his family the secret pt2

oldeck family who the public doesnt know their faces have a house so famous that tour guide point it out while going through the city. Like it might have unbelievable security but why would you risk people knowing? Not that it’s a bad show or I dont enjoy it. I’m not that far into the series. But things like that kinda take out of it. It kinda takes me out of it. Especially when this world isnt like this world of chaos its actually kinda like our world. Or supposed to be Pt.3

Yes, I have to confess the setting didn’t sit right with me, either. I typically enjoy fantasy (in fact it’s my #1 favorite genre, and my preferred to write in, whether that’s high fantasy like LOTR or something like Fullmetal Alchemist, or even modern fantasies like stories about vampires, etc. All of my childhood favorites have fallen into this category… aaaand still do haha)

But the setting always did feel strange to me. I never understood who or what was in control of this Hunter licence, and why they were giving them out to children, or what the point of them even was.

More under the cut. Long analysis of character, slightly more productive than what I wrote yesterday, and some more dissing of HxH (I’m sorry) and its poor management of plot, setting, and character.  Also, from now on, tagging all discussions and comparisons of HxH and YYH as HHD (for hunter hunter discussion) to keep it out of the hxh tag. 

Once again, this is all just my opinion, my personal feelings, and are not meant to grade the merit of the show or insult anyone who enjoyed it!

See, I typically also like “secret clubs.” But I like them being fleshed out. In Mass Effect, we know what a Specter is. They have almost unlimited power, but 1) they answer to a council which can strip them of this power, and 2) they have a clear goal – serving the council and the interest of the council races.

For YYH, we have the same thing. Yusuke has more power than the average human, having the authority to kill and having access to knowledge most humans do not have. But he 1) answers to Koenma, 2) has a clear goal of protecting the innocent from evil demons and other psychic phenomena. 

And that stuff is outlined the MOMENT our protagonists enter the secret club, in clear words, and it doesn’t take, you know, forever… But HxH, I have no idea what the whole Hunter organization even is? I looked it up and turns out I saw the whole 1st season, 31 episodes… and I have no idea what this hunter thing is.

So yes, I totally agree. For comparison, in YYH, we go through a rather good introduction to Spirit World all before episode 5, an intro to what Spirit Detectives are without learning all the details, but enough to understand, by what, episode 8ish? We learn how Spirit World can bend rules with Kurama and Hiei within the first few episodes, too. We learn Spirit World is a bureaucracy, that it has rulers and managers (Enma and Koenma), that it is occupied by mostly two species (ogres and Spirit World citizens, who are like spirits, neither alive nor dead), that they have prisons, that they take interest in human lives and society, that they have the power to revive the dead but that there are clear rules and procedures. We learn Spirit World citizens can inhabit human bodies made specifically for them. We learn Spirit World can unlock human’s innate spiritual awareness. We learn the Spirit Detective job is sorta a new and untested thing (sending a kid to fight 3 demons… Koenma seriously didn’t think the job through yet). We learn Spirit World houses powerful treasures like the 3 artifacts. We learn they have a freakin’ treasure room to start with. We learn you can break into Spirit World and its vaults. We learn that living creatures, even demons, can enter it. We learn spirits and living creatures can interact with each other as if both were on the same plane, tangible and all, while in Spirit World. We learn Spirit World watches and records events of interest in the Human World, sometimes flat out spying on humans like when they watch Keiko being chased or when the little girl (the investigator) stalks Keiko along with Yusuke and Botan. We learn ghosts aren’t allowed to stay forever in the human world. We learn that the spirit and the body have separate energies that converge together. We learn Spirit World uses actual technology, not just magic, like VHS types and pocket watches. We learn Spirit World citizens can live incredibly long lives and look like babies while being a couple hundred years old or more.

^^ See all that? That’s what I know about Spirit World from watching the first EIGHT episodes. Episode 9 Yusuke enters Genkai’s tournament… How insanely concise is that? Episode 8, and we know so much about just one aspect of this world.

Whereas HxH? episode 31… and I still have zero clue what hunters are, what their purpose is, what they can do, who they work for if anyone, what the qualifications for them are (just being able to fight?) We know nothing. 31 episodes!! 

For another comparison, by episode 31, Yusuke is in the Dark Tournament, fighting Chuu. By this point, we had all four main characters go through the first cycle of their character arcs, we were introduced to most of the supporting cast, we had relationships established, we got backstory on some characters, we learned how spirit energy and psychics work more, we saw Yusuke begin his second cycle, we saw the introduction of a major villain… we had a lot. Whereas with HxH, all I remember is the damn big boat in the storm thing.

