#and im a pushover so im not used to having to argue!

[cute-chamomile]

Another day another having to argue with clients on behalf of people who have strong opinions but don't have to argue with the client themselves

[fraudulent-cheese]

Actually no, i want to expand on my relative dislike of WT. Because when people talk about this season's faults, i BARELY see people mentionning the complete flattening of like half it's cast!

Oh sure, people are super willing to throw shit at TDA and especially TDAS for it's flanderisation of characters, but outside of some rogue posts by mutuals, i don't see ANY OF YOU pointing the finger at World Tour when i'd argue it's especially eggregious.

Owen's the easiest example of this, and while it didn't start this season it got so much during it. Nearly all of his lines revolve around food, his aerophobia, or Izzy for a single episode. His relationship with Alejandro is also super indicative of this; im willing to accept the HC that he was aware of Alejandro's dislike of him and just wanted to win him over, but that's absolutely not what the writters intended, no way in hell. He's just completely oblivious to his shitty behavior when he seemed at least somewhat aware of Heather's shifty behavior back on Island, or at least able to stand up for himself (shoutouts to that one Action episode). It's not fun to watch, either.

Bridgette too had her personality reduced to one or two traits, for either comedy reasons (because apparently people making out 24/7 is funny) or story reasons (establishing Alejandro as a threat who uses flirting and his general attractiveness to advance his strategy) and it suckssssss because she was! an actual character! and World Tour especially benefits from having a 'straight man' type character that can look at the other's weirdness and react to it like a normal-ish person! That and she could be an interesting presence to have on Team Victory, with her friendships with Leshawna and Courtney for instance.

DJ too is a BIG victim of the flanderisation thing; his personality is dumbed down to just being a huge scaredy cat, and his character is just The Curse. That's all he does and that's all he is, all he talks about. And that sucks because he too, was an actual person in Island and even Action! Sure, he was sometimes a pushover and had an accident-prone bunny, but he was also kind and could actually go out of his way to play pranks on people! But all of that is just gone in WT.

There's also the characters that weren't flanderised, and more just. Written entirely out of character. Outside of the entire Love Triangle (which i will get to) the biggest example of this is Leshawna to me. The writters straight forget the episode in Action where she's entirely dsitrustful of the Pizza they were offered (which did turn out to be tampered with) due to Chef being uncharasterically nice to them. Guess what Alejandro was doing. Being overly nice to her out of nowhere. Frankly she fell victim to the same thing Bridgette did; needing to be sacked for Alejandro's villany to be better established.

Ok fuck i need to mention the Love Triangle too because while people complain about it alot i don't think they complain about the correct stuff. i'll go rapid fire because it's been talked to death however; Gwen's liking of Duncan is a retcon, her acting like this is out of character for her frankly, Duncan's out of character by trying to emotionally manipulate his ex and the lore established to justify it makes it worse (remember the "At least im straight with people" line?), Courtney is villanised from even before this point which while her anger might've been targetted at the wrong person she was justified in being upset imo, Courtney's entire character is thrown out of a window in general this season, blah blah blah.

I'll end on the whole "the writters forgetting entire character traits/arcs" Cody still hitting on Gwen this season makes no goddamn sense and is super uncomfortable to watch. He's really such a nothing character man. Sierra deserved better than being a manic pixie stalker girl.

[averagetmntfan]

a special thank you to my moots.

(TW: suicidal thoughts, ig?)

ahem- so as I have mentioned, today is my 1 year old this platform! I honestly cant believe it’s been this..long? A lot has happened, too. And honestly for the longest time, it wasn’t going well. Like- at all.

(rant continues under the cut:)

I’m don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. Im doing much better than before, so it’s really not a big deal anymore. I’m just giving some brief context for my 2023- early 2024 school year.

so, I made this blog a couple days before the whole situation went down. Which I think I briefly mentioned on here.

so for a bit, I had felt very uh- isolated in my friend group. I had kinda always been the odd one out. We had different interests. Their sort of fun was hangin’ out, gossiping and what not. And I was into cartoons, and art. I never really told them, though. There were sorta judgy, and I was very insecure. Because they make fun of people. And I didn’t wanna end up by myself.

But anyways- usually, they’d all leave. And tell me to watch their stuff. And since I’m sort of a pushover irl, I didn’t really argue about it. But when I say all of them leave-? I meant all of them. All 4 of em. And it often did upset me.

also they’d talk to people I didn’t even know- which, okay yeah- but I couldn’t talk to them. I didn’t wanna get dirty looks. I’m not a very outgoing person. I like to think I keep to myself often.

So, Halloween comes around. And this stuff doesn’t end. And for a bit more context, one of my friends was getting super annoying by me. And I’m pretty sure she didn’t like me, like- at all. She easily got annoyed at me. And only me.

so she went to the Halloween dance- last block of the day

blah blah skip to after school and I text the group- “where are u guys?” None of them respond. So I search a lil bit, then head outside. Where- guess what? All of them were.

I asked “Why didn’t you answer the text?”

and my friends that gets annoyed at my easily said a snarky “my phone was off.” And was generally just being fucking bitch. And I use to be a big crybaby and stuff- and eventually grew out of it. But this- this sentence really upset me. I stormed off, avoiding all of them.

eventually I got on my bus and- well. Uh. Let my feelings out, if you will. I remember it very cleary, too. It was one of the most tears I had shed in a long time.

I get home, and the girl texts the gc, clamming I stormed off for “no reason” and I had enough. Saying smth “I obviously didnt storm off for no fucking reason”

a bit more of arguing keeps going, and a lot more sobs. It was one of the worst days I had ever had.

a few more days go by, and the situation gets worse. I avoid all of them, and hung out w/ a diff friend. I ranted/vent to her, telling her my friend was a Hippocrate for complaining about our other friends leaving, even tho she did the EXACT same fucking thing.

Which, was talking shit. So that wasn’t great and rlly bad of me. And I guess karma hit hard bc she texted me after school, saying I was talking shit abt her. Bc my friend was friends with her friends. So..awkward..

and really- the next day, it was over. I was free. But at what cost, really? I lost all my friends. Became an outcast, really. It was pathetic, now that I think about it.

for the rest of the year, I rarely spoke to them. And never talked to the other girl.

I spent most my time in the library, reading. And skipping out on eating. I was so unhappy. I don’t wanna say depressed but- very close.

it really made me hate who I was. It made me feel like a terrible person.

And that’s when I really did start using Tumblr more. It was sort of an escape, of mine. And god, I’m so glad I set up and account. I Met do many amazing and unique people one here.

This is sort of corny but, I really think this has helped me through a lot. Since a few months early I lost my privileges to tik tok, and discord. Which, yeah. Sucked.

but so many things had happened-! Joined a rp group, met a new online friend (which we are now very very close<3), found out about a LOT of facts, found other people who shared my interests!

so here we are, one year later.

it was really something. I’ve met so many wonderful people on here, man. Especially my moots. You guys know who you are. I’m not gonna tag you guys, but I’ll do a quick smth smth ig

FIRST OF- my first closest moots-!! Ghosty, cookie, Sleepy, Ally, And my Pooks, Ari. So many awesome things happened with these guys. A lot of funny moments, too. Lmao.

AND ALL MY RAMSHACKLE PEEPS- dew, anomaly, Schnozz, reboot, Bailey, lilac,- you guys are literally AWESOME UGH- I seriously enjoy every interaction I have with you guys. It genuinely makes me so happy

sorry this is super corny and stuff, I really wanted to make something meaningful for this. Thank you guys for being so amazing.<3

— jj

[arttrampbelle]

Shang tsung isn't evil but a product of corruption and the environment that surrounds him. He's not evil in the sense of black n white thinking of morality. Especially from a western,psuedo Christian American perspective that so many people wanna shoehorn him into. (No shade here but im calling it like i see it nrs)

How is he evil when everyone in mortal kombat kills?

Also shao kahn quan chi and shinnok has arguably done worse

And even more so he's worked more with them,and under them(shao Kahn namely) and had no choice but to follow orders. Namely some things sure were aligned in benefit. But truly can you really argue that it was all his doing? No to say so is ignorant and undermining the other villains and antagonists of the series and their own contributions to the story narrative in opposition of protags and other characters.

The most evil is those who hide behind self righteousness and say they are for peace when they are being manipulated by promises of a better realm or timeline(cough fire god liu kang. COUGH)

Like nah guys mk12/mk1 don't make sense even for the narrative they are trying to pull. Shang is wonderful but yall missed the point even tho the storymode sucks and everything about it makes me nauseous, shang tsung shines thru because of what he represents. The story,It falls through the crack simply because of the fact

In mortal kombats chaotic and cruel world. You kill or be killed. You do what it takes to survive. Or be food for the gods. As you are nothing but entertainment for them.

Everyone kills in mortal kombat. So shang tsung killing means fucking nothing and is a moot point. He does it,everyone does it,how is he truly any different than anyone at that point. Thru mortal kombat,a supposedly Divine system,he's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing. And what his character is designed to do. Period. So killing,moot point and argument.

Im not talking about. MK12/MK1 specifically. Tho that grinds my gears for many other reasons. Im talking shang tsung,overall as a whole as a character thru the 30+yrs the games and mk has been around. These are common arguments for that shang is "tHe EVil OnE" when there's no such thing in mks world. Truly. It's posturing and posing flowery words at that point. Period.

Stealing souls? He has to,to survive. He is cursed by the very gods and mentors that once swore to protect him. But did nothing.

Climbing for power? He does so because he wishes not to rule over. But so he doesn't have to worry about going to bed hungry,to suffer. He wants stability,comfort,and most of all security. A thing that long ago was robbed of him.

See you can't say shit about my man without having many reasons why he's not.

Could he be evil,nasty,and dowright fucking cruel? Oh you bet your ass he could. But does he enjoy it? Not really. He takes no pleasure unless it's out of necessity or you're considered an enemy.

He is no different than a hungry hunter. Trying to find his next meal or the next place of dwelling. Until he finds his true place of being and achieves a stable life.

Like ffs people it's right fucking there fine print and that still,STILL GOES OVER YOUR HEADS!

Like y'all who don't understand nuanced villains WANT him to be stereotypical,y'all want him to be easy to pinpoint. Because that means you dont get to critique your beloved "Heroic" characters. And use your brains,and critically think that maybe,just fucking maybe. Your nice dudes were wrong for once.

In mortal kombats world (if you can call it that because the world building sucks)

It's kill or be killed. Morality be damned. Shang tsung found that out long ago. Hiding behind morals in a world that could care less than about you. Gods that only see you as food,throw away entertainment,etc.

He may have respect for someone who despite all that crap,has some moral backbone. But isn't blind to the truth,it's survival. Dont be a pushover boot licking lapdog. As long as you don't hide behind your self righteousness and "goody goody" attitude. He'll respect that you have a noble heart. In fact,that may make him actually enjoy your company. But dont be a condescending jackass about your morals. And he'll be fine.

Shang tsung is just playing the game that the world is built upon. The rules,the gods,the empires,have made. And plays them well into his advantage.

And y'all pissed he plays it better than you. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

That my dears is a truly well done villain,antagonist,and just a beautifully complex character.

That's how you do or are supposed to do shang tsung. Period.

*slams hand down on table and leaves*

🔥💯🔥

[fefairys]

I just read up to the breakup with Meenah and Vriska and fuck, i really dislike that whole situation. Got any thoughts you wanna ramble about regarding that?

OKAY I FINALLY GOT HERE IN MY REREAD.

god yes everything involving meenah and (vriska) and the vriska (vriska) confrontation is extremely fascinating to me. mostly because i resonate with a lot of it so hard it hurts. long ass post below. i got very personal lol what can i say. i vriska.

(vriska) goes into people-pleasing mode when she and meenah are alone. it actually reminds me of how she would sometimes act with kanaya. the vulnerability, mainly. but like. its a little different. with kanaya it was more like 'youre the only bitch around here i respect, but im still better than everyone else. i want you to like me but i dont NEED you to! (<-lie)' but with meenah its like 'you are the only person i have and so i have to be good for you so you dont leave me.'

she backs down super easily with meenah. sometimes she does argue for herself, but ultimately she always ends up deferring to meenah. she wants to agree with everything she says. wants her to like her:

^ she doesnt want to say the carnival looks fun until she's gotten meenah's approval. she has to be cool for meenah.

her suggestion gets shot down and she immediately sides with meenah. oh yeah i didnt want to do that anyway in fact i hate horses!

it's tricky, because of some of it seems like actual Character Development, and her getting over some shit. and i definitely think these thinks dont have to be mutually exclusive. she can be realizing things about herself and moving on from them while at the same time falling into habits that are equally unhealthy for a person.

she realizes she used to care way too much about stuff and tries to counter it by not caring at all. she realizes she used to push people around to much and counters it by becoming a pushover herself. this is sickeningly relatable to me.

the scene where meenah convinces her to get a tattoo is a good example of this.

she realizes that a long-held opinion she had is actually kind of bullshit, and that she cared way too much about it for no reason. good job, vriska!

but then she pretty much leaves the actual decision of it up to meenah! she asks meenah to tell her what to do instead of thinking for herself. she justifies it by agreeing that she loves pirate stuff anyway! shes trying to make up for a lifetime of bossing people around by asking someone else to boss her around. and she convinces herself that this is making her happy! and i mean it definitely is, in a way. it feels good to feel liked by someone. to have the approval of someone you look up to. it is making her happy. but is that... good for her? i dont know! it doesn't feel good to me.

this stuff is hitting me extremely close to home on this reread because i like JUST came upon the revolution that i kinda did this? not to this extreme polarity, but it still resonates.

i was (kind of am still, it's in my nature) a very bossy and controlling person, and i lost an entire circle of friends because they were rightfully tired of me telling them what to do and being so self-righteous all the time. so when trying to make new friends after that, i turned on people-pleaser mode. and i'm kind of still stuck there and trying to strike a balance between being a doormat people-pleaser and being a huge bitch that wants everyone to behave how *i* want them to. it is a hard balance to strike. its hard knowing when i should stand up and say something and when i should let something go, so most often i let things go. and OFTENTIMES i live to regret it. "i should have said something" is something i've been finding myself thinking A LOT in recent months...

and its tricky, because it feels good when people i respect say they approve of me. i feel happy that someone likes me. but sometimes that has come at the cost of sacrificing parts of myself. and it can feel good in the moment, to feel connected to someone like that, but then one day you wake up full of dread because you dont know who the fuck you are anymore. (vriska) didn't really ever get to that point, or, she never voiced it. vriska points out that shes become an entirely different person, but she does it in a way that uhhh fucking sucks lol! and is not helpful, because vriska's not exactly doing great, herself! she shows off her hypocrisy DELICIOUSLY in this scene.

she calls (vriska) selfish for.... being dead, essentially. and she justifies all her own selfish actions with it being "for the greater good," just as she always has. this is par for the course with vriska

^ i looooove this part right here where she sidesteps the fact that she did in fact plan to go fight jack but john punched her in the face to stop her. "different shit happened!" (i actually made the exact same decisions as you, but an outside force changed things and now i feel superior to you because i got a serendipitous opportunity that you didnt)

this whole conversation hits hard with me. it literally sounds similar to conversations ive had with myself! it's hard to not want to side with (vriska) i mean she does feel like the more reasonable one in this conversation and has had more time to think and reflect on herself, and vriska is being a fucking asshole about it, but like, i don't think either of them is exactly Right?

like, vriska has a bit of a point that (vriska) doesnt seem to notice that she's gone people-pleaser mode. but (vriska) thinks this is what happiness is. she despises her old self who was obsessed with inserting herself into everything and feeling the need to be The Best and prove herself as such, to catastrophic outcomes. so of course she wants to separate herself from that as much as possible and strive to become the opposite of it. someone who doesnt care about shit, and who lets other people make decisions for her instead of her making the decisions for everyone against their will. i think (vriska) was on the right track, but just couldn't really... Get There without the right support. and meenah was definitely not the right support.

but anyways like. vriska yelling at (vriska) at how disgusted she is with her is so sickeningly similar to me, looking back and realizing that i used to like.. stand up for myself more. if someone said some shit i didnt like i TOLD them i had a problem. i didn't let people push me around. and i think god, what happened to me? i became a weak loser that bends to peoples idea of what i should be instead of being myself. am i really happy?

but its not like i was better off before, either. vriska still isn't right. yeah i didnt let people boss me around, because i bossed THEM around. when i told people i had a problem with them i was MEAN about it. i said rude shit unnecessarily. i made everything about me and didn't care about what other people thought.

my past self and my "current" self (maybe like, my 'a few months ago self' i like to think im working through it but im still having trouble lol) are disgusted with each other. im disgusted that i used to straight up bully people all the time, and past me is disgusted that i seemed to have stopped having convictions, that i let other people decide who i should be, etc.

neither of them are really happy, but (vriska) sure seems a lot kinder, at least. she's made progress, but in a way that benefits other people more than it does herself.

also i love vriska saying "what happened to not letting shit get to you because you always knew you were better than the one slinging it" that is such utter bullshit. she is ALWAYS letting stuff get to her. all of her god damn actions are because she lets stuff get to her. everything she does is to prove herself. the cycle of revenge shit?? yeah totally didn't let it get to you. thats why you killed aradia and blinded terezi. because you were just so totally better than them and not letting it get to you. this stuff:

yeah. letting it roll off your back. lol

anyways back to meenah and (vriska)

meenah recognizes this vulnerability in (vriska) and it scares her. she does the whole "im abandoning you... for your own good..." thing, which... sucks! as you said, this whole situation just fucken sucks, man.

(vriska) basically admits that at this point, without meenah, she's lost. she let meenah mold her into what she wanted, and to lose her would be to lose herself.

but i mean i don't think there was another way this could've gone. (vriska) was essentially meenah's rebound after aranea (and vriska is her rebound after (vriska) lol) and it's just.. ALL bad. its just... everyone here has such deep personal issues that they cant help but let effect each other, yknow? meenah realizes that her issues are effecting (vriska) and thinks that removing herself from the situation is best. maybe it is? it turns out okay for (vriska) in the end, at least. as "okay" as she can possibly get, i guess.

i don't know. there's a lot here! it all just hurts and sucks. teens, man. how it is.

this is just my (very personal, frankly) interpretation of the events, idk. i think i said a lot here without actually saying anything all that substantial, as i feel like i tend to do. i just resonate with vriska really hard, what and you gave me an opportunity to ramble about it lol

[rfdiscoursethrowaway]

alr fucker ill bite

im trying 2 understand the absolute fuckin brainrot that is terf ideology solely so i can explain to people who actually want to make an effort to not be bigoted not fall into your pipelines. i do this already. but i wanna be more thorough and get screenshots and examples for specific questions. ill do a lil back and forth, but you wont be convincing me that all trans women are pedos n rapists and that we need to detransition people en mass and that trans people are delusional. i have a series of questions, if you consider yourself a terf please try and actually answer them, in a way that actually explains your thought process and isnt just calling me slurs because thats most of the discourse on this site. -------

how do you mentally justify the contridiction in "male and female brains have no difference and women are just as capable as men" (true and real) and "men are fundimentally more violent/ women less violent" besides just blatently liking sexism so long as it hurts men and not women (blatently harmful and bigoted just with a #girlpower coat of paint)

if its a socialization issue, how does female seperatism nessisarily help that? shouldnt the goal then to not treat women as an other, and to not define people based on biological characteristics? while biological differences exist they dont affect your mental or phisical capabilities in anything (in regards to biological sex atleast). wouldnt it be more helpful to treat it as simply a medical thing? like a blood type or something? and treat genital preference as just the same as any other random aesthetic preference in partners like, idk, liking fat people or likeing brown hair what is it about gender based oppression that makes you think that its the men that are the problem and not the whole gender thing, because its men thinking that women are fundimentally different alien creatures because we literally define people by their genitals and constantly talk about how your genitals make you fundimentally different then the "opposite". an ACTUALLY HELPFUL soution should be talking about how like, yeah! some of us look different, but thats like? fine? we are people. who cares whats in that person pants. and if your answer is that thats unrealistic and will require hundreds of years of societal change (true) why is your approach to double down on men and women being fundimentally different and not to like? work? twards something objectively better and less discriminatory? most of what terfs are known for is bigotry and thats not some crazy coincidence, its because your sexism (though you love to label it otherwise) naturally leads to transphobia. its because the core of your ideology is bigotry. women shouldnt be discriminated against cuz you are? fucking people? with the exact same capabilities, you do not deserve more/less praise more/less accountablitity more/less agency. infact id argue that this bending over backwords to try and exclude people you deem as men is why radfems are so much more of a pushover to conservatives. your willingness to go on and on about how biological differences make you a fundimentally different person just so you can rant about how men are all ugly evil penis havers just lets you be suseptible to violent reactionary shit by conservatives. regardless of where you come from politically, this applies to BOTH of us, if you refuse to really think deeply and critically about why you hate the things you do and why you like the things you do, and instead operate on gut reactions and absorbing politics from people on tumblr SOMEONE from SOME IDEOLOGY is always trying to take advantage of that. and transphobia IS violent reactionary shit, most the time i see transphobia especially against trans women its based entirely on appearance, people jumping all over themselves to body shame her for not being enough of a woman, talking about how gross and disgusting she is for wearing a dress or for having a deeper voice. why is this body shaming ok so long as you deem someone a man? attatching morality to appearance is just a blatently bad idea and its frankly gross how little so many of you are willing to critique that.

-----

whats your explaination for the tonal dissonance between "i dont want trans people dead and im not violent" and painting trans women as "always being men with terrible intentions who cosplay as women to have an excuse to rape and assault people"

because while you may not directly say "i think all trans people should be murdered" and you do it in a roundabout way with "all trans people are rapists and all rapists should be murdered" that does still say "i think all trans people should be murdered", just with extra steps. and are you aware that this is the exact retoric used by colonizers to justify genocide and slavery? painting black people as "savages and rapists"? whats your justification for painting a large group of people as fundimentally evil and violent, and how nessasarily is it somehow different then the retoric used to oppress any other marginalized group? + if its a "but im right!" consider this is also what a rapist or an antisemite or a mysogenist would say, and why you are parroting the exact same thing. like do you genuinely actually think that having a boy brain, or more testosterone, or a penis, makes you a rapist and a pedofile? really? and again if you agree with me that its a socialization issue why! dont you! treat it that way!! if you mean one thing, SAY THAT! and FIGURE OUT WITCH ONE OF THOSE YOU BELIEVE. because you cant fuckin have it both ways! if you wanna say that we shouldnt be treating women as stupid vile little vagina having worms (real and true) then like, you cant ALSO be like oh i also think we should be treating men as stupid vile little penis having worms >:) hehe i am so progressive and counter culture ignore all the horrific damage that catagorizing people like that has had i think it will be funny when we do it with men you see.

