#because i believe that version with new content for each route is split into two games

[my-current-obsession]

Does anyone know if the new Hakuouki game coming soon to the Switch - Chronicles of Wind and Blossom - actually has any new content? Or is it literally just combining KW and EB?

I already have both Kyoto Winds and Edo Blossoms so as much as I love the game, personally I don't see any reason to get this version unless it has new scenes and CGs to offer.

[bunny-hoodlum]

Asynchronous With You: Chapter 1

ship: naruhina

rating: teen (maybe mature later)

tags:  Modern Day AU, Foster Siblings, Family, Angst, Unrequited Love, Poor Communication

summary: An awkward journey full of self-denial and missed moments between two foster siblings. Perhaps their love will find the right timing someday.

(The way overdue long-form version of the Foster Sib AU I wrote for @szajnie for Secret Santa 2020.)

music: Asynchronous With You by burokkurubeats & my playlist

He wasn't the first child.

Somehow he had expected to be.

A girl his age, age six, and her older cousin had already been living here for a year now.

They had family, they were just… deemed unfit.

Maybe they'll take them back, when they get their act together. He doesn't know. He only knows he doesn't have the luxury of hope that they do.

Nobody was coming back to get him.

And he had nowhere to go back to.

The foster lady with the ruby red eyes showed him his bedroom.

At first, Naruto thought Hinata and Neji were close, so much so that no one could ever be closer.

Then he thought it was their tactic to keep others out, self-preservation in blood.

Hinata was nice enough, but she never strayed far from Neji.

That was because he never let her.

She wasn't just fiercely loyal to him. She was scared of him.

He tried to get Neji in trouble. Kurenai-obachan needed to know. But Hinata stopped him. She told him not to split them apart. That she didn't mind Neji bossing her around. She would never be okay if she didn't know where her cousin was.

So he tried. But it was hard. He still picked fights with Neji.

That didn't make Hinata happier, either.

He still thinks it's Neji's fault when she finally breaks down, telling them both off before running to her room.

He runs after her, but she won't let him in.

He goes to his room and talks to her through his wall. He has to press himself flat against it, straining to hear any sound.

Could she hear him, too?

"I'll leave Neji alone, okay?" It's a bitter promise, because it makes him feel like he's surrendered when he did nothing wrong. But part of him also feels tired of this pattern day in and day out. He'd rather spend his time better.

The silence stretched passed the point of comfort, and he pictured tomorrow, a tomorrow where Hinata may hate him. Enough to shun him in his own home. And would he really do what he's always done to others to her? Would he really go that far for attention?

His unconscious concerns spilled out, running through his fingers before he could stuff the words back in and swallow them. "Hinata… can I bug you instead?" He flinches and freezes, and he waits.

It's faint, but he heard her.

"Sure," she said.

His shoulders lowered as he slouched down the wall, the tension leaking from his body and he smiled.

Their early years would be shaped by a secret language shared between the two of them from that moment on, where a pinch on the arm and a retaliatory swat was a polite exchange in the morning. Where a "missing" item from their bedrooms was an excuse to search the house together, and where a stolen item was an invitation to enter each other's bedrooms. Hinata really liked to show him her new collection of pressed flowers, and he really liked to show her his latest Gachapon figurine. Whenever that happened, it was usually one of those new things that went "missing" shortly after.

It wasn't that Kurenai-obasan didn't spoil him as much as them, he could have new things all the time, too. But she hadn't been planning on taking him, she hadn't been prepared for him. If he wanted more things, Hinata would have to have less.

And the time he could spend with her was more than enough for him.

____________________________

Halfway through their grade school years their secret games waned. Being in the same grade helped to keep them in touch throughout the day, but at lunch time she was Neji's, and after school she was Neji's. That's just how it was.

But they were maturing. Their experiences were expanding. They had so much to talk about.

But how could they? It had to be at bedtime. And because it had to be bedtime, they had to be quiet.

He got the idea to drill a hole into their bedroom wall so that way they could easily whisper and not get caught.

That was one of his first thrills: vandalism.

"I think you mean 'home improvement'," Hinata giggled.

He had to process that.

He never realized until then that he still hadn't considered this his home.

Thanks to Kurenai-obasan, he had food in his belly and a roof over his head. He had a bed, some video games, and a safe route to school.

Thanks to Neji, he had a model of masculinity. Not a role model, mind you, but a model nonetheless. Some things about Neji were cool, even admirable. And other things he would never do in his life. They were both abandoned, confused and alone, sure. But it was always annoying how Neji couldn't help but look back. Naruto always had to look forward.

Maybe the way they both did things was equally imperfect.

He smiled to himself, as this is where he had to thank Hinata, for she kept them both grounded and present. Because that's how she lives her life, like each day is a gift not to be squandered.

Who cares about being hurt yesterday? Who cares about what hasn't happened yet?

Right now, at this moment, he was home.

This was his home.

____________________________

Girls at school always cupped their ears when they were eavesdropping. They cup their mouths when they're telling secrets or bad-mouthing others.

Hinata cups her ear around the hole in their wall when he's telling her stories. And she cups her mouth when she's telling him hers.

Her ears are sensitive, so he tries to watch his volume. He forgets himself when he gets excitable.

Her breath tickles and teases a memory from his brain, one that fills him with both sadness and relief.

When he tries to sleep, he searches for the root of this feeling.

The next day on television, there's a mother murmuring her baby to sleep.

