#and will absolutely be edited as time goes on
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
oh my god i know it has been literal ages since this came out and i said i was gonna read it, but i finally am today!!! i’m literally so excited el you have absolutely no clue!! ^^ of course i had to show out for my fellow evil, off-putting, and weird girls!!! (っ˘з(˘⌣˘ )♡♡
as usual, my live commentary and review hehe!!~~ (and prepare yourself for quite literally the longest review i think ive ever made lmao)
You’re not sure what life in your small town was like before you were born. You can imagine it’s not too different from what it is now though. — small town girlies stand up!!! but omg i didn’t look at the tags so i’m only going based off what i read in the teaser ages ago but i’m already loving the setting hehe!! freaky shit always goes down in a small town
And too many churches to keep track of if the abandoned ones were included in the count. — there literally always are churches fucking everywhere omg… like just thinking about my own town there’s literally one on every corner, abandoned or not. christianity is quite literally hovering over you at every step of the way here
You like to think your parents were happy before you too. — oop… she’s already sounding like me… completely felt this
The day you were born, your father knew there was something greatly wrong with you. He claimed that on the day you ripped your mother open, screaming and crying, that God spoke to him for the first time. He called it divine intervention. Believing the birth of your soul was a red-herring of all that was set to come but God would show him the light, the truth: that you were nothing short of evil and needed saving. — this paragraph omg… i love it so much. already it sets the dynamic that mc is gonna have not only with her parents but with others AND it sets the tone of the beginning of the fic. her father literally saying that the birth of her soul was a “red-herring” is absolutely insane and darksided to say about your own child. like what???
man i already feel for her😭 like i’m only what? like five paragraphs in and BOOM her dad thinks she’s the antichrist and needs the light of god to save and guide her.. this poor girl😭😭 i can only imagine what her life was like
That year on the farm there was nothing but death. — the crops and animals on the farm felt her aura from her mom’s womb
parents so stupid that it never crossed their minds that there was most likely a plight
Before you were even conscious of the situation everything was already deemed your fault. — classic parenting
And somewhere along the way, he managed to start preaching himself. Nearly every christian in your town moved churches to follow where he went. Like sheep to a shepherd. — oh god. please do NOT let this man preach… he’s gonna turn it into a cult day one (future kipo here again, i’m editing this bottom to top lmao: but wait omg were you inspired by maxxxine while writing this?? because this is reminding me so much of her and her father (and their whole relationship in general)! if not, you should definitely check the movie out, i think you’d really like it!!!)
AYEEE WAKE UP IN DAY ONEEE☝️ … sorry about that it’s 2am… i gotta lock in and be more serious
If only they knew what you did, what he was truly like behind the closed doors of your home. How his devotion was turning to violence. Day by day, becoming uglier. — classic parenting again
can i just take a moment to say how i absolutely love and adore your writing el?? like seriously, it’s so beautiful. every word you string together to create the most perfect sentence that eventually leads to the most stunning tapestry is astonishing. you’re able to set the tone so easily and the way you establish your characters and the personalities with just a few words is mind boggling. like we haven’t even technically met mc thus far, and already you can get a sense of who she is just by word of mouth from others. you can tell how her home life might’ve shaped her simply by her telling us what happened around her—her birth, the decline in everything, the abuse of religion and violence. it’s truly wonderful, i need to get on your level!!! like seriously i need you to teach some classes or something for the rest of us over here with our jaws tumbling down the stairs
like even the word choices… her birth being described as the day she “ripped her mother open” … like omg i’ll stop glazing now but i need you to publish a book like yesterday!!!
While your father busied himself with his new found family, often away from home on the farm, the crops and animals began to thrive again. Slowly but surely, growing and regaining health. He would say it’s God’s doing, a small taste of His salvation. — did he ever consider that maybe he is the problem??? like sir.. if everything is thriving while you’re gone and decaying when you’re here, that’s not because of your daughter, that’s because of YOU!!! classic toxic parent wanting to blame their own actions on their child
speaking of, and i know i haven’t even really gotten to the story yet lmao please stick with me😭😭 but i’m really loving the way you allude the death and decay and the abuse of religion to how toxic parents are in real life. like how the praying to god and preaching clearly biased and wrong teachings can be synonymous with how a toxic parent will act like everyone but themselves are the problem, and then spew that same rhetoric to others outside of the household. then have the nerve to portray how they’re perfect, how their family is perfect. how when the dad leaves the farm thrives, but when he’s here it decays. it’s like how when a toxic parent leaves everything is finally still and peaceful and quiet, but when they return, so does all of that chaos and negative energy.
now i could just be reading into things a little too much, and it possibly could just be taken at face value lmao, but it’s still a neat little detail to think about!! and i love that hehe
They wanted someone else to be their baby. Something that felt more like a blessing than you. — damn this just hit like a fucking train and a loaded truck immediately after
Your father constantly spitting in your mother’s face that you were the rot to the fruit of her womb. — god this sentence… so beautiful but so heartbreaking…
Perhaps just born resilient. — she’s just a kid💔💔
How you were mean, rough, and sinister with your actions towards others. Picking on the kids you were simply interested in because of how different from you they were. Drawing pictures of gutted cattle or dead, half developed baby chicks still in their shell and giving them as gifts to the teachers. Sharing to classmates the cruelty of farm life and why it was pretty with a smile. — cruelty is learned!!☝️
Sometimes you had a glimpse of it again when your father would punish you. But even that you grew sick of. The mess, the stench of it all. Sticky and red, worse in the heat of summer. He drilled the sick moto for his actions into your head, “I know no punishment, only mercy.” — this poor girl… all she knows is violence and destruction
A way to learn how to be human. — stop this is breaking my heart omfg..
kill the father. i am so serious. kill him now.
“god told me—” SHUT THE FUCK UPP‼️‼️‼️
Maybe all your father really was is the executioner. — woah… oh my god…
the whole sacrificial tree scene with the bible verse.. this man is truly insane to think he is the hand of god.. like who bathes their daughter in sacrificial lamb blood because she had hopes and dreams of living a regular, normal human life?? because she dreamed of the world outside of the farm and the negativity that surrounded it, especially when her father was there??? like goddd i just want strangle him. and then her mother… like i know she’s a victim in this too, but at some point you have to grow a fucking backbone and protect your child—your ONLY child. she’s a coward and he’s fucking insane
AND THEN THE WHOLE “i know no punishment, only mercy.” LINE HE FUCKING INSTILLS INTO HER??? like no wonder she feels and thinks that she’s some freak of nature, some rotting limb… free her… no like seriously girl get behind me and i’ll take care of it all
He hits like a bitch, you think. — hell fucking yeah he does!!! HIT THAT BITCH BACK!!!!!
You can feel him wipe his bloodied hand on the side of your shirt. — oh fuck you.. take the nearest rock and bash his head in
At the end of the line is a man more beautiful than the ones you’ve seen in the movies. You feel stuck in time, left with parted lips, staring at the man before you. And far too intently for your character. He stands tall, sharp, pale, and elegant. — SUNGHOONNNNNNN
You don’t even realize the small smile that takes your lips. You step closer to him and he steps back, now looking at you with wide eyes of small fear. You extend your hand to him, it’s coated in drying blood. He gulps and the sight, his adam’s apple bobbing in such a biteable neck stirs something in you. This will be far more fun than you intended. — she is literally just like me
Your mother eyes you suspiciously as you corner the handsome man, but she says nothing. Sometimes she fears you too. — god forbid a girl is socially underdeveloped and wants to have a little fun!!!
this is reminding me of the time my mom and sister were talking about how much of a loner i am right in front of me (i know, embarrassing😭) and my mom legit goes “well you’re socially undeveloped and don’t have any friends, how else do you expect to spend your time? (the topic was me being a homebody and always in my room reading)” i was like oh! … like damn… well who’s fault is that??? not mine!! 😭😭
His politeness must be stronger than his frighteness, because he takes his hand in yours and shakes it gently. His hand is large in yours, nearly covering it entirely. You squeeze it hard, your eyes never leaving his, trapping him in the scene. — and so their love story begins hehehehe but no seriously i love that this is kinda like him “crossing the line” so to speak. like despite everything he still took her hand, bloody and all, and shakes it gently. i can tell that he’s already gonna be that change and stable pole that she really needs right now
#StartMakingMenUncomfortable2025 🔥🔥🔥🔥
And you know he’s nervous under your intense gaze because your hand feels like a lamb is still bleeding above you. — stop i love this comparison omg you’re actually a genius for this
Although you’re wearing the lamb, having Sunghoon’s hand in yours made you feel like a wolf. — THIS LINEEEEE 🔥🔥🔥
WAIT OMG WE’RE GETTING HIS POV TOO??? omg let’s fucking go i love dual pov
As the farm owner is about to give details on the horses’ maintenance, a girl saunters in. And the anxious feelings become of Sunghoon all over again. — stop i love that we get his pov for this moment
His expression is blank, blinking slowly at the strange girl then down to his hand that’s stained red too. — mark of the red-herred soul 🌀🌀‼️
Above the fireplace hangs a painting depicting Jesus healing a blind man. — i feel like this may be relevant later… maybe i’m “the curtains are blue to represent sadness”-ing everything too much, but i got my analytical reader goggles on (future kipo: omg i literally forgot about this.. i could really deep it and say that this is the two of them, her as jesus and sunghoon as the blind man. she “heals” him and shows him that human desire isn’t sinful, that love in general—no matter the form—is sinful, but natural. and that he shouldn’t feel shame and guilt because he feels the way regular humans do for others!!!! and vice versa!! it could also be him as jesus and her as the blind man, him “healing” her and showing her that she IS good, no matter what her parents tried to beat into her for simply living. he shows her that she is capable of love and joy and everything else that equates to happiness—and he shows her that he isn’t afraid to express that to her. to show that he does truly love her for all she is!!! and to “show” her that it’s okay for her to show it to him to herself, that it isn’t something she needs to repress or hide behind anger or any other violent act!!)
i love the fact that she’s just toying with him😭😭 he’s utterly terrified of her and she’s all like “hehe you’re so cute and shy”
“You have a constellation on your face. So many moles… Do you have a girlfriend?” — straight to the point😭 but stop her saying he has a constellation on his face is so freaking cute
“At your age you still follow the rules?” Your hand slides lower and back up his thigh, it’s a slow and teasing motion. There’s enjoyment in how scared he’s becoming. — we are so up i’m at the edge of my seat leaning in towards the stage
“Then why are you getting hard, Sunghoon? Do you like the way I’m touching you? I bet you’ve thought about doing this before too.” — oop!
He makes another noise, a whimper. — i love it when pretty men whimper >>>
There’s too much he can’t admit in this moment. Starting with how he enjoys the sound of your voice, the slight accent and dialect difference he picks up. How the way his name leaves your lips makes him want to crumble like a burning church. And how he silently likes the fact he can’t control the way his body is reacting to your hands on him. It’s all wrong, wrong, wrong. And he is weak. — OH WE ARE SO FUCKING UPPP
A single tear runs down his face and you find satisfaction in it. — I LOVE WHEN PRETTY MEN CRYYYYY >>>>>>
this must be what it feels like to do 47 lines of coke IM ON TOP OF THE WORLDDDD
His eyes shoot open when he feels your hand is gone. He looks at you desperately with wet eyes, a small pout to his lips. You make him feel sick for wanting to ask why you stopped, or if he did something bad for you to take away his short-lived pleasure. You smirk at his expression, so pitifully beautiful with want. — INJECT ITTTTTT‼️‼️‼️
i think this is the greatest scene i’ve ever read in my entire life. like i NEEDDDDD this. like i need someone so desperate with want for me to give them a handjob and help them out that they’re whimpering and tearful… ugh life is so unfair
love her curious and violent nature she’s so me
You wrap your free arm over his shoulders, a hand sneaking up into his hair to tug aggressively on the thick dark locks. You’re pulling his head back, forcing him to look at you. “Don’t be a whore. I’m helping you. I didn’t say fuck my hand.” — yeah
sorry I’M a whore for degradation and roughness
You don’t like how close he is to you. You only like doing so to tease him, but when he does it, it makes you feel a fiery anger in your chest and belly. Uncomfortable. Smothering. — SHES SOOO ME. at this point i’m gonna have to start a counter on how many times i’ll say this
You stare down at your hand that was earlier covered in the blood of a lamb and now the cum of a virgin. — one could say it’s one and the same ☝️
It looks like fucking snot, you realize with repulse. — HELPDNSJDNDNDN I LITERALLY JUST BURST OUT LAUGHING😭😭😭😭
“Hate him all ya want,” your mothers words slur, she speaks slowly and tired-like, “but he was a good man. He used to love me… And then you came along.” — smile quickly fades…
He fell right into sin’s lustful trap and it made him feel so- — so GOOD, take a leap and join the dark side
He doesn’t sleep much that night because he can’t find it in himself to stop humping into his mattress in hopes to chase and achieve the feeling you gave him earlier. His hips rock his aching hard cock into the bed, anguished yet titillated. “Please, forgive me. Forgive me. I’m so sorry.” He continues to cry, drowning in his pillow, knowing he will do it again. — smile grows…
omg i forgot that it was legit his first day at the farm.. LMAOOOO what a wild first shift😭😭
“I want you.” — hell yeah
There’s that feeling again. The lit match that falls from your throat to the gasoline of your stomach that erupts in flames. Fire to your abdomen and loins; it’s an angry feeling, sparked by his honest admit of want, and for you specifically. You watch him with narrowed eyes while mumbling, “you revolt me.” — also, she’s so me once again. it’s her mistaking the same desire for anger that’s killing me😭😭 i felt that so deeply.
He breathes out a ‘no’ while you lick a strip over the material. “Why not? I showed you how.” — i just know he’s going absolutely insane
“You will never be free from it. The sin I let you taste will forever linger on the tip of your tongue, begging and licking to taste more in crave. No holy blessed water can possibly cleanse you even if you drown in it.” — woah… i’m gonna start singing your praises again el oh my god
“Not even a god could make you pure again,” you give him a small smile and pat his naked thigh before pulling down his underwear. — HEATTTT all this while she’s about to suck his cock too like yesss send them into religious psychosis before giving them immense pleasure!!!
You slurp and suck him up, purposely loud and sloppy. A hand jerking off the base that doesn’t quite fit in your mouth. He cries quietly with his mouth open, meek and desperate sounds escape that he can’t withhold. “Please…” He’s whimpering, begging for something that he doesn’t know the context of. — i hope they walk in and have their worlds changed
His cock twitches at the thought of being caught with his dick down the throat of the farmer’s daughter. A blazing adrenaline rushes through him. — EXHIBITIONIST🫵‼️‼️
“You dumbass! The horses are already fed, let’s just go for a water break.” The door slams back on itself to a close. Their footsteps can be heard walking away. — damn :(
Sunghoon, lost in his own world, fails to realize that his best friend—Jake—battles something similar internally. — oh????
You’re never as alone as you think you are if you take a better look around. Everyone is riddled with their own self disgust, guilt, or shame. How else would the churches be so full? — woah… this paragraph…
While he’s watering plants and checking the sprinklings through the fields, an older man approaches him. It’s a familiar face that he’s seen around a few times over the past month. The man waves with a smile and Sunghoon does the same. — can someone run him over already
“I’ve worked here, hm, well I’ll be damned! Nearly 15 years! And I’ve never once seen that farm girl talk to anyone. Much less spend time.” the man chuckles. — oh my bad😭😭 i thought this was the father😭😭😭
He wheezes a little before continuing, “But now she follows and watches you like she’s worshipin’. If only she did the same with her daddy. Although with a face like yours, I can’t blame the girl.” — fuck that damn daddy i can’t to see his ass burn🔥🔥🔥 but he’s so right sunghoon is stunning id worship him too
“She has a dad?” — HDISBSJDJS IM SORRY THIS IS TAKING ME OUTBSDJDJDND like of course??? 😭😭 did he think she materialized from her mother like clay or something
With outstretched arms, the bundle of flowers shake in his trembling hands. — AWEEEE he’s so fucking cute and awkward
“I-I’ve never had a girlfriend before so I wasn’t sure what to do.. This is what boyfriends do, right?” — oh baby…. oh my godd😭😭😭😭😭 i feel for him i really do…
You look from the neatly wrapped white roses and tulips and back to Sunghoon. — i love the language of flowers hehehe!!! purity and innocence and hope and appreciation eeeee!!!!!!!! he’s so cute.. and he GIVES it to HER!!!!!!! i’m connecting dots
A part of you wants to sneer, but you spin on your heels to hide the warmth that floods your face in substitution. — EEEEEEEEE!!!!!
You don’t know how you’re remaining pacific by his side. The rampaging of your heart strings tug like a screaming instrument just from being next to him. How he can keep walking tall, stare at you when he thinks you aren’t looking, or even smile at you is beyond what you know is capable of humans. Men like him only existed in books and movies. You wonder if he’s perhaps playing a game like you. — her equating everytime to anger or violence when it’s in fact endearment and love :((( my poor baby :(((((
So you decide on punishing him for making you feel this way. — she’s so me
Taking his innocence was never going to heal you, or even make him like yourself. In fact, it’s making you sicker. — :(((
Somehow, you ended up punishing yourself. You always had a knack for that, historically, but this time felt different. — again, she’s so fucking me
He feels on edge, wrapping his arms around his shivering body and soaked clothes. — he’s about to get warm alright
A glass vase filled with the flowers he gave you earlier in the week. His heart aches at the sight of the still healthy white roses and tulips, and a smile graces his lips. You liar! You kept them! Is what runs through his thoughts. — EEEEEEE OH MY GOD stop i’m obsessed with them
To him, this moment means more than anything; he’s starting to see you’re more tender than you realize. It brings him a sense of surety in knowing that he can break you like you to do him. — to be loved is to be known ❤️
But there was Saint Michael, the stuffed angel bear; he may not have defended you in battle but he hugged you back, and that was enough to cherish him like a deity. — literally me with my stuffed white bear that has a winter hat an scarf on
“...Have I ruined you?” You wonder aloud, looking back to the ceiling. “No,” he answers quickly, shaking his head against your shoulder. — WHAT IF I FUCKING SOBBBBB
“I think I just want you all the time now. I can’t help it, m’sorry.” He sounds ashamed in his soft mumbles. — i’m gonna rip my hair out
“I’ll only keep stripping all that purity from you. Once it’s mine it’ll remain mine, you know that right?” You look back at him before brushing some of his drying hair from his eyes. He tries to lean up into the touch but your hand is taken back. “And I will pretend it’s healing all that’s missing from me. Do you really want to be mine, Sunghoon?” Your words are so gentle yet laced with threat. — 1. she’s SOOO fucking me, like on a molecular level. it’s insane. 2. AHHHHEHEHEHEHDHSHHHHHAAHHH
“Yes,” he exhales, “I want to be yours. Let me be yours please.” It’s hushed, a secret prayer with hope. His hips push further into the skin of your leg, where the hip meets the thigh. He wouldn’t mind going to Hell if it meant more time with you. — OH MY GODDDD EVERYONE FUCKING STAY CALM
this is reminding me of the sweet venom lyrics😭😭 i would give up heaven if i had toooooo, just to get another taaaasssttteeeeeee of your sweee-heee-heeeettttt venom-nom-nom~~~~ (future kipo here: why do i always start randomly singing in the middle of my reviews??? 😭)
“You beg like a needy barn animal in heat.” You use a hand to cup his face, he sighs into the hold as he eyes flutter to a close. You push your leg in between his, terribly close to his exposed and vibrating body. “So hump me like one.” — oh my god. what a great day to be bisexual…
no but seriously i see why he goes fucking insane around her like i would too especially after that like omg??? say less
“Do it. Like it’s mating season and you want to claim me before anyone else.” — #YEAH.
He wants more and more of you. — i fucking love how they both want to devour and rapture each other but in vastly different ways… like i desperately need what they have IMMEDIATELY.
“You’re pathetic and disgusting. You’re practically fucking me through our clothes,” you murmur while you try to push his hands down off you, but his grip won’t let up. Instead his nails dig further into you, a barely sounding broken noise escapes you from the pain. This makes his body collapse further into you, his head dropping between your shoulder and neck. His movements are sloppy and rushed. — need.
“N-no, I’m still good. You make me feel good, I am so good,” he whines, tears beginning to fall from his eyes to your shoulder. — NEEDDDDD.
OH MY GODDDDD.
His heart hammers against your chest; he wants to mold into you, to become a singular rot. — like is this seriously too much to ask for
It’s almost like God’s wrath is screaming to be seen, to shout that He is watching. — tell him to get in line so am i
“You’re right. You are good for me,” you coo softly, cupping his face and using your thumbs to wipe away the tears. Your hips circle and swivel slowly on him until his quivering cock finishes cumming. — i love how he cries every single time like ughhhh i need that
You think it would kill you to admit how much you actually always wished to be wanted, needed, or loved. A bigger part of you didn’t think you were worthy of it, let alone capable. The world had such a way of saying otherwise. Until it brought Sunghoon to you; the boy who showed you feelings and experiences you never thought possible. — i felt this in unexplainable ways omg… but the fact that she thought she was so unworthy of it all because it’s literally all she known, thinking that even the world was against her until BOOM… it places sunghoon gently into her hands to show her otherwise… like stop guys what if i cried haha no like actually. what if i cried. and not only does he show her that love doesn’t have to be violent or angry, he shows her that it doesn’t have to be completely conventional either, or traditional. yet, it’s love anyways!! like this story man my god.. el you are such a fucking mastermind and i love you!!!!!
“I think you reminded me of a lamb.” — blue curtaining again, but let’s talk about it!!! the lamb has always been symbolized to be that of pure innocence, which is how sunghoon is portrayed from the very jump. because of that, they are also the number one animal used in sacrifices for various things. at the beginning of the story, her father uses a sacrificial lamb and it’s blood to “cleanse” her of whatever darkness that he thinks harbors in her. it’s the first time we’ve truly seen her voice her emotions and empathy—the first time we see her not mold herself to whatever image her father superimposed onto her, when looking up into the lambs eyes.
immediately after she meets sunghoon, still covered in the lamb’s blood, and something about him draws her in, his eyes. now, since that interaction, she’s been trying to strip the purity from him and keep it all for herself. sound familiar? she’s once again doing the one thing that’s been ingrained in her from the very beginning—following her father’s orders and “teachings.” everytime it happens, sunghoon cries and she compares it to holy water and metaphorically tries to “bathe” in it, hence why she keeps doing what she does to him again and again.
but!!!!!!! but, sunghoon is different, he’s no ordinary lamb!!!! despite what she thinks. she says herself, “Pretty, white, and docile. You were so nervous when I first saw you—sometimes you still are. … When you shook my hand I knew I could do anything to you because you’d let me.” yet time after time in each of their interactions he challenges this theory, this notion of hers. they start off slow and as their relationship grows, so does the challenges. leaning his head against her on the couch, holding her head in place, until finally pinning her below him. she challenges him, he challenges her. and it’s perfect because it’s just the balance that they both desperately crave, it’s exactly why they can’t stay away from each other no matter what. why they both start to bloom when around each other. it’s truly lovely and beautiful!!!!
the lamb is majority seen as purity and innocence, hope, and renewal. but, there another thing it’s symbolized with that people always seem to forget—redemption. and redemption being a large theme in this story in a way, it just makes it hit soooo much harder omg!!! and also, depending on which type of lamb you encounter, not all are the poster for friendliness and being docile. take bottle lambs or hand-reared ram lambs, they’re the most aggressive out of the bunch with no fear of being aggressive towards humans nor their shepherds. being a lamb is not completely as it seems!!
sorry i got like really into the symbolism lmao😭😭 let’s just say i’m passionate!! 🤓☝️ (and i could also very possibly be wrong LMAOXNDNDN)
“You think I’m pretty?” He smiles wide, scooting closer to you. You scoff with an eye roll, leaning further away from him. “Oh shut up, you’ve seen a mirror.” — HELPFNDNDN i’m gonna start saying this
going back briefly to my blue curtaining, but like this scene is the perfect example of it!! like look at how they literally bloom in each other’s presence!!!!! she legit even laughs for the first time in the whole entire story!!! she’s been in a way using him to try and purify herself, take that innocence that he has and superimpose it into herself while he’s been taking her “rot” away in the form of desire. it’s like yin and yang, they’re creating the perfect balance with each other!!!! they’re like the flower and the bee, both vastly different but one cannot exist without the other and without both of their input honey couldn’t exist.
He looks at you like you’re the reason the sun rises and falls. — stop omg i literally cannot handle this
It kind of hurts you to see him like this because it reminds you of your initial rotten intentions and how they’re dissipating the more you’re with him. — !!!!!!
The more you learn about him, the more you understand his naivety and how despite what you’ve done, he won’t change. There’s something lovely about it. — i love this so much
“They just left without me,” he breathes out. “I’m used to them leaving me out, but t-this is.. How am I going to get home?” He looks back to you with sad eyes, not the light they had earlier. He’s not shocked by their actions, but he is disappointed. A hand runs through his hair in his stress. — oh noooo!! i guess you’ll just have to stay!!!!
“Should I kill them?” Your question is brazen, body and voice eerily still in your seriousness. — she’s so me, the amount of times i say this (especially to the wrong crowd of people)…😭😭
Once safely out of the front door, you take his hand in yours and start running for the lodge. The tall boy is behind you, so you don’t get to see the bright smile on his lips or in his eyes as you run through the light run towards the lodge. — AND BOOM HE’S FULLY OVER THE LINE!!!!! i love little callbacks like this stop IM SO FUCKING HAPPY!!!!!!!
back to blue curtaining but can we also talk about the contrast in the two scenes where she initiates non-sexual touch??? like in the first scene they’re both stagnant, standing. he’s extremely nervous and she doesn’t have the purest of intentions, neither of them really WANT to be touching the other. now this scene, they’re both radiating with happiness and running. all smiles and freedom, running through the break of sunlight through the storm. like UGHHHHH!!!/!/!/!/!!!!:&,&!!! i love this fic so so much you actually don’t understand
“I don’t like it when you disappear on me,” he breathes out shakily, honestly. “Nobody else sees me like you do,” he squeezes your hand tighter in his, feeling you begin to pull away. “Come with me into the city tomorrow. We can- I’m not sure yet, but I’m sure I want more time with you.” — AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
“I felt less lonely before I met you,” you confess, eyes unblinking as you stare up at him for a long pause. “I’ll meet you here in the morning.” — AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What feels suffocating at first turns into a warmth you’ve become all too familiar with, and it was never anger. The indignation you always wear is just a hand me down from your parents; it doesn’t fit you right even though it’s comfortable. — WHAT DID I SAY? WHAT DID I FUCKING SAYYYYYYYY!!!!! besides she’s so me because she truly is omg
With a shaky exhale, you wrap your arms around him too. The hug surrounds you like a blanket of unknown comfort. Your ear pressed to his chest listens to the sound of his racing heart. You can feel the pound throughout his entire body too. Every emotion held within is trying and fighting to be seen. It’s still so cold from the rain but he feels contrast, only warm. His lips press a kiss to the top of your head, making your body burn even more and your hold all the tighter. — EEEEEEEE
i literally have to refrain from running and leaping around my house like this is so SERIOUS for me it not even funny😭😭
“That sounds nice,” he smiles, “our first real date! I think there’s a cafe near that book store too. Do you like coffee?” — oh god😭😭 he’s so cute
Your cheeks burn as you stare at him in bewilderment, “you think we’re going on a date?!” “Of course we are,” he laughs like it’s obvious and wraps an arm around your shoulder, looking out of the window. — this is hilarious😭😭 i love that it’s basically unspoken that they’re together even if it shocks her!! soon he’s gonna be sliding a ring on her finger and calling her his wife and she’s gonna be like ???? well, yes!