Speaking of character arcs… I wrote this in a response to something else, but I think it also makes my point here. I am incredibly fascinated with character arcs and character in general, even more than plot or setting or anything else. To me, character is all. So here’s my breakdown of some character growth within the first 8 episodes.

YYH never really feels like it drags, maybe only in those moments I mentioned before. But it had an incredibly strong opening. Excluding Hiei, within the first 7-8 episodes, we have two characters (kurama and Yusuke) go through full character arcs that affect them all the way down the line of the show. The other two join after episode 25, though we also get to see glimpses of character background and some development even earlier (Kuwabara’s sensitive side is shown with the kitty, his devotion to friends, his honor code – all before episode 8 as well, but that’s not really an arc. He doesn’t have one till about the Yukina Rescue arc concludes. Though his is a bit weak, mostly because Kuwabara was… pretty alright to start with? It’s hard to develop when there isn’t many places you can go. And out of all the 4 boys, Kuwabara had the least amount of baggage.)

For Yusuke, we have the theme of “caring/not caring.” Yusuke stars off believing no one loves him and that he’s better off not being in anyone’s life. The wake proves him wrong enough that he makes an effort to come back. Then when he thinks he’s missed his chance by throwing the egg, and sees his friends and family happily talking about him returning, he mourns because he knows he’s not coming back. 180 from “meh, ima stay a ghost it’s better I’m not in their lives.” So, he goes through a complete cycle just in that moment, from I don’t care, to I do care and I’m happy, to I do care and I am sad. Not just a simple arc, from point A to point B, but A to B to C. It’s a very well constructed growth of a character. Full arch, full growth, and that’s why it tugs at the heartstrings. Because the moment he started to care… he thought lost his chance.

That arc he goes through all before episode 5 cycles throughout the show, and makes us care because such a strong arc, such an emotional one, too, grabs the viewer’s heart by the balls and refuses to let go. 

It cycles in the Suzaku fight – he experiences horrible pain to save people, but in order to really motive himself, he must see Keiko in danger. He’s getting there, to the point of caring about humanity, but not quite. Then in the Dark Tournament, the lives of multiple people hang on his victory. But they’re still mostly people he cares about, though now that has extended beyond Keiko into Shizuru, Kuwabara, Kurama, Hiei, Yukina, etc., all of those people. He’s getting there, increasing the circle of people he cares for.

It keeps going up, challenging Yusuke to care more. The hospital had Keiko and shizuru in it. But also the new psychics. Then Sensui threatening all of humanity. Then the 3 kings arc threatening all of the realms. Yusuke progressively gives more of a shit about more people with time and new challenges and as he earns more friends.

And all of that is outlined in he first Fucking 4 episodes!! We know what hsi arc is, we know where he is going, we know what sort of character he is, and we get to see him become truly fleshed out in just 4 episodes.

That’s just Yusuke, too. Kurama also has a complete arc within the span of like two or three episodes, and those themes cycle throughout the show. (guilt, suicide and redemption – think Ura Urishima fight, when Kurama projects his want to sacrifice himself for Shiori to make up for his deception, where he tells the guy that suicide has no honor or redemption in it, even though the guy didn’t care for that, his lie was about getting out of having to hurt people without causing harm to his grandmother, not about redeeming himself – family, lies, the better of two evils – to lie to shiori and stay with her so she has a son, or stop lying to her and punish self for stealing her “real son” away)

It’s consistent, mostly concise, cyclical, and oh so fucking satisfying to my literature loving senses….

And then hxh… where apparently nothing of substance happens in the first Twenty Freakin Episodes. I legit cannot tell you about any character growth in that time. Or plot? They take a test. For who knows how long. Uh… kurapika starts to like leorio when before he didn’t? So he gets friendlier?? Maybe?? Killua begins a friendship with gon instead of getting himself that therapist… they play a ball game together. That gets them to like each other so much Gon goes chasing after Killua when he goes missing at the end of the season. Uh…. they are faced with the horror of fighting people they had to cooperate with before I guess. *shrugs* 

If you put a gun against my head, the only character growth or arc I could maybe try to name for the first 30 episodes is that Kurapika started to like Leorio and starts to address him with a bit more respect, cause they worked together, so uh… nope, nope, that’s not an arc in the slightest. Kurapika can simply be a person who doesn’t like others until he gets to know them… So yes, I’d get a bullet in the head.

And the fact that you need to skip the whole beginning of the show to even enjoy it, as @perpetuallyfrowning suggested … I can’t do that. I cannot enjoy any change in Gon if I don’t know where he was before. But I hate where he was before, and we’re stuck with that for so long… Even if you didn’t like Yusuke’s personality at first, you only have to deal with it for a bit because he changes so much so quickly.

So there it is, my rather lazy analysis of the beginning of YYH and HxH, looking at setting and character.

- Mod Lola