He adopts that image as his own forgotten memory.

And the following night, Hinata's soothing whispers confirm that he had a mother once, and she used to sing him to sleep.

____________________________

Hinata's a wimp.

He loves the girl, but at school she is a gosh damn trouble magnet.

He jumps in front of her bullies, fists blazing, and he loses.

A lot.

But he gets to pick fights again. He gets to be cool from time to time. And when he gets better, he becomes the best. He gets a reputation!

By the time they reach fifth grade, he doesn't even have to raise a fist.

A well-aimed death glare is enough.

When Neji's graduation forces the two cousins apart for the first time in their lives, the older Hyuuga undergoes a personality shift.

He expresses legitimate concern for Hinata.

Maybe it's been there all along.

They're both standing on the empty landing just outside of their elementary's gymnasium where the remainder of the proceedings were taking place. Neji's stare, heavy with expectations and ultimatum, bore down on his little shoulders.

"You're the only one I can ask."

"Yeah, don't worry. I got this!" Naruto flashed his patent overconfident grin, and this time not a hint of condescension passed across Neji's face.

His heart thumped wildly when he and Neji returned to the gymnasium, with Neji returning to his position amongst the other students in the center of the room. Family members lined up against the walls in foldable metal chairs, a spattering of pride and loss playing out across their faces; Their children were growing up.

When Naruto took his seat, he stole a glance at Hinata on the other side of Kurenai-obasan. Her gentle profile seemed to unlock something inside of him. Waves upon waves of warmth filled his body, pulling him in deeper into a languid pool of contentment.

He would be her protector from now on.

He would be her brother.

____________________________

He never noticed how their paths lead each other further and further apart.

Their daily routines had remained the same.

Aside from a few exciting developments.

Like Kurenai reconnecting with a childhood friend. The man was a Marine and a chainsmoker, but he seemed cool.

Or how Naruto happened to find a collection of discarded skin mags behind the pool storage room at school. They now safely occupied the space beneath his bed.

There was also the neighborhood shrimp squad of grade-schoolers who loved to call him 'Boss' whenever he came over to play.

Or that time he was hanging out with Sasuke, and unusually the stoic lad had insulted a group of delinquents before he did at the local arcade.

Sasuke may have taken out four guys by the time Naruto took out one, but he still got the win.

But way, way before all of that something had really surprised him: Hinata becoming Deputy Class Rep to their own Haruno Sakura.

She was volunteered for the position based on her equally outstanding grades. Or, at least that's what they had believed.

Over time, it became apparent that they had volunteered Hinata to be Sakura's foil. Hinata was considerate and much more approachable. If the students wanted something, they went straight to Hinata first.

But then her unchanged nature became more detectable.

Like he's said before, Hinata's a wimp.

She crumbles at the slightest disapproval.

She implodes when she's convinced she could do better. When she thinks she's failing.

So halfway through their first year, she started to get abused. Girls and boys alike tried to strongarm her into making their lives 'better'. Making her fetch their lunches and dumping cleaning duty on her every day, then throwing her words back at her when she tried to complain. They'd say, 'But it's what you signed up for', and 'Isn't this your job? Don't you care about your classmates?'.

Somehow Sakura never noticed. He tried to tell her, but she didn't take him seriously. He tried to tell the teachers, but they acted like he had no evidence.

Liars! They just didn't want to get involved! What good are teachers if they don't help their students?!

Some weeks later, the following exams were posted outside the classroom.

Sakura was number two, just below Ino. They were always competing for the top, always unevenly dethroning the other.

Hinata was number three. Always suspiciously number three. And he was dead last.

Hinata could rise to the top, but she never tries.

He always tries, but he can never seem to rise.

He realized then that he hasn't been doing enough as her brother.

Compared to her, he has no future, no potential. It wouldn't be a waste if he took on her burdens.

He can take abuse, because during those first six years at a state-run orphanage, abuse was all he knew.

He realized what he had to do. Resiliency was one of his best traits, after all.

The following day, he took Hinata's place as the class slave. He fetched their lunches, got them drinks whenever they asked. The only thing they never asked him to do was their homework. Because… yeah.

Nobody knew they lived together.

If they did, well, he might've been forced to copy Hinata's assignments all the same.

He never noticed how their paths lead them apart, how their daily routines boxed them into two different social spheres never to overlap.

He was still her brother. Her protector.

But by high school, he'd also become the embodiment of trouble itself.

And he couldn't let that stuff disrupt her life.

____________________________

Naruto’s sprawled belly-down on the sofa playing on his Vita handheld when Kurenai-obasan calls out to him as she’s emerging from the laundry room.

“Naruto, I’ve stared at this hamper for three weeks,” She drops the hamper at her feet with a weighty thump for emphasis. “Are you going to do it or not?”

“I just forgot.” He surreptitiously powers off his game and abandons his handheld on the sofa as he ambles off the couch.

He’s dramatic when he slouches his shoulders and drags his feet, head lolling backwards in anguish. He hauls the hamper back inside the laundry room. He doesn’t look when he opens the washing machine and dumps his clothes into the drum. But the pile is sticking up. He tries to smash it all down, but he can’t. It’s already full.

“Crap.” He scoops out his month-old laundry in four armfuls and disposes them at his feet. He reaches in to grab the damp garments sticking to the sides of the drum, then begins to throw them into the dryer. At least that’s empty.