“Hm. I can see that too,” he hums as he pulls you closer into his side. — also!!! she doesn’t fight against herself anymore and pulls away!!!!!!! eeeeeeee!!!~~~~
“...but I like you as you are,” he mumbles loud enough for you to hear, watching you shift in your seat. He doesn’t think you’re not a good person, and it hurts that you see yourself as such. — sobs
But you, you’re frozen staring at the messy man who talks of your greatest hate. Your hands tremble on the table. — he just HADDDD to ruin this beautiful moment… DIE OF ALCOHOL POISONING‼️‼️
i love a good plot device hehe!! gives sunghoon insight into why she hasn’t really talked about herself outside of the things and hobbies she actively enjoys!! now they’ll have to talk about what that crazy ass man meant, and she’ll have to tell him why her and her parents think she’s the antichrist, and boom they grow closer and he shows her that she’s in fact not the antichrist and boom love story!!!! i can see it in my mind’s eye, the mind of a mastermind!!!
Your father being a reverend who’s not in the picture gave him much to wonder about, but now isn’t the time. He just wanted to get you somewhere away from this memory. — !!!!! he’s actually the sweetest ever
“I’ve got good muscles, remember? Good for farm work,” he’s patient and calm with you while his eyes watch the man from outside the glass cafe windows. “Come on, baby.” — I JUST STARTED SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS
He’s never seen that look on your face before—the one you had when the man was loud in your face. He didn’t like it, and he’s sure you hated it. You looked intimidated, or afraid. — sighs… i fucking hate angry men and reminders of them
“Neither,” you confirm. There’s a pause for thought and Sunghoon waits for you to further explain. “My relationship with both is too similar. They’ve both known me my whole life, right? Seen all of my wrong doings and in return shown wrath through unnecessary punishments called forgiveness. In what good world is tolerance violent?” — this just hit extremely close to home… like.. hole through my house rn actually and i’m singed by it…
“Sometimes, after my mother set the table for dinner, he would knock my plate to the floor. Tell me to eat off the ground like the animal I was or starve.” Sunghoon frowns at this, coming to a slow stop when he sees the bus shelter bench. “Sometimes I had days and nights locked in the barns, but he switched it up to the basement when I was too close with the animals.” You laugh a little, but he senses the pain behind it. “I watched him kill the animals, too, only to smother me in their blood. Beatings were rare, but I think only because he despised the thought of even touching me.” — :((( i want that man fucking dead.
If He was really in everything, all around, why did He always turn a blind eye? Why does He pretend to not know you? It only made it harder to believe in—something that would bring you here, torture you then watch you suffer for not living how it pleases. God wants to be believed in, but so do you. Only you would never beg for compassion. — this omg… this is why i never could be religious like the rest of my family no matter how hard i tried to bend and break and mold myself for it. this is what was always in the back of my head. like i envy the people who can follow faith blindly, call it devotion and claim to see the light of god, but i just can’t. and i won’t.
You laugh nervously, trying to tug your hands away from his grip that doesn’t let up. — !!!! also again she’s so me, i do the exact same thing when someone is trying to comfort me and suddenly i’m extremely uncomfortable😭😭
Whether you are his lover or executioner, he would accept you as you are every time with open arms, receiving hands. Even more readily, now. — this. this is the purest of love omg.
You both sit criss cross at the wooden dock by the lake, simply enjoying the scenery and all it has to offer. — EEEEEEE SHE TOOK HIM TO THE LAKEEEEE
“Do it. Don’t think of it as hurting me, but still do it deep enough to leave a scar.” — why am i getting emotional
THE MATCHING SCARS ACTUALLY STOP OMG.
He continues, “I never thought of you as a bad person,” he pauses as you drop the red stained knife, unsure if he should continue at first but does regardless. “And, uhm, I’ve thought a lot about this summer. What I've learned from you. Purity is constructive—like something made to bring shame.” You don’t move, watching him. “I don’t have to be clean to be good…and your hands never made me dirty. Because they never were either.” — i am actually sobbing rn.
At first, you had one goal; one similar to murder. The sparkle he had in his eyes, you wanted to eat—to make them empty—and see the world ugly and godless like you. Yet somehow, somewhere along the way, his eyes shone even brighter. You only wanted to take and take of the innocent boy, but in this moment you realize, maybe I just wanted to give him some of me. — !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is also such a beautiful paragraph omg
He’s seen you smile before with insidious malice, but this time, for the first time, you are really smiling. It’s a raw expression of surfacing emotions, and he returns the emotion like the sun. He thought of you beautiful before but with your brightness finally peering through your clouds, he believes you to be heaven sent. — OH MY GODDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!
His hand squeezes yours tighter, a grip so loving, as you bind in one. Neither of your eyes or smiles leave each other until the bleeding stops. — bury me with this paragraph please. put it on my tombstone.
So you said yes without your words: took his scarred hand in yours and nodded. — AAAAAAAAAA
“Oh wow! You’re really handsome,” the girl at the ticket booth gawks at Sunghoon. She straightens her posture and fixes her hair from her face, “one ticke-?” — GIRL MOVE.
Catching this, you step forward and snatch Sunghoon’s wallet from his hands, “he already knows that. Do your job or I’ll feed you to pigs.” You slap the cash amount for what you need down onto the table top with a straight face and mean eyes. — hell yeah assert dominance 🔥🔥🔥
“It’s yours, you should pick it,” you blush, elbowing his side with a shy smile while your eyes keep looking up to the stuffed white lamb with a lace ribbon around its neck and a cushion gold bell adoring the throat. — THIS IS SO CUTEEE
Confused and wide eyed, you watch him lean into your face. You gasp when his lips meet yours before returning the notion. With eyes closed, you melt into his kiss. It’s sweet as all the things you’ve experienced today because of him. — OH MY GODDDDD LETS FUCKING GOOO
So, for the first time, he takes you back to his apartment. — oh my god WAIT!! IM NOT READY OMG OMG OMG
“Ah, you got yourself a nice little angel, huh?” Jake leans over the kitchen island, watching you both. His smile falters. “I’ll have one of my own some day.” For some reason, you think of him as a secret pervert. — ATTIC ANGEL REFERENCE!!! ATTIC ANGEL REFERENCE!!!!!!!! could you imagine if like these two universes were connected and that’s actually jake from attic angel before it all happened😭
“Are you tired?” he asks, and you lie by nodding your head. So you both get ready for bed. He gives you a shirt to borrow for bed that change into in his bathroom while he changes into sweats and a t-shirt in his room. — omg she’s gonna spend the night
pause because now i’m thinking of the possibility of the universes being connected😭 like at the beginning, “Sunghoon, lost in his own world, fails to realize that his best friend—Jake—battles something similar internally.” i know they’re just most likely little references but it’s fun to think about!!!
His nails digging further into your flesh to keep you impossibly close make your lips gasp, or maybe it’s the lack of air, or just both. And instinctively his tongue is licking its way past your lips and into your mouth. He kisses you like he’s starved for it. His wet tongue drags over yours, and your teeth, then as far as it can inside of you. He whimpers, pressing his already hard cock to you as he licks and kisses you open. — inject it.
You know you’re not religious yet every time Sunghoon touches you there’s a divinity to it and it makes your hands want to join in prayer to thank the universe for sending someone like him to you. Because his hands roam your body as if they have in every world; as if there is not one timeline where you have not been made for him. Like you were carved from his rib every time. — THIS FUCKING PARAGRAPH OH MY GOD. pure beauty i love it so much. add this to my tombstone and bury me with it too.
Rattled with concealed embarrassment you remove his shirt and toss it somewhere to the floor, and he does the same. — oh my god oh my god it’s happening
Foreheads now pressed together with lips ghosting over the others, you tell him, “I hate you.” — AAAAAAA OH MY FUCKING GODDDDD!!!! YHE LOVE CONFESSION
oh my god i feel like a werewolf howling at the fucking moon right now
“You gotta move, Hoon. Feels like you’re splitting me open.” — the nickname. what if we all died right now.
“I hate you. I fucking hate you,” you whisper harshly, looking up at him with tear filled eyes. It all burns while feeling like heaven. — EEEEEEEE
“I love you too,” he whispers back. — I JUST SCREAMED SO FUCKING LOUD AND THREW MY PHONE. OH MY FUCKING GOD. OH MY FUCKINFGH GOD. stop because i gotta take a lap around my house what the fuck. OH MY GODDDD.
OH MY FUCKING GOD. PLEASEE. OH MY GOD.
“I know, baby.” he mumbles before capturing your wobbling lips into a searing kiss. — AAAAAAHHHEEDHAHAHAHAHABAAAJAKXLLKKKKKKKKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
“No, no.” he takes your chin with his thumb and finger, forcing you to look back at him. His thrusts never letting up during his care. “Look at me. You’re so good to me.” He reminds you over and over. “We’re so good together. I’m yours. you’re mine.” — i crave this.
i would also like to point out that this is the only time he isn’t crying 🤓☝️☝️ and that’s because she is!!! AAAAA I FUCKING LOVE THIS STORY SO MUCH. WHAT THE FUCK.
“I’m good,” you sob through your whimpers, “I’m yours.” — sniffing this entire scene like 67 lines of cocaine.
Perhaps there was a thing such as divine intervention and if God’s timing was alway right, he knew how to be evil with it too. Because the next day, when Sunghoon takes you home, he’s met with your maker. — FUCKKK.
Your mother, aware of the frequent trips you’ve been making and how close you’ve grown to the summer farmhand boy, is quick to make a call to your father the night you don’t return home. It wasn’t necessarily because she cared for your well being. You’re more than capable of handling yourself. But it was an excuse to try and get him to come back. Only it doesn’t go how she wanted. — FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU.
When the reverend walks out of the house with his infamous weapon of sacrificial forgiveness, you know what to do. Your body moves on its own, leaving Sunghoon to reach out for you that walks towards the woods. He goes to follow you and the desolate man that stalks behind, but your mother stops him. She’s hysterical as she drags him towards your house saying, “it’s going to be okay.” But she’s crying. — NOOOOO. I WANT THEM BOTH TO DIE.
You glance up to the empty tree branch then the rope in his hands. Where is the lamb? You think briefly before it hits you. “You’re crazy,” you whisper, “I will not be your martyr… not now what I’m finally-” — I JUST GASPED SO LOUD WHAT THE FUCK. i’m so scared
And then there’s a loud noise. A booming bang, followed by unsteady feet falling back and the ground rumbling with a thud. — AAAAAA OH MY FUCKING GOD.
i am literally on the edge of my seat screaming every five seconds. each paragraph is hell to read because i’m so terrified of what’s going to happen next.
You turn your head and Sunghoon stands there with the shotgun in hand, open mouthed and wide eyed. — OH MY GOD. CHEKHOV’S GUN BITCH BOOM‼️‼️‼️‼️ omg i can’t believe i didn’t put it together sooner i feel like an idiot.. them talking about the shotgun in the house and all the times she asked if he would kill for her. I AM SO FUCKING UPPPPPP!!!!! THE FUCKING FORESHADOWING OH MY GOD
“H-he was going to- he was about to hurt you. I had to-!” he stutters, his eyes already crying and hands shaking, still feeling the weight and recoil of the gun. — my fucking baby… he didn’t hesitate either, didn’t even think just acted
“Divine intervention, huh? Say it with me now. I know no punishment, only mercy.” Your voice is quiet, calm, and mocking of his tone. With the barrel to his forehead, you watch him writhe in pain and cough up a little blood. — HELL FUCKING YEAHHHH🔥🔥🔥 this reminds me of the scene in maxxxine omg.. “I WILL NOT ACCEPT A LIFE I DO NOT DESERVE!!!!”
“If you say it, I’ll let you live. But if you show your face to me or Sunghoon again, I’ll shoot you right between the eyes.” Your foot presses down harder. — KILL THAT BITCH ANYWAY‼️‼️‼️
NOOOOO I WANT HIM DEADDDD. trust he will never know peace if she let him survive because i have inserted myself into the universe. and i’m on the fucking prowl. and that fucking mother, don’t think you’re safe either. you want this wretched fool so bad? you can join him in the grave where you both belong.
“I was selfish when I approached you. I wanted to take all that goodness out of you and keep it for myself. I thought I wanted to hurt you, but after sharing all this time with you, I realized I was wrong. It’s weird to say it out loud,” you laugh small, awkward, “but I really am sorry. I love you more than even I know.” — AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA OMG
“Harvest all of my purity, farmer’s daughter.” — TATTOO THIS ALONG MY FUCKING RIBCAGE.
For the first time, you really laugh. It’s bright and loud like the big smile he’s seeing for the first time on his favorite face. It’s morning sunlight that whispers through trees to kiss the forest floor. Birds that sing songs of hope to awake life into a new day. Nostalgic, expansive days of childhood where the concept of time doesn’t exist. To him, you look like the epitome of summer; he doesn’t want this season to end. — this whole thing is so fucking beautiful
just saw the divider for the end of the fic. NOOOOOOO.
You were never the lamb. Or the wolf. Not an animal at all. Nothing like the ones you grew up with. You were just a girl, scared and alone. But not anymore. Because it’s your last day on this farm, and tomorrow is the first with only Sunghoon. — LETS FUCKING GOOOOOO‼️‼️‼️
You take his scarred hand in yours and you laugh like he did, pure and true, “I do.” — what a beautiful fucking ending oh my god. #unlearnshame INDEEDDDDDD!!!!
where do i even begin with this fic that i haven’t already gushed about for who knows how long? el, this was absolutely beautiful. completely stunning and astonishing in ways that i can’t even begin to TRY and explain. i don’t think i’ve ever been this emotional invested—this invested in general—in a fic EVER. but it was so easy to slip into the world you created that it felt like breathing. their whims were mine and time flew by as did the words.
i fucking loved this so much, and i hold it tightly and dearly to my chest. i wasn’t kidding when i said that the mc was so me, because she was. it was scary and like looking in some distorted mirror. for that, i really want to thank you. thank you in general for writing this. it may seem a little silly since it’s just fanfic, but you truly don’t know how much this story of yours means to me. if i could somehow forget it all and have the opportunity to read it again, i wouldn’t even hesitate. sorry yvie, you’ve been pushed down to number two!!😭
and the writing and symbolism… oh my god. i’ve already talked about it and glazed you enough, so i’ll try to keep it simple this time. but, this truly gorgeous, and i adore your writing style. every word chosen, every sentence it made, every paragraph it created seemed perfectly crafted. you can physically feel the anger she was harboring inside of her simply from the words you chose to use, and that is so powerful. i’m definitely gonna take a page out of your playbook for sure!!!
immediately this is going into my favorites!! like you don’t understand how desperately i need this to be a published work so i can have it decorate my shelves and collect every single cover and version of it there is. like it’s truly up there will all of my all time favorite books ever, i fucking LOVED this. and it pains me so deeply that it took me so long to witness greatness.. trust the next work you drop i will be front row and center with my nose pressed to the stage ready for the show!! like if you weren’t thinking of being an author and publishing a book one day, PLEASE reconsider!!! the people (me) will be so lost and worse without your works, and i really sincerely mean that!!!!
this was fucking amazing, someone give you all of the awards ever. like i’m not even joking. this review took two whole minutes to paste from my notes😭
harvest of purity — sunghoon [ 박성훈 ]



pairing ⦂ sunghoon ⨯ fem. reader
synopsis ⦂ au in which an innocent, shy, and faithful sunghoon takes a summer job as a farmhand. he’s never indulged on his desires until the farmer’s daughter shows him a taste of sin. although riddled with guilt, he cannot deny or escape the new rousing feelings that impurify him. especially when she's set on ruining him every chance she gets.
genre ⦂ smut, slow burn romance, strangers to lovers word count ⦂ 29k tags ⦂ fluff and angst, repressed desires, innocence loss, guilt and shame, exploring relationships, falling in love, southern gothic vibes, summer au, clingy down bad sunghoon, ‘mean’ morally gray reader, both are weirdo loser freaks content advisory ⦂ mdni ! dark-ish content ⚠︎ sexually explicit content in four scenes: handjob, oral (m. rec.), dry humping, thigh fucking, unprotected sex, virginity loss, corruption!kink, degradation!kink, praise!kink, switch!hoon, he whines whimpers and cries; religious themes, concepts, corruption, and criticism; manipulation, animal death, blood, intense scenes, abusive parenting, gun mention and use
note ⦂ poured my heart out. i hope you love it as much as i do. dedicated to my other evil, off-putting, and/or weird girls┊reblogs and feedback encouraged ⇀ playlist ⸝⸝ masterlist 🌾
You’re not sure what life in your small town was like before you were born. You can imagine it’s not too different from what it is now though. The thing about old country towns is they never seem to change. Open fields and miles of farmland. Two gas stations, one grocery store, a few family owned vegetable stands or in-home produce product shops. Only one notable neighborhood where the majority of the townspeople lived if not hidden somewhere else in the countryside. And too many churches to keep track of if the abandoned ones were included in the count.
You like to think your parents were happy before you too. Hopeful and optimistic when offered to take over your uncle’s farm. Excited for the next step in their relationship after their marriage. They were the ideal family dream coming to life: high school lovers, engaged after graduation, married, a career handed to them through family with a large property of land and lovely farmhouse. All that was left was to grow that family. To have children to not only help tend the fields and animals but run around barefoot, all smiles, and wide eyed.
You were positive that it was something they wanted.
But life couldn’t have been that easy for them; it would’ve been too gratuitous of a blessing.
The day you were born, your father knew there was something greatly wrong with you. He claimed that on the day you ripped your mother open, screaming and crying, that God spoke to him for the first time. He called it divine intervention. Believing the birth of your soul was a red-herring of all that was set to come but God would show him the light, the truth: that you were nothing short of evil and needed saving.
That year on the farm there was nothing but death. It only furthered your father’s harsh thinking of you. The crops and produce either died or rotted before it had the chance to grow or ripe. The animals were dropping dead from unknown illnesses. Every female livestock that gave birth passed in doing so. Barely any profits were made that year. Taxes were rising and so were the prices of nearly everything. It was a huge toll for your family, especially when raising their first child. Before you were even conscious of the situation everything was already deemed your fault.
Through the harrowing struggle, your father’s optimism turned to resentment. He claimed that bringing you to the farm was not like bringing a daughter home, but a corrosive parasite. He believed that you were the reason for the life being sucked away from their perfect farm life. So, he turned to the only thing that he could trust to save the family from your curse: God. Begging and pleading through prayers every morning and night to the sky for a better season.
He studied religion here and there before taking over his brother-in-law's farm but with the farm failing for the first time, he took a change of career paths. He was already well known among the locals, close with the church goers in the community. And somewhere along the way, he managed to start preaching himself. Nearly every christian in your town moved churches to follow where he went. Like sheep to a shepherd.
If only they knew what you did, what he was truly like behind the closed doors of your home. How his devotion was turning to violence. Day by day, becoming uglier.
While your father busied himself with his new found family, often away from home on the farm, the crops and animals began to thrive again. Slowly but surely, growing and regaining health. He would say it’s God’s doing, a small taste of His salvation.
Your early years were mostly troubled by the relationship of your parents. Too young to fully understand their disputes, drawing at the kitchen table with their yelling sounding the house. It was always about you, that much you knew. Because you watch and you listen. Quick to learn that they tried for another child but never had any success. They wanted someone else to be their baby. Something that felt more like a blessing than you. Your father constantly spitting in your mother’s face that you were the rot to the fruit of her womb. And then he would always end up leaving by slamming the door and your mother would always join you at the table with tears and a bottle of wine. You always just watched, listening in silence. Perhaps just born resilient.
Growing up was different for you compared to most of the kids in your town. You never had the opportunity to make many friends being homeschooled. The only time that was spent around others your age was kindergarten. Kindergarten was short lived because of your behavior; the teachers at school were concerned about you. How you were mean, rough, and sinister with your actions towards others. Picking on the kids you were simply interested in because of how different from you they were. Drawing pictures of gutted cattle or dead, half developed baby chicks still in their shell and giving them as gifts to the teachers. Sharing to classmates the cruelty of farm life and why it was pretty with a smile.
Your father loved to find out about this, you could see it in his eyes. The way they were wicked and screamed I told you so to your mother. You didn’t understand why it was bad or caused trouble. You were only having fun for the first time. The way the kids ran away crying or the teachers wore faces of shocked horror, it made your insides light up in joy. A new feeling—a sense of excitement. You didn’t know it was sick. And of course, it was taken from you. You were removed from school and your mother became your teacher. Your classmates became stuffed animals and the real ones in the barns. It was hard for you to find that joy you briefly felt with others.
Sometimes you had a glimpse of it again when your father would punish you. But even that you grew sick of. The mess, the stench of it all. Sticky and red, worse in the heat of summer. He drilled the sick moto for his actions into your head, “I know no punishment, only mercy.”
Father took you both to church more often after that. He had a false image to uphold afterall, one of a happy, God loving family. In his ego he had to prove that his preaching and prayers could fix you, save you. But that was only admitted at home, loud and scary to your mother. Your poor mother, weak and defensive of you, eventually waved her white flag. You wished she kept fighting for you and that she wouldn’t begin to see you the way your father did.
Childhood and adolescence was a string of questions about yourself. Never quite finding out what made you so bad to be seen as devilish when all you thought of yourself was curious. Perhaps just unlucky to be correlated with negative happenings on and off the farm, always gone without a chance of understanding. Despite it all, you knew well enough the way your parents talked and looked at you was without unconditional love.
On your 17th birthday, the family dynamic made the biggest shift to be experienced.
At this age, you had such a strong sense of independence and with the lack of parental guidance and monitoring, you would leave town when you could. Ride your bike down the long road to the bus stop at the center of town and take the bus into the city over. Your mother was generous with allowance and you saved your money well, only spending it on books or trips to the movie theater. A form of escape that allowed you to learn more about the world and all the things your parents tried to keep hidden from you. A way to learn how to be human.
So when your father was tearing your room apart in search of the same gift he re-gifts you every year, he found some things that made his stomach churn. Every year for your birthday he rewrapped the same, first ever, bible he’d given you. Funny enough that he gave you anything at all considering he never even referred to it as your day, only his day of revelation. And to his disgust, on his sacred day, he found books and journals of explicitly detailed copulation and debauchery.
He almost fainted. Stumbling over his own feet, hands shaking as he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the words on the pages. That was the only time you smiled on that day. Just for a second. And then a glimpse of hell broke loose.
In a rage, he destroyed everything. Your mother stood next to you in tears, telling him to stop and stop. Her hands covered her face but she saw everything through her fingers. You only watched in silence, hands balled in fists by your side. A silent hatred and anger coursed in you. He called you names that no man of God should, especially to his own daughter.
“You’re a disgraceful deviant of Satan! I should’ve known. My own day of revelation is a curse!” You watched him rip pages apart, his voice booming through the house. “Years spent praying for you and this is how you turn out?! Succumbing to nothing but a dreaming whore?!”
A part of you liked his mean words. It was so rare for him to use such colorful language.
You knew what would come next. He was going to have you ‘cleansed’. Something he always did when he discovered something new and sacrilegious of you.
But it didn’t come. Because there was no dying, old sheep on the farm at the time. He did make a promise to not forget though. A promise to have you washed in sacrificial, blessed blood on a day you least expected.
Your father left after that, leaving you and your mother behind. He moved to the city to continue his preaching at a larger church. He became known as the closest reverend to God for miles and miles. Lost in his ways, he only made visits when he needed to sort things out for the business of the farm.
You were content with his departure, yet couldn’t quite understand why your mother missed him. As far as you’ve seen, he was never kind towards either of you.
But now, it’s several years later. And although you’re free of your father’s heavy presence and homilies, he still makes his trips to the farm. You can feel the air change whenever he does, as if you’ve gained a sixth sense for his coming. Naturally intuitive to things having spent your childhood walking on eggshells in your own home.
And today, the air feels particularly chill for summer. The breeze sweeps in through your open window. The forecast called for nothing but sunshine all week, yet there’s an angry, dark cloud hanging over your farm. A foreboding feeling shivers through you, and you know he’s going to fulfill his promise today. You sigh and slide out of bed. “Let’s get this over with.”
You spend the morning doing your usual routine. Brushing teeth, washing your face, then dressing in farm work attire. Your breakfast consists of tea and your mothers homemade strawberry scone. Next is tending to the animals. Your mother usually takes care of the crops and gardening. It’s a quiet and early morning, as most are. The both of you keep to yourselves, just doing what needs to be done day by day.
The sound of a car is heard coming down to the long dirt road and you know who it is by the sound. It’s a fancier vehicle than the one he left this property with years ago. A meaner part of you likes to think his greedy hands got into that mega church’s donations but you’re too self aware of the successful farm your family owns.
Your father parks in front of the house and your mother is quick to rush over to him, presumably with many questions: How have you been? Are you hungry? Thirsty? What brings you here so early in the month?
You roll your eyes at her desperation to cling onto the relationship that clearly ended when you were a child.
You place a hand on your hip, leaning your weight to the side that isn’t carrying the heavy bucket of chicken feed. Walking away from the coops and back towards the shed by the house, you make eye contact with your father despite only taking a glance.
He watches you with narrow eyes from the lowered window of the car he’s still sitting in, very much not listening to a word your mother is saying.
He calls your name before you can open the shed. Spinning on the heels of your boots, you turn around with raised brows of questioning.
He mouths the words sacrificial tree as he exits the car. Your mother sees this. She wears pained disappointment as she scurries away. Presumably to the barn where the sheeps and lambs are kept. She might as well be a sheep too, you think.
The bucket slips from your fingers and drops to the patchy dirt grass by your feet with a thud, spilling over in a mess that will be cleaned later.
You don’t bother giving him a nod of understanding. You just turn around and begin your walk to the tree line where the man made path is. Knowing it would take some time for his preparations, you walk to the lake that’s hidden behind the farmland.
It’s a brief walk through your familiar woods. Once at the short wooden dock, you sit down at the end, taking in the gloomy summer scenery. A light fog hugs over the water. You bring your knees to your chest, in your sitting position, and hug yourself the same way.
This is your favorite place out of all the land your family owns. It’s serene, mostly. Always quiet. You’re the only one who comes here. And it’s nice to swim with when the weather warrants it. There’s a feeling here that’s hard to feel anywhere else you find yourself. Sometimes you imagine what it would be like with someone else, but you doubt it would be as nice. Trouble has a way of following you, it seems. You frown at the thought.