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what is with this insistance that people define themselves based on whats in their pants, like if having a pussy is just having a pussy thats fuckin fine alr but if you start insisting that people make that their ENTIRE PERSONALITY and that if you have one you HAVVVEEEE to have only a specific subsection of names and you HAVEEEE to be called a woman and use she/her and shit

like girl it is just words, who gives a fuck, if a guy says hey i wanna change my name to this girl name cuz it sounds cool as fuck its like! yea! hell yeah brother! and if hes like actually i prefer more feminine words to refer to me :) its like! hell yeah sister! how does that hurt fuckin anyone. is using words so hard 4 u. and before you be like ooOOuuyhghhg IM NOT DEFINING PEOPLE BASED ON THEY ARE PUSSY how is catagorizing people based on their chromosomes / genitals / appearance (and lets be honest here. its mostly appearance but you use chromosomes and genitals so you can pretend theres some kind of science proving that youre right, there is no chromosome detector 3000 for real life) not flattening them? like genuinely how the fuck do you justify that. you have to go to a different bathroom you have to go to a different doctors office you have to go to a different sports team all because i assume that your chromosomes and your genitals make you eaither unsafe or violent or constantly in need of protection and fundimentally less capable. terfs love to constantly insist that gender is whatever and then constantly try to force people to define themselves by their biological sex? why is whats in MY pants any of your fucking buisness? unless im at a gynocology appointment you dont need to know shit. all of this girlsgirlsgirlsgirls stuff what if you dont wanna be called a fuckin girl? what if i find it weird that you profile people and assume things about them because of their body? if gender is whatever why do you HAVE to be a male or a female. why do i have to fucking put my biology out on display for people to assume things about me based on? because i KNOW you assume things based on peoples biological sex and i KNOW you think more or less of people based on their biological sex thats half the ideology! why do you think every trans women is a sexist mysogenist who woke up one day at 24 and decided she was gonna be a girllll and wear dresses so she could opress woemennn moreeeee, why do you assume all trans men were groomed and exploited and brainwashed into thinking that theyre boys because of mysogeny and not cuz sometimes? being called a dude feels good? having a dick feels good? having a flat chest feels good? using he him or whatever the fuck feels good??? rad fem shit is just, sexism repackadged, do you never see the similarities? do you never see the fine print? that the core ideology is the same? this is just mysogeny again! like women are always the victim and men are always the perpetraitor. is just women have fundimentally less agency and men more agency women do bad things because theyre dumb and men do bad things because they had a good reason to. is just women have fundimentally less agency and men more agency please explain how that ISNT just the same mysogenist veiwpoints with a hashtag girlboss coat of paint. and this isnt me projecting mysogenistic right wing ideas onto you, i wrote all this stuff while looking through "radfem101" "terf reference guide" "things TRA's need to get thru their heads" posts. theres a reason people get them confused, ive been told these exact same things time and time again by alt rights and conservatives and mysogenists. so witch are you? why do you agree on so much?

-----

how do you deal with the whole, not wanting womens genitals to be constantly policed and have that be all that defines them (true and real) and the very real fact that there is no chromosome detector 3000 and if you want to create "female only spaces" you realistically are eaither going to have to subject billions of women on a daily basis to sexual harrassment to see if they are "real women" or do it just based on appearance. witch is enevitibly going to cause a disproportionate ammount of hate and violence twards black, gnc, and intersex women for not being "women" enough. something that is already happening, because trying to give rigid requirements for what looks like a woman and what looks like a man is always going to impact these groups disproportionately, you know its gonna be based off of like a white skinny cis girl! and uh! not all women are that!

and assuming there is a chromosome dectector 3000 in the future, a) intersex people b) trans men exist, and while im sure you can argue day and night about how they arent real men and phallo dicks are just a mutilated skin tube or whatever half of what you guys talk about is how you feel unsafe being in the same bathroom as someone who "looks like a dude" and who has a penis. considering the strictness in needing 100% gender conformity in trans women im sure the exact same people wouldnt be comfortable with a trans guy eaither, if youd feel ok just so long as they had the right reading on the chromosome dectector 3000 then all this talk about trans women being violent cuz penis and body hair and testosterone is just bullshit. and sense terfs love to play hypotheticals with 100% cis dudes just telling people theyre girls so they can get through the female bathroom security (a thing that totally exists believe me guys) (and also yeah telling a police officer that youre "just a trans girl" would totally actually help you in a legal case dont google trans panic defence shhhhhh its ok its ok, statistics you dont read from "xxvaginawomxngirlfucker" arent real its ok,,) couldnt a cis dude just lieeee about being a trans man? whos saying nobody can lie about my chromosome detector 3000 score! are you gonna put a bouncer in the female bathroom security gates? and like, where do trans people even pee then. we just rename the mens bathroom to the trannies and mysogenists room? the biologically more violent room? yeah lets shove a bunch of little intersex girls into the violent mysogenists room, she had body hair and a harsher jawline and that scared me so im lumping her into the room with all the people i think are pedos and rapists, she will feel totally ok about this and this wont effect her perception of herself, this wont enforce gender roles and make women having a complex about being feminine enough worse. women can be anything! except anything i think looks like a guy. so women can be feminine and nothing else :) but women can be anything i put in this super limiting box! i genuinely cannot imagine a world where this doesnt dramatically worsten sexual phisical and emotional violence against literally everyone.

and to say again. im not looking for quirky rebloggable snapbacks to each of my points i want you 2 put an equal ammount of effort as i did scrolling terflandia and writing all this up. so dont just call me a delusional tr-nny i want you to give me like. atleast a little substance here. something to chew and bite and pick apart

[majorbaby]

I also agree on potter and mulcahy having some or similar power as charles and id love to sink my teeth into that, like we do see mulcahy flex his privilege as a priest but it usually only comes when HE wants something not for someone else (the orphans notwithstanding and the black market but he does imply he keeps some of the profits for himself) idk of im making sense im on mobile its hard to type point is i see and hear it

also would kill to see a fic where hawkeye somehow is in the way of one of mulcahys Moments of anger or promotions and would mulcahy back down or just....steam roll over hawkeye much to consider

lol i would love to read that. it is so weird to see hawkeye be on board with mulcahy's military promotions. i suppose you could argue that he doesn't want to see his friend upset, but yk i don't actually see hawkeye as being this overly soft pushover who walks on eggshells around everyone and never stands up to his friends for fear of hurting their feelings. he frequently snarks at radar, trapper, henry and mulcahy in the early years. he'd find another way to help mulcahy that doesn't have anything to do with helping him secure a promotion, that's the fuzziest i can make it.

great point about mulcahy using his structural power when he wants something for himself, even though it isn't framed that way.

it's the framing of things that plays a huge role in how i feel about a lot of these characters. at least with frank, you know he's a villain. he's not 'complex' in the way charles is because the writers did not want to risk his villainy to make him sympathetic - it was a better choice to give that to margaret, and i think if you've watched MASH 1970, you can see that gelbart and reynolds made a conscious choice to scale back margaret's villainy and lay the foundation of her arc.

but getting back to your point, a moment of tension between mulcahy and hawkeye could've been interesting. it's seems clear that the writers wanted to give more to mulcahy and conflict with hawkeye could've been interesting - i find they ran into the same issue with BJ. they both have their moments of conflict with him, but hawkeye is the one being punished in those moments. i would've liked to see hawkeye challenge either one of them on their deeply-held beliefs.

[mikareo]

hi!!! i love your account it’s so cute :) can i please request a matchup for jujutsu kaisen? im bisexual & use she/her pronouns <3

for my personality, id say im pretty bubbly and excitable. i’m an isfj & cancer, & i try to look on the bright side and try to listen to/help when they’re sad. im very affectionate with the people im close to, and i tend to cling onto my friends arms and hug them a lot. i love anything soft or cute, especially animals!! im kinda scared of bugs though, but i still always try to take them outside. i get distracted pretty easily, and have a hard time dealing with change. i tend to be a bit bossy and unreasonable when it comes to something i’m interested in. i also really like going for walks, shopping, yoga, baking (even though i’m dreadfully awful at it), and reading. i like complimenting strangers, and i try to see the best in everything & everyone! though i can’t really tolerate it if somebody is overly cruel or rude to the people i care about. i have a very “do no harm, take no shit” mentality :) my ideal date would probably be some kind of picnic or a walk in a park on a nice day, i like very aesthetic things ahsjsbsj

please & thank you! have a nice day <3

💌 ✮⋆˙ love letter to...rezqwr!

hi!! i rlly hope u like this character asjkl the pictures i used are so pretty like i'm in awe of them i love this chara sm :) have an amazing day and enjoy reading !!!

[ ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱₊˚⊹ ᰔ ] your personality matchup results!

congratulations . . .‧₊˚👒✩MAI ZENIN₊˚💐⊹♡

⋆⭒˚｡⋆ chemistry analysis . . .

while i was reading through your information, i was really torn between yuuji and mai. i feel like you and itadori would have a really good base for a relationship— but i decided it would ultimately be platonic, which lead me to pick mai. i think you two would have a lot to give each other, balance wise, and are, in my opinion, the most compatible out of the jujutsu kaisen characters.

mai has such a gentle soul that she hides behind her prickly personality. she doesn't want to show any types of weakness in case there are those who underestimate her, but with you, it's very different. you have open empathy and kindness, something she wishes she could publicly show, and she has so much admiration for how you carry yourself. whether you're comforting a friend or saving a bug from the corner of your kitchen, she's in utter awe with the natural beauty of your heart. as your relationship progresses, she hopes some of that goodness rubs off on her and gives her the courage to show her true self to her peers; which is something that only you can encourage her to do.

a seemingly unfortunate similarity between the two of you, is your resistance to change. while you're more headstrong and opinionated when you aren't happy with the direction a situation is going, mai is more of a pushover. she's too afraid to really say what she thinks and covers up her fear with aggression and insults. with you, however, she has someone who can speak up for her. while you encourage her to state her true feelings, she stands by your side and supports your remarks and occasional 'unreasonable' responses. you're both very aware of your distaste for change, but don't judge the other for it. rather than arguing, you listen to each other and figure out what's bothering both of you; leaning towards healthy conversations instead of toxic ones.

it's tough to get past mai's phony initial persona, but when you really get to know her, you find out that all she wants is to be like all the other girls in japan. she wants to go shopping. she wants to get her makeup done. she wants to laugh and smile with someone she loves without having to worry about curses and whatnot. with you as her companion, she now has the ability to go do these things and having someone to share those memories with. you make her feel like a normal person, and that's the most valuable thing in the world to her.

[somehowmags]

i love rook the most but he also deserves everything bad that happens to him thus i would never defend him HOWEVER the way people misinterpret the relationship between rook and vil has me galloping straight to heaven like. my lips are trembling my eyes are watering the very image of both rook and vil are evaporating before my eyes.

the one thing i see people primarily take issue with is rook commenting on vil's weight gain in one of their lab vignettes. now, i've never personally read through it so i dont know the log line for line. but i do have a basic gist of what happened.

like.... you've got to stop interpreting the meaning of this line with such shallow knowledge. though im sure for many people this is an extremely insensitive statement to make, you have to keep in mind who it is said to, why it is said, and who says it.

sure, if rook made this statement to literally any other student, rook could be rightfully criticized for it. but do you not remember rook's role as vil's vice housewarden and right hand man? rook is known to never mince his words, despite their flowery and ostentatious quality-- much more so when he's speaking to vil of all people, who prefers upfront and straight to the point critique.

rook, for all his intrusions onto people's boundaries (see; rook commenting about ruggies fur being used in an fur based item), is also very purposeful about what he says. he's very purposeful about everything. in most cases, you can likely categorize the intent behind his words as either to gauge someone's reaction (whether for personal satisfaction or other means) or to provide advice.

so when he says things like this, it's not because he seemingly cannot grasp the concept of boundaries. he very much does. he's incredibly observant and the thing that he does not know, and thus seeks out, is how people react to the possibility of their boundary being tested. not the actuality of it.

the point is that he also very much understand vil's boundaries. he understands what makes him tick, what gains his approval, what he needs, what he wants, what his approach would be.... etc etc. that is because they've been extremely close friends for the past 3 years. rook would not say these things to anyone else but vil-- just like how you'd bully your close friends, but not acquaintances, because there are different rules of what is socially acceptable between these different relationships. in all these years rook has known vil, rook has come to understand that because of vil's current status in the entertainment industry, he needs to mirror vil's standards with himself if he wants to genuinely help vil.

it's why he's called vil's mirror-- because he's observed him closely the most, so he can provide an accurate and objective judgement on vil. that's the point. it's what vil needs and what rook provides; accurate, without bias nor filter. if rook wants to see vil thrive, he has to help him keep in shape and maintain vil's standard of perfection when vil cannot because he knows vil would appreciate having a likewise, external aide.

vil keeps rook by his side because of rook's extremely eccentric honesty. rook doesn't care much for what would be conventional behavior but he is sensible enough that vil can entrust certain duties to him. one of them includes being the one to check vil over. use his watchful eye to never let vil falter in a way vil would despise.

you also have to consider vil's reaction to what was said about his weight gain; he did not object, he did not rouse in anger, he did not argue. why? because vil considers the seemingly harsh criticism and assesses it's verity and how he could use it as improvement. i don't remember what happens in there, but it's likely he accepts it.

vil isn't a pushover. he would probably fucking beat rook to death if he so much so made an out of line comment about vil's looks-- something he takes deep pride in. he's capable of it. the thing is that this isn't out of line in the context of vil's career and rook's responsibility. they're quite literally in pomefiore regardless of vil's career, where the housewarden should be the shining example of diligence in looks and strength. rook has mentioned the reason he takes such a backseat isn't only because it's in his nature to most often simply observe rather than actively contribute, but because vil is so strong willed that anything else other than verbal suggestions, constructive criticism or praise would be struck down. he'd have been met by his 13 cm heels and rook finds no issue in that. he has to say things in moderation in order for vil to accept them in face of his tenacious nature and he knows that. vil is heavy on improvement and rook is a surefire way to gain insight on his next step towards it.

regardless, as much as i love rook, i also understand why people would be off put by his hypocritical tendencies, his less than conventional moral code, and his other eccentric traits. however, the weight gain statement very much lacks any real reason to be used as criticism against rook when you consider that it's being said to his best friend of 3 years and the housewarden with big dick energy vil schoenheit. i need people to STOP thinking vil lacks a spine in this situation when his spine could literally be used as a baseball bat. besides, rook met vil by spouting his head off about vil's performance. if vil was hurt or off put by rook's nature, he would not have talked with him for hours, even as it snowed.

IM SO INSANE ABOUT THEM YOY DONT KNOW!!!! i want to deep fry rook and use vil as a surfboard i love them so much. i love vil because his development is so beautiful and yes seeing him finally realise he can be plain old vil schoenheit in chapter 6 is gold and seeing him be so excited to see epel GRGGARSGSRAHDT IM RIPPING MY HAIR OUT I LOVE THE POMEFIORE FAMILY!!!! funny story i actually used to HATE vil schoenheit and look where i am now. thank you for being insane with me did you know your swag is so of considerable size. love you tumblr user!

ohhh this is also so true. i had to go back and read the vignette (its vil's labwear one if anybody wants to check) and like, yeah, as a fat woman and as someone who has body issues, if someone said that to me, i would want to take off my shoe and start hitting them with it! and indeed vil goes later "wow, that was so fucking rude of him, who does he think he is?" which is imo entirely deserved. that IS a rude thing to say and had he said it to anybody else they would be very entitled to hit him with their shoes and also whatever other objects were close at hand but he DIDN'T say it to anybody he said it to vil. vil is a world class supermodel- much as that industry infuriates me it does mean that part of vil's job is to, well, be skinny. do i like it no do i think its healthy no but unfortunately that is the reality of the situation. it's not something ordinary people like you (assumedly lol) and i would say to our friends, but vil and rook aren't really normal teens. he's not even really mad about rook saying it; he complains to trey later that rook is rude (and he and trey have a nice conversation about sweets and being a vice housewarden in a way that contrasts vil and rook and riddle and trey) but all in all he does appreciate rook pointing it out so he can figure out what caused it.

and you're so right if vil had a problem with him saying this He Would Tell Him. he would just say it. vil is not the kind of person to keep his thoughts to himself! he would just tell him to shut up if he didn't want rook saying that to him!

i really genuinely do not think pomefiore is fatphobic like...vil is not gonna make you lose weight he would just be like "ok cool but are you meeting your own personal goals for yourself" that feels much more in character for him. rook too he finds beauty in literally everything you can't tell me he'd be intentionally fatphobic

and you're also right about rook being purposeful about everything he says and it can at times make him such a menacing character which is so !!! like him saying he'd like to try hunting leona in his labwear vignette or trying to get information on malleus and lilia in lilia's pe vignette like. he Knows how he comes off! he's doing that shit on purpose! it really fits with his huntsman character i love it. its also so funny that he met vil by popping out of a tree to be like "damn this script sucks" to his face i wish i had the audacity tbh! i dunk on him for his awful haircut and being a little weirdo but honestly he's such an intriguing character. gotta put him in the soup pot as well

AND I LOVE YOU ANON its always so fun when people come into my inbox to be absolutely insane about their favorite characters! i love doing analysis but i always have to be prompted to do it so getting these asks is like throwing a meat stuffed pumpkin into my enclosure

[savnofilter]

i know it's been years since the bnha drama you had to go through in 2020, but i wanted to say that i've thought about really it for years and years and i was on your side for when it happened. i still remain on your side, and i hope you were given proper apologies from yk who and their defenders. you most likely never want to think about it again, but i hope you know that what you did mattered. i think about it really from time to time remembering how the internet was so eager to go against a bunch of teens and how cruel it was really at the time. i know you endured a lot of hate for it, and i hope you're doing better now!

let's be real here, aint nun of them ever apologized to me and never will. it's pretty evident how past the few troll hate asks i got recently, everything is 100% lbh and them and it's not made up cuz apparently mfs think i send hate to myself LOL.

atp idc cuz everyone else ive ever had a problem with that werent part of their circle or used to be, ive actually amended and made up with. but thank you for this, it def doesnt effect me like it did back in the day (idky i aged myself like that). i definitely am better now! mentally, emotionally (i think; im stunted there if we're being quite honest) and overall i love life. i love everything in it like im just chilling... if anything that whole thing made me realize that i was limiting myself being on here 24/7 and straining myself worrying ab shit that didnt need to be worried ab.

so even if i took the L and there are so many fake fuckass niggas on this site (or left) who said they know ab whats happened but still fuck with nonces they can go die like the rest of them. 🖕🏽 it's truly disappointing how cowardly most are to refuse the idea of not supporting someone simply bc they wanna read degenerate bakugo fanfic. i would be lying if i wasnt honest on how hurt i really was when ppl also lied on my name saying i did shit i never did or the fact that no shade no tea, anonie, getting asks like this and then crickets publicly. and to that if there are more recent victims or ppl effected by her and her friends actions you deserve it!!!! lol.

im apathetically bitter but im just glad i can finally talk my shit on my blog LOL. i used to be so scared of talking ab what was really going on, walking on eggshells bc i still wanted to be seen as just funny little Sav who makes borderline crack fics. i am not one to sub a bitch, imma call you out your name but yk who tf im talking ab!! it feels good to be free to speak ab what i want, not feeling pressured to conform to ideologies i dont agree with (proship, dark content, politics etc etc). so tbh im very happy with the outcome. bc at the end of the day i know i spoke nothing but the truth and even with no support i can sleep at night knowing i got no skeletons in my closet. i own to the things i do, i will admit when im wrong and i love to grow as a person. i speak my truth and dont need everyone to agree with it or debate me. 🤷🏽‍♀️

also yall choose your friends wisely. use your intuition. dont ignore that gut feeling and dont fw ppl yk do shitty things. you will get caught up in it, and thats past tumblr cesspool drama advice. it's very tempting to be that bad person. it's tempting to do whatever you want but everything has a consequence.. everything you put out, you receive back.

n ik im not mf saint either bitch ☠️ cuz i made a choice at 14 y.o joining this site, i was either gonna be some wholesome pushover or a bitch. i took the latter, did the time and now ive learned that i dont need to be rude or a bully in order to be assertive. that having respect for yourselves and others doesnt mean to be unnecessarily mean to mfs who DONT deserve it. everything just feels like a life lesson tbvh. im gonna keep arguing with niggas online cuz i eat everyone up even when im outnumbered. 🥴 but to everyone who genuinely deserves an apology from me has received it and likewise. and that's all i can ask for.

tldr; ive learned a lot, that time was very sucky but we up. 🤪🤳🏽

p.s shoutout to ms gworl @/mci bc she kept me in check and helped me a lot. no bum on this site will ever compare to her at all. oh yeah and i will talk ab the callout any chance i get so neva tell me to let it go!! <3

[peaches-writes]

heart attack!

description: han jisung can charm any heart if he wants to but he just wants one, whether he admits it to your face or not. 

member: jisung / han

genre: fluff, fantasy, rivals to lovers au, childhood friends to lovers au, witch / wizard au (sugar sugar rune-inspired), royal au, college au, roommates / housemates au, slice of life format, a side of hwang siblings, sunshine twins, cousin chan, and minchan (!!)

word count: 25.1k i’m so sorry

warnings: explicit language, alcohol, some mentions of injuries, a brief episode of someone getting abducted, mentions of a creep being,,,well a creep at public transportation, self-indulgent tooth-rotting cheesiness, idk if i should put a warning for unconscious emotional manipulation but im gonna write that in here anw

note: idk if i want to write little drabbles w this same pairing again since it ended up being so long but i kinda lost the plot halfway lmao lmk if u guys want additional lil drabbles for this hehe + again happy 1k yay!

You don’t always get along with Han Jisung, crown prince of the Eastern Kingdom, for reasons you simply can't limit to the number of fingers and toes that you have. He loves annoying you for the sake of getting a reaction, bratty as far as a wizard prince goes, and prideful among many traits that you were forced to grow up alongside with.

These days, however, you hate the way that he is the only other candidate alongside yourself for the High Crown of the magical world. As if fate didn't just want the two of you to butt heads in school and at royal social functions all the time, suddenly you're pushed to compete with him for something much greater.

For the record, though, it's tradition that all firstborn heirs of the 4 major kingdoms are considered eligible for the highest throne that unites all of your domains. You were going to compete with him either way, just with other people initially involved. However, with prince Hyunjin of the Southern kingdom mysteriously disappearing over a month ago and princess Lia of the Western kingdom subsequently refusing the candidacy, suddenly there was only you and the Eastern prince for the high jury to challenge in their Crown Candidacy exam. Fate and circumstance clearly love you with the way Jisung is always in your line of sight when all you want for yourself is to not be on the receiving end of his teasings and competititve streak all the time.