He doesn’t notice the butter yellow hoodie with white polka dots on the kangaroo pocket. Or the frilly linen top that needs to be dried on the line. Or the no-show socks with rabbits on them.

Once the drum was cleared out, he hurled his fermented clothes into the washer and started up both machines.

He went back to his game for several hours. Kurenai had to remind him to dry his clothes as she delivered the dryer’s contents to Hinata’s room. This was because Hinata was at cram school.

As he moved his items to the dryer, he recalled how Neji had done cram school too before moving onto a prestigious high school deep in the city center.

Naruto never knew whether to be jealous or not. School work was utterly useless and he didn’t envy the workload of overachievers, but maybe that was only because he couldn’t handle it. Maybe if he were smarter, he’d appreciate it better. Or maybe he’d figure out more ingenious ways to skip it all.

He played his game in the laundry room, waiting for the final ding to go off. He used the same dirty hamper to gather up his clean clothes and dragged it inside his room, where he promptly dumped it all out on his bed. Fresh laundry was intoxicating and he didn’t fight the urge to belly flop into the softener-drenched warmth.

He deeply inhaled as he sank into the heat. His cheek felt particularly nice against this satin material.

His left eye opened a peek. Vanilla and lavender stripes met his eye, with a rose lace and ribbon trim along the waistband.

He shot upright, his face no longer hot from the laundry, but hot with horrified embarrassment. He stared at the garment like it might come to life, jump on him and eat his face. It hadn’t so far.

‘It should be fine to pick them up, right?’ He thought with his frozen hand stretched out.

Why was he acting weird about this? They used to mix their laundry up all the time when they were younger. It’s actually how Hinata acquired a love of hoodies in the first place, because she loved to wear the beige one Obasan got him. She can pull off softer colors, but he can’t, so it was easily hers from that moment on.

He plucked up her panties by their corners and held it away, like it were an envelope full of Ricin, and he gazed at it mindlessly. Somehow they were exactly what he expected Hinata to wear, they were girly and cute.

Pale skin flashed before his eyes, a taboo image of Hinata in these panties, lifting her pleated uniform skirt up had startled him and he dropped the undergarments with a yelp.

Did he really just imagine her that way?

Naruto tried to smack the stupid from his mind until his cheeks burned with physical pain, then with everything he could muster, he snatched up the pair and ran for her bedroom, adding it unceremoniously to her hamper of clean clothes.

He pretended to be asleep by the time she got home.

He ignored the sweet voice that slid through the hole in the wall until she gave up and stopped calling him.

There was simply no way he could hold a conversation with her after that experience.

And to think he had to rely on his skin mags to purge him of his sin.

____________________________

Weightlifting was doing wonders for him.

For starters, it was taking his mind off of his libido.

For another, his physique was changing. He was starting to sprout up, too. Hinata’s former bullies were starting to learn some new feelings, like reluctance and fear. They eventually moved onto the freshman to enslave, leaving him alone to finally live his final year of middle school the way he always wanted.

The more he did weights, the more girls started to look his way, not just at Sasuke-teme.

Life was looking good!

Is what he thought when he was hanging out on the roof with Sasuke and two Ojou-gyaru types. One girl was straddling Sasuke while Naruto spooned the other girl from behind.

A dire thought hit him when he realized only six months remained until graduation. A choice he had been overlooking was rapping its knuckles against his temple, and he could hardly shoo it away.

“Hey.” Naruto turned his head towards Sasuke.

“Hn?”

“Where are you going for High School?”

Sasuke turned his head up towards the sky. He was pensively silent. Then he shrugged. “I’m going to stay here.”

“So you’re going to Konoha Normal High?”

“Just like everyone else.” Sasuke said.

‘Everyone else’ didn’t include Hinata, and he was supposed to stick close to her.

How suspicious would it be if he chose to follow her to her high school?

What if he couldn’t? What if she was following the same path as Neji?

Neji would be there until her senior year. Was his responsibility to the both of them over already?

Naruto would later get a text from Obasan that she would be spending the night with Asuma.

K-Obasan: There’s curry udon in the fridge.

He narrowed his eyes at the text.

Just because you add noodles to leftover curry doesn’t make it a Naruto-approved dinner!

“Udon’s not even the same thing!”

His steps slowed in the school corridor. It was enough for his rooftop date to catch up with him.

“Your face looks weird when you’re glum.” She giggled as she poked his cheeks.

“Yeah, well, I just realized I’m about to go home and no one’s going to be waiting for me.”

“Oh?” She circled her arms around his own and leaned in close. “Good for us, huh?”

His eyes widened with realization. A goofy grin stretched across his face, the corners curling lasciviously.

‘Yeah,’ he thought, ‘I’m owed this.’

____________________________

Author Note: I'm forgoing the one-shot because I still don't have that kind of discipline. ;D I'll definitely try to finish this short story to the end. I had received some good title suggestions for this story, but I ended up going with another song name because I can't seem to do anything else. ¯\_༼ ಥ ‿ ಥ ༽_/¯

I'm still going to try to adhere to the canon of the original fic to the best of my ability. I would totally declare this new canon, honestly, but then it'd be a Secret Dating fic with smut and it would never line up with what I already wrote. 😓

Anyways, I hope you liked this so far!

[fictionalarsonist]

ANOMIE: Children of Anarchism - Prologue (Re-vamped Ver.)

— ANOMIE:  a condition of instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values or from a lack of purpose or ideals. — anarchism: a theory that advocates a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups.

feat artists: bts (ot7), ocs content: angst, fluff, gang au, mature language, smoking, drinking, murder, character death, violence, blood, implied non-con, drugs, mentions of anxiety rating: PG-15 type: fanfic word count: 4K

premise: A story of a group of young men that despite the different background and hardships they come together as friends, discovering a new way to survive in a world that seem to turn its back on them.

...

a/n: I know the original prologue had major problems, specially bc it was written ages ago. So, here it is, a re-vamped version w/out major changes on the story. Huge thanks to @wenotes for helping me out w this! You’re amazing and I love you! I can’t thank you enough. (May, 29th, 2018)

「 mobile m.list | ask/request |  wip 」

[ prologue | chapter I | chapter II | chapter III | work in progress ] 

“It’s okay to be a little broken.

Everyone tries to hide it, but in all honesty, we’re all somewhat broken. Pained or not, there’s no one who’s more or less than others and being the individuals we are there isn’t a common point for comparison in that matter. It’s never the same.”

The streets are empty, including the highway. Only a few cars rushes by here and there with their high beam lights trying to show the way through the early morning fog darkness. The cloudy, dark sky and the icy, cold wind that makes the skin sting just from touch alone is about the same as being out in snowy weather.

In this scenario, no one would expect to see the figure of a slender boy walking along the highway, the poor lights on the sidewalk not being enough to see any distinguishing feature, but, aside from him and the random cars mindlessly passing by, there is no one else around. He didn’t seem worried about wandering around so early in the morning when the sun hasn’t even shown itself yet. Why would he, really? This a route he always takes. It’s his routine.

There isn’t sound from the last car that had passed by, nor any sight that another was coming. At the moment there isn’t even the sound of early morning birds yet as it’s much too early, even for them. Only the sound of the wind buzzing by any unprotected ear and the sounds of footsteps from the only figure of that boy walking by, echoing along the road that seemed to be as abandoned and as shadowy as a ghost town.

It’s a long way home, but Taehyung didn’t bother hurrying his pace, not even the stingy sensation of the ice cold wind on his skin bothered him that much. He simply pulls his hoodie over his head, partially hiding his face and protecting his ears the best he can from the buzzing sound of the wind. He pulls the zipper of his hoodie up just enough to feel a little warmer and the jacket he's wearing over his hoodie tighter against his body before shoving one of his hands inside the pocket of the said jacket, letting out a tired yawn - the side effect of a tired body that has been up all night.

That’s something Taehyung's used to. He has been working at many night jobs for too long and his body is somewhat used to it by now. Out of habit, he pulls his hair over his face a little more, hiding himself behind his fringe. His thumb and index fingers slide down to press over his tightly shut eyelids for a moment before scratching the bridge of his nose because the cold wind stings the skin there, then his hands are back in the pocket of his hoodie again. Both of his hands are protected from the cold, curled into fists inside the pockets, maintaining his jacket close to his body.

Just in case you might still be wondering, Kim Taehyung is the name of that boy. Except, he’s not exactly a boy anymore. He’ll be 22 years old soon, but for him that isn’t anything special like it is for most other people. To Taehyung another birthday means the same as the days for a convicted felon in prison do. The difference between him and such a person is not the barred windows and limited freedom, but the simple reason that there's nothing for Taehyung to look forward to. The silence surrounding him is decreasing as the sound of birds became more evident.

The sky is now a somewhat grayish color, a few hints of shades of blue that managed to be shown between the clouds as the dawn announces the morning. Taehyung takes his usual shortcut through an alley between two abandoned buildings, and as always, there’s that man sleeping in a cardboard and plastic improvised tent. The sound of the man’s snores are louder than the now distant singing birds and take over the alley so that Taehyung’s firm steps are the only sounds here.

A part of the city is being left behind him as Taehyung steps out of the alley and into another street as if the city is split in two different dimensions. Compared to the one behind him, this one is more modest and simple and, from then, it doesn’t take much time for Taehyung to reach the apartment building. There isn’t anything special about this particular place. Inside and out, the building doesn’t have any painting except for the graffiti the local reckless kids make every now and then and the landlord had given up in covering them even before Taehyung moved in. The walls are all simple cement and the few apartments that have any paint on have been carelessly left without any maintenance for too long. There are lots of scrapings and the color is barely seen over the parts of the wall that seems to be falling apart - that’s where Taehyung lives.

Even before reaching the small flight of stairs that lead him inside, a few drops of rain fall and rapidly the count increases. The sky turns dark and Taehyung jumps over the flight of stairs, straight to the building’s entrance, pushing open the gate. He simply ignores the high pitched creaking sound of the rusted hinges and doesn’t bother closing the gate again.

Being inside the building doesn’t mean he is safe from the rain though. The village-like building doesn’t protect the apartments from rain. There is only a half wall on each floor that protects people from any accidents, but nothing else aside from that.

The stairway is the only place, aside from the apartments, that could serve as protection from the rain and Taehyung hurries to reach them.

“Hey! You!” The loud and brusque voice resonates across the building. “Kid, come here!”

Taehyung is already halfway up the flight of stairs to the first floor, but turns around to look at the man who quickly runs up to him and stops right beside him. The man is shivering, wearing only pajamas under the long, padded coat that he hugs tightly against his body. His bed hair and the scrunched face tell him that the man had just woken up not too long before coming out. Taehyung notices his feet curled against each other as the man tries to keep them warm. Taehyung’s eyes then flicker up to look at the man’s face and even though they are on the same step, the man is shorter than him. This man is the landlord, a very unpleasant and antipathetic man.