It’s silent like this for a few minutes, just you trying to find a sense of calmness before the impending chastisement. Then you hear some rustling of leaves, heavy footsteps following. You don’t turn around yet, you only wait for the call of your name. Your time of tranquility is too brief. You sigh before giving yourself a squeezing hug.
“It’s time,” the reverend calls out loudly, “quickly now, we have new farmhands arriving soon.” The sound of his feet walking away is when you stand. You wave a goodbye to the foggy lake before parting ways. Your feet move unconsciously, taking to where your body knows to go.
Leaves crinkle underneath your boots and twigs snap. The trees’ branches sway in the gentle morning breezes that pass.
In the mix of the small forest, man made crosses of sticks or plywood are spaciously scattered. Like a graveyard to all your bad doings. Most small but one large. Old rotted wood that stands crooked and begging to fall over right next to the largest, strongest tree. Your eyes, that are trained to ground, move upwards the cross and then to the tree. Your father stands there with a large knife in hand. Your mother waits cautiously not too far away. Her demeanor is frightful as if this is the first time. Coward.
An old sheep hangs by its hind legs from a sturdy tree branch. Unmoving and defenseless. Big beady, dumb eyes look in all directions but you. You think it must feel the same guilt as yourself, sorry that its life purpose is to embarrass you, make you hate what you are.
“God told me to make a sacrifice to prove my faith. He guides my hand in washing your soul clean of sin. So here I am with our blessed, dying lamb.” He’s said this every time. His voice is always miserably rehearsed and preacher-esque.
You thought long ago that this was their, the lambs, only use on the farm. It’s a shame. All that devotion has made him so ugly and violent.
You make small steps closer to the lamb. It’s whining in bleat baas and mehs. Does it know what’s happening? Is it scared? You like the lambs, sheeps. Pure white, soft, and docile. They never fight back. They just take it. I doubt they need restraints. You could hold them above me just the same and they’d never resist.
“Move faster, for the love of God. Yeah, stand right there underneath like you know how to.” He instructs you, annoyed. His patience running thin as the distant sounds of a truck makes way down the dirt road to the farm property.
“Okay…” You don’t fight him, with arms crossed behind your back and a hand squeezing around your own wrist, you move closer. Maybe you’re a lamb too.
Maybe all your father really was is the executioner.
He raises the knife as he begins to speak, it slides over its cotton, white throat but does not cut, “Revelation 7:13-17 Then he told me, ‘These are those who come from the great tribulation, and they’ve washed their robes, scrubbed them clean in the blood of the Lamb. That’s why they’re standing before God’s Throne. They serve him day and night in his Temple. The One on the Throne will pitch his tent there for them: no more hunger, no more thirst, no more scorching heat. The Lamb on the Throne will shepherd them, will lead them to spring waters of Life. And God will wipe every last tear from their eyes.’” He slits its throat in a quick, harsh movement. The blood spills just as fast, squirting spurts of red before it comes pouring down onto you. “Face up,” you obey even though it brings you rage, “it ought to cleanse those unholy thoughts I know that are still in there.”
Head raised to the sky with eyes and mouth squeezed shut, you let it consume you. Warm, thick and wet washes down from your head onto your clothes then down to your feet. The smell of animal, metallic iron covers you. It’s sticking to your hair, eyebrows and lashes. You can already feel your clothes clinging to your skin in the dirtiest ways.
You stand there, drenching in the its blood. Your father speaks again, firm and slow, “Say it with me now, ‘I know no punishment, only mercy.’” All you feel is the animal’s rain of life flooding you.
You open your mouth to speak but are quick to spit and cough out the blood that manages to get into your mouth. Smack.
“I don’t have time for this,” his voice sounds like an echo, your head is ringing from the harsh swing of his hand. The skin of your cheek stings. He hits like a bitch, you think. “Say it with me now, dammit!” You can feel him wipe his bloodied hand on the side of your shirt.
You step back from under the red shower. “I know no punishment, only mercy.” Your words align with his in the perfect paced harmony you’re trained to do so. Enunciated, slow and strong, through gritted teeth.
There’s a beat of silence before the sound of your parents footsteps walking away.
Standing there in red, yet to open your eyes, you breathe out a shaky sigh of defeat. It sounds more like a growl. With the mostly clean hands you kept safely behind you, you bring them up to wipe the blood from your face. You don’t dare to look at the dead animal in front of you. Being covered in it is enough alone to make you feel sick.
You think of going back to the lake, jumping in and letting the blood wash off you there, but knowing you’d either walk back with further drenched clothes or naked didn’t seem like options you wanted to deal with either. So you just head back to the house. It’s a slower walk than need be, but you just felt like avoiding the eyes of the newcomers, hoping they’d be off in the fields or in a barn by the time you walk through. You feel numb.
You’re wrong though, by the time you’re passing the barns and coops, the group of new farmhands are already lined up outside the horses’ stable. Your mother is talking to them, although not all are paying attention. Only a few pairs of wide eyes follow you. Catching the sight of you must really shock them but you can’t blame them. Something about this makes you excited. You stop in your tracks and look around to see if your father’s car is gone. It is. The realization feels like a wave of relief and it suddenly feels brighter outside already.
You take a glance down to your disheveled appearance. Shirt, pants, and boots painted like the barns. You look back to the group, brushing the soiled hair back from your face. Some pieces stay stuck, in the early stages of drying against your skin.
It’s safe to have a little fun.
You begin a slow walk over to the group. You take a headcount and there’s five of them. Two younger men, closer to your age. The other three look a bit older, not by much but definitely older. Your mother is yet to turn around from whatever rundown she’s giving them. Too dense to even recognize that now none of them were paying any attention to her.
You creep up beside her and open with, “Hello,” your voice is louder than even you’ve heard it be in a long time. It’s nice to be heard, noticed. You usually avoided the farmhands, but this summer was going to be different. You decided this on the walk over.
Being cooped up on the farm for so long made you different, it’s obvious to anybody. Not properly socialized in your developmental years caused you to be an anomaly to the ones who did come across you. Enigmatic from far away and up close. Now isn’t the greatest example though, the situation is too clear as to why.
Your mother turns to you, gasping and jumping back slightly in the shock of your gross state and sudden introduction. “My goodness, girl, whatta ya doin’ here like this?” Her voice is hushed, clearly unsettled with the situation.
They all just stare at you, open mouthed and bewildered. You take the time to get a good look at each of them up close. Your eyes follow their faces individually down the line. And then they stop.
At the end of the line is a man more beautiful than the ones you’ve seen in the movies. You feel stuck in time, left with parted lips, staring at the man before you. And far too intently for your character. He stands tall, sharp, pale, and elegant. What is a boy like this doing here? He averts his eyes from you, clearly uncomfortable by what’s before him. He looks uneasy, shifting his weight foot to foot with his hands behind his back. His pretty eyes glance around from you to your mother to the other men and the ground. He simply doesn’t know what to do with himself. You find it dangerously darling of him.
You don’t even realize the small smile that takes your lips. You step closer to him and he steps back, now looking at you with wide eyes of small fear. You extend your hand to him, it’s coated in drying blood. He gulps and the sight, his adam’s apple bobbing in such a biteable neck stirs something in you. This will be far more fun than you intended.
You say your name softly for introduction and step a little closer, “Nice to meet you," you feign cuteness as much as you can, looking up at him through your blood clumped lashes. It’s clear to everyone there is something off; there’s little to no real emotion behind your voice and face.
Your mother eyes you suspiciously as you corner the handsome man, but she says nothing. Sometimes she fears you too.
He looks from your eyes to your hand, having an internal battle with himself on what to do, “Ah, I am Sunghoon... Nice to meet you too.” His politeness must be stronger than his frighteness, because he takes his hand in yours and shakes it gently. His hand is large in yours, nearly covering it entirely. You squeeze it hard, your eyes never leaving his, trapping him in the scene.
He wants to look away, to hide somewhere. The way his skin crawls tells him he’s a prey already in the mouth of a predator. And you know he’s nervous under your intense gaze because your hand feels like a lamb is still bleeding above you. His palms are sweating, and it’s nowhere near hot enough for that yet. Your smile grows to a smirk.
Although you’re wearing the lamb, having Sunghoon’s hand in yours made you feel like a wolf.
Sunghoon’s first day of his summer job starts off duller than he imagined. The sun isn’t out this morning and it only intensifies his anxiousness, as if the grey skies reflect his inner emotions. He’s already new to the area, away from home and staying in an apartment not far from his college in the city. A private, christian school that he studied hard to get into with his friend. He wishes his best friend and roommate, Jake, was joining him in this job, but Jake already had plans to teach at a summer soccer camp for kids through their school.
He found this opportunity through the college church they attend together. A reverend from another church in the city came to visit one Sunday, handing out flyers to the young men in hopes of finding farm help. The pay is good and the bus fairs to the small town over where the farm’s located is covered. He’s never done work like it before, nevertheless was he going to let a simple offer pass him up.
Things are going smoothly to start, being told how to care for, clean, and feed the animals to crop preservation. Everyone would have their own specific roles on the farm. Sunghoon was assigned the easier of the tasks, either feeding animals or watering and fertilizing the vegetables and fruits crops. He learns there are already regular farm workers that would come throughout the week to collect produce, material, and use the machinery for the more laborious work. And if she wasn't around when needed then they could ask any of the regular employees for assistance or find her at the house.
As the farm owner is about to give details on the horses’ maintenance, a girl saunters in. And the anxious feelings become of Sunghoon all over again. His eyes are wide, taking in her appearance. The smell of the farm dissipates and putrid copper takes over. The worst part is how calm she appears, and the fact that she’s unbothered with all that she wears.
He thinks his brain short circuits, everything seeming muffled and unreal. He doesn’t even realize he introduced himself or touched her. It all was too quick and unfamiliar for him to grasp.
He watches as she walks away, back to the house that sits slightly over the hills and valleys of the property. His expression is blank, blinking slowly at the strange girl then down to his hand that’s stained red too.
“Don’t pay her no mind,” the woman speaks up, she sounds as if she’s warning them. “Just get yer work done and when everyone’s finished y’all can head back home. I won’t ask too much of ya in yer first month here, alright? That might be a different story later.” She tries to end the statements in humor with her forced laugh.
Sunghoon nods but his eyes don’t leave his dirty hand. The other men nod along too and give their ‘yes, ma’ams’ in return.
The woman continues walking them around the farm, listing rules and guidelines they must follow, along with advice and tips for the work they’ll be doing.
The day flows as easy as it can for Sunghoon. He doesn’t talk much with the other farmhands. He also doesn’t know them well enough to be comfortable in their conversations, so he just exists in awkward silence, sometimes reacting. While they can joke around and find fun in the work, his mind keeps wandering off to the girl from earlier, to you. How your empty eyes held onto his and small hand even tighter. He thinks the palm of his hand still burns from the interaction.
Around the afternoon time, Sunghoon and the guys are sitting around a picnic table near the house. The sun is beating down on them all now while they chug down water and eat their lunch. The owner was kind enough to provide their refreshments and meals. They were all thankful.
She adds that there’s a small lodge up the dirt road. It’s a little old but homey and has space with two spare bedrooms if they need to wash up or rest at any time. It was originally built for the farm workers that worked late and needed a place to stay if need be.
Once done, the boys stand up and talk about what they have left to do. The next bus back to the city isn’t running for another two hours so they speak of taking some leisure time and exploring the farm property. Meanwhile Sunghoon is still sitting, watching them huddled in conversation. He wipes some sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand as they begin walking towards the fields.
Sunghoon, taking what the farm owner had mentioned previously, decides that he’d like to stay inside to get away from the beating sun for a while. So he gathers his trash to throw away in the bin by the road near the house’s mailbox and begins his walk to the lodge.
Once inside he takes in the rustic, outdated furniture. It’s a little dusty and the floorboards creak beneath his feet but he finds it somewhat comforting. The living space has two couches by an old stone fireplace, a center table with board games and cards, a kitchenette, and a large dining table with enough space to seat six people.
The decor is very farmers-life-esque. From a cow print rug in the small kitchen area to the antlers mounted on the wall near the dining table. There’s scenic southern paintings hung up along with antique crosses and prints of bible verses, all adoring the faded and peeling floral wallpaper. Above the fireplace hangs a painting depicting Jesus healing a blind man.
He walks down the only short hall in the lodge to find the two spare bedrooms the woman had mentioned along with a bathroom. He takes this time to wash his hands thoroughly and splash some cold water on his face. With his hands resting on the sink, he stares at himself in the mirror. The cold drops of water slip down his face, jaw, and back into the sink.
In his mind he’s questioning whether or not he’s sure of this job. It’s all too different from what he knows and he can’t help but feel out of place here. With a sigh, he drops his head and watches the water slip down the sink.
He jumps slightly at the sudden sound of the front door opening and closing, not expecting the others to join him here quite yet. No noise follows the action for a moment, not even footsteps. Then there’s the sound of a click, like the door is being locked. He straightens his posture and peaks out the bathroom door, listening for their voices or any sound other than silence. It offers nothing to him so he begins to feel tense.
“Hello?” Sunghoon calls out skittishly, but there’s no response. His heart rate picks up a little and he starts to think the boys are trying to pull some sort of childish prank on him. He leaves the room and makes slow steps down the hallway to the main area of the lodging house.
As he rounds the corner he doesn’t find any of the boys there though, he just sees you. His heart jumps at the realization. Sitting on the couch, in overall shorts and nothing else. Bare legs crossed and hands against the couch by your sides as you watch him peer around the corner with apprehension. You’re just sitting there, leaning forward and waiting for him to come find you.
Cowardly, Sunghoon makes a half turn. He presses his back against the wall of the hallway as if he could hide away or disappear into it. He even closes his eyes, thinking of a quick prayer to save him from this circumstance.
“Are you pretending to be shy or are you really this cute?” Your voice is teasing, and he can hear the wicked smile in it without seeing.
Feeling caught, he just sighs and slowly makes his way to the living area. He tries not to look at you, thinking you are too revealing. So he looks everywhere else and then to large windows that give view to the farm; none of the guys are in sight. Most likely somewhere goofing off. All he can see is the fields and farm buildings standing large in the distance.
He doesn’t move and speaks softly, “I should probably go find the others-”
You speak before he can finish his attempt of an excuse, “Come sit with me.” You pat the space on the couch next to yourself. Your voice sounds welcoming but he knows there’s an undertone of mischief.
He makes a quick glance to you and sucks in a breath at the view of your body that’s exposed from your overalls. The glimpse of the curve of your breast disappearing under the denim already makes him feel like he’s seen too much of you. And he has. He’s never seen such bare skin on a girl and he’s never been alone in a room with one either.
“Come sit with me, now.” You’re more stern this time, demanding in a gentle way. Your hand makes small movements, soothing over the material of the couch like you’re warming the space for him.
He visibly swallows as he makes his hesitant steps over to you. His heart is racing and with every beat there is a question of his strength. He sits down on the same sofa but not directly next to you like you want. You smirk nonetheless and turn to face him, sitting with your legs criss-cross now.
With your elbows to your knees you hold your head in your hands, watching the side of his face. You’re again realizing how sculpted his features are. Dark thick hair on his head, eyebrows and lashes too. An array of moles sprinkle his pale face. A sharp nose that sits above pink, full lips. You wonder if he knows of his own beauty. It’s fascinating to see such a person like him in front of you.
He’s sitting with perfect posture, not relaxing into the couch. Alert like a deer that’s waiting for too sudden of movement to pounce away. His eyes just watch the table, reading through the names of the board games that lay there as a way of distracting himself. He’s awkward.
“Uhm… d-does your family own this farm?” he tries for small talk to break the silence. His bottom lip finds itself between his teeth as he makes one quick look over to you. Luckily your overalls sit high up or he’d have a full view of your chest. He can’t help but think of the fact and it makes him shift uncomfortably.
“Do I make you nervous?” you question, seriously so. Brows pulled tight in a furrow with a straight face. You lean in even closer to him, watching for every change on his face.
“Yes,” his response is honestly quick and ends with a tight lip, like he’s holding his breath. He is yet to comprehend what is happening, still in a whirlwind of thoughts of what could—will—happen.
“Why?” Your head tilts slightly to the side, it makes him think of his roommate briefly. And man does he wish he were here to ease the tension.
He doesn’t want to admit that he’s never been in such close proximity with a girl alone before, so he just clears his throat and remains quiet after doing so.
Curiously, you bring a hand up with a pointed finger and brush the tip of it over the mole on the side of his nose. He jolts back at the sudden touch, his cheeks flushing a warm pink. His eyes now watch you with gentle confusion. He touches the same spot you did with a trembling hand.
“You have a constellation on your face. So many moles… Do you have a girlfriend?”
His face burns a little more, both from the observation and the question. He shakes his head, sitting himself further into the couch and further away from you. He can’t quite understand the situation. Are you messing with him? You seem too serious for such. Maybe you’re just weird like he initially thought. Either way he can feel his faith slipping; he is cupping holy water in hands during an earthquake.
“Did I do somethin’ wrong? Am I not pretty?” You pout to be playful with him, acting as if his actions are offending you. He takes it literally though.
“No!” his hands rest on his knees and he holds them hard, trying to find stability despite sitting down. “Y-you are… pretty,” his words grow quieter, like he’s sharing a secret. “I just don’t know you or why you want to talk to me.”
“Hm.” You lean your head back against the couch. With your eyes still on his face, you speak just as quietly, “I’m still trying to figure that out too.” After some beats of muted air you speak up again, but with more presence, “You came to work here. Why?”
“A man was handing out flyer ads at the church. I wanted a summer job.”
Is he always this direct and boring? And church, of fucking course. You roll your eyes, pushing yourself off the back cushion and even closer to the man. Your knees touch the side of his body and his thigh. He looks like he’s trying to control his breathing, to feign lack of disturbance, but his face says everything you need to know.
You place a hand on his thigh and his whole body stiffens at the action. Your smirk to yourself. It’s only resting there on the top of his jeans. “You act like a girl has never touched you before.” You give him a soft squeeze and he sucks in a sharp breath. “Well? Has a girl ever touched you?”
He shakes his head quickly, “No,” he breaks, feeling overwhelmed and wrong, “and I don’t think you should be. It’s against the churches values-”
“At your age you still follow the rules?” Your hand slides lower and back up his thigh, it’s a slow and teasing motion. There’s enjoyment in how scared he’s becoming.
Sunghoon knows that this is only going to lead him down a path he swore to God not to take. And if his parents were to know that in his first year away from home in the summer since college was locked in a lodge with a promiscuous girl he’d have it handed to him. The thought of their wrath makes him shiver all the more.
“I just don’t want to sin.” His eyes close and he bites down onto his lip again. He no longer cares if a stranger sees him as a loser or prude. His virtue is being tested in real time, and he’s feared facing this battle many times in the night because even in his dreams he loses.
“I’m only touching you. How is it a sin?” The tone of your voice changes, it’s soft like the hand that moves closer to in between his thighs. Your fingertips press into his clothed skin here and there, curiously feeling him up. You just try to get a reaction out of him. There’s a warm feeling in your stomach that you don’t recognize; it’s faintly familiar.
“Your hand isn’t supposed to be… there.” He makes a strained sound, something like a low whine, as your hand ghosts over his cock.
You look down to your movements for the first time and realize he’s sporting a half chub. You snicker quietly, cupping him in your palm. “Then why are you getting hard, Sunghoon? Do you like the way I’m touching you? I bet you’ve thought about doing this before too.”
He makes another noise, a whimper. He can’t bring himself to open his eyes and accept what’s happening. He also can’t find it in himself to stop you, or get up and leave. This wasn’t just a struggle with evil’s temptation but his own biological nature. Something yet to be explored, something that’s been scratching at his ribcage for years to be fed.
There’s too much he can’t admit in this moment. Starting with how he enjoys the sound of your voice, the slight accent and dialect difference he picks up. How the way his name leaves your lips makes him want to crumble like a burning church. And how he silently likes the fact he can’t control the way his body is reacting to your hands on him.
It’s all wrong, wrong, wrong. And he is weak.
“Answer me, Sunghoon.” Your hand presses down on him, feeling the growing hardness under your palm. You give him a small squeeze, massaging over the bulge. To your surprise he feels big. Your eyebrows quirk at this and then you look back to his face. A single tear runs down his face and you find satisfaction in it. “Lying is a sin too,” you remind him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his hands fist the couch cushions at his sides. He grips the material so tight that his knuckles turn pink through the pale of his skin. His chest rises and falls through slow and deep breaths.
“You shouldn’t feel sorry for something that makes you feel good.” You palm over him a few more times, drawing out little moans and whimpers from him. He’s struggling to sit still. You can even feel him try not to push his hips back up into you; if only he would admit that he wants it. He’s practically pulsing beneath you, like there’s never been such a rush of blood to his cock in his life. You sigh dramatically and pull your hand away from him, sitting back to give him space. “That’s too bad. A good dog will always be loyal, huh?”
His eyes shoot open when he feels your hand is gone. He looks at you desperately with wet eyes, a small pout to his lips. You make him feel sick for wanting to ask why you stopped, or if he did something bad for you to take away his short-lived pleasure.
You smirk at his expression, so pitifully beautiful with want. “Have you ever touched yourself?” you ask, placing your hand over his that hasn’t let go of the couch. It takes you back when he flips his hand around to hold onto yours, clingy and wretched. His thumb brushes over your knuckles. Repulsed, you react quickly and take your hand away from him at his impulsive intimacy. It makes him frown with a meek whimper.
He shakes his head slowly, looking down to his lap. “I can’t.” He knows he’s not allowed to. His father was adamant through his puberty that he mustn’t succumb to his body’s natural taste for sin. He was told that sometimes the devil had a funny way of sneaking into a man’s mind. That Satan would haunt boys in their sleep to wake them up with guilt of uncontrollable lust to be like him.
“But you like when I do it, right?” You rest your head on his shoulder and look up at him. His eyes look from your face to the thin opening of your overalls where your chest can be seen from the angle. He bites down hard and nods slowly. You coo, moving your hand back to his still hard, clothed cock. “I can make it go away if you want. You want that?”
He’s battling all the repressed things he’s been too afraid to explore; fearful of the swing of his parents belt he felt once long ago after being caught in a misunderstanding. In spite of it, he nods again. “It hurts.. Please, help me.” His voice is so quiet. Even he doesn’t want to hear his own pathetic begging.
Your fingers find the zipper of his jeans then you tug it down slowly as you stare at him. “You have to pull them down for me, okay? I can’t help you with just this.”
Sunghoon freezes for a second knowing he has control over being the one to take out his own cock. Yet apprehension leaves in a breath. Then he’s pulling the clothing down to his knees with frantic haste. You didn’t expect him to take everything off so fast but there’s a sense of pride in how eager you’ve made him become in such a short time.
You weren’t sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this. His cock is as beautiful as him. Pale and raging pink, crying at the tip much like his eyes. He’s also big, bigger than you knew dicks could be. You thought they’d be ugly, gross and worm-like. But his is clean and pretty. It’s your first time seeing one in person; you wouldn’t let him know that.
You take him bare in your hands, feeling him like a foreign object. More curious of his body than in his pleasure in the moment. His body tenses then relaxes against the couch. A shaky, breathy moan leaves his lips. His eyes flutter at the contact of skin.
You squeeze him, making his moan weakly again. It’s heavy in your hand. Truly just a stick of warm flesh. A part of you wants to squeeze him as hard as you can just to see if it can break, but you withhold on hurting him for now. Not wanting to scare him too much in hopes of exploring him further through the summer.
Your hand wraps around the length as much as it can, pads of fingertips brushing over every vein and curve as you slowly move your hand up and down. When your thumb circles around his tip and flicks the leaking hole, his body lurches forward with a loud cry of a moan from him. You wonder if he’ll cum in the next few seconds of simply touching him.
“I think you’re a slut for a little pleasure, Sunghoon.” You use your palm to gather his precum, circling over the tip to smear the thick cream around. Then you drag it back down himself, wetting his cock in his own prerelease. It slides easier now, your hand. You move faster, jerking him off in lazy, inexperienced motions. Not that he would know anyways. “You gave into lust so easily, didn’t you? Must’ve wanted this for so long. Your body’s nasty, eager for it.”
In his ears, you make the nasty words sound delicious. And he wants to devour more and more, like the starved man he is. His hips snap up into your hard, sudden and rough. You wrap your free arm over his shoulders, a hand sneaking up into his hair to tug aggressively on the thick dark locks. You’re pulling his head back, forcing him to look at you. “Don’t be a whore. I’m helping you. I didn’t say fuck my hand.”
“Ahsh- I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” he whines, tears burning his eyes, “it, it f-feels good. I feel so good.” His head falls to lean against yours, face burying into your hair. His head makes little shakes as he begins to cry, telling himself no, no.
“Shut up...” You don’t like how close he is to you. You only like doing so to tease him, but when he does it, it makes you feel a fiery anger in your chest and belly. Uncomfortable. Smothering.
Your hand works in sloppy motions. Pumping his pulsing cock to reach his orgasm. At the tip your wrist makes flicks with your thumb, working him up further and further.
He stutters out incoherent apologies into your hair throughout his sobs of wanton, whimpering moans. Everything about his body is sensitive to the new sensations. He can’t help but move his hips up into your hand, humping the small fist that’s fucking down onto him.
Confused by the warm, tight feeling flexing of his abdomen he whines against you, “I can’t- I can’t take it. My body feels weird now. Mmph, ‘m sorry. I don’t know what’s h-happening.” His body feels volcanic, ready to burst.
You continue your movements, jerking his reflexing length until he’s cumming into your hand. It’s a heavy load of thick, creamy mess. His voice is too close to your ear as he moans a drawn out needy sound. Your face remains plain while you pump him until he’s milked dry. His body flinches and curls into yours through the aftershocks, clearly overstimulated and over-sensitive. His arms snake around your waist to pull you against him.
You stare down at your hand that was earlier covered in the blood of a lamb and now the cum of a virgin. It looks like fucking snot, you realize with repulse. Without thinking you bring your hand up and lick the strange release. Your face scowls at the unknown taste so you just wipe the rest on your overalls. “You are disgusting,” you mutter.
Sunghoon remains silent aside from his sniffles, eyes peeking through his bangs to watch what you’re doing. He still hasn’t stopped clinging to your side, as if you could save him from his first lustful sin.
You push yourself up and off the couch, his body slightly falls to the side where he was leaning on you but he catches himself. He watches you with sad, scared eyes. You stare blankly in return then look out the window to see the group of men walking around the picnic table they ate at earlier.
“Farmhands will be leaving soon. Clean yourself up in the bathroom.” You don’t spare him another look, you just walk to the front door, unlock it, and leave. You ignore the way he looked like a sad abandoned puppy. Something about it angered you in the same way he was being clingy.
You walk back to your house with a slight skip to your steps. As you step through your front door, you’re about to head upstairs to your room but stop in your tracks because your mother speaks.