Though you yourself didn't desire the High Crown at first, the elders continuously pressuring you eventually pushed you into accepting the task. Plus, knowing that it's Jisung—the brat who pulled on your hair during those silly etiquette lessons the high jury made you and the other royals take as kids and embarrassed you when you once confessed your past crush to him in middle school—who would be automatically crowned without a test if Hyunjin isn't found in time and you also refuse made you go forward with it. After all, as much as you personally don't want to answer to Jisung as the next High King, you also think that entrusting the entire magical realm to him is simply not right. You would know, you had to grow up with him.

So, here you are on the night that the Crown Candidacy exam begins, receiving the final blessing from your mother and the high jury with Jisung who has been sneakily trying to poke on your side and get a reaction out of you since the ceremony began. If 15 elders and your mentors aren't surrounding the two of you with their scrutinizing eyes right this very moment, you would've easily snapped on the first poke and blasted the blue-haired boy.

"Stop that," You instead gritted your teeth next to him with the 17th poke to your waist, lowering your voice that only he can hear. "Ji, I swear to the gods—"

Among the circle of witches and wizards chanting ritual protection spells over the two of you, your mentor Younghyun glares at you and Jisung as if in a non-verbal scolding that the two of you should stop "playing around" as he would usually word it. You simply roll your eyes at this in response, earning you more quizzical looks from the other elders.

You also hate the way that Han Jisung keeps stringing you into his antics as his favourite person to mess with. If anything, you're most often in trouble with the elders because of him.

"This part of the ceremony is so unnecessary. I'm bored" He murmurs tiredly under his breath, bringing his hands back inside his black cape and pushing his shoulders back as he stands up straighter once more. "It's not like humans can hurt us. We're the magical ones, hello? Besides, the jury’s already cut the one-year exam by half. What could even happen in that time?”

"Stray monsters can still hunt you there if you don’t stand still." You correct immediately, earning you a look from your own mother this time as she finishes leading the last of the spells. At this point in your unwanted association with him, you don't even care much anymore that you get in trouble because you entertain his antics. You just want him to shut up. "Whatever. It's done."

The prince then giddily springs up in place once all of the spells are casted, suddenly looking more awake than the past 5 minutes of ceremony. "Finally! Okay, thanks for that! We'll be going now!"

"Wait." Your mother calmly interrupts him, perfectly hiding her slight annoyance over you and Jisung as she whips out her blue wand from the pockets of her ceremonial robes. "For the high jury to properly tally the ecure that you'll collect in the human world after this task, we'll be providing you with vessels to keep them."

As she mentions the vessels, a sapphire locket and an emerald ring materialize in front of you and Jisung respectively before settling at the palms of your hands. You're then quick to notice the way that the diamond-cut sapphire encrusted at the center of your locket emits warmth as you place it around your neck, indicating its magical properties.

"These vessels have been modified further to record everything that you collect and any spell or potion that you might use them on while undertaking in this task." Your mother then continues. Simultaneously, Younghyun gestures for you and Jisung to mount your brooms and prepare to fly off into the yellow crescent moon where the portal to the human world lies on its other side. "Though the ecure that you lose is not counted in the final tally, knowing how you used or lost them also contributes to the jury's examination of your magical skills and knowledge."

Jisung chuckles, bumping the bristle end of his broom with yours playfully. "And to see what kind of trouble we'll get ourselves into, right?"

In response, you simply roll your eyes. Your mother, on the other hand, purposely tunes out Jisung's usual antics and continues, "Remember, this exam will determine the next monarch that unites all of the 4 major domains. Collect as much ecure as you can from the humans in the 6 months that you're given with them and you will be rewarded greatly. Until then, have a safe journey to the human world, candidates."

With that, you and Jisung push yourselves off from the castle balcony, heading straight to the crescent moon.

"Last to the other side is a lousy flyer!" Jisung yells playfully into the quiet night, speeding ahead before you could even process his words. “And has to pay for a meal sometime!”

"Ya! Han Jisung!" You increase your speed yourself anyway despite knowing that his words don’t have any ill meaning, catching up to him with ease just as the two of you pass into the portal. “I paid for the meals last time!” 

-

Han Jisung isn't always fond of you, the heir to the Northern Kingdom, for reasons he simply can't limit to the number of fingers and toes that he has. He thinks you're too uptight (especially in the presence of the high jury and the other elders of the bigger royal circle), easily irritable, and surprisingly a bit of a pushover to your kingdom's advisors ever since your cousin, Chan, renounced his royal title and settled in the human world.

These days, however, he hates the way that you've suddenly taken up an interest in competing for the high crown of the magical world alongside him even when you've made it clear countless times before that you only wanted to rule your own kingdom. You only started showing interest after Lia formally refused her candidacy and the elders pushed you more into changing your mind, clearly hinting that you don't want Jisung to automatically be crowned High King.

Do they really think that terribly of me? Jisung has resorted to thinking a lot about these days, even now as the two of you arrive at Chan’s place where you would be staying for the duration of the test. I make a good high king as much as I do the king of my own people! Hmp!

It shouldn't bother him this much, it's just you anyway. But at the same time, it bothers him for this very same reason: because it's you, the know-it-all who always busted his antics to the teachers back in school and embarrassed him to his friends when you confessed your past crush to him back in middle school. Jisung hates the way you challenge and compel him to be petty and competitive all the time, especially in the little things. Like right now, as the two of you argue on who gets the bigger bedroom in Chan's house right after you arrived.

"You know, I was just holding back a while ago because we were in front of the elders but I swear, I won't hesitate to blast you now that we're away." You warn as you try your best to stare him down while he blocks the bedroom door you both want. You have your hands raised to the side, sparks of a spell encircling our fingers and the space between your hands. "Move, Jisung!"

Still, Jisung stubbornly refuses. You two have bickered enough to last you all of your lifetimes and for him to know that you won't really do it. "I was here first! You go to the other room!"

The blue ball of energy in your hands begins to shape itself into a more tangible shape as your brows furrow even deeper in frustration. "But I called dibs on this room to Chan firs—!"

Before you could finish your words, however, Chan peeks his head out from the opposite end of the hallway with a pile of blankets in his hands. "You two still going at it? It's almost 2 AM." He teases in feigned disapproval, approaching the two of you to throw a blanket each of your way. "Come on, give it up, Sung. Y/N gets the big room."

Jisung's initial smug expression contorts into disbelief in an instant while you celebrate with a wide grin and a teasing tongue stuck out at him. "What?!"

"Ha! Thanks, Channie!" You clasp your hands together in satisfaction, the red sparks in your hands disappearing into thin air as you do so, before pushing the paralyzed Jisung out of the way and locking yourself in the bedroom. Once Jisung's pulled himself together at the betrayal, you then briefly peek your head out of the door, sticking your tongue out for the last time before greeting the two boys with a quick, "Goodnight!"

Jisung glares and purses his lips in front of Chan who chuckles at this. "Hyung!" He whines, grabbing the older boy by his biceps and shaking him wildly like how a child would throw a tantrum. "I don't see you for three years and when I do, I get treated like this?!"

"Exactly." Chan nods with an amused smile, tugging Jisung to his side and leading him to his room across from yours. "Y/N was kind enough to visit me here while you didn't even send a letter. I think that's enough to give them the big room."

"Aah, but you already know why I couldn't! I was busy with all the prince stuff!"

"Y/N was too, though? And they’re doing twice the work than you."

"But Y/N's more organized than me!"

"So you agree? My cousin earned the bigger room?"

"No, it’s not th—aish! Bang Chan!" When the older boy in question tries pushing Jisung back to the smaller bedroom, the latter childishly protests by gripping onto the doorframe. "I'm making it up to you now! I'm literally staying here for 6 months!"

"Yeah and I'll definitely treat you to lots of other things for that later. Seriously, Ji, give it a rest. It's just your temporary room for the exam." Chan sighs with a tired laugh, prying the younger wizard's hands off of the doorframe and shoving him inside the room. "Unpack your things and get some sleep. We're having a welcoming party for you two on the weekend."

"You're supposed to side with me here."

"Don't pull that face, you're not kids anymore." Chan chuckles, ruffling the younger boy's hair. "And I'm not siding with anyone. It’s just a room! Night, Sungie."

Jisung opens his mouth to protest, only for Chan to close the door on him and walk back to his own room. With a sigh, the boy defeatedly trudges to his new bed and, after taking out his expandable pouch from his pockets, jumps to the mattress with a muffled groan to the plush pillows.

Jisung also hates how one of his best friends favors you better just because you're cousins first. He's had enough of Chan coddling you before from when you were kids, always taking your side when the two of you bicker and offering you his extra food when the three of you are together, and he would much prefer it if he doesn't see it now that the two of you are undergoing an important exam.

"At least the view's nice." He pouts to himself once he's seated up once more, facing the window that overlooks the city. After just spending ten minutes flying over Seoul and exploring Chan's vast mansion, Jisung gets it a little now. Chan definitely didn't choose this realm over their home for no reason.

If I'm not in line to be king, Jisung thinks to himself, this life also seems nice.

Hovering his hands over the enchanted green pouch, its neatly packed contents of clothes and other personal belongings then emerge from its seemingly tiny space before levitating to their respective places. "Aish, that Y/N!" Jisung yells loudly on purpose, leaning on his side closer to the door to hear your reaction.

Across the hall, while you make a fuss out of unpacking and changing the appearance of some furniture, you yell back, "Shut up, Ji!"

Jisung has many reasons for disliking you at times but, if anything, he lives for your reactions when he purposely annoys you. Even when he knows you’re always a spell away from actually snapping at him, you never actually do and it never fails to amuse him. Scoffing, he lets it slide for now and quietly unpacks.

-

If attending social functions as a royal has taught you anything over the years, it's to avoid being within reach of Jisung at a party before, during, and after he makes a huge mess of things. You've had your own fair share of spilled drinks to your dress robes, purposely getting embarrassed in front of the elders and other important public officials, and even a huge fight over not wanting to be his dance partner to remind you of this at all times.

Of the places that you and Jisung have to be standing next to each other, it's the parties that you hate having to see him at the most because they bring you nothing but trouble. Chan's welcoming party for the two of you, with witches and wizards living in the human world as well as Chan's own human friends in attendance, is no exception.

"What do you think he's going to do this time?" Yeji snickers next to you on the makeshift dance floor of the house's backyard. Ever since her brother disappeared, she's been staying in the human world combing through every inch of Seoul and trying to retrace what is little known of the steps he took. Naturally, you've stuck to each other like glue since she arrived. "It's been two hours since this party started and all he's doing is—"

"Flirt with every human on the dance floor. I know, that's why I'm not looking over my shoulder. I think that's all he's planning to do in this party, given that we've started with the test." You frown, taking a sip of your beer as the song changes to a more lively one. "This guy's never taken any exam back in school seriously but now he suddenly wants to win this one exam. Weird, right?"

"Hm, maybe he really wants to win this exam and become high king. You can never really tell what goes on in that head of his." Yeji shrugs, blinking twice in quick succession to make her eyes turn red, an indication that she's scanning the venue for the humans' ecures. "Anyway, he's definitely working hard. I see a lot of orange hearts for him as much as there are for you."

Only then do you also turn your head around the place, your own eyes turning blue as you collect the orange hearts of infatuation and green hearts of friendship that people you've met tonight have for you with a non-verbal spell. As you catch these little crystal hearts into your locket, you briefly catch a glimpse of Jisung at one of the foldable tables chatting with three human girls. It somehow irritates you.

"He never lost that cringey fuckboy persona, huh?" Yeji points out once you're done with your collecting, shaking her now empty bottle and frowning once she realizes that it's already empty. "I guess I didn't miss out on much even after being away for a few weeks."

"You talk like you were gone for a year, not 3 weeks." You laugh. When she then asks you if you want to get new beer bottles, you follow her back to the coolers behind Chan's DJ set. "I hate how we'll be seeing more of those again when we start attending uni to collect more hearts."

"Oh, right! You're attending mine, right? You'll be with me, Seungmin, and Ryujin?" When you nod once more, she links her arms with yours and adds, “Gosh, I can just see it now, girls from the different departments flocking the two of you on the first day but especially Sung. A lot of girls I know from uni really dig that e-boy thing he has going on."

You pretend to gag, making her throw her head back in a cackle of laughs. "Humans and their weird tastes in men." You scrunch up your nose, the two of you briefly pausing to politely wave at Chan as you pass by his booth.

Your cousin doesn't hesitate to wave back at you both before going back to his spinning. You and Yeji then head to the back of his area where the coolers of different beverages have been placed.

"Oh shush, didn't you too also have a crush on him way back then?" Yeji teases the moment the two of you are alone again, opening the cooler with a simple flick of her hand. You follow along despite the glare you send her way, your empty beer bottles getting replaced by new ones. "Sometimes, Ryujin and I like to think that you still have a little bit of that."

"No way." You shake your head in denial, picking up a bottle opener from one of the closed coolers and using it over yours and Yeji's. "Middle school was a long time ago. Jisung just irritates the hell out of me now."

"Who irritates who now?" A voice behind you perks up almost immediately, causing you to jump and spill a little of your beer on the grass. When you glance over your shoulder, Jisung's white bucket hat comes into your vision, eventually uncovering his mischievous smile. "Ah, so clumsy. Look, you spilled a little beer on the grass.” 

Next to you, Yeji giggles behind her hand while greeting Jisung. You glare at her in response.

"You're annoying." You point out with a pout, thrusting the bottle opener to his chest before linking arms with Yeji. "We're going."

Jisung only shrugs with a smirk, waving goodbye to Yeji as the two of you pass by him to go back to the dance floor. "It makes you look, doesn't it?"

"Uh-huh, keep telling yourself that." You roll your eyes before disappearing back into the crowd with Yeji.

Once Jisung is out of earshot, Yeji then nudges your side with your linked arms. "I'm telling you, there's still a little something. Deep, deep down there." She teases in a singsong. “That’s probably why the banter just won’t die out.”

"Nope, definitely not." You shake your head. "Have you been watching too much of those human dramas while you’re here? It’s playing with your judgement."

-

It comes even as a surprise to Jisung himself that he hasn't caused a major mishap in this welcoming party so far. Since the majority of the guests started arriving two hours ago, he hasn't done anything troubling besides losing to Ryujin at beer pong and finishing a whole red cup of Chan's jungle juice concoction as punishment almost an hour ago.

It doesn't bother his "instincts for mischief" that much—his mentor's words not his. It means that he's more focused on collecting ecures at the moment with the amount of humans he's mingled with at this party, especially the girls who have taken it upon themselves to flirt with him.

What does bother him slightly, however, is the way you occasionally glance over to him knowingly from across the lawn, as if you're expecting him to do something. You always seem to do that after years of getting roped into his troubles, much like a lot of your childhood friends who'd frequently end up in similar predicaments. Somehow, however, it's always intimidating when it's you looking at him. He personally hates that, the look in your eyes when you're trying to catch him in his mischievous acts.

"Who are you and what have you done to my twin brother?" Felix has been teasing the entire night every time he encounters Jisung. When Jisung pouts this time, while the two share a drink on a couch that was brought out for this party, Felix laughs over his drink and adds, "Oh, so you're really focused on this test, huh? No trouble until this party's over?"

"Why do you guys think I'm not?" Jisung frowns, elbowing his brother by his side. "Geez, Lix, you're supposed to root for me here. If I win, you get to be king too."

In response, Felix waves his solo cup dismissively. "No, no, I think you're doing great! You've caught how much already? Twenty hearts in this party? That's a great start, bro." He comments with a proud smile. "It's just a little new, seeing you all so serious and focused. It's not because you're up against Y/N, right?"

"Ha? Nope, definitely not. It's barely a competition when I'm clearly winning." Jisung shakes his head a little too defensively as he sinks into the soft velvet couch. "I just think it's natural that another kingdom should get the high crown this time and since it's only me and Y/N competing, unless we also find Hyunjin while we're here I should work hard and make it happen."

Just then, Seungmin sits down on his other side with a cup of punch and a small paper plate of sweets from the chocolate fountain. "If Hyunjin was here, he would've whipped your asses in this party by getting all of the human guys and girls with one smile." He points out matter-of-factly. "Plus, if Lia accepted the candidacy, all three of you would've lost even before you left home."

"You never really rooted for me, huh, Minnie?" Jisung feigns sad eyes as he rests his head on Seungmin's shoulder. "And here I thought we're best friends."

"Oh no, I'm totally rooting for you now." Seungmin replies with a dry chuckle, passing his paper plate over to Felix when he holds his hands out in a motion asking for food. "But if the gang was complete, I would've changed to team Hyunjin."

Jisung scoffs at this, swiping a marshmallow covered in chocolate from Seungmin's plate. "Fine, I won’t hold it against you. I miss Hyunjin too."

"Yeji and Chae are doing everything they can to look for him. He'll turn up somewhere, he just has to. Until then, you should just focus more on your exam. Hyunnie would want that." Felix quips in before turning his attention over to you and Yeji at the nearby karaoke mini bar. "Look, that's what Y/N and Yeji are doing right now."

When Jisung looks through the crowd that has gathered around you, his eyes turning a deep green, he sees a lot of orange hearts gravitate over to you, mostly from the uni boys and girls that Yeji, Seungmin, and Ryujin have invited to this party.

"You guys are seeing it too, right?" Felix asks, his own eyes a matching shade of green when he tilts his head over to Seungmin and Jisung. "At least twenty new hearts in a span of 10 minutes, right after they just gave Y/N a bunch of green hearts."

Seungmin nods, his head movements making Jisung's head shake a little on his shoulder. "Yeah. Y/N's really working extra on this." He notes in complete awe. "The competition's really close, don't you think so Lix?"

"Definitely. What do you think, Ji?"

"Nope, definitely not." Jisung crosses his arms and shakes his head in disagreement. "It's impressive but not enough to catch up to me."

But the smallest hint of a frown gracing his features is enough to give his feelings away to his friends. Only now does it fully sink in that it’s definitely a tight competition between the two of you.

one out of six months

At one point, you understood why people would foolishly fall for Jisung. On a really good day, when he's not causing you or anyone too much trouble, you could see his playful side as charming, maybe even too cute for you to admit it out loud. A long time ago, back when you were still so naïve, you had a small playground crush on him too, after all; a crush that ended so badly you're convinced it's where your bickering naturally escalated.

But now, as your days in the human world turn into a month spent fulfilling your Crown Candidacy exam at university with your friends, you just wish that not a lot of humans are so insanely attracted to Jisung. It's nothing personal, of course, you're not jealous at all in that way. Whenever you sit in the library to study, attend classes from late in the morning to early afternoons, or even just sit in the quad with your shared friend group discussing updates on Yeji's search for Hyunjin, however, your competitor is just always being followed by flocks of smitten girls with their orange and pink ecures of crushes on their sleeves, ready to be collected by Jisung's emerald ring.

And you're not going to get started on the rainbow-colored hearts that send him little gifts and love letters at least once a week before classes, sometimes even directly to Chan's house where the third kitchen fridge is now filled with bakery goods stashed along with Chan's fan gifts. Not wanting to admit it to him or any of your friends, you're admittedly quite jealous because he attracts the ecures from the humans so easily while you have to work extra harder in socializing with your human peers to garner even just pink hearts. You hate having to work extra, extra harder just to be on par with him all the time, especially when he seems to be effortless in his ways.

"Before Lix went back to the magical realm, he relayed that Changbin from back home suggested that we start expanding our search for Hyunjin to—" For the sixth time since your group met up at the quad after classes this particular afternoon, another group of girls pass by and greet Jisung, interrupting Yeji in her explanations. Pouting slightly, she then turns to Jisung and pokes him with her pen, snapping the smirk off of his face. "Sung, focus."

Jisung nods quickly, waving Yeji's pen away from his side. "Yeah, let me just collect their hearts real quick."

You roll your eyes in response, nudging Yeji to resume her updates. "Just go on, Yeji." You encourage her, Seungmin and Ryujin nodding along in agreement. For emphasis, you make sure to tap Jisung's hand on the grass with your own pen harshly, making him wince dramatically in pain. "You're extending the search to Incheon, right?"

"Oh, uh yeah. Like I said, Lix said that Changbin suggested Incheon since Hyunjin briefly mentioned it in one of his letters. We'll start looking into it ourselves before this semester is over." Yeji continues on, ignoring the next group of passing girls that Jisung gets distracted over again this time around. "Chaeryoung is going there in the following months, though, to scout the places first. Then, we'll try and follow up with a search of our own. I'll have to ask Chan and the jury back at home if you and Jisung are allowed to go, though, since you're taking your exam."

"Among those places, Hyunjin often went to this stretch of the beach because he was investigating a monster from home who escaped here and took an artifact from our kingdom." Seungmin added, pointing to a location on Yeji's map sprawled over your laptops at the very center of your circle. "It was one of his last assignments here before he suddenly disappeared. We'll probably stay here the longest."

You try your best to listen, adding your own inputs to how your search operations would go while also noticing a couple of people who recognize you and wave your way, but Jisung somehow keeps grabbing your attention by the way he entertains his admirers who greet him shyly as they pass by you group. The playful smirks he sends their way, the polite waves, and the way his hand keeps twitching in between the two of you as he collects the ecures with his own spell keep eating away at your attention span, pressuring you that he's taking the lead in your race.

You also try discreetly collecting your own share of hearts under your breath whenever someone you know passes by but you eventually find it hard finding people while trying to listen to your friends. "Ji, focus." You mumble under your breath after a while, breaking his focus as he collects two more orange hearts.

"Y/N, keep up with me here." He smirks, just as the orange hearts disappear into his ring. "Why are you so distracted by me, anyway? Jealous?"

"I’m not jealous!” 

"Guys focus." Ryujin snaps at the two of you this time, chuckling in amusement when you and Jisung both glare at her. "Hey, easy on the stink eyes. I'm just telling you two to listen over here."

"Do as I do, Ryujin, and just tune them out." Seungmin jabs nonchalantly as he and Yeji take down notes of their discussion, not even once looking up at you nor Jisung. "It works out splendidly once you've mastered it."

"Hearing them bicker over random things before was one thing. Hearing them bicker over ecures now is a whole new playing field." Ryujin smirks, particularly to you. "Ah, you guys sound even more like a married couple now that you're competing. Tsk, tsk..."

"No, we're not!" You and Jisung answer in chorus, looking incredulously at each other after. "Ya!"

"Seungmin's right. Just tune them out, Ryujin." Yeji points out without missing a beat, a small smile taking out the initial annoyance from her face. "Anyway, what's important is we settle our plans first. Let the married couple race for the crown."

"Ya! Hwang Yeji!" You scold, flinging your notebook towards her which she dodges swiftly. "I'm listening, I swear."

Yeji gives you a look of mock disbelief in response before chuckling and going back to her work. "Whatever you say."

-

Jisung won’t admit it to any of you nor his friends’ faces but he may be just a little jealous that you’re catching onto him at a great speed and looking surprisingly nonchalant about it on the outside. You work extremely hard, that’s a given and Jisung respects that as much as the two of you annoy each other. But he doesn’t even have to sneak over to your room at night and check your locket for your ecure count; the boys and girls from uni, the market where Chan forces the two of you to run errands on weekends, and even at Ryujin’s favorite skate park who always take two glances your way wherever you go are enough giveaway to the amount you’re collecting everyday. And it’s a whole lot of hearts. He won’t even be surprised if you’ve managed to collect 300 hearts by now.

And he’s not even going to get started on how fast you manage to take ecures from the same people twice in less than a week, managing to charm same-age neighbors and classmates from good friends to secret admirers in a span of a few days and getting you at least twice the amount for your tally. You have enough hearts on your locket to keep up with Jisung’s count and use your magic leisurely at home. You definitely keep your competitor up on his toes all the time with how you’re giving your all in this competition and it’s gnawing at him to do even better. 

What annoys him on top of this, however, are certain kinds of people that look your way, or even Yeji’s and Ryujin’s for that matter. When the three of you aren’t looking and a bunch of passing jocks would eye you weirdly on the quad or at the library, especially since you’re new to the school, his natural instinct is to glare them down until they’re looking away. He sees their purple ecures from where he would sit across from you as you study, a sign of a lusting kind of feeling, and it does nothing but to tick him off into intimidating them until the color fades out. 

Seungmin thinks that, in a way, this is cheating and that you’d probably think the same way if you find out since purple ecures are ranked quite high in the tally, just above pink hearts (”Y/N’s gotten mad at you before for going too far or breaking the rules. You, of all people, should know not to get on their bad side.”). When Jisung writes to Felix back home after, however, his twin naturally defends him and says that he’s just looking out for you. 

“You guys don’t always see eye to eye, even now that you’re competing against each other,” Felix recorded over the enchanted mail that arrived after your meeting at the quad, Jisung and Seungmin separating from your group to do some more studying at the library. “but you’re just looking out for Y/N and protecting them from any weirdos, like for Ryujin and Yeji. Just tone it down a bit and let them handle it sometimes.” 

“See? Lix thinks I’m doing something right.” Jisung sticks his tongue out at Seungmin who simply shakes his head in stubborn disagreement before returning back to his class notes. “I’m telling you, I’m not sabotaging Y/N on purpose.” 

“Still, whether they want to collect those purple ecures or not is not your choice to make.” Seungmin points out. Though he agrees with Jisung’s intentions, as he’s been doing the same and looking out for you and your friends in his own ways as well, he also trusts that you can take care of yourself. “Just let them handle it next time, unless they actually do need your help.”

“But—“

“Consider the guys that passed by at the quad the last time you’ll mess with Y/N’s ecures.” “You saw that?!”

Still, it gnaws on Jisung’s conscience when he takes the train home with you later that day, when another purple heart springs up for you as he checks your surroundings and finds it to be from a stranger. What a creep, Jisung cringes internally with disgust before strategically blocking the man out from your sight and standing closer to you, Y/N’s competition but I’m a decent being! Be the bigger person or whatever bullshit.

“Ya, what are you doing?” You push him away with your index finger to his stomach, leaving a bigger gap between the two of you as you stand on the moving train. “Ji, personal space.” 

“We’re literally cramped in this train like canned sardines, Y/N. I’m just trying to make space for the people coming in.” Jisung fibs in retort, unknowingly timing his words perfectly with the train making a stop and justifying his next action of taking a step closer to you. This time, he makes sure that he’s towering over you and blocking the creep behind him completely by moving his hand over to the train handle right next to where your hand is. “Don’t make it weird!”

Your expression is surprisingly unwavering now, clearly unamused by his boyish quips. “You’re the one making it weird! You keep hovering over me.” 

“Sure, sure, whatever you say.” He rolls his eyes, instinctively steadying you with one hand when the abrupt movements of the train pushes you slightly forwards. “Oops, careful there.” 

When Jisung takes one last glance at the creep and finds him still looking over your general direction, the boy finally snaps and sends a little spell over the man’s way, one that makes him itch all over and ties his shoelaces together. This is the last time, Jisung swears to himself with a chuckle under his breath, oh what the hell? Punishing creeps is kinda funny.

two out of six months

The first time Han Jisung spots a red heart that he can collect, it’s 2 months into your candidacy exam and he makes the surprising decision to prolong collecting it by several days. It’s not that Soonyoung from your Math class is aware of this. As far as she knows, Jisung is simply stringing her along much like he does with every other girl he’s flirting with and she doesn’t seem to mind this fact. 

But you mind, you and your other friends do a lot. “It’s a powerful heart and costs 5000 points on the point system.” Seungmin even noted himself once on another day that Jisung left your class without Soonyoung’s crystal red heart. You mostly agree on this, coupled with the fact that you can’t steal the heart for yourself to gain more points in the race since it’s not for you. “Just take it, it’s not going to get any higher than that.”

No matter how much you or any of your friends nag, however, Jisung simply lets the days pass doing nothing much about it besides entertain Soonyoung whenever the girl approaches. As his sole competitor in your candidacy exam, you visibly feel the most frustrated out of everyone else by each passing day, especially at the thought that you yourself haven’t managed any red hearts yet. 

“It is weird, very not like him but also a bit like him if that makes sense?” Ryujin notes by the 10th day, after you recounted Math class to her as you take a short break together. Today, Jisung agreed to go to lunch with Soonyoung, only to tell you and Seungmin that even then he’s not going to take her heart today. “I mean knowing what happened between you two in middle sch—” 

You immediately shake your head before she could even finish her thought, “No, I don’t think that has anything to do with now. Definitely not.” 

“It’s not like that! I meant to say that this is even worse than when you had a crush on Jisung. The girl’s ecure is as red as red could go!” Ryujin exclaims, forcing you to cover her mouth with your hand just as Soonyoung and Jisung comically pass by your table at the kiosk to eat lunch together. Slowly prying your hands off once the pair in question are out of earshot, Ryujin then leans over the table and continues, “But even then, he’s not taking it to gain momentum in your exam. Aren’t you a little bit curious why?” 

You hesitantly shrug, “I mean, a little...but honestly I think he’s just being stupid. If I were him, I won’t string the girl along, not for this long anyway. It’s a waste of time and effort when he can just pick up the heart and reject her carefully.” 

“Then, maybe he has his reasons. If you know about it, you might get an advantage!” Yeji speaks up this time, joining your table late with a huge pile of library books on top of her laptop bag in her hands. As much as this girl has been busy looking for her brother, she also keeps up with her human world cover surprisingly well even when she doesn’t have to with all the studying that she does on the side. “One way to find out, right? I heard Felix’s not that busy these days back home.”

You feign a frown at the two girls agreeing in unison, especially at Yeji as she takes out her phone from the magical realm. “You know, you’re really good at sticking your head into a lot of things even when you’re busy looking for your brother.” You note dryly, making Yeji laugh while dialling Felix’s phone on the other side. “That was sarcastic, Yeji.” 

“I’m a great multitasker.” She winks before placing her phone at the center of your table then scooting her chair closer to you and Ryujin, effectively hiding the odd-looking device that projects Felix’s face almost immediately. “Hey Lix!”

“Hi Lix!” You politely greet along with Ryujin anyway, waving to the small projection of the prince on Yeji’s phone. By the faint greenery that surrounds him, you immediately assume that he’s back at home and tending to his personal garden. 

“I’m not in trouble, am I?” The younger Eastern prince jokes, greeting the three of you individually after. “What’s up? Seungmo and Sungie not with you three today?” 

“Seungmin got held back in class today for a TA offering and your brother’s on a date! Can you believe it? A lunch date with a human girl!” Yeji explains a little too excitedly, you and Ryujin immediately shushing her up. Giggling, the princess continues anyway, “Which is why we called! We just thought it’s a little weird that Jisung’s not trying to catch this red heart when it’s a clear advantage to his tally and maybe you’d know why.” 

All the while Yeji explains your purpose for calling, you slowly observe how Felix’s own expression morphs into that of genuine surprise. “What? He hasn’t taken it?!” He exclaims in response after Yeji finishes speaking. “Are you sure? That’s not very like him.” 

“Well, why do you think he hasn’t taken it, then?” You suddenly find yourself asking this time, earning you incredulous looks from your peers. Brushing them off, you simply glance over at Felix as he tries thinking of a reason himself. 

“Maybe he still can’t reject admirers for shit.” Ryujin snickers under her breath, making you elbow the girl harshly on her side. 

But surprisingly, Felix nods absentmindedly to this. “Maybe…”

“Are you seriously agreeing with that, Lix?” You frown. “I think he’s just up to no good.” 

“Hey, Ji can act weird and not be up to trouble too, you know.” Felix pouts back. “But honestly, I don’t know why he’s not thinking of taking it either, especially knowing how he’s so proud of getting to receive it alone. Maybe he likes this person, who knows?” 

The thought feels so foreign to you, Jisung genuinely liking someone, especially knowing what he did when you were much younger. But when you glance over to your friends, you also notice the same confused looks on their faces. 

“Han Jisung...liking someone? Enough to respect their feelings?” Ryujin muses out loud before eventually shaking her head. “Nope, sounds weird. Dangerous! Alien! Y/N, have you been noticing any other weird things from your housemate lately? Maybe he’s been secretly abducted by aliens!” 

“Oh stop it, Ryujin! Whatever it is my brother’s planning, I trust that he at least has an idea what he’s doing.” Felix sighs, running a hand through his blonde locks. In the background of his end, the faint voice of Changbin beckoning him over momentarily catches his attention. “If he’s being stupid again, then just let him be. If he does like this person, though, I just hope that he treads carefully while he’s at it. You know how precious witch ecures are.” 

“Oh, I know…” You murmur under your breath as you scrunch up your nose, unconsciously glancing over to Jisung and Soonyoung’s table where the two are laughing over something you can’t hear from across the room. When Changbin’s voice grows louder on Felix’s end, you then smoothly steer the topic to a close, “Anyway, sorry for bothering you at this time. Bin’s calling for you.” 

Next to you, Ryujin and Yeji agree with nods and smiles as Felix waves his free hand dismissively at this. “No, it’s okay! Just look out for my brother, yeah? I gotta go, Queen Lia just arrived for tea with me and my mom!” 

“Oh, then we’ll see you!” “Have fun at tea!” “Say hi to Lia for us!” 

Felix waves one last goodbye before ending the call. As his image disappears from Yeji’s phone, the princess is quick to pocket her phone back and turn to you with a raised brow, “So, what do you think? Even Lix finds it weird.” 

Personally, you think it’s odd. The thought that Jisung could easily be developing feelings for someone while taking your exam, to someone human no less.  You’ll probably never admit it to him but he’s been working hard in collecting hearts up to this point and you know him enough to know that he won’t let himself get distracted with something like this. “What is he planning exactly?” 

-

You’re giving Jisung that look again, through the boy’s reflection on the bus mirror no less as the two of you head to Chan’s studio where he has promised the two of you dinner. The same look you kept giving him during your welcome party just last month, probably without you knowing, rests on your tired features as you listen to music on your phone and rest your cheek against your propped up hand on the window seat you almost threw him out of the bus for. What did I do now? The boy can’t help but whine pitifully to himself as he steals another glance at your direction while scrolling through his phone. 

Jisung helplessly rakes his brain for anything that he’s done today that could’ve possibly pissed you off while pretending to look down on his phone, missing the way you shift uncomfortably in your seat as if you were going to ask a question. 

“So—” “I meant to ask—”

Jisung’s immediately closes his mouth shut when the two of you speak at the same time, eyes widening when he looks up and sees you already looking over at him directly. Simultaneously, you’re quick to look away from him and cough awkwardly, quietly mumbling out that Jisung speaks first. “Go ahead.” 

“What did I do this time?” Jisung immediately goes for it, pouting and sinking into his seat for extra emphasis. This visibly surprises you by the way your eyes widen slightly and you visibly freeze in front of him. “You’ve been glaring at me from the window since it started getting dark outside and it’s starting to get annoying but I’m too tired from today to think of everything that I did today to pinpoint where I ticked you off again.” 

Your lips curl down to a frown and you bring your propped up arm back to your side, sinking down your own seat to his level. “I wasn’t glaring at you!” 

“Yes you were—” “—No, I wasn’t!” “Yes you—”

“Okay, then, if I was glaring at you like you said, it’s because I meant to ask you something.” You huff before shyly looking away, gazing out of the window again. “W-Why haven’t you...whyhaventyoutakenthatgirlsheart?”

Now, Jisung is even more confused than ever from not understanding a word you just said. Raising a curious brow, the prince nudges you by your shoulder with his own until you look back at him again, uttering a slow, “What?!” 

You inhale slowly, as if holding your embarrassment in, before repeating, “Why haven’t you taken Soonyoung’s heart?” 

“I—really? That’s what you wanted to ask?” That’s it? So I didn’t do shit? Whew...

You nod, crossing your arms and looking away. “Well, don’t act so smug now! I’m just curious, it’s powerful and worth a lot of points, after all.”

Caught off-guard, it takes Jisung a worryingly long time to answer your question. He looks down on his phone first, with his emerald ring right next to it, before glancing over to the distant LED screen at the very front of the bus, announcing the next stop. “Just because…” He trails off with a reluctant shrug, avoiding the feeling of your curious gaze. If it were any other situation, maybe involving a lower-ranking heart like a yellow, green, or even an orange one, he would be laughing at you and teasing that you’re obsessed with his count or trying to compare it with your own. “You, of all people should know…” 

But it’s a red heart, one that’s made him a bit too flustered for him to admit to anyone, even to his own brother. “I don’t know what I’ll do with it.” He answers vaguely because of this, hearing a little ‘oh’ from your side. “I already told Soonyoung over lunch that I don’t see her like that but it’s still red. Her feelings are too sincere for me and I feel like I can’t take advantage of that, not for a competition.” 

Jisung doesn’t hear any verbal response from your side after this, not even when the LED screen ahead announces that you’re nearing your stop. When he glances over to you through the window, however, he catches a glimpse of the smallest hint of a content smile on your features. 

Only when the two of you arrive at your stop, while you’re following him down the stairs down from the bus, do you nudge him on his side once more and say, “I guess that’s sweet of you. Plus, you’re actually using your head for once.” 

Your soft smile momentarily catches him off-guard, freezing him on the sidewalk, until a passerby brushes him by his shoulder and snaps him back to reality. “Y-Ya! What’s that supposed to mean?!” 

You wave your hand dismissively at him with a laugh, running off ahead to Chan’s studio. “Last one to the studio is a lousy runner and won’t get dessert!” 

“Hey! Y/N! What’s that supposed to mean? Did you just call me stupid?!” 

-

The next day, a ‘secret admirer’ leaves a red apple, a milk box, and an unsigned heart-shaped note on your usual table as you enter Math class. Though the note has your name and its message typed and printed, a simple nonverbal spell that you cast over the gifts reveal a familiar fingerprint. 

“So, who’s it from?” Jisung asks, swiftly swiping the apple from your table and taking a huge bite. “How many points are we looking at here?” 

You scoff at his action, taking the apple for yourself and biting on the opposite side. “It’s from Soonyoung.” You answer with a mischievous smile, causing your competitor to choke. When you glance over at the girl’s table, your eyes briefly turn blue to see a pinkish heart for you. “I guess you don’t want her red heart, huh? Mind if I make a pink one from her into a red for me?” 

Jisung coughs violently, thumping his fist against his chest as he recovers. “Y-Ya! Don’t you dare!” 

three out of six months 

One thing you’ve been most looking forward to in this Crown Candidacy exam, besides seeing your cousin and friends currently staying in the human world and helping with Hyunjin’s search, is getting to see your cousin’s boyfriend again. Though the rest of your family doesn’t really approve of Minho, mostly since he’s the reason why Chan renounced his duke title in the first place and why your cousin might be permanently tied to the human world in the future, you’ve taken a liking to the guy since you first met him on a short visit 2 years ago and have been looking forward to hanging out in person once more after a long while. 

Minho makes Chan the happiest you’ve ever seen him since you were kids, cooks really well, travels the world as a performing artist, and is totally cool with the idea that his boyfriend is a wizard from another realm. Plus, he catches onto magical items really quick, having adapted quickly to using your realm’s inter-world mailing system hence how you’ve been keeping in touch up until this point. You honestly don’t see any reason to hate him, even before meeting him in person. If anything, knowing that it’s Minho that’s keeping Chan from fulfilling his royal duties makes you support your cousin’s decision even more than before. 

However, you’re already halfway done with your exam and Minho is still nowhere to be seen. He initially promised you that he’ll cook you and Jisung a meal as soon as you arrived but last-minute plans in his touring schedule with a ballet company held him back abroad, postponing this plan indefinitely and making you focus more on school and helping look for Hyunjin. 

That is until you and Jisung came home from your usual Saturday grocery errands to inhale the smell of meat and mushroom soup coming from the kitchen. 

“Is Chan cooking?” Jisung raised a brow at this, closing the door behind you and walking further inside the house. “It smells nice, though. So it’s not him?” 

You roll your eyes, biting down a laugh at this surprisingly funny quip. “That’s definitely not Chan.” You affirm anyways, excitedly walking past him to the kitchen where you find the familiar back of a person stirring a big pot of soup next to Chan who’s chopping up side dishes. “Minho!” 

Jisung follows you to the kitchen and watches from the doorframe as this said Minho turns around, opening his arms out to hug you as you quickly drop your groceries on the dining table and run towards him. Next to you two, Chan stops his own work and laughs at the sight, prying you away after a moment and reminding you, “Hey, hey, Minho’s tired from his flight!”

“Tired? Then you make him cook dinner? I don’t think so!” You giggle, clutching onto Minho like a koala while the said boy pretends to shrug you off. “I was wondering when you’re coming home! You haven’t even written since I came here, you jerk!” 

“My schedule was jam-packed until the other day but I promised some magic freaks that I’ll cook them dinner so I came home as soon as I can.” Minho laughs, hugging you back and only then catching sight of a confused Jisung. “Oh, hi there! You must be Han Jisung?” 

“Y-Yeah?” Jisung nods slowly in confusion, raising one hand holding multiple eco-bags up in a wave. He hates it when he’s not in the loop of things but more importantly, he hates it when it’s you keeping him out of the loop in particular. Who’s this guy?! “Sorry, and you are?” 

“Lee Minho! I’m keeping Chan hostage here on Earth.” Minho formally introduces himself, earning him a nudge from both you and Chan. “What? Should I curtsy? I know your family and Hyunjin’s doesn’t really require it but I don’t know about the others so—” 

Oh. At this, Jisung visibly relaxes with a chuckle and finally approaches your little group, settling his own share of the groceries down on the dining table before sitting down himself. Chan then takes this as his cue to reluctantly drag you over next to Jisung while he and Minho finish cooking. “No, no, it’s cool! We’re not at home, anyway.” 

“Okay, then, cool. You guys are okay with waiting for a little bit, right? The lamb’s not fully cooked yet.” Minho explains. “I was going to make you two a meal when your exam started but I got caught up in work so—”

“Yeah it’s fine!” You agree eagerly, taking out your groceries and organizing them on the table. “We’ll just fix up the groceries.” 

Jisung side-eyes you with an incredulous look in his eyes, something Chan definitely notices as his lips quirk up into a knowing grin before whispering something to Minho. “Why are you so chirpy all of a sudden?” He asks you, helping you take out the groceries and arrange them into their respective shelves. 

“What do you mean? I’ve been chirpy since this morning.” You scoff. “Why do you even keep track? I told you not to stare at me, weirdo.”

“Um no, you weren’t. You were complaining about me breathing next to you on the bus a while ago. ‘You’re not helping me get any hearts’ or whatever it was you were rambling about a while back.” Jisung points out with a huff. “And I don’t stare, that’s you! If anything, you’re the weirdo, always up my business!”

“Well, why wouldn’t I complain? I was at the market with you all day! You don’t know how to pick good vegetables and you kept flirting with the store clerks to try and up their orange hearts to pink ones! Then, you wore that stupid perfume again when I told you already that it smells bad! Now we’re at home and you can stay the fuck away from me.” 

“Ya, you little sh—” 

Across the kitchen, Minho giggles in amusement at hearing you and Jisung bicker live for the first time. You’ve always complained about this Jisung fellow in your correspondence and he’s never had a clear grasp as to why you’re always at this boy’s neck but now that he’s meet Jisung in the flesh and is starting to hear what you two are exactly fighting about, Minho can’t help but laugh into the mushroom soup. “So this is the troublemaker who’s been bugging our Y/N.” He ends up musing out loud. “I see why you need me home now.”

“Believe me, you should’ve seen them grow up together with the other kids. Always fighting over the smallest of things, competing on who’s better, and all that.” Chan rolls his eyes in disinterest, glancing over to you and Jisung as the latter starts chasing you around the dining area with a bundle of scallions. “What you’re seeing right now is barely the tip of the iceberg, Min.”

“Reminds you a little bit of us back then, don’t you think?” 

“Ya, and which one am I supposed to be?” 

The couple glances over their shoulders to see that you’ve now successfully snatched the scallions from Jisung with your magic and have started to hit him over the head with it. This then makes Chan squint his eyes suspiciously at Minho who only chuckles. “Babe, you and Y/N are definitely related, don’t you think?” 

“Do you also want to get hit with scallions?” 

-

Though Jisung was initially wary of Minho at the start of the evening, having only heard of him vaguely from gossip among the other royal kids prior, your cousin’s boyfriend slowly and naturally transitioned over the prince’s good graces as soon as the lamb chops and mushroom soup were served along with stories of Minho’s own adventures and questions about the magical realm. Now that he’s put a name and a face to the person that people back home simply referred to as the reason why Chan left (and who he’s admittedly been blaming as well for the sudden shift in your attitude at the royal courts), Jisung now genuinely believes that the people back at home jumped to their conclusions quickly about Minho. 

Minho’s really nice, Chan is really fond of him and you clearly support the two. In return, Minho looks out for you and Chan, you in particular as the older guy proceeds to drill Jisung shamelessly with questions on whatever it is that you’ve mentioned about him in your letters. 

Jisung didn’t even know a lot of the things Minho kept rambling on about while you tried so hard to keep his mouth shut next to him by helplessly trying to cover his mouth.

“Y/N talks about you a whoooooooole lot. Like, a minor inconvenience during their royal duties then they’re quick to talk to me about it.” Minho grins playfully, dodging your attempts at shutting him up while he eats his share of the pastry dessert. “When we first met and this candidate exam thing was first brought up, they talked about the other royals briefly but they talked about you in super great detail! Oh, and Y/N was rambling a lot about how you reacted to when they confessed to you in middle school and everything, it was so funn—” 

“Minho shut up!” 

“It was really funny!” Minho pins your wrists to the table after a while, gesturing towards Chan, sitting next to Jisung across the table, who then uses his magic to switch your places. This then effectively shuts you up as your flustered expression overcomes your face upon accidentally locking eyes with Jisung right after. “But I want to know what actually happened when you rejected Y/N at your magic school? I want the full scope of what happened just so I get both sides!”

“Y-Ya!” You protest, only to be silenced by Jisung this time who laughs as he swallows a mouthful of food. “Ugh, you’re enjoying this aren’t you?”

“Why do you still talk about that, anyway? It was a long time ago.” Jisung chuckles, propping an elbow up on the table and resting his cheek on his palm as he glances over to you with a smirk. “God, you’re in love with me, aren’t you?” 

“No, I’m no—” “So, Minho hyung, what did Y/N tell you about that?” 

-

It was in the 7th grade, on Valentine’s Day of all days even, when you confessed your crush to Han Jisung. You actually didn’t plan any of it to happen because you just thought of it as stupid, especially at the thought that almost everything Jisung used to do back then annoyed you and made you think of him as childish. 

But Hyunjin somehow slipped you an enchanted cookie on that day as a prank after you confessed at Ryujin’s party the previous weekend that you thought that Jisung was cute sometimes (”I specifically said sometimes and it was one time. Clearly, it wasn’t me who had a problem, right?” “That still doesn’t change the fact that 12-year-old you had a crush on me, Y/N.”). He told you that it was from a batch Felix made for their baking class, bluffing about its distinct strong vanilla scent as a mistake on the younger Eastern prince’s end. 

As it then turned out, however, the cookie was laced with a potion that forcefully exposed the true color that your heart reflected towards Jisung in front of the entire cafeteria while the two of you bickered over some mishap that happened in one of your shared potion classes. Being young as he was as well and feeling embarrassed of all the passersby that looked at you both, Jisung’s fight or flight response made him visibly cringe at seeing the surprisingly pink, bordering red, heart and childishly berated you for it until the potion wore off and your ecure disappeared back into the sleeves of your robes. You ran away crying while Jisung didn’t go to school for the few days that followed in embarrassment.

“You were like 12 back then, it happens.” Minho shrugs after yours and Jisung’s messy storytelling. “And for the record, Y/N, if Chan did that to me as Jisung, I would’ve been annoyed at him too. Your rants are totally valid.” 

“I’m eating my croissants in peace.” Chan complains, slapping the younger man’s arm. “Don’t drag me into this.” 

Simultaneously, Jisung glances over to you and sees a small pout rest on your features. “Well, I don’t know, it’s not really an ‘it happens’ kind of situation if you come from our world.” You point out, glaring at Jisung when you feel him staring at you. “Especially back then. My heart was looking pink and a little reddish for Jisung at the time—ew—which gave him the power to take it if he wanted to.”

Now, this is apparently new information to Minho as he then asks, “You can do that? I thought witches only have one heart so it can’t be taken away?”

“Yeah, exactly.” You nod. “Since we don’t produce the crystal hearts as infinitely as you humans do, it could only be taken if it’s pink or a higher color. It’s the natural law in our world.”

“And if that happens, the witch could become weak, controlled by the other witch who takes their heart, or killed.” Chan quips in this time. “That’s why marriage is sort of a permanent commitment back at home and witches are more encouraged to use human ecure when performing higher-level magic.” 

“That’s a bit of a stretch in our case, though! It’s not like 12-year-old me would think of killing Y/N back then.” Jisung purses his lips into a thin line at you, unamused. “You really are a bit dramatic sometimes, you know? What would I even do with your heart?”

“You were 12, Jisung. Who knows what you were thinking back then...if you were thinking at all.” You retort immediately, turning to Minho again after. “That’s why my family’s a bit wary about you, Min, no offense. With you and Chan in a relationship, he can give up his heart to you but if you don’t reciprocate it by exchanging with one of your own, he might get weak or die.” 

This then makes Jisung turn to Minho as well, curious as to what his response would be. 

Unfazed, Minho smiles and turns lovingly to his boyfriend. “Then, aren’t you lucky I’m obsessed with you, huh?” 

“Really now?” Chan chuckles, slinging his arm over Minho’s shoulder and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Then I guess I can stay here permanently, right?” 

You pretend to gag as you sip on your water, reminding the older guys that there are “children” in front of them. Jisung rolls his eyes and leans back in his chair at this scene, looking away at the tender display of affection across the table. The two of you don’t even have to check how the pair’s ecures reflect towards each other with your magic to know that they’re a matching bright red. 

When he looks over to you, he catches the briefest and fondest smile gracing your expression as you mumble about how “stupidly cute” Chan and Minho are being. Jisung knows he shouldn’t look, not in this moment when he sees you at a vulnerable state and you would slap him over the head if he teases you about it, but his eyes unconsciously turn green and peeks over at your ecure as it watches over your favourite cousin and his boyfriend. 

It’s a bright blue, a sign of deep respect and familial love for Chan and Minho. Jisung looks away immediately when you glance up at him curiously, forcing his eyes back to their natural color before he could accidentally see how your heart reflects to him. “What?” 

He gets it now. Why you’ve been so uptight in fulfilling your royal duties, snapping just a little more easily these days whenever he annoys you, and acting like a pushover to the elders who keep ordering you around back at home. You’ve been shouldering a lot of the responsibilities back home, both yours and the ones that Chan has left behind, all because you want your cousin to be happy in this world without worries. 

“Why were you looking at me?” You pout. “You didn’t check my—ya, Han Jisung!”

“I wasn’t looking at you like that! I was gonna ask you to pass me the cream puffs!”

You begrudgingly pass him the bowl of cream puffs, rolling your eyes before smiling at Minho and Chan again and changing the conversation to something else. “Anyway, Minho, you’re staying longer now, right?”  

- 

“I saw what you did at dinner, by the way. Y/N would beat you to a pulp if they knew you were looking into their heart, especially since we were just talking about it.” Chan speaks up after a moment of walking around Jisung’s room, tidying up the fallen music sheets on the ground and closing the curtains for the night. You’ve long stolen Minho from your cousin right after dinner hours ago to binge his tour videos and so he’s resorted to hanging out with Jisung, playing video games until the clock struck midnight.  

Jisung pouts as he tucks himself away in bed, turning to his side to face Chan as the older boy continues arranging his “messy” work table. “I looked at how it reflects for you and Minho, not at how it looks at me. Just that, swear.” He clarifies in between protesting over Chan’s actions (“It’s an organized mess!” “It’s a mess, Jisung.”) “It’s almost like your family’s sapphire when it looks at the two of you, bluer than how it looks when Y/N’s with the King and the High Queen. You’re more family to them than their own parents.”

This effectively freezes Chan in place for a moment, a small smile gracing the former duke’s features. “Of course I know that.” He replies, almost as an inaudible mumble from across the room. “That’s why it was so hard to leave at first.”

“Then why did you—?” 

“Because Y/N told me to.” Moving to the door and preparing to leave, Chan sees Jisung’s face and continues, “Believe me, I was even more conflicted than you’re being right now back then. We both know that my own siblings are too young to shoulder the job I’ll leave behind but Y/N told me that they’ll gladly handle it if it meant that I can be happy here. We argued about it a lot, I kept telling them that I can just juggle moving between the two realms, but you know how persuasive and stubborn Y/N can be.” 

The last comment makes Jisung chuckle. Of all people, he should know of it the best. “It’s just hard to argue with them.” He nods in agreement. “I heard they’re the one who got you this house and everything.” 

Chan nods, slowly putting one foot out of the door. “Y/N cares a lot, sometimes a little too much, that they end up sacrificing a lot and putting their own feelings last because of it. Since I went away, I’ve only ever been worried that they’ll just explode one day, actually, but I know you and the other kids keep them in check.” 

“I’d hardly call Y/N relaxed with me.” Jisung pouts, fiddling with his fingers nervously as he confesses this shyly. “I think they just find me annoying…” 

“Oh you definitely annoy each other but that’s just how you two are together. It’s all in good fun and that’s good, especially now that you’re going to take much more responsibilities once you go back home.” Chan notes with a shrug, briefly glancing over his shoulder as you and Minho arrive on the second floor. “Just be a little gentler with them. Night, Sung.” 

four out of six months

You know better than to expect nothing less from Lee Chaeryoung, one of the best investigators from your realm, as she helped Yeji lead Hyunjin’s search party. When you initially expected that she would finish scouting Incheon before the end of the semester, she came back with the most solid lead that anyone’s picked up since the start of the search party around Seoul with 2 months left on your time in the human world. 

Apparently, from the scouring she’s done beyond the initial parameters of the search, a few magic and non-magic folk living around the beach area have seen the Southern kingdom’s prince at a party on the night he disappeared, interacting with a strange group of people they only described by their unusually white hairs, matching snake tattoos, and icy blue eyes. What was even more interesting is that these people were still around the area when Chaeryoung visited but without any sign of Hyunjin. With this, she could only confirm that they’re also from the magical realm.

“They could only be Northwestern ogre witches, I’m sure of it.” Chan commented after hearing Chaeryoung’s report over dinner with everyone present. When Minho then asked about it, your cousin didn’t hesitate to explain, “A group of witches back home who were initially banished to the wastelands because they practiced darker arts and only collected black ecures. Lately, a lot of them have been turning up here and doing gods-know-what.” 

“But if they only want the artifact that Hyunjin recovered, why would they still keep him?” You ask, crossing your arms over the dining table as Chaeryoung showed you photos of the location she ascouted on her phone. “Hyunjin’s high-profile too, yes, but unless they want him to collect colored ecures for them, there’s no other reason to keep him captive when there are other magic folk there. Why him?” 

“Unless they have something bigger up their sleeves.” Seungmin notes with a frown, closing Chaeryoung’s phone as he grows more and more upset from across the table. When you and Jisung glance over to him curiously, he then meets your eyes and adds, “Maybe we shouldn’t let you two go with us on this.” 

“What?! Why?” Jisung is the first to instinctively speak up against this, sitting up taller in his seat. You echo the same question, albeit a little quieter when you see Chan nodding worriedly on your side. 

“I have a feeling that they might be after the two of you too from this.” Seungmin explains once Jisung calmed down a bit from his sudden outburst. “Like Y/N said, keeping Hyunjin to collect colored ecures against his will doesn’t seem like a good enough reason, at least not this long.”

“It’s timed perfectly, too, that they caught Hyunjin right before the candidacy exam.” Yeji quips in, belatedly nodding in agreement to Seungmin’s suggestion. “They might be luring you two specifically by using my brother.” 

“But that’s just a hunch for now! We don’t know th—” 

Chan’s entire disposition in a flash, slamming his hand down on the table a little too loudly and effectively shutting everyone up around the table including Minho. “That’s exactly why we can’t risk it.” He counters firmly and you know, just by the tone of your cousin’s voice, that he already has the final word. “Remember, you and Y/N are here first and foremost because you’re taking your exam. Keeping you on wraps with this search is formalities, at most. Anyway, there’s enough of us here who can look for Hyunjin. You two just stay put until we can sort this out and ensure that this problem stops interfering with the exam any further.”

When you peek over to your right to glance at Jisung’s reaction two seats away, you see him glancing back at you from the corner of his eyes before sighing in defeat. “And if they want our group separated?” 

“The house’s enchanted with protective spells. Minho and Ryujin will also stay and watch over you two while we extract Hyunjin over the weekend.” Chan notes, continuing before Jisung could complain further. “That’s final, Ji. We’ll take over from here.” 

“Don’t fret too much, Sung.” Seungmin adds comfortingly. “Anyway, if we find Hyunjin, we’ll all stay here for a few days before going back home.” 

In response, you hear Jisung slam his back on his seat hard before huffing childishly, glancing over to you as he opens his mouth. Knowing that he’ll throw a fit, you immediately shake your head, forbidding him from doing so. “Fine...” He murmurs under his breath with a sigh, knowing better than to start an argument with one of his best friends at this time. “Just—just bring Hyunjin back quickly.” 

Somehow, even when you understand where Chan’s coming from, you also feel somewhat bad for Jisung. You want to see Hyunjin too but your circumstances aren’t exactly favourable to let you be of much help. 

- 

As much as Jisung used to hate how Chan coddled you, he hates it even more now that the same behavior is directed towards him, especially in situations like this when he wants to actively help in Hyunjin’s search. The circumstances couldn’t have been more unfavorable to him now: the group finding a lead but at a time when he’s participating in an exam that has him more at risk of being targeted by creatures from the magical realm that have strayed to this world. 

On top of this, he hates how he can clearly see that you want to see Hyunjin just as much as he and everyone else does but you’re quicker to comply the moment Chan, and eventually even Yeji, put the two of you on house arrest for the weekend while the rest of the group goes to Incheon. It frustrates him to no end that you keep quietly complying to everyone else when you clearly want to do something else. And, as a result, you end up channeling your energy aggressively elsewhere much like today as you spend most of your Sunday cleaning and redecorating around the expansive house with Minho. 

“Can’t you two like, tone it down a bit?” Jisung complains for the third time this afternoon as he plays with the music software on Chan’s laptop, lifting his feet off of the coffee table in the living room when Minho passes by with a vacuum before pushing a levitating plant that hovers too close for comfort to his face. Somewhere, Ryujin has retreated outside to the garden in order to tend to more plants. “The house’s going to get thrashed after a while anyway.” 

“And why can’t you help clean?” You ask back in retort, fluffing up the pillows next to him as you occasionally glance over your shoulder to make sure that the levitating objects around the room aren’t falling over. “If you’re just going to complain while we’re cleaning here, you can just go up to your room since we’re done upstairs, anyway.” 

Jisung pouts, crawling over to the other side of the sofa anyway when you gesture for him to move. “The sunlight’s better here at this time.” He points to the glass windows. “Just finish up quickly already.” 

“If you want to get some sun, you can help Ryujin outside.” You poke back, moving over to the sofa across the coffee table. As you move, the hovering plant pots slowly move to where you want to relocate them to, one moving next to the sofa almost hitting Jisung in the face once more with its leaves. “Make yourself useful, Jisung.” 

The witch in question scoffs, closing Chan’s laptop and finally planting his feet back on the floor to a stand. Jisung also hates that tone you use when you order him around because it always makes him do whatever you ask without fail. “Fine, I’m going outside.” He grumbles, trudging to the direction of the back door leading outside and making sure to close the door with a loud thud. 

Out in the gardens, Ryujin is busy reviving dried up leaves and flowers while a few watering cans go around to water the trees and bushes. Upon seeing Jisung walking down the mini stairs with a pout and furrowed brows, the younger witch can’t help but laugh, “Y/N banished you outside?” 

“I’m supposed to help you but you don’t even look like you need help at all.” The prince continues to grumble, setting himself down on a foldable chair and crossing his bare arms over his chest. “If I do help, I might actually kill the plants. You already know how I’m terrible I am at healing magic.” 

Ryujin acknowledges with a hum, turning her attention back to Chan’s mini garden of camellias. “Just sunbathe, look around or whatever, I can handle this.” She assures with a smile. “I won’t tell Y/N too, don’t worry.” 

“I think I’ll take you up on that looking around thing later.” Jisung sighs, sinking into his seat and closing his eyes. “I’ll nap for now.” 

- 

“He just does whatever you say, huh?” Minho points out to you as soon as you finish cleaning the living room, tiredly taking up the empty space next to you on the couch with two pillows hugged close to his chest. When you open your mouth to protest, “I know I said it’s amusing when you two bicker over stupid things but it’s actually really nice and quiet when you two reach compromise like this. So peaceful.” 

“He just knows when to not mess with me. Don’t exaggerate it.” You scoff at this, pushing Minho away from you as you lift your legs up to the coffee table. “He knows that I feel the need to be busy when I’m on edge like this but he was in the way. The least he could do is either be useful around the house too or just stay out of my sight for a while.” 

“Don’t be too worried, I’m sure they’re all being careful and getting to Hyunjin soon.” Minho assures you with a small smile, waving his human world phone in front of you as it displays a flurry of messages from Chan. “If it makes you feel better, your cousin’s been asking me about you and Jisung as much as he’s been updating me of what’s happening.”

You frown at this, making Minho chuckle. “He’s been talking to you but not to me? I’m his cousin!” 

“He knows you’re redecorating his house in 50 different styles while you wait for him so he just asks about you through me. Don’t get it twisted, Y/N.” The older boy continues laughing, carefully shoving a pillow away from his face when you levitate it closer to him. “Anyway, they said that they’ve confirmed that the ogres are still staying at the beach resort so they’re planning to get to them tonight and confirm if they really took Hyunjin.”

Your expression visibly shifts more positively, eyes widening and mouth hanging agape. “Really?” 

“If things go smoothly, everyone, including Hyunjin, would be home really soon. Until then, Chan has asked me to make sure that you and Jisung don’t kill each other or go outside without permission.” 

You shove Minho once more at the last statement, mustering up a laugh this time. “Hey, we’re not that childish.” You point out with a pout before another thought crosses your mind. “Oh, right, I can tell Jisung, right? I mean, it’s just an update anyway.” 

“Yeah, go ahead.” Minho nods, poking you on your side to get you to stand up. “It’s also getting dark out, call Ryujin in too so we can reheat some leftovers for dinner.” 

You scoff at the thought of leftovers for dinner, standing up anyway and heading outside where the sun has indeed set on the horizon. As you walk down the steps leading down to the backyard, you easily spot Ryujin by the back gate as she flirts with one of your neighbors who holds an orange heart up her sleeve but it takes you a moment to see Jisung fast asleep under one of the outdoor umbrellas. 

“Ryujin!” You call for your friend, biting down your lip when the girl she’s been flirting with awkwardly looks away and your friend in question consequently glares at you for interrupting her. “Where’s Jisung?” 

“There.” Ryujin quickly points towards the outdoor umbrellas on the far corner of the backyard before turning her gaze back on your neighbor whose heart immediately turns a shy pink at this. 

You roll your eyes at this with a chuckle before heading over to Jisung, finding him snoring lightly and snuggling into a pillow despite the cold evening breeze. He doesn’t budge an inch when you call his name or poke his side, stirring only when you slap his cheek gently awake by instinctively swatting your hand away and mumbling a string of curses for you to go away. “What?!” 

“It’s starting to get cold out here. Come on, we’re eating dinner in a while.” You respond, taking the pillow from him and grabbing him by the arm to help him stand up. When he doesn’t budge, you resort to adjusting his hoodie at least so he doesn’t freeze himself to death. “Minho also said that Chan’s been texting him. Everyone’s okay so far and they’ll interrogate the ogres tonight, maybe even get Hyunjin if they really took him.” 

Jisung finally springs awake at this, jumping to a stand in surprise. “What? Really? Is there—well, is there anything else?” He asks quickly, stumbling over his words in shock while you drag him back inside. 

Ryujin follows along after a while, running to the kitchen to check what you’re having for dinner. You and Jisung walk a little slower as he rubs his eyes from his surprisingly long nap next to you, somehow not making a fuss this time about your linked arms. 

“Sadly, that’s only what I got from Minho a while back so I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning for anything new.” You answer his previous question as you head to the kitchen where Ryujin and Minho reheat leftovers and make some new side dishes. When you see Jisung’s ears perk up slightly at your words, you quickly add, “Don’t try staying up late just for an update. You should get some more sleep after dinner so you don’t look like a ghost when we see Hyunjin again.” 

He scoffs at this, sitting down on the dining table and dragging you along with him on the adjacent seat. “How can I sleep if I know that we’re so close to seeing Hyunjin again after months? I’ll stay up late if I want to!”

“And I’ll kill you two if you stay up all night then get all cranky tomorrow when you have to get to class.” Minho cuts you off before you could even speak, setting the dishes down on the table. “Okay, eat up!” 

“That was him, not me.” You shrug at Jisung’s semi-permanent pout with a chuckle, receiving a plate and utensils before thanking Minho for the food. “Eat up, Ji.” 

You don’t even have to glance back over to his direction to know that he has his usual determined look plastered over his face again. Because of the new update on Hyunjin’s situation, he’s suddenly more alert now that he might actually take you up on staying awake the entire night. 

-

“Jisung, are you awake?” 

Jisung doesn’t really expect you to hold true to your word and check up on him at 3 AM when Ryujin and Minho have both gone to sleep. You suddenly knock on his door while he’s in the middle of a song he’s been trying to write on his guitar lately, startling the poor boy who almost falls off of the window and causes a big fuss about it. 

“Are you okay in there?” You ask worriedly from outside after knocking for the 4th time, the doorknob clicking gently after. When only shuffles reach your ear on the other side, you immediately add, “Hey, I’m coming in!” 

Jisung doesn’t even have time to protest, catching a glimpse of you going in and closing the door as a tray of mugs trails behind you. Quickly hiding the guitar by the curtains, he clumsily scrambles up to a stand and retrieves the tray from the air, “H-Hi! You made...tea?” 

“Those two mugs are for me.” You pretend to swat his hand away jokingly, joining him on the small balcony on the other side of his window. Spotting his guitar hidden haphazardly on the side, you’re quick to pick it up and slide it over your lap while Jisung’s occupied with the tea, strumming a few chords. Only then, do you also notice his music sheets strewn across the balcony, all labelled with the word ‘sunshine.’ “I didn’t know you brought this along. It still plays good, I suppose, but do you still play badly?” 

Jisung scowls at you as he sets the tray down next to his notebook, sitting down criss cross once more before swiftly snatching the guitar from your hands. “I play better than you, at least.” Ignoring your protests, he then strums a few chords of his own and continues, “Why are you still awake, anyway? Don’t you have a 9 AM later?” 

When he turns to you, he sees you taking a sip of your tea first before answering, “I feel like ditching,” a statement he’s definitely never heard from you before by the way his eyes widen in surprise. “Don’t act so surprised! Uni’s just a cover and a way to get hearts while we’re here in the human world, anyway. Since everyone could be here later and there’s a possibility that we’ll see Hyunjin again with them, I wouldn’t want to miss a second of him back.” 

“Don’t tell me, am I rubbing off on you?” Jisung snickers playfully. Deep inside, however, he’s undoubtedly a little impressed. After all, it’s been a while since he’s seen you so carefree outside of royal duties. “This is bad. We’re still competing, you know!”

“Tch, don’t push it. My current count’s quite high so I’m not that worried.” You shake your head in disbelief, leaning back against the windowsill and gazing ahead to the brightly-lit city. “It’s just that it’s been 5 months since Hyunjin’s gone missing and Yeji started combing every inch of Seoul, only to find a lead out in Incheon. I want to see him as much as you do.” 

Jisung nods slowly in agreement, picking up the second mug of tea and taking a sip. It’s chocolate matcha, the flavour you always craved on elementary school field trips back in the magical realm whenever you missed home or so Felix once said. “It’s been that long, huh? And we’ve been here taking our exam for 4 months now.” He muses out loud between sips of tea, warming him up in an instant against the unusually cold night. “Time flies a little weirder when you’re on the other side of the moon, don’t you think?” 

“I think you’ve just been having too much fun flirting with humans.” You point out, gesturing over to his emerald ring. Over the months, you’ve noticed that the vessels grow warmer every time you reach a thousand points which is roughly every 100 hearts or so. In the rare moments these days that Jisung’s ring has accidentally brushed against your skin, usually at the bus or when passing dishes along, the stone feels intimidatingly hot and almost burning. “How much do you have already?” 

“Enough to win against you.” He teases playfully as he hums along to his song, making you scoff. “I mean, it’s been fun. Gaining a lot of ecure here has made my magic feel more powerful but, still, I can’t help but think sometimes that this whole exam would’ve been fun if the 4 of us were complete.” 

You take another sip of your tea, listening along to Jisung’s humming. “If Hyunjin didn’t disappear beforehand and scared off Lia and her parents from letting her compete...yeah, I guess it would’ve been much more fun if we’re all competing together and the exam duration was 1 year like normal.” Thinking about it more, you end up chuckling at imagining how this whole exam could’ve gone differently. “But, at the same time, it’s been fun competing with you so far.” 

“Going soft on me?” He raises a brow with a smirk. “I know we’ve been stuck to each other like glue for the past months but you should look out for that heart of yours, it might turn pink for me again.”

“I mean you’ve put up a fight so far. It’s a professional compliment, don’t exaggerate it.” You roll your eyes with a slight snicker, making him laugh. You purposely ignore his last comment, though, knowing that he wouldn’t really look into your feelings for him, anything but that. “Maybe you’re the one who’s going soft on me. Seungmin told me about the purple hearts.” 

���He what?!” Jisung exclaims, his smug expression instantly morphing into panic as he almost throws his guitar off of the balcony. “Wait, I can explain!” 

You shake your head and wave your hand dismissively. “No, you don’t have to! I understand.” You assure with a laugh, placing your hand on his nearest shoulder and making him sit back down when he wobbles over the messy and narrow space. “Though, yeah, I probably would’ve yelled at you if Seungmin told me any earlier but it’s all said and done now, anyway. I appreciate it, actually.” 

“A lot of guys were being creeps to you so I thought...I got protective, okay? Ryujin and Yeji were getting stares too so even Seungmin would do the same thing to protect them.” Jisung pouts. “I know we’re in a competition and we’re supposed to rake up a bunch of hearts but your dignity’s much more important than some stupid crown...” 

“I know, and I also know that you would’ve done it for Lia if she were here.” You nod understandingly, mustering up a small appreciative smile. Jisung can be sweet if he wants to, you conclude internally. “Ah, seriously, just imagine if there was 4 of us competing. This would’ve been much more fun and less stressful. You would’ve gotten your ass handed to you when you wanted to race to the moon.” 

“Tch, Hyunjin would’ve taken all of the red ecures for himself.” Jisung adds, sharing in your quiet laughs now that the conversation’s shifted once more. “Much like how he charms everyone back home. He might even win, like he always does in every challenge the elders give us. He’s just the favourite!” 

“I can’t wait for him to come home safely. He’s been gone for too long.” You sigh against your tea, tiredly adjusting to the uncomfortable space of the window. Seeing this from the corner of his eyes, Jisung doesn’t hesitate to pass you a pillow and nearby blankets this time which you’re more than grateful for. “I can’t wait for all of this to be over and go home, just visit again when I feel like it.” 

“Me too. I can’t wait to see him.” Jisung sighs, peering down onto the balcony as he adjusts his guitar on his lap. “And I can’t wait to go home, too.” 

And just then, the car that Chan used to drive everyone over to Incheon materializes at the front porch, spewing out Chan, your friends, and Hyunjin who’s supported by Seungmin and Yeji.

five out of six months 

Hyunjin sports distinctly black cuts and gashes across his arms and legs when you greet the group in front of the house, similar to the ones Chan and Changbin also sported one time when the two also had an encounter with dark magic. Limping on his right leg and supported by his arms, Yeji and Seungmin used their magic to lift him over to the nearest sofa once they’ve reached the other side of Chan’s protective spell from the front door while the rest of the group crash into the vast expanse of the living room. 

“I tried healing him as much as I can so it’s easier for you and Ryujin.” Seungmin huffs, tiredly sitting down on the ground by the coffee table. “He’s mostly fine, just exposed to a lot of dark magic.” 

“And you guys? Are you okay? Is anyone else hurt?” You ask worriedly, darting your eyes over to Chan, Yeji, and Chaeryoung who all individually affirm to you that they’re not nursing any big injuries. “What happened?” 

At that moment, Jisung arrives in the living room with a half-sleepy Minho and a frantically running Ryujin who immediately makes a beeline to Hyunjin and Yeji. Standing next to you, he echoes the exact same question to Seungmin. “What happened? Is Hyunjin going to be okay?” 

You kneel down in front of Hyunjin, right next to Ryujin, and examine the cuts and gashes. Meanwhile, Jisung sits next to Seungmin while Minho runs over to Chan. “Turns out, they’ve been keeping Hyunjin to try and get him to activate the artifact.” Seungmin answers Jisung’s question after a moment, taking out the stolen compass that Hyunjin was supposed to retrieve from this world. “Then they heard that you and Jisung were going to proceed with the exam. So they tried using him as bait as well but the protective spells the elders casted on you two made it hard for them to find you even when they planned to separate our group.” 

“We got there before they could manipulate my brother into it with dark magic.” Yeji continues tiredly in between casting her own spells, making her smaller wounds and a sprained ankle disappear. “They were quite hostile but we managed. It’s just that Hyunjin still hasn’t woken up since we took him.” 

“Then aren’t you glad we stayed at home, Ji?” You mumbled under your breath as you and Ryujin casted spells to identify the magic needed to heal the half-conscious Hyunjin’s injuries. “Hyunjin’s probably not waking up because of exposure. We’ll have to determine just how much dark magic those witches used.” 

Behind you, Jisung grumbles stubbornly at your comment. “So, is Hyunjin okay? What’s the diagnosis?”

Hovering your hand over Hyunjin’s chest, his heart suddenly reflects a horrifying black over your magic and making yours and Ryujin’s eyes widen. “Oh no…” 

“What?” Suddenly, Jisung’s next to you and peering over Hyunjin’s ecure. “What the hell? Why is his heart black?” 

Ryujin then places her hands over Hyunjin’s forehead, going through his fresher memories as her eyes turn a bright blue. “He’s...it’s an ancient spell, a really powerful one.” She eventually concludes, turning to Chan after. “Chan, do you think you can take a look at this?” 

Across the room, Chan stands up with Minho’s help, having just treated a healing cut on his leg, and sits on Ryujin’s other side to briefly access the same memories. “The three of us can do it,” He gestures to you and Ryujin with pursed lips. “But it’ll take hours and a whole lot of ecure. We’ll need to purify his heart with an equally powerful spell.” 

From the corner of your eye, you see Jisung immediately turn to you in worry, as if he already knows what you’re going to say. “Y/N, don’t—”

But you’re already reaching for your locket, forcing the stone to reveal its contents. “I can give up mine. It’ll save you both your energies and time.” You assure, tuning out Jisung’s protests.

“A-Are you sure?” Ryujin asks worriedly, echoing Jisung’s concerns. Next to her, Chan shakes his head at you in equal concern. “Y/N, these are your ecures for the candidacy exam, you can’t just—not right now when you’re almost do—”

“That’s not important right now. What’s important is that we save Hyunjin.” You nod without any hesitation. “Anyway, I have enough for both purifying Hyunjin’s heart and healing his wounds. It’s fine.” 

You then take out more hearts from your locket, the clumped crystals of oranges, greens, pinks, and reds hovering above Hyunjin as he continues lulling in and out of consciousness and his body tries rejecting the prior spells Yeji casted to help him heal. Before you could fully empty out the vessel, however, Jisung’s hand with his emerald ring flies over yours to stop you. “Wait!” He exclaims, startling you, Ryujin, and Chan. “I’ll give up some of mine too. Don’t empty yours out.”

“Ji—” 

“—Y/N.” He snaps frustratingly, raising his voice and confusing you further. “Please, let me help! I don’t want you to empty your count, I’m not letting you.” 

This seems to effectively catch you off-guard. Jisung then takes this as an opportunity to stop you, not letting your hand go while he summons his own collected hearts out from his ring and firmly making sure that you don’t argue with him further until Chan has reluctantly made sure that you have enough ecures to convert into magic. Even then, he doesn’t let you go by your hand and instead moves his over to your free hand while Chan instructs you and Ryujin on how to purify a black heart. 

“J-Jisung.” You call for him once your initial annoyance of him stopping you has died down, eyes widening when he glances back at you with worry. “I need my two hands.” 

“Oh, shit. Sorry.” He lets go of your hand immediately, keeping his hands down on his lap before leaving the three of you to check on Seungmin, Yeji, and Chaeryoung. “Sorry…”

You cough out awkwardly as he leaves, glaring at Ryujin when she musters up a teasing smile despite your current predicament. 

“He’s right, you know.” Chan comments after a while, instructing you the following spells while the dark color of Hyunjin’s ecure fades to a glowing white. 

“Don’t start.” When you send a glare over your own cousin’s way, however, he quickly drops the subject with a shrug. 

Purifying a darkened heart, as it turns out, lasts until the very break of dawn as the three of you exhaust the ecures you and Jisung have put out to heal Hyunjin. As time ticks by agonizingly slow for Hyunjin who could only lay back on the sofa and absorb all of your energies to heal himself, Minho eventually gets everyone to clear the living room and sleep in the much more comfortable guest rooms after making sure that no one is greatly injured before hurling himself to the kitchen and make breakfast. 

But you see Jisung stay from the corner of your eye, taking up space on your opposite side to steal glances at you or comfort Hyunjin. From the way his eyebrows furrow over his sleepy eyes and how he refuses to leave even when you awkwardly tell him off, you could tell that he too can’t make out your previous exchange. 

“—Y/N. Please, let me help! I don’t want you to empty your count, I’m not letting you.” You know that he acted the way he did because it was Hyunjin that you were trying to save, one of his best friends. But the way he sounded so angry, the way he snapped at you in the spur of the moment, a small part of your thoughts wants to make you think that he had other reasons for doing what he did. 

“Hyunjin? How are you feeling?” Chan asks after 2 hours of nonstop spellcasting, halting you and Ryujin in your steps after. “Can you sit up?” 

Your eyes turn blue at the same time you see Jisung’s turn green, surveying Hyunjin’s heart for any hints of leftover dark magic. Meanwhile, Hyunjin struggles to sit up with Jisung’s help, tiredly groaning under his breath. “Much b-better.” He manages to stumble out after a moment, mustering up a small smile despite the dizzying and overwhelming fel. “Thanks, you guys.” 

You sigh in relief, resting your back against the coffee table behind you before nodding. “Finally…” 

“Come on, Hyunnie, I’ll move you upstairs.” Chan volunteers, standing up from his position on the floor and briefly stretching his arms out. Turning to you, Ryujin, and Jisung, he then adds, “You guys get some rest too. Just skip for today and tomorrow. I’ll write to everyone back home.” 

You don’t even argue against your cousin this time, finding yourself nodding when he gives you the same look he always does whenever you intend on shouldering some work for him. Standing up from the floor, you, Ryujin, and Jisung then head upstairs in silence. 

The entire walk, you feel Jisung stealing glances over to you but you decide to not act on it, shaking your head when he suddenly opens his mouth to speak before the two of you could go on your separate ways. 

“Y/N, wait—” “Goodnight, Jisung.” 

-

Growing up, Jisung has always relied on two people in helping him through the crisis of accidentally going too far with you: Chan and Felix. Chan, obviously, because he’s your cousin and the only other friend he has who harbors an inkling of a braincell and Felix because he’s everyone’s favourite and he knows the kinds of snacks that get on your good graces. These moments when he’s actually pushed your buttons too far are rare (as much as the two of you like to express your annoyance over each other, you’ve actually come to understand that this is just your dynamic growing up), but Jisung personally keeps a list of steps to do in situations like this anyway. Now more than ever, it seems, because suddenly, it feels weird and awkward being around each other—and not the usual kind. 

But as fate would have it, Chan is busy working out how to safely get Hyunjin home and explaining to the elders what happened. If normally Jisung would be asking Chan first about you and what he could say when he confronts you, this time he’s asking all of them to his twin brother who’s more than willing to listen (after listening to Yeji, Ryujin, and Chaeryoung gossip everything to him prior, of course).

“Why did you do that anyway?” Felix points out on the other side of the call, snuggling into a pillow as night falls on both realms. It’s been 3 days since Hyunjin returned and both the house and the officials back at home have been busy arranging his return with Yeji, Seungmin, Ryujin, and Chaeryoung; only allowing for the twins to talk in the late hours of the night. “And you said it angrily too from what Ryujin told me. No offense, bro, I’d feel a little weird if you raised your voice at me, too, then offered up half of your collection on their behalf.” 

Jisung groans in frustration, running his hand through his hair as he shuffles uncomfortably around his bed sheets. “I don’t know, it’s just...I was thinking of a lot of things.” 

“Like what?” 

“This candidacy exam, what Chan told me beforehand, Hyunjin, Y/N…” The older twin purses his lips, taking his eyes away from Felix to gaze down at his hands. The emerald ring is much cooler now after losing ecure but somehow, it feels heavy on Jisung’s ring finger. “I thought that it’d be unfair if they lose all of their ecure at this point in the race, trying to save Hyunjin, then the elders might not be too pleased about it when we return. But most importantly, I thought about what Chan told me when Minho first arrived, about how Y/N’s always jumping at every opportunity to help other people without thinking too much of themself. I was right there with my own vessel of hearts for them to use and if I just let them empty out theirs, then I’d be letting them get the short end of the stick in the long run again.” 

Felix nods along understandingly at his brother’s words, all the while trying to hide a smile behind his hand. So Yeji was right! “So why did you call me, then? You seem to have your reasons sorted out, just tell Y/N what you told me.” He shrugs after Jisung’s extensive speech, giggling at the dramatic reaction that he receives from his brother after. “I know you guys aren’t those emotional kinds of people to each other but you said so yourself that Y/N’s been quieter these days and that it’s been eating at your conscience. I say you just go for it and tell them how you feel.” 

“I’m not you, Lix. Y/N’s going to laugh at me.” Jisung pouts helplessly. “I can’t just tell them that.” 

“You’re so dramatic! It just implies that you care about Y/N like a decent human being. Anyone in your situation who knows what you know about them would’ve been considerate enough to do the same thing.” Felix argues back, rubbing his temples at how the older boy’s acting. “Don’t get it twisted, brother...unless you want it to, of course.” 

“Ya, and what’s that supposed to mean?!” 

“Figure it out yourself.” Felix sticks his tongue out teasingly before laughing and waving a dismissive hand. “Anyway, Yeji told me that Y/N’s been craving blueberry pancakes lately. You can just make them right now and give it tomorrow so you don’t have to go out.” 

“If anything, I want to leave the house right now and never come back.” Jisung grumbles back in frustration before sighing in defeat. “For the first time, I can’t believe you’re no help at all, Lix. I’m hanging up.” 

“Tch, you just can’t handle the truth, Sung. Anyway, I have to go too, mom and dad are asking me to come to this thing. I’ll update you on it later! Love you! Bye!” Felix then waves to the call one last time before hanging up, leaving Jisung in the uncomfortable silence of his room. 

Jisung sighs against the heavy blankets, throwing his phone to the other side of the mattress before ultimately deciding on standing up and heading to your room across the hall. Fuck it, he thinks to himself, it’s not like I like them or anything like that! Nothing to worry about! Let’s not get it twisted. 

When he opens the door, however, the first person he unexpectedly sees outside the hallways is you just as you close the door behind your own room. “Y/N!” He ends up blurting out loud in the moment, catching your attention with wide eyes. Not knowing what else to say, the first thought that comes to mind is, “Are you going to Hyunjin’s room?” 

You furrow your brows in confusion, shaking your head slowly. “No, I’m going to the kitchen?” 

“O-Oh.” He runs his hand through his hair once more in nervousness, nodding along and hiding the heat rising up his neck in embarrassment. “Well, I’m going there too. Mind if I join you?” 

You simply nod in response, walking down the end of the hallway with him in relative silence. He hasn’t seen you much since Hyunjin’s arrived either since you spent most of your time checking your mutual friend for his condition and brewing tea. The dramatic gears in Jisung’s head would like to think that it’s just pure convenience. 

“So, what did you and Felix talk about?” “How’s Hyunjin?” 

Jisung glances over to you on his right just as you mirror his actions, the gesture somehow making him flustered this time around as he’s quick to look away. “S-Sorry. Um, we just—talked about how things are back home.” He shrugs in his best feigned nonchalance, mentally cringing at how visibly awkward he looks as the two of you go down the stairs anyway. Not that it’s a lie, anyway, he and Felix did talk about other topics besides you. “Everything’s pretty busy back home since the elders are talking about how Hyunjin coming back is going to affect the exam now.” 

“Oh.” You nod along almost absentmindedly. “That’s...yeah, I’ve heard about it too. It’s pretty hectic on my mom’s end right now.” 

“So...how’s Hyunjin?” Jisung chimes in almost a little too quickly, feeling even more awkward that he accidentally brought up your candidacy exam again. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

You purposely pretend to not notice anyway, answering his questions carefully as you approach a curve into the spiral staircase. “He’s regaining his strength at least. Still on bedrest but he should be okay by the weekend when Changbin fetches him and the others.” The two of you then pass through the living room to get to the kitchen, finding Minho and Chan cuddled up on one of the sofas as they watch a movie on the television. 

The kitchen, on the other hand, is deserted when you turn on the lights which Jisung internally thanks every guest in the house for before taking a deep breath. “About what I said back then, by the way…” He starts carefully, catching your attention before you could even detach yourself from him to open the nearby fridge. You freeze a few steps ahead of him, making the poor boy gulp nervously. “Um, I’m sorry that I raised my voice at you. I shouldn’t have done that, even when I was stressing out.” 

Much like when he actually did raise his voice, you momentarily freeze in your spot before eventually shaking your head reassuringly and moving over to the fridge. “It’s alright, you don’t need to apologize for that.” You add with a small smile, taking out the fruit bowl from the fridge. “Is that why you’ve been quiet these past days? It’s okay, really.” 

“I haven’t been—it’s you who’s—” Jisung stops himself halfway before he could even start another argument, biting down his lip before shaking his head. Walking over to the stove area, he then opens a few cabinets in search of the pancake mix while you shuffle around the area behind him. “A little, yeah. It’s just that it looked like it bothered you so it bothered me too.”

When Jisung then glances over his shoulder, he sees you approaching with the fruit bowl hugged close to your chest. “I thought about it a few times. After that, I just thought that you were bothered so I couldn’t talk to you after.” You explain slowly, voice growing louder as you set the bowl next to him. In the dim lights of the kitchen, he suddenly can’t tell if you’re lying or not. “But it’s all good now. Are you making pancakes?” 

Jisung nods sheepishly, finally finding the pancake mix in the deeper crevices of the cabinet and taking it out with a pan and spatula from the adjacent cabinet. “No, but you have to know that—that—”

“Hm? What?” You raise your brows curiously, taking the pan and spatula for him before proceeding to the stove and twisting the knobs to preheat. 

“You’re not letting me finish.” Jisung points out with a feigned disapproving situation while quickly preparing the pancake mix, one which you somehow find amusing enough to laugh at. “Come on, don’t laugh, my twin made me say a bunch of things then coerced me into telling you so I’d—”

“Yeah, I know.” 

“—So, I appreciate it if you’d lis—wait, you know?!” His feigned expression then turns into one of surprise once more as you nod and break into giggles. “W-What?!” 

“You were being really loud, Hyunjin was even complaining to me from the next room by phone that he can’t sleep because of you.” You chuckle in amusement, nudging him by the arm when you notice that he’s slowed down his mixing. “He said something about you complaining to Felix about something or whatever. I don’t know, I was on a call with Lia.” 

“Then why did you—? So, you just came out here for pancakes?!” 

“No! I wanted to hear what you were going to say! I didn’t hear any word besides the pancakes, I swear...well, not clearly at least.” 

By now, all of the awkwardness has immediately dissipated as Jisung stops mixing the pancake mix altogether to turn to you and cross his arms. “You’re unbelievable.” He pretends to roll his eyes and scoff at you, earning him a glare.  You then swipe the pancake mix from his hands, pouring them into the pan in big circles. “And you still have the audacity to make me do this pancake mix.” 

“Well, you’re already mixing it so might as well.” You shrug with a knowing smile before nudging him again by the handle of the spatula. “Now, go on, what were you going to say?” 

Jisung shoots you one last incredulous look but you effectively counter it by encouraging him, promising that you “won’t laugh.” “Ah, well...I just wanted to say that you shouldn’t go all out wasting all of your collected hearts at this point, not when we’re almost done with the exam.” He blurts out, gazing down and fiddling with the fruit bowl while you take spoonfuls of blueberries from it to mix with the pancakes. “I want to win but it won’t be fun if your tally suddenly drops, right?” 

When he looks up, you’re raising your brow at his last comment as you make more pancakes. “I mean, I know you want to do what’s best for everyone but you have to look out for yourself too. Geez.” With a sigh, he then corrects which makes you nod in agreement. “A-And I guess lean on us too. We’re your family and friends, don’t shoulder all of the work for us all the time.” 

“I doubt I can lean on you.” You tease, flipping through your second batch of pancakes to cook. When Jisung sends a glare your way, you simply stick your tongue out at him. “Kidding.”  

“I get all emotional and all you say is that you doubt you can lean on me. Unbelievable…” Jisung scoffs, stuffing his mouth with more blueberries in feigned annoyance. 

The blueberry-filled pancakes are all eventually set on a plate you find on your opposite side, stacked up as a tall tower leaning on one side. Carefully passing Jisung the plate, you then twist the stove’s knobs off and reply, “You also made me cook the pancakes you wanted to make for me so I think that makes us even.” 

“Y/N!” He whines between mouthfuls of blueberries as you move around him to transfer the pan and spatula to the sink. 

You sigh in defeat, chuckling when you meet gazes once more and see him sulking with his cheeks full. “Right, right, I’m sorry!” You then beckon him over to the dining table, taking the fruit bowl on his side. “A-And...you know, thank you for that. We’re all good now, right?” 

“If you are.” 

“Definitely. Want to eat with me? I still owe you that meal from our first day.” 

six out of six months

Your mother as well as the high jury of elders from back home eventually proposed that you and Jisung finish your Crown Candidacy exam while Hyunjin, should he eventually announce that he wants to participate as well in the incoming 6 months, do his under stricter supervision in the following year. This ensures fairness in your situations, that yours and Jisung’s efforts aren’t wasted in the past 5 months while also thinking of Hyunjin who wasn’t around in time for the traditional schedule of the exam. When Hyunjin was escorted home by Changbin and Felix, however, he briefly hinted towards a plan on refusing the candidacy and the exam. He left with the others before you or Jisung could even ask him about it. 

Regardless, you and your sole competitor easily fall back into the race as soon as Hyunjin, Yeji, Seungmin, and Chaeryoung have settled their business in the human world and went home, returning to university over a week later to regain the ecures that you lost. Not that it’s suddenly harder, anyway. Timely as it is, an announcement for a school festival at the end of the month has Jisung signing up to perform while you join the organizing committee to spend more time with your human friends. 

In the time that you’ve spent in the human world, you’ve made many genuine friends beyond collecting their ecure for your exam, especially in your classmates Yuna and Jeongin. Though they don’t know about your true nature, the two have unknowingly aided you a lot in your mission by accompanying you through the different activities around university. 

Yuna, in particular, was even the one who first mentioned the school festival to you, encouraging you to join the events committee with her and invite Jisung to perform. “It’s free backstage passes and we can see all of the artists up close!” She sighed dreamily on the day she showed you the gold and red poster that she picked up from the department bulletin board. “And come on, you’re really good at organizing stuff! We should do it together!”

And more hearts to collect, you thought to yourself when you accepted and attended the orientation.

And more hearts it was, indeed, as you spend the next 3 weeks meeting people from different colleges as you and Yuna are assigned to helping organize the music performance for the end of the festival. With your previous experience fulfilling your duties back at home, it’s unsurprisingly easier for you to juggle the work assigned to you—contacting students to perform, arranging the program flow, and turning the university football field into a makeshift mini concert stadium—with socializing and fulfilling your original mission of collecting hearts. 

Across from your room at home, on the other hand, Jisung has been busy spending the same time making his own music to perform at the music festival. You invited him to perform some time after starting your work with the festival committee—well, your friends insisted that you invite him and Chan after finding out that the famous DJ, CB97, is your cousin and that you and the “College of Psychology Cutie” commute home together (“Don’t tell me...are you guys secretly dating?!” Yuna had shamelessly asked during one of your meetings, to which you had to smack your hand over her mouth and improvise a cover story for you and Jisung that you live in the same neighbourhood). 

Jisung accepted at the thought that he could garner a huge crowd of hearts from this opportunity, cooping himself up in his room right after the following days that followed to complete his 15-minute set. Ever since, all you’ve heard coming from his room in the middle of the night would be guitar strums, drum loops, and the faintest hints of Jisung’s voice singing along to freestyle raps and lines. 

He mostly sang about love, of all things; something you, Minho, and Chan immediately noticed in the next 3 Friday nights that the three of you would be huddled in the living room to watch a movie, only to hear Jisung repeating lines as if he was talking to someone in Chan’s home studio. You wanted to ask about it out of pure curiosity, and just the general worry that he might not be looking after his heart while finishing your exam after all, but decided against it in favor of waiting for the final product at the music festival.

Fortunately, the month somehow went by in almost a flash as you and Jisung both got busy preparing and collecting more hearts on the side. Before you know it, it was the afternoon of the music festival and Felix is suddenly back in the human realm to accompany you and Minho to the school festival. 

“So, did he tell you what he prepared for tonight?” Felix asks you as the three of you walk around the festival grounds. Over the course of 3 weeks, you and a large team of student volunteers have managed to haul in food stalls, arcade booths, and rides from the quad all the way to the football field for this festival, amenities which you yourself haven’t tried yet because of your busy schedule but Felix and Minho have both been so overwhelmingly excited to check out even on the bus trip to your university. 

In response to the prince’s answer, you shake your head with a small pout. “I just hear him all over the house and I didn’t really want to pry if he didn't want to tell me anything.” You point out, the two of you suddenly changing the course of your mindless walk as Minho points to a crossbow shoot booth. “Why? Doesn’t he tell you what he’s been working on?” 

“No! He stops whatever he’s doing whenever we call, even when I ask him to play just a little bit of his work.” Felix is quick to mirror your pout, only for it to disappear when Minho jokes that the two of you help him cheat in the booth as he picks up a crossbow. “I thought since you guys are living together, you’d know better than me.” 

“Ah, you kids just wait until Jisung and Chan perform later.” Minho dismisses your concerns, holding the fake crossbow up properly while the staff manning the booth prepares the targets on the other side. “Now, help me win Chan a giant wolf.” 

You roll your eyes at Minho, shrugging at Felix. “I guess he’s right. Let’s just help Minho get a giant wolf first.” 

-

Chan and Jisung arrive at university 10 minutes before the music festival from Chan’s studio halfway across the city, initially unable to find you in the crowd of organizers as they set up backstage with Yuna and Jeongin’s help until you call Chan late that you’re “babysitting” Minho and Felix. 

“They’ve somehow teamed up and have been competing with the rigged booths since we arrived.” You explained over the voice call, the distant sounds of Minho and Felix yelling while tossing metal rings around almost muffling your own. “I’ll be on my way in a while as soon as Minho leaves the ring toss alone but Yuna and Jeongin are there. Just ask them if you guys need anyth—oh my gods, Felix, you won another plushie? That’s so cool! Wait, I’m on a call with Chan!—uh, yeah. I’ll be there in a second!” 

The commotion on your end makes the two boys laugh, even as you bid your goodbyes and end the call, but especially Jisung who’s been looking nervous since he arrived. Throwing his head back in a laugh as he tunes his guitar, he comments, “That’s a bit unexpected. I didn’t know my brother and your boyfriend would get along like that, and this quickly!” 

“Beating out rigged games sounds about right.” Chan chuckles along, seated on a plastic chair and running a quick check on his equipment. Turning to the younger boy, he then asks, “Are you still nervous?” 

“Me? Nah, I wasn’t even nervous to begin with!” At this, Jisung’s laughs naturally die down to an uncertain shake of his head. He dismisses with a scrunch up nose which Chan immediately raises a brow at. 

“Come on, Sung, I practically raised you with the other kids.” Chan proceeds to roll his eyes as Jisung’s brief confident facade crumbles down slowly. “What’s up?” 

The boy in question eventually sighs in defeat, shoulders slumping against the plastic chair he occupies. “Fine, maybe I’m a bit nervous! Just a little bit, though, I can still get on stage later! I mean, it’s not like performing here is gonna be different from back home like you said on the way here but…”

“But what?” Chan asks patiently, glancing up to see Jisung’s gaze fixed down on his yellow acoustic guitar. When the younger boy doesn’t respond immediately, he then continues, “I’ve heard bits and pieces of what you’ve been working on this month and all of the songs sound great. You’ll catch a lot of hearts tonight with them, I’m sure. What are you worried about?”

Jisung looks up from his guitar and opens his mouth to speak, only to get cut off when you come in the performer’s tent running and balancing different kinds of microphones in your hands. “Sorry I’m late!” You announce in between tired pants, catching both his and Chan’s attention as you pass the microphones around the artists with Jeongin who instinctively comes to your aid. “I was with my friends and they wouldn’t budge from the ring toss!” 

“I think I’m going to faint.” Jisung mumbles under his breath with furrowed brows, loud enough for only Chan to hear, until you approach them last with their microphones. 

“Mics?” You offer obliviously, holding up the last 2 hand mics in your possession. Passing one to Chan quickly, you then sit down next to Jisung and pass him his hand mic. “Hey, you’re up fourth, right?” 

Jisung glances over to Chan with a panicked look but the older boy simply shakes his head with a chuckle and focuses on his keyboard. Turning to you, Jisung then nods quickly with a hum before gazing down at his guitar and the laptop he’s set up on the table in front of you two. 

Immediately sensing his odd behavior, you then hover your hands in the space between the two of you in a quick spell, eventually verifying his nervous feelings. “Yeah, totally not nervous.” You chuckle in amusement, laughing even more when he turns to you and whines in complaint. 

“Ya! Don’t do that!” 

“Well, it’s not like you’re that good at hiding your nervousness!” You point out in defense, holding your hands up in front of you in between uncontrollable fits of giggles. When the glare he sends your way doesn’t relax one bit, you then fish out a small quokka plush from your backpack. “Anyway, Felix was kinda expecting that you’d be a little nervous so wanted me to give you this plushie he won at the milk bottle game with Minho for good luck. He would’ve given it himself but LUCY was already performing when we came here so he dragged Minho to the audience area before I could even bring him here.” 

You then place the plush toy on the table right next to his laptop, looking around once to make sure that no one is looking your way before mouthing a quick spell to shrink the quokka into something smaller that he can hang on his guitar strap. As you do so, Chan notices how Jisung’s ears are quick to turn red as he follows your every movement. “You can stick it to your guitar strap and bring it with you to the stage.” You point out once you’re done, only then noticing his stares. “What?” 

“Huh?” Jisung shakes his head absentmindedly, mentally slapping himself back to reality before scrambling to pick up the plush toy by the chain you added on top of its head and tying it to the small hole along the edge of his guitar strap. “O-Oh, yeah, thanks!”

You chuckle, just as Yuna suddenly calls for you to help in getting the next act’s microphone stands on stage. Standing up, you then pat Jisung’s shoulder reassuringly, saying one last, “Don’t be nervous!” before running off again to where most of your committee members are. 

Once you’re out of earshot, only then does Chan look up from his equipment once more but this time with a knowing grin and squinted eyes. “Yeah, Sung, don’t be nervous!” 

Jisung rolls his eyes in front of the older boy at this, securing the quokka plushie on his guitar strap one last time. “Shut up.” 

-

Your committee heads lay you off of work just as Jisung heads to the stage for his set, the small quokka plush you gave him dangling behind his fretboard with a toothy grin while he sets up his laptop and greets the energetic crowd. When you discreetly scan the people’s ecures while standing behind the curtains, you quickly spot a growing number of pinks and oranges. “Such a charmer.” Chan notes, eyes also blue when you look up at him. 

You nod in agreement, reverting back to your original color as more of your peers gather around the curtains to listen to Jisung’s introduction. “Um, hi, I’m Han Jisung from the Psych department.” You hear him greet with a shy chuckle over the microphone, earning him another wave of cheers. Behind you, even Yuna and Jeongin cheer despite Jisung having his back partially facing you. “This is my first time performing here at uni and the songs that I’ve prepared so please go easy on me.” 

You then turn to Chan again, taking a sideways step closer to him as a thought crosses your mind. “Hey, Chan,” You call for him in a lower voice, craning your head up when he leans towards you. “Have you heard of the songs he’s going to perform tonight? You were together before coming here, right?” 

“Only a little bit. We mostly talked while we were at the studio.” Chan shrugs in response. “I think he wanted it to be a surprise to everyone.” 

On stage, Jisung then checks his guitar one last time before announcing the name of the first song. “So, this first song is something that I’ve been thinking about since I moved here. It’s called ‘Close.’” He says, pressing play on his loops and singing the first lines of the song. “Can you tell me about you? You, seen from afar. I just don't want to watch. Yeah Just tell me about you.”

Jisung is a great performer, there’s no doubt about it. Though you’ve grown up hearing him sing and rap at your more casual events back at home, he always manages to surprise you every time he performs just with the way he enjoys himself on stage. You can see him smile widely from the side of the stage, his nervousness long gone as he interacts with the crowd and collects the pink crystal hearts that float above your heads. 

“He’s really good…” You murmur, more to yourself than to Chan, as you find yourself gently swaying to the song. “What was he even worried about? It’s a great song…” 

Chan glances knowingly at you, a small smile playing on his lips as you sing along to the next round of the chorus. “I don’t think he has nothing to worry about too, not right now at least.” 

“Hm?” “Nothing.” 

-

In truth, even with the positive response from the crowd and the amount of ecures he’s collected from this set alone, Jisung is still nervous for his last song. “Sunshine” was supposed to be just another warm-up song with barely a cohesive topic, a compilation of sketches about his experiences in the human world that he spent his free time on when he wasn’t collecting hearts these past 6 months. As more time passed by, however, and the time of your exam was suddenly coming to a close, they eventually took a different direction without him even realizing it until you were inviting him to perform at this music festival. 

The times that the two of you would bicker just to laugh at each other in the end, the competition that brought the bests and worsts in you, and your chocolate matcha tea and musings on the one time you sat down with him on his balcony. Eventually, you were all he was writing about. On top of the nervousness that comes with finishing the competition you’ve found yourselves in for half a year and finding out who will be declared the winner, Jisung was more nervous about the thought that you’re just behind the stage curtains with Chan, anticipating his next song. 

“For my last song, I picked this one for someone I know whom I’ve spent a lot of time with these past few months.” He confesses shyly in front of the crowds. Among the hundreds of people that came tonight, he easily spots his twin brother in front of the barriers with Minho, sporting the most exaggerated surprised face ever. “I was hoping that when all of this is said and over, we’d get well-deserved breaks...maybe music and tea at night again or something.” 

Jisung doesn’t have to turn around to gauge your initial reaction as he begins the song, Felix’s expression turning into that of giddiness as he looks over at the stage curtains is enough to set every gear in his head to pump out more nervousness. Instead, he pushes through until halfway to the song before he could steal his first glance over to you since beginning his set. 

With his eyes still an emerald green from scanning the crowd’s ecures, your eyes meet under the harsh stage lights as he sings the bridge. “This place is quiet without a sound ye ye ye. Quiet except for the sound of our breaths ye ye ye.” He doesn’t intend to look again, not in that split second before he’s turning his gaze back to the crowd of cellphone lights and LED signs, but he sees your heart’s reflection once more. 

Reminiscent of when you first confessed in middle school, a pinkish heart floats by the sleeves of your sweater, almost looking red if he just looked longer. You didn’t even turn away this time and simply just stood there, heat visibly rising up your neck. 

Reminiscent of when you first confessed in middle school, a pinkish heart floats by the sleeves of your sweater, almost looking red if he just looked longer. This time around, however, you don’t turn away to try and hide it. 

And this time around, Jisung doesn’t childishly call you out for it or ignores it. This time, it makes his own heart swell at the thought. 

-

The car ride home, with Chan on the wheel and three extra boxes of equipment most of the backseats in his SUV, is a comfortable and awkward mix of quiet between you and Jisung as the two of you are forced to sit next to each other in the cramped space. You sit by the window, using it as an excuse to peer outside and avoid any kind of small talk from the boys, while Jisung has hisi eyes glued to his phone while a sleeping Felix snuggles into his shoulder. The only human noise in the car, as it seems, is coming from Minho and Chan as the two recall the songs the latter and Jisung performed at the program. 

It’s even quieter at the thought that you, Jisung, and Felix will fly back to the magical realm tomorrow, something that Minho reminds you when he suddenly asks, “Right, what do you kids want me to cook for lunch later, by the way?” 

The question comes right as the car suddenly comes to an abrupt stop at Chan’s garage, masking the way you and Jisung simultaneously jump in surprise. You instinctively glance over to him after with wide eyes, before gazing over at Minho who has a poorly-hidden snicker on his expression from the front passenger seat. “Um,” You stutter out awkwardly, glaring at Minho when he smirks teasingly over your way. “Anything’s fine for me.” 

Jisung nods over to your direction in agreement. “Yeah, anything’s fine.” 

Minho nods with pursed lips, as if he was biting down a laugh. “Does crispy pork belly sound good?” He asks, earning him nods from you. “Okay. You guys have been quiet back here this entire time, you guys good?” 

“Yeah?” “Totally.” 

Clearly unconvinced, Minho shakes his head and scoffs before twisting his upper body to face front once more, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening the car door next to him. “Oh, kids…” 

You roll your eyes at the comment before stealing a glance over at Jisung again, only to find the boy already staring at you. “W-What?” You manage to ask this time despite your initial surprise. In front of you, Chan has already turned the engine off and left the driver’s seat to open the back of the car. “You okay, Ji?” 

He hums almost absentmindedly, phone now set down on his lap as he fiddles with his hands nervously. “Yeah, um—” He stutters out, biting his lips down once. Briefly glancing at his side, he then gestures towards his twin and adds, “Wait, sorry, um, let me wake Lix first.” 

“Okay.” You nod awkwardly, deciding to unbuckle your own seatbelt and open the car door next to you. Jisung then gently shakes Felix awake, leading his brother out through the same car door since the opposite one’s blocked by more of his and Chan’s equipment. 

“You go on ahead, Lix, I’ll just talk to Y/N.” You hear Jisung say as the three of you now stand outside in the cold, levitating boxes of instruments and computers flying over your head and heading inside the house. 

Felix nods at this immediately, sleepily bidding you and Jisung with loose hugs before trudging back inside the house with Chan and Minho. 

Once the doors leading back to the house fully close on the two of you, only then are you engulfed in the same awkward silence again and the two of you, for the third time in the past 6 months, speak up at the same time. 

“So um—” “—Yeah, a while ago—” 

This time, the two of you chuckle awkwardly over speaking at the same time again. You then gesture for him to go ahead and speak first as you adjust your sweater’s placement on your shoulder. 

Instinctively, Jisung fixes your sweater for you before speaking, causing him to stutter a little. “S-Sorry, um…” He licks his lip awkwardly, retracting his hand as fast as he can and moving a step back. “Yeah, I meant to say that I didn’t...I didn’t mean to look at your heart.” 

Suddenly, at such an important moment, you’re speechless and frozen in front of Jisung. Your hands find their way down the hem of your sweater, absentmindedly playing with the loose threads as you shift your weight on the balls of your feet and stutter out your response. “I-I um…” 

Simultaneously, Jisung takes in a huge intake of breath and continues, “I looked at you because I actually made the song for you—well, about you but not in a weird way! It can be for you too, that is if you want it!—”

“Jisung?” 

“Ah, anyway, I’m losing track! Just, I looked at you because I wanted to know what you thought of it the most in the moment, you know—”

“Jisung…”

“And I didn’t realize that my eyes were still green and I saw so I looked away as fast as I could, I swear—!” 

“Ji.” 

“I know you don’t want me looking into your heart and stuff because of before. I promise I won’t do it again—” 

Realizing that he’s not going to stop in his ramblings, you then impulsively take a step towards him and grab him by his arms. “Ji, it’s fine.” You shake him gently, effectively stopping the endless flow of thought. “I mean, you already saw it and everything.” 

“But I—” 

“Just don’t lash out or stop talking to me again while I sort it out.” You shrug reassuringly with a sigh, reluctantly sliding your hands off of him and taking a step back again as you see him listen intently to your words. “It’s just pink, anyway, it can still go away like before. Just don’t avoid me again this time.” 

Though he’s clearly been listening intently, you see his brows furrow and his expression suddenly becomes confused towards the end of your words. “What?” He echoes helplessly after you. “No, I...why would I stop talking to you? That was a long time ago. I won’t do that now, I...” 

“Then just don’t take my heart or something.” You point out, almost like a question as his reaction confuses you similarly. “Anyway, that’s not the point, like I said, I’ll sort it ou—”

“Don’t.” He cuts you off immediately this time with more conviction, shaking his head and suddenly taking your hand. “Don’t sort it out. Don’t make it go away or anything.”  

“What? Why?” 

You’re pulled closer again, Jisung mumbling an incantation to show his ecure under his breath. “Look at mine.” He points out, a pink crystal heart floating over to your upturned palm as he holds onto you by your wrist. “If anything, I should be the one telling you to not take mine on the spot or something.” 

“It’s pink.” You muse out loud in surprise, the warmth of his ecure feeling overwhelming as it floats above your hand. “And it’s for me…?” 

Jisung rolls his eyes at this in disbelief, nodding patiently anyway. “Who else would it be for?” He scoffs gently, making the heart disappear before it could burn your palm. “I don’t know since when it’s been like that, maybe it’s been like that for a long time even I don’t know I’ve only looked at it while Chan and I were at the studio. All I’m sure is that suddenly I was writing a song for you and sacrificing half of my ecure count so you don’t lose easily in the exam and looking out for you and—just, this time it’s me who’s afraid that you’ll run away or disappear for a while if you knew.”

“So don’t...sort it out.” He concludes after unknowingly speaking at such a fast rate, heaving belatedly from this. “I like you now, I like you a lot, and I’m not going to lash out like when we were kids. Take my heart if you want just don’t change your feelings for me, please.” 

There’s a brief pause that follows, the only noise ringing in your ears being the unusually loud beating of your own heart as the two of you freeze in place. Jisung tries waiting as patiently as he visibly can in this silence, puffing air in and out of his lips as he fails at trying to conceal his recurring nervous feelings, while you gaze at anywhere but him because of the heat rising up your neck. 

“Listen…” He speaks up after a while. “I’m sorry, I—”

Fuck it, you think to yourself before stepping forward, shakily cupping his cheeks, and pressing a kiss to his lips. “Don’t say sorry.” You muster up a shy smile in between brief kisses. “You already know that I like you too.” 

bonus epilogue

When you return to the magical realm to the news that Hyunjin won’t be taking his own candidacy exam next year in favor of his own kingdom’s crown, the elders are quick to take your locket and Jisung’s ring to proceed with the final results. Since the decision takes at least 3 days, coupled with the fact that a major complication arose in the 6 months that you were given, Jisung was asked to stay at your castle until the jury could come to a conclusion and crown either one of you. 

The others would also occasionally come and visit (especially Lia who’s mostly kept up with your trip through Yeji and Ryujin) but since confessing to Jisung, the boy has been doing the most trying to sneak you away from everyone and your regular royal duties just to spend more time with you. 

“So this is what you meant with Sunshine?” You ask in the afternoon before the elders would summon you back to the throne room, the two of you hidden away in your favourite greenhouse garden. Today, Jisung has somehow convinced you to ditch a visit to Chan’s family in favor of just sitting on your greenhouse’s cushioned sofas and listening to him hum his songs until your mentors would eventually come looking for you. “Chocolate matcha and your guitar?” 

“Yeah, just a relaxing rest date with your crush.” Jisung points out next to you, his head snuggled into the crook of your neck as much as the guitar in between the two of you could allow him. On your opposite side, his cuddle rival, the quokka plush toy you’ve somehow managed to turn into a life-size pillow today, sits on your lap and occasionally pokes on the end of his guitar. “Why? Do you want to refill your tea? I’ve been getting Felix to teach me this spell to refill tea, you know. I’m getting it but chocolate matcha’s kinda hard to replicate.” 

You shake your head in disbelief with a chuckle, a stark contrast to how you’re internally flustered over the small comment on your favourite tea flavor. “Who said you’re my crush? Bold of you to even assume, Ji…” You pretend to roll your eyes, sinking deeper into the soft cushions behind you. 

“Baby, you’ll be taking those words back when I get crowned tonight.” He pouts, elbowing you gently before shifting to place his guitar on the side. With his hands now free, the prince then resorts to linking his arms with your free one and intertwining your hands together on top of the plush quokka. “If I win, I’ll make sure to banish this quokka first so you’ll be forced to cuddle with only me.” 

“Tch, Felix won you this quokka. You’ll have to duel with him first if you want this gone.” You argue, sliding the quokka closer to him so its face is adjacent to Jisung. “Plus, it kinda looks like you. If I get crowned and you’ll be away doing your own duties back East, I have something of yours.” 

“I think you meant that if I win and you’ll be staying here doing your own duties, you’ll have something of mine.” Jisung huffs pettily. “Maybe we should keep the quokka, after all. You might get lonely if I get busy.” 

You shake your head immediately with a chuckle, leaning more of your weight on his side. “Oh, no, no, no.” You correct teasingly, making him giggle along against your shoulder. “Who said you’re going to win later?” 

“Wanna bet?” He raises a brow and smirks, lifting his head briefly to glance over to you.

You roll your eyes at this, leaning forward to meet his lips. “You’re so competitive, babe. Give it a rest, you know I’ll win anyway.” 

[haddonfieldwhore]

If you don't have too many requests at the moment, may I request Quentin's S/O helping him run away from his dad? I feel like after the freddy incident his dad would be more strict and controlling, to the point where it becomes almost impossible for Quentin to do anything without his dad's permission. And when his dad says that he needs to break up with his S/O, Quentin would be gone by sunrise.

i love the hostile energy towards his dad that lives on my blog. idk if this is headcanons or an imagine or what but i hope it’s what you were looking for! also i didnt edit this really lol so if theres any mistakes im sorry!! <3

cw. shitty parent lol

his dad has never been the most involved in his life, and rather than being more nurturing and trying to be a better parent after badham preschool, he distanced himself from quentin even more

after the events of the movies, he feels like he failed again to protect his son, so i agree that he would be stricter and more controlling

quentin isn't a pushover, and we've seen that he isn't afraid to talk yell back at his father. but i feel like he's just tired of it after all these years, and i feel like after freddy comes back they argue even more since quen is so angry

slamming doors and yelling can be heard often when they’re both home, so quentin starts to leave early for school and stay out later, usually with you or at your place. when his dad really pisses him off, he will just leave a note that he’s spending the night at your place (it happens at least once a week)

so when his dad tells him that he doesn't want him to see you anymore, he is livid, you’re all he has left. he signs quentin up for volunteering and extra curriculars through the school so he has no time to see you, and takes away his car keys

quentin is visibly miserable because of it. he can’t take being away from you this much, only seeing you in the halls and the few classes you have together (and when you sneak in through his bedroom window)h

a week away from his 18th birthday, you suggest that he just runs away, and comes to stay with you at your house. he says yes before you even finish asking 

his dad is furious when he comes home, quen having skipped his after school programs and getting a ride home from you to pack up his things. his dad tries to stop you but it’s no use. no way in hell is quentin gonna put up with this bullshit anymore, and if his dad does/or says anything bad to you? his dad is as good as dead to him

he settles in fast at your place, having spent so much time there already. your family loves him (who wouldn’t) and the only time quentin has to see his father is at school. his dad got the message that there is no separating you two, especially since you’re basically adults now

eventually, you graduate high school and with money saved up from working at the diner or wherever in town, you two move out on your own into an apartment, and never have to worry about his bitchass dad ever again <3 

[evie-the-kiwi]

the discord i sent this to said i should post it. tubbo analysis pog./rp

Description: 5 screenshots of discord messages by user Tubbo Lore On Main {evie}, some of which have reactions attached generally conveying the anguish of their server mates. messages copy pasted/transcribed below:

The Nukes. he is decommissioning them, obviously, as he's said, because he would rather not hurt anybody, but they Work. and it's not some kind of Chekhov's gun, and i'm not saying it is, but it has become a perfectly potential plot point for tubbo to completely fucking obliterate something. Now, tubbo is a distinctly not lore streamer. he doesn't act beyond semi-scripted bits, mostly. when having conversations about semi-in character plans, he'll stick to what his character thinks, but he wont really Act. so i feel as though its possible that people have not caught onto his character's current mental state so we gonna talk about that first. c!tubbo's mental state was, i believe, fundamentally altered by his time as president. of course it was it was a terrible time for him. the creation of the nukes in the first place was for the main purpose of self defense. Everywhere tubbo's ever lived before snowchester has been burned, destroyed, raided, etc. at least tommy's house has stayed and is easy to rebuild. so, obviously, hes gone for the prevention approach.  he knows he can't beat his perceived main threats in pvp. if techno or dream wanted snowchester gone, then it would be. so to compromise, he's created weapons of mass destruction. if you're going to take my home, then i will take yours, but bigger, and Worse, because its the only way he thinks he can be safe, and respected, and Allowed To Live. In his time as president, it was drilled into his head that No one could be trusted. couldn't trust the retirement, nope hes gonna come back, we have to deal with him. can't trust dream, he never actually thought you were any good and only used you to get to tommy and the disks. can't trust quackity, he's repeating the festival. can't trust phil, he's helping techno. lists go on for reasons tubbo should probably not be trusting literally anyone. but he does! but i have 100 characters left. so hold on im not done but new message

Tubbo trusts people because he knows better than to go bitter over betrayal. he's seen firsthand what that does to a person on this server. but he doesn't totally trust anyone. he needs to be able to trust them. so he's nice. and he's kind and lovely just like always, so no one Wants to betray him. but now, if they do? there are consequences. he focuses on dream because he knows that he, personally, hasn't done shit to dream, and if dream does something to him well, that's unprompted, get nuked, but i think tubbo trusts people because while he hasnt threatened anyone, he knows, that they know, that Now? Hurting him has Consequences. you don't get away with fucking with tubbo anymore, because No one can get away with fucking with the dude with the nukes. He genuinely believes i think that him being powerful makes him safe. so thats the explaination of the nukes and Why nukes. moving on to "Aha, i am completely accepting of my death for some plastic my friend wants" and then the. the actual point. we arnt even there yet god

pov you are told consistently by people who you trust and who are your friends and who you thought were your friends that you're Stupid, and Evil, And A Tyrant, And Just Like The Guy Everyone Hated, You Know That Guy? Who Drank Himself To Death And Executed You? Just Like Him, And A Monster, and Less Important Than An Inanimate Object, and A Pushover And A Yes Man And A Follower And A Pawn, now imagine that every angsty fanfic written about that compounded into a full and complete internalized self perception because the amount of those things you were told that have been argued against were,,,, the yes man one, the follower one, and the pawn one. and you might have some proof that you're more important than disks, because you got chosen over them but he still got them back and he still had you go fetch one as soon as everyone was there to protect you. so. who knows. anyways. tubbo is apathetic to his fate because while i dont think he thinks people will be better off, i do think that he's internalized the thought that really, he's not all that important, every choice he makes on his own is evil, apparently, and the rest of the time he's a yes man, so does it matter? it's not like he Wants to die, he'd rather not, but. Since When Was He Important, for anything other than being used to hurt tommy or following someone else's instructions? so that's the Fate Apathy as i see it.

Anyway the Nukes!! the nukes. Why Would Tubbo Set Off A Nuke. the answers are simple and based off of possibility alone. probability plays no role rn. 1. in some way, he is harmed. a given, because that is what the nukes are for. their primary purpose is to prevent the harming of tubbo himself as well as his home and those who live there. 2. the egg problem gets out of hand enough that tubbo feels personally threatened, or that the things and people he cares about are threatened. he's totally willing to nuke the fuck outta the egg i know it. that thing fucks with him, snowchester, or, god forbid, tommy? it's gone. 3. Tommy Dies. do not come for me i will explain. were we speaking of pre-president tubbo, or even president tubbo, this would not be on the list. but we are talking post-president tubbo. post president tubbo who thought he indirectly caused the death of his best friend, who has had everything else he cared about Die or leave him. who doesn't actually seem to care much beyond what's expected of him about things that are not tommy and Maybe ranboo, and Maybe Sort Of Possibly Jack Manifold, and Snowchester. i have not run out of fingers on one hand. just like his own fate, he's apathetic to the fates of most around him. it would be Lovely if they were alive, and it would sorta suck if they died. that's it. he's still friendly with everyone but it's clear from the way he spoke about the nukes that while he doesnt want to hurt anyone, if he has to, he will. it's taken all the worst parts of his original pragmatic viewpoints and given them a weapon of mass destruction and a disregard for his own life. Genuinely, i think that if tommy dies. and he has to die, it cant just be something bad happenign to him tommy wouldnt want him to blow it up. i think that tubbo, having lost his best friend and constant? would raze the server to the ground. tubbo is stable, but in the way a grocery bag is stable. the paper handles will rip off if the weight increases just a lil

i ended that with 0 characters [5:37 PM] im not done hold on [5:37 PM] gonna talk abt jack

Jack. underestimates how shaky tubbo's stability is, and overestimates what it would take to push him over that edge. his hatred of tommy also keeps him from seeing how much tubbo cares about tommy. Again, Tubbo Doesn't Want To Die. but he was Willing, for the disks, a chance for tommy to be happy. he spent what he thought was the last few minutes of his life comforting tommy and telling him that it was okay, and that he would be fine, and that without his tubbo, he's still tommy. "yourself." Jack says he hopes tubbo would be able to get over it, but i know. I'm Sure. he wouldnt. maybe he would have before. as president or before that. maybe he would have kept going and been happy eventually. but now? now, with how he puts tommy over himself, with how little he cares about himself? that would be it. that's the final straw before Full Wilbur. If I cannot Have What I Care About. If I Cannot Have What I Love. No One Can. [5:47 PM] AND ITS DONE IM DONE [5:47 PM] thank you for coming to my ted talk i will be here all week, there are drinks in the lobby-

[crosswindtakeoff]

I'm bored as fuck drop your salt about v&tsk

Oh jeez... fandomwise or canonwise?

I don't think there's much I can say canonwise that hasn't already been said. All the characters of color are based off of vaguely racist stereotypes (I.E. Yong being the "Jinx Asian character") and stuff like that, all complaints of which I agree with.

But uh, oh man, fandomwise? Jesus where do I begin.

How about varigo interpretations?

I just think, imo, I've seen a lot of people portray them in a way that just... rubs me the wrong way as a gay man. I really hate the stereotype of "smaller guy is big pushover and so easily flustered and uwu shy" and then "bigger/taller guy is flirty and strongk and an asshole but its ok because its hot♡"

I actually don't see this as often as I thought I would, but im assuming that's because I tend to stick to people in my own friend circle for varigo content, but that doesn't mean I haven't ran into it.

Varian's not shy and he's not a pushover, like holy shit I can not emphasize the enough, if Hugo said any of the "uber hot flirty" lines half the people write Varian getting flustered by, he would have bodyslammed Hugo in 10 seconds flat.

There's just something so stupid about the idea of Hugo being an overly flirty guy who pushes boundaries and doesn't respect personal space or romantic advances and thats... thats supposed to be attractive? No.

I mean, I know most of the characters have vague personalities so there's not exact way to write them in-character except Varian. He is literally the most fleshed out from tangled the series and from what we've seen, he's clever, insightful, and oh my god he is stubborn. There is just no way in hell he'd lay down and take flirting from some random dude.

One thing I still don't get about people writing him as a push-over even after season three is... Yeah in season three, he was a damsel in distress a lot, but he... still had a lot of moments of sass... Did you. Guy's not. Watch the show?

Are you willfully ignoring character traits so it can be """sexy"""?

They tend to reduce Varian to a weird push-over which is. The opposite of his character. He's a sassy dude who may have a hard time turning people down do to maybe past situations,, he's still not going to lay down and let Hugo push him around.

People are very much too worried about what is "sexy" in mlm ships than what's healthy.

Also Varian literally spent so much of tts having trusts issues aeound his dad and raps and everyone and then unhealthy relationships of manipulation around the saporians. I just think he should have a healthy relationship with trust and communication and not just. "Mmm haha flirt sexy"

Also I just. CALL ME CRAZY but I think portraying all mlm as "hot flirty guy who pushes boundaries" and "person who finds being pushed around and abused sexy" is... bad. Like. Its just bad. Wtf yall.

Thats about it for varigo but one more thing that bugs me abt the fan base is like. People arguing over 7k being Canon or not.

Like. People get excited and thats fine but then there's people who are like... idk I don't wanna be mad at them bc I know they're trying to help and like. Tell people not to get their hopes up, but I promise saying "its probably not gonna happen" doesn't. Do anything. It just seems kinda mean tbh.

Like yeah idk maybe its not maybe it is happening idc at this point, let people be happy with their own things and if it ends up not being canon they can find out on their own. Like who cares just leave it alone idk lol.

Kind also ties into a lot of tts fans that dislike complaining abt 7k posts showing up in the tts tag... like. Just. Mute 7k or vat7k or whatever???? There is a mute button on tumblr dot com you can use it. I promise you will not die of annoyance because tumblr use Hugospubichair69420 posted another varigo drawing in the tts tag. If its not depicting abusive or legitimately harmful content then like. Keep scrolling.

Idk sorry my brain scrampled egg and I could word this more eloquently if I tried but I wont.♡

[hazel-of-sodor]

By late 1950 the Ffarquhar branch was straining under its work load, as the population of its cities had grown, the mines were prdoucing more than ever, and new industries were being built. Although new engines had been bought for the branchline, the workload was still overwhelming them. To make matters worse, the four coffeepot locomotives were on their last legs, and British Rails had denied permission to overhaul them. STH approached BR for a suitable engine to assist the Ffarquhar, but they responded that they'd already gave the NWR as many engines as they could spare, but gave Crovan's Gate permission to build an engine for the work. 

Finished in 1951, Eric was an impressive sight, if Thomas was the branches premier passenger engine, this would be the equivalent freight locomotive. Based on Thomas (a modified J72), Eric was an 0-6-2 tank engine. His longer frame and traileing bogey allowed for a larger boiler and firebox, great coal and water storage, and a far greater tractive effort. His tests were successful, and was officially designated BR number 69029. However, mere days after he was steamed, Thomas got into trouble with a police man for not having side plates and a steam tram named Toby was purchased, taking Erics intended role.

Instead, he was sent to the Arlesburgh branchline. The line ran up the west coast of Sodor from Tidmouth to Arlesburgh . With the Arlesdale mines closed, the line only had light fish trains and passanger service at the time, so Eric was the only engine required. He was often sent to help the Ffarquhar during its peak season, with the mainline engines covering his absence, but the long momths of isolation left his lonely. 

In 1964 the line was revitalized with the rebuilding of West Arlesburgh Harbor, with more work and more engines to arrive, but Eric had been alone on the line for too long to be excited at the prospect, and asked (BEGGED) to be posted anywhere else. A few days later Duck arrived after hearing of the Arlesdale railway, and fell in love with the branch. STH agreed to the switch and, after a week of training Duck on the Branch, Eric took over as Pilot at Knapford.

Used to the weeks of solitude on the Arlesburgh, Eric is a quite but friendly engine.  Many engines and trucks have mistaken this quietness as meekness, but quickly found a a spine of steel lay underneath. Any engine capable of running a branch by themselves for over a decade with no accidents is no pushover. He considers Thomas sibling, and the two often argue whisch is the big brother. 

“Im older than you!” 

“But Im still the bigger engine.”

He was orginally painted in BR lined black, but after working with Duck in 64, he asked if he could be painted the same green, but with NWR Lining. He kept his BR number after the NWR left British Rails, but the BRITISH RAILWAYS on his tanks was replaced with NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY.

4 notes

[vivinightingale]

ok so we’ve already established that im an absolute simp (& sucker 🥺) for joey wheeler, but i love all my bois so can we pls get some hcs w/ the main DM bois with a vv short s/o? like REALLY short? like less than 5 feet? (im 4”10 so idek if im shorter than Yugi so 🤧🤚) also do you do matchups? and if so, are they open?? thanks love!! 💗

Yes! I do match ups, and yes they are open so feel free to submit! 💕💕

This one goes to all my smol readers I love you guys 💕💕💕

Yugi Muto:

He isn’t gonna lie having an S/O who’s smaller then him is the best thing ever to him (he likes to feel tall)

He loves leaning down to kiss you, or how your the perfect height to lay your head on his chest as he holds you.

Maybe it because you shorter then him,but he is also very protective of you. It’s all that bad, but please remind him that you’ll be okay or it will get worse.

If you wear them he really loves dress and skirts on you, when you twirl in them has him high key wanting you, but to be fair anything you wear that makes you feel confident makes him high key want you.

He just really loves you okay??

You guys are cutest short couple. Teá and Mai squeal an coo about the two of you. (Usually end up with you and yugi huffing at the two of them)

He has you in his phone as shortcake 🍰💕

The cutest cuddly couple 10/10 best of the best

Yami/Atem:

He doesn’t care how tall or short you are, it’s the kindness in your heart that has him ALL over you.

Because he has touched anyone in almost 5000 years or so he loves holding you, and keeping you close. His favorite is wrapping his arms around you from behind as he lays his head on top of yours.

Much like his counterpart he loves being able to lean down and kiss you. To him he gets to see you pretty face at a better angle.

He is also very protective of you he will pull you into his arm and use his body as shield. He just got you he doesn’t want anything to take you from him.

Not gonna lie but the confidence you show during duels is the thing that makes him high key want you. Just look at you and the fire in your eye just 👌

Unlike with yugi, teá and mai don’t coo at your relationship, but they love it just seeing how loving he is to you has them sighing at romantic it is

He has you in his phone 👑Queen🥰

Adorable dueling couple 10/10 would watch every duel

Joey Wheeler:

He has to litterly has to stop himself from constantly picking you up cuddling you. So needless to say he LOVES having a smaller S/O .

Honestly he is one that will give the cute short nicknames lil angel, nugget, Chibi, shorty, and shortcake.

He loves being able to pick you, hold you close, and pepper all kinds of kisses all over your face. See how red your face get makes him want to do it more.

He knows you can protect yourself, but there are times when he feels the need to protect you.

When you argue with Seto, and put him his place that is when he high key wants you. Just seeing with spark in your eyes as your prove to Seto that your deck is just as good as his. He’s gotta stop himself tbh

Yours and Joey relationship is a little bit of cutesy, with a lot of silliness, and some sass it honestly makes everyone laugh at you guys antics.

Has you in his phone as lil sass 💕😂

Funniest sass couple 10/10 would laugh for hours with you guys

Tristan Taylor:

The work out couple has arrived! He is the boyfriend that will lift you up and let’s you sit on his bicep as he flexs.

Because you don’t two compete in duel monsters like everyone else you compete to see do the most push ups, sit ups etc

He loves it when you sit in his back as he does push ups, and you count for him, or when you hang off his arm when he is trying to show off.

Oh he KNOWS you can protect yourself (sometimes you end up saving him), but he tries anyway and it adorable.

As much as he loves doing those things with he absolutely loves it when you wear cutesy things. The adorable look you give him when you cling to his arm in your cute attire has him high key wanting you.

Has you in his phone as little power house💪😍

Cute power couple 10/10 would cheer you guys on

Duke Devlin:

Dungeon dice monster tag team champs! You’re cocky attitude mixed with his is honestly a fan favorite among the crowds.

Your vast height difference is also a favorite among your fans. When you two win he picks you up spins you around and peppers kisses all over your face.

You two play fight a lot, and he loves it because at the end of the fight he is always on top, and it usually ends up as something more.

Duke is the protective type so even if he knows you can protect yourself he still wants to be there for you.

Shorts are this man weakness so anytime you want to get a rise out of him wear them, and watch this man squirm

He has you in his phone as baby cakes 🎂😋

The flirty couple that has each other’s back 10/10 would stick around long but love you guys anyway

Seto Kaiba:

Hhhoooooo boy you better climb this giraffe boi, cause let me tell you he is tall boi, and you may or may not look like a child next to him.

Because you are only slightly taller then Mokuba a lot of people mistaken as one of siblings. One day out of frustration you pulled him down kisses him roughly and told everyone you were his s/o NOT his sibling.

He loves how well you bond with mokuba, and how you treat him as your own kin. Even as going as far is stopping people from kidnapping him. (You short it’s easier for you to bust knee cap)

When he isn’t around you will have at least 1 bodyguard just for his own peace of mind.

You know what makes him high key want you? (Dressing as a blue eyes) beating him in a duel and taking control. Seto has been control all his life so having someone who is willing to take control for him is a nice change of pace.

He has you in his phone as (y/n)

10/10 best fierce business couple, would watch you got it with joey

Bakura Ryou:

He doesn’t care about your height as long as you have big heart to match your beauty, and he can cuddle you.

Most of the girls who still tried to gain I his attention in high school are trying now and they are all HELLA jealous of you, but the two of you don’t care cause you two are in your own little world.

More times then not people can find you guys tangled up in each other. Wheather it be hand holding, or you guys cuddling you two are always with one another.

He knows he isn’t much of a fighter, but he would do anything if it means protecting you.

The thing that high key gets him going is when try to stand on your tippy toes to kiss him. You are just too adorable he can’t resist.

He has you in his phone as My love 😍💖

10/10 I’ve become diabetic with how sweet you guys are

Yami Bakura:

Get ready to be picked on by this man, cause trust me he may love, but that isn’t stop him from picking on you.

Shorty, small fry, and tiny are some of his favorites to call you. He will also use as an arm rest when he stands next to you because he like the rise he gets out of you.

You aren’t a pushover though and that’s what he loves the best. That temper of yours is what drives him to be ass.

Look he may pick on you but anyone else DARES talks bad about you he will most definitely send someone to the shadow realm no hesitation.

When you two go at or when your going at it with someone else is what has him high key wanting you. I’m telling you it’s the temper

If he has a phone your under Fireball 🔥

10/10 don’t want to be around cause he might yell at me but I’m rooting for you boo

Marik Ishtar:

Okay I have to say it. Traveling is expensive so I can see you two being the couple where he tell the waitress you his little sister and just the right age for the half price kids meals.

He loves how well you fit in front him while the two of you travel on his motorcycle. It’s a sure way he knows your okay.

The boy has been through a lot, and for as long as he could remember he has always felt alone so your presence alone is what keeps those dark thoughts away.

He is also a protector so he would fight ANYONE for you.

What really get him high key wanting you is when get on the bike with shorts and a tank top. Like wooooo guess you guys are staying in town for a couple days.

Has you in his phone as sunshine☀️💛

10/10 best traveling couple good luck in your travels!

Yami Marik:

Also one of those one where he will make fun of your height, but still keeps you close like his life depends on it.

He tries to be mean and rude to you, but your kindness just snuffs it all out and he ends huffing as he holds you his head on top of yours.

He likes the quiet moments away from everyone else because if they saw how weak he was for you, you would be a HUGE target.

He would send anyone to the shadow realm if they so much as look at your wrong.

The thing that gets him when you sit on his lap, and pretend your in charge. You short stature just really get him going.

If he has a phone your under Small fry 🍟

10/10 you guys are mix but I love it all the same