“You~ The due date to pay your rent is in two weeks, don’t forget!” The man says in a hypercritical tone, looking up and down the boy in front of him.

“I know.” Taehyung holds a very monotone, yet somehow, polite voice while answering the landlord.

“Don’t think that just because you’re some kid that I’ll let you off if you don’t pay on time.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. I always pay on time.” By the end of his phrase, Taehyung is already turning to leave. The landlord takes a few seconds before he’s able to say something else.

“You’re the one who fixed the heating engine problem last time, right?” The landlord asks with uncertainty, almost as if he’s already regretting what he’s doing.

Taehyung sighs, licking the corner of his lips before turning just enough to see the man standing in the place he left him. For a second or two, Taehyung only frowns, looking at the man with slitted eyes.

“Yes.” He replies after a while.

The landlord hurries to where Taehyung’s standing while he simply stands there, following the man’s every movement with his eyes.

“Fix it again.” The man pants out as soon as he reaches Taehyung.

When the man blows out air through his mouth, Taehyung could smell the man’s bad breath and scrunches his nose, looking away and breathing fresh air in before looking at the man again.

“All right. I don’t believe anything has changed, so the price will be the same.” He states in the most simplistic way, shifting the weight on his feet.

“What?”

The landlord is slightly taken aback after hearing what Taehyung added, but recovers soon enough, let out a mocking, airy chuckle and the bad smell hit Taehyung again. His hand meets the uncomfortable icy, cold air after having been warm inside the pocket of his jacket to cover his nose and mouth, pretending to scratch his nose and look away again, this time as a cover for the disgusted expression on his face.

“You’re gonna charge me for this?” The man continues in disbelief, with a pretentious smirk. “You live here too~” He drags on the last vowel in a sing-song tone, as if to provoke Taehyung and persuade him at the same time. “If it gets cold in the apartments, yours is gonna be one of the worst. You’re gonna suffer too.”

Taehyung shrugged mindlessly in response, looking back at the older man, tilting his head a little.

“I don’t stick around the apartment more than necessary,” he starts to reason vaguely, his tone void of any importance he could give to the reasoning the landlord tried to inflict on him. “Whatever it happens, I can arrange myself just fine. You’re the one who will have to deal with the others tenants and their complaints.”

Holding his head up straight again, Taehyun tucks his hand inside the pocket of his jacket, looking in the man’s eyes even though his hair still partially covers his vision.

“My price is also much lower than any handyman would charge for what it has to be done. They’d probably make something else up to charge even more for their services.”

“How do I know you’re not gonna do the same?” The man asks, giving Taehyung a glare from the side.

“I don’t have the time to waste doing such thing.” Taehyung replies sharply and the man chuckles again.

“As if a useless kid like yourself would do anything else but to just party all night like this.” The man mumbles under his breath before clicking his tongue way louder than necessary. “All right.” He agrees, even though his tone shows how reluctant he is feeling about it. “You can discount the money from the rent,” he says, being pretentious again. “That’s what would’ve had happened anyway. I want it done by the end of the week, then. You better not delay it.” Taehyung only stares at the man who looks away, a little frightened.

Taehyung stares at the man who looks away, not bothering to reply at the insinuation and only turns around on his heels to take his way upstairs again when the man who stuttered a little calls him over again.

“Yo-You! Be careful with the red paint from the apartment on your floor, some loanshark made a mess, don’t get the place dirty! HUH!!”

Taehyung listens to him, but doesn’t bother turning around to look at the man who walks back to his apartment, mumbling something incoherent that Taehyung could care less about as he jump over the stairs, making his way to his apartment.

In no time Taehyung reaches the level of the apartment he lives on and indeed, on his way towards it, there is one apartment with paint buckets on the floor while the wall and surroundings are carelessly painted red. He jumps over the paint splattered on the floor and keeps on his way, his hand switching from the pocket of his jacket to the front pocket of his pants to grab his key. A small, heavy and old pendant dangles from his hand while he unlocks the door to the small apartment.

Once inside he makes sure to lock the door behind him. The sound of the heavy rain outside now isn’t all that violent, muffled by the walls, but the walls aren’t enough to give enough warmth. The landlord was right, his apartment is one of the cheapest and one of the reasons for it is the very poor heating system. Now that the engine in the basement is broken, Taehyung has no heating at all.

He takes off his shoes, but leaves his socks on before slipping his feet in a pair of slippers and stepping into his apartment. It’s dark and Taehyung doesn’t turn on the light, his eyes quickly adjusting to the different lighting and the ambience as he pulls the zipper of his hoodie all the way up, doing the same with his jacket right after. While making his way inside the small room, he sneezes involuntarily, sniffing a couple of times right after.

It’s a very small apartment. Following the small entrance, where Taehyung leave his shoes at, there is a small room that’s supposed to serve as a living room, but obviously is far from such a thing since it can barely accommodate two people at a time. A line serves as the border for the kitchen right next to it and across from it there is a sliding door that separates the next room which is as small as the first one, not enough to have a proper bed in even though it is supposed to be the bedroom. Right beside that there’s a narrow entrance with a closed door that once one opens it, reveals the small restroom.

Taehyung doesn’t feel the need to have more than that, looking around the place it is rather obvious that most of the furniture belongs to the house except for a few things like that old fashioned TV above a stool that isn’t even plugged in, the forgotten fan on a corner also unplugged, useless in this current kind of weather, and inside the cabinets, aside from the food, there are only a few utensils. Taehyung only has what he needs to get by so he doesn’t require much space and he doesn’t feel the need to have much more than that.

Making his way past the living room, he walks straight to the kitchen and searches inside the apartment’s cabinets until he finds what he’s looking for: a package of instant spicy ramen. He proceeds to make his food and soon enough it is ready. He leaves the steaming food beside the sink to let it cool for a while and makes his way to his bedroom. He slides the door open and it makes a squeaking sound, but it also doesn’t open all the way and, knowing that, Taehyung doesn’t force it to. He walks into the bedroom and turns on the light, setting up his mattress on the floor along with his pillows and sheets before walking back to the living room. He places the TV on the floor and carries the stool to the kitchen where he leaves it in the middle of the room. He fishes for a screwdriver inside one of the drawers in the kitchen before stepping on the stool.

Even though he’s tall, he needs that stool to reach the lamp dome above. Taehyung detaches the dome from the ceiling carefully to find a small bag containing money inside the gap in the ceiling. He takes the small bag out and attaches the lamp dome again, making sure the it won’t accidentally fall.

Placing the stool back in the living room and the TV on it like before, he takes the small bag along with his food and chopsticks back to his room, sitting down on his mattress. He makes himself comfortable, taking the lid off the pot and the scent of the food makes him smiles to himself. He licks his lips, biting down on his lower lip as his stomach growls in protest. Taehyung can’t avoid loudly gulping down the saliva that keeps pooling in his mouth, waiting for the food that is still steaming hot. He mixes it around, blows on it to try and cool down the noodles as much as he can, but in the end he shoves a big amount of it in his mouth, not being able to wait much longer to eat. It’s no surprise that he can’t seem to stay still as he tries to chew on the steaming, hot food in his mouth. Taekhyun hisses and blows air out, raising his head and moving the food in his mouth while trying to chew on it, but it still takes quite a while for him to swallow the noodles down. He runs to the fridge in his kitchen and pulls out a big bottle of water from it, hurriedly taking the lid off and starts drinking the water in big gulps, stopping abruptly to cough.

Taehyung takes the bottle with him back to his room and this time he decides to let the food cool down a little more. Placing the bottle of water aside as well, Taehyung now focuses his attention on the small bag filled with his money next to his pillow, he opens and takes the money from it, placing it in one small pile on the mattress. Shriveled notes and a small amount of coins gets separated by him as he starts to count them.

Dividing his time between eating and counting the money, Taehyung carefully divides the money, separating what he’s supposed to pay the landlord, discounting the money he would charge to fix the heating system later on that week, and leaving a small amount to be left in his wallet. The rest is put away. He leaves the money matter aside to focus on his food and shoves a huge amount of noodles into his mouth, having a hard time chewing on it. He pulls an old-fashioned phone from his pocket and stops chewing for a while as he types a message out with one of his hands.

He remembers to chew again while typing and sending the text, throwing the phone beside him. Taehyung doesn’t give himself much time between swallowing and shoving more food in his mouth, but he take turns between those to drink water, finding a more comfortable position by leaning his back against the pillow propped up behind him. He pulls the pot containing his food onto his lap, eating comfortably until his phone buzzes. He pulls himself out of his comfortable spot to reach for the phone and read the message.

seventy bucks for the job 8:30pm

He quickly types an “Okay” and presses send before leaving the phone aside, remembering to chew the food forgotten in his mouth as he reaches for the bottle of water again. Taehyung coughs, feeling his throat hurt a little for eating so hurriedly, but he ignores it, taking more food into his mouth. A loud bang makes him freeze, the hand holding his chopsticks midway to his mouth as his eyes shoot up towards the wall across from him where the sound came from.

Taehyung feels his throat tighten up, his heartbeat increasing with adrenaline pumping so rapidly into his system that he barely has time to adjust to the sudden increase of the said hormone in his body. He can feel his pupils dilate, but instead of moving, instead of doing something, he just stands there, his body frozen. And it doesn’t matter how much he wants to, his body refuses to move at all costs, like a dog who is told to hold still when all he wants is to attack.

A moment of silence and then the same noise again, louder this time. It seems like it is against the wall that separates his apartment from his neighbor’s. Now the sound is followed by several things falling everywhere, sounds of things breaking, loud voices, screams, curses, cries and things Taehyung doesn’t want to picture. He knows fairly well what it means, his body jolts forward a little, some, a fire spreads in his veins, but he feels himself being pulled back, restrained by invisible arms. His eyes sting when he refuses to blink, tasting the bitterness of every sound that echoes, there is a high pitched ringing in his ears and he doesn’t realize he is panting until he feels the need to gulp down harshly. The chopsticks have fallen in the pot with the noodles it was holding and the pot tilts on his lap about to fall, but Taehyung doesn’t pay any mind to it.

There is another moment of silence and he tries to relax, to sit back like before. His shaky hands grab the pot on his lap and places it on the mattress. All of a sudden another loud noise ringing out and this particular one can be heard by the whole building, no doubt. It is louder than the rain falling outside, practically deafening. This one makes Taehyung’s hand hold the sheets below him tightly as a reflex, as a second nature. He presses his back against the pillow behind him as if he wants to be swallowed by the wall behind it.

A loud cry, loud pleas, screams and curses, and beating, the sound of someone falling, things being thrown around and the back of Taehyung’s head hits the wall behind him in such a way it gives him a headache. His hands fly to tightly grab the fabric of his pants, his knuckles pale from the force he’s holding onto them. his nails scratch the material, his eyelids shut tight.

“You look at me! You bitch!” The loud, male voice comes from the other apartment and when suddenly all the sounds are momentarily silenced again, Taehyung’s eyes fly open in a second to look at the wall across from him, taking in a sharp breath as he licks his now dry lips.

There is a loud incoherent conversation and Taehyung looks around his own apartment and forces himself to stand up. His body is shaking and he doesn’t know how to act as himself. He wants to do something, he could do something, but would it be the right thing to do? Would she accept his help?

Without realizing what he’s doing Taehyung finds himself reaching for the key to the door, gripping onto the pedant and holding tightly onto the doorknob of the front door, but as fast as it started the sound vanishes, for good, and that silence is enough to make him wake up from his trance. Taehyung pushes the door closed once again - he hadn’t even known he had opened it - and slowly feels his body relax, a long breath escaping past his lips and his vision turns dark for a brief second as his body goes back to normal.

After locking the door, he returns to the bedroom and sits on the mattress. He licks his lips and stares persistently at the remaining food in the pot, but he has lost his appetite and can’t bring himself to eat  anymore so he puts the lid on the pot and takes it to the fridge along with the water. He also takes his time to hide his money back in its place, having a harder time with the screwdriver this time because his hands are still trembling a little and he hates it. When he goes back to the bedroom, Taehyung lies down on his back, the door shut and the place in complete darkness.

One of his arms is over his pillow and underneath his head. He’s really tired, but his eyes refuse to shut so he fights it, an unpleasant lingering feeling making him feel like he can’t let himself sleep. He just stares at the ceiling for what seems like hours until the tiredness takes over his body. The feeling of sand in his eyes, no matter how much he rubs them, won’t go away and his body forces him into a more comfortable position as he cuddles into his sheets in a way that would make him feel warmer. Finally, his eyelids are too heavy, his thoughts becoming more abstract and confusing before he’s drifting away to the back of his mind and for the time that he’s asleep, they disappear.

Chapter I - A New Bitter Day  ⇾

[bitcoinbillionaireblog-blog]

Bitcoin Billionaire Excerpt 2

Japan has surged ahead among the other leading world economies by adopting point of sale Bitcoin terminals at several hundred thousand retail stores. The People’s Republic of China is still the dominant world player in Bitcoin because of all of mining and equipment manufacturing design that takes place there, and because their government  has had the best Bitcoin strategy. Bobby Lee the CEO of BTCC the first and still the largest Bitcoin exchange in China and potential winner of the first to become a Bitcoin Billionaire sweepstakes,said recently that his company did not encounter much friction from the People’s Bank of China as they were growing their business because the PBOC views  Bitcoin as a digital asset rather than a currency. He also says we should not expect terminals to pay for goods with Bitcoin in China because even Hong Kong dollars are not permitted for use in China only the Renminbi  China’s official currency is legal tender. Bitmain the major manufacturer of Antminer Bitcoin ASIC or application- specific integrated circuits Bitcoin mining hardware is chronically backlogged with orders for mining equipment; but why should they sell the machines instead of just plugging them in and keeping both the machine and the money it earns everyday Bitcoin mining. The Bitcoin revolution comes at a most opportune time for the Chinese. They have excess hydroelectric generating capacity and they need cash for their rapid expansion, and mining  Bitcoin creates immediate cash- flow. The situation is much the same in my home province of Manitoba, Canada, with our large northern rivers flowing into the Hudson’s Bay. I comprise a one- man lobby that is on a mission to promote Bitcoin mining in Manitoba, and often I lobby the government, and Manitoba Hydro the utility which is a Crown Corporation to get involved. That is why I took some extra steps during my visa application to attend Devcon 2 the big worldwide Ethereum Developer’s Conference in Shanghai which I will go into later.

Vitalik Buterin is an extremely intelligent young man who started out writing about Bitcoin and then created Ethereum, which is  Bitcoin’s biggest competing currency.  The focus was no longer to be on the value of the Ethereum token ETH, but rather on the ability of coded ‘smart contracts’ to use the immutable blockchain in the EVM for legal commerce whereby the funds are not released until certain conditions are seen to have been fulfilled by the smart contract. As an aside,  I must say that no one is complaining that Vitalik’s original vision of a cheap token did not work out, and Ethereum has soared to recent prices as high as four hundred dollars and can boast a  total capitalization of thirty billion dollars USD with rapid global multifaceted growth. So, will Vitalik be the world’s first Bitcoin Billionaire? I do not know, but he has been voted the most influential person in crypto by industry participants. Like so many intellectuals before him Buterin seems to eschew riches, instead, he is finding fulfillment in running the Swiss non-profit Ethereum Foundation and learning foreign languages. His sudden ability to speak Chinese surprises audiences as he takes questions and gives lectures in Mandarin. I was surprised to see Vitalik speaking fluent Russian when he met Vladimir Putin recently. In 2016 big money flowed into the development of Ethereum from Microsoft the sponsor of the event along with Wanxiang Blockchain Labs and Fenbushi the largest Asian venture capital firm. We are talking an easy hundred million with every indication that all systems are  go for even bigger things to come in the near future. The Devcon 2 event in Shanghai was successful beyond all measure and caused me to really stand up and take notice of what these alt-coin pioneers had already accomplished, and where they were headed. I also benefited from the trip by making contacts from Beijing that could help me in my lobby to bring Bitcoin Mining back home to Manitoba.

I watched a YouTube video today that was put out by Roger Ver who would definitely be in contention for the first Bitcoin Billionaire title. He is a majority owner of Blockchain.info which is my recommended Bitcoin wallet. The wallet which is based Luxembourg but seems to route most transactions via some small islands off the west coast of  Africa, and has more funds than all of the other Bitcoin wallets combined. I keep my Bitcoin in my Blockchain.info wallets on my Samsung S7 Android, and on my iPhone 6, and I also have a matched version on my main desktop  PC. I really like the way the Blockchain.info wallet user interface works. They have fifteen million wallets in use and have completed one hundred million transactions. Ver was criticizing the Bitcoin Core team and Blockstream a closely related company that employees many Bitcoin Core developers. Adam Back heads up  Blockstream and he is a very respected long time Bitcoin developer. I sat across from him at lunch at Construct 2016 the invite only San Francisco developer’s conference put on by Coinbase and sponsored by IBM. I said loudly so as to catch his ear that I liked the idea of flexible fees. I have interests in Bitcoin mining and I like earning mining fees. So I admit to being biased, and I still want fees to be fair for migrant workers and people in the third world. There are about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per day paid to miners in fees. Roger Ver is saying that people will leave Bitcoin for alternative cryptocurrencies if fees get too high or the network has delayed confirmation times, what he warns may become a poor user experience. This was in fact happening and fees had risen from being nearly free to fifty dollars and more sometimes, which Core points out people were willingly paying albeit with a grumble. But everyone had made such high profits just on the increase in the value of Bitcoin alone that they could bear the fees with ease and they did.

The Bitcoin blockchain forked on August 1, 2017. That means that if you had a tenth of a Bitcoin on July 31 you got a matching tenth of a  BCH token.  You doubled your token count you now hold  BTC and BCH. My website has live prices smartpropertyblockchain.ca   Bitcoin is at $5,352.55 Canadian Dollars and BCH at $899.23 CAD. The Ethereum blockchain had seen a previous fork and stable trading patterns have evolved over the past year my site shows Ethereum priced at $418.03 CAD and ETC at $18.90. These forks are a little bit like stock splits but there is no guarantee that you can access the cloned token unless you have made arrangements.

The decision to do the fork on August 1st must have been made at the Consensus 2017 event in New York sponsored by Barry Silbert. He is  America’s premier cryptocurrency entrepreneur. He would have the highest rating in my handicapping pick for the Bitcoin Billionaire’s Stake Race. He has fifty- seven cryptocurrency related companies in eighteen countries. I really feel like a small thinker when I watch the moves of a big thinker like Barry Silbert, owner of the Digital Currency Group,  Greyscale Investment Trust,  and Coinbase the largest exchange in the USA, and Coinbase magazine. I invested in the new Bitcoin ETF derivative GBTC  units from Greyscale, and I did ok with them. They only deal with accredited investors with net worth of over one million dollars exclusive of residence or income of over two hundred thousand dollars a year for each of the past two years. Luckily for me, the oil business was not yet completely dead so I qualified on income.  The units are based on NAV net asset value rather than being a fraction of a bitcoin as many people mistakenly believed when the fund was launched. I balked and sold out after receiving an offer to invest two hundred and fifty thousand dollars at four PM that would be priced at NAV regardless of where the unit price had ended trading on close at 4 PM.  I could not see much difference between this overly attractive offer and the late- trading issues mutual companies had seen many years ago.

I must admit however that I was wrong earlier when I was very critical when he started buying ETC tokens after the Ethereum fork. As Andreas Antonopoulos the best promoter of Bitcoin on earth whose opinion I value so highly warned in a video I watched about the topic of ETC. “When one is most absolutist in their position, that is often the time when one is completely wrong” and time has shown that such was the case.    I attended the conference with my pitch for Bitcoin mining in Manitoba but had no inkling about what was happening behind the scenes in the five floors of meeting rooms at the New York Marriot Marquis hotel located on Broadway in the ever-bustling  Times Square. A so called “New York Consensus” was agreed to by many big time Bitcoin companies and exchanges in some hidden back room at the trade show. It was later announced that an unstoppable fork would take place on August 1, 2017, as it later did.

The one-megabyte blocksize will remain the same with slight capacity improvements as part of Segregated Witness off chain features are added that save space. This is an improvement that Erik Lombrozo has been promoting for the Core team, and that Andreas Antonopoulos has recommended as a good BIP or Bitcoin improvement. This will mean that fees will remain higher than they would be if the blocksize went to 2 megabytes as many thought it was poised to do, or to an eight megabyte size that many users were also lobbying for the past year.  Transactions may be slower because of the full blocks but the ten-minute block benchmark is adjusted by a mechanism called the ‘difficulty’ which adjusts every two weeks in Bitcoin and every four hundred blocks in the much faster fourteen- second Ethereum blockchain. It is August 23, 2017, three weeks on today, and I have not seen problems with high fees or slow confirmations. People said yes I want that free money and welcomed the new BCH received after the split. Did I mention that BCH  is worth $899.23 CAD?

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