“Hate him all ya want,” your mothers words slur, she speaks slowly and tired-like, “but he was a good man. He used to love me… And then you came along.” You turn to the living room on your left where your mother lays on the couch, wine glass in hand and eyes heavy lidded. “I know what yer capable of. I’ve seen the things ya do on this farm, in this home.. When ya think no one is watching.. He just might be right about you.” You glare at her now. “There is something evil in ya, child. Leave that boy outta yer wickedness.��
Her wine glass falls to the floor from her fingers and she groans, turning to her side. You stare at her for a moment before walking up to your room.
Meanwhile Sunghoon spends his next 20 minutes in a spiral of guilt and shame. He cleans himself up in the restroom like you told him to. Then waits, watching outside the window for when the boys are gathered around the truck they drove in from the bus stop to leave in. It was hard for him to get the tears to end. He fell right into sin’s lustful trap and it made him feel so- No, it only made him feel hurt. Stupid. Bad.
On his bus ride back into the city he prays. Sitting in back, alone with his indignity, and head bowed low so no one could see his red rimmed, glossy eyes. Time goes by so fast that he nearly misses his stop to get off.
He ignores his roommate when he’s home. Jake, excited and curious of Sunghoon’s first day, is left cold. Sunghoon showers for longer than usual. He scrubs so harshly at his skin he turns red; unable to feel clean no matter how much he washes. He doesn’t eat dinner because he feels he doesn’t deserve to. He gets into bed earlier than most days too. He tries to sleep but the day haunts him, keeping him awake.
He’s up all night in tears, face in his pillow with the blanket thrown over his head, trying to hide from He who watches. The begs of forgiveness seem endless.
“Dear God,” he whimpers, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” He doesn’t sleep much that night because he can’t find it in himself to stop humping into his mattress in hopes to chase and achieve the feeling you gave him earlier. His hips rock his aching hard cock into the bed, anguished yet titillated. “Please, forgive me. Forgive me. I’m so sorry.” He continues to cry, drowning in his pillow, knowing he will do it again.
The next day on the farm is an early morning for everyone. Sunghoon sits quietly in the truck with the other summer volunteer farmharms. They talk amongst each other about the day’s schedule of duties and tasks. He struggles to keep his eyes open, head leaning against the window despite its bumps from the uneven dirt road. He thought about calling it quits on the whole job after yesterday, but couldn’t bring himself to. It’s for selfish reasons too. The ones that deepen his guilt.
The arrival to the farm is quicker than anticipated. Sunghoon forces himself to be more alert and awake, starting to pick up on the conversations between the others as he exits the parked truck.
“Do you think it’s still hanging there?” One says. “The lamb of slaughter?” Another dumbly asks with a snort. “Well yeah, dipshit. You guys think that girl did it? She was weird as hell.” A third voice chimes in, “Being covered in blood and then leaving a dead animal hanging from a tree is creepy as fuck. The lady was right, stay the hell away from her.” He laughs. The others walk away in continuous chatter, leaving Sunghoon by the truck.
Sunghoon is confused by this conversation and deeply disturbed. He doesn’t follow or press them with questions though. But it will give him much to think about for the day. He’s so exhausted from the lack of sleep, he wonders if he even heard them all correctly at all. Yeah, your whole introduction was strange but killing an animal and acting like nothing happened and then toying with him on the same day? Was all that really something a girl like you would do? He can’t say for sure because he doesn’t know you.
He goes about his morning tasks lazily. His mind is too busy with the thoughts of you. He thinks of when or if he’ll see you today. You haven’t shown around the farm all day. It’s only an hour before noon, he tries to rationalize with himself. He still ponders throughout his work. What time will you come? Will you mysteriously show up like yesterday? Will you touch him again? Will you let him feel good? Is he forgivable or going to burn in hell for wanting more?
He shakes his head to rid it of the thoughts. Perhaps he’s too hopeful. After lunch time he goes back to the farmers lodge to take a nap. At least that’s the realistic excuse he used. He struggles to even fall asleep because he’s so anxious about listening for any sound of you possibly coming back here.
His eyes, sullen and tired, just can’t stay open after half an hour of waiting. So eventually he does fall asleep. You never show up. When he wakes up from his long needed nap he somehow feels worse knowing you didn’t visit than he did committing his first sin.
The following day of work is a repeat. He doesn’t see you at all yet you occupy all of his thoughts. He thinks badly of himself for many reasons.
On the fourth day, you finally decide it’s time to check up on the poor boy. You watched Sunghoon mope around the farm for two days and it was cute at first but you’re getting bored again. You did like how his eyes were always searching around, hopeful that every sound he heard from behind or around corners was you. Knowing you had such an effect on him made you wonder how much more you could do to him.
From the window of your room, you watch when they all arrive. Your mother greets them like she does in the mornings and gives them all tasks that need to be completed for the day. It’s Thursday which means she’ll be out for a few hours to go into town and sort out business for products: cow and goat milk processing for cheeses and soaps. At least you assume considering you overheard her phone call about such the day prior.
You spend the morning around the house, reading and snacking on fruits, waiting for your mother to leave so you can proceed with your plan. There was some effort into your appearance today. You wear a spaghetti strapped white babydoll dress, lined at the bottom with sewn embroideries. It’s simple and flows nicely above your knees when you walk. You hate it because it alludes to soft purity but at least it feels good to dress light in the summer heat. And it might make you all the more approachable to feeble Sunghoon.
After about an hour, your mother finally leaves. You give it about 10 minutes before you’re shoving on your boots and leaving the house. Some of the blood from earlier in the week still stains the brown leather; you did clean them off but clearly not to the best extent. You’re okay with that though, it seems prettier this way to you.
Looking and walking around the property, you see the scattered farmhands busy with different things. The sun isn’t kind today, it’s piercing in brightness and temperature. The sweat begins to seep from your pores in a matter of minutes, making you feel sticky. You run a hand through your tangled hair, fingers getting caught in unbrushed knots that you yank through anyways. You don’t see Sunghoon anywhere that’s directly under the sun. You continue to search around the farm, gaining a few cautious looks from the other workers. As you walk past their gazes you wear a wry smile with a tilt to your head. They look away quickly after being caught staring.
Some wandering in and out of the different barns and coops are done. He wasn’t in any of them though. You greet the animals you pass by and give pats to some of the cows. “Have you guys seen him nearby? I’m not a fan of hide and seek.” You mumble to one of the goats, scratching lightly beneath its chin while it chews away at grains and hay. It maas in return. You pull your hand back out from the stable then leave to continue the manhunt.
It’s when you’re walking by the horses’ stables that you see they’ve already been cared for, telling you that someone was here already. You glance to the smaller shed nearby, having a suspicious inkling that it's where Sunghoon is. You walk to the shed and see yourself inside. And he is. He has his back turned to you, standing at a work bench table and cleaning something off.
You walk up behind him, the sound of your footsteps being dulled by the scattered hay on the wooden floors; he doesn’t notice that you entered the space, clearly lost in his own thoughts. You tap his shoulder which makes him spin around in surprise, dropping the brushes he was cleaning.
Sunghoon’s eyes are wide at the sight of you standing so close to him. You can tell he’s lost sleep by the dark circles around his eyes and how his complexion is impossibly paler. His mouth is stuttering to find words, opening and closing.
You step closer to him and he steps back, his backside now pressing against the table. It wobbles on the uneven wooden stilts that hold it up. Reflexively, his hands reach back to hold onto the table, but he’s using it for his own stability. You simply stand there in between his legs, staring up at his face and taking in all the details that differ from the last time you saw him. He swallows, quietly watching your face in return.
“I haven’t seen you around.” Sunghoon speaks first, his voice a soft surrender. You feel his breath on your face.
“I know. I saw you though. You missed me.” You state bluntly, taking note of the little fangs he has for teeth. He probably bites good, you think, licking the back of your own teeth.
“If you saw me then why didn’t you…” he trails off into a quiet again, closing his eyes for a moment with a sigh. “I wouldn’t call it that.” His eyes open again as he feels your hands on his chest, sliding up his white tank and underneath the sleeves of his denim jacket to his shoulders. He bites down, suddenly stiff.
Ignoring his response you continue, “How can you wear this when it’s so warm out?” Your hands slide over his shoulders and down his toned arms, the jacket slips down to reveal the toned limbs. Your eyebrows raise at the sight yet your face remains relatively blank. “You’ve got muscle. Good for farm work.” Small hands continue to run over the smooth milk-like skin, learning every curve of his lean built physique. It’s not sexual, just exploratory.
Sunghoon sucks in a breath, watching you inspect him. He begins to feel flustered, relishing in the contact of skin on his. You notice his tense body and ask him if it’s okay, to which replies a raspy stutter, “Y-yeah.” Your hands slide down his arms and back up to his shoulders. Then down his chest and body to stop at the waistline of his jeans. He has a nice body; he must be athletic. You don’t care to ask in what ways. Your fingers dip into his jeans just slightly to pull him in closer to you, he gasps, his growing cock pressing against your stomach.
“Sunghoon,” You ridicule him, tsking under your breath at the pressure you feel of his arousal. “Already?” You look up at him but he can’t meet your eyes, feeling embarrassed. You play with the waistline, your fingertips running back and forth between the denim and his skin. “Is this sinning?” It’s a soft question yet mocking. He only shakes his head, nervously gnawing at his bottom lip. “Do you want to?” He whimpers, slowly nodding his head. You take your hands off him, crossing your arms. “You have to tell me. Look at me and tell me.”
He looks back at you dispirited. He knows that you know what he wants. And here you are making him admit it outloud, both to you and God. “Please.” He begs quietly, hoping it only reaches your ears and not the sky’s. “I want you.”
There’s that feeling again. The lit match that falls from your throat to the gasoline of your stomach that erupts in flames. Fire to your abdomen and loins; it’s an angry feeling, sparked by his honest admit of want, and for you specifically. You watch him with narrowed eyes while mumbling, “you revolt me.”
He doesn’t reply to your venomous insult. It stings to hear the degrading words in both his heart and pants; he thinks himself disgraceful too.
You drop to your knees, hands finding place back on his jeans to undo his zipper. He stares down at you in bated breath, hands still gripping tight on the table behind him. His are pulled down slowly, purposely so. You watch him writher, body and face. “Did you do it again?” you question, looking up at him from below. He would never avow to how the sight of you on your knees alone makes him ache all the more.
He wants to tear his eyes away from you but he can’t. The image of you in your white dress on the ground before him needs to be burned into his memory. He stutters a mumble of words but you don’t catch anything, if he even said a coherent response at all. You ask again, pinching his thigh. He tries to hum over the strained noise in the back of his throat, “Yes.. I mean no! B-but I didn’t touch myself.”
You try not to giggle, biting the inside of your cheek. Knowing he wanted to feel that way again but couldn’t on his own gave you a funny sense of power over him. One of your hands traces the outline of his hard cock through his boxer briefs. “You make a mess?” He shivers at the feeling of your breath on his suffocating length. He breathes out a ‘no’ while you lick a strip over the material. “Why not? I showed you how.”
He moans softly, trying not to let his hips chase after the feeling that he’s been after for days. “You know I can’t,” he exhales. You roll your eyes, mouthing and licking at him languidly. Your hands are still half tugging at the material that keeps him hidden. A faint pool of precum quickly stains his boxers.
“Sunghoon,” you look up at him with your chin resting on the bulge. He swallows hard, acknowledging you with a hum. “You will never be free from it. The sin I let you taste will forever linger on the tip of your tongue, begging and licking to taste more in crave. No holy blessed water can possibly cleanse you even if you drown in it.”
His bottom lip pouts out with a little droning whine. He should defend himself, say that his faith is stronger than he is and that his soul is saveable by mercy. But a part of him also feels that doesn’t want to be. His eyes begin to well with tears.
“Not even a god could make you pure again,” you give him a small smile and pat his naked thigh before pulling down his underwear. His cock now free slaps his stomach to which he breathes out heavily. You grab him with both hands, giving him one last look before taking the leaking head into your mouth. Hands working on him steadily.
“T-that’s dirty!” he leans forward with a low sounding moan, his hands on your head and in your hair. Your eyes go wide at this. “Why would you put that in your mouth?!” he gasps, the warm wetness around his tip making him dizzy. “This is so vulgar, oh God, forgive me.” he cries, not pulling your mouth off of him but holding you there.
You circle your tongue around the tip and over his leaking slit, licking the beads of precum that leak out. It makes your grimace before you lean back, a wet pop as your mouth leaves. “Enough of your penitence, and take your hands off me.” It sounds like a warning to which he complies without question, only a hushed apology. He’s the one who wants to be touched anyways, not you.
You take him into your mouth again, your lips wrap around him in a painful stretch to accommodate his size. He sits heavy on your tongue that lays flat underneath, doing what you can with it. Your hands at the base work around him, jerking and squeezing him like you did before. You weren’t really sure what you were doing, mainly just mocking the actions you read about in books. It seems to be working for Sunghoon regardless because he can barely hold himself together. Whining and whimpering through fat tears, whole body shuddering from the overwhelming wet heat of your mouth.
His jaw goes slack, mouth hung open only to elicit a breathless moan. His head rolls back on his neck and his eyes flutter to a close. The feeling of your mouth wrapping around him is hot heaven. His body trembles with the new, sweeping sensation. Stomach already tight with contracting muscles. He thinks he could pass out.
Watching his face, him, discover and feel pleasurable sin is slightly euphoric to you. You’ve seen it in movies and read of it in books, but it was something you never quite fully explored yourself. There’s been a few instances that you did touch yourself; it always felt empty or like something was always missing. There’s little to no excitement when doing it alone in shameful hiding. Witnessing, causing such debauchery is different somehow. Safer in ways you didn’t dwell in thought on. You do wish he would stop crying about it, you find it pathetic of him in a provoked way.
Involuntarily, he thrusts himself down your throat with a guttural groan. You gag and cough around him, tears sting your eyes that make you squeeze them shut—refusing to let a single one dare to escape. Now it felt like a challenge. One to which you wouldn’t back down in fear of looking weak.
Your hands hold his thighs roughly, bruisingly so if you had the strength. You move his body in a small back and forth motion, encouraging him to continue his movements. You’re looking up at him with glazed over eyes and a slight nod. He chokes a sob at the sight, you on your knees not to pray but to devour him.
“Ah, I- I’m sorry. Your mouth is so wet, so warm.” He starts off with shallow thrusts, dragging his cock along your wet muscle. His hips stutter while his world seems to be crashing down. “This is so dirty. You look so dirty. And—ngh—it’s.. it’s so good. It’s so good,” he babbles, pushing himself as far down into your mouth as he can. His tip kisses the back of your throat making you gag around him. Your nails digging into the flesh of his strong legs. He can’t stop moaning and whimpering, becoming a slave to pleasure.
He watches your face. Hollowed cheeks sucking and swallowing around him, the tightness of your throat around him hugging and contracting through chokes that reverberate your body to his cock. The spit that leaks from your lips and all over him is obscene, such a sinful mess. He so badly wants to grab your head and force himself down further, but his nails dig into the wood of the table instead.
“Hm, I can’t—” he moans your name, thrusting rougher now. His whole body crumbling in on itself, chasing the feeling of release.
Then there’s the sound of footsteps and a few voices that follow. Sunghoon sucks in a deep breath, taking a fist to his mouth to bite down onto. He looks at you in fear because of the proximity of the other farmhands right outside. This only makes you smirk around him, a glint of evil in your eyes. He shakes his head hurriedly, stopping his movements—as if that would make you both disappear.
You push yourself off his cock, licking over your cracked and saliva covered lips. You bring a finger to your lips and shush him. “Be quiet or they’ll find out what a nasty whore you are. Unless you want that.” Your voice is quiet and raspy from the abuse of him fucking himself down your throat. You stare into his eyes intently before taking him back in. He glances from you to the door of the shed, his body shaking.
You slurp and suck him up, purposely loud and sloppy. A hand jerking off the base that doesn’t quite fit in your mouth. He cries quietly with his mouth open, meek and desperate sounds escape that he can’t withhold. “Please…” He’s whimpering, begging for something that he doesn’t know the context of.
“Do you think the extra feed is in this one?” A voice questions, the door being opened just a crack.
Sunghoon quickly tries to bend down for his jeans but you slap his hand away, pushing him back into the table. You grip his thighs and force yourself to take all of him down. You gag around him, eyes never leaving his panicky and fucked out face. His face silently begs for you that enough is enough but you don’t stop, because a part of you knows he doesn’t want you to either.
“It doesn’t hurt to check, does it?” The other replies with a light chuckle. “Could take a break for some shade too while we’re at it.” The door opens slowly with an agonizing creak, sunlight barely pouring.
Each passing second feels like an eternity to him. The door is still only cracked, not enough for them to see inside but it’s cutting it close. His cock twitches at the thought of being caught with his dick down the throat of the farmer’s daughter. A blazing adrenaline rushes through him.
Sunghoon can’t bear it any longer. His hands find purchase on the back of your head, pushing himself completely into your mouth. His hips stutter with a whimper on his lips as the hot cum pours down your throat. “Ah, sh- ngh!” You smack at his legs for him to release the hold, choking for air to breathe. You instinctively swallow around him, consuming his load of sin.
“You dumbass! The horses are already fed, let’s just go for a water break.” The door slams back on itself to a close. Their footsteps can be heard walking away.
Sunghoon breathes heavily, letting go of you. His body instantly relaxing back with his elbows on the table to support him. Meanwhile you fall onto your ass, a hand around your throat while you gasp for air through rough coughs. “What the fuck did I say about putting your hands on me?” You rasp before coughing again. The taste of him sits on the back of your tongue no matter how much you swallow.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “we shouldn’t get caught.” He pulls his pants and boxers back up then extends a hand to you, an offering to help you stand back up.
You scoff, ignoring his hand and stand up on your own. You brush the dirt and stray strands of hay from your knees. “Whatever. We both got what we wanted.” You start to turn for the door to leave the shed with the thought of brushing your teeth in mind.
Sunghoon, confused as to what you could’ve gotten out of helping him, just reaches for your hand. He grabs you and pulls you back to look at him. His eyes are sad, maybe even a little afraid by your haste to leave. “Y-you’re just going to leave me again?” He sounds broken by the fact.
“What?” You can’t help but breathe a laugh, “Did you expect me to do more?” You ask with raised brows.
“No! No, not like that.. But..” He swallows his pride, “I- I don’t know. Just don’t leave yet. Please.”
You blink at him, scanning his features like a robot in calculation. The pleading of his expression and his words aggravate you. A fiery burning to your insides and the skin that he touches, that he reached for. You look down to his tight grip on your hand before yanking it away. You don’t say anything more, and neither does he. He wipes his eyes from whatever salty wetness is still there.
A moment of silence solidifies your decision. You beckon him to follow you out and he does.
For the rest of his work day you remain. You try not to think about why. But subconsciously you know it’s because for the first time someone willingly wants to be by your side. At first you imagine it’s because of what you’ve done for him—gave him what any man desires: pleasure. A man falling into temptation is far too easy.
Though he doesn’t ask for more and he doesn’t bring it up. Almost like it never happened.
It seems like he really just wants to be around you. There’s little said between each other. It’s just idle farm work with company. And it’s more peaceful than you expected it to be. He didn’t touch you, question you, or do much at all to bother you in general.
Sometimes he stares at you, but you do the same to him. He even gives a sheepish smile when he catches you; it doesn’t get returned. That doesn’t bother him though. He thinks you look beautiful on the farm in your dress with dirt covered hands and hair messy from the wind. He hopes to tell you that one day but for now he stays shy, still weary and afraid.
The sun shines relentlessly unless a cloud mercifully passes by. The breeze is rare yet kind. The animals make their sounds to sing a collective song. The trees and crops sway like waving hands of hellos and goodbyes, depending on where you’re headed to or from. It’s not so bad.
Two weeks go by. Time flies by for both you and Sunghoon. He comes to work during the week, and he spends his weekends missing you. He doesn’t know what you two are to each other, and he’s too scared to ask. There’s definitely been changes to the dynamic, however. Subtly so. You still don’t smile, or let him touch you. You roll your eyes and insult him if he’s too emotional. But you’re there.
Certainly not everyday, but most, you spend his work days with him. It’s easier to be around one another. There can be small talk, usually about the farm or the weather. Still much to be learned about on a personal level, but he’s fine with the pace of the relationship (outside of the unholy acts that are committed). Sometimes you even end up helping him. Or at least he thinks of it that way. In reality you don’t like how he does things and take over to do it yourself.
You still tease him in your cruel ways. Always ending with him in a mess because he’s easily worked up by your handsy curiosity. He caves into you every time because he can’t fight the divinity that you show him.
There are other times where you confuse him. You suggest a water break knowing he’d gone hours without hydration under the summer heat. You insist on having him take a break under a roof away from the sun when his skin gets too sweaty or red. Which is followed by a reminder that sunscreen is important if he wishes to keep his milky complexion. It’s critical statements that you provide him, but he can’t help to think it’s a weird way of showing you care.
Sure, it could be seen as you selfishly saying these things because it’s what you want for yourself, but in the back of his mind he’s very aware of how you watch and cater to him. It makes his heart jump every time and butterflies swarm his stomach. He can’t help it. The little things, the small acts of kindness—that you might not even intend—make him delusionally overthink.
On the third weekend since starting his summer job, Jake can’t help all the questions he’s been building up and dying to ask. Jake doesn’t understand what Sunghoon has been going through, especially when his moods change so drastically. At first, Sunghoon was self isolating and pouty, clearly in his own head and sulking. But then he would come home from work beaming with an afterglow to his aura. And then on the weekends he was back to his reclusive, depressed state.
Sick of being left out of Sunghoon’s inner turmoil, Jake finally pesters his friend.
“When are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Jake stands in the doorway of Sunghoon’s room, staring at his friend who’s laying face down in his bed.
“I don’t know…” Sunghoon’s words are muffled in his pillow.
Jake walks in with a sigh and sits at the end of the bed. He playfully slaps Sunghoon’s leg. “Dude, just tell me. You’re obviously going through something. You know I can keep a secret. I won’t judge.”
Sunghoon rolls over on his back, his hands clasped together over his stomach as he stares up to the ceiling. He confides in Jake, telling his story from the beginning of when he first met you. He stutters over his words when he admits to the sinful acts he partook in with you. He tells Jake of his guilty conscience and how he enjoyed indulging in the feelings. Then he tells Jake about how he simply likes your company even without the sexual circumstances involved. How he’s mystified by your complex personality and only wishes to know you more. However, he does leave out the viciousness of your nature, since a part of him doesn’t quite believe in it.
“It seems like you’re starting to develop a crush.” Jake laughs lightly, “And if it’s about religion, don’t overthink it too much. Nobody dies completely pure.” He reassures him. “You should show her more of you. That you like her too.”
Sunghoon groans and covers his face at the terrifying suggestion. If only you were that easy to approach in such a vulnerable way. “I guess… I’ll consider it.”
The next day is Sunday. Jake and Sunghoon attend church as normal. Sunghoon participates less in his prayers and songs than usual. His mind is too preoccupied with all he has going on in life. He feels guilt and frustration.
Sunghoon, lost in his own world, fails to realize that his best friend—Jake—battles something similar internally.
You’re never as alone as you think you are if you take a better look around. Everyone is riddled with their own self disgust, guilt, or shame. How else would the churches be so full?
Entering the fourth week of summer should feel easier than it does for Sunghoon. The work seems to be picking up regarding responsibilities. The weather is only becoming less forgivable. The peak is yet to hit, but that only means the seasonal storms are right around the corner. More care is needed in the fields and barns in terms of protection in case of unpredictable weather.
Aside from the work, Sunghoon is anxious because of you. He hasn’t seen you yet today and he feels nervous about it. Perhaps he has grown too clingy, finding close comfort in knowing you’re there with him on the farm. There’s a sense of safety when you’re in the line of sight; you make things easier for him and he enjoys the presence.
While he’s watering plants and checking the sprinklings through the fields, an older man approaches him. It’s a familiar face that he’s seen around a few times over the past month. The man waves with a smile and Sunghoon does the same.
“It’s amazing what you’ve done, boy.” The man begins, Sunghoon questions where he’s going with the start because he’s just an extra hand of help and doesn’t feel he’s accomplished or improved the farm in drastic ways. “I’ve worked here, hm, well I’ll be damned! Nearly 15 years! And I’ve never once seen that farm girl talk to anyone. Much less spend time.” the man chuckles.
“Oh!” Sunghoon blushes and hopes it’s only mistaken as feverish from the summer. He smiles small and stares down to the bundle of plants he brought with him to the farm today. He feels special knowing this much of you. “She’s something…”
“Sometimes I’d see her talk to herself and the animals.” The man pulls out a cigarette and lighter to smoke. “She’d walk around aimlessly like a ghost. Used to scare the hell outta me.” As he laughs, smoke escapes his lungs. He wheezes a little before continuing, “But now she follows and watches you like she’s worshipin’. If only she did the same with her daddy. Although with a face like yours, I can’t blame the girl.”
“Pardon? What do you mean by that?” Sunghoon, bemused, watches the man smoke and laugh between weak coughs. “She has a dad?” His last question is overroad by the man who speaks over him.
“You keep up your work, kid. I outta get back to mines too.” And then he’s walking away with a low chuckle, shaking his head to himself.
Sunghoon’s aware of your mother. He always thought it was just the two of you running things. He’s never once seen a man, your father, leave the house or so much so be around it. This gives him more to think about, especially on the fact that he still doesn't know much about you at all. You’re still an enigma to him, but he wants everything.
By the afternoon when all the guys are finishing up their break, you finally come out of the house. With the sound of the front door opening, Sunghoon is quick to straighten his posture and find your eyes. You’re already looking at him, watching him and his surroundings with no expression. His cheeks burn and he can’t help the smile forming on his lips.
Two and a half days without seeing you feels like so much longer.
He stands up from the picnic table, grabbing his newspaper wrapped bundle of greenery and shyly hiding it behind his back. He walks over to you, tripping over his feet as he approaches the porch steps to the house. You stand there in front of the door but at the top of the few stairs, arms crossed and amused.
He’s diffident, arms behind him and modestly attempting to hide how nervous he feels on the inside. His stomach is doing flips, his heart racing. On top of already sweating. He feels like he could throw up his lunch right in front of your feet. He swallows thickly before slowly bringing his hands out in front of himself.
“I,” he clears his throat, “ehem, I got these for you.” With outstretched arms, the bundle of flowers shake in his trembling hands. He suddenly feels he’s too nervous to even meet your eyes, so he watches the chipped paint wood of the front porch steps.
You just stand there, watching him with wide eyes and your heart in your throat. Your mouth is lost for words, glancing around at the few farmhands who haven’t left yet and are staring at Sunghoon’s exchange in a similar bewilderment. Some are trying to keep themselves from bursting out into laughter.
“Are you some kind of stupid?” You whisper harshly for only him to hear, snatching the flowers out of his hands. “Why the hell would you do this?” Your words like your tone are mean, but in your chest there’s a raging pounding. It’s a seething raw emotion that doesn’t know how to be dealt with. You’ve only just stepped out of the house and your body feels like it’s inside a furnace.
Sunghoon’s head shoots back up to look at you, his face and heart drop. “I-I’ve never had a girlfriend before so I wasn’t sure what to do.. This is what boyfriends do, right?” He takes a hand to scratch at the back of his head. Inner turmoil takes over and he thinks he’s fucked up. He bites at his lip, doing his best not to instantly cry in regret.
You notice this and sigh, irritated. You look from the neatly wrapped white roses and tulips and back to Sunghoon. “So you are stupid,” you mumble before taking your own bottom lip between your teeth. A part of you wants to sneer, but you spin on your heels to hide the warmth that floods your face in substitution. “I’m throwing them away,” you announce, opening the door and walking back inside your house.
Sunghoon, broken, just drops his head and turns back. A few of the farmhands are snickering from not too far away, chattering among each other and eyeing Sunghoon. He wishes God would smite him on the spot from the humiliation.
Wanting to avoid everything for a little while, he thinks of heading to the lodge to lay down in hiding. But before he can walk away, the front door of your house swings open once more. He glances back at you, meeting your eyes like he always seems to do.
“Done for the day already?” You call over to him, now leaning over the banister of the porch with crossed arms.
Sunghoon, unable to refute you, offers a weak smile and shakes his head. “No.”
He walks back over to you and you meet him halfway. You don’t say anything else. You don’t bring up the fact that he had bought you flowers or confused the odd relationship you share for dating. It’s cute in all its blind innocence, but that just goes to show you that you have more work to do with him.
You don’t think of messing with him today. He’s distinctly grown too clingy with how much time you’ve spent with him. Yet you can’t ignore him either. The two of you carry out the rest of the day’s farm work in silence. The inner fury you feel with him doesn’t seem to go away, despite how he hasn’t said much or even brushed skin with you.
You don’t know how you’re remaining pacific by his side. The rampaging of your heart strings tug like a screaming instrument just from being next to him. How he can keep walking tall, stare at you when he thinks you aren’t looking, or even smile at you is beyond what you know is capable of humans. Men like him only existed in books and movies. You wonder if he’s perhaps playing a game like you.
By the time he’s in the truck to go back to town to catch a bus into the city, you’re sitting at the lake dock. Criss crossed legs, a bouncing knee, and fingernails being ripped at by your teeth. You stare blankly at the water, hoping for that sense of serenity to encapsulate you. It never seems to come. It just feels cold.
So you decide on punishing him for making you feel this way.
You don’t leave your house for the next three days. You don’t make yourself known, heard or seen. However, you’re peeking out every window of your house to get any chance of a view of him. You hate yourself for being so curious of him in the first place. What was supposed to be good fun has only left you feeling angry. Taking his innocence was never going to heal you, or even make him like yourself. In fact, it’s making you sicker.
And on the night of the fourth Thursday, you’re laying in bed staring at your ceiling. A stuffed animal is hugged tightly to your chest. You can’t sleep and you can’t stop thinking about someone for the first time in your life. No amount of tossing and turning, counting sheep, or button presses to your distorted singing, stuffed bear made it easier.
Somehow, you ended up punishing yourself. You always had a knack for that, historically, but this time felt different. It actually kind of hurt. Being alone came naturally to you, but tonight it hits you just how lonely you’ve always been.
Friday, the farmhands are huddled on the front porch of your house. All the animals are safely away in their designated homes thanks to their help. It started to storm in a heavy downpour only minutes ago. What started out as a dark gray gloom and windy rain quickly turned into an early flooded property, illuminated by strikes of flashing lightning and roaring thunder.
You stand dry under the protection of the porch roof by the front door. Watching and listening to your mother suggest the shaking cold, soaked men take shelter in the lodge until the sky lets up so they can head home.
Sunghoon hasn’t spared a look to you all day, but you know that he feels his eyes on you. It’s in the way he shifts awkwardly amongst the men that ignore him. How his eyes are trained low and unfocused yet always trying to move in your direction. His wet hair falls over his face, concealing his emotions you wish to dissect. He comes off as stoic but you know he wears his heart on his sleeve; how his body language speaks volumes.
Your mother pushes past you to get back inside, saying she’ll check the basement for a spare heater that the boys could use at the lodge. There’s something in you that makes you move without thinking. Suddenly a hand is tugging at the bottom of Sunghoon’s damp jacket for his attention. The material is too thin for this weather and the thought of him becoming sick crosses your mind.
“It’s warmer here,” your words, for once, came out soft. Too much so, being lost in the cracking sound of thunder. He looks at you through his bangs. The wave of alleviation from whatever he was dealing with is palpable. His eyes and body almost look relaxed. You tug him towards you once more, insinuating that he follows you.
He does. Like whatever subconscious emotion made you approach him also made him follow you in. As he steps in, he notices the indistinguishable vibes of the farmer’s lodge. It’s updated and cleaner, but similar in aesthetics. A shotgun sits leaning up against the wall by the front door. His brows furrow and eyes narrow. “Those aren’t safe to have lying around…” he mumbles.
You tug him towards the staircase to walk up, “It’s protection. Only my mother and I are here,” is mumbled back as you lead him up the wooden, creaking stairs. Your feet move light and quick, like a mouse in a home not theirs. If your mother saw you, there would be unnecessary consequences. And the possibility of your father’s involvement would only worsen such.
Sunghoon cautiously steps into your bedroom, his body tenses at the sound of you shutting and locking the door. He feels on edge, wrapping his arms around his shivering body and soaked clothes. You move around him to sit on your bed, telling him to remove his sopping attire. He does so with shaking hands, leaving him in nothing but his underwear. He shyly looks around the room while using his hands to cover his manhoon.
His eyes scan over you, sitting quietly on your bed with a look of contemplation that stares past him. A wooden cross hangs on the wall above your bed, the dark wood matches the decadent bed frame. The nightstand nearby has a pile of books and journals with a low light lamp and unlit candle.
The large window has sheer white curtains drawn open and a vase on the windowsill. A glass vase filled with the flowers he gave you earlier in the week. His heart aches at the sight of the still healthy white roses and tulips, and a smile graces his lips. You liar! You kept them! Is what runs through his thoughts.
Without Sunghoon realizing, you got up to grab a towel and drape over the back of his shoulders. He’s taken aback by your ghost-like actions, but offers you a small smile of appreciation. “Thanks…”
You nod for response and glance from him to the vase of flowers he was lost in thought over. You didn’t have it in to explain yourself, mostly because you didn’t understand why you had done so either.
He dries himself off and finds a place to sit at the end of your bed. You’re on the other end with your back pressed to the headboard, watching him, counting every mole you can find on his pale canvas. The stuffed animal you sleep with is being mindlessly fumbled around in your hands.
Sunghoon turns to face you directly, he reaches a hand out, eyes shifting from your face and the winged bear. You shoot him a mean look at first, only holding it closer to yourself before your face softens to slowly extend it out to him.
He takes it with careful hands and looks down to inspect the old toy. Its cream colored fur is dirtied and matted with age. The holographic satin wings on the back have loose stitching and its halo is crooked. Across the chest of the bear reads ‘Jesus Loves Me’ but it’s obvious the sewn name Jesus has been ripped away at. One paw has a red heart embroidered saying ‘press me’. His thumb brushes over the button heart before pressing down. The bear sings in a distorted happy voice the lullaby of Jesus loves me.
“His name is Saint Michael,” you say quietly and he almost doesn’t catch it. Sunghoon can only breathe a laugh because he finds the dichotomy cute. You almost laugh too, but bite your tongue and look back to your empty hands. You don’t know it but he can see you try to fight your little smile. To him, this moment means more than anything; he’s starting to see you’re more tender than you realize. It brings him a sense of surety in knowing that he can break you like you to do him.
Silly as it may seem for a troubled girl, the bear was the only comfort you had throughout childhood. There was no kindness from your father, no solace from your mother, no guide in knowing life or love. But there was Saint Michael, the stuffed angel bear; he may not have defended you in battle but he hugged you back, and that was enough to cherish him like a deity.
Sunghoon crawls across the bed and sits himself next to you, too close for your liking, but you don’t push him away. He hands the stuffie back to you and you place it on the nightstand to face away from you. You lower yourself in the bed, shuffling under the covers of the blanket and he does the same. His skin naked bare yearns for more warmth, yours specifically.
You feel him turn on his side next to you, pressing up against you despite there being enough space on the bed. His movements are awkward and nervous like he is. You feel a certain pressure against your thigh that isn’t his bones or limbs. You spare him a glance, he doesn’t know if it’s a warning or dare.
“...Have I ruined you?” You wonder aloud, looking back to the ceiling.
“No,” he answers quickly, shaking his head against your shoulder. The way he’s missed you in his desire to touch you, hands tingling with want to snake around your waist and pull you in tight. “I think I just want you all the time now. I can’t help it, m’sorry.” He sounds ashamed in his soft mumbles.
“I’ll only keep stripping all that purity from you. Once it’s mine it’ll remain mine, you know that right?” You look back at him before brushing some of his drying hair from his eyes. He tries to lean up into the touch but your hand is taken back. “And I will pretend it’s healing all that’s missing from me. Do you really want to be mine, Sunghoon?” Your words are so gentle yet laced with threat.
“Yes,” he exhales, “I want to be yours. Let me be yours please.” It’s hushed, a secret prayer with hope. His hips push further into the skin of your leg, where the hip meets the thigh. He wouldn’t mind going to Hell if it meant more time with you.
“You beg like a needy barn animal in heat.” You use a hand to cup his face, he sighs into the hold as he eyes flutter to a close. You push your leg in between his, terribly close to his exposed and vibrating body. “So hump me like one.”
“W-what?” he stutters out before licking over his lips, his thighs squeezing around the plush of yours now trapped in his. His eyes already wet with desperate want, staring back at yours.
“Do it. Like it’s mating season and you want to claim me before anyone else.”
A cracked voice whine falls from his lips and he begins to roll his growing bulge against you. You watch as he sucks in breaths between quiet breathy moans. His pink, plump lips pursing and falling open. His eyes try to stay on your face, how close you are to him, but they fall shut sometimes in his basking of rapture. It’s a slutty sight of a faith-sickened boy.
He loves the little to no proximity that there is. His hands find place on your waist, and he’s aware of how that makes you feel, but he can’t stop it. He wants more and more of you. His hands slide up under your shirt, the feeling on your bare skin in his hands makes his body shudder. Untouched, warm flesh for his large hands to explore and learn every curve of.
Even you stiffen at his exploration, holding in your breath as if you’ve forgotten how to breathe. Your shirt lifts up more with his hands and the exposure is daunting like you’re revealing your insides.
The pit of your stomach lights up and you're frozen under his clutch. The pads of his fingers hold you so tight as if he’s scared you’ll disappear. His cock is raging and you can feel every pulse of blood that his heart beat floods to. He’s humping into you desperately, chasing the euphoria that he could never find on his own. Such a delicate, shy boy now driven by lust and longing.
“You’re pathetic and disgusting. You’re practically fucking me through our clothes,” you murmur while you try to push his hands down off you, but his grip won’t let up. Instead his nails dig further into you, a barely sounding broken noise escapes you from the pain. This makes his body collapse further into you, his head dropping between your shoulder and neck. His movements are sloppy and rushed.
“N-no, I’m still good. You make me feel good, I am so good,” he whines, tears beginning to fall from his eyes to your shoulder. You try to imagine his holy water is washing you clean but it only singes.
“Tell me that only I make you feel good, that you’re only good for me.”
“Only you—can only be you to make me good,” he cries against your warmth, rocking himself into you roughly. His leaking cock begins to twitch against you and his hips won’t quit their stuttered jerks.
You hum lightly and run a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. He looks up at you with those desperate, wet, dark eyes and you can’t help but acknowledge how pretty he is like this. His puffy cheeks are flushed pink as the tip of his nose. “Only for me,” you mumble.
“Yes, thank you, I am yours. Yes.” His breaths are jagged and heavy. There’s a coiling in his abdomen that feels borderline explosive. You were right, he craves this feeling. It’s surreal to him how he’s gone so long without it. His arms wrap around you completely now, holding you down while his body rolls on top of yours, situated between your legs. His heart hammers against your chest; he wants to mold into you, to become a singular rot.
You squeak a gasp, being caged down by him. Your heart beats with the same veracity. One of your arms wraps around his waist to hold his back while the other holds the back of his head that hasn’t left the safety of your neck. He continuously sobs through meek moans. His hair tickles your skin like sparks while his lips brush over your jaw and neck making the tingle feel like crackling flames.
Under his weight you feel yourself slipping in both confidence and dominance, your body wanting to sink down in submission from the unknown comfort of his control. Your heart aches and you feel something you’ve never felt before. You think you’re scared of it, yet your body pulls him closer. Hand in his hair, tugging with fearful aggression. Nails piercing the skin of his shoulder blade. You’re pliant under his heavy thrusts and sounds of sin.
The rain pours harder outside with whips of harsh winds smacking the window. It’s almost like God’s wrath is screaming to be seen, to shout that He is watching.
Sunghoon’s hard cock is relentless against your core. The rough grind of him is stimulating in ways you’ve never felt before, your body sensitive and starving for more. You squeeze your eyes shut and moan within your closed mouth, hating yourself for feeling this way because it was never supposed to be about you. You are betraying yourself more than your fathers.
The sounds you try to withhold make Sunghoon weaker. He feels uncontrollable, only becoming needier and hungrier with his movements, “I can’t stop. I can’t stop.” He whines, begging for you to vocalize how you feel it too.
You feel like you’re breaking underneath him, and it feels shameful. Like every harsh word your father ever spat at you was true now that you’re a part of the experience and not just the cause. Everything is too much. It takes every ounce of strength you have to turn both of your bodies over. Now sitting up on top of his lap, you can finally breathe again, sighing in relief. He whimpers at the distance between you both but also from the view of you.
He moans your name softly as he grips your hips, pushing himself up into your clothed pussy like he’s fucking you. Your hands push down on his shoulders. You stare into his eyes with a plain expression and contrasting sharp eyes, grinding your hips back down on top of him. It’s hard to ignore the way it makes you feel, watching him fall apart beneath you as his pulsing cock fucks against you, but you manage.
“Cum for me,” you demand quietly, “make a mess and imagine it’s inside me.”
“Holy fu—ngh,” his entire body spasms and shudders with a low groan falling from his open lips. His movements slow down only to become lazier and uncoordinated. You can feel the warm wetness he spills soak through your thin pajama shorts and underwear.
“You’re right. You are good for me,” you coo softly, cupping his face and using your thumbs to wipe away the tears. Your hips circle and swivel slowly on him until his quivering cock finishes cumming.
Sunghoon has a sparkle to his wet eyes. The way the gentle praise left your lips makes him melt, and he can’t stop the flickering glance between your eyes and lips. He breathes heavily through his post clarity. Still he basks in your touch with a hopeful look in his eyes. His tongue slides over his lips before he’s leaning up towards your face, hands affixed to your waist to pull you closer to him.
This makes a wave of panic wash over you, knowing what he wants to do. You shake your head no and pull yourself away, slipping off of his lap only to turn away from him.
“None of that. It’s not what-”
And then there’s a press of lips to your cheek. Your face burns as if a hot coal was what kissed your face. Your eyes go wide, turning to see the boy sitting up next to you. He only wears a shy smile as he sees your reaction.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a week now,” he admits with a small laugh. “Not exactly there but that’s fine. I wish you would let me help you feel good too.” he whispers, looking back to the windowsill where the gifted flowers stood in their vase with the raging storm as their backdrop.
“That’s dumb and I don’t need to,” you reply, still watching him stare forward. Your chest feels painful; it’s an ache like shattered glass trying to piece together in the wrong ways. Stabbing but trying.
“I think you deserve to,” he argues. “But I understand if it’s not what you want. I was really touchy and I shouldn’t have been because you don’t seem like it. I was too caught up in the moment.” His mind goes to the mess he’s still sitting in and he feels self-conscious all over again. “Is it embarrassing how much I need you?”
You blink at him, swallowing the words that were never going to come out because you didn’t even know what they should or would be. So you settle with a simple, “No.”
You think it would kill you to admit how much you actually always wished to be wanted, needed, or loved. A bigger part of you didn’t think you were worthy of it, let alone capable. The world had such a way of saying otherwise. Until it brought Sunghoon to you; the boy who showed you feelings and experiences you never thought possible.
As if he could read your mind, he asks, “Why did you choose me out of everyone?” He falls back onto the bed, laying down and pulling the blanket over himself.
“I think you reminded me of a lamb.”
“Pardon?” His brows furrow.
You lay back down next to him, facing him like he is to you. “Pretty, white, and docile. You were so nervous when I first saw you—sometimes you still are.” You even laugh a little. “When you shook my hand I knew I could do anything to you because you’d let me.”
“You think I’m pretty?” He smiles wide, scooting closer to you.
You scoff with an eye roll, leaning further away from him. “Oh shut up, you’ve seen a mirror.”
And then it’s his turn to laugh a little. He looks at you like you’re the reason the sun rises and falls. It kind of hurts you to see him like this because it reminds you of your initial rotten intentions and how they’re dissipating the more you’re with him.
Time passes faster than the two of you realize. There’s light banter and easy conversations. You learn more about Sunghoon. Where he goes to school, what he studies, and who his friends are. He tells you of the sports he used to do and what he does in free time with his best friend. The more you learn about him, the more you understand his naivety and how despite what you’ve done, he won’t change. There’s something lovely about it.
You don’t have much to share about your life the way he does, at least not in the same light. But you show him your favorite books, drawings you made over the years, and share the stories of movies you found interesting. He savors the moment of you simply confiding, enjoying the more he can know about you.
The storm passes later in the evening. So caught up in borrowing time, the rain has slowed down to a simple pitter patter. The clouds dispersed and the setting sun only came through to say goodbye to the day.
The sound of the truck that the farmhands use to take back to town is heard roaring to life, signalling you and Sunghoon that it’s safe and time to head out.
Sunghoon jumps out of bed but by the time he’s shoving himself into his still damp jeans and looking out the window, the truck is already speeding down the dirt, now mud riddled road.
“They just left without me,” he breathes out. “I’m used to them leaving me out, but t-this is.. How am I going to get home?” He looks back to you with sad eyes, not the light they had earlier. He’s not shocked by their actions, but he is disappointed. A hand runs through his hair in his stress.
“Should I kill them?” Your question is brazen, body and voice eerily still in your seriousness.
“W-what?!” he whispers in shock, freezing for a moment.
“I’m joking.” You sit up and watch Sunghoon resume getting dressed. “I think you should head back to the lodge for the night. There’s a washer and dryer for your clothes. And spare food for dinner too.”
Sunghoon nods slightly, “your jokes are weird, but okay.” He looks like he’s thinking of something, taking his bottom lip between his teeth in thought before speaking again. “Can you stay with me for the night at least?” he asks shyly.
“No,” comes out quicker than you intended. “...But I guess I can walk with you there.”
He nods again but now with his signature small dimpled smile. You almost forgot about being angry at the other farmhands for taking it away.
You have to make sure the coast is clear before leaving the house. You tiptoe down the halls and stairs, weary of where your mother is inside the house. To your luck, she’s in her usual state. She’s passed out on the couch with two empty bottles of wine on the floor. The television volume is low, playing a rerun of the reverend’s sermon; the devil himself of your childhood, preaching about how he lost his child to the otherside.
With a finger to your lips, you silently signal for Sunghoon to be quiet and to follow you out.
Once safely out of the front door, you take his hand in yours and start running for the lodge. The tall boy is behind you, so you don’t get to see the bright smile on his lips or in his eyes as you run through the light run towards the lodge.
Now standing in the front doorway of the farmer’s lodge, wet from the sky all over again and still hand in hand, Sunghoon bravely speaks up.
“I don’t like it when you disappear on me,” he breathes out shakily, honestly. “Nobody else sees me like you do,” he squeezes your hand tighter in his, feeling you begin to pull away. “Come with me into the city tomorrow. We can- I’m not sure yet, but I’m sure I want more time with you.”
His eye contact is unwavering, begging. Both of his strong hands hold onto yours. You glance from your hand then back to his pleading expression. He will always remain so sweet, no matter what you do to him.
“I felt less lonely before I met you,” you confess, eyes unblinking as you stare up at him for a long pause. “I’ll meet you here in the morning.”
In only seconds, he’s pulling you into a hug. His arms wrap around you so tightly as he holds you to his chest. You go stiff in his arms, forgetting how to breathe for a moment. What feels suffocating at first turns into a warmth you’ve become all too familiar with, and it was never anger. The indignation you always wear is just a hand me down from your parents; it doesn’t fit you right even though it’s comfortable.
With a shaky exhale, you wrap your arms around him too. The hug surrounds you like a blanket of unknown comfort. Your ear pressed to his chest listens to the sound of his racing heart. You can feel the pound throughout his entire body too. Every emotion held within is trying and fighting to be seen. It’s still so cold from the rain but he feels contrast, only warm. His lips press a kiss to the top of your head, making your body burn even more and your hold all the tighter.
True to your word, you meet Sunghoon at the farmer’s lodge the next morning. He seems happier than usual. Very giddy to be spending a weekend day with you without work in the way. No distractions or excuses to leave. Just the two of you and a new day with zero obligations.
Because you had a spare bike, you both are able to peddle towards town to the bus stop together. Having made these frequent trips alone, you’re familiar with the owner of the gas station at the stop. He’s a deaf older man, and it surprises Sunghoon that you know how to sign and ask him to hold onto the bikes until you’re back. You tell Sunghoon that you learned some basics from reading a book you bought a long time ago.
Stunned, Sunghoon realizes that you went out of your way to do so for one man who watches your bike while you endure solo trips. You, the odd girl who was mean and sinful, used your money and learned a language for one man who did a simple favor. He’s learning more to admire you for by the day, and it’s crazy to him how you don’t see your own charm.
Sunghoon pays your bus fares even though you insisted on being capable of doing so yourself. Sat in the middle of the bus that’s only barely half filled, he asks if there’s anything you’d like to do for the day while in the city. Nobody has ever asked you such an effortless thing, and you like it more than you imagined. Just uncomplicated curiosity of your wishes.
“The book store. The small yellow one on main street. Maybe see a movie if anything is worth seeing.” You shrug, spewing out the usual things you do. Looking around the taken bus seats, you notice some familiar faces.
“That sounds nice,” he smiles, “our first real date! I think there’s a cafe near that book store too. Do you like coffee?”
Your cheeks burn as you stare at him in bewilderment, “you think we’re going on a date?!”
“Of course we are,” he laughs like it’s obvious and wraps an arm around your shoulder, looking out of the window. All that the town can offer him other than you passes by. “I’m a fan of americanos. You seem like you’d take your coffee black.”
“I don’t even like coffee,” you mumble, turning your attention out of the window as well. “Tea is nice though.” You add in, crossing your arms over your chest.
“Hm. I can see that too,” he hums as he pulls you closer into his side.
So much can change in such little time. You’ve experienced this many times in one life. How one day can open a new door to a path otherwise not taken. Showing Sunghoon more of you has made him bloom into a larger ray of light. He seems more comfortable, and now you’ve become the awkward one.
The ride to the city doesn’t normally take this long, or at least you don’t think it does. Every second with him by your side makes the experience feel brand new. The theme of time being unreal is common with him, you’ve discovered. It’s when you’re in the bookstore and see a holiday sale that you realize it’s not even June anymore.
While Sunghoon looks for books for his upcoming college semester, you find yourself in genre sections you never really cared for before. The dark and racy ones were fun to bring home, sure. But innocent, cliche romance was always something cringey to you. Now if you change your perspective to that of research then it’s less daunting, right? Perhaps you’d make sense of all the things you’re discovering about yourself and him. Yeah, that’s convincing enough.
He teases you at the checkout counter when he sees what you picked out. Your face flushes in embarrassment and you can’t even bite back at him or defend your choices. So you smack him with the book on the way out while he laughs and makes jokes that aren’t very funny.
The two of you do manage to catch a movie. You honestly didn’t care to see one, but having to sit silently in a theater for at least an hour and half seemed like enough time for him to, hopefully, forget and drop the whole book situation. It’s a summer slasher film. A group of teens go camping and the plot is very ‘who done it’ style. Overall, it’s a fun choice. You have your turn to laugh and joke when Sunghoon gets jumpy or scared.
After the movie, you both end up at the cafe Sunghoon mentioned while on the bus. There was something painfully intimate about everything today. But especially sitting down to eat with him. Not even your mother could meet you at the table anymore.
“You seem softer today,” Sunghoon states, setting his half-drunk coffee down. “Almost nervous. Is it because we’re out together for our first date? Or just the people in general?”
You raise a brow at his brazen curiosity and observation. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me,” you play with your fork to move around the barely touched food in front of you. “Or maybe it’s a bit of both.”
“If you come to the city enough to know sign language for the man who watches your bike, do you like it better than the countryside?”
“Don’t know. I’m used to the quiet life, but leaving it behind and pretending it’s not there is nice too.”
“What keeps you there?”
“The scenery. The air. The lake. Being friends with the animals.” You look up from the plate to Sunghoon who is watching you like a lecture: attentive and learning. “I’m not very good with people, so I think it suits me alright.”
“You’re good with me though,” he argues softly.
“No, not really. I wish I was more like everyone else,” you inhale deeply as your eyes wander around the bustling cafe. There’s a choir of laughter, conversations, and social dynamics you would have to study to master. “If I were a good person, everything would be easier.”
“...but I like you as you are,” he mumbles loud enough for you to hear, watching you shift in your seat. He doesn’t think you’re not a good person, and it hurts that you see yourself as such.
As Sunghoon speaks, there’s a chime that follows as the front door of the cafe is swung open. A disheveled man stumbles inside, heavy feet stomping the tile floor to attempt to stabilize his disorientation. The man burps obnoxiously loud, and many eyes find him with the grand entrance.
He scratches at his lengthy, unkept beard as he looks around. When his sunken eyes find you sitting at the table nearby his eyes grow wide and his mouth falls open. His hand shakes with a pointed finger in your direction, “y-you! The girl from the reverend’s sermon!” He’s loud, capturing the attention of everyone now. His sloppy movements make way towards you and Sunghoon; you feel everything within you freeze, and your heart knocks at your chest fast and hard with anxiety.
He slams his hands on the table, causing your plates and drinks to rattle. He reeks badly of alcohol and his crazed eyes never leave yours. You swallow thickly, fight or flight mode still trying to understand the situation before you. Meanwhile Sunghoon, worried and confused, slowly begins to stand up and grab your bags.
But you, you’re frozen staring at the messy man who talks of your greatest hate. Your hands tremble on the table.
“I thought the reverend made you up for stories, but my God! You’re the real living thing just like the pictures; his only sin,” he laughs boisterously in your face and you try not to gag. “I saw him a little whiles earlier, ya know,” his voice goes quieter, it’s taunting even. You wish to remain calm but your eyes tremble and a frown takes your face. “I should go find him and tell him you’re here. He really-”
Sunghoon takes your hand, practically dragging you away from the table. You almost fall from your seat, like a baby deer just learning to walk, there’s little strength to your legs.
“It’s not too late! You can be on the right side of things!” his voice ricochets off the walls of the now quiet cafe. “If I can be saved by his preaching, so can you! Look at me!” His mad laughter follows you and Sunghoon outside.
Sunghoon watches you stand on uneasy feet, zoned out staring at the sidewalk. It didn’t take much to put the pieces together that the drunken man was talking about your father. Your father being a reverend who’s not in the picture gave him much to wonder about, but now isn’t the time. He just wanted to get you somewhere away from this memory.
He crouches down in front of you. You slowly blink back to reality, now looking down at his back. You don’t want to speak so you poke his shoulder in questioning.
“Hop on. Let’s go somewhere else.”
“What if I’m heavy?” you look at the bags he’s already holding, feeling that you too are a burdened weight he doesn’t need to hold.
“I’ve got good muscles, remember? Good for farm work,” he’s patient and calm with you while his eyes watch the man from outside the glass cafe windows. “Come on, baby.”
Without thinking, you end up on his back. He carries you on his back, strong arms holding your legs while yours are loosely around his neck. Your insides are a flared up hurricane but at least that allows your body to forget the empty ache you left at the cafe. With your chin hooked over his shoulder, you watch the many people and downtown stores that pass by.
Sunghoon doesn’t exactly know where he’s walking, but thinks it’s best to end the day here and return you to the bus stop. He’s never seen that look on your face before—the one you had when the man was loud in your face. He didn’t like it, and he’s sure you hated it. You looked intimidated, or afraid.
“Would you kill him for me?” you watch the side of his face, “the reverend, I mean.”
He stops in his tracks and turns his head to look back at you, “w-what? I can’t kill someone… and you should joke like that.” he panics, looking around to see if someone was listening to the wild conversation and request.
“Yeah, I know. I’m fucking with you,” you look away to hide your smirk, “and only half joking.”
“Did you believe him before?” He starts walking again, but this time at a slower pace knowing the bus stop isn’t too far now.
“Who? My dad or Our Father?” There’s a use of air quotes at the end of your question.
“Both?” his head tilts.
“Neither,” you confirm. There’s a pause for thought and Sunghoon waits for you to further explain. “My relationship with both is too similar. They’ve both known me my whole life, right? Seen all of my wrong doings and in return shown wrath through unnecessary punishments called forgiveness. In what good world is tolerance violent?”
“What do you mean? What did he do?”
“Sometimes, after my mother set the table for dinner, he would knock my plate to the floor. Tell me to eat off the ground like the animal I was or starve.” Sunghoon frowns at this, coming to a slow stop when he sees the bus shelter bench. “Sometimes I had days and nights locked in the barns, but he switched it up to the basement when I was too close with the animals.” You laugh a little, but he senses the pain behind it. “I watched him kill the animals, too, only to smother me in their blood. Beatings were rare, but I think only because he despised the thought of even touching me.”
Sunghoon slowly sets you down to the ground and breathes out your name safely, taking your hands into his. He looks at you with sorrow, like he was the one who endured it with you.
“God’s orders, am I right? My father, the church goers, speak of God like they’ve seen his face and heard his voice, but they haven’t. I would’ve by now too.”
If He was really in everything, all around, why did He always turn a blind eye? Why does He pretend to not know you? It only made it harder to believe in—something that would bring you here, torture you then watch you suffer for not living how it pleases. God wants to be believed in, but so do you. Only you would never beg for compassion.
Sunghoon squeezes your hands in his, “I don’t think you should stay there. You never deserved that… even if you’re volatile and strange… because you’re also kind and caring. It’s why I like you. It’s their fault for not seeing that,” he reassures. “I haven’t been through what you have, and I can’t understand. I-I mean I can try to, ya know… it’s not like I’d leave if I didn’t.” His words begin to stumble nervously, not confident in its sympathy reaching you where needed.
You laugh nervously, trying to tug your hands away from his grip that doesn’t let up. “Okay sure whatever, this is really embarrassing now…” You swallow hard and find difficulty in meeting his eyes.
That’s all that matters, what he said to you, but you didn’t have it in you to say it. He already knows it though, smiling small and holding your hands still. Without words or excessive displays he can still see it in your eyes, the subtle comfort of acceptance.
He could never blame you for your nature. He sees your anger as you just trying to be strong all while being sad. Whether you are his lover or executioner, he would accept you as you are every time with open arms, receiving hands. Even more readily, now.
Even more time has passed since knowing Sunghoon. Summer has never flown by so fast. The calendar doesn’t exist to you anymore. It’s only the days you see him and the days that you don’t. The season will be wrapping up in the next few weeks, but only for him. He has to return to his regular scheduled routine of pursuing education while you will stay here, on the farm. It’s rare for you to feel this emotion: fear. You are scared of losing him. And the concept is something you do your best to avoid thinking about because it makes your skin itch with anxiety. It crawls over you like something that needs to be cut out.
And then an idea hits you. Something far more deep-seated than everything else you’ve done with Sunghoon that would solidify that this summer is real and yours. Something that will always stay; a reminder that good things are possible despite how the world has made you.
It’s a damn near perfect day. The sun is so bright, and only peers down onto you both through the gaps of the trees. It’s just warm enough. Just quiet enough aside from the sound of Sunghoon’s gentle breathing and natural composition of the nature that surrounds. Rustling of leaves, chirps of birds, and scurrying of whatever life that wishes to not be seen.
You both sit criss cross at the wooden dock by the lake, simply enjoying the scenery and all it has to offer. His large knee is affixed to yours. If this was early June, you would have moved away. But now it’s a week into August and you wouldn’t have it anywhere else. Just like you always imagined, and secretly wanted, the view is nicer with someone else.
He didn’t bother asking why you never brought him here before, or why it is that you chose to now. He’s just happy that you decided to at all.
You slip a hand into your boot and pull out a pocket knife. You flick it open and do a brief inspection of the cleaned blade. The sun glints off the metal as you turn it.
“Sunghoon, do you trust me?”
His eyes flicker from your blank face to the blade. He nods slowly with a swallow, “of course.” There’s a subtle apprehension to him. You hand him the small blade and leave your palm facing up, open to him.
“Cut a diagonal line down my hand,” you point and draw a line down the middle of your palm.
“Huh, seriously?” he takes the blade confused and concerned with what you’re asking of him. “Why? I can’t hurt you.”
“Do it. Don’t think of it as hurting me, but still do it deep enough to leave a scar.”
He struggles to understand the situation, but you’re so serious and clearly waiting for him to do as you asked. He exhales deeply, taking your hand in his while the other holds the knife just above the bared skin. Hesitant and slow, the tip of the knife pressed down into your flesh. You wince a little, which makes him pause. You nod, encouraging him to continue and he does despite hating the act. He slices the palm of your hand open just as you wanted. You hate blood, but it’s not so bad when caused by him.
“Shit, it stings,” you swallow through the pain. The feel of open flesh burning and stinging. “Your turn,” you exhale while taking the knife back with your free, unharmed hand.
“My turn,” he agrees as if all logic has left him and readily displays his palm to you. Deep down, he feels guilty for hurting you, so to make it even he wants to feel the same.
Just as hesitant and careful, you create a matching wound in his hand. A deep enough, bleeding, lesion in his left hand to match your right one. He cringes at the sight and the pain before looking back to your face. Your expression is so soft yet attentive, almost awestruck.
“Even when you hurt me you’re gentle,” he remarks, watching you in amazement with a meek smile.
“I am not gentle. I have sullied you,” you remind him, your eyes attempt to glare but they’re too bright in his.
“In the softest way, why?” His voice is delicate and still like the lake that sits before you. You blink slowly at him because there are no words to be found. He continues, “I never thought of you as a bad person,” he pauses as you drop the red stained knife, unsure if he should continue at first but does regardless. “And, uhm, I’ve thought a lot about this summer. What I've learned from you. Purity is constructive—like something made to bring shame.” You don’t move, watching him. “I don’t have to be clean to be good…and your hands never made me dirty. Because they never were either.”
Like an excavator to your tall, strong built walls Sunghoon has knocked your shield down. The facade of your character is breaking down, crumbling into the broken pieces that made it. A single tear escapes your eye and runs down your cheek. It’s rare for you to cry and you’re disgusted with the reality as to why it’s now that you break. Simply falling apart from kind words.
You try to use everything in you to ignore the heat in your body, to show the anger you think you’re feeling inside. So your eyes remain sharp and strong, boring into his, as they still water. You swallow the dry lump in your throat and without a word, you take his hand into yours to join in a mix of blood.
At first, you had one goal; one similar to murder. The sparkle he had in his eyes, you wanted to eat—to make them empty—and see the world ugly and godless like you. Yet somehow, somewhere along the way, his eyes shone even brighter. You only wanted to take and take of the innocent boy, but in this moment you realize, maybe I just wanted to give him some of me.
You wipe the wet drop away from your face with haste, pretending as if it was never there. Whatever blood oath you’re making with Sunghoon allows you to feel something indescribable. You don’t know if it’s deserved, but you smile anyways. Because the indescribable feeling feels like it’s an unknown, unspoken promise.
He’s seen you smile before with insidious malice, but this time, for the first time, you are really smiling. It’s a raw expression of surfacing emotions, and he returns the emotion like the sun. He thought of you beautiful before but with your brightness finally peering through your clouds, he believes you to be heaven sent. A part of him always wanted to see you cry—usually it was him with tears in his eyes; which is funny, because he wasn’t much of a cryer himself. You just had that way of breaking him down. He knows now he does for you too. And he can tell that you’re probably the type of person who needs to cry the most.
His hand squeezes yours tighter, a grip so loving, as you bind in one. Neither of your eyes or smiles leave each other until the bleeding stops.
A week later, Sunghoon asks you on a date. The summer fair is in town. It’s something like a festival where all the locals from towns around the city come to visit and join in on festivities from carnival games, rides, food, and uncommon entertainments. You think of being mean, denying him the acceptance of the date, but you have always wanted to go. So you said yes without your words: took his scarred hand in yours and nodded.
The evening sky is a watercolor of warm tones as the sun begins to lay down for the night. The bright lights of the fair illuminate the large open field turned carnival. There’s a sea of people here tonight, and although it makes you nervous inside, having Sunghoon by your side makes the ordeal easier to handle.
The line for the ticket booth is lengthy but it passes by. You approach the booth, standing a little behind Sunghoon who takes out his wallet to buy your entrance wristband passes and tickets. You look around at the many people: families, friends, and couples, all immersed in their own experience as the music and sounds blend in the background of conversations.
“Oh wow! You’re really handsome,” the girl at the ticket booth gawks at Sunghoon. She straightens her posture and fixes her hair from her face, “one ticke-?”
Catching this, you step forward and snatch Sunghoon’s wallet from his hands, “he already knows that. Do your job or I’ll feed you to pigs.” You slap the cash amount for what you need down onto the table top with a straight face and mean eyes.
Her eyes go wide and she hushes an apology, quickly giving you both wristbands and tickets for the evening. She even threw in extra tickets as you stared her down.
Sunghoon watches you with a flushed face, even the tips of his ears burn red at your jealous threat. You both walk off into the fair, a sheepish smile on his face as he leads you through the crowd with an arm wrapped around your back and hand to your waist.
“Was that one of your jokes too?” he grins down at you.
“Nope,” you glance at him with a small smile. You weren’t sure what came over you in the moment, but it was something internally deep, and territorial. An innate reaction to someone trying to appeal to something that belongs to you. It felt ugly and you didn’t like it.
The idea that he could possibly be taken from you was a phenomenon you’ve thought of for a while now. Knowing he has an existing life outside you, outside of this summer, that he would return you made you sick. You’re far from perfect, or the right thing for him, and he could find a safer option if he ever pleased. Pushing the thoughts away is harder than you imagine, so you cling to his side even more.
You and Sunghoon use up your spare tickets for carnival games. You toss rings around bottles, shoot water guns into the mouth of a clown frame, and throw darts at balloons. The both of you aren’t very skilled at any of the games, but it's fun enough to enjoy the time without winning a prize to show for it.
Eventually, Sunghoon does find frustration within the ‘rigged’ set up of the games. He even pulls out his wallet for cash when the tickets are gone. You’re surprised at how competitive he is; his determined nature is something that stirs your insides around. You don’t know if you’ve ever smiled so much in your life.
After 3 rounds of throwing a ball to knock over a moving target, he does manage to win. Going 3 for 3 and not missing a single shot. The excitement you feel when he succeeds takes over and you’re proud, doing little jumps in place and clapping your hands together.
“You did it! You won!” you exclaim, hugging onto his side.
He can only smile down at your joyfulness. A fire burns in his heart and he hugs you back, kissing your forehead. “All for you. Which prize do you want?”
“It’s yours, you should pick it,” you blush, elbowing his side with a shy smile while your eyes keep looking up to the stuffed white lamb with a lace ribbon around its neck and a cushion gold bell adoring the throat.
Of course, that’s the prize he ends up choosing. It might not be Saint Michael the stuffed bear, but it’s something far happier, cleaner, and softer.
The stuffed animal never leaves your hold throughout the rest of the evening. It rides the many rides you and Sunghoon do. And sits at the picnic table with you both as you share fair snacks. Popcorn and cotton candy was never so sweet for either of you. Like contentment melting on your tongues.
Cliche as ever, Sunghoon wants to end the night there with a round on the ferris wheel. The line moves quickly and when it’s your turn to step into the carriage, he takes your hand and sits you down the seat next to him.
It moves slowly and rocks back and forth with shaky movements that have you gripping the side handles. With an arm around your shoulder, he holds you close to him. The array of flickering colorful lights and people below you feels almost magical.
Taking your eyes from the heightened difference between you and the ground, you look back to the boy beside you who is already looking at you. The reflection of rainbow luminescence glistens in his eyes. It’s even prettier than the view from the top of the little world you’re in. You give him a shy smile, finding it impossible to look away.
He says your name in a whisper, taking your chin between your fingers. “Thank you for choosing to let me in.”
Confused and wide eyed, you watch him lean into your face. You gasp when his lips meet yours before returning the notion. With eyes closed, you melt into his kiss. It’s sweet as all the things you’ve experienced today because of him.
It’s also as clumsy and messy as a kiss can be for two people who’ve never done so before. However, human nature and desire take over and ease the rest for you both. Lips move over another in a gentle waltz, careful and slow.
And as if the situation couldn’t get anymore cliche, fireworks light up the sky. At first you thought it was just your imagination and all the books you’ve read flooding your consciousness, but the booming sounds and cheers of the crowd are too loud to not be real.
You pull away from him first, and he’s already wearing a shit eating grin so wide that you can’t help but roll your eyes, fighting the urge to smile back at him. Your face burns in both embarrassment and adrenaline from the kiss.
After that, you don’t leave the city like you should. The bus takes you both back downtown but neither you or Sunghoon feel it’s time for goodbye. So, for the first time, he takes you back to his apartment. You’ve never been to anybody else's home before, and it’s nerve wracking to say the least. The complex is large and somewhat modern, housing many of the second and third year private college students.
When you step inside, it’s quite plain but at least clean. You’re immediately greeted by a boy shorter than Sunghoon. He has a big mouth smile and shining dark eyes. His hair is shaggy but it suits him. He’s practically bouncing on his toes. You shift yourself behind Sunghoon and hold onto his shirt, hiding slightly from the excited puppy-like roommate.
“How did it go? Oh, and nice to finally meet you,” he rambles out quickly, “I’m Jake. The best friend and roommate. I’ve heard a lot about you.” He shoots Sunghoon a wink before grinning back at you. He extends a hand for you to shake but you don’t reach out. Something about his eyes doesn’t sit right with you.
“She’s shy,” Sunghoon laughs a little as he guides you past Jake and towards his room. “It was fun though. I recommend going before it’s gone.”
“Ah, you got yourself a nice little angel, huh?” Jake leans over the kitchen island, watching you both. His smile falters. “I’ll have one of my own some day.” For some reason, you think of him as a secret pervert.
Sunghoon laughs his comment off and tells Jake goodnight before showing you to his room. His room is neat and as simple as a college boy’s room can be. A bed, desk, dresser, closet, and bathroom. One poster of a musician you’ve never listened to and a window with unopened blinds.
You sit yourself at the end of his bed and he sits down next to you. There’s some awkward silence as you look around, unsure of what you’re supposed to do. He feels similarly to your internal dilemma.
“I-I’ve never had-”
“It’s okay,” you cut him off. Of course he’s never had a girl over. And of course you’ve never been over to a boys house.
“Are you tired?” he asks, and you lie by nodding your head. So you both get ready for bed. He gives you a shirt to borrow for bed that change into in his bathroom while he changes into sweats and a t-shirt in his room.
In minutes you’re both laying in his bed under the covers and staring up at his ceiling in the dark room. Not a word is said as you both lay there wide awake and untouching. But you know he’s wanting to by the way his body is shifting and turning, inching closer with every minute movement.
And before you know it, although expected, his body is nestled closely to yours. His arms wrap around you, pulling you into an embrace. For the most part, he usually does keep his space. Knowing how you are when it comes to physical touch that feels too sudden or invading. But with barriers breaking down more over time, he thinks you’re learning to handle the comfort better.
“I thought you were tired?” he mumbles, head on your shoulder. His hands trace up and down your arms that are wrapped around yourself like a guard.
“I lied,” you whisper. Your eyes can’t look at him yet, so they remain aimless to the ceiling. Some moonlight slips through his cracked window blinds, giving you enough view of the spinning ceiling fan.
“I had fun today. Mostly because you did. I like seeing you happy,” he smiles after kissing your shoulder that’s exposed in the neckline of his shirt too big for you. “And… I liked when you kissed me back,” his voice is quiet and shy-like.
“Do you want to do it again?” Your eyes shift to him and you can barely see the warm flush to his cheeks. He’s cute.
Taken aback at first, he just blinks at you with a parted mouth. Then he nods his head slowly, licking over his lips.
You turn over onto your side to face him and his hands don’t leave your waist. Unsure of what to do with your own, you wrap them around his neck. Good thing they sit behind him and it’s dark in the room because it would kill you for him to notice the slight tremor in your fingers.
With a scarily racing heart and stiff, trembling body you surge forward to kiss him. His lips are quick to capture yours. Soft and pillow-like, they mold into yours in waves. What starts off as clumsy and unskilled turns into hunger. Something desperate and needy. His grip feels bruising to your hips but in a nice way. In a way you want it to hurt more.
His nails digging further into your flesh to keep you impossibly close make your lips gasp, or maybe it’s the lack of air, or just both. And instinctively his tongue is licking its way past your lips and into your mouth. He kisses you like he’s starved for it. His wet tongue drags over yours, and your teeth, then as far as it can inside of you. He whimpers, pressing his already hard cock to you as he licks and kisses you open.
Your stomach has never burned this way before, and you feel the hot sensation all over then down to your core that aches like it’s hungry too. You feel disgusted by yourself but can’t fight the hum you make as you devour him right back. You’re getting wetter every second he’s in your mouth.
This time, he pulls away first. Panting for air and staring at you with glazed over dark eyes. He licks over his wet lips again, savoring the taste of you on himself. He bites down onto it and a part of you wishes it was you he sunk his teeth in.
“Can I do what I did last time?” he breathes out, his hips involuntarily jerking up against you at the thought alone.
While trying to act like you’re not catching your breath too, you say quietly, “do whatever you want.”
He kisses you again but with more desperation. You try to do the same but you can feel your heart and your head preparing for battle. The way he’s feeling you up and grinding himself on you is in no way unwanted, and that’s part of the reason you’re struggling to maintain presence.
It’s so much happening so quickly, but you’d be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t imagine this happening eventually. Sex was inevitable. The way his body yearns to be one with yours makes you feel special almost. He’s already engraved into you but in his mind he has to be inside of you and it hurts so badly how you think the same.
But is the last thing that keeps him pure really yours to take? You’ve stripped so much away from him for all the wrong reasons before and now it feels strange. You are no good and that’s all he is.
The only thing keeping you here, in the moment, is him. His exploratory and gentle yet rough hands, his body grinding into you, his lips that can’t leave yours or your skin for even a second, and the weak wanting sounds that leave them.
“I need more, please. I want- I need to feel good with you. Please,” he’s whining into your ear. Then pressing kisses along your jaw and neck that are all so tender, slow, and deliberate. Large hands caress you like you’re breakable, as if not already just a body of fragmented pieces made whole and called a person.
Your still shaking hand reaches down between your two bodies and slips past his sweats. He had the nerve to go commando and you wish you could tease him, but you can’t. You’re lucky you’re even here right now and breathing his air. Your hand wraps around his aching length and gives him a few tugs to which he’s quick to moan. He kicks off his sweatpants while you bring him closer to you. The plush of your thighs trap him; he whimpers against the soft heat of your flesh.
Your hips grind up into him once, showing him what he should do too. He’s slow to start, rocking himself between your thighs. Slutty and hopeless sounds leave him in a string of his want. His leaking hard cock is so close to your core. Only the thin layer of your underwear keeps him from feeling your clear need for him too.
Wrapped in each other's arms, you bury your head to his shoulder. You can feel the pulse of his aching desire rubbing and grinding against you. It makes you shiver in sensitivity and cower further into his neck. You don’t bite down onto your lip, but his neck. There’s a sting to your eyes because you hate it—the wet warmth that pools out of you. Your sin sticks to your underwear and your skin like the red raining life of all the animals you made leave the earth; your haunting subconscious correlates with your growing pleasure.
You know you’re not religious yet every time Sunghoon touches you there’s a divinity to it and it makes your hands want to join in prayer to thank the universe for sending someone like him to you. Because his hands roam your body as if they have in every world; as if there is not one timeline where you have not been made for him. Like you were carved from his rib every time.
Your body smolders in that angry way it always did whenever Sunghoon got too close to you. Whenever his words were too kind, his touch too gentle, or god forbid when he just smiled at you. That fire is just the divine nature of your relationship, lighting up everywhere he touches and leaving flames in the wake. You thought it was your body rejecting his purity, but you were only denying the likeness. He made you feel good. And in the most ironic way possible. You just didn’t think you deserved it.
Yet an anguished moan leaves you, rumbling against his skin as you bite down harder. Regardless of it all, he is yours right now.
The feeling of your sinking teeth in him, the sounds you’re now making, and the damp heat between your legs he can’t stop chasing all makes his head spin. He bites down onto you just the same and it only makes you moan louder.
“Please,” he’s whining again through the bite. His voice a needy tremble while his hips stutter and thrust between your legs that only squeeze tighter together. The way the fat of your legs hug his raging cock through his desperate grinds makes him chase more and more for that feeling he just can’t seem to reach. The crying tip kisses and pushes up then past your leaking folds every time. It drives you both insane.
If your body is the fiery lake of creation's deepest pit, then he is the cleanest ocean of earth’s highest point. If anyone could extinguish you, and possibly make you feel whole, it was Sunghoon.
This is the most horrifying reality you’ve come face to face with. Not just intimacy, but a stronger driving emotion. You have to open yourself, rip open your chest and bare your beating heart in all its naked vulnerability. Let it scream out I like being with you. You have allowed this person into your world that nobody else has dared to step foot in. To see you in such ugly ways yet still extend their arms for you. It’s a terrifying level of closeness that you’ve never once experienced and you don’t know what to do with. You’re beyond perplexed by what he’s done to you, in both terror and awe.
You pull back from Sunghoon and he pauses everything for a moment to look at you, noticing your wet eyes. Before he can ask what’s wrong you reach down and slip off your underwear. You shift your body and maneuver him as best you can until he’s on top of you. Rattled with concealed embarrassment you remove his shirt and toss it somewhere to the floor, and he does the same.
You take a deep breath and reach back down to his cock, lining it up with your pussy. You blink and swallow away all the things trying to stop you from allowing yourself him. Pliant beneath him, you grab his shoulders and pull him down to you for a quick kiss. Foreheads now pressed together with lips ghosting over the others, you tell him, “I hate you.”
Sunghoon only smiles down at you before kissing you once more. With his arms caged around you, he slowly pushes himself forward. The fat tip of his cock fails to go through you, only sliding up and past the wet folds. He whines feeling the warm slick coat the head; his entire body shudders. He nearly cums from that alone.
He looks at you confused, and nod once while trying to shift your hips around for a better angle. It’s not like you to be so quiet during things like this. It only tells him that for once, you’re nervous about new things the way he was.
So he tries again, this time a little rougher. He thrusts his hips forward, the tip pushing past the tight walls but still barely in. You whimper at the intrusion and the feeling of you being stretched open. Your hands squeeze hold onto his biceps for purchase.
The tight sensation of your pussy squeezing his tip feels otherworldly to him. He can’t help but need to sink deeper into you. His cock pushes in further at an agonizing pace until he’s as deep as he can possibly go. His arms shake while he tries to maintain his strength and keep himself from collapsing onto you completely. The wet walls that surround him flutter and try to pull him further inside, making him feel lightheaded. His moans are so needy it’s almost like he’s crying from the feeling.
“Oh, f-fuck!” you whimper. Having Sunghoon completely inside of you feels so full. You’re stuffed with him and it hurts so good. “You gotta move, Hoon. Feels like you’re splitting me open.”
“You're so tight, mm.” His hips stutter from your words alone and he whimpers again. He pulls himself out halfway while your gummy walls kiss around him in an attempt to suck him back to be filled again. He begins to rock himself in and out of you. It’s inexperienced and awkward, but he gets the hang of it quickly. Doing what feels best for him and what seems to be the best for you too.
“I hate you. I fucking hate you,” you whisper harshly, looking up at him with tear filled eyes. It all burns while feeling like heaven. Never have you been so full, held so gently, or seen than this summer. You bite back the breaking moans and whimpers. You claw at his skin. You even begin to cry when your hips can’t stop chasing his thrusts.
“I love you too,” he whispers back. A kiss is pressed to your forehead as his cock pistons you. Sunghoon is smart enough to know you’re a liar. Your mean words that used to hurt him, he now understands. You’re not really a bad person. And you don’t hate him. You were just really damaged and if he’s damned for trying to heal that then he’s fine with that too.
“I mean it,” your body shudders, feeling his tip pound so far and deep in places inside you that you didn’t know reachable. His fat cock drags out and forces through your tight hole, making you cream all over him more and more. The sounds that leave your body, the sounds your bodies are making, it’s so obscene. Fighting off the disgust and focusing on how he makes you feel is war. It’s so hard for you to win.
“No you don’t,” he shifts himself to sit on his knees, taking your legs and wrapping them around his waist. He leans forward and kisses both of your cheeks before fucking himself into you again, only harder and faster than before.
“Ngh,” you moan again through broken sobs, blinking away the tears as you stare up at him. “I’m t-trying to.”
“I know, baby.” he mumbles before capturing your wobbling lips into a searing kiss. “It’s okay, haah, don’t cry. You’re good. You’re so good for me,” he says against your wet lips. You can only sniffle and try to turn your head away from him in your embarrassment. “No, no.” he takes your chin with his thumb and finger, forcing you to look back at him. His thrusts never letting up during his care. “Look at me. You’re so good to me.” He reminds you over and over. “We’re so good together. I’m yours. you’re mine.”
“Say it again,” you sniffle through little sounds of sin. Your hand finds a place on his cheek, and your thumb rubs over his lips that wear a smile.
“You’re so good, good for me. We are so good together. I am yours. And you are mine,” he says softly. His eyes are so filled with love, and if you could see your reflection in his then you would know yours are too. “Say you’re good, baby, it’s okay.”
“I’m good,” you sob through your whimpers, “I’m yours.”
To Sunghoon, the idea of sex was always sacred. Something that’s only done and shared between lovers bound by marriage of the church. But now, he thinks differently. He knows that there is no shame in him loving you now or years later. And he was more than happy to make love to you all night until you believed it too.
Perhaps there was a thing such as divine intervention and if God’s timing was alway right, he knew how to be evil with it too. Because the next day, when Sunghoon takes you home, he’s met with your maker.
Your mother, aware of the frequent trips you’ve been making and how close you’ve grown to the summer farmhand boy, is quick to make a call to your father the night you don’t return home. It wasn’t necessarily because she cared for your well being. You’re more than capable of handling yourself. But it was an excuse to try and get him to come back. Only it doesn’t go how she wanted.
When you see the reverend’s car parked in front of your house, your heart drops. Sunghoon picks up on your tension, He sees how you go blank at the sight and slowly turn back into the empty girl he met months ago. He tries to hold your hand but your fingers can’t move, can’t return the embrace.
When the reverend walks out of the house with his infamous weapon of sacrificial forgiveness, you know what to do. Your body moves on its own, leaving Sunghoon to reach out for you that walks towards the woods. He goes to follow you and the desolate man that stalks behind, but your mother stops him. She’s hysterical as she drags him towards your house saying, “it’s going to be okay.” But she’s crying.
Once out of their sight, the reverend takes you by the hair. He yanks your head around, pulling you towards that cursed tree. He’s uncharacteristically rough and your scalp screams for a release but you don’t show it. You don’t even look at the man. Not even when he’s tossing your body to the ground.
“So you’re whoring around with my employees now, huh? Was ruining this farm not enough for you?” His words mean nothing to you. You dust off the dirt and go to stand again, but he kicks you back down. You tsk under your breath as he speaks again, “I’ve seen all the things you’ve done. Seen you leave my barns with red hands and smile. Cut heads off chickens like an anatomy project. Is he next? That church boy?”
Now you look up to glare at him. Seeing the reverend was aggravating enough, but to say something about Sunghoon was infuriating to you. “I am not a killer. You are! And those animals were already dead.” You spit at his black leather church shoes.
“Oh, you disgusting little devient,” he laughs lowly, untying the rope from the tree. “Your cruelty shouldn’t bring you joy. Sick and twisted, I should’ve dealt with you sooner regardless of what your drunk bitch mother protested. I can save the boy when you’re gone.”
“What?” you shuffle backwards from him, angry and confused as he stalks closer to you until you’re backed against the tree. “All those things I did was because of you. Your righteousness made me rotten!” Your hands shake, gripping at the dirt ground for anything to make the fear stop. You glance up to the empty tree branch then the rope in his hands. Where is the lamb? You think briefly before it hits you. “You’re crazy,” you whisper, “I will not be your martyr… not now what I’m finally-”
“Condemn me to Hell for all I care,” he crouches down in front of you, “This is the last time I’ll be a killer.” He throws the rope to your lap and tells you to tether yourself.
“Why do you hate me?” The words scratch at your throat. When you were younger, you did want the reverend to hate you. It was when he noticed you most, and it’s all you really knew. But now you’re older, and his disdain never made sense.
You can’t bring yourself to move even if you wanted to. Was this His plan? To allow you one good thing in life before ending it? Was ruining Sunghoon your final sin?
The rope shakes with your fingers as you stare down at it. The twine of the rope burns over the palm of your hand where Sunghoon carved his promise. Your throat feels dry, tight and suffocating; choking on everything you’ve ever done. And your eyes still puffy from the night before well with tears all over again.
“I just do,” he thinks of slicing your neck open right there. So fuck tying you down, you were always secretly another lamb anyways. He raises his knife and the metal sits cold under your chin as he lifts your head up to look back at him.
“Okay…” you swallow.
Your eyes squeeze shut and so does your mouth, as you raise your head to the sky with an exposed throat. Why isn’t this easy? Unlike the animals, you do know what’s coming. And it’s scary. Scary not because of death, but because you aren’t ready. You haven’t told Sunghoon goodbye or that you love him back. And the thought of him finding something in this world to hate, is such an ugly feeling to die with.
And then there’s a loud noise. A booming bang, followed by unsteady feet falling back and the ground rumbling with a thud.
You open your eyes and your father is on his back clutching his abdomen. He coughs and gasps before raising his hand. It’s dripping in deep red. And you can’t help but smile with tears in your eyes as you exhale a jagged breath.
You turn your head and Sunghoon stands there with the shotgun in hand, open mouthed and wide eyed.
“Sunghoon!” you scramble to your feet and run over to him, taking the gun from his hands as he’s frozen in shock.
“H-he was going to- he was about to hurt you. I had to-!” he stutters, his eyes already crying and hands shaking, still feeling the weight and recoil of the gun.
“It’s okay,” you coo softly. “Just- go back to the house and I’ll be right there, okay?” You rush out. Still in shock and dazed, he blindly trusts you and does as you say.
When he’s no longer close by, you walk over to the reverend with a blank face. You stare down at him as he tries to crawl away, dirty and bleeding. The smile you make doesn’t reach your eyes.
You point the gun back down at him, and place your foot over the shot wound Sunghoon created. The man gasps and tries to swat at your leg but you only press the gun further into his face, making him surrender.
“Divine intervention, huh? Say it with me now. I know no punishment, only mercy.” Your voice is quiet, calm, and mocking of his tone. With the barrel to his forehead, you watch him writhe in pain and cough up a little blood.
“Go to Hell,” he spits his words like venom.
“If you say it, I’ll let you live. But if you show your face to me or Sunghoon again, I’ll shoot you right between the eyes.” Your foot presses down harder. You can feel that angry little girl inside of you jumping with joy.. Knowing his God demands to be bled for, and making him know the sacrificial suffering, well it feels good to say the least. “Say it. With me. Now.” Each word pronounced with the growing applied pressure to his shot wound. And then he begs for forgiveness. He’s never seen you smile the way you did when he was below you with those words. Empty eyes were never so alive for him either. He cries and chants ‘I know no punishment, only mercy’ over and over. It was like the most beautiful hymn.
There wasn’t much to be said about that day. Sunghoon and you just pretend you shared a nightmare. Neither of you talked about it. It was just another thing that tied you together.
Sitting there in the peak of summer’s heat. A day before Sunghoon returns to college classes. Birds chirp. The leaves of the tall trees thistle in the light breezes that pass by. Sunghoon sits criss crossed and while you have your feet hanging off the edge of the dock, kicking in the water.
“I’m sorry,” you break the silence. Shocked, he looks over to you. He never would have expected you to apologize for anything. “I was selfish when I approached you. I wanted to take all that goodness out of you and keep it for myself. I thought I wanted to hurt you, but after sharing all this time with you, I realized I was wrong. It’s weird to say it out loud,” you laugh small, awkward, “but I really am sorry. I love you more than even I know.” You stare down to your feet in the water that has gone still. A tear falls from your eye, and down to your cheek.
“I know. I love you too,” he wraps an arm around your waist. “But now the same sins bind us.” You hiccup silently and turn to look up at him. “Harvest all of my purity, farmer’s daughter.”
For the first time, you really laugh. It’s bright and loud like the big smile he’s seeing for the first time on his favorite face. It’s morning sunlight that whispers through trees to kiss the forest floor. Birds that sing songs of hope to awake life into a new day. Nostalgic, expansive days of childhood where the concept of time doesn’t exist. To him, you look like the epitome of summer; he doesn’t want this season to end.
You were never the lamb. Or the wolf. Not an animal at all. Nothing like the ones you grew up with. You were just a girl, scared and alone. But not anymore. Because it’s your last day on this farm, and tomorrow is the first with only Sunghoon.
“Your humor is poetry.” you continue to laugh until tears prick your eyes all over again. You love it.
“It wasn’t supposed to be funny.” he looks away shyly, blushing. It only makes your giggle more, but you stop to press a kiss to his cheek. He blushes harder.
“I’ll keep doing it, harvesting all of your purity, for as long as you’re good.” you say with a smile.
“Do you promise? I am always good, especially with you, so it could be a long while.” He bumps your shoulder playfully with a laugh.
You take his scarred hand in yours and you laugh like he did, pure and true, “I do.”
© fangel ┊ do not copy, repost, modify or translate my content ໒꒱ tysm for reading, ⌗unlearn shame ⌇ taglist @tinycatharsis @simjaexy @leehsngs @511rkive @beomluvrr @jjongsaengzz @slvtella @jaerisdiction @kkamismom12 @rayofsunshineeee @nshmrarki @m3wkledreamy @hanjisbeloved @filmnings @stercul1a @hooniesfvngs @moriwori @sleepyhoon
#𝓴𝗶𝗽𝗼 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒔! ๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵) ˑ༄#𝓴𝗶𝗽𝗼‘𝘀 𝒇𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒔.ᐟ (づ  ̄ ³ ̄)づ♡#𝓁𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝖻𝗈𝗒──sunghoon ♡ ˎˊ˗#[oh la la!] : in the shadows#this is quite literally peak literature#like everyone else go home#it’s impossible to achieve anything greater than this#the only one who can is el#just banger after fucking banger like omg??#save some bangers for the rest of us??? 😭😭#sunghoon x reader#sunghoon smut#sunghoon angst#sunghoon fluff#enhypen x reader#enhypen smut#enhypen angst#enhypen fluff
3K notes
·
View notes
Text
Landcon Paris 7: the logistics
I said it before, I will say it again: it's not exactly for the cast that I reluctantly (at first) embraced the idea to give in and go to the Landcon, this year. I first and foremost went for the people I was very curious to meet and hug. And I also went there because I do believe that your fandom's experience is not complete until you watch its dynamics - but about this, in a separate, concluding post.
There seems to be a consensus about Landcon's logistics being the stuff nightmares are probably made of, and I can absolutely confirm this. I have written yesterday about the little legal arrangements that to me prove the organizers' first and foremost objective is the maximization of profits, sometimes at the expense of common sense or empathy itself. Because let's be clear, for once: Landcon's honchos are not exactly born yesterday. This is the seventh edition of this event, which by the way is the only official, licensed OL fan convention. By now, they should have a pretty clear idea about their audience/clientele, which is, as far as I could see, mainly composed by mature women, many of which had just arrived in Courbevoie after sometimes exhausting mid- to long courier flights or grueling train rides or drives. That means they left home the day before or pretty early in the morning and were sometimes unable to check-in to their hotels or accommodations before the allotted time window for registering, taking their bracelets and buying whatever extras were still available for sale (almost all of them).
The venue is definitely not the problem here, except perhaps for the unapologetic Brutalist eyesore that is everything but glamorous. Seen from the curb, it could be anything: a hospital, a faculty, one of those non-descript local government office buildings, an insurance company's headquarters. But once inside, I found the Centre Evénementiel to be just one of those multi-purpose spaces that I do know so well from my other, real life: a pretty intuitive to navigate, rather clean and safe affair. The Courbevoie Municipality could easily organize there a minor European summit, for example.
However, I find it absolutely unacceptable to have a Reduced Mobility Zone that was just a half-dozen of very basic pliable chairs, scattered haphazardly in a side area of the main hall, that was not properly designated, nor signaled as such. You had to be a regular and know there was also a special designated line for Reduced Mobility/Difficulty Standing attendees, people who are easily overwhelmed by the colossal hullaballoo of screaming, shouting, shushing ladies. The flow seemed endless and very much decided to get those bracelets at Mach 4 speed, which made everything look more like an Oriental bazaar, than an effective, well-oiled machine worth the rather steep ticket fees. Same goes for all the rest of the already tired people: rest or simply comfortably waiting for your sweating, swearing and grumpy party was not in order, you got the pump up the jam and move it, move it. Ugh. Such an eyeroll and so easy to address, with a bit of extra care.
I also found it very questionable to limit the staff's special needs assistance offer to the extras' moments only, cutting the Reduced Mobility attendees from their +1 friends. And the situation in the main auditorium wasn't any better, so to speak. The lady who sat on my right was visually impaired and used one of those telescopic walking sticks that you just cannot see while running around like a headless chicken to get your pics. I kept on being terrorized either by the idea of stumbling on it - imagine a pachyderm plunging in slow motion like a felled sequoia tree, IN THE DARK - or falling on her. The struggle was real, while at the very same time the panel was droning on and business as usual.
Except for the tchotchkes for sale area which was seriously clogging the space dedicated to the extras' lines, there was nothing else on offer. Not a single bottle of Evian, not a slice of one euro greasy pizza Margherita (wee joke: there are no one euro pizza slices in our old and mercantile land). To be completely honest, they did have three food trucks outside (reheated, microwaved fried chicken/squishy hot dogs with violently colored sauces and the infamous Pizza Tony - all for the price of a kidney transplant) and huge garbage bins to accommodate the ditched leftovers. But no sitting lunch area or even those sorry standing tables you sometimes see in hotels, in front of their meeting areas. Classy: I was just trying to piteously cope with a stubborn chicken strip while standing near a full ashtray, just as C was gracefully sashaying through the main entrance (and being almost one hour late!), at less than six feet from me. Embarrassing does not even start to cover it. A diva slides by and you look like a carnivorous beast, trying to feed yourself, while smoking and gossiping at the same time. One of those moments you're probably sorry to be alive on such a nice day, after all.
Enough said. I will spare you the cheap vaudeville of the lost and found bracelets at Registration Desk, the higgledy-piggledy offset alphabetic lists that made us stay in line twice and my flat-footed ordeal, while waiting in a seemingly infinite line of women who could not decide on what the fuck they wanted for their extra photos and autographs. And I will spare you this because at the exact moment my tolerance level crushed and I was about to uncharacteristically leave, swearing like a drunken sailor in at least four different languages, I met @irunfraser standing in line. And there was finally sunshine and birds were singing suddenly, everything was fine in the world, because @irunfraser and I hugged like death row inmates before their last meal, even if we talked perhaps only four or five times in DMs. What we told each other then was strictly in Spanish and I will provide neither a transcript, nor a translation, for once: it's between me and her only. But such is also the magic of this very strange Nowhere Land - it does bring people together and makes a true friend out of a non-descript handle. And such is, I believe, the strength of our underdog community, where people are overall smiling and warm and damn caring. And while I am at it, a final and special shoutout to @pamalissou, who knows everyone and everything five minutes before it becomes public. And without whom I would have never ever had my terrible, terrible C pic I am, nevertheless, very proud of.
Next - my photoshoot experiences, as they happened, spare the C one, which I covered separately. Sorry for the length: concision has never been my forte and never forget I am a babbling, sentimental imbecile.

72 notes
·
View notes
Text
KUNICHUUZAI HEADCANONS
⟢ These are all SFW and all made because i am in so much pain
› Chuuya and Dazai were dating first, originally dating in the mafia at 18 and then reconnecting after The Agency and the Port Mafia had a truce. They both secretly had a crush on Kunikida but they only actually talked about it after Chuuya made a comment about Kunikida’s ass to Dazai.
› They were very lowkey about their polycule at the start but after like 8 months together they both moved in with Chuuya (Both Dazai and Kunikida) and that’s when they started doing more PDA.
› Dazai prefers heavier kisses, Kunikida prefers soft domestic kisses and Chuuya doesn’t have a preference.
› Kunikida started packing everyone lunches so they wouldn’t forget to eat and started driving him and Dazai to work. (Dazai still makes excuses when he wants to be late but now that Kunikida is around he doesn’t get away much.)
› Chuuya LOVES taking them both out on rides on his motorbike, though Dazai goes on them more than Kunikida because of Chuuya’s reckless driving.
› Kunikida does most of the shopping with Chuuya’s money and always makes a list for the others to add onto, though usually they never add things and if they do it’s usually something weirdly specific.
› They all have pretty different music tastes but whoever’s usually driving gets the aux. (It’s mostly Kunikida and Chuuya, Dazai bribes someone every so often to choose the music.)
› Kunikida has some jealousy issues and when they first got together he thought he would push it away and ignore it but after a bit he really couldn’t control his feelings which sparked their first talk.
› Dazai calls their talks “the council meetings” when he’s at the Agency or talking to a co-worker
› Dazai sleeps in the middle of the bed every night but before he gets into bed Kunikida and Chuuya cuddle and talk about their days.
› Chuuya drools ever so slightly without his mouth even being open, and it always manages to get somewhere absolutely insane. ( eg. along Kunikida’s forearm, In Dazai’s hair, on the floor, etc.)
› Kunikida has horrible morning breath even though he keeps a strict hygiene routine.
› Dazai has insane insomnia and Chuuya is a light sleeper so Kunikida considers it hell when sleeping with them since both of them either move around or make the cuddle pile uncomfortable after a while. He makes it work though.
› Kunikida didn’t know until he actually slept over for the first time that Chuuya rarely sleepwalks. He started tracking what would trigger the episodes and keeps it in his notebook.
› Kunikida writes his boyfriend’s favourite things into his ideal’s notebook and refuses to let anyone see.
› Chuuya started leaving little notes for either Dazai or Kunikida to find and they usually say something silly or inappropriate but they never get thrown out.
› It took a while for Dazai to be vulnerable around Kunikida at home, constantly hiding and doing things behind locked doors. One day he kind of just, switched and was fine being around Kunikida for vulnerable moments. (Kunikida felt very proud of himself when Dazai cuddled him for the first time.)
› Sometimes they bathe together and it’s really good that Chuuya’s bath is huge because they all act completely different when bathing. (Dazai is extremely still, Kunikida is washing himself like any normal person and Chuuya is actively flicking water towards the other two for fun.)
Edit: Sorry, I completely forgot to edit these before posting so I did that..
Thank you to all who read these! I’m sorry if it’s a bit out of character I’m just having a bit of fun. Wish you nothing but the best and here are a few more text memes I made with these stupid three. ♡
#bungou stray dogs#bungou gay dogs#anime#polycule#kunnichuuzai#dazai x chuuya x kunikida#bsd kunikida#kunikida doppo#kunichuu#chuuya nakahara#bsd chuuya#soukoku#bsd dazai#dazai osamu#headcanon
48 notes
·
View notes
Text
why doesn't venat tell the convocation?
one thing you'll see come up from time to time: why does venat, the largest ancient, not simply eat the other sorry wrong notes. Why does Venat, who has access to time-loop knowledge, not simply tell the Convocation what she knows and try to fight the Final Days in her time?
it's an understandable question: why wouldn't you want to change the future, if you know what comes to pass? Answering this question does a lot to flesh out our understanding of the Ancients, as well as Venat herself, in fun ways. It also highlights the heightened tonal register FFXIV operates in where the Ancients are involved. Most crucially, it confirms that your ultimate victory in Endwalker is not due to time loop predestination, but because of the collective efforts of everyone along the way.
all quotes, as ever, sourced from xiv.quest (except for some stuff from the very end of myths of the realm which i pulled from gamerescape). spoilers through endwalker follow.
(post-completion edit: this got insanely out of hand and way too long and it's honestly not even very insightful. you were warned.)
The way I see it, there are two broad versions of this question: First, why doesn't Venat warn the Ancients about the Final Days? And second, why doesn't she reach out to the Convocation and try to nip it in the bud?
To start with, let's get the answer straight from the source:
Venat cannot tell the Ancients generally because she cannot trust that they will not panic. No judgment should be taken as unquestionable, obviously, but Venat is a nigh-immortal scholar and researcher who also did a long stint as traveling counselor and savior and friendly neighborhood video game protagonist, who repeatedly and fervently declaims her love of the people of the world and her belief in their ability to surmount any obstacle if they simply find the strength within themselves. She has also, in-fiction, seen the wider world unsundered. Our exposure to the Ancients, on the other hand, is: her; the ruling council of their people, turned evil dimension-hopping wizards; a slice of particularly detached academics in a mad science lab (comedy version); a slice of particularly detached academics in a mad science lab (horror version). That's it! And of course, the revelation of the Final Days ultimately does result in panic and a series of increasingly drastic measures. While we only have her reasoning to go off of on this one, I don't know that there's any evidence that goes firmly against her reading of the situation.
As to the Convocation, she's right: the first time Hermes got the full picture of the Final Days, he immediately turned against you and tried to wipe your memories to prevent you from using your knowledge to stop them before they start. And that's really bad, because Hermes isn't just pretty important to stopping the Final Days: without the benefit of time-loop knowledge, he's the guy who draws the conclusion that connects the Final Days to the celestial currents of aether!
"Having shed light upon the phenomenon, he dedicated to himself to devising a countermeasure. Were it not for [Hermes's] knowledge of the celestial, we would never have made the connection—and thence forestalled the Final Days." Elidibus strongly implies here that Hermes is the guy who conceived of the Zodiark plan in the first place, or at least came up with the the mechanism by which Zodiark could actually use aether to protect Etheirys.
Hermes is a guy you absolutely have to have on your team if you're going to respond to the Final Days, because he is not just the guy who knows about dynamis. He is also, as far as we know, the only Ancient with a meaningful knowledge of outer space and celestial currents. Meteion herself is pretty explicitly parallel to a prototype space probe, a first-of-her-kind interstellar traveler. Given that the Ancients use magical concepts for seemingly nearly all their technology (there sure is a lot of stuff going on with crystals, I'll grant...but crystals are just aether, sometimes with concepts inscribed in them!), he is the closest thing they have to an aerospace engineer.
Space in FFXIV is obviously weird (no one's wearing a helmet on the moon, Midgardsormr flies through it, etc.), but nonetheless we know that space travel is difficult, and Hermes highlights in his explanation that Etheirys is unusually rich in aether while aether is much rarer in space generally. And we can surmise no one before him devised a way for the extremely aether-dense Ancients to travel and survive in space, or presumably that would have informed his own designs and he wouldn't have had to turn to under-researched dynamis. And we know no one worked with him on Meteion or understands anything about all the dynamis and, celestial currents stuff; Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch tell us as much.
Hermes might not be the literal only Ancient with knowledge of these things, but he is certainly the most knowledgeable, seemingly by a long shot. There is plenty of reason to believe the Ancients, while they have godlike power on Etheirys, don't have a huge body of working physics information. For example, the discovery and use of magnetism in creations was the signature achievement of Hermes' immediate predecessor as Fandaniel, per a Ktisis readable.
So you need Hermes, and cannot afford the possibility of losing him. Even with the benefit of the Warrior of Light's future knowledge, not having Hermes would fatally undermine any efforts by the Ancients to combat the Final Days—not only in terms of identifying which areas were likely to be affected, but also in terms of creating and implementing Zodiark, and with respect to any hypothetical "Ancients go to the edge of the universe to fight Meteion" plan.
That kind of full-spectrum involvement makes him only more dangerous. Sure, maybe you can approach the Convocation and convince them (and I'm not so sure of that: one of their members is there when you explain all this, after all, and he vehemently rejects the possibility right up until the moment the time-loop starts!), but how can you ever be safe with Hermes on board? Worse, what if this time he doesn't announce his betrayal? What's to stop him from building a flaw into Zodiark, or any one of the other plans along the way?
Well, but set the problem of Hermes aside for a second: why not approach other Convocation members? Aside from the information security concerns with Hermes, there's the fact that she already has some advance intel on that options. First, Emet-Selch already heard and experienced all these revelations, and he vehemently denied and rejected them. The only reason he ended up cooperative through the events of Ktisis is because "get to Hermes and stop Meteion" fulfills both your goals. You're literally out the door on your way to start the time loop post-Kairos and he's like "I still don't believe your future visions by the way! But if it's true then don't fuck it up!"
Second, if what you told her is true, Venat already has reason to believe Azem might not be willing to side with her. After all, one of the only pieces of knowledge you were able to pull directly from the records of the past is that even with 75% of the Ancient population sacrificed and preparations for the third sacrifice underway, Azem would not reply to the Anamnesis Anyder faction.
So she has good reason to believe her successor might not be willing to side with her, and she knows that successor's bestie will definitely counsel against trusting these future visions.
But what if she just shows them her memories and past events via the Echo? After all, reconstructing past events is a key part of your adventures in Elpis in the first place!
Venat can probably share her memories via Echo vision, but there's no reason to think that would work: after all, Emet-Selch was already there for most of these events and was still skeptical the whole way through. Plus, at that point you're really still just relying on Venat's testimony. Additional memory evidence certainly has some corroborating effect, it's not unimpeachable, particularly given the problem of Kairos. Hermes, Emet-Selch, and Hythlodaeus will all have memories that contradict Venat's because Kairos doesn't just erase memories, it straight up alters them.
But why not do the CSI crime scene reconstruction thing? Well, as Venat notes, those memories are prone to fading, and are etched on the aether of the world the same way memories are on the soul. So assuming, you were perfectly lucky and none of the aether got too altered by other events, you could reconstruct what happened from the moment Meteion connects to the hive mind . . . right up until everyone enters Ktisis Hyperboreia. Kairos functions by overwriting the memories etched into aether with yet more aether, and given that it targeted not just the group in the final room but the entirety of Ktisis Hyperboreia, it has presumably substantially altered whatever aetherial ripples remained of the day's events. Consider that if it's blotting out multiple days worth of memory over a large area (Ktisis Hyperboreia is a full-on spatial anomaly, after all), our only comparable event in lore is the Seventh Umbral Calamity. That's a lot of aether! Kairos moots any attempt to employ memory reconstruction as evidence.
So you can't tell everyone because they'll panic; you can't tell the Convocation because Hermes is untrustworthy; you can't tell the Convocation without Hermes because there's no point in recruiting the Convocation without Hermes because his expertise is what you actually need; even if you did want the Convocation without Hermes, there's reasons to believe that would go poorly; and you can't use the Echo to help you win them over because the well on memory-as-evidence is already poisoned thanks to Hermes inventing Kairos.
A brief interlude on the possibility of the Ancients getting to and fighting Meteion. Links to sources only because this post is already stupid long. Okay, pretend we perfectly secure Hermes on-side and rally all the Ancients. After making Zodiark early thanks to Venat's warning, the remaining 50% of the population sets to work on the problem of space travel to Ultima Thule. It'll be a lengthy process, since devising the propulsion systems of the moon took the Loporrits six thousand years, but sure, it's not like lifespan is a big issue for the Ancients. Then there's the matter of having enough energy to get there; Hydaelyn accumulates the aether of the Mothercrystal for over twelve thousand years to make that happen. But maybe we shortcut that with human sacrifice again. Okay, we've flown a spaceship full of Ancients to Ultima Thule. They can't do anything here because the dynamis is too thick for aether to do anything. Your allies can only reshape the reality of Ultima Thule to allow aether-based life to exist via dynamis in the first place. The Ancients themselves seem largely unable to interact with dynamis. Any familiars or entelechies they could try to use against Meteion would probably be overwhelmed by the transformative power of her own critical mass of dynamis. Probably your best bet is to send in wave after wave of Ancients to die in a delaying action while Hermes in the way way back with a megaphone tries to persuade Meteion to chill out? Part of the whole Endwalker thing is that the Warrior of Light's victory is an incredible piece of luck enabled by a whole host of actions both intentional and accidental. The thing about miraculous victories is they're miraculous because they were otherwise exceedingly unlikely!
"Well," one might ask, "shouldn't there still be something she can do? Couldn't she reach out to trusted friends to share this information and work to stop the Final Days and persuade the Convocation without accidentally reconnecting Hermes to the knowledge that caused this problem in the first place?" And the answer is: Yes, that's what she does! It just doesn't go great and results in the creation of Hydaelyn!
As you are departing, Venat confirms to you that she will try to find a different way to resist the Final Days. She also tells you that she will not take for granted that the future you have told her will come to pass, and will simply do her best to try to fight the Final Days.
We have a good sense of the results of her efforts because her closest and most trusted allies are left behind as the Twelve and the Watcher. Rhalgr and Oschon were literally just fellow travelers she met during his journeys. Nald'thal was a merchant. Nophica was a landscape architect. Probably the most outwardly accomplished members of their number were Halone (candidate for the seat of Pashtarot), Thaliak (brilliant university president), and Menphina (brilliant university student). They were, sometimes literally, just some guys she found by the side of the road.
The truth is that Venat's message and efforts were simply not that popular in the unsundered world. We see her efforts to reach the people, conveyed allegorically, in the Thou Must Live, Die, and Know cutscene: her appeal to the better natures of her countrymen fails. They cannot be deterred from their path of sacrificing the lives of others for their own comfort.
The result of Venat's best work to rally the world against the Final Days, outside the auspices of the Convocation, is the Anyder faction. And the Anyder faction, though it makes its case to the Convocation and to others, ultimately cannot win enough people over to shake the Convocation from its intentions.
The Ancient world in FFXIV often operates in a heightened register. From the name references that invoke Greek mythology and Utopia to aesthetic elements like their theatrical masks and genre-breaking art deco architecture, the game takes pains to emphasize how otherworldly the Ancients are. This helps make their stories work emotionally. Emet-Selch and Elidibus and Lahabrea are personally responsible for six worldwide genocides, plus countless other associated sins. Even in the already heightened fantasy world of FFXIV, trying to take their stories semi-seriously would break them down. Instead, the game uses a number of cues (Emet-Selch's dramatic nature and taste for literary allusion help considerably here, as does the English localization consciously adopting slightly archaic language) to indicate to the player that the Ancients' story is being told in an epic register, that they are a fairy tale, that their story is a creation myth.
Being a fairy tale or myth means that things can be narratively true about the Ancients which would otherwise not work in FFXIV, a story which tends to shoot for some degree of psychological verisimilitude. A person can survive untold millennia as the only remaining sane member of their people, retain their sanity, and never waver in their mission or crack under the pressure. Three-quarters of the world rising up to spontaneously sacrifice themselves out of love and kindness and a belief in the value of the natural world. In Hermes' case, we are literally directly shown and told, by both magical empathic bird-girl and magical mood ring flower, that he is literally not just the Saddest Man in Elpis, but the Only Sad Man in Elpis. People often poke at this point reflexively ("Why doesn't Hermes go to therapy?"), but his despair is not just all-encompassing and overwhelming. It is literally inexplicable and unfamiliar to the Ancients around him.
Similarly, Venat, actual wandering superhero and benevolent demiurge possessed of an inexhaustible love for humanity and surpassing skill in every field, scours the earth and comes up with just thirteen people (or like, them plus a few) who are willing to stand against the Convocation. Venat does use her time-loop knowledge to spur on a parallel effort to fight off the Final Days. It doesn't work because the Convocation's plans not only have the weight of formal authority behind them, but because the Ancients overwhelmingly did not want to accept their losses, form a plan of action, and fight back. They wanted to undo their pain and suffering now, as fast as possible, and damn the consequences or whatever other lives it cost. If this feels unrealistically emotionally extreme, that's par for the course for the tone of the narrative around the Ancients.
The truth is Venat was just doing the best she could with the knowledge she had and the understanding she had of the arena she was in. She doesn't end up forming the Twelve and sundering the world because she heard about it from the Warrior of Light—the Warrior of Light comes from a world in which she formed the Twelve and sundered the world because that is what she always already would have done in this situation.
We can surmise as much from how the time loop works across the rest of the game: even though there is always at least one person in the timeline who knows about the time loop, events always play out in a way that requires other people to exercise their free will, and those choices end up aligning with the time loop even absent the knowledge of the future. Either the Warrior of Light or Venat (also Fandaniel, now that I think about it, but I don't know of any meaningful insights to glean from that) is aware of the possibility of the time loop at all times: she knows about it from Elpis onward, then shows up in the boat at the start of Endwalker to say "hey fyi you're entering the Time Loop Zone," then you end up in the past with future knowledge of stuff up until you hit the time loop reset point and the whole thing starts again. But in the game through Endwalker, that knowledge never controls events; you and Hydaelyn are only ever individuals on a board with many players, and much of making the time loop work ultimately relies on the Ascians, a group we can definitely say both lacks time loop knowledge (except, again, Fandaniel) and is actively working to frustrate Hydaelyn's ends. On a broader thematic note, consider Zenos: he's ultimately crucial to your victory, and he's a complete wild card whose most important actions you could not possibly have told Venat about because they only happen after your return from Elpis. You don't win because you are predestined to win. You win because many people collectively take small actions which happen to, luckily, line up with ultimate victory.
The Elpis time loop only functions because of countless and almost entirely unknowing large and small actions by more or less every character in the game, and results from and is defined by those actions, rather than structuring and defining those actions. It's not that Venat, armed with knowledge of the future, chooses the time loop instead of averting the Final Days. It's that the time loop results from and incorporates a future-influenced Venat doing everything she can to avert the Final Days.
38 notes
·
View notes
Text
Notes from a first-time severance viewer: Woe's Hollow edition
aka: a day one Mark x Helly shipper goes on the biggest emotional rollercoaster of the season
part one / prev part / sev notes tag
So basically, what I've been doing is sharing my experience and notes from going into Severance blind. And if you know anything about my thoughts on previous episodes, you'd know that I'm a huge fan of Mark and Helly. So. This was a wild episode for me.
Now, unfortunately because I was binge-watching, I never took a moment to reflect and realize that Helly was not actually the Helly I knew. So... the reveal in this episode absolutely killed me lol.
Obviously, my experience is different because I got to binge the season, and thus I'd like to know what other people thought of the episode! Let me know what you thought watching Woe's Hollow in the notes!
^While the whole show has elicited a lot of confusion from me, this ep was the most wild lol. This was the first time the innies were getting to experience the outdoors (not counting the OTC) which is cool, but I wish they explored that more. Then again, there was enough going on in this episode.
^*insert meme of the monkey looking away awkwardly*
I genuinely (and this is embarrassing to admit because I'm pretty aromantic and spend a lot of time complaining about how there's too much romance in media) spent the first few episodes of s2 just waiting for Mark and Helly to kiss lol. What can I say? They're special to me. Partly because I see a lot of myself in them, but Severance kind of was/is the markhelly show to me, especially on first watch. Now of course I love all of Severance and I've since taken time to rewatch and digest everything so that I can properly appreciate other aspects, but I just love Mark and Helly so much and they were forefront in my mind lol.
^turns out the actors were actually filming outdoors which must have been a fun change in scenery lol
^I think I typed this down when Irv was creeping and watching Mark and Helly from behind a tree or something weird like that, idk. I think at this point I'd noticed enough of Helly's odd behavior to be suspicious of her, although I hadn't really stopped to put it all together. I *do* remember wondering if Lumon did something to change her or if there was another influence at play, but I never seriously considered that Helly was actually Helena.
The difference between binge watching and waiting weeks at a time, is that instead of trying to answer questions with theorizing and reflecting, I just tried to move forward as much as possible to find out what happens next lol. So, my experience was definitely way different than those who spent months digesting and growing a relationship with the show.
^You know what? First of all, I called it. Second of all, I still want to know where Miss Huang and Mr. Milchick went! It really keeps me up at night, the way they just disappeared.
^*insert meme of the monkey looking away awkwardly*
This was the scene where she went to visit Irving in his tent. I was basically yelling at the scream for Helly to tell Irving that she was an Eagan in my blissful ignorance.
Also, I was really puzzled by this scene. I remember thinking "Would Helly make a snow animal?" because while it was really cute and all, it really felt out of character. Not out of character in a bad way (like the way she suddenly turned into a gaslighted) but just in a way that felt a little off.
Anyways, thankfully the real Helly isn't a gaslighter, because I was getting really frustrated with her in these first few episodes. It felt like a character assassination, and I was really confused lol.
^Ok but seriously!! I got the impression that the book was supposed to be about the two brothers but then the twin got killed off in chapter two! I just want to know how much wilder the plot could get please.
^*insert meme of the monkey looking away awkwardly*
Why did I even say that?? My goodness, I'm dead lol
I guess because I was getting evil vibes from Helly? Which I mean if I'd just thought about it for a second more maybe...
^This is sad, but I got really excited lol. The realization I had later was the BIGGEST letdown. I was just trying to ignore the signs and root for these two smh. And it was an especially big deal for me to be so excited, because (like I said before) I usually hate romance plots. These two were so specially to me and I just wanted it to be real lol
^I was getting so bothered by Helly and I could not with her lying. I felt like I was trying SO HARD to be team Mark x Helly and Helly was ruining it by being a little liar. I guess I just thought Helly was ashamed and needed to talk things out. But now that I know the difference between Helly and her outie, I really don't think Helly could ever be this bothered by things. Not in this way at least. Helly is headstrong and upfront. Whenever she has a problem, she's always quick to express it. Helly's honestly a really great communicator.
^See, besides my annoyance with Helly lying, I also feared that their relationship was doomed because of the reintegration. I was pretty much just trying to get what I could before it all completely fell apart lol
^me crashing out, still completely oblivious, while Irving was figuring it out lol
^So the fun part of binge-watching things is that reveals hit you right over the head. I mean I felt that. When Mark gets all piss-y in the next couple of episodes, I totally understood because I experienced the same grief firsthand lol. I mean truly, I gasped so hard I had to take a few moments to catch my breath again. It all came crashing down on me so hard. It was like this revelation of "Oh! of course!" with a sprinkle of extra confusion because I didn't understand what Helena was trying to achieve. I mean, to this day I'm still trying to decipher what her game is, but it was extra confusing then.
^I WAS HAVING SO MUCH FUN UNTIL I WASN'T
At this point I was just very broken hearted because all the progress I was waiting for in Mark and Helly's relationship was just thrown away. I was certain my ship was dead lol. Also, I guess I was too devastated to notice that they killed Irving, because I was really confused as to what happened to him when I started the next episode. I owe him a formal apology.
I'm sorry Irving. You knew better than I did. My feelings for them kept me from seeing objectively. I'm ashamed I couldn't figure out that my favorite character got replaced by her evil twin :'(
Personally, I think this is one of my favorite episodes (if not THE favorite). The reveal was really cool for me, and it was really fun to watch the mystery of why Helly was acting weird unfold. Theorizing is fun and all, but there's something about the whiplash I experienced this episode that I wouldn't trade for any other experience lol.
#sorry I can't talk about anything other than mark and helly#I promise I have deeper thoughts#I just didn't take the time to articulate/digest them when I was making these initial notes lol#severance#mark x helly#markhelly#markhellyna#markhelena#my severance notes#woe's hollow#mark s#helly r#helena eagan#my posts
27 notes
·
View notes
Text
using that idea i had earlier about rinn not losing her memory as the basis of her companion verse so. recruiting info and quest below.
companion quest: the surface drow
korinn can be found in two places to recruit- first near the chapel entrance where she is watching the looters from cover. at this time she's disinterested and dismissive of the party, and states that the looters have stolen some items that belong to her. not looking at or speaking to the party directly, the tadpoles will not connect. she will not volunteer any personal information and is evasive if asked about the ship, but an insight check will reveal she is hiding something and her hands are twitching.
if the party promises to attack the looters then she will offer to join as a temporary companion, otherwise there's no way here to recruit her. assuming the party takes her as a temporary ally, then after killing the looters she will offer a token of gratitude where the tadpoles will connect.
if not recruited, the party will come across her again in waukeens rest being threatened by one of the flaming fist survivors who think she was with the goblins and attacking drow. she will have retrieved her armour and weapons. if the party found the body of a looter when leaving the crypt then they'll notice that there's smeared blood across her torso and arms that someone has tried to wash away. this time the tadpoles will connect, and the visions that appear are disconnected flashes of her torture at kressa's hands.
it is much easier to recruit her here, the party only needing to defend her by saying she wasn't a part of this attack and then stating they're searching for a cure for the tadpoles. once recruited, she will be very insistent on going to moonrise "for the cure" and will feign amnesia, claiming that the head injury has caused her to forget nearly everything except being kidnapped from baldurs gate by the mindflayers. if passing certain checks, then she will go to the extent of revealing she has always lived in baldurs gate and works in a temple in the lower city.
she takes a similar role to astarion and lazael in camp, generally approving of evil choices and disapproving of helping others. will comment on how they don't have a lot of time to fix their affliction and shouldn't waste their time on anything but finding a cure.
her companion quest will generally note that she's never lived in the underdark, is unfamiliar with actual drow culture, and that she seems to know more than she lets on about the absolute. if she's in the party when going to the goblin camp, and thus experiencing the vision, then she can be questioned about her anger over the voices of the absolute.
following the goblin camp, after a long rest the party will find the brutalised corpse of a bard somewhere along the road similar to the dead boar. if she's present, then a successful check will note she seems amused by the body. you can either roll a persuasion or (a much higher) intimidation dialogue here, if successful then she will admit it's certainly a ritual sacrifice but claim the symbol is too damaged to recognise who its for.
in act ii, on visiting moonrise she will be recognised enough to be pressed about it by the party. if there's a high enough approval here then she will admit that she is a bhaalspawn and was a part of masterminding the tadpoles but was betrayed before the plan was enacted, otherwise ketheric will reveal it before their fight and question if they know who they're fighting beside.
there's two options here besides her becoming hostile; depending on the approval levels and type of playthrough then either the party can convince her to take revenge on the three who betrayed her and destroy the absolute plan...or to take revenge by killing thorm/orin/gortash and taking control of the absolute with them rather than for bhaal. in subsequent conversations she can reveal that she was initially using the party to get back to moonrise and hopefully just kill orin, finding them interesting enough allies that she stuck with them even after that, and that she lied about the amnesia as she knew they wouldn't help a bhaalspawn/the person who caused their condition.
#this is so waffley i fear#and will absolutely be edited as time goes on#𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖇𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖍𝖔𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖋𝖎𝖊𝖉 𝖔𝖓𝖊 / with only teeth.
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
its the hard rock life
#my amv#hi fi rush#hi fi rush chai#chai hi fi rush#did i spend too much time and complete forsake work for this? absolutely.#my undiagnosed adhd wouldnt let me go.#also. i couldnt not do the bad pun. it would be very anti chai spirit to not go for it.#THIS GOES ON ART BLOG INSTEAD OF MAIN LIKE MY OTHER EDITS BC ITS A WORK OF ART.#THIS HAD TO BE DONE AND I VERY HAPPILY USED MY GOD LIKE EDITING POWERS TO BRING IT INTO EXISTENCE#tho i was admittedly rushing it a little sdkjfhehgkj. due to. the work ive procrastinated that i have to do NOW...#posting at 2am babes!
461 notes
·
View notes
Text
— And do you or do you not have difficulty remembering such simple instructions? — Only during thunderstorms, sir.
THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) / DARK SHADOWS (1966)
#don't mind me just absolutely insane about the possibility (probability!) that vicki saw tsom the year before coming to collinwood.#the boom mic in the stairs shot is always cracking me up.#finally me and you and you and me just us and your friend steve (the boom mic operator)#➤ roger collins & victoria winters. ┊ pain sometimes precedes pleasure,miss winters.#gifs.#➤ edits & art. ┊ the evans cottage art gallery.#➤ roger collins. ┊ I and my ghosts want a drink.#➤ victoria winters. ┊ because she’s lost and lonely. because she looks in shadows.#there's obviously far; far less of a christian overtone in ds — but i wonder if you couldn't make the argument that it isn't also#on some level about belief?#belief; namely; in the ghosts that roger resists and vicki with both arms embraces;#faith in the not-so-minor deity liz stoddard; choosing to follow her doctrine even in the face of conflicting truth.#one might consider collinsport a faithful congregation taking sermons from the mount — from the mouth of the reclusive ascetic;#conveyed by loyal (devastatingly; sacrificially loyal) disciples.#and vicki; searching for belonging; for a home; for a family; falls very lamb-like into the flock.#all old gods of course demand their sacrifices in blood: burke; namely; but also matthew; bill; roger (so-attempted)#if i were pushing it (which I always am) you could go so far as to say collinwood's son rises from the tomb.#''but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night'' etc etc. demanding; first; sacrificial livestock; then virgin blood.#anyway! I digress.#''they say confession is good for the soul. well; my soul needs purifying.''#vicki as the prototypical virgin — the clean slate without history; clear water with neither dirt nor blood —#in which roger cleanses himself (somewhat forcefully!); to wash away guilt and suspicion;#the force of virtue that prevents the intrusion of sin; either through the wood of the confessional or very literally at her bedroom door.#''an innate sense of goodness'' etc; besides being something of a conduit between this world and the next:#re. the seances; the appearances of josette and bill; the various and varied encounters with supernatural; the time travel;#as one might expect of an angel ... or a saint. and one could argue that she goes on to restore roger's faith —#if not in the goodness of the world at large; then the existence of goodness; or in the worth of belief itself.#anyway. long way of saying i love man x his governess whether it's catholic or satanic. sign me up.
47 notes
·
View notes
Text
Warrior Nun x Amon Amarth "Vengeance is My Name"
#warrior nun#ava silva#mother superion#areala#you absolutely need to listen to the song to understand the this is my sword part. it goes: THIS! IS! MY! SWORD!#you people with your taylor swift and hozier and ames... meanwhile i think wn is pure metal#(granted maybe not viking metal but this idea has been in my mind forever)#(emylilas suggested i made a video edit but i'm no good at that so gifs it is! thanks for the incentive either way my friend)#anyway. trying something a bit different here clearly#sister makes gifs once in a blue moon#gifs and other visuals#this has been sitting in my drafts for weeks and i guess it's time to release it into the world. be nice now!
163 notes
·
View notes
Text


warden-commander julian amell pictured approximately 30 seconds before quitting his job
#GUESS WHO FINISHED AWAKENING FOR THE FIRST TIME LOL. LMAO EVEN#he just turns to anders at the end and goes man. i think i'm done. and fucks off never to be seen again (i.e. to be zev's trophy wife)#buying myself a shirt that says i <3 drawing my special guys having the absolute worst fucking day of their lives#for the record he's ~27 but the blight and an involuntary upper management position aged him a solid like....10 years#when he runs across anders in the beginning he's like heyyy nice to see you man but also what the Fuck happened to you. you look like hell#anyway the process of this one sucked but i'm slowly picking through techniques till i find one that works for me. this one didn't <3#my art#julian#julian amell#warden amell#hero of ferelden#dragon age#dragon age: awakening#might start using these guys' full names in the tags. idk#what else do i tag for. idk i need to be asleep in 20 minutes i have work tonight lol i'll just edit it in later#anyway MWAH love u all. all 4 of u#edited in a crop
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
7am, eating cold leftover teriyaki stir-fry for breakfast and crying over blorbos
#normal Saturday morning behavior#redacted spoilers#redacted audio#redacted sam#Seven.txt#rp audio stuff#well. crying over one singular blorbo in particular. Sam's still got me in an emotional chokehold#and i'm too sad to even make a stupid little joke abt how i wouldn't mind if it was a physical one too. ayeee *insert sad eyebrow wiggle*#no but seriously. i have so many feelings abt him and i can't even say it all bc some of it isn't public info yet#eh fuck it i'll just draft this until the audio goes public and then i'll post it once it's no longer Exclusive Info#bc i dont wanna leak Early Access stuff but i have to get this out of my system rn and the new audio is part of what sparked these thoughts#which is funny bc i. literally haven't even listened to it yet. i'm not Ready 😭#where's that tiktok screenshot that's like. 'hyperfixation so bad that i can't even engage with the source material' bc that's me rn#like bro Sam only won the poll like. 2 or 3 days ago and Eric is Already dropping a new Sam audio?? hello? Mr. Redacted i wasn't prepared#anyways i was spoiling myself by perusing the comments last night trying to get a feel for if it's gonna be more angst or comfort#and i saw a comment that absolutely shattered me. and it reignited all my sad thoughts about Sam's eventual. uh. y'know. death.#apparently they plant a tree together or smthn in the new audio (which already has me & my beloved 10y/o orange tree feeling some kinda way#but to the individual in the comments who brought to all our minds the image of Sam sitting beneath that tree in 30 or so years time#when he's decided that he's ready to die and sits out there waiting for the sun to rise..................... 🥲#i'm gonna need u to compensate me for all of that unexpected emotional damage /j /nm#i'm Still not over what he told Darlin' while they had their talk about the future up on his roof together. that audio killed me#then yesterday i was listening to my Sam & Darlin' playlist while cleaning. and Malibu Nights by LANY came on. which i always skip bc Sad#but i let it play and just started crying. standing in the middle of the room all disheveled and holding a broom. as one does.#iirc that song is one that Eric himself said is applicable to Sam which is why/how i found it and put it on the playlist. and god. g o d#hm. i hope that wasn't Patreon exclusive info. i can't remember if it was a public post where he said that or not. hope it's okay to share#but if we can take that song as like. unofficial canon for Sam then that also confirms my idea that he used to drink to cope#which makes the opening lines of Fix What You Didn't Break by Nate Smith even more applicable. i should go edit that post actually#anyways i'm just. feeling a lot. and i love Sam very much and i don't want him to die. but i want him to do what he wants at the same time#Alexis took so fucking much from him. he deserves to live - and end - his life on his own terms. ... i think i need to go write something#*casually fishes this post out of the drafts 3 and a half days later* hi so uh. i wrote a 4k oneshot :) and will hopefully post it tomorrow
18 notes
·
View notes
Text
I do feel like bioware has some wind back in their sails after veilguard, but I'm not gonna lie....sylvia's announcement felt like a gut punch. I try to avoid doomerism, but this makes me way more nervous for bioware/dragon age's future than anything post-release has so far.
#obvious disclaimer that I'm grateful for all the time and energy she has put in to give us these worlds and characters#and absolutely deserves to go where she'll be happiest#and I wish her the best and cannot wait to see what dhe works on next!!!#but in the moment this feels not so great#edit: this also goes for ALL the writers who have been laid off or chose to leave the studio#I'm just really feeling sylvia's at the moment b/c I really connected with emmrich and loved what she contributed to the game(s)
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Song of the Bandits (2023) | Season 1, Episode 2 | Favorite (combat) moments, feat. Eon-Nyeon
#That whole scene was so well done 🤍🤍🤍#I absolutely loved the fighting sequence shot through the shoji walls; the shadow play and blood splatter👌👀#Also that table move... go girl 👏#I spent extra time on this set bcs I wanted to make the blue background behind her stand out more#since the show goes for quite the yellow tint when it comes to coloring#song of the bandits#lee ho jung#eon-nyeon#song of the bandits netflix#kdramas#kdrama gifs#kdramadaily#kdrama edit#korean dramas#korean drama#animated gifs#mygifs#myedits#gif set#combat#action scenes#tv show gifs#tv shows#netflix shows#netflix kdrama#currently watching#favorite shows#favorite characters
16 notes
·
View notes
Text
I once again fear I have to remind ppl that Neville would have never been "the chosen one" because he, for one, would have had to be CHOSEN and he WASN'T. So he isn't, and could have NEVER been THE chosen one.
Point number 2: Harry the one and only person who could be the chosen one because A) as stated before, he is the only one who was CHOSEN by V and B) he is the only one with a mother that Snape would have ever stepped up to Voldemort for, giving said mother the chance to protect their kid in The way Lily did.
PLEASE let this rest I'm tired of people spitting the coldest takes known to man about The Prophecy goddamn
#tiktok fans are getting on my nerves again don't mind me sigh#the chosen one only exists bc SNAPE was close enough to Voldemort to make the big bad ask LILY to stand down#like. please. the one and only thing that's actually very nicely tied down on HPs plot. use your eyes rub ur braincells and read#i cannot deal woth another ACTUALLY ☝️☺️ neville is/could have been the chosen one discourse#I've done my time fought my battles I'm gonna need ppl to ve serious#the clock app is where basic reading comprehension goes to die ❤️#the fact that i can be subjected to a self-righteous 15 y/o's opinion at any moment in time on my lunch break should be illegal#i just wanted to see HP edits with the albatross song and suddenly im bing bombarded with terrible takes based on absolutely nothing#whatttt did i dooooo to deserve thisssssss
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
yes the notebook i just made that's intended as a christmas present for my brother is objectively kinda shitty and the back cover doesn't fully line up properly but fuck it! fuck it!!! he's not gonna care and is probably just gonna be like wow you made this? before putting it in his room and forgetting about it forever lmao
#el talks#this isn't the only thing i'm getting him he will be getting multiple things from me#one of which is just more of an excuse for me to do some bookbinding#my mum's going to be getting one as well#and there's a chance it'll actually be somewhat of a functional gift for her kjsdhfkgj#but also holy shit i just MADE a notebook???#the glue to reinforce the spine is currently drying but technically i didn't even need to glue it because i sewed it together#which was a nightmare as the only thread i have to hand is. so bad.#so i ended up wasting a lot and going over the binding a second time#the layer of pva is just to make absolutely fucking sure that it stays#currently using a stack of books i absolutely do not want to get damaged as a press lmao#there's a special edition at the bottom of the pile 😬😬#no one's fault but my own if this goes wrong but i just grabbed the most easily accessible bunch#i'm not reorganising my bookshelves for this so here we are
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
For some reason the vast majority of Patreon perks and all of that paywalled stuff fails to interest me enough persuade me to pay, with the extremely notable exception of extra podcast content. I don't even care enough for extra YT videos, but inexplicably bonus podcasts are simply irrestistable to me...
#ramble#my posts#I still haven't actually subscribed to any cos I've procrastinated too much#but I'm absolutely going to so long as I can budget them#EDIT: ok yeah i subscribed there goes my money lmaooo PODCAST TIME BABY
2 notes
·
View notes