#but those are all just the avatar consequences - all the outside consequences

[ranger-kellyn]

OH WAIT

in light of me reading the Imbalance comic, where Suki teaches a bunch of non-benders how to chi block, do we think Amon's henchmen who can chi block are like. an unintended consequence of Suki teaching them?? like how apparently Kyoshi originally trained the Dai Li and came to regret it because of how corrupt they became?

[patricia-taxxon]

I want to address what’s being said about me regarding my behavior as a teenager, because some of it is true. However, more of it is greatly distorted, and some of it is false. I won’t be reproducing the video that was made about me, the creator has acknowledged the misinformation present in it & has unlisted it, willingly ceding ground for me to give my own testimony. Some of it will require me to admit to things I am still ashamed of, some of it will require me to revisit a traumatic time in my life that I have mostly blocked out. The short version is that I believe I was being groomed at the same time and in the same place as many of the people who came out against me, and my ultimate goal is to find solidarity with those people and begin the healing process. 

When I was 18, and just beginning to accrue an audience, I created a discord server. For a lot of external reasons, mainly spending my entire life up until this point being shuttled around different special ed schools, this ended up being the first real social circle I ever had. It represented the first positive attention I ever received from strangers. It’s a time where I made a lot of mistakes, it’s a time where I was gravely vulnerable. In all honesty, I was too young to manage a community of any kind, I was hot off the back of being desensitized in my adolescence by unrestricted access to early 2010s internet. I knew well enough to create special NSFW rooms, and was advised later to create further division by requiring users to self-apply for a special NSFW role to access those rooms This extra layer meant that the rooms wouldn’t even show up for people who didn’t have the role, which led to some believing they didn’t exist. 

However, I did not intuitively understand the “meaning” of sexual content, I didn’t understand the baggage that came with it. I used cropped fetish porn as emotes and indiscriminately showed the source to anyone who asked, sometimes outside of the NSFW rooms, because I found niche fetishes to be amusing, and since it was “funny” and not “sexy” it didn’t have to mean anything. The worst consequence of this happened when I was first formulating the ideas for my video about youtuber Rags, and I discovered that his youtube avatar was cropped from a NSFW image he had commissioned of his feral dog fursona. I sent this image to just about anyone who seemed interested, and this included a then 13 year old. I’m going to apologize just like I did when this first came out, but I will not be pressured as I was then into assuming predatory intent in myself. I’m not making excuses when I say that I had been a legal adult for under a year and thought of it as just an interaction between two teenagers, a kind of interaction I had with many of my friends (and some adults) before I turned 18. It was a misunderstanding, *and* I hurt you, and I’m deeply deeply sorry. 

There were some moderators besides myself, two were teenagers around my age, early adopters of the server who I felt I’d become friends with. One was a woman in her late twenties, who I won’t name simply because I’m not in the business of offloading my misery onto other people, but she knows who she is. She contacted me with a shower of attention & adoration, she left positive reviews for my albums when she noticed I was upset at their critical reception, she oversaw me as I posted my nudes in that server and later on my main twitter account. She encouraged this behavior in myself and others and participated in it too.

I want to make this clear, the bulk of the allegations against me boil down to punishing me for failing to surmise I was being exploited by the first social group I ever had. I jerked off in voice chats. I remember the day I started, I was surrounded by people older than me who were encouraging me to post my first nude pic in the self-nsfw channel, and I had to get hard for them first. I then considered this normal and did it often. At one point a 15 year old entered the room while I was doing it, and I went quiet until she left. I reconvened with this 15 year old recently, and she told me she only remembers being promptly told to leave. The claim that I “regularly jerked off in voice chat with minors” as if it were an orchestrated and habitual activity is an outright falsehood.  

I remember posting my nudes on twitter in a fevered haze of dissociation and dysphoria after being goaded by other users in my discord server. I remember doing it again and again, so that it could maybe eventually feel normal. I was 18, going on 19. I had twenty to thirty thousand subscribers, I was hot off the heels of being given 150 bucks for making thirty minutes of music for a much bigger youtuber. There are others who were in that server who were similarly exploited, and I am not here to contradict those testimonies, but I was uniquely denied the ability to understand what had happened to me as grooming, because I was technically of age and I had the very beginnings of a youtube audience. However, 20k subs didn’t give me more power than someone over ten years my senior. 

I was groomed, and just as I was beginning to understand what happened to me, the shame threatening to overtake me completely, I was slapped with the supposed news that I was the sole perpetrator of the entire situation that traumatized me so, that what I thought of as my first friend group all remembered me as a loathsome creep. The apology I wrote in abject panic was dissected and used as a cudgel against me in police-interrogation fashion, so I became afraid to say anything. A year and a half later, I made a post saying that I had been “groomed by a portion of my audience” and this immediately provoked a youtube video callout. I feel as if I have been beaten into silence and complicity, unable to form thoughts of my own regarding my experience. I am terrified, right now, writing this story that I firmly believe no one on earth will buy, because I have come to routinely doubt my own testimony.

Some accusations being made of me are so foreign that I have trouble piecing together what it could be referring to. I commissioned a NSFW size difference piece from dramamine, one where my lover is 11 feet tall, and I was pre transition at the time so I wanted a flat chest to help me feel feminine in my current body. It was wrongly tagged as “cub” (furry child porn) on E621, which I vocally protested at the time. This is the only thing I could point to as evidence for the claim that I commissioned cub porn of myself. I do not know how to convey the feeling of being flooded by accusations that require me to ponder what it could even be referring to, or to see my accuser insist that she’s receiving dozens of new horrible scoops on me without being able to see exactly what it is or what happened. I’m open to apologizing personally to anyone I ended up hurting in my adolescence who reaches out to me, I was a victim of grooming let off into a public space with a few thousand followers after all, but I’m not apologizing on behalf of people who might have heard something bad about me.

I am going to restate, my accuser has *of her own volition* unlisted the offending video & understands the misinformation she spread, there is nothing to gain from seeking her out and letting her know your opinion on the situation. I waited until this agreement was reached to make any statement at all for this exact reason. 

I am staying offline for about a day after posting this, I am under a lot of pressure, I am very tired.

[broadwaybalogna]

I was told I got the “nail on the head” with my refute to this take so I’ll share it on here too because I think people need to hear it.

The only way this person wouldn’t be in the wrong is if shipping Zutara was inherently racist, which it isn’t. Many people paint Zuko to be a “colonizer” since his nation had colonized parts of the earth kingdom (mind you, that’s the only place any form of fire nation colonization has taken place), but Zuko never colonized any place himself, he was too focused on capturing the avatar. So… not a colonizer. What people are doing is conflating Zuko with his nation even though in the years where it actually counted, he was exiled and had no voice in the nation.

This is essentially saying that anyone who was alive when America was a colony and got independence couldn’t date any English person simply because of the fact that they’re British. It doesn’t matter if said english person lived outside of England or lived in England during the war and maybe even one time agreed with them, it’d be morally wrong. But that’s up to the American to decide, not anyone else. If the English person joined America in the battle of Yorktown and single-handedly took down a solid quarter of the British troops, would that be enough for the American to date them? Trick question! It’s not up to you to decide. It’s up to whoever wants to date them.

Before I continue, I was told by woc specifically that this next point was accurate. I consulted them before posting on here.

I think this personally actually stems from a place of racism on the kat/angers side. They see Katara as this young, innocent woc who needs to be protected and can’t fend for herself. It’s a white savior kind of situation. Because she is a woc, she shouldn’t date Zuko but rather Aang since “he proved multiple times just how much he loved her”; “She’s too innocent for Zuko”; or they’ll steer in the completely opposite side of the racism spectrum and say that Katara “bullied” and “harassed” Zuko simply because she didn’t trust him after he betrayed her. They paint Katara to be this aggressive woc who can’t see reason and is rude to people to want to help her. Even if that’s not what they want to convey, it still comes from a place of deeply rooted internalized racism.

All of this to say it’s not racist to ship Zutara. It never was and it never will be. If you want to tag your shit takes with the wrong tags, fine, knock yourself out, but be aware that those actions will have consequences since your point is inherently wrong.

[deceasedream69]

A new moon knight

Summary: what happens when konshu gets tired of marcs unproductiveness and finds a new avatar, Jake doesn't like that one bit.

Warnings: violence, moon knight physically fighting with y/n, enemies to lovers

-

Marc was on the floor, the white suit turning black with how dirty those streets were. He stumbled even to just get on his knees.

- get out of my way, this wasn't even about you, but you just had to get in my way.

The man laughed after saying that, pointing a gun at my head. I knew what I was getting myself into, dating a hero, but I never thought I was any worth to be getting caught up in the fight. I can't say I was used to this, a gun pointing at my head, the villain having all the advantage and my boyfriend, my hero boyfriend kneeling on the floor right before us.

Breathing was hard, could I even make a plan at this point? I was in no way prepared or in advantage, even if I was I don't know if I could actually form the best plan in that moment.

- just... Just leave her out, she has nothing to do with this, this - he pointed at him - is between you, me - he pointed at himself - and that little golden thing you have in your pocket.

Blood was dripping from the corner of his mouth, forehead shining with sweat, even him was vulnerable already, taking his mask off to negotiate with the bad guy.

- You're just pathetic.

That's all he said, with a face of disappoinment, before pushing me in front of him, his gun on his hand, bullets already flying, aiming to my head as Marc wrapped his suit around me.

- NOOOO

Gunshots were heard everywhere.

Marc ran, carrying y/n in his arms, cape still surrounding her as a blanket protecting a cold baby. He turned the corner and ran even a little more, until he tripped and they both fell.

Y/n's body rolling outside the cape, staying there lifeless on the dirty asphalt of that cold and wet night.

- no... - He crawled next to her, tears forming in his eyes and his hands shaking as he put them so slowly on the perfectly round hole in y/n's forehead.

Slowly putting his head down and closing his eyes, as he couldn't stand to look at the picture playing in front of him.

A sudden movement started, it wasn't controlled, more like an outburst of energy starting in the lifeless body laying there. Marc's head pop up, trying to see what was going on. He noticed the gunshot was gone and suddenly there was a big catch of breath that more than scaring him, made him turn into defense mode, lifting his hands from the body, getting ready for what was about to come, which he had no idea what it was.

Y/n's body was working but not because she was controlling it. Either way, stumbling, she stood up, putting a knee on the floor before rising entirely, lifting her gaze to where now was the infamous moon god.

The suit slowly revealed Marc's body as it was being transferred from there to it's new carrier. Marc just stood there, looking at his arms, his hands, his feet... All while he was losing his suit.

- we had a deal.

- I know the deal we had, what are you doing?

- if you're not useful to me. I told you what the consequences were.

Y/n was back in control of her body, realizing everything that was going on, she wasn't unfamiliarized with all the moon knight topic but she definitely wasn't prepared for that, or even aware of the deal they had.

- y/n y/l/n. Seeing that I saved your life, I hope you can understand that I can take it back at any moment, so as a sign of your gratitude, be my new avatar, carrying the fist of justice and dagger of revenge. In the name of the god of the moon, konshu.

Breathing hard to trying to focus on what was going on. I had no other choice but to accept. Did I even have a choice?

- How is it fair? after everything we gave you.

I turned to look at Marc, he sounded so upset, I just couldn't understand anything. But the second our eyes met, I could sense something dark was building up, so fast I didn't have time to react, just until I felt his hand clenching my throat.

- I was loyal to you, doing every fucking thing you asked me for! And this, this is a downgrade, you know how I worked - he let go of my throat - we'll see how this turns out.

He just walked away.

I caressed my throat, what the actual fuck was that? that wasn't Marc, that wasn't Steven. Was it another personality? Were they hiding that from me? Did he tell them not to mention him in front of me? He obviously disliked me, now even more.

-

Jake walked, with his hands in his pockets, processing everything just happened. He wouldn't admit it but over feeling like a dissapointment, he also felt unprotected, and without konshu's tasks, useless.

What else could he do? the driver job was to get to places where konshu needed him, but just being a driver, fucking pathetic.

If he wanted to beat someone up now was without purpose, what point was it to do it now.

He walked as he kicked things he found on the ground, breathing heavily and mumbling curse words in spanish.

He wasn't stupid, he was well trained with or without the suit, or konshu's powers for that matter. Taking faster steps, keeping his weight on the leg he knew he had better support on...

He turned around and with his arm beat me to the ground.

- I don't enjoy being followed. I have nothing to talk about with you.

- I came to talk with Marc.

- He's not here, he's hiding, embarrased, useless as always.

- Who are you? they never told me your name.

- They aren't bright enough to notice it's not only them - he started to walk away.

- So they don't even know about you? about what you did?

I asked as I followed him.

- Stop! following me...

- I have to talk with Marc.

- too bad

I got closer and that was a bad idea.

He got my arm, as I turned to try to get it free, with his other hand he took me by my neck, pushing me against a wall.

- Princesa, that's what you turned that suit into. I was a hero.

- nobody working for konshu is a hero.

He laughed and I hit his face with my head, he grabbed his face and I kicked his leg, making him fall to the ground.

- Take the suit off and make this even... nah, I still can beat you wearing that shit.

He took my arm, pushing my face onto the floor and pulling my arm behind my back.

I hit him on the jaw with my other elbow, turned and kick him on the chest.

- I need Marc - I sat over him punching him on the face - Give. me. Marc!

He pushed my knees and I fell on top of him, he took the advantage and flipped us over.

- Cariño, you ain't seeing Marc, Steven or me ever again.

- would you keep the promise on that last one?

I took a dagger out, he was teasing my patience. I was about to stab him in the shoulder when I remembered I would be hurting Marc's body too.

He saw my doubt and knocked me cold.

[brw]

Since I haven't seen anyone mention Storm yet outside of panels, I'm gonna talk about that moment with the doctor!

The moment I finished reading it, I knew there was going to be discourse about it, but I personally really enjoyed it. I've seen people claiming it's out of character, or "kicking mutants when they're down by portraying Krakoa as being negative", but one of the first things we learned about Krakoa is them leveraging their life-saving and life-extending drugs to only the nations who recognise their sovereignty. And Storm was part of that decision. The choice to make something like this be consequences of her and everyone else's actions from that time period is interesting. The choice to tell a story about the price of immortality, the consequences of opening up your nation state with "we are your new gods" is an interesting thing to explore. Much like the reveal that resurrection has had some impact on resurrected mutants bodies and some are beginning to decay as a result! Those are interesting stories to tell. I can't think of a single time in fiction where a group of people have achieved immortality without consequences, and yet people are acting like this is unprecedented? Or that Tom Brevoort, specifically, wants to "humble" Krakoa fans, whatever that means.

Anyway, while I don't agree with the doctor withholding care, it does feel like a very realistic thing to happen, because yeah, if everyone else chipped in but the people with at minimum three billionaires on the team didn't, I would also be incredibly angry. And the situation is cleared up by Ororo, who immediately recognises the wrong, and wants to make it right. This story is ultimately about Ororo, about the trials and tribulations she goes through before becoming the avatar of Eternity, of how she balances all the responsibilities she has while also dying of radiation poisoning, all while also just genuinely trying to be a good person doing what's right, regardless of the opinions or politics people around her.

That's an interesting story, and after 4 years of seeing Gerry Duggan stumble along blindly, I think we owe it to Murewa Ayodele more than 2 issues to tell his story, which actually is trying to say something.

[physalian]

Toy Story 2 | Still a perfect execution of a fantasy story

One of the things people uesd to complain about is that the cars in "Cars" did not need to be cars. As in, the fantastical element was not necessary to tell the story (which I wholeheartedly disagree with but that's not the point of this post). You could have told Finding Nemo with the fish as humans and have Nemo caught by... a traveling circus, or something, but to many, Cars was the damning example.

While Toy Story was the antithesis of Cars in every way.

Have not and will not see the fourth one but the first two films are perfect fantasy, and you don't immediately think of them as "fantasy".

I just rewatched TS 2 so it's fresh in my mind, and this story could not exist if these characters were not toys. Everything from the little details like the Etch-a-Sketch speed-drawing the map from the commercial to the "high stakes" rescue and escape that's only "high stakes" beacuse they're toys and not people and that one intersection is a death trap.

But the big thing is the main plot of the story: Woody is in the role of a has-been who wants to reclaim his glory days (like Mr. Incredible) but unlike a human, Woody himself was not part of those glory days, he's just one of many toys sold with the Woody's Roundup TV show, theoretically endlessly replacable, as all toys are. Unless you gave your hero amnesia, in no other storyline would this work with a human character, because Woody is both an outsider and the hero making his homecoming.

At the center of this trilogy is what it means to be a toy: A child's plaything. How each character relates to that fact is central to their arcs. The first movie tackled the divide between Woody's "I exist to be Andy's favorite toy" and Buzz's "I ain't no toy, I'm a Real Boy".

The second movie takes it one step further: Is a "toy" something you play with and inevitably ruin through playtime and the messy love of a child, or is a "toy" something you keep perfectly preserved in its packaging? And the consequences of being a toy when your human outgrows you, in Jessie's story, and is a valid point by Stinky Pete.

TS 3 takes the "what happens when the kid grows up" to its natural conclusion, with Andy going off to college. While I think it got a little carried away in spectacle and the incinerator scene, the endless replacability of a toy is Lotso's whole schtick.

The nature of what a toy is is the whole point—a piece of wood or metal or plastic that is effectively immortal, but an immortal being forever in a place of willful servitude to children.

—

It seems rather obvious to give fantastical characters a fantastical story, but a lot of uninspired or forgettable fantasy takes a human plotline and just reskins it with fairies or animals and never takes full advantage of what the characters are.

When your fantastical elements and setting are just window dressing, like Avatar '09, a fancy backdrop for a bland story, why bother writing a fantasy story? Why waste all that worldbuilding and all that creativity? (I actually know the answer, Cameron got cold feet when his creative teams went all out to create something indeed alien, and kept nudging it back to something more friendly and recognizable until we got what we got).

Avatar '09 sure made a lot of money... and zero impact on our cultural memory. It's no one's favorite movie, no one's favorite retelling of Dances with Wolves. It's just pretty to look at.

You can write a retelling, a "modern take", a book of tropes and clichés, sure, but I'd encourage you to at least make one arc of your fantasy or sci-fi story only possible in your world, with your lore, with your characters. Otherwise, what's the point?

[paragonrobits]

a while back I made a joke about Sokka acting like rationalism is a valid philosophy in the setting he is from and trying to deny the existence of spirits as an extreme way of coping with their alien ways (and possibly alienation from his people's ways, depending on how much you consider the Southern Water Tribe to have a close cultural connection to vibing with spirits in general that has been lost due to the severe loss of information from so many of their people dying over the Hundred Year War) and the punchline was Koh the Face Stealer apparently now just following him around out of bored curiousity and now I actually want to make that a whole thing

the specific vibe here is that Koh is not an active danger to Sokka in this context. This works on the assumption that Koh does the face stealing thing in specific circumstances, but he won't do it unless you specifically go against the rules governing that: you gotta do it by showing emotion around him (which is bad for Sokka) and during specific situations and contexts which are apparent and he or another knowledgable being is obliged to inform people of this and the consequences (which is good for Sokka).

This further would emphasize the idea that spirits act according to their natures and functions; Koh stealing someone's face is not a moral decision, no more than a cuckoo bird smashing the eggs in another birds nest and laying its own in there is a moral decision. While its clear spirits are sapient, they're also bound by their natures to think and act in certain ways, and I take the idea that Koh is related to the concept of empathy; when he steals faces, he sees things through their perspectives in an extremely literal way.

This, in turn, leads to him being fascinated by specific people. In this case, he is following Sokka around because he intrigues Koh. He is an apparent contradiction in many ways; a man professing to a purely rationalist view of the world despite the power of bending ignoring what he knows of the laws of the natural world, having percieved the existence of the spirits as a form of reality that supercedes those same laws of nature. A brother-in-law to the Avatar (or just real close to him, depending on whether or not marriage is actually a thing Katara and Aang care for), but indifferent to the fact that Aang's existence is indispitable fact that the spirits exist.

A man shaped by fear of those outside his home, and yet a self-made polymath of sorts willing to learn from all nations. A warrior of the Southern Water Tribe, proud of what few traditions remain, and also one studying from his experiences all across the world, making something quite unrelated to those traditions but still defined by them. A man who can conceive of impossible, revolutionary technologies from first principles; completely untutored in the scientific principles behind them due to his people's decline, but able to still figure out the broad strokes from imagination alone, leading a way for geniuses to figure out how to make the idea work.

A benign paradox. A man shaped by fear and knowing every unfamiliar shape on the water could be another night of mourning, but still journeying across the world, befriending others and making connections across the world anyway, in the Earth Kingdom and Kyoshi Island and in the very nature that would have destroyed his own home, and through Aang, extending a hand to the memory of the Air Nomads.

And so Koh finds him fascinating. He wants to understand him, and not purely through the lens of his mind. Koh wants to speak to him, hear him speak, and offer his own statements on his perspective.

And also from Sokka's perspective, a notoriously dangerous spirit so powerful even Avatar Kuruk couldn't kill him is now following him around, and might just steal his face on a whim if he's not careful.

Because, the truth is, with spirits... you never know. They're not human. They might be friendly, or hateful, or kind and bitter and they run on seemingly incomprehensible rules that make absolutely no sense to him and he has no idea what he's supposed to do with this information, and now a giant centipede monster is following him around wherever he goes.

In the shadows; watching, listening.

Judging.

[a-dragons-journal]

Could you talk more about the moral code of your religion? Is there a set list of tenets?

>< I actually took a stab at writing down a firm set of Mithraic values a while back, so here’s those:

Honesty: Your word is your bond. Never break a solemn vow. Keep your tongue honest when dealing with those who have been fair to you and yours. Never speak a lie to a fellow follower of Mithras.

Justice: In all things act with fairness, and mete out reward and punishment in accordance with the actions that earn them. Actions lead to consequences, both positive and negative. It is just to reward the faithful, the honorable, and the good. It is just to punish the liar, the traitor, and the thief. Act with fairness and obey the laws laid down by teaching, by temple, and by priest.

Guardianship: Protect those within your care as the shepherd guards the sheep. Protect those you have the ability to protect; accept the protection of those stronger than you. Guide those you have the ability to guide; heed the guidance of those wiser than you.

I don’t know if anyone’s ever really written these down quite this firmly, but it makes for a useful summary, so I’m doing it. I will also say that these are ideals to live up to; no one is perfect, and the tenet of justice is especially, uh, challenging to uphold when you’re A Guy and not The Justice System. But you can do your best to act fairly, reward good behavior when you see it, and maybe take opportunities to bring justice down on wrongdoers if you spot a chance to, even if that justice is sometimes petty. It’s more about not letting shit slide than anything. (It’s also a significantly bigger deal when you’re living in a society of vampires, who tend to skew more amoral and immoral than the general populace.)

There’s also a less explicit value of community - helping and supporting each other and forming community bonds. It’s not explicitly something demanded by the teachings, but it’s a pretty natural extrapolation from them, and it’s also kept our clan alive and prosperous. Personally, I extend that to the vampiric community at large, partially because leading by example is my preferred method of showing the other clans the good of Mithraism and partially because I simply think it’s right to try to reach out to others, but that’s not universal; a lot of Mithraics feel no particular obligation to vampires outside the clan, given that they’re doctrinally considered traitors to Mithras.

Also, I love your avatar. xD

—Roshan (fae/faer)

[sea-salt-child]

In the Room (Pokepasta)

Everything that happens to me is a metaphor.

…

I live in a house with many rooms. These rooms comfortably hold me and the others, although I’ve never met any of them. I am, in a way, the final resting place for many games.

I’m talking about Pokémon this time around.

I really like those games- they fill me with a sense of wonder, companionship, freedom… truly, they are the best and I feel a little sad to see them change.

They take easily and grow around, able to handle heavy gashes without completely tearing at the seams.

They call that property being “highly compatible”.

On the first day, I woke up with a strong impression about the room and its contents. That is how I knew something had to have changed. Do you ever get that sensation?

You see, the game is a consequence rather than a cause and I eventually spotted it on my laptop’s contents.

It would be silly to give me real hardware, you know? So I work with emulators. This is just as well, for me, because I’m more used to this anyhow and changing would be a pain.

I opened the game up.

Music started, but stopped jarringly once the Gamefreak logo was supposed to show up. Rather, a text box opened:

“What? Where did he go? I swear I saw him enter this room!”

I need you to trust me. I need you to believe that I’ve committed every detail to memory, stuffing it down my throat, into my brain. If that trust is broken, then nothing else has any significance from here on out.

“...Oh. Again?”

The press of a button and it was all wiped to black, then blue as the regular menu opened up.

There was already a game there. Player “Retry”. One of the others must have gotten this before me, then, and made a mess. I’m used to that kind of situation and, out of respect for their privacy, I started a new game.

The game skipped directly to the opening sequence, in the truck- but the boxes in stacks extended beyond the usual confines in every direction, giving the impression of a huge room rather than a jostling vehicle.

Motion stopped and it all went silent as my character walked to where the exit should be and disappeared. The room resumed moving and I was left looking at nothing.

It’s not a big deal, really- the game just needs to think a little and recover from the last bout of changes. I don’t mind it- if anything, these imperfections left behind let me connect with the others in a way I usually can’t.

Words slowly appeared, black and one after another, making it hard for me to understand the phrase. They went by and I wrote each one to a text document:

“I can’t see the sky from here”

No, I can’t. Even if I look outside the window, I can only see the laundry room. Sometimes, I see people wash things, do their jobs, but they don’t look my way. 

I pressed buttons, trying to get something to happen, only for the character to appear at the top of the screen, slowly falling back into place and like so, I finally was given control to roam around the box-filled room, able to walk over anything in my way.

These experiences are the core of the game, exposed and reflecting. I make this, change everything to the core and then they take the game back to spread among the normal people of the normal world.

I checked the menu, eventually, to see my character. My name was a single animating water tile.

She was splattered with petals of unknown flowers. 

Spreading everywhere, obscuring stats, scattering, only letting me see part of her face with vibrantly yellow eyes. 

Already, the game was giving under my touch. 

Next, my pokémon-

Three eggs and nothing more, all said to be hatching soon.

When I closed the menu, leaves now fell, carried by breeze around my rose wracked avatar. My mirror, my mouthpiece…

They are interested in “out there” reflections much more than they care about what they mean. I’m a last ditch attempt to get something usable once the others have left their marks. 

I can’t run blood through, can’t leave eerie warnings, can’t weave fog and inject hatred. I can’t and I can’t and I can’t, and by repeating that I became the end of the road, unable to even express myself properly. 

My world is too small. It is smaller than the world in the box.

All of a sudden, the clock screen showed up, asking me to set the time. Thin golden cracks ran across the clock in harsh patterns. I informed it that it was one hour earlier than reality.

It must not have liked that- it made choked little sounds and gurgles for a few moments before the screen closed on its own and left me in the middle of Littleroot.

No one would let me in- every door I tried prompted the same message:

“This is not for you”

Followed by a short jingle I could not recognize from anywhere in the game.

Now I’m in the dark again, fluttering. It’s going down because it cannot go up and I’m caught in the flow. 

I opened my pokémon menu again.

Torchic simply looked from side to side, simply named “Arrival”. It was named that because it was named that, and so, it had to imply it.

The two eggs below changed- spots on the shell now flower shaped and small. I wondered if I would get all starters, then, and set out to play properly.

These are best envisioned as interludes rather than anything else. Between waves of change, there are stillnesses. 

This house contains a number of rooms dedicated to each of us. It is a pipeline, although there are exceptions. Games and objects are passed down long enough to become of interest and are then taken for, presumably, distribution. 

I’m a haunting in a box.

Although I could progress, NPCs were missing in several locations- ones that would normally impede my progress. Others would turn away from me whenever I approached and when forcefully talked to, would say strange things:

“Oh you poor thing…”

“I don’t believe it, end of story.”

“Found by candlelight.”

“She did that?”

“Why do we need to be involved?”

“It reverses”

Bits and pieces of abstract nonsense, repeated lines from dreams, former game journeys, dejà vu.

And then there was Wally.

I found him on a thin route placed strangely, not a normal part of the game. A long road going up, with strange streetlights- things not matching the game’s artstyle, but rather, scribbled in, animation between two shaky frames.

He met me midway through.

“This is… wrong. I don’t get it. Why did it end up like this?”

And a name input screen showed up. I thought- I thought. Poor Wally. He’s a good guy. He wouldn’t understand my situation. All I could respond with is:

“IS OK”

“Everyone else is freaking out about it. You don’t have to go all the way through on your own”

But I have to.

Because I wound up here.

A battle began, just like that. My Torchic against his Ralts. An easy victory for me- though he did surprise me by bringing out something I was unfamiliar with after his pokémon went down: A round thing with question marks in it, appropriately named “??????????”. It proceeded to just struggle itself to death.

When the game put me back into the overworld, I was in a town with an unknown name. Houses of every style- some on trees, some on lakes. Another sprawling location going forever as far as the eye can see.

 I call this a “Reticence”.

A moment the game needs in order to think, to realign its pieces in the presence of my story, of my outpouring of feelings and memories. 

I walked and I walked, occasionally running into pokemon out in the streets. This took me a while, and I split up the time between the game and sleeping. A familiar routine.

Arrival managed to grow up nicely into a Combusken. I was happy and I said so aloud, to which the game responded with nothing but advances on its mangled RNG. 

I checked on the eggs too, and they now bore identical messages:

“Whatever was inside, it has already died.”

A graveyard in my brain. When these things die, there is nowhere to bury them except for in memories. In that sense, these are living beings unlike me. I’ll be buried, but never loved in my descent. Their data allocation will be freed, their binaries returning to the primordial soup of ones and zeroes that breathe life into their world and likewise, my flesh will spread like grand wings and finally get me out of here.

I’ll return as a passing breeze back home and they will, in turn, become the data of pokémon to come.

A box opened up when I exited:

“ARRIVAL doesn’t understand!”

But he doesn’t need to. 

We continued our walk in the city and I wondered if the houses were organized like the boxes in the truck. An empty world that I explored until…

The clock screen again. 

Around 2:30 AM.

It was the crashing point in the situation, the last straw. The screen turned darker and darker and I could hear Arrival’s cry. 

I don’t like it. Even if it is just to a game, I don’t like to admit it. I don’t want it seen and rehashed over and over and over. My safest fantasies are upside down and unpleasant. I followed the creed that I was happy until I missed the train.

The day it happens is the day I’m forgiven but it cannot happen in the safety of this room. I can only be just as evil. 

Are the others the same? I don’t know. By the time the games get to me, there is such a big lump of things that it all just unravels back to nothing.

She was screaming her heart out because I couldn’t be trusted. Because I was failing my sole objective as a person. It stung and I curled up like a bug, with the heat of the old laptop against my belly. 

And she made the decision.

An alarm played all of a sudden and I blinked, having been dragged back to reality.

A bedroom- the protagonist’s bedroom, as if the game had just started.

I checked the clock again and it was as it should be- and then, my pokémon.

Two Bad EGGs. New messages:

“Looks like it wants to live anyway.”

A mercy. 

I went downstairs, to an empty room and another pop up- this time strange, placed on the very center of the screen rather than on the bottom:

“...?! ARRIVAL isn’t here! Let’s find him before ? blooms!”

You know, flowers are pretty common when I am given a game. They grow between the cracks and I can’t help it. I reckon is because of the garden. I took care of it myself and it got me out of the way of others. I watched them grow into their colors.

I don’t know if it still exists today. Maybe it has been overtaken by wilder plants… or maybe she uprooted it all, finishing the removal of myself from her life.

I treated it as a game of hide and seek rather than strictly an emergency.

Outside, the people had all turned to strange groupings of black lines, changing shape with their movements. I talked to them, and they would all comment on “these strange eggs”.

 Its okay. They are odd. Let them try their best, clawing for the surface. Give them a chance, don’t give up on them yet.

And so I went, into houses, suspicious corners, up routes, into grass, tracking down my poor friend.

That is when I met Wally for the second time.

He stood there, in front of the Normal-type gym. The lights dimmed as I approached, and the scribbled streetlights returned to my sight.

“Oh, it’s you. I found your ARRIVAL running here. Are you two okay?”

A yes or no prompt, to which I responded affirmatively.

“...”

“It’s really awful. Everyone was scared, you know? Every time someone new arrives, we learn more horrible things we can do nothing about.”

A new choice menu- but this time, all responses were flower tiles of every shape and size. Beautiful things opening up holes in the white, for me to choose.

“...Huh? Hey, those EGGs…?”

He stepped back and I pressed start. 

More flowers for text.

And then, an egg hatching screen.

Both eggs, sprites overlapping but desynced. Shaking, moving. The camera zoomed in, little sparkles like snow on top, falling around as the shell gave way to petals and leaves and thorns and all these undiluted emotions rushing into the mix, afraid to disappear.

The blooming remained on screen as everything returned. 

Snow. Snow on the ground, on the ceilings, coming down in heavy layers as if trying to suffocate my darlings.

Trying to say no, no, it didn’t happen how you think it happened.

Trying to remind me I’m a liar.

Swelling up to the point where rather than tears I have excuses lined up.

Hey, I can’t feel pain. You know that? So what does it mean if I scream my heart out?

“Hey! What’s going on?”

He should have just left, but he didn’t. The keyboard was cold under my fingers. An alarm started to play, the same alarm I had up every day. 

The seams made out of code started to burst. 

They went down to the bottom and then…

The game reset on its own.

My meal arrived just then.

I can’t go back. I messed up one too many times. Sorry, I didn’t say anything before but it happens that I’m evil. This is nothing but a safe place to store evil people. Even if I could leave, I would have no place to return to. No one to be happy to see me. These are little sounds I make with my mouth and that’s all. My brain isn’t right. I wake up and pace, going in circles and coiling back to that day.

I went back to the game that night.

Rather than where I left off, I was in the middle of an unknown route. Snow still fell, but gently. The manifestation of game incompatible things, a sign of the later stages of infection.

My character was a mess of pixels in black and white, dragging flowers behind, as if cut from their usual animations in the world.

Opening the pokémon menu, the pokémon displayed as small things with shapes I did not recognize, but who were named the same thing: “Festival”.

Their summary revealed their shapes. A pair of Mew in a strange pose, almost translucent, looking oh so fragile. In that way, they were things. Things dragged by the current, making me colder by the second.

Music, somber and quiet, like a funeral march.

And then, Arrival. Standing at the edge of the screen and running off when I began to chase.

The road gave way to tall grass, cut like a maze where he was hard to spot. I pursued, thinking to myself- it’s too cold! He’ll freeze!

Someone, please care about that.

No one is coming here to claim us back.

Someone, just follow. Just care, a little bit! Corners of the screen ripping, glitchy textures showing up, all towards my house. My real house in all its drab colors, with all the gardens, with homework and chores and sunrises and frozen food and mom.

The loud sound of Arrival’s cry snapped me out of it and I noticed him taking a fork in the road. I stopped there and its sprite span close to the warp, crying out for me.

I know it is all my heart hurting and beating in place, seeping into the fissures. I know, but it was still hard to agree to take that turn.

A beach. Sounds of waves, a gentle sky, sand mixing with unnatural snow. 

Arrival scrambled over to Wally.

“Your time here… it is limited, isn’t it?”

I selected YES.

“I figured. That’s how it was with RETRY too.”

A pair of cries- Combusken and Kirlia.

“It would have been fun to just play with you… I’m sorry. I don’t think you are a bad person at all!”

But it’s too late.

It’s like I don’t even exist. No one is looking back on me.

I’m a fetal thing. 

“Say… in this time we have left… Instead of wandering around on your own… Why don’t you store your story with me? Something to let the future owners of this file know about you. So that you aren’t invisible anymore. So that someone knows.”

It took me a while to decide, but I did press yes.

So now, after writing this on paper, I’ll painstakingly write it in countless screens provided by the game. Wally interjects at times, and at one point, promises that he’ll be giving future players a way to read all this, that I don’t have to worry about that at all anymore. Just trust him. Trust everyone in this game because they do care about you.

Sometimes I stop, listening for steps outside. They’ll take this in my next meal.

I’ll miss this project.

I’ll miss Wally, whatever he was.

And I’m hoping that whoever you are, you will understand the rest of this ROM as a message in a bottle, rather than a curse.

[roseate-felidae]

Well that's a let down.

Spoilers if you haven't read the Tremere trilogy.

There was so many plot points going on in the story and it didn't even answer most of them in the end.

● Antigone is the only one that gets resolved. She us a tremere who can't do magic other than avoiding death like some sort of suicidal houdini. She eventually gets told by Anubis that she will have to face the scales to get into the afterlife or get devoured. Filled with regret, the scales tip to destruction. She convinces the Gid to allow her to be judged by the tremere, who convict her and she ends up before Anubis again. But she is allowed into the afterlife.

It's a happier ending for her. But if this was the only plot point, it would have been fine.

Sadly their was many other "major" plot points that just never get solved, here's some, I guarantee I've missed some.-

● Prince Calebros was blown up, even though it was his right hand man, Emmett who was targeted. He almost dies and is barely alive. He is healed by Sturbridge, and the story focuses on his "almost" killer being found.

Yet. We do not even see or hear much about him or Emmett in the third book. We don't see him revived, although we know he does. We don't even see the nosferatu get their revenge.

It is revealed that it was the Tremere fatherhouse behind the scenes that did it. But it never hints at why. We are told Calebros is corrupt. Yet we are never given any example, if anything, he seems like a regular camarilla Prince, and his clan novel actually paints him better than most elders. He's not perfect, he still a vampire but still better than some.

● One of the main characters, Felton, was set up. He was meant to kill Emmett, but someone else blew up the empire state building to kill the Prince inside instead.

Antigone (main protag) does find out the real bad guy and save Felton from the big bad at the end. But the nosferatu already mentioned they will get their revenge. The nosferatu are established to remember their injustices and eventually attain it. They also team up globally to accomplish these things. So we know Felton moving city means jack shit and the nosferatu will get him some night anyway. Also, he did still try and kill Emmett, so he kinda deserves it, IMO, even if he didn't manage it.

●The children of the well are brought into it again. Basically, the nightmares of all those who died because of the tremere and their avatar's (if they were mages before, think like a mage soul).

It is established in Tremere clan novel that Aisling Sturbridge does not have a child and her memories of one are actually of herself, her dead avatar. This is forgotten in this book for some reason???? How can she forget that and still mention who she thinks is her child?

Also, she "swallows" them, basically allowing the tremere to reach more dark magic without the consequences. This is never undone nor resolved by her going to the fatherhouse in Vienna. Nor are the children of the well mentioned again, despite Aisling being a signature character. It's mentioned she's haunted by these "souls" which are not souls and is shown coughing up and "bleeding" murky well water. It's not like she can get over it like a cold.

@robotslenderman is it brought up again outside of Clan novel saga or Tremere Trilogy?

● the whole chaos with the chantry of five boroughs to begin with.

Eva, a powerful tremere disguised as a novice, basically comes to the chantry. She kills an ambassador sent to investigate some deaths at the chantry and also makes Sturbridge "devour the children of the well." She dies, and now Sturbridge has to face judgement by the fatherhouse for many dead tremere students, dead ambassador, and other chaos at her chantry.

She goes to the fatherhouse, and we await her cunning plan to reveal it was all engineered by the fatherhouse to get rid of the children of the well. But we actually don't get to see what happens to her, past getting attacked there. Not even a battle but bitten by a snake made of blood and then healed. Nothing else.

Yet we know she's regent again in the more newer content via Coteries of New york. So is she just forgiven? What sentence did she even get? The whole plot point was how the fatherhouse would probably kill her.

[anthonybialy]

No Secret About Poor Service

Kimberly Cheatle’s résumé has been assassinated.  She leaves on a gentle slope.  The Secret Service director directed neither.  Announcing her resignation after whoever tweets for Joe Biden finally revealed the alleged boss is bailing at term’s end shows dedication to both a stubborn defiance of competence and unwillingness to respect responsibility.  Ungrateful taxpayers don’t even credit her for the dumbest of luck.

The cunning strategy of keeping Donald Trump safe by having him turn his head at precisely the right moment shows how to do an assignment well.  We didn’t need the scariest close call there could be, but it’s there as a reflection of the atmosphere of utter incompetence created by a president who was a putzing doofus even before he had to learn his name every morning.

It’s always a bad sign when we learn the name of an agency’s head.  Democrats scold us for not praising the selflessly awesome servants who enable joy and productivity.  The only thing lacking is a good reason.  Democrats who define ruling as broadly as possible screw up every legitimate role along with those they seize.  Feeble bullies want to run your lives even though they can’t preserve them.  Pete Buttigieg adores Cheatle for making him look less inept by comparison.

You’re in luck if you desire examples of why public idlers can’t protect anyone from anything.  Those looking for capability will feel frustrated.  Firing should’ve come an instant after the bullet flew past.  But this isn’t Costco.  The lack of accountability following the definition of failure illustrates why everyone either admits to hating government or pretends it’s looking out for all of us while fuming at the opposite occurring.

The one agency that everyone admired has sunk to being as oafish as the rest, so at least we enjoy consistency.  Sniper interdiction sure seems like it falls under constitutional jurisdiction.  Oh so fearless architects of society can’t even shield the executive branch.

Liberals claim the state should be involved in everything outside its domain.  Meanwhile, it can’t achieve what’s within it.  An unmanageable entity that shrugs while those vying to be its head of state are forced to duck is surely proficient at educating whippersnappers and healing the sick.

Nostalgia is acceptable when present life sucks.  Even those posted to insulate politicians from harm were better during the Reagan era.  Agents exposed themselves to shots to guard a body.  The soft reboot is never as impressive.  The erstwhile paladin of competitors will have to get a job at her cousin's cleaners.

Trump’s raised fist replaced the most avatars.  But the agent hiding behind the person she was supposed to cover is the emblematic image of the fiends’s attempt even if tweeters don’t want to use it as their social media identity.  Two kinds of dastards simultaneously plied their respective crafts.

Facts were another casualty.  Journalists who didn’t seem particularly concerned about a wounded finalist for the top office naturally treated the unqualified coward like the victim.  You are such a sexist for pointing out the female agents and director screwed up their sole duty.

I’m not saying women are unable to thwart murder plots against campaigners.  But these particular women sure couldn’t.  It turns out all those cruel right-wing conspiracy junkies got details right.  The eternally helpful press will act like they endorsed the truth all along instead of branding those who noticed it as duplicitous misogynists.

Changing the definition of what’s real is part of the career description for contemporary reporters.  Respectability for what they do vanished just as it has for the bumbling Secret Service agents they shroud from consequences.

Sentinels of objectivity got in plenty of lying practice while defending a diminished White House dweller who’s always been infected with mendaciousness.  Like claiming Barack Obama didn’t lead Biden off the stage before then proclaiming the incumbent is unfit to double his time in power, the acceptance of actuality just took a couple days.

What’s next: the Secret Service enlists a female for the sake of it?  Oh: the parody came true.  The prototypical DEI appointment set back diversity, equity, and inclusion.  If you want to halt the assertion that hiring based on superficial characteristics has become the standard, stop hiring applicants who can’t shelter a potential president.  Now, vote for her opponent unless you want to be labeled prejudiced against her race and gender.

Cheatle was the Pepsi of directors.  The serving of empty energy fittingly served as the unpalatable Coca-Cola substitute’s security director.  No, it’s not okay.  She can return to ensuring sodie pop cans don’t get shot.  I’m sure she can get her gig back: it’s not like her blundering almost got a candidate killed any more than there are quotes that haunt her like “I thrive on chaos.”

Mean Republicans cheering employment loss are always moaning about having to perform tasks.  Cruel capitalists think an occupation is for creating value instead of an entitlement in order to earn a living wage.  Results during shifts are predictable.

Usually, a federal stooge having to seek a position in a productive field merely offers economic benefit.  But saving confiscated cash with the loss of a useless worker is merely the start.  Cheatle was still overseeing the survival of Trump and the incumbent after a nefarious twerp with a grudge and ladder nearly rewrote the timeline on her quasi-watch.

If you’re unable to notice a high place would be an appealing perch for an aspiring murderer of the prominent individual you’re supposed to keep alive, this may not be the department for you.  The embodiment of terrible work not only avoided getting fired the night of her greatest shame but left on her own terms in a summary of Washington that’s a bit too perfect.  She’s convenient to point at for those who think the federal labor pool is exponentially too deep and filled with people who can’t swim.  But I’d rather have contenders be safe.

[stuffedeggplants]

If you're curious, I can provide some perspective on why people who may typically gravitate towards more traditional FPS games may not appreciate the harvesting mechanics. In a nutshell, it's about expectations (whether they be well or poorly managed) and what the player wants out of a game when they sit down to play.

In shooters that have an unlock progression system, you typically unlock new weapons and equipment through your performance in the game and the mere act of progressing through it. That may look like completing a certain number of matches, beating certain missions, defeating certain enemies, getting certain achievements or completing challenges, etc. But what are you ultimately doing to accomplish all those things? Shooting things. You get new weapons and gear by using weapons enough and in different ways.

I've only played Far Cry 4 in the Far Cry series, but that's essentially how you unlock new weapons in the game. There's no aspect where you primarily need to switch to a very different type of task--like solving puzzles--to unlock most weapons and equipment. In Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, the main way these unlocks are promoted to you is exploration-based and mildly luck-based--search for and through the correct area, then encounter the plant while it's night and raining-- and has a tiny puzzle-solving dimension as well: figure out which of eight directions is the correct way to move your mouse/controller to harvest the plant. In other words, the game is unlike most shooters in that you cannot shoot your way to a stronger vest or bow or arm guard. While you can shoot your way to better human weapons, for the Na'vi weapons and all the armor it seems like you typically need at least one gathering-based component. You can shoot and get an animal hide or tooth, but the other parts of the recipe may ask for moss, bark, a shell, some other plant product, etc.

The game wants you to explore and gather, but for certain people who strongly prefer FPS games, they recognize the Far Cry-like skeleton beneath Frontiers of Pandora and consequently expect FPS-like mechanics and a more Far Cry-like experience. The people really pushing back against exploration and puzzle-solving (the gathering mechanic) as a way to progress gear-wise are like people who strongly prefer traditional Mexican food going out to eat and intending to have traditional Mexican food, but unknowingly going to a Korean-Mexican fusion restaurant and being kind of annoyed that they have to ask the waiter not to put gochujang cabbage slaw and diced Asian pear on their tacos. Their preferences are perfectly valid, but the restaurant is ultimately Korean-Mexican fusion and is also perfectly valid in offering up its own vision to the public to experience. The customers need to modulate their expectations and not expect either pure Mexican or pure Korean, and yeah it is annoying if you didn't realize what the restaurant was before sitting down, but it's also ultimately not the restaurant's fault if you didn't read their menu posted outside the door.

We can expand the two-cuisines metaphor to two different experiences that people might look for in this video game, and of course it's possible to equally want both or more or less of one or the other. On one hand we have a desire to experience the world of the game as the characters within it do-- what's it like to be Na'vi and live in and interact with this world? How does their culture filter and reflect that experience? At the very least, the gathering mechanic and Hunter's Guide represent a very basic simulation of Na'vi using generations of accumulated cultural knowledge to go out and collect things that are the literal building blocks of their material culture and beyond. For people who heavily prefer Korean food over Mexican, this is the main attraction of the game, and the combat is just something to get over with as painlessly as possible.

For people who count FPSs in general as a top genre of interest, the best way I think I can describe the interest to you is like being really into the challenge of team sports, using everything at your disposal--your sports equipment, your training, the physical layout of the field or court itself, the weather, etc.--to strategize against and beat a team that is intelligently employing the exact same sort of calculus against you. It's a challenging competition where lots of tiny things matter, you work as a team (or hopefully with a really smart AI), and winning is proof/validation of your own skill and preparation that you really worked for. For some people like this, the cultural meaning behind Na'vi bodypaint or the biology of a certain plant are very much secondary to questions like "how can I use this pattern or vest to prevent the other team (the RDA) from seeing me and targeting me?" or "how can I use the flammable nature of this plant and the geological formations of this area to set up a trap for the RDA soldier patrolling the back entrance to the base I need to capture?"

I know "the devs" aren't a monolith all sharing one opinion, but I think a lot of them might actually be happy that people who more strongly prefer one approach/play-style over the other can adjust the game to better suit their preferences and still enjoy playing! And I say this as someone who has posted rare-pair fanfiction and original works to AO3--even getting one person who really likes and appreciates those stories makes it feel like a worthwhile effort regardless of the even greater numbers of people who would not like or even care to read those stories, and I've seen a lot of people online who absolutely love exploring and reading the Hunter's Guide and think the gathering system is pretty cool (and maybe not even detailed enough!)

I've been playing a whole lot of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and it's been pretty great so far. I'm not super into the combat; it's not my thing, and I'm not very good at it. But the environment is incredible! And I'm a sucker for xenobiology, so just wandering around and marveling at all the different plants and animals is more than enough to allow me to enjoy myself.

I wandered onto YouTube to look at some videos, namely ones that discuss fun little secrets and tips that one may miss while playing.

And y'all, I had another one of those moments where I don't really "get" what people want put of their games.

So like, one of the mechanics in this game involves harvesting resources. Pretty standard thing in any sort of survival/crafting game, but AFOP makes it so much more interesting. Each harvestable has to be carefully tilted a certain way (with mouse or controller) to harvest it properly. Otherwise, the quality suffers, reflected in an item's stats. In addition, each one has a specific environmental factor that affects its quality. Certain plants are best harvested when it's raining. Others with its dry. Others at night. And so on.

One of the YouTube videos I watched had the guy going on and in about what a waste of time the harvesting mechanic was, and how there was an option to turn it off that should absolutely be taken.

Which. Like. I love having that option for accessibility! But waving off an immersive, unique mechanic as something annoying and time consuming? Specifically recommending turning it off so you can just run around and collect everything you see, with no effort, like all the other games?

I was so disappointed in that. Like... this game tries so hard to immerse you in its world, and part of that is taking care and harvesting mindfully, like a Na'vi would do. Learning and memorizing the particulars of every plant. Taking time and not just... I don't know. Running around grabbing shit and just rushing about to shoot more things.

I've seen people complain that the game is just "Far Cry with Blue People," and then they go ahead and recommend skipping gameplay to essentially make it more like Far Cry. Or any other generic FPS.

And I don't understand it. It's like... you see a thing that devs clearly put in there to make things more immersive, to give their game a certain feel, and you just shove it aside so that you can reduce the game down to its most basic, dull components. Why? What is even the point of making all of these games unique if you forcibly avoid what makes them such?

I mean... people should be able to play games as they like, of course. But it's weird to specifically identify a unique mechanic as some sort of flaw that needs to be bypassed.

I dunno. It just makes me feel kind of sad and put out. It makes me think of devs working hard to perfect a thing that they feel is going to help make their game unique and enjoyable, only for someone to shove it aside because it gets in the way of the most basic gameplay in existence.

Bleh.

[rainbowchewynuggets]

TMA Encore #11a

The group walks timorously through the tunnels with Not-Martin. Sasha has the map this time. Jon and Tim bring up the rear with Tim holding the flashlight. Martin, in the middle, cautiously occupies the space between them and Not-Martin. He has the second flashlight.

Not-Martin recounts the day he and Not-Jon first realized they had a second chance and a duty to prevent the apocalypse. They reasoned that if they couldn’t stop what had happened to their world from in the thick of it, they would have a better shot coming at it from the outside. They had tried to be subtle at first, so as not to disrupt the lives of those involved. Despite their best efforts, it ended just as badly as before. So, they tried again and have been trying ever since. They became more and more adamant until they were inserting themselves right in the middle of things–with little more success. It took them a long time to figure out how the rules they knew applied to their situation. They hadn’t realized there was a new consequence for overtaking avatars.

NM: I couldn’t feel it until his hold over it started to slip. By then, it was too late.

Silence fills the corridor as the team studies Not-Martin. They let his story settle into the air, waiting to see what he’ll say if he thinks it wasn’t enough to convince them. He says nothing and keeps walking, not even looking at them.

Jon: But the Fears aren’t controlling him. That’s not how it works. He’s doing this himself.

NM: It’s the pain. Without an entire world of people to feed on, the Fears are starving to death. They pass the feeling on to us to motivate us. I don’t think they’re picky about which of us gets to be their avatar at this point, but Jon’s been keeping their attention on him this whole time.

Sasha: Why?

NM: To spare me and hold himself accountable for what happened at the end.

Sasha: No, I mean… I can understand pain making a person a little irrational. But this is so premeditated and extreme.

NM: That’s the problem. He thinks that he’s mastered it. So he takes warning signs as encouragement. To feel assured that he’s still himself.

Martin recalls the time he spent with his mother through her chronic illness. She had often worded it exactly that way when he couldn’t get her to rest. Not-Martin slips a knowing glance at him.

Tim: And manipulating and tormenting people is just part of retaining his fundamental character, apparently.

The words are already out by the time Tim remembers Jon is walking right beside him in the dark.

Tim: I just–I meant that he didn’t have to do it this way.

Not-Martin doesn’t reply.

Martin’s double further exposits that Not-Jon can’t be allowed to pursue his goal any further than he already has. Even if he does manage to prevent the apocalypse, the vacuum created by the consumed avatars would inevitably be too much. He would fully succumb to the need to satisfy his hunger.

Tim: And he’ll, what, become as big a fear monster as Jonah?

NM: Oh, he’s already a lot bigger than Jonah. I’m terrified to think what that much power would look like manifested. That is, if he doesn’t die first and leave it all with me.

Tim: Joy.

Sasha: So, what’s your solution?

NM: Convince him to share the burden with me and entomb the both of us in the nearest, deepest hole in the ground before anything else can happen.

Tim: So, your original plan. Which you’ve tried before?

NM: Many times.

Tim: And why will it work now?

NM: Because it’s the only option. It’s just a matter of trial and error.

Tim: Uh-huh. Then again, if you’re a Fear ghost like him, then we shouldn’t be listening to what either of you say, should we?

NM: *shrugs* I’d agree if I didn’t know that my Jon has it a hundred times worse than I do. Your odds with me are much better.

Tim: Which could be a lie.

NM: If it were, you’d have no reason to believe any of what I’ve said so far.

He answers the interrogation readily and casually, though not as if he’d rehearsed it.

Jon shakes off his precaution to ask a burning question.

Jon: Am I really what makes things fall apart every time?

NM: I’m sure that my Jon would like you to think so. It’s much more complicated than that. He’s just punishing you for things you haven’t done yet.

A little irritation creeps into his voice. It’s also the first plainly obfuscated thing he’s said so far, Jon notices.

Jon: It never made a difference to remove me from the equation?

NM: Again, it’s complicated. We ended up agreeing not to.

The group continues to ask questions about the details and history of the situation, especially things that Not-Jon prescribed to them as truth and things that he refused to tell them. Not-Martin answers all of it politely and patiently enough, giving no sign of duress or deception. There are no earth-shattering revelations. It only cements the places where Not-Jon and Not-Martin’s perspectives overlap. Whether or not he’s telling the truth, it’s comforting to get clear answers without the immediate pressure to cooperate for once. In fact, it gets Sasha’s attention.

Sasha: Are we… expected to help in your plan?

NM: No. It doesn’t really matter what any of you do from this point forward.

They ask him to elaborate. He says that their part in Not-Jon’s plan is over. In scenarios where they stay in the tunnels or the archives, they’re penned so that they can’t interfere. When they leave, they’re unable to change the outcome at all and are left to deal with Jonah’s machinations once he escapes. There’s nothing they can do.

Tim: Wait, yes we can. Don’t we still have the lighter?

Everyone turns to Jon. As he wraps his fingers loosely around the device still in his pocket, he feels the tiny piece of plastic he took from Jonah’s office. He nods.

Tim: If the fuse is long enough, we could light the dynamite on our way out and do away with the lot of them while they’re chasing each other around down there.

Not-Martin scratches his chin thoughtfully.

NM: I can’t say it’s been done before. But I won’t object as long as I’m down there with them.

Sasha: Have we tried it before?

NM: Yes.

The group’s optimism deflates.

NM: Sorry. I’m not sure what gets in the way. I don’t usually stop to talk to you guys.

Martin: Have you come close before?

NM: Very.

Martin: How? It sounds like he’d be untouchable at this point.

NM: Because he can’t scare me. None of this does anymore.

Martin studies his counterpart. It’s not just talk. He’s steady. Dispassionate, but not overly calm. The determination with which he described his task betrayed a steep understanding of the consequences for failure. Yet, he approaches the ordeal ahead as if going to do laundry. It’s kind of terrifying. Martin feels like he’s watching an alien creature walk around with his face painted on it. His memories inside it. Although, wouldn’t it make sense to need an alien to combat an alien threat? He wonders if this is how Jon felt meeting his other self.

He checks on Jon, who has his eyes turned toward the tunnels as they pass. Martin just then notices how deep and rhythmic the murmuring noise has become. Almost like chugging movement.

~

The group arrives at the dynamite area. There are still boxes strewn about with leftover materials in them–including plenty of fuse that could be tied on. The tunnel leading out is situated opposite some others that lead down to the Panopticon. The four of them nonverbally determine that it’s time to decide whether to stay or go. Meanwhile, Not-Martin examines the prison remains, looking for anomalies.

The vote is not as quick as before.

Martin, unexpectedly, is the one to pipe up first. He wants to stay and try to stop Not-Jon. He feels that the stakes are too steep not to try. Tim and Sasha argue against it, and he defends his choice. Not-Jon could easily stop the dynamite from working just as he stopped them from escaping. Whether Jonah escapes or doesn’t, they’re likely doomed if they just leave. They’re stuck no matter what. He doesn’t want to feel like he didn’t try to push back when he could have, especially after everything Not-Jon has put them through already. At the very least, it would give him another thing to have to manage.

Martin’s voice shakes even as he says it out loud, but he manages to hold himself in place.

Tim is quick to remind him that they don’t have a hearty reason to trust Not-Martin. Martin proclaims that he might then be trying to get rid of them. The one thing they can say for certain is that Jonah and Not-Jon are too dangerous to be left to their own devices.

His anxiety prompts him to keep talking, but he makes himself leave it there.

Jon quickly says that he’s staying too.

The others fall into silence. Sasha visibly wavers in two minds before letting out her breath.

Tim: Sasha, no.

Sasha: Yeah, I’m sorry. I think I’m with Martin. But just barely.

She says she’s getting tired of trying to take the safe route on purpose, only for them to wind up getting separated and nearly killed anyway. If there is no good sane way out, as Martin had said, their only way is through.

To be fair, Tim does look at them as if they’ve all gone insane.

Tim: I’m not saying we do nothing. Even he knows it--*gestures at Not-Martin* --we’re not gonna be able to do anything about this if we’re in the middle of it. If the dynamite doesn’t work, we’ll find another way.

NM: No, you won’t.

Tim: You be quiet.

Try as he might, Tim can’t convince them to change their minds. He stands there, unable to follow but unwilling to leave them behind to die.

The vague rumbling ramps up and draws close. The walls around them begin to shift, but not like in an earthquake. Stone and cement slide frictionlessly over one another with heavy clicking sounds. The floor is perfectly stable aside from some vibrations. The walls of the exit tunnel and the one they came from advance inward, herding the occupants further into the junction of passages. Not-Martin glares at someone who’s not in the room.

NM: Oh, goddamn it, Jon.

Jon leaps through a nearby passage before it closes.

Goddamn it, Jon, Martin thinks.

The others move to catch him, but there isn’t enough clearance by the time he gets there. The clamorous stone is so loud, they can’t hear each other. But they can make out Jon mouthing “I’m sorry” in the feeble light of the spider web lighter just before the gap closes.

------------

Next

Prev

First

(I forgot what I was doing and gave Sasha the second flashlight in the third page. Pretend Martin has it.)

Index

[house-of-laminations]

The Masterlist™

This here is where you can find my fics, headcanons, and other fan-related works! See down the bottom for request rules! Looking for my ask responses? Find them here. I have a tag for my MC Exsa here. I also have an OM OC -> Creet the Sentient Demon Fungus

Here is my Ao3 where I crosspost all my fics for safety reasons (just in case I get banned again). And I also have a nsfw blog for my steamier asks and hc's but that one's 18+, sorry kiddos.

📚 Fics

From Afar (Brothers Edition) In which there are consequences for being loved and missed by ancient and powerful beings.

From Afar (Dateables & Luke Edition) Love can come in many forms. To be missed is to be loved - even by beings whose entirety is unknowable to you.

Ensnared (request related to 'From Afar') Setting the scene for the types of people who aren't pleased with the demonic corruption effecting their world. (and a glimpse into the brothers experiencing their own corruption)

The Incident (a follow-up to Ensnared) MC has been taken by Demon Hunters. How do they cope? And more importantly - how do the brothers get them back? (aka 4500 words of angst, vibes, and literal depravity)

From the Outside (a request during "The Incident") A brief look into how Barbatos, Diavolo, Simeon, and Luke each handle knowing MC's situation. Angst angst angst.

Responsibility MC finding out about Dia's role in 'The Incident', followed by a confrontation and some heavy Dia angst about what it means to be a Prince of Hell.

Evolutionary Biology 101 with Prof. MC Sure. They may be ancient entities that predate humanity but that doesn't mean these demons pay attention. 5.5k words of MC finding out the brothers know nothing about human evolution and their attempts to correct that.

Only Human It's one thing to be loved by these ancient monstrosities. It's another to feel like you deserve it. You're only human, after all. A follow-up to From Afar.

Be Not Afraid The first time MC sees each of the brothers' true forms, and the circumstances that lead to those moments.

📒 Headcanons

True Form Headcanons Or, at the very least - the 'vibes' of their true forms

Lilith and MC The relationship and parallels between Lilith and MC, and how and why they're manifesting.

Eldritch Demonic/Cosmic Divinity It's finally here. Thinking about the 'lore' of what it means to be an angel, a demon, and an avatar.

RAD Headcanons From a postgrad who thinks returning to high school is a punishment from hell.

Cursed Crypto Headcanons Who would be into cryptocurrencies/NFTs if they were a thing in the Devildom. (THIS IS A JOKE THIS IS A JOKE THIS IS A JOKE)

Obey Me: starring a Bogan MC Just a whole heap of headcanons about how a bogan MC would behave in Devildom. Resplendent with all sorts of Australian-isms

✏️ Requests? (Closed)

Want to see my take on a particular prompt or idea? I'm happy to write headcanons, drabbles, and short fics! Just send through an ask :) Angst, fluff, romance, fantasy, and horror are my typical wheelhouses - with an emphasis on a combination of all of these things. I’m always down for trying new things though!

Things I won't write are: explicit nsft/w (on this blog - be sure to shuffle over to purgatory-ho for my nsfw writing), next-gen/pregnancy stuff, physical or emotional abuse.

Make sure to check back occasionally - I’ll update this list as I post 💛 (also: please don’t expect any kind of schedule from me. I do this to procrastinate from the writing I’m supposed to do, so things tend to be sporadic).

[neo-shitty]

roger rabbit — l.mh

description. notorious troublemaker lee minho teeters between suspension and expulsion when he finally gets caught, except it’s for something he didn’t do and when the boy cries ‘innocent’, no one bats an eyelash to drive the wolves of consequence away. with only one eye witness and the world’s faith turned away from him, it’s up to his friends to white out a well-earned reputation and serve justice where it’s due. (all prior cases that led up to said notorious reputation aside, though.)

pairings. lee minho x everybody, 3racha x ocs.

genre. adventure, comedy, platonic!au, friendship!au, high school!au, a pinch of angst and fluff sprinkled everywhere

warnings. swearing, mentions and the act of underage drinking and smoking, attempted arson (?), bullying, slight violence and fighting.

word count. 26.8k

playlist. roger rabbit

notes. for @districtninewriters​ writer’s room theme: yearbook. roger rabbit is yet another installment to the in these halls series, set a year before the events of checkmate. this fic lacks a reader character and will be told from six various perspectives: from the boys of 3racha and the 3 ocs from checkmate BUT the plot is still minho-centric, enjoy!​

BEFORE. Lee Minho. October 26th, Friday.

The afternoon bell often meant the culmination of all the shenanigans on the fourth floor of the Hui Building. Apparently, that wasn’t the case for today.

11-A scattered as soon as the familiar chime of the afternoon bell came in through the speakers, echoing a tune down the hallways that was more ominous than it let on. The high pitched clangs of the metal poles elicited panic across those who knew the consequences of being caught outside classrooms after the bell rang. The halls bustled with students rushing to get back to their rooms, boisterous chit-chat fading into whispers as they disappeared into their respective cubes. Chairs clattered as they’re dragged back into place, whiteboards squeaked as they’re wiped clean, and students filed back to their seats.

Minho hopped off the front desk as his mind registered the sound of the school bell above the game noises his phone emitted. His eyes and thumbs remained glued to the screen, navigating the room blindly and hoping he wouldn’t knock yet another hydro flask off a table top. The timer on his screen showed ‘00:10’ — ten seconds to turn the tables of the game.

He heard his name called out from the back row but he didn't look up, too engrossed. Dragging his fingers, his avatar sneaked past the enemy defense line to a route away from the center of the team fight where everyone else was on each other’s necks. There his target was sprinting back, a weakened avatar retreating back to the enemy base to refill its health bar.

A flicker from the side of his screen caught his eye, a timer ending, a recharged skill. He thumbed the button, dragging it across the screen as the arrow charged. Pointing the arrow to the edge of the screen, where the weakened hero disappeared off, trusting his knowledge of the map to guide him from months of gaming.

Then he let go, and his character shuffled weapons and aimed a bazooka at the corner.

For a moment there was nothing, just the whistle of the grenade shell as it left the barrel. He waited one second, then another, and another. Until finally, distant in the audio of his right earphone, the sound of the bomb hitting and exploding. A banner flashed on the screen, tipping the scales and bumping his team’s kill count up one more digit — one more than the other team’s. The screen froze and 8 scripted letters appeared in glowing white print then dispersed in a flurry of white specks. Game Over.

“Nice one!” Someone beamed from the back row. Jeongin leaped out of his seat, eyes disappearing into thin concaves as he smiled from ear to ear. “Who made the last kill? Was it you?”

Beside him Felix shook his head, setting his phone down and cracking his knuckles. Seungmin did the same. Jeongin turned to Minho last, as if he was the last person he expected to win the match for them. Ungrateful brat, Minho thought. But the younger boy skirted around the desks to give him a hi-touch and a small thank you and the snarky comment withered on the tip of his tongue.

“Good game.”

Minho turned. The members of the other team were already shuffling out their seats, chucking their things into their bags and making the cross to the other side of the classroom. Among them was Han Jisung who gave the winning team a slow clap.

He held out a hand, outstretched for Minho to shake.

And he took it, clasping it for the shake before he whispered, “The M in Minho stands for MVP. Remember that.”

Jisung managed a nod, grinning even as the older boy’s grip tightened around his hand. “I’ll be sure to be on your team next time,” he said, wincing, but maintaining his smile.

“Not a chance.” Minho mirrored him, his own tight-lipped smile on his mouth before he let go.

On his way to his new seat, he passed the losing team, chin high and chest puffed even his lucky strike could’ve been ruled as nothing but a stroke of luck. The games added a bit of spice to their lunch breaks and determined how they’d enjoy the afternoon. The lucky half would be able to sit on the half of the aisle closest to the door, where the air was cooler and the getaways were less noticeable, while the others sat closer to the windows and basked in the afternoon sun that burned bright and blinding.

Minho couldn’t believe it. Closest to the window yesterday, closest to the door now. He set his bag down on his new table, glancing to the end of the row and locking eyes with its previous occupant. Changbin scoffed, muttering something that he couldn’t hear across the aisle. So he yanked the chair backward, gaze unwavering and taunting. It was hard to wipe the smirk off his face, especially when he still managed to snag the seat when it was collectively kept away from him.

But the chair wasn’t where it was supposed to be and Minho noticed it a little too late.

His center of gravity shifted with the absence of the chair, careening backwards until he hit the floor with a solid, loud thud. A moment of stunned silence hung in the air of the classroom, heads turning out of both curiosity and concern. The silence didn’t last. Laughter filled the air, bubbling out of the mouths of the people in the back row. Minho felt heat spread across his skin, his face, his ears.

“Are you alright?”

Minho was too busy helping himself off the ground to notice that someone else offered a hand. When he looked up, he found himself looking at the girl on the chair in front of him. Lia had an outstretched hand held up, one that he felt bad for not noticing sooner. He nodded, reassuring.

The fall captured the attention of the two other girls on her row; one with a blank, judging gaze and  the other wide-eyed with her mouth agape.

Saeyeon’s eyes didn’t linger on Minho for long and he went to dust his ass off with the spare seconds no one was keeping a too close watch on him. “You’ve done it this time, Hyunjin,” Saeyeon warned.

Minho’s ears twitch at the mention of a name, the culprit of his embarrassment finally bearing a face in his mind. Behind him, he heard faint giggles, fading as its owner slipped away from the site of his mischief. The others cleared a path for him to get away, but they didn't make a move to block Minho. Not that it would’ve done much.

Their classroom was small. Hyunjin managed to vault over a row of desks once to escape the grasp up the older boy but the ways out the room were shut and with the hallways off limits after the bell rang, Hyunjin didn’t have much room to run to.

It didn’t take long for him to be cornered. He stood with his back against the front door, trapped by the frontrow killjoys who were unwilling to aid him on his escapade and by Minho who blocked his only other way out.

“I’m sorry!”

Hyunjin shrank when Minho grabbed him, the tall boy reduced to a crouching wimp backed up against a solid surface of the door. Minho tightened his grasp, hand framing the twin bones of the younger boy’s arm.

“It’s alright, it’s alright.” Minho tried to muster the most gentle voice. The back row erupted into snickers as the scene unfolded up front like a school play scene. “I just want you to remember what I said.”

The blond blinked back, clueless.

Minho frowned. “My, aren’t you a forgetful guy.” He tightened his grip again and the younger boy’s eyes flicker over to him. “How many degrees did I tell you?”

Hyunjin’s giggles seized for a sliver of a moment. And Minho thought the boy had forgotten all about it, opening his mouth to repeat the phrase when, “180, 180!”

“180, what?”

“180 degrees,” Hyunjin stammered, but still managed to squeeze a giggle in between. “180 degrees for 20 minutes to cook me in an air fryer.”

It almost made Minho smile. “Good.”

He pulled the boy off the ground, standing at eye level for a moment. His lips parted to say something, but fell short when the door swung open.

Rays of bright light spilled into the dim classroom and the secrets of the dark cube lay exposed to those who were prying. The sunlight was blinding, enough to have him squinting to make out who stood by the entrance. Three silhouettes, enveloped in white light and nearly impossible for him to recognize.

“Well,” a voice said. “When are you going to move out of the way, Lee Minho?”

Minho knew that voice too well. It belonged to the bane of his high school existence; the one that shouted his name way too many times down long hallways and through the school’s announcement system, so damn much that he started to hate it. Recognizable even without the layers of autotune, Director Park stood by the doorway, flanked by the Student’s Affairs Chief Mrs. Gong and the student council president Brian — the SSA’s beloved (but hated by most students including himself) ‘gotta-keep-these-animals-in-check’ triumvirate.

The fluorescent lights of the classroom flickered on overhead, basking everyone in steady light for the triumvirate to scrutinize. Minho hated it when the trio visited, it never meant anything good. He’d had enough of them tailing him for anything he did, though he knew they were there for good reason. He’d been stirring trouble for them for the past three school years he’d been enrolled and they were right to be cautious of him. Their rules had loopholes; he just happened to be good at spotting and exploiting them.

“You must be wondering why we’re here.” Director Park’s voice boomed from across the room as Minho made his way back to his seat, answering the question no one dared to ask. The old man swept the room like a scanner, burning through eye sockets as he met each students’ gaze. He settled on Minho longest and they locked eyes like rivals in a ring before the match starts.

The old man is the first to relent, tearing his eyes away to gesture at the student beside him. Brian nodded lightly before he turned to the class.

“We’re here to do a mandatory bag check. Bags on the table, now.” He didn’t explain further, immediately walking over to the first row to start checking.

The gears in Minho’s mind churned in speculation. Fridays were standard for bag checking days, but October itself wasn’t in bag checking season. The checks only ever happened nearing the end of the semester which was well over a month away. A quarter of the council’s force would join Brian on his hunt to expose students but never the other members of the triumvirate. Minho glanced down the row, catching a glimpse of Chan’s confusion then proceeded to tick a box on his mental checklist of things that would support his hypothesis. One clueless council member down and one other to go. He leaned over to the row in front of him, tapping Taehee’s shoulder before he asked.

“Did you know about this?” he whispers, hypothesis strengthened when Taehee shook her head.

Whatever the reason for the bag check, it wasn’t disclosed to the rest of the council members. And whatever it was, it was serious enough to warrant the presence of two of the most powerful administration officers.

A few vape sticks, cigarette packs, and a ‘water’ bottle filled with liquor later, Brian cleared the student in front of Minho and made his way to the last row. The older boy’s eyes ran over Minho in the same scanning fashion the director did, searching for discrepancies like they always did when they walked past each other.

“Improper uniform again, Lee,” Brian muttered, flipping his infamous ticket-to-hell booklet to the nearest available sheet. He set it on the desk, topping it with a ballpen for Minho to sign himself on to. Minho checks the tick boxes blindly, muscles gaining memory after filling the receipt way too many times to count.

“At least I’m present.” Minho grinned as he handed the booklet back.

The sloppy thing was down to its last few leaflets. Brian was due for another booklet change and he still had half a semester to get through. It made Minho wonder how much he contributed to the thinning of its available sheets.

“Why the sudden bag check?”

“Student council lost something.” Brian didn’t look up when he answered, too busy pulling out unused notebooks and untouched textbooks out of the depths of Minho’s bag.

The latter studied the president’s face. He kept a poker face, but the creases on his forehead showed his agitation and the underlying frustration that came with whatever was missing.

But before he could ask for further details, Brian stilled. The brief pause sent Minho into a mini-panic. Did he accidentally leave something behind? Fridays weren’t safe anymore and he learned that the hard way. He made sure his bags were contraband-free during those days, even bothering to double-check every Friday morning.

“Minho.”

He didn’t miss the tone drop, it made him uneasy—anxious. He slipped his arm beneath the table, putting a weight on his leg to keep it from bouncing. “You can’t find anything there. I didn’t bring anything with me today.” He said, mustering his confidence that his bag was indeed devoid of anything they could be snooping for.

Again, Brian didn’t answer and Minho would’ve pried for one if the former didn’t pick something out of his backpack. A brown paper bag, weighted, thick, and definitely not empty.

Minho unconsciously looked around, scanning for any hidden cameras that could be filming him but there were none. He didn’t recall seeing a brown bag when he opened his bag earlier that day. How Brian managed to pull it out of nowhere? Minho didn’t have the answers. “What’s that?”

The older boy stared, unamused. “I don’t know, you tell me.”

Brian dropped the bag onto Minho’s desk. Minho avoided the older boy’s gaze, pushing himself up and peering down the bag to check its contents. Inside were papers coiled by rubber bands — wads of money, Minho realized — stacked horizontally to fill the bottom of the paper bag. Pieces fell into place in his mind; the reason behind the rushed bag search, the item the council lost, the stash of money in his backpack.

“Brian, did you find something?”

And before Minho could utter a word in his defense, Brian picked the bag off of his desk and raised it for the class to see.

Breaths hitch, hushed whispers, stunned silence. Eyes turned to the bag, to Brian, then to him last but only he felt the weight of their gazes, the heaviness of passed judgment. He was just as stunned as everyone else.

“I didn’t do it, I swear.” It was the first thing he blurted out when Brian turned back to face him, but the older boy only casted him a frown.

He sounded ridiculous and he looked the part too, caught red-handed and recycling the same line he used to get away with everything in a pathetic attempt to defend himself. Everyone heard it way too many times and have been fooled just as much. Their eyes held no surprise, like they knew if the culprit was anyone in the class, it would’ve been him.

“Lee Minho.” The voice snapped him out of his head, chucking him back into the classroom to face the looming reality of his situation. “If you could follow us downstairs?”

The walk down was a blur of three backs leading him through flights of staircases and endless hallways. When he was asked about the bag and its contents, he answered with nothing but his version of the truth but it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. They stared at him, disbelieving, like there was no way in hell he was still trying to get himself out of this one when he’d been shoved to the corner.

Except he really was telling them the truth this time, yet the idea of him being set up was hilarious to them—bordering made up than reality. He walked out the Director’s office with his head down, hands shaking, winded. It wasn’t the first time the triumvirate deliberated on what to do to him but it was the first time he was this shaken and unsure. It didn’t even matter that he told the truth this time. With how things have been set up, all signs pointed nowhere else but his direction.

For the first time, he dreaded the moment they'd come out to tell him he’d been suspended because he knew deep down that this might be his last time.

ONE. Bang Chan. October 26th, Friday.

He hated the way they were staring. 

Chan never disliked council meetings, not even when they lasted long after the sun hid itself beneath the horizon. He thought of it as a productive way to pass his time, the same way he once viewed his soccer in middle school. To him, it was always a pleasure to throw in ideas for school events, tugging the ropes backstage, and seeing the whole thing play out after all the hard work he’d put into it. The stress that came with it exhilarated him, driving him to do better, knowing well that their labor would be rewarded with fulfillment. 

But being in the student government had its fair share of mundane work, littered between the weeks leading up to the planning of the monthly events. Those were the days Chan dreaded most. Days passed with him barely stepping within the walls of his classroom, missing school work after school work that would all be accounted for when the hectic week passes. This month, he didn’t expect something else to top it all off. 

The council was called upon not long after Minho was escorted out of their class by the triumvirate, the council’s bustle falling into hushed whispers when he entered the office. It had been the same when Minho left earlier, ‘I knew he did it’s exchanged by other classmates while most of the back row remained silent—dumbfounded. He kept his head down, eyes glued to the pearl white tiles as he shuffled to his seat in the oval. When Brian arrived after deliberating with the triumvirate, he didn’t waste a moment to fill everyone in on the events of that morning; the stolen cash fund, the culprit, and the suspension that came as the consequence.

The meeting was shorter than usual, nothing else on the agenda but the discussion of the lost and found funds and the people responsible; the treasurer and, after accusations were exchanged, Minho’s classmates—him and Taehee.

“You were both in it, weren’t you?” 

It made his blood boil, more so when he looked up and caught the eye of a coward who never took a fall without dragging someone else along with him. The smirk tugging on the corner of the treasurer’s lips doesn’t go unnoticed and it took every fiber of Chan’s self control to stop himself from bursting. But he stayed silent, willed himself to keep his mouth shut to not add fuel to the fire.

He left the room as soon as they were dismissed, exhausted and heavy with unnecessary baggage he never wanted to carry. Guilt weighed him down even when he knew he wasn’t in on it. To be accused of letting slip that the council room was left unlocked was outrageous to him. He didn’t even know the lock was broken! 

The accusations were getting to his head, twisting the truth as he knew it the longer he was inside the office’s walls. A wave of relief washed over him when the meeting was adjourned, taking the first opportunity to walk out before anyone could pester him about it any longer. He thought stepping out would feel like a breath of fresh air, that the walk to the restaurant would be less suffocating. But the silence between him and the other junior was cold, different from their usual comfortable silence. 

Taehee walked a few steps ahead, not even letting him catch up to her. He didn’t need to be a genius to know when he was being avoided, but his conscience never let him rest until he knew the reason why. Though he did know the reason and in his mind he could still see her glaring from across the oval table. He wanted to say something, anything.

“Why did you stop me from talking earlier?”

Chan blinked. He wondered if he imagined her talking or it was just one of those moments where his brain spoke too loud it broke physical barriers. 

But Taehee turned to face him. “Why did you stop me from talking earlier?” she repeated.

The memory flooded back in pulses of rage, a relentless ticking in his ear as Jae justified the accusations with circumstantial evidence that had nothing to do with the robbery — nothing to do with him. He caught the moment Taehee nearly snapped, the intensity of her glare at the senior. Their eyes met for a moment, and he could tell she was waiting for one last signal to go off but was only met with a firm head shake. And he worried she wouldn’t listen, but she reclined on her seat, closing her eyes the way she wished she could her ears.

“The situation looked bad enough for us. I didn’t want it to get worse.” A half-truth, he knew he had more reasons and Taehee could see right through. “We can’t do anything about it anymore. He’s suspended and we don’t have the evidence to counter what they had, what we witnessed earlier.” He replied.

Taehee scoffed, a cloud of air fogging where she exhaled. “Are there ever times where you don’t let people get to your head? Where you, I don’t know,” she shrugged, “stand your ground?”

And that was all it took for his facade to shatter, to have his thoughts spiraling on themselves, to feel transparent—seen. Like the screen he put up did nothing to hide him and the instability of his own beliefs. All she did was ask but her words felt like daggers lodging into his chest. Maybe it was the amalgamation of Minho’s petty crimes that made him lose his fate, or his desperation to be free from the treasurer’s accusation that made him break. Worst of all, her words echoed Minho’s. 

“You’re being biased.”

“Of course I am, dumbass. He’s my friend.” My, not our. “I know Minho in a way your rich ass doesn’t and if there was anything he wasn’t willing to risk it was his scholarship. He wouldn’t do anything that stupid.”

“Minho’s my friend too.” It was the only thing Chan managed to utter, her words seeping through the way the accusations in the council room did. 

“Of course he is,” she answered, unbelieving. 

“Taehee.”

But she didn’t turn her head. A bus rolled to a stop in front of them, hailed by another person at the bus stop. She stepped away from the sidewalk, letting other passengers line up before her and put herself last on the queue. 

“If they ask, tell them I have a project to finish.” She boarded the bus and never looked back.

Chan caught a whiff of the barbecue house long before he came in. The air shifted as he walked down the barren sidewalk, autumn breeze blowing his direction and picking the smoke from the restaurant along with it. The smell of cooked meat made his stomach churn, mouth watering as his senses were overrode by his own hunger, enough to even dull his raging thoughts. God, I’m hungry. He picked up the pace until he reached the swinging doors of the BBQ house and let himself in.

The house was packed today, tables occupied by groups of students and casual-clad workers. He satcheted across the room, squeezing through narrow aisles and avoiding the occasional arm swing of another customer who had too much to drink. Like usual, his friends occupied the long table at the back, the only table in the restaurant that could sit everyone down. They greeted him when he approached, setting their bags down and making room for him on the edge of the bench. A plate found its way to him, along with utensils and slices of his favorite meat.

“Where’s Taehee?” Saeyeon asked from across him, her eyes glinting from the light hanging overhead — expectant.

Chan stilled at the mention, knocked back into the thoughts he tried to escape from. “Went home,” he answered. “Had a project to do.”

The girl cocked her head, “Didn’t she say she finished it last night?”

Silence fell upon them like a veil, excluding them from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the restaurant. Chan didn’t answer, the lie wasn’t his to justify. The topic was dropped, moving on to other things as they went on with their meals. 

Every now and then, his eyes would wander over to the vacant spaces between them, all too wide and hard to ignore. At their maximum, they sat elbow to elbow with the occasional complaint about personal space thrown about. There were no complaints about brushing arms today, but no one seemed enthusiastic about it. He shrugged the thought away.

“How was the council meeting?” Changbin asked. 

Chan glanced up, wishing for the topic to be dropped. But there was no point in avoiding the elephant in the room and even if he got around it now, he’d still have to answer it sooner or later. “Jae got scolded and he accused us of being accomplices,” he said, hoping the explanation would suffice for Taehee’s sudden absence. 

Jeongin rolled his eyes. “God, isn’t he annoying? Can’t he own up to anything?” 

“Right,” Felix said, pursing his lips before turning to Chan. “You know that isn’t true, Chan. Don’t let it get to you.”

Another echo. The words rippled in his mind, three different faces all saying the same thing. There was a simple irony in the way it, too, was getting to his head. 

If what Chan believed wasn’t the truth, then what was? The version of reality in Chan’s mind felt too distorted to be the line between facts from opinions, real from imaginary, truth from lie. Was the truth the one agreed upon by most? Was it the one insisted by those who only saw one side of the story? Was he biased and clouded by his own beliefs? 

His thoughts race in his head, conflicted on who and what to believe. Did he really play a role in having the cash fund stolen? Did one of his closest friends act without thinking of what would follow? Was he a bad person for being rational? Or was he shallow for letting himself be swayed easily?

“Earth to Bang Chan?”

Chan’s vision refocused, finding himself staring at a waving palm held in front of him. He blinked as the blonde lowered his hand back down to the table. 

“Eat your meal, tough guy. It’s been a rough day.” Hyunjin said. 

He couldn’t, not while his thoughts raged. Not while the events of earlier put him on chokehold for being both a bad friend and an irresponsible officer. Fridays were supposed to be good days, a hooray for the weekend celebrated with a meal at their go-to restaurant. They were supposed to be complete on Fridays. 

“Do you,” he started, but trailed off. He wanted to drop the subject but all eyes were on him now, waiting for him to finish. He exhaled the last of his hesitance. “Do you think he actually did it?”

There was a pause in their actions; a blink, a split-second caught off guard by his query. Nervous glances were exchanged across the table but the moment passed and no one motioned for the topic to be dropped. Chan guessed that they were all just tiptoeing around it, afraid of how the others might react.

Chan’s gaze landed on a boy at the opposite end of the table. “Honestly, if it’s just the evidence, it sure seems like he did it.” Seungmin said, the others nodding in agreement after him.

Another person stirred, setting their own pair of chopsticks down with a rather loud clatter. Lia furrowed her eyebrows. “Can’t be. We were together the whole morning.”

“You were together the whole morning but you didn’t say anything?” Frustration got the better of Chan and his voice came louder than he expected. A few heads turned from other tables but he was too agitated to be bothered. Guilt made his stomach twist, calling Lia out for keeping silent felt hypocritical after the meeting earlier. He could’ve said something, done something. Why do you keep letting them get to your head?

“I was just as shocked as everyone was. Everything happened too fast.”

That, he could agree with. It was over before he could even ask why the bag check happened in the first place. 

“It’s alright, actually,” Seungmin said, drumming his fingers on the table. “If she said anything, they’d say she was in on it too.” 

“But where were you?” Everyone’s attention panned to Lia. Chan hoped they were just as desperate as he was to hear anything that could support Minho’s innocence, rid their minds of the secondhand guilt they were feeling. He didn’t put too much faith into it yet, a million things could’ve happened between first period and lunch break when the stash was uncovered missing.

“We came in late. Classroom doors were locked so we passed the time at the cafeteria.” Lia answered, no pauses in her statement but seeming as though she was merely recollecting her thoughts.

Jisung shifted beside Chan, leaning over the table to narrow his eyes on the girl across the table. “You didn’t join him when he stole the money now, did you?”

“And why would I do that?”

“Who knows?” Jisung shrugged. “You loved your friends so much you stole the council’s stash so you could split it between all 11 of us.”

“Jisung.” Chan warned.

“Sorry.”

Across the table, Changbin asked, “What was the verdict?” 

“Suspension. A week.” 

Felix shook his head, frowning. “Can’t be just that. Stealing is a serious criminal offense. Might be bumped into an expulsion before the week’s over.”

For a moment Chan wished it wasn’t mentioned, the gravity of the situation being deeper than what he initially thought. His blood ran cold beneath his skin at the mention, at the thought of being the one in the end of the cruel consequences. A part of him wanted to laugh, to tell Minho he dug his own grave and now had to lie in it. But after hearing Lia’s statement, a verbal testimony that Minho was elsewhere when the robbery took place, he wasn’t too thrilled to hear about the expulsion.

Still, it was evidence enough; a singular hope he could clutch onto, a chance that his friend might not be the one behind the grave offense. It was a gamble he was willing to risk. He had his own mind to disprove and friends to make it up to. And the impulse came like a lighthouse’s beam through a foggy day at sea.

Heads turned to Chan when he abruptly stood from his seat, the bench rattling backwards and nearly making the others beside him fall off.  “I’ll talk to him tonight, get his side of the story,” he announced.

“Do you even know where he lives?” Jeongin asked.

Right when Chan was about to shake his head, Lia sprung up from the other side of the table. “I do. I’ll come with you.”

No one bothered to stand in their way. Whatever they’ll get out of the boy tonight might not be the whole truth. The chances of them getting vague cryptic answers or straight up lies were high but it was better than nothing. Chan could only hope they’d be enough to tranquilize the thoughts inside his head and for once give him a concrete place to side on.

“You’ve been to Minho’s?”

The bus hummed beneath their feet as it turned down narrower streets. Outside, the skyscrapers were distant, nothing but blocks of light this far out from the center of the city. A glowing arc curved over downtown Seoul, a vibrant halo against the inky black sky—nothing like the suburbs that sat outside its walls. The buildings here were no more than a few stories high, stacked atop each other as they hiked up sloped roads.

Lia shook her head. “No. We just see him here a lot.”

She craned her neck, fingers curling around the pole that kept her upright throughout the ride then pressed against the red stop button. The bus swerved lightly, coming off the fast lane before groaning into a stop beside the road. Chan followed her out to the bus and onto the sidewalk.

“Quite far for your adventures,” Chan said, squinting at the starless sky overhead then down the dimly lit road. “And a bit dangerous too.”

Lia let out a small laugh. “Taehee lives nearby.” Her eyes find Chan’s before he could mask the way he faltered. “Did something happen back there?”

The memory of the girl's gaze resurfaced in Chan’s mind, a cold stare that didn’t warrant any words to show how she’d been let down. He sucked in a shaky breath but when he opened his mouth to speak, the words didn't come.

“It happens a lot, Chan,” Lia muttered. “She says things she doesn’t mean when she’s pissed. Sorry you had to hear it.”

The matter of whether she meant it or not didn’t bear any weight to him. It struck true regardless. “Don’t worry about it. She had a point.”

They walked in silence up steep hills that made Chan’s thighs burn. The question of why Minho always showed up late to class finally made sense. The thought almost made him smile before he remembered why he was making the hike in the first place. After today, he might never see the other boy walk in late again. 

The pair stopped across the street from the only bustling part of the suburbs. A building spanned the entire block, a mix of mini-marts and restaurants where you couldn’t tell apart which were open and not. Chan wasn’t used to the silence. He was always used to the hustle and bustle of the streets of downtown Seoul.

They crossed when the last of the traffic passed. Chan followed her footsteps until they reached a small indent in the building. The eatery didn’t have a door. A counter occupied half of the entrance while the other led into the empty dining area. The employee working the counter shot out of their seat when he noticed them approaching. “Sorry, we’re already closing up. Come again next time.”

Chan’s eyes panned to the direction of the voice, familiar even with half his face covered in the shade of his cap.

“Minho.”

The boy’s head shot up, a pair of round eyes blinking up at them from behind the counter. Recognition washed over his face but his mouth twisted into a frown. Chan thought he’d ask them to leave.

“Do you both want to freeze to death?” Minho shouted from across the counter. He reached over to unhook the chain blocking the entrance to the restaurant. “Come in.”

Chan hesitated. But Lia stepped around him, walking up to the front of the entrance and soon enough he followed suit. Despite the restaurant being open, it was a lot warmer inside — safe from the chilly winds that swept down the streets of this side of the city. The restaurant was small, just enough to fit a dozen dine-in customers. Its yellow walls were matched with red accents, both dark and vibrant. The scent of fried chicken hung heavily in the air even after closing time. Only one other table was occupied, a lady hunched over a record book, tapping away on a calculator.

Minho led them down the narrow space, to a table not far from the back, adjacent to a statue of a rooster. He turned to them as they were seated, the wobbly stools giving Chan a scare when he teeters backward. Both Lia and Minho stifled their laughter.

“Can I get you anything?” Minho asked.

“We’re fine,” Chan said. “We’re just here to talk.”

The expression on Minho’s face shifted, unreadable with his head hung low. He nodded slightly, rounding the table to take the stool across Chan. He looked up, face steeled and eyes blank, it made Chan’s stomach twist and grumble. The restaurant was quiet enough for it to be heard. He forgot about his hunger, buried by his anxiousness, but it seemed that his body did not.

Minho’s eyes widened in amusement, breaking into a grin. “You can’t lie for shit, Chan. Hold on, I’ll get you something.”

Minho disappeared behind a curtained doorway, reappearing moments later with pieces of chicken in a mesh strainer and two pairs of chopsticks. He set it down on the table between them along with a tray of sauces. Chan’s guilt swelled up again. The thought that he never once viewed Minho as a possible victim to a setup crawling into his mind and making his hand heavy. He felt ashamed.

“Well,” Minho said. “Are you just going to stare at it?”

Lia shook her head, “I already ate.”

He nodded, turning to Chan. “You?”

Chan chewed the inside of his cheek, pride and hunger brawling within him. But he shook his head, priorities resurfacing. “It’s not what we’re here for.”

“So?” The change in Minho’s tone caught him off guard. “I’m not talking until you eat something,” he said, arms crossed over his chest as he stared Chan down.

The older boy resigned. His hands found their way to the table, coiling around the chopsticks before he picked up the nearest chicken finger in between. He muttered a small thank you, voice quiet. Minho nodded across him, only slumping back on his chair when a portion of the meat had been bitten off. 

“Did the council send you?” Minho asked, jokingly but it was enough to make Chan freeze. Then before the latter could formulate a question, he turned to Lia. “How about you? Let this be a lesson to never come to school late again.”

He lost Chan at the first question. Minho joked an awful lot and his tone wasn’t laced with distrust. What if Chan really was sent by the council to pry the answers out of him? Chan shook his head. He was here for his own sake, for his own peace and his conscience. But didn’t that make him anymore selfish than he already seemed?

The silence that hung between them dissipated when the girl spoke. “Wow. Are you going to change once you’re back from suspension?”

Minho looked up, staring. The dim light of the restaurant reflected on his eyes, a sparkle on the glossy surface. Then he dropped his gaze, avoiding their prying ones and choosing to look at the table between them instead. His fingers darted across the coated wood, tracing the circular patterns.

Then his answer came a moment later.  “I don’t think they’ll let me go back.” 

The chopsticks nearly fell out of Chan’s grasp. He opened his mouth to say something and again, his words failed him. What was there to say? 

“There aren’t any mid-school year scholarship offers so I might be taking the rest of the year off. So I offered to help around a bit.”

The words spilled from his mouth so easily, like he’d already rehearsed what he would and wouldn’t say. Chan doesn’t miss the gloss coating Minho’s eyes. He recalled seeing him the first time during freshman year, scoring back-up for senior performances before weaving his way up the ranks until he became the first junior to become the leader of the school’s dance troupe. He was easily one of SSA’s best leaders, a strict perfectionist who ensured a quality performance under his lead — a loss to the academy. 

“Minho, it’s—”

He held up a finger. “I know what you’re going to say. I wouldn’t say no to a solution if you had one.” His voice was light but the hopelessness in his tone doesn’t go unnoticed, like he spent the rest of his afternoon twisting the situation a million times over to see a way out but to no avail. A jester who finally ran out of tricks up his sleeve. He looked worn out.

The sight was enough to finally change Chan’s mind. His friend was innocent, distraught as much as they were. In the boy’s eyes, there was an anxiousness that mirrored his own. While he worried about an internal crisis, the other was lost in the gravity of the situation he found himself in.  

“But you didn’t do it.” Lia’s voice was just as quiet. Chan could only imagine what it was like for her, carrying the truth with her but still being helpless.

Minho’s eyes didn’t waver from the table. “It doesn’t matter if it isn’t what they believe.”

“We’ll find a way.”

“Don’t bother.” 

“Minho,” Chan deadpanned. 

“No, for real though.” He blinked up, looking straight into the eyes of the older boy.  “Good for the both of you because if you got caught stealing something, everyone’s going to say, ‘Oh, they’d never do that.’ Did you even see how our class reacted? No one was even surprised that they found the stash in my bag. Even the director expected that it’d be there.”

Chan scrambled for the right words to say. “Won’t you at least try to defend yourself?” he suggested, only realizing how stupid he sounded when the younger boy rolled his eyes at him. Then the echo came again, as if to remind him of his hypocrisy. He was in a position to help, one with better chances of working compared to Minho’s attempts to defend himself. But the moment passed, the chance slipped out of his fingers because he let it.

“You think I didn’t? I told them the fucking truth earlier and nothing changed.” Minho’s voice was strained now, more eager to end the conversation than to discuss it further. “Put it this way. We don’t know each other. If you see the stash pulled out of my bag, what would you think of me? You’d think I stole it, right? Even if I told you that I didn’t actually do it, you’d think I was just lying. Imagine that but with someone with a mad-record of rule breaking.”

The restaurant fell quiet. Chan lowered his head. As much as he hated to admit it, Minho was right. Word of mouth wouldn’t be enough to disprove anything. Earlier that day it wasn’t enough for him to be convinced either.

“Face it.” Minho muttered. “There’s nothing you can do.”

A voice called out from behind the kitchen curtain, an indication they’ve overstayed their welcome. Minho showed them the way out, the bigger matters left untouched in their remaining moments together. Minho stayed behind to close up, leaving them to traverse the road down to the bus stop in the middle of the night.

The ride back to the city was spent in silence.

TWO. Jeon Saeyeon. October 29th, Monday.

Even the best fell down sometimes. When news about Minho’s suspension spread across the campus like wildfire, that phrase always came with it. Like a king with a fallen crown, a hero walking into the hands of the enemy. It was the subject of recess chatter and the whispers of faculty gossip. Saeyeon heard it all, and it made her wonder if the bustle was enough to make the school paper’s headlines.

Everyone wanted to pry and their own classmates strived off of it. They stroked the fires, fed the wood to keep it burning—all to keep the moths drawn. They ran their mouths, recounting any form of bad experience with Minho just to mount on to the issue because any kind of attention was good. If anything, the more scandalous the better.

Digging up Minho’s past became boring eventually. The audience didn’t want justifications and back stories. They wanted the reasons behind it, the how-he-did-it, insider information. But the class had nothing to offer for there were no witnesses to the crime itself, only its discovery and their assumptions. The more they talked, the more loopholes showed, lies surfacing as the tide drew back. The closest accounts were locked away, at the back row of the classroom behind zipped lips.

They got nothing out of her, nothing out of them. But it didn’t mean she wasn’t getting annoyed.

A part of her wished she would be careful of what she wished for. Everything was good in moderation and while she dreamed of making it big someday, even attention was tolerable in minute amounts. The pestering didn’t stop in their classroom, it followed her down the hallways and into the cramped comfort rooms, up flights of staircases and through crowded corridors.

Curious cats did not understand the idea of personal space. Arms were hooked around hers, dragging her away from where she needed to be, where she would then be asked of something she didn’t have an answer to. Then the stares came, pairs of eyes gazing with doubt swirling in their irises, because the answers she gave weren’t what they wanted to hear. She was one of the easier people to approach, but it didn’t mean she slipped up easily. 

A dozen white lies and shrugged shoulders later, the hype died down and their holds loosened and Saeyeon could finally breathe. As soon as she reached the ground floor, she planned the quickest route to her destination. She made a turn at the nearest exit, marched down the narrow hall leading up to the wooden exit door and stumbled out into the alleyways. 

Like most noons, the narrow paths were devoid of people but their traces lingered everywhere. Empty liquor bottles were tucked into corners, the ground littered with crushed cigarette butts, and the faint scent of nicotine hung in the air—stuck to the walls like strong perfume. It was home for some and a get-away for others. For Saeyeon, it was a life hack. 

The narrow paths ran along the edge of the campus, hidden behind the grandiose buildings up front. It weaved through the grounds like a network of shortcuts, exclusive to those who explored enough to discover. She found herself there when she needed a breather, to be away from the public’s eye for a few minutes or to calm herself down after a mind-drying test.

She ran into Minho here often and for a while it was their little secret, a nook away from everyone else, where they could talk about anything and everything just to get it off their chest. He’d put his cigarette away, crush it beneath his feet the second he’d see her pop out of the doorway. The scent still irked her and it showed on her face enough to always warrant an apology. But having someone to confide in was better than nothing, especially one who didn’t let slip a single thing. Nothing she said at the alleyways ever got out and she never spoke a word about the cigarettes. 

Minho hadn’t been there for a while now, long before his suspension, yet a part of her still expected to see that hunched back figure tapping away on his phone. She thought it was better than having him burn his lungs off but after the past week, she wasn’t so sure anymore. Then she’d shake her head, cast her doubts aside the way he did his cigarettes. 

The others should be at the meeting place by now, passing time under the heat of the midday sun. The rooftop deck was their last resort for lunch breaks, mainly because the open air didn’t compensate for the scorching rays. But it was away from the public’s eye so for the sake of their own well-being, they all agreed to spend the lunch hour there. 

Saeyeon slipped back into the normal route unnoticed, head down and hair tucked beneath a hoodie as she made the hike up the steep stairs. There was only so much the sweater could hide, her curls cascaded down and framed her face and she prayed it won’t be enough for anyone to recognize her.

“Thank fuck!”

The rooftop door swung open with a light nudge and with her full force pushed onto it, it slammed against the adjacent wall. A breeze swept past her, kissing the pinpricks of sweat on the sides of her face and she walked over to the pile gathered on the shaded part of the rooftop, kicking the door back shut behind her. 

“Took you long enough.” A voice called. Jeongin had one hand clutching his phone and the other outstretched before him. 

Saeyeon arched her brow. “Who left me alone with the paperwork, huh? The nosy bastards were just a cherry to top it all off.” She tugged the sweater over her head, peeling it from her skin before chucking it at the boy’s face instead of his open palm. She shrank into the space beside him.

Across her, Felix frowned. “Who even purposely takes math as an elective?” He asked, his own brows knitted at the thought.

“Jeongin does because he skipped his classes for the past two years and now needs to catch up so he could graduate with us next year.” Saeyeon replied, smiling brightly—fakely—at the freckled boy who eyed them skeptically.

“But you passed?”

“I’m not saying I didn’t.”

“What she’s saying is,” Jeongin didn’t let her finish, dropping his phone on his lap and finally paying full attention,“that she’s a very kind friend who’s willing to help me out.”

“And you express your gratitude by leaving her with paperwork?” Saeyeon was glad that Felix, at least, took her side in the bickering.

“Not the point!”

A large crash from the entrance startled them out of their wits. They all overestimated the door’s newly oiled hinges. An unusual pair walked in through the doorway, both sweater-clad like Saeyeon was.

Taehee crossed the roofdeck in half the time Jisung did, scowling as she approached. Jisung trailed behind her, looking like a tornado swept through him. His hair was a disheveled bundle, his uniform only half-tucked in, and his bag spilling out half its contents. 

“I thought you weren’t coming today.” Lia asked, looking up at the pair. 

Taehee sat a spot away and pointed at the wreck that was Jisung. “Said he needed me.”

Saeyeon narrowed her eyes at them but she slumped back against the wall when she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Needed. Something about the term tickled a memory out of the depths of her mind, still she couldn’t quite fish it out.

“You’re late!” Seungmin yelled. “Are you planning to beat Minho’s tardy record while he’s gone?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Jisung answered. “I’m late because I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night.”

Something skidded against the rooftop floor, the sound of plastic wheels scratching against the rough cement. Hyunjin stomped and he was airborne for a moment, flipping the board over. It clattered back to the ground before he did and it creaked as he landed. He rolled past them with a smirk on his face. 

“Competing with Chan, then?” he asked. Jisung laughed but the eldest frowned.

The crooked circle shifted as Jisung took his place, slotted between Lia and the eldest with a small space between where Minho would’ve been. They were a tough crowd to gather but the absences never went unnoticed. There were gaps and spaces in between, and dead air where more retorts should’ve been. 

Changbin stirred. “So why were you up late? It’s not like you have anything important to do.”

Saeyeon bit back a laugh, the others snickered. For a fraction of a moment, it felt like a normal day on the rooftop. Yet Minho’s absence was noticeable. The savage remarks were his lines and they felt different rolling off someone else’s tongue.

Jisung blinked but he continued. “Good question, incorrect assumption. What I did last night concerns the absence of our beloved friend and nuisance, Lee Minho.” 

He pulled something out of his pack and threw it onto the ground in the middle of the circle. It fluttered, failing to land perfectly but he rushed up to fix its arrangement. Saeyeon tilted her head, glimpsing at the notebook from an upright perspective.

A portrait of Minho, she realized, was glued to the center of the first page with the words INNOCENT OR NOT written in bold red ink. Someone within the circle let out a laugh, another followed. Jisung didn’t seem amused.

“Is Minho really innocent or not?” Jisung asked. “Of course, we’re trying to prove that he is. So if there’s anyone here who doesn’t believe that he isn’t, speak now or forever hold your peace,” he paused, “Or at least until the end of my discussion.”

Not me, Saeyeon wanted to mutter but the words lodge on her throat, afraid of finding out that someone within their circle believed differently. Friday resurfaced in her mind, the long on Minho’s face when he was escorted out the classroom. She was around Minho enough to know his lips twitched before he lied, and he stared at his targets first before he made his savage comments, but he never flinched whenever he was caught red handed.

Saeyeon saw the bewilderedness in his eyes when the contents of the bag spilled onto his desk and the confusion that came after. She hunched that he didn’t do it, his reactions said as much but it wasn’t enough to prove anything else. Until another witness took the podium.

Whoever thought differently must’ve chosen to keep their mouth shut instead because Jisung continued. He flipped the notebook over and on the next page were the words ‘Who framed Roger Rabbit?’

Minho would’ve laughed before chucking the notebook at Jisung.

“Do you see what I see?” Jisung asked, head tilted up at something by the entrance.

Their gazes followed, a succession of head turns that would’ve left the rooftop door conscious of it had the ability to think. But it stood still and unmoving like the wall keeping it in place, like the small overhang that never really shielded it from anything. 

Not even a few seconds in, Felix said. “Of course, we can see the door. We have eyes, Jisung.”

“Do you know what else can see what we see?” Jisung asked, but he didn’t leave room for anyone to answer. He pointed at something on the top of the rooftop door’s overhang, half a black orb jutting out of the ceiling. “Behold the all-seeing eye.”

“Wouldn’t they catch us hanging out up here?” Lia asked.

“The rooftop cameras don’t work.” Heads turned to Chan when he finally spoke, quiet as he set the skateboard aside for them to focus. “Admin felt there was no need for them.”

“Dumb,” Jisung blurted. “But helpful for our current situation.”

Saeyeon remembered the first time the cameras were installed. There had been an influx of students getting caught; couples snogging in the hallways, boys loitering, corridor pranks, everything. She recalled how Minho easily found the blind spots, just as quick as she did. It never meant much to her until the need for a place to compose herself became a close to daily necessity. A part of her was thankful for the installation, even more so that it could be their leverage now. 

Beside her Jeongin’s eyes went wide, picking up on what the grand plan was. “If SSA won’t bother to find the true culprit, then we will.”

It was the last thing she needed to have the gears in her mind click into place; the peculiar gathering where no one else could hear, the need for everyone to be around—it all made perfect sense. The circle went quiet, an uneasy silence of perspectives not falling in line with one another. 

“How do we even access those? Isn’t the CCTV room manned 24/7?” Changbin narrowed his eyes on the camera, waving his hand even when it wasn’t recording.

“I’ll cover that later. For now, I need someone to scout the school to find all the cameras and where they are facing.” Jisung turned around, facing the circle again.

Hyunjin shot up, dusting his slacks off of pebbles that stuck to it. Patches of grey formed where he made his quick brushes, making Saeyeon snicker as he walked past her. “I can go and sketch a rough layout of the school. Is that cool?” he said.

“Anything will do, so long as it helps us see what the cameras see.” Jisung clamped the notebook shut, picking it off the ground to hand it to Hyunjin. Only to retract it at the last second. “You’re willing to help Minho out even if he wanted to cook you in an air fryer?” asked Jisung.

Hyunjin pursed his lips. “This is why I want to help so he won’t cook me in an air fryer,” he answered, snapping his fingers. “What’s not clicking, Jisung?” Then he snagged the notebook from the other boy’s hand.

Jisung made a face, biting back a retort before letting the thought go. He nodded then turned. “Understood. Seungmin, join him. You have a good eye. You could get the job done quicker.” 

Seungmin stood up not long after, wordless, following Hyunjin as he headed for the exit. “Nice butt print,” he said, earning a glare from the taller boy before they disappeared behind the door.

Jisung dusted off his own palms as if his work had been done but Saeyeon knew it was only one cog put to motion and the rest of the plan was still to follow. They’ve barely scratched the surface. She’d only witnessed Jisung’s skills at work once before, during the final exams of the prior year. One of their instructors made it a habit to dish out exams beyond their lessons; incomprehensible items, solutions out of their level of experience. Unnecessary, if you asked her, especially for a school supposedly focused on arts. Written exams have been abolished but the instructor had other plans. So did Jisung.

The enormity of their friend group was often more of a nuisance than a pro. Finding a table large enough to occupy everyone was a problem enough, but finding one where the people on opposite ends could still hear each other proved to be more difficult — all the while respecting everyone’s need for personal space. Though during times like these, when brilliant plans required more than a one-man team, it came in handy. The distribution of labor was often fair, made to suit the area of expertise of every person involved. Seungmin was always the perfect person to dish out first, no one ever speculated about nice guys. Pairing him up with Hyunjin maintained a perfect balance between mischief and staying in line.

“Now that they’re out of the way, does anyone want to burn down the chemistry lab?” Jisung asked with utter nonchalance, his tone carrying none of the gravity his words suggested. 

Lia blinked. “Burn down the chemistry lab?”

“Burn down the chemistry lab,” he repeated.

“What does that have to do with proving Minho’s innocence?” Chan furrowed his eyebrows, turning to Jisung. “Doesn’t this mean more crimes caught on cam?”

“It’s only considered a crime if it’s proven.”

The older boy tore his gaze away, shaking his head. “No.”

“If you don’t want to help, no one's forcing you to. There’s the door.”

Saeyeon’s eyes darted across the circle, feeling her presence disregarded with the tension streaming between. Taehee didn’t even glance up, eyes fixated on the pages of the book she was reading.

“There’s the door, bitch.” Felix whispered in a high pitched voice that earned a nudge from Lia and glares from the opposing parties. He shrank in his place, hand flying up to his lips to keep his mouth shut. “Sorry,” he said, muffled by his own palm.

Chan sighed, “All I’m saying is that it’s dangerous.” 

Taehee mumbled to herself but Jisung cut her off. 

“Drop it, please?” he said, his voice laced with its own annoyance. 

Saeyeon would have applauded him there for taking the pair of glares sent his way. But he doesn’t show any signs of backing down, nor do the pair make any more notions in arguing. He exhaled in relief. 

“Good, because you’re paired together and I can’t make any more changes.” Jisung rapped. The pair picked up on it easily, one frowning in disapproval and the other smirking in amusement.

“Is it in the burning of the chemistry lab?” Taehee asked, looking up from her book.

Creases appeared on Jisung’s forehead. “Hell no,” he squeaked. “You might actually burn the whole thing down. But you,” he turned, gaze landing on Saeyeon who didn’t expect her role to come this soon. “I think you can do it without anyone suspecting anything.”

Jeon Saeyeon. October 30th, Tuesday.

The objective of Operation Roger Rabbit was simple: get enough evidence to prove Minho’s innocence. The process leading up to it, however, was not. The only evidence on neutral ground was CCTV footage. With the council’s lack of interest toward a further investigation, the reels were free from their access. But that didn’t stop them from trying to get it.

The only hurdle they had was to draw out the man who manned the CCTVs. After days of scouting, Jisung concluded that the man never left the office — a lot more diligent than instructors he knew. He wasn’t sure if it was a one-man team handling the cameras, or a duo who were secretive enough to make their switches undetected. Whoever it was, they needed to be out of the room. Or in the plan’s case, the building.

Saeyeon knew of only one way to draw out everyone in the campus — by disaster. Any disaster warranted the complete evacuation of the campus, not really for safety protocol but to rid the school’s hands of the responsibility if anything bad happens to the students or the faculty. They couldn’t make the earth rumble beneath them, but they could stir enough panic to make the same impact. Phase 1 of Roger Rabbit was dedicated to exactly that.

In Jisung’s plans, Saeyeon never understood her importance until she’d been involved in a few. Turns out, the same principle that applied to Seungmin applied to her. The more innocent the face, the more daring the tasks, the less the suspicion.

The chemistry lab was a long hall on the fourth floor of the building opposite to their home room. It’s base looked exactly like the classrooms in Hui building. The tiles, however,  were newer and less tainted, the boards were porcelain white without permanent smudges. Long tables were lined up in three columns and three rows, topped with cylinders of different shapes and sizes with a burner embedded in the center back. 

The room was the length of two basic rooms combined, stretched out to accommodate the facilities the room required. Saeyeon wasn’t used to sitting in the middle row where half of the things written on the whiteboard were nothing but blurry scribbles from where she sat. The instructor’s voice was but a whisper, drowned out by the chatter of the back-row and the humming of the ceiling fans. 

Overhead, the smoke detector light blinks red — activated, as it always had been. Saeyeon’s task was to trigger it, kick start the series of events leading up to Phase 2. It’ll be over before they’d even notice. Easy.

Except it wasn’t.

The notebook Saeyeon left to burn wasn’t burning fast enough. The smoke whiffing up from the burning pages wasn’t funneling directly to the smoke detector. Even when she’d first heard about it in the plan, she already doubted it. Smoke detectors detected thick clouds of gas, but something this little would go unnoticed. At this rate, the whole room could smell like a barbecue house without the smoke detector reacting. 

The worried glances the others cast her was proof as much. They were running out of time and room to call it an accident. If she were to do anything, she had to do it now and fast.

A charred piece of paper fluttered off the notebook, glowing red as it swayed in the air before gravity finally pulled it to the table. Panic jolted through her and she reached for the paper. She flattened her palm, felt the burn of the paper against her palm. Biting down on her lip, she stifled a hiss. The world slowed as she panned her vision, hoping no one noticed. 

Fire. The burn lingered in her palm, straight up her nerves and into her mind. Her mind whirred, reminded of a time the same palm pressed too hard on an oversensitive fire alarm trigger and made the system blare for a minute before school security came. The goal was to cause panic, not necessarily to activate the smoke detector.

She had to start a fire, one just enough to stir a bit of chaos. 

Saeyeon fished out her phone from her pocket, sending a quick text to her friends before shoving it back. She then took a small bottle, a handy alcohol solution she carried around with her and spilled the content on the table. It streamed down the middle of the table, a puddle forming slowly. Then the bottle lightened, all it had to offer spread out onto the table.

Any minute now, she thought. 

As if they’d been keeping close watch, a voice called out from another table.

“Does anyone smell smoke?” Lia asked, sniffing the air before turning to the others. All the acting classes finally put into practical use.

Behind Saeyeon, someone shouted. “Hey! Your notebook’s burning!” 

She feigned her shock, panic-stricken as she leaped away from the table. She meant to stall it, to fake an accident and light the pool of alcohol on the table. But a blur movement nudged the pieces of their on going chess game, away from the strategy laid out for them. Someone dashed for their table, pulling the notebook from beneath the tripod and setting it down on the wet table — meaning to douse it. But the clear solution wasn’t water and the flame spread out as soon as the fire touched the flammable liquid. It sent the table blazing. Saeyeon flinched (fake) along with the others on her table (real), backing away from the fire.

“Fire!” Their instructor shouted. “Someone get the extinguisher!” 

Shit. Saeyeon’s mind reeled into panic. The fire alarm wasn't the first protocol for accidents, the extinguisher was. She cursed at how calm the instructor handled it, even with the rest of their class’ panic.

But a sharp ring shattered her thoughts, and when she turned she saw Taehee’s hand pressed against the emergency fire alarm. They were all on the move. Around her, the others were rousing panic. And though the ringing of the fire alarm was associated with horrendous things, she couldn’t have been more relieved. She heard classroom doors burst open outside and the hallways bustle with confused, panicked students.

“The chemistry lab is on fire!” A familiar voice shouted down the hallway, causing more panic than was warranted from the already dying flame of the middle table. Someone had knocked the fire extinguisher out of its place, spraying a bountiful amount of foam to extinguish the flame. There was no harm done, save for the peace of her mind. The fire was put out easily but the panic that it sparked was irreversible. Saeyeon glanced around and noticed that those who needed to leave were no longer in their places; no one by the fire alarm, no one by the back row table nearest to the exit. Another fire alarm rang at a distance, then another, a checkpoint for progress. Students have begun to file out of their classrooms, following the rehearsed fire drill routes out of the buildings.

A knock on the wooden door made Saeyeon’s head turn. The door swung open to reveal a student council member, vest and pin on like always. She wondered if Taehee and Chan would be doing the same on their way down, both for the sake of their duty and for the bluff they were putting up.

“Ma’am, I’m so sorry to interrupt but we need you and the students of the class to evacuate immediately.” Jihyo, the council’s vice president, said — her eyes bright even in the midst of panic.

The instructor clicked her tongue. “The flame has been doused. We are fine. It was nothing but a little accident.”

Saeyeon’s jaw locked and she hoped the exchange of panicked glances between her and her friends would go unnoticed. If the panic didn’t spread enough, the others would be left in the open to fend for themselves. Did other teachers have the right to refuse evacuation too?

Think, Saeyeon. Think. But nothing came to mind this time. She had a frightening urge to set the classroom on fire again but to do it twice was too suspicious to be called an accident.

“Ma’am, you can’t refuse to evacuate your students. If something were to happen to them, you — as their current instructor and not the school — will be held liable as I am witness to your refusal to evacuate.” Outside the door, the council member smiled, doing what the admin did best, washing their hands clean. Saeyeon’s jaw nearly dropped out of its hinges. A small childish thought crossed her mind, an idolization to be that calm and collected even under pressure.

The woman up-front clicked her tongue again before turning to the class. “Get out.”

One by one the class filed into the hallway. Saeyeon slipped out just behind the others, unknowing classmates asking if she was alright after the fire. She looked rattled, just like the other people from her long table, but for all the wrong reasons. She just did that. Rationality returned in waves of what could’ve gone wrong. What if the tank beneath the table burst, taking them in the flame along with it? 

“You alright?”

The voice came up from beside her, drawing her attention towards something instead of just spacing out as they walked the numerous flights down.

Saeyeon glanced up, catching the side of Changbin’s face. They made their way down together. She noticed the downward droop of the side of his mouth and she dropped her gaze. The sudden change of plans must’ve left the others disoriented. “Sorry.”

Changbin turned his head, looking down at her. He opened his mouth but pursed it back shut. “It’s okay,” he muttered. “Did you get burned?” 

Saeyeon shook her head, her rehearsed reply. If she were honest, she hadn’t checked yet. Her hands still trembled, still cold despite being close to a blazing flame.

“Good. We’ll talk when we’re out on the field.” Changbin leaped down the stairs to catch up to Jisung before disappearing down another flight. 

Lia fell into step beside her, rambling but her words droned out as Saeyeon’s mind wandered to the other half of their friend group that headed the other direction. There were only two main routes, one leading out to the open and the other further into the campus. She hoped she bought them enough time.

THREE. Byun Taehee. October 30th, Tuesday.

That was the best door dash of her life, if you could even refer to it that way. Her heartbeat hammered in her rib cage, her breaths were still ragged from the running, but she’d never felt more alive  — trailing behind the boys as they weaved through the hall full of students.

Like most things in life, the elation too didn’t last long, fizzling out the moment they arrived two levels lower where nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Turns out only the fourth floor alarms ended up ringing, the rest they had to ring on their own. Council duties, Taehee wanted to dash for the CCTV room. It turned into an obligation, knocking on every few doors as Hyunjin rang the alarms. Its requirement sapped the thrill out of it, she felt more like a delivery man than a prankster.

It wasn’t the last bullet on the list of things that went wrong with Han Jisung’s plan and she made a promise to herself to nag the boy about it as soon as she was done with her task. The last miscalculation — and the one she hated the most — was the fact that even after all that, the CCTV man didn’t budge. 

They were stumped when they caught a glimpse of the office lights still on and the hallway showing no signs of hearing the fire alarms blaring. Taehee chewed on her lip, brain working overtime as she kept her frustration in check while trying to figure out a way around it. Jeongin had long split from them and she hoped there would be some sort of delay to their cue but the fluorescent lights dimmed. Jeongin had made it past security in record breaking time, turned off the power switch and bought them the 5 minutes it took for the CCTV cameras to reboot back to full function. 

The only problem was the room was still a locked area on the game map, inaccessible.

“So, what do we do?” Taehee asked. Her question was met with silence. What did she even expect from an airhead and from someone she snapped at twice in the past few days?

Beyond what she expected, Chan replied much later. “Can’t we just switch the alarms the way we did on the upper floors?”

“Tried it.” Hyunjin answered. “They don’t budge.”

It was impossible to mask the disappointment hanging in the air between them. 

“We’re fucked. All that for nothing.” An emptiness seeped into her, the plummet after the sugar high. She thought of Saeyeon and the extremes she went just to get them out of the classroom, just to have them fail on retrieving what they risked for. All that work going to waste? Unacceptable. It was the only way she could get back at Minho and she was going to fail?

She was startled out of her thinking state when Hyunjin jolted beside her. “Not yet,” he said, hands patting his pockets for something until he felt it. He pulled a packet out, with a lighter to compliment it. “I have a plan. Sneak in as soon as you can.”

“When?” she asked.

Hyunjin paused half-way down the staircase, turning to look up at the pair he left behind. “You wouldn’t miss the cue,” he winked and dashed the way down.

He broke into a sprint the moment he reached the bottom floor, long before Taehee could process what he planned to do. She didn’t have the time to think of it either, all she was looking out for was the cue. They were way behind schedule. The cameras were rebooting and they’ll be airing again soon. If the man wasn’t out by the time the cameras rebooted, they were done for and caught red-handed too. They should’ve been out of the building by now, gathered at the quadrangle with the others. She was stretching the limits of her student council privileges, it would only be a matter of time before she got caught in her own web.

It was a shame she couldn’t talk about her worries with the only one who understood. 

Chan stood a safe distance away from her, avoiding her gaze just as much as she avoided his. It was bearable with Hyunjin around, she just turned to the latter whenever she had a joke in mind. Now, she stood in silence with a million thoughts raging in her head that she thought she might explode. Surprisingly, an apology was among them. It was a thing she noticed about growing up, she now wanted to make it a habit to mend things before they were ripped too far apart to be sewn back. But finding the right words were hard and she knew her pride couldn’t handle a rejected apology. So she sat quietly until the familiar ring of the fire alarm echoed down the hallway of the first floor, a sharp sound that made her ears bleed but she endured it regardless.  

What she didn’t expect was the rain that came along with it.

The sprinklers came to life and water poured out its spouts in droplets across the landing. In the floor below, the sprinklers activated too. The classroom doors flew open, groaning freshmen spilling out onto the once empty corridors.

“Come on,” she said, unsure if Chan would even listen yet he followed her down into the panic and into the pouring sprinkler rain. 

Taehee steeled herself, even as the water pelletted her face and soaked her uniform. “Please head to the quadrangle immediately.” She pointed an arm the other way, less about being concerned for their safety than steering them away from the CCTV room. Chan was doing a far more convincing job of being a panicked council officer; creased forehead, throat strained, as if he managed to trick himself into believing that the school really was on fire.

Finally, amidst the controlled panic of the first floor, Taehee saw a flicker of movement down the hall. The sprinklers stopped and her vision cleared. The only door at the other side of the hallway flew open and out the door walked a stout man, their target. A fleeting thought danced in the back of her mind along with the urge to parade having witnessed a phenomenal moment Jisung didn’t, even after scouting outside the CCTV room in the past. The man looked up to an instructor passing by, mumbled something Taehee couldn’t make out, and followed the others down the hall.

An opening, literally and figuratively. The man left the door ajar when he walked out, trusting the door closer to do the work for him. They had seconds to slip into the room and still a dozen more students to usher down the hall. Everything started moving at snail pace; students filling out seconds too late, distracted and walking like it was just another normal afternoon dismissal. The interval between ticks and tocks spaced out, yet the door was still swinging back shut in real time.

Taehee fought the urge to scream at them to move, to shove everyone aside to stop the door from shutting. Her reigns were snapping, endangering the whole plan and exposing everyone. Blood boiled beneath her skin, composure failing — they didn’t come this far just to be locked out.

Then she saw Chan. 

The boy stood a little down the hall, closer to the CCTV room than she was. He happened to pass the room as he guided another bunch of freshmen, making small talk even as he shuffled to the ajar door. For a fraction of a paranoid moment, Taehee thought he’d shut the door.

But Chan turned, looking down the hall until he found her amidst the students walking past. He raised a hand, signaling for the door subtly she would have missed it if she wasn’t watching carefully. Chan slipped something between his fingers, jamming the door to keep it from closing before casually walking away to usher another class. 

Taehee nearly let out a sigh of relief, stopping herself when the door she had been knocking on finally swung open. This was the last class on the floor. After them, they were good to go. She spared a glance up at the cameras when the instructor disappeared behind the room and gathered their students. No red lights yet, they weren’t too late. 

The moment the last student made the turn down the other hallway, they sprinted. Chan made it to the door first, grunting as he pulled the heavy door open. Taehee slipped in first, momentum nearly making her crash into the table at the center of the small space. The room was humid, the wetness of her skin sticking onto her with the heaviness of the air. It was a stark contrast to the first floor’s breezy hallways. On top of that, the room smelled horrible.

The fluorescent lights of the CCTV room flickered on as they studied the area. The power returning meant two things: they were right on time, and there was no turning back now unless they got the job done. A stand fan began to sweep across the room, blowing fresh air that drove the nauseating smell away. Taehee’s brain began to function again.

At the back of the room, two monitors stood adjacent to each other on a desk. One had a normal desktop flashed while the other showed a grid of camera feeds, as they slowly powered back on. Taehee’s hand found the keyboard of the setup, pressing arrow keys to cycle between floors and building. The outdoor feed rolled into view and she caught a glimpse of the chaos that they caused. 

The quadrangle was swarmed with students from all high school levels, roughly a thousand students filed into lines outside as instructors did head counts. She hoped Hyunjin and Jeongin made it out on time; less absences, less whereabouts to worry about. Her disappearance with Chan could easily be linked to council duties, making them the perfect candidates for the task. But they bore the most weight, getting caught meddling with school property like this was on expellable grounds.

Her stomach churned as her mind wandered off line, bringing up what could happen between now and their escape back to the quadrangle. Shut up, she told herself, shaking the thoughts away. She found the first floor feed after a few tries, cameras slowly powering on. The CCTVs were pointless during power outages, susceptible to others with more malicious intent. She’d suggest it to the admin one day, but not while she could still exploit it.

The camera to the CCTV room blinked, showing the current feed outside. No students, no one on their trail, no evidence that they slipped inside. 

“Laptop,” she muttered, startling both Chan and herself. The boy jumped, bumping against a metal cabinet with a loud crash. 

“Sorry.” They say it at the same time.

Chan crossed the room, opening the satchel he had slung over his body to hand over the device. Taehee propped it onto the table, beside the enormous pair of monitors and the control panel that came with navigating the cameras. She pulled a thick cord out of her pocket, paying thanks to the grandma who sewed her uniform who adhered to her request on pocket space. The computers were linked in two plugs and in seconds, she was sifting through the files like they were her own. She set her own mouse down, plugging its own drive to one of the other ports until the cursor on the screen corresponded to her own hand’s movements.

She headed straight for the files from Ahn Building, the central administration building bordering one face of the quadrangle. Every office that had something to do with running the school had a room or two in the building, including the student council. She opened all three files for the cameras on the second floor: two on opposite ends of the hall and the one facing directly at the double doors of the student council office. 

Her heart pounded in her chest and her fingers fidgeting but moving on their own accord. She ran the scroll down until the clips were dated October 26th AM. Skimming through the whole folder, her eyes spotted an inconsistency. There was a time jump between two files, longer in gap than usual. She went ahead, playing files from prior hours and finding nothing but closed doors and empty hallways.

“File’s been deleted.” She announced, slumping back onto the monobloc chair in front of the screens. 

Chan stilled, rounding the office until he was standing next to Taehee. The distance made Taehee flinch but the room was too small to keep them separated for long, the situation too dire to let pride remain dominant. 

The boy ran a finger down the cork board hanging on the wall above the desktop. He plucked a sticky note off the wall, it’s vibrant color standing out from the dullness of the rest of the office. “Says here ‘Camera Maintenance, 9AM - Friday, October 26.”

“Camera maintenance, my ass.” Taehee kicked herself up, hand curling on her mouse once again. She clicked off folders, finding the files for the other cameras in the same hallway. The stream of hopelessness she felt moments ago dissipated into thin air when her eyes found the missing timestamps available for the other cameras. “What a dumbass. Take a look.”

The boy took his own monoblock chair, dragging it next to hers until they both got a good view of the laptop screen. Taehee opened all quarter-hour files from the two other cameras in the same hallway. “They deleted the clips from the camera outside the council room,” she said, minimizing the folder to play video footage from another camera. “But they didn’t delete the clips from the other two cameras.”

The camera was perched on top of the library gate, focused on the entrance but its periphery included the council room’s entrance. Taehee dragged the seek across the screen, nothing. She did the same for the second quarter-hour clip and still nothing. But the third offered her the answer she had been looking for. 

At 9:43AM, a tall silhouette climbed up the steps from the first floor, stopping by the entrance of the student council office with their back turned to the camera. It turned its head often, gazing down the hall, retracing his steps and disappearing off the camera as he climbed up the third floor. But he returned to the door, glanced around one final time before he turned the knob and disappeared behind the wooden doors.

Taehee sat in silence, the clip ending before they got a better glance at whoever snuck inside the office. The invasion stuck true. No matter how much she hated the council members, the sanctity of the office remained — exclusive for those who worked hard to defend the students against the old ways of the administration. Not only did they get evidence that someone broke into the office, but they had enough proof that whoever did so wasn’t Minho. 

The next clip played, Taehee pressing a key down to fast forward until there was movement again. This time, the door drew open and the camera captured the pixelated face of the real culprit. Taehee slapped the space bar, freezing the frame as the robber made his exit with the paper bag full of money in hand.

“Doesn’t look like Minho to me,” Taehee said. Beneath her fingers, the laptop hummed as it received the files. “Let’s go.”

“Wait.”

Irritation seeped through her. As much as she loved snooping around, she wanted to lessen the risk of getting caught red-handed. “What?”

“Could you get the 9AM footage from the cafeteria?” Chan muttered, pursing his lips when he realized he sounded demanding. “Please,” he added.

Taehee scowled. She hated being ordered around but he knew his reasons behind the additional work. She obliged, clicking off and shortcutting through date files until she could copy paste all footage from the time frame with one scroll down. She dragged them off the opened folder, copying them to a folder on Chan’s messy desktop.

The clips flew by fast, each fifteen-minute clip got copied in less than a minute but every second felt like an hour with the paranoia of having someone walk in on them. Taehee’s leg bounced steadily beneath the desk, whether it was from the cold of her drenched clothes or the nervousness from their little crime, she wasn’t sure.

Chan stood up from his seat, cycling through the floor feeds until the screen showed the outdoor cameras again. As instructed, their class stood by the camera. Taehee breathed in relief upon seeing Hyunjin near the front of the line with an arm draped over Seungmin. Ever so often, they’d glance up at the CCTV camera, wave a bit like little kids seeing a camera like it for the first time. They were watching out for the red light to go out, for the reboot that signified that they were on the way back and to be expected. Everything else was going according to plan. All they had to do now was leave undetected.

She unplugged the wires off both computers when the copying finished, handing the laptop back to Chan and tucking the wires into the pocket of her skirt. If there was anything she admired about Jisung’s plan, it was how they left tampering with evidence as a last choice. Seeing as Hyunjin wasn’t caught in his get-away from triggering the smoke alarm, there wasn’t anything to delete. There would be no evidence of them breaking and entering the CCTV room either. Jisung relied on loopholes in the system and built his master plans from there, something Taehee could only assume he learned from Minho.

The keyboard rattled as she typed in the final commands. She clicked enter and all the cameras went static, ‘NO SIGNAL’s blaring on their screens. Unlike the 5-minute black out Jeongin managed to give them, they only had a minute to slip out the back, round the building and end up at the quadrangle. 

“That’s how you do server maintenance, stupid.” 

With their damp clothes, it might as well have been winter when they walked out. They returned everything back the way they were and hoped the puddles they left behind would dry up before the CCTV man came back. They exited out the back gate, into the building alleyways — the routes Minho once gate-keeped. 

Taehee never liked the cold but she marched on, teeth chattering as she pushed forward. The wind wasn’t helping her case, blowing through the narrow gap between the perimeter wall and the buildings. But she remembered the footage, the pixelated image that guaranteed Minho’s innocence, and she walked on. It was the least she could do to get back at Minho. 

They never clicked really, eerily similar to each other that clashes were guaranteed every time they spent too much time around each other. But there were instances of tranquility, hushed flames in the quiet of the night, whenever Taehee would come home late and find the door to their apartment bolted shut. Minho never minded keeping the restaurant open for a few more minutes or at least until her aunt’s anger was overpowered by concern and she’d finally be let in.

Miniscule in the grand scheme of life but the moments of kindness were few and far between. She always made sure to give back.

“Stay behind me.”

Chan overtook her when the alleyway narrowed to a one-person path. The coldness scattered, only touching her on her extremities. The sides of her face burned at the thought that he must’ve heard her teeth chattering. She wasn’t sure if he was blocking her from the cold or from whoever would be greeting them at the end of the line. Either way, she wanted to mutter her thanks. The words never game, just like they always did whenever she needed it.

“I know why you’re mad.”

Taehee blinked, wondering if she just imagined it. But Chan turned slightly, sparing her a glance before he walked forward. 

“Really?” She asked. “Good for you. Even I can’t figure out why I’m mad all the time.”

It was always a hopeless case trying to talk to her. Spewing out sarcastic replies was first nature to her, raging being a close second. But Chan ignored it, sighing. “I’m sorry for not defending Minho that day. I had my doubts, I hope you understand.”

She noticed him grip the lock of his satchel. “Who wouldn’t doubt him? That was some pretty solid evidence.” She looked away when she caught him turning again. “Sorry for snapping.”

It took so much of her just to admit that she said too much for something so trivial and understandable. But the apology was done, and she didn’t want to stick around to hear how he would respond to it. Judging from the smile she caught a glance of, she knew teasing was guaranteed. Taehee didn’t stick around to hear his reply, by-passing him and heading straight for the alleyway’s mouth and into the quadrangle.

She didn’t even get to sigh in relief.

“Where were the both of you?”

She jumped out of her skin, spinning in the direction of the voice. Its owner stood a few feet away, a cross-armed Director Park with a scowl plastered on his face. Over his shoulder were the others jogging to approach them, wide-eyed and worried. They were soaked, compared to the others. Taehee whirred her mind to life for an excuse but the words failed her. 

A nagging thought crossed her mind. Has anyone seen them on the way out? Did the cameras power on before they could make the slip to the alleyways?

“The council assisted with getting students evacuated. We double-checked to see if the rooms were empty.” Chan answered from behind her.

The look on his face must’ve been convincing, more certain than she did. She went back to scowling, it was better than letting them see through the cracks of doubt on her features. The director nodded not long after, stepping aside to let them rejoin their class and the awaiting remainder of their circle of friends. 

“What took you so long?” Jeongin asked, draping jackets over their shoulders as they walked back to the lines.

“Miscalculations.” Taehee answered, glancing at Jisung who was preoccupied with something else to notice their approach.

“Did you get it though? The clips?”

A sly smirk tugged on the corner of Taehee’s lips. “That, and more.”

FOUR. Seo Changbin. October 30th, Tuesday.

Changbin was never in favor of the whole plan but his friends were people he could never bring himself to disappoint. 

The entire campus was closed off for the day, subject for an inspection that wouldn’t discover anything. Students were sent home as soon as the head counts were finished, all including dorm students, which lodged their plan into a momentary standstill. They planned to review the evidence there. Everywhere else was either too far or too small to fit nearly a dozen people. 

So he offered his place.

The Seo mansion sat close to the outskirts of the city, where roads were wide and sloped and lawns  were landscaped. Lots were sold in billions and every homeowner had a company to their name. He hated this part of the city the most, even more that he had to live here.

“This living room is twice the size of our dorm room.” Felix commented as they filed into the house, flanked by two helpers that led them to the living room.

Comments like that made Changbin despise inviting anyone over. He never fit into the lavishness, never even tried to. His friends were a wild bunch but their movements were calculated as they perused the living room. It was as if inviting them over put an invisible barrier between them. He smiled, meekly, and turned away.

He only had to put up with it until they planned their next move. The situation called for it, they had nowhere else to go. And if he desperately wanted to see the evidence that Minho was innocent, he had to extend a helping hand. 

Changbin had been at odds with himself since last Friday, willing himself to be convinced that the boy was innocent as others insisted. But the evidence was strong, he was convinced everyone was being biased — as friends normally were. Did it mean he was a bad friend? Scratch that. He couldn’t see Minho getting out of this one. The older boy’s retched record just sealed the deal. Had he been less of a trouble maker, the triumvirate would’ve heard him out when he cried ‘set up’.

Changbin didn’t blame them, he wouldn’t have believed him either.

“Alexa, lights off.” 

Overhead, the embedded bulbs dimmed until their lights disappeared entirely. A few woos breezed through the crowd, he ignored them. He fetched a slim box off the couch before someone’s ass could crush it, balancing the remote in his palm before powering the TV on. The screen blinked and he turned to the older boy waiting beside him. “Screen is yours.”

Chan had his laptop propped on his arm, his free hand stretched as he punched in shortcut keys to hook the screens up. The LED screen shifted and the image mirroring Chan’s laptop screen came into view. A black and white sky full of clouds took up most of the screen with all his files tucked into a corner; school, music, and an unnamed folder. The mouse hovered to it, highlighted the file, and opened a window of serial-coded videos.

Changbin’s heart pounded in his chest. They’ve actually done it. He’d been uneasy the whole morning leading up to the execution of the plan. When the flame spread and lapped the whole table, he wanted nothing more than to be the one to grab the fire extinguisher. But the others needed time to make their getaways, ring the fire alarms and draw everyone away from the building. He sat quiet, nervous, even when he had nothing to do. The fear of getting caught kept his chest restricted, his mind extending to the others’ actions. His mind wandered to the extremes Saeyeon went, the anxiousness in her eyes as the flame danced over the stainless steel countertop, incapable of setting ablaze anything but the panic in the people around it. If Jisung’s plan had been wrong from there, he could only imagine the measures the others had to take to ensure they got what they needed.

The folder window disappeared off the screen, replaced by a video file. The scene was heavily pixelated, its setting familiar. Half the screen was obscured by grids of space bordered by thick black lines, the other half showing a red-tiled floor, a corridor and, far off into the distance, a pair of wooden doors. The seek skips ahead when Chan nudged it, falling back into normal pace when there was movement. A figure walked inside the room, remained there until the clip ended.

“Is that him?” Changbin was the first to ask it but the question was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Heads stirred, glancing at the back where twin culprits stood unamused by the evidence. 

Neither answered as the next clip played. The same blank scene but seconds later, the figure walked out with a face bare, clear for its audience to see. The whole room paused; their faces, their breaths and the footage played on the television screen. 

“Lee Juyeon?” Hyunjin asked. His voice cracked as he peered at the screen, then to the back where Chan stood. The latter nodded only slightly. 

“From 11-B,” Taehee recalled. “That’s all I know about him.”

Recognition flickered over Lia’s face. “Isn’t he in the dance troupe? Causes ruckus, barely cooperates?”

Felix nodded. “Yep, that’s him. Remember the guy Minho’s always bumping heads with? That’s him.” Across the room Hyunjin nodded, both members of the dance troupe agreeing without prior discussion meant they were only telling the truth.

“Heard of him from Minho himself.” Jisung slumped against the couch. “Couldn’t accept the fact that out of all the juniors, Minho got to be leader of the dance troupe.”

“So do we go and show this to the higher ups now?” Seungmin asked.

“No.”

Heads turned to Jisung instantaneously, some confused and others eager. Changbin was the former. With the evidence at hand, they were already at an advantage. And things were finally looking up for their side, for the first time in a while. 

Changbin eyebrows were knitted. “And why not?”

“Minho’s still technically suspended, correct? For a week? Not yet expelled.”

“We hope so.” Jeongin shrugged.

Beside him, Saeyeon shuffled. “We already have a motive and evidence.”

“If you think of it, just presenting that information will not be enough. For instance, if you asked the question ‘How did that paper bag get into Minho’s bag?’ you wouldn’t be able to piece that out with that evidence alone.”

“I don’t know what you have in mind but if it involves setting the school on fire again, I’m out,” said Hyunjin.

“Is breaking and entering still on the menu?”

“Jisung.”

“We’re going to get that confession out of him.”

From where Changbin stood, the view was familiar. Everyone gathered in the center of the room, a concave with their mastermind in the center. His mind reeled in deja vu, a time in sophomore year where they were all in mutual agreement. Still, they were missing one, but if they succeeded now, they’d be complete again.

Changbin’s eyes wandered over to the TV screen, frame frozen on the man who’d disrupted their peace. Halloween was coming for Juyeon and they were ready to be his nightmare.

Seo Changbin. October 31st, Wednesday.

Day turned to night in a blink. Changbin spent most of his day picking out the best suit for the occasion; not too obnoxious but enough to be presentable. In the end, he settled for a black suit. A part of him yearned for a better costume but anything beyond plain would be too noticeable — too easy to commit to memory. He had to be stealthy, close to invisible.

Saeyeon greeted him by the school gates at 7pm sharp, exactly as they had agreed upon the day prior. She wore a knee-high dress with long flowy trumpet sleeves, all black just like he did. They looked like they were going to one of the lavish parties Changbin’s dad often attended, not an undercover mission during a Halloween party.

They walked up to the front gate. As expected, a pair of council students stood at attention, busy with checking bags and IDs and letting students in through the small gate. The line inched slowly and it took well over a few minutes for the pair to make it to the front of the line. 

“Welcome to SSA’s Spookfest. Please present your school IDs.” 

Changbin nearly burst out laughing. The strain in Taehee’s voice and the forced enthusiasm stood in appalling stark contrast to Chan’s welcoming aura.

“Lighten up, you’re scaring everyone off.” Changbin said, earning a glare from the other girl who scanned their IDs on the machine to check their attendance. 

They stood mirroring each other, two pairs in all black like a scene straight out of a spy movie. If it was any other year, neither of them would’ve settled for plain outfits, let alone having someone wear nearly the exact same thing. They had their reasons this time.

Chan turned and picked something off the shelf behind him, the promised masks for organizers and council members — their tickets to free passage and speculation.

“I’ll have this one!” Saeyeon picked up a mask, glowing Xs making up the eyes and a sewn in smile,  plucking the tag bearing Chan’s name off the side of its surface. 

Changbin glanced over the other one. A white mask with outlined features; dark eyebrows, round blushed cheeks and a mustache contorted up above a tight-lipped grin. “Vendetta mask? Poetic.”

“Wasn’t my choice.” Taehee answered.

Just as Changbin picked it up, Chan slipped something beneath the mask, fast hands immediately up and doing other things before the former could react. Beneath the mask were the subjects of today’s operation, freshly developed photos still bearing the smell of ink. 

“Good luck there.” Chan muttered and they caught each other’s eye, both equally guilty for doubting Minho and spending their days repenting, risking all sorts of things in the name of friendship. 

They slipped past the entrance. Two routes have been illuminated for the event, one winding down the woods on the way to the school gym and the other for the horror house which had been half of the Hui building. The fluorescent lights were wrapped in black cloth, barely lighting halls and giving the perfect spooky ambience. 

They walked up the staircase to the second floor where the maze began. The other masked folk uttered directions, where they — Chan and Taehee, they assumed  — were supposed to be stationed. They nodded but never followed, other plans in mind. They slipped into darker sections of the corridor, separated from the rest of the hall by a veil of black cloth hanging off nylon wires. The long hall stretched until the end of the floor, where another staircase led to the other floors. But Changbin spotted something, someone.

“Saeyeon,” he uttered, the name lost in the wind as he reduced his voice into a whisper. The girl turned her head, Xs clear and bright through the black that obscured Changbin’s eyes. “Is that Juyeon?”

Saeyeon eyed the end of the hallway. “I don’t have my glasses. I can’t see that well.”

Neither could Changbin but he could make out the silhouettes of the people ahead. Juyeon towered over them, standing out with a vibrant yellow top and a cowboy hat. A joke exchanged made the crowd erupt into laughter, echoing down the hall until they disappeared into the room at the far end. 

“Come on.” Changbin said. They ducked beneath hanging spiders and cobwebs, through a maze of papers scattered on the floor. The whole hall was unmanned, all the organizers inside the classrooms where the horror mazes were. Their screams were muffled behind the walls, coming in unison with the thunderous boom of sound effects speakers. 

They finally reached the end of the hallway but Changbin felt a surge of mischief, eager for a taste of vengeance. There, presented with an opportunity to retaliate, he couldn’t bring himself to hold back. Jisung never mentioned that they couldn’t deviate from the plan, especially when it was still in line with wreaking havoc.

“Grab a chair.” 

“What?” He could picture Saeyeon’s face behind the mask.

“Just do it. Trust me.”

Changbin dragged one of the wooden chairs in the middle of the hallway, tilting it at an angle where he could lodge the back of the seat on the doorknob. 

“You’re out of your mind.” Saeyeon said but she moved to find her own chair anyway, picking up one near the further door before mirroring what Changbin did. His cheeks brushed the inside of his mask as he broke into a smirk, proud that his partner in crime didn’t leave him alone in his endeavour nor attempted to stop him.

The doorknob twisted in front of them and they backed away. The door jammed, locked into place by an external force that wasn’t there when they first came in. He heard a giggle beside him, wishing he could see the amusement in Saeyeon’s face with the chaos they sparked. Whoever was on the other side was impatient, knocking, banging, and slamming the poor wooden door.

Then the classroom curtains were drawn. Behind the glass were three people, and none of them were Juyeon — all council members and they were furious. Changbin’s breath hitched as a flurry of muffled profanities were hurled at him. In the midst of his panic, he took Saeyeon’s hand and ran. 

They bolted past the chairs that littered the end of the hallway, turning right when they reached the staircase and  headed up — towards the floor they were meant to be at before they made their detour. They rose up a floor, and then another, until they were on the fourth floor. They passed by their own homeroom and headed for the one next to it, 11-B. When Changbin turned the knob it opened, making the slip in easy without him having to commit another crime. Technically, it wasn’t breaking and entering if nothing was broken, right? Merely entering at a time when no one should be. Borderline trespassing. 

The room was dim when they walked in, so as with the rest of the building. But this floor was unused, left in the dark. There was no light save for the ones outside. They didn’t switch on the lights as a precaution, a great idea indeed because if they did, they wouldn’t have noticed it when a beam sweeped the room. 

Changbin was yanked out of balance, tugged to the floor by Saeyeon. Thankfully, he didn’t slam straight into one of the desks, nor fell face first onto the tiled floor. He was crouched beside her, back against the wall as a light swept through the classroom again. The footsteps were loud in the quiet of the fourth floor, soles hitting the smoothened cement and bouncing off the walls of the enclosure. When he turned, Saeyeon had her mask off, face down on the floor. The neon lights bounced off the white tiles, but not bright enough to attract unwanted attention. 

Changbin didn’t know he was holding his breath until he let it go, mask discarded without a need to conceal his own identity. The footsteps disappeared and they were once again plunged into the darkness they were in earlier. 

“Let’s get moving.”

He was the first to pick himself off the ground, brushing off his slacks before offering a hand to help Saeyeon up. They stand with nothing but the light of Saeyeon’s mask illuminating the way through the maze of desks. The lockers leaned against the far wall, at the back of the classroom, a cabinet of nooks that occupied majority of the classroom. They walked through.

Saeyeon waved her mask over, casting a green light over the labels of each locker.

“What if he didn’t put a name on his?” she asked, skimming through names in the dim light. But the answer came fast, right as she moved down two nooks. “Nevermind.”

In lazy handwriting, the words Lee Juyeon were scribbled onto a laminated paper chip tucked into the label plate. The door popped open with one tug, its owner never bothering to put a lock on it.

They’re met with the smell of sweaty clothing, left to marinate in the enclosure. It made Changbin scrunch his nose, made Saeyeon fake a gag.

“Smells exactly like the boys’ dorms.” Changbin hummed, swatting the air to disperse the stench. He glanced over, lips pursed and bitten to hold himself from snickering. But it took one look at the other’s eye to have them both laughing, a mix of soft giggles in a darkened quiet room.

Saeyeon pinched her nose, stifling her own laugh. “Put the photos in already.”

Flipping his jacket over, Changbin extracted the photos from his inside pocket. He never had a good look at it when Chan passed it to him earlier. He took out all the photographs, spreading them out like cards on his hand. If only he could convince the graduation committee to insert one of the photos in the school yearbook when they graduate next year, just to embed the memory in everyone’s mind. Two of the photos were from the CCTV showcase from the other day, the other two were the same moment but taken from a different angle — one further down the hallway. The last printed photo was a zoom in on Juyeon’s pixelated face, scribbled with black marker ink. 

“He really had to.” He put the photo under the neon light, letting Saeyeon glimpse at the bushy-browed drawing they’ve come to know as Jureumi, Minho’s trademark character. He flipped the photo over and on the back, a message was written. Spill it or we will :P, a dead giveaway on who they were. It made him nervous. But what did they have to lose? The odds were never in Juyeon’s favor when he chose to mess with them.

They left the room as soon as the photos were placed, atop the pile of smelly clothing that would be the first thing Juyeon would see if he opened his locker the next day. They made the climb down, at ease after a successful mission. They thought their job was done, completely forgetting about the stir they started earlier when they stepped into the lower floor. 

“There they are!”

Changbin didn’t register that they were the ones being referred to until he felt Saeyeon stop beside her. 

“What?” He asked, turning his head to find a familiar face — the same one he saw on the window of the door they barred and the same fuming expression, except there was no door to stop them now. 

A chill rattled down his spine. They couldn’t get caught now.

“Run!” Saeyeon was the first to bolt, spinning on her heel to run down the staircase. Changbin followed, hot on her tail as they raced down the steps to the lower floors. They made it to the ground floor breathless but they couldn’t stop with footsteps echoing behind them. 

“Throw your mask and follow me!” Changbin chucked his own mask into the nearest bin before dragging Saeyeon down to the nook beneath the stairs where a wooden door led to the alleyways between buildings. 

Cold air nipped on Changbin’s skin as soon as he pushed the door open. Heads turned in their direction as they stumbled out. Someone whistled. 

“Couldn’t wait until after the event?” And a holler of laughter came after. 

Changbin couldn’t see their faces clearly, adorned with masks and hidden in the darkness with only the sparks of their cigarettes and the traces of smoke visibly seen. His ears rang. “What if you mind your ow—”

A sharp cough knocked him out of his own sentence, head snapping to his side to find Saeyeon fanning the air around her. He scrambled to find a handkerchief, cursed himself for not having one readily available. He sent one last glance to the shadows, ignoring the way they cackled in the dark. They run the other way, where they were meant to go, down a footpath with weeds tickling their legs. The narrow alleyway led to the back, behind the cafeteria and down the path leading to the pool and the school gym. No one was behind their trail anymore and tonight, without their masks on, they were just another pair enjoying the halloween festivities. The plan has been set into motion, they’ve set up their traps and it wouldn’t be long before Juyeon took the bait.

FIVE. Han Jisung November 1, Thursday.

Today was lull.

When Jisung walked into their classroom, no one seemed off. There was an unspoken agreement to never talk about what they’ve done on campus—a precaution in case of eavesdroppers. The day carried on like usual, but it was more quiet. The best seat on their row was vacated and the lunch games were called off. 

Jisung was nervous. For a mastermind, he sure didn’t have enough confidence in the plans he weaved. They’ve gone wrong time and time again yet he held onto the statistic that the final results always ended in his favor regardless. But it didn’t take the weight off his chest, nor the shaking of his fingertips. 

The plan had been set into motion, rather visible now with the photos that they left behind. He hoped for a confession, at least that much from the side out of his control. He hoped he scared the boy enough to have him admit what he’d done all by himself. The odds were low but Jisung hoped anyway.

The day was uneventful, a first after the last few days. They were all tired and a bit worn out, the quiet day was a blessing in disguise. Their unusual quiet was excused as either embarrassment or grief for having a friend suspended. Rumors about Minho’s suspension were no longer in full swing but his name was used as a reminder to anyone else who wanted to step a foot out of place. 

But as the sun completed its arch, sinking into the mountains beyond Jisung’s field of vision, they knew the bait didn’t work. If Juyeon was intimidated by it, he didn’t show it. And if he saw it, he did nothing about it; which was all sorts of fucked up that Jisung couldn’t understand. In reality, it was just another one of his miscalculations. 

The idea of putting the blame on someone for something they didn’t do made him furious. The suspension wasn’t withdrawn, no Juyeon presenting himself to either one of the triumvirate. He had his teeth gritted even as he walked out the gates of SSA. 

Today was lull until it wasn’t. 

It was bold for Jisung to assume they’d been left alone just because they were untouched within the perimeter of the school. He stepped out a little after dark to fetch a meal at a nearby convenience store but never made it back to their dorm.

Jisung didn’t know how to lie. A sign would be clear on his face, like a blush across his pale skin or a twitch of his lips. His eyes would widen, teeth would chatter visibly and audibly, and he’d fumble over his words. Which was why he always ended up telling the truth. Which was why he was the mastermind, not the players. Which was why when Juyeon showed him the printed photos, the recognition was clear on his face—undeniable. And he was glued to that patch of cement on the alleyway, unable to move nor speak.

“Did you put this in my locker?” Juyeon kept his head down, the photos clipped between his fingers as he showed them to the smaller boy.

Jisung swallowed, then wished he didn’t. “No.”

The photographs scattered with a flick of Juyeon’s wrist, making the other boy flinch as they flew in his direction. They hit him square on the chest; sharp, but not enough to slice anything and they flutter until they hit the pavement. 

“Bullshit, Han Jisung.” 

Juyeon tucked his hands away, burying them deep into the pockets of his sweater. Jisung watched as the boy approached in teetering steps, stumbling over his own feet and slurring incoherent profanities. They were both alone in the alleyway and Jisung wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Good because it was a one-on-one match regardless of how uneven, or bad because he didn’t have anyone to back him up. Juyeon towered over him, backing him further into the alleyway with his height alone. 

Then a cord snaps inside of him. He couldn’t falter now, could he? They asked for it in the first place. At least, judging by the clouded look on the tall boy’s face, their actions have made an impact. This wasn’t the reaction he was expecting but it was still better than nothing.

The chuckle that left Jisung’s lips was louder than he wanted it to be because Juyeon glared down at him. He wasn’t lying, right? He really wasn’t the one who put the photos in the locker. If Juyeon wanted to corner him, he wasn’t asking the right questions. “I really didn’t do it!” He raised his arms in playful surrender.

Juyeon wasn’t in the mood to play around. Jisung’s breath was knocked out of him when the other boy shoved him across the alley, stumbling back to the rough concrete of the wall behind him. His hands fly up to his neck where Juyeon had his collar crumpled in his fists. And for the first time in a long while, Jisung felt fear. Not the anxiousness that came with planning his elaborate schemes, not the paranoia that something was bound to go awry, but the feeling of prey being put into place by a predator — the thought that he wouldn’t make it out the alleyway alive.

Juyeon’s eyes burned with hatred, spewing a million profanities Jisung was no longer registering. 

“I know you know who did it. You’re going to tell me now or do I have to beat it out of you?” Juyeon managed through gritted teeth.

“Go on then,” Jisung replied, his own fury overtaking his fear, “beat me.”

The response comes instantaneously, a blur of motion then a strike straight to his cheek. It wasn’t as strong as he expected, but enough to knock him off balance and teetering to keep himself off the ground. His senses were clouded by the metallic tang of fresh blood; a quiff caught by his nostrils, a taste lingering on his tongue, a rip on his bottom lip. He ducked the second time, shrinking to dodge the intoxicated boy’s jab — one that could’ve knocked his teeth out.

“You fucking coward.”

Indeed, he seemed like it but Jisung was smart enough to not engage in a fight he clearly couldn’t win. 

“Lee Juyeon!” 

A voice thundered down the alleyway. Jisung thought he was done for. It could’ve been Juyeon’s back-up but when the taller boy flinched he thought otherwise. In the dim light, the storm in Juyeon’s eyes cleared — a wave of confusion dawning. 

“Leave him alone!” The same voice said, closer now. Juyeon was yanked backwards and Jisung broke free from his grasp. “The hell’s wrong with you?” 

There wasn’t room for Juyeon to stare down this time because Younghoon — as Jisung remembered the boy’s name — was taller. 

“Mind your own business, Younghoon.” Juyeon slurred, shaking his arm free of the other boy’s grip.

“Stirring trouble again, Lee Juyeon?”

Another voice called from down the alley. He strided down, taking his time to make it to the end where they were. Jisung kept his guard up. The others were still Juyeon’s friends and his acquaintances by affiliation. If the fight continued, he’d be up against three. But the pair turned their back on him, restraining Juyeon and dragging him away. Not back-up, Jisung thought. He nearly sighed aloud in relief.

“Sorry about him. He bolted out of the restaurant the second he saw you pass by and—“ Sangyeon trailed off. “So, are you alright?”

Jisung only managed a nod, his mind racing as it pieced what he’d gathered this time. They don’t know. The thought broke Jisung’s frozen stature out of the ice. Down the alley, Juyeon was still scowling, trying to break free. They don’t know. Because if they did, he wouldn’t be getting out of the alleyway with a mere gash on his lips. They don’t know. And it only made Juyeon more guilty as he was dragged off away from him. 

Han Jisung November 1, Thursday.

It took Jisung halfway through the way back to realize that he couldn’t show up back in the dorms like this.

There had been an agreement that the prank would be harmless fun but with serious intent to get Minho back and yet there he stood with a bloody ripped lip and shock that he hadn’t wiped off his face yet. Either way, it was better that he took the hit over anyone else. It had been his idea and they only chose to go along with it; either out of peer pressure or their own volition. He still bore the weight of it—the failures, the flaws.

It was clear now that Juyeon got the message, made aware that someone else knew about what he did. For a person thinking with his fist, Juyeon sure did pick up easily. He never meant to hide who sent the blackmail, he wanted to let Juyeon know who were coming for him. But he never thought of the consequences, never thought there could be someone else on the receiving end of that punch. It just so happened to be him, and he was glad it was him. 

The inevitable comes in tides that almost drown him. Their voices were a mix of words with no meaning, barely breaking through the wall of Jisung’s mind.

It wasn’t the first time he plummeted into a thought spiral; it happened too often for him to count. Most days he’d brush them off, drown them out with music plugged in through an earbud. But tonight they shook his skull, made his head throb; the voices in his head came louder than the voices around him. Every nook of his brain was rewiring, all thought funneling into one: the plan, and all the ways it could’ve gone wrong since it started.

Jisung never expected anyone to go with it, nor for things to go this far. They said the older you were the wiser you got, but this was by far the dumbest thing he’d ever come up with. From here, he could see a million other ways he could’ve gotten the same pile of evidence without causing that much chaos. It was over, true, but what if one thing had gone wrong along the way. What if they actually set the school on fire? What if the others got caught sneaking in? He was the mastermind of things like these but he was never the one to directly take the fall. And if for instance the others did get caught, was he ready to step out of the shadows and admit that he’d been the one orchestrating everything?

The days moved by so fast. One moment they were on the rooftop, the outrageousness of the plan warranting mixed reactions from the group. Then they were carrying it out, a million possible endings arising from each shift in their movements. Then they were gathered in a living room, watching the pile of evidence roll on a television screen. They had everything then, they just chose to drag the game out a little longer. Minho’s supposed suspension lasted until the week ended, wasting a day to plant a blackmail still gave Juyeon enough time to confess and for the administration to withdraw the verdict. They had everything, or at least that was what Jisung thought. Except they didn’t and maybe that was the reason why Juyeon wasn’t too intimidated, he wasn’t backed into a corner yet.

There was a finite time between Juyeon getting caught on cam and the discovery of the stash in Minho’s bag but the possibilities between both were endless. When the week turns and the time would come for them to present the information to the triumvirate, would the trio arrive at the same conclusion? Or would they see a collaboration between two members of the same club and put the blame on the entire dance troupe instead?

Jisung hated his thoughts, it made him doubt the things he did. Worst of all, it made him doubt Minho. 

He found himself in a convenience store this time, walking down aisles and staring at items that meant nothing to him. The fear was there, he couldn’t deny it. It made him resort to the safety of a monitored store where cameras could see what would happen if he were followed here. Everytime the door chimed, Jisung would look over and check if it’s Juyeon but it’s never him. It’s either an old lady, a child, or a girl in the same uniform? He ducked his head, slipping into the aisles with his head tucked beneath his hoodie. He didn’t linger enough to catch a glimpse of who it was, he didn’t want to know and he didn’t want them to notice that he was ever there at all.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

Too late. And Jisung’s thoughts are a flurry of relief and paranoia when he hears the voice. It’s familiar, not coarse and slurred like Juyeon’s. It’s calm, recognizable everywhere. It makes his heart thump faster in his ribcage.

Lia stood at the end of the aisle, head cocked to one side with a cup of noodles held up. 

“Lia,” Jisung greeted, hoping the shake in his voice would go by unnoticed. “What are you doing out here this late?” He knows she saw him first but she never bothered to make the first acknowledgment. Jisung’s paranoia was getting to his head. 

“Media relations shit, compiling photos from yesterday’s event,” she replied.

“Oh,” he uttered, his reply cut short when he caught her staring. Was his lips still bleeding? “Are you in a rush to get home?”

“Supposed to be in a rush but not really. Why?”

Jisung sucked in a breath. “Would it be too much of a favor to ask you to stay for a while and hear me out? It’s about the—”

“Got it,” Lia replied, “I was thinking about it too. Along with that little blood smear.”

Jisung’s hand flew up to his face, brushing the bottom of his lip where the girl pointed. The blood had already dried up, he hoped it didn’t look too messy. Lia disappeared down the aisle before he could even reply. He rounded the back of the store and made his way to the long table by the window. 

A pair of footsteps approaching made him turn and look up. “What’s on your mind?” Lia said, setting her noodles down as she took her seat.

“The blackmail worked.”

She turned, surprised, “Juyeon confessed?”

“No.” Jisung answered quickly. “He told me.”

Lia stilled her eyes wandering over to the gash on his lips before giving him a pitiful glance. 

“More like throwing accusations,” Jisung said, masking his embarrassment with a light laugh. “He asked if I put the pictures in his locker and I told him I didn’t. I wasn’t lying, right?” The chuckle he let out hung in the air between them, awkward and unreciprocated.

“Then he punched you?”

“Poked the bear. The punch was on me.”

Lia turned her attention back to her noodles, “So he knows we’re the ones behind it.”

“I think he figured out just as much. Didn’t know I was just as notorious for my sneaky plans as Minho was for breaking the rules.” Jisung picked on his own fingers, his anxiety coming and waning—relief receding and replaced with paranoia. “We could say the blackmail worked to warrant such a reaction but not enough to coax out the reaction we wanted. He knows but his friends don’t and that’s enough for me to know that he really did what he did with every intention that we’re thinking. But the question begs, will the triumvirate see the same when we present the evidence?” 

“What if Minho worked together with Juyeon to get the money,” Lia said, addressing the part of the plan that was still left up to chance.

“He wouldn’t,” Jisung wasn’t as sure with his words as he used to be, “but the triumvirate doesn’t know what we know. We’ve shown all our cards and what if it isn’t enough?”

“I haven’t testified yet.”

For a moment there’s a sliver of hope again, a beam of the sun’s rays seeping in through a roof of gray clouds. But he had already thought of it before. 

“They won’t believe you because you’re in the same friend group. It would’ve been fine,” Jisung trailed off, finding it hard to spill the reality of their situation, “it would’ve worked if you’re testifying for Saeyeon or Chan or anyone with a cleaner record but you’re testifying for Minho. That’s the worst record ever.”

Then we get more evidence to fill in the spaces. And if we could find it, spot where Juyeon slipped the bag in.” Lia said, but doubt riddled Jisung’s head. What if Minho and Juyeon had been working together in the first place? “Think. Where else was Minho that day?” 

“Cafeteria, classroom,” Jisung’s eyes darted to Lia’s as the pieces slowly fell into place. She stared at him, waiting for him to piece together everything long after she did.

“We’re not waiting until next week to hand in the evidence. We’re doing it tomorrow. If you disagree, do something with that gashed lip.”

Today was lull, the way skies are clear as a storm brews beyond the horizon. Soon enough, the tides will change. Even they didn’t know who’ll be caught in the eye or left standing in the aftermath.

SIX. Song Lia. November 2, Friday.

The silence of the hallways stood in grave contrast with the boisterous noise of the gym. Devoid of students, the school felt dead. Lia slipped out unnoticed. With Chan guarding the only entrance and exit to the building, it was almost too easy. She skirted out through a gap in the door he opened briefly, sent her off with a tight-lipped smile and shut the door back closed. She was alone again.  

The halls were barren but the voices of students haunted the halls she swore she could almost hear them. Or maybe it was just her head seeking for company as she distracted herself from the task at hand. Among all of the things they’ve done so far, she had the least risk in the legal sense—no arson, no trespassing—but it was the most crucial, capable of tipping the scales away from them if fate decided it. 

The office was occupied when she arrived, a pair of silhouettes exchanging bows. The secretary muttered for her to take a seat on the couch but the current client was already up and ready to leave before she could sit. The door to the inner office rattled and swung open. A small woman made her exit, tugging the door back shut with her leg in a manner all too familiar.

“Mrs. Lee!” Lia blurted, startling the lady. The lady turned, recognition setting in a little after. She was there that night at the restaurant, quietly calculating in the corner. In her arms was an open box and as Lia approached, she noticed that its contents were the amalgamated mess of Minho’s things—knee pads down to textbooks.

Mrs. Lee smiled back, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. 

“Where are you taking Minho’s things?” 

The question hung between them and a surge of anxiety washed over Lia. She was overstepping boundaries and yet her curiosity wouldn’t let her rest. Minho’s mother sighed, as if she knew the question was bound to rise anyway even when she wanted to avoid it. 

“Minho will no longer be joining the junior’s class.”

The voice came from inside the room; a chilling tone, fierce and final. Mrs. Gong was a woman in her 40s, tall and intimidating but carrying the youth of one in her 20s. Her hair was always neatly tied in a bun and her buttoned down uniform polo always matched her skirt—the definition of a proper lady, fitting for a position in the triumvirate. 

“Ma’am?” Asking felt pathetic. Lia heard the woman clearly, but it was just not enough to convince her that it was final. But it made sense with his things packed Mrs. Lee here to fetch it. It was what they’d feared all along.

Mrs. Gong cleared her throat. “After a week of deliberation, the admin deemed his actions inexcusable and worthy of an expulsion. That on top of the other rule-bendings he’d done in the past.”

“If it were his actions,” Lia cut her off. Even with her head down, she could feel them staring.

“Ms. Song.”

“If I tell you that we have sufficient evidence to prove Lee Minho’s innocence, will you withdraw the verdict?” Okay, I did it. Now what? Lia never imagined she’d have the guts to say anything that fierce to one of the most powerful officers on campus. She nearly withdrew, her apology already on the tip of her tongue. 

“Ms. Song,” the officer repeated, her tone more ominous now than earlier.

“You will not deny my son the chance to be proven innocent!” Lia’s breath hitched, her eyes darting to the lady beside her who was seething. “I’ve already had my doubts with this school. Do you want to prove the rumors true?”

The words weren’t aimed at her but Lia quivered, her hands suddenly clammy. The moment of tension made the room go still, even the secretary seized to type on her keyboard.

Mrs. Gong exchanged glances with the both of them, thinking and evaluating what to do next. It was a 2-1 battle and despite her influence on school grounds, she was on the losing side. SSA’s reputation mattered more than the welfare of their students. If news of a student being expelled for nothing got out, the repercussions would be unpredictable. It didn’t take long for the officer to decide. Lia knew that despite the woman’s tough exterior, Mrs. Gong was known to have the softest heart among the triumvirate—the easiest to persuade, hence the reason why the plan was to approach her first. 

The officer glanced back at the duo before spinning around, walking back to her table. “Let’s hear it then.”

They filed into the room. Mrs. Lee set Minho’s things on top of a cabinet before settling down on one of the two chairs in front of the officer’s desk. Mrs. Gong cleared a space on her desk for Lia to set Chan’s laptop down. The device powered on as soon as she opened it, revealing the same desktop she’d come to recognize and the same folder with the video files. There were a lot more clips now than what was originally there. 

She sucked in a breath, sliding the cursor over to the sole clip with a different file name and clicked enter.

The screen blinked, redirecting to a different window. She double clicked and the feed engulfed the whole monitor, then the clip rolled. It’s a less saturated video feed, pixelated and occasionally glitching and on its lower left corner were a series of numbers. It showed a footpath and an interlinked fence, the one bordering the far back side of the campus. Minho was making his climb up the gate, the only part of the fence that was a meter shorter than the rest of the perimeter. Even then, Minho struggled, sitting atop the gate with wide eyes as he looked down on the ground beneath him. Then she saw herself enter the frame, head thrown back in a laugh before coming up to him to offer a hand as he made his climb back down. 

“That morning,” Lia began, right as a figure came into the camera’s view, “the new gate rules were implemented. Minho said that the school wouldn’t actually do it so he came in late on purpose. I usually come to school late, but no later than him. I got to come inside the campus but not the classrooms, he was locked out. He resorted to the back gate.”

Mrs. Lee mumbled something she couldn’t make out as Mrs. Gong narrowed her eyes on the screen. “What does this have to do with Minho’s case?”

“To prove that yes, he was not at the classroom that morning, but not at the council room either. In fact, he was nowhere near. If I told you about this without evidence, you would’ve just doubted me.” They moved out of frame. The camera shifted and it’s them from a different angle, a minute difference on the timestamp and they’re seen entering the building area through the back door. The camera shifts again and they’re seen entering through the wide opening of the school cafeteria, finding a seat near a wall fan that paned to them every now and then.

The screen split into four, simultaneously showing the feed of the cafeteria and the three from on the same corridor of the student council office. The videos were sped up, the camera feed uneventful. At the cafeteria, Lia could still be seen talking with Minho, their movements a blur while time doesn’t seem to pass for the other cameras until the one focused on the council room cut black. Then finally, the culprit appears on the other cameras on the same hallway, disappears behind the double doors and reappears with a bag in hand. 

Then the camera cuts.

“I don’t need clear footage to determine that that person is not my son,” Mrs. Lee said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I agree.” Mrs. Gong nodded. “Isn’t he from 11-C?”

Lia shook her head. “11-B. Lee Juyeon.”

A stunned silence fell upon them. Mrs. Lee sighed in relief, Lia assumed, while the other woman leaned back on her chair to massage her temple. 

“But I’m not done yet,” Lia continued, cutting off the officer right before she could speak.

Lia shuffled through the file of CCTV footage, finding the one with the most recent date—fresh and recently transferred. The window flickered on, showing the view from behind a cubic room. A mirror spanned the far wall and in the space in between were students, moving in hypnotizing synchronization. Even with the cameras on mute, Lia could hear the thumping of their feet, the huffs, the chants. Up front was Minho, center of the pyramid formation with his vision more trained onto other people’s movements than his own. 

Then they finish their routine, Minho calling a time-out before running straight for the exit which was a door at the far back of the room. 

“That’s him right?” Mrs. Lee pointed to a figure crossing the room. The tall boy passed by, dancing a routine with someone in the mirror but with a package in hand, the familiar paper bag.

It didn’t take her and Jisung long to figure it out the night prior but it warranted another trip back to the CCTV room to retrieve it. They called up the other pair that night, having them gather at the convenience store to plan out their next step. They were betting on little chances but it was a place to start. The whole Friday morning, Chan and Taehee were set out for the retrieval of the last piece of evidence they needed. They didn’t have the luxury of time to plan another way to coax out the CCTV manager so they headed in face first, charading as members sent by the higher officers of the council to uncover the truth behind the robbery from last week. The CCTV officer obliged, no questions asked.

The search didn’t take long either. Their hunch was right. 

In the camera, Juyeon slipped into the back row of dancers, cautious but not quite, heading for the back of the room to where the bags were stored. Then he searched through the bags, picking up a familiar backpack off the ground. 

“Minho’s bag, right?” Mrs. Gong studied the screen, recognition etched on her features, taking her back to the day of the bag check. “Why would he do that?” She slumped back on her seat.

“According to dance troupe members, there has been a feud going on between them. He took a blow when Minho was chosen as troupe leader by previous seniors. Not sure if it’s just that.”

On the laptop screen, Minho came back and they practiced the routine a final time. As the clock ticked closer to 1PM, they dispersed, bowing by the door as they made their exit. Minho was the last to go, picking his bag off the ground—unaware that it had been meddled with, before turning the lights off and leaving. Then the clip ends, and Lia finally breathes. 

Beside her, Mrs. Lee is muttering to herself, clicking her tongue, shaking her head. She must’ve been infuriated. Mrs. Gong didn't say a word to them across the table, instead she called for her secretary.

The petite lady shuffled into the room,  nudging up her glasses as she entered. “Yes, Ma’am?”

“Call an audience with the student council president along with the director. Kindly tell them it’s urgent.”

Lia felt her world go still, unbelieving that she heard the words. A final shot at redemption, a chance to turn the tides. 

“But Ma’am, there’s an on-going program at the,” the lady trailed off when she caught the look on Mrs. Gong’s face. “Understood, Ma’am.”

The officer turned to the lady. “Mrs. Lee, another deliberation will be held. Rest assured we will reach a verdict this afternoon. I’ll make sure that Minho’s expulsion will be on hold until the new evidence is reviewed by the others. If you could wait in the lounge?” 

Mrs. Lee pursed her lips but didn't say anything. She must’ve thought it was better than nothing, nodding as she muttered a humble thank you and walked out. The room was suddenly colder without her fiery rage, the bout of fearlessness Lia felt leaving along with her.

“Ms. Song.” It sent a chill down Lia’s spine, making her hesitant to turn her head but she did it anyway. “I’m going to ignore that you violated school laws by accessing this type of evidence and while I will be lenient, the other two might not be.”

Lia felt her relief wane, replaced by a growing fear of getting into more trouble than they'd initially signed up for. Would the school really overlook the good intentions behind their actions? 

“However, I am convinced by the evidence you presented. Minho was a frequent visitor, a nuisance on most days, but I don’t see him as the type to do something like that.” Mrs. Gong laughed, no humor in her tone, just melancholy. “He reminds me of my own son.”

The younger girl couldn’t find the right words to say anything but she knew the woman lost her son the year before and took a break off working for the admin. “I’m sorry, Ma’am.”

“It’s alright.” And just like that, the moment of tranquility passes and she’s upright again. “May I copy the clips to a flash drive so you can take your laptop home? Just in case deliberation takes too long.”

What else would you need to deliberate on? The evidence is right there! The words died in Lia’s throat before she had the chance to shout them. She obliged, letting the woman plug in a bar, copy the files from the folder and eject it.

“Dismissed.” 

It took her a moment to steady her legs when she stepped out into the lounge, Chan’s laptop clipped in her hands and a huge weight lifted off her shoulders. Right as she was about to exit the office, she was called over.

“You were at the restaurant that day, right? When he got suspended?” The voice came from behind her. Mrs. Lee was on the lounge couch with the box of Minho’s things sitting next to her.

Lia managed a small smile, “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Thank you for fighting for him,” the woman said. “I hope they withdraw the suspension. He really likes dancing. We were against it at first but he scored the scholarship and we just let him. He was still as mischievous as he always was but it was nice seeing him be passionate about something else besides messing around for once.” Her gaze was far for a moment and Lia realized she was staring at a cabinet full of trophies. Did she know her son won one trophy each year for the past three years he’d been in SSA? Then the woman turned to look back at her. “Come over to the restaurant some time with the others, will you?”

Lia nodded. “I’ll let them know.”

Mrs. Lee waved her hand as if to shoo her, another familiar gesture she often saw on her son. “Get going. Someone opened the door earlier, I think they were looking for you.”

When she walked out the hallways were bustling again, and up against the adjacent wall were the people waiting for you. 

“Symposium was cancelled.” Jisung was the first to approach her, the others following suit and crowding around her. “How did it go?”

“Cancelled?” she asked. “I thought it would take the whole afternoon.”

“Director Park was called off the podium and then we were ushered out. Symposium over, go back to your rooms. Postponed.” Hyunjin said, his poor impersonation warranting a few laughs from the crowd.

Lia let out a small chuckle before the events clicked into place in her head. “Oh my God.” 

“Why?” Changbin cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t leave us hanging, damn it. You’re making me anxious.”

“I just finished reviewing the clips with Mrs. Gong and she called for, she called for...”

Lia trailed off as she saw the Director walk down the hallway, fast and furious in their direction. Brian walked beside him, clad with the same stoic expression that came with the stress of being head of the student council. They bowed as they passed, disappearing into the door she just exited.

“She called for an emergency meeting.” Chan finished.

Felix pursed his lips. “So now we wait.”

“Well, I’m not willing to.” Taehee said, brushing past the others and approaching Lia. She gave the other girl’s arm a squeeze, a familiar reassuring warmth without her having to say anything else. “I’ll see you on Monday, yeah?”

“I have club activities too.” Jeongin frowned.

“Monday then?”

“Why do you all look so hopeless?”

“Realistically speaking, I could think of a million things that could go wrong from here but the thing is, it’s completely out of our hands now. We’re just here to hope that the verdict changes and it’ll be in our favor this time.” Seungmin said, the others nodding in agreement.

“As much as I think the verdict would be worth the wait, I say we wait for Monday. We’re all tired from the past week and well,” Saeyeon paused, “we tried our best. I don’t think we can help Minho anymore than we did now.”

They reached a consensus not long after, but Lia lingered outside the office. Minho’s fate was down to whoever was behind those doors. She let Saeyeon’s words sink in, there was no more helping beyond what they’ve done. She could only hope everything they’ve risked for would be worth it.

When the clock struck 4 and the office door remained closed, she turned her heel and walked away.

AFTER. Lee Minho. November 5th, Monday.

It was true what the old folks said: old habits indeed died hard, and as excited as Minho was for that Monday, he still woke up well past his morning alarm. He stumbled into their kitchen, full-blown bedhead hair with marks of drool staining the side of his mouth, whining at his mother for not waking him up earlier, even when he always insisted to never be woken up from his slumber. Especially on Mondays. 

It was also true that you turned to greater beings when you were at your toughest times. Minho was never a believer but after going through a week of having to work day through night at their restaurant, he was praying to whoever was willing to listen. I’ll study better now, just please let me get back to SSA. Trying to stay awake through a boring lecture was difficult, but trying to stay upright when you’re dead tired from cooking through the hottest part of the day was beyond him. He felt like he aged a year in the week he worked in the kitchen.

The devastation rocked him. As much as he hated having to lead the dance troupe, he missed it when it was snagged away from him. He missed the halls, the studio, the overcrowded cafeteria. The tall trees, the shaded footpaths with uneven steps, the narrow alleyways that smelled of cigarettes. Most of all, he missed spending his friends’ company and he thinks the reason they didn’t come back to visit him was because of how he acted the week prior. But his pride was too high to send them a message, embarrassment too deep for him to view their messages in the group chat.

For a day he was sad, it was unfair from that one singular stand point. Being framed like that was something he’d never wish on anyone. But if anyone took a good look at everything he did leading up to the framing, they’d say he deserved it. The reputation he built was on him and it was high time that someone pulled the rug from beneath his feet. For once, he had to experience being on the losing side for all the times he played innocent even when he wasn’t. 

But alas, the gods heard his pleas and he was at SSA’s gates again, swiping his card through the RFID machine and walking in. 

The feeling was foreign even when he’d only been gone for a week. Weird gazes passed as he hugged the first pole he saw but they paid him no heed, nor did their opinions matter to him. He walked up the four floors leading up to their classroom. He’s met with a warm, confusing welcome from the people who were around. Plastic, he nearly blurted but he managed a fake smile. He debated leaving his bag behind so he took it with him when he ventured higher. The people he wanted to see weren’t in the room.

He headed to the rooftop first, empty. Looked overboard to glimpse at the quadrangle despite his fear of heights, not there either. Until his feet led him down the flights of stairs, down hallways sprinkled with people getting the midday gossip. The gymnasium was near the far back of the campus but the walk there was never too tiring, always worth it with the right people tagging along.

Minho tugged the double doors open and let himself in.

And there they were, sitting on the bleachers near the east wing with their backs turned and heads together. His heart swells, stomach twists, awash with the joy of seeing them again but he keeps his face stoic because they don’t even turn around. 

“Really?! You were here all along?!”

Heads snap and turn, followed by a collective gasp before someone finally calls his name. The boys leapt out of their places on the bleachers, a blur of white as they dashed down the vinyl floor of the court. A cloud of chaos nearly knocks Minho out of balance, tackled and harassed, but he lets it pass. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words, but he was glad to be back here with them. Just for the day. For once, he was glad to be the center of attention, to be back where he wanted to be. 

He was dragged back to where the others were on the bleachers, taking their respective places and finishing off their respective lunches. Minho panned his gaze.

“Chan and Taehee?” he asked, easily noticing the absence of the pair.

A silence fell upon them, partnered with a nervous exchange of looks.

“I know those looks. Don’t try and lie to me.” Minho said.

“Called to meet the triumvirate.” Changbin answered.

Minho’s eyebrows knitted themselves together. “Why?” Nobody answered, save for another exchange of looks. “Don’t tell me they’re in trouble because of me.”

“Minho,” Lia muttered, but never got to continue.

The gym doors opened again, this time more noticeably. They rattled loudly in the silence of the gym. From behind the double doors, Chan emerged with Taehee trailing behind her. They stared ahead blankly, stoic, neither one paying any heed to the other.

Saeyeon skirted past the others sitting on the bleachers, using other chairs as steps down to ground level. “How did it go?” 

Taehee glanced at her, her face unreadable. But then their eyes wandered over to Chan just in time to see his facade shatter, his mouth twisting into a grin the second his eyes landed on Minho.

“Damn it, Chan.” Taehee spat. 

They all broke into laughter as Chan hopped the steps up to Minho, giving him a tight squeeze before sitting giddily beside him.

“Heard you were called up by the triumvirate. How did that go?” Minho asked, turning to Chan. 

Chan glanced over to the other girl who just shrugged him off. “They suspected that we were the ones who got the evidence to prove your innocence.”

“You did?”

“They were right of course. And we admitted to it except it’s against school laws to meddle with such things. It’s under grounds of expulsion.” Chan continued.

Minho stared, his stomach tied in knots with all the trouble they’ve gone through. “And?”

“You wouldn’t believe us.” Taehee said, snatching his attention away from the older boy. “Brian said he ordered us to do so. The fuck?”

“Same thoughts,” said Chan, “so I went and asked him why he did it and he said he knew we did it for a friend but it also benefited the council so it was the least he could do.”

“How?” Minho was out of words, overcome with a multitude of emotions surging through him. “All my mom said was you got CCTV footage. Was that it?”

They nearly break into a collective laugh again but Minho’s curiosity was genuine. Chan shook his head, pointing at someone in the crowd. Jisung rose up and a series of applause erupted.

“Thank you, thank you!” Jisung waved his hand around. “None of this would be possible if you didn’t cooperate with me. But what is there to cooperate on if there is no plan? So thank me because Minho wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.”

“No one asked you to save me.” Minho said. “When they came for me last week, I asked them to leave me alone.”

Jisung clicked his tongue. “People nowadays. So ungrateful.”

Minho raised his hand and the younger boy flinched, shrinking back into the bleachers. Operation Roger Rabbit was explained to him in grave detail. From the meeting on the rooftop to a Mission Impossible-like strategy to get the evidence they needed, attempted arson, blackmail and pranks, One Punch Man encounters in dim alleyways, right down to the big reveal and Juyeon’s inevitable confession. It was far from what Minho’s mom told him the prior Friday night. He expected just as much from the extraordinary bunch.

He wanted to scold them for all the risk they took, but he’d been around them long enough to know that they were as stubborn as he was. Because if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be here with him in the school gymnasium where he thought he’d never step in again. 

His attention was snagged away when a flash blinked from his periphery. He turned right as another flash went off.

“See! First shot was the film’s seal.” Saeyeon plucked the polaroid off the top of the camera Lia held, fanning the shot in the wind before turning away. 

Minho scooted over. “If you wanted my photo, you could just say so.”

Lia laughed, setting the camera down and pushing its lens back and powering it off. 

“My mom mentioned that you reported the whole thing. Was it true?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Sorry it took a while, they wouldn’t have believed me if it was just my testimony. They would’ve said I was biased.”

“It’s alright,” he reassured. “What you went through sounded like a lot of fun.”

Lia glared at him, making him laugh.

“Happy your partner in crime’s back?”

“You really want to get involved in more crimes?” Lia asked. “Let’s stop, alright? We don’t want you getting involved in something like that again.”

“So, starting tomorrow we should be early birds?” 

“As we should be.”

Minho laughed, shaking his head as he rejoined the conversation with the others.

There was nothing permanent in the world except for change. There was a shift in the air of the dance troupe with Minho’s return and Juyeon’s expulsion in exchange. It was a loss nonetheless and Minho knew he couldn’t get everyone’s approval. But he just had to put up with it, maybe until the talent show at the end of the semester. The CCTV room didn’t have a coin-slot lock anymore, it had a real lock now with a key hung on the officer’s neck—no duplicate has ever been sighted. The council room had a chain wrapped around its twin door knobs now, looped like a figure 8 and hooked together with a singular padlock. 

And while some things change, others stay right where you leave them. It was in the way their friend group remained just as close, if not tighter, and the way he showed up again the next school day just in time to sign his name on the tardy slip for the nth time. Late was always better than not showing up at all, the world just had to deal with it.

a/n: this took longer to write than i expected and even longer than i planned it to be AHA. so much for a 6-chaptered thing (excluding prologue and epilogue). feedback is HIGHLY appreciated and would mean the world to me. leave your thoughts, i don’t really mind if you send a whole essay ;) thanks for reading! 

© neo-shitty, 2021

[obeiii-mee]

Hello! Can I request an hc about a shady MC who's not phase by anything in Devildom with the brothers (and Diavolo?? he deserves love!!!)? Like, when Luci's like "i CaN KiLL yOu hUmAN", MC's reaction was like "Oh... congratulations then." i need more shady mc who may or may not be planning to ruin your life😂😂 Thanks and take care!!❤❤

The Brothers + Diavolo with an MC that is not phased by DevilDom

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Pls I need more shady MC, they would not take any shit from the brothers. Put any Gen Z-er with these guys and you’ve got yourself a suicidal and reckless human exchange student.

They wouldn’t know what to do with one of those ahaksbakanhaka you’re right, Diavolo deserves all the love >:(((((((

You better take care too >:( thanks for sending me this big brain request. I’ve been preoccupied with other projects so I took a while to get to this ask. Hope you’re doing OK💙

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Lucifer:

-He thought having a human exchange student was going to be bad enough as it is but this…..this was so much worse than he could have ever imagined

-The moment you arrived, he already knew you were going to be a problem child and a persistent one at that

-Literally the first thing you asked him was : “Why do you look like an off-brand Levi Ackerman?”

-And he was left there, astounded, confused and offended because he had no idea who you were talking about (cuz at that point you hadn’t met the third eldest) and the tone you had was, frankly, pissing him off

-You kept wondering off on your own????? Without looking like you gave a shit even though you almost walked into a butcher’s shop that specialises in human meat???? Tf MC?

-Also really irritated that you couldn’t be intimidated and that DevilDom was like a playground to you, for some reason? Like, MC get out of the fiery pits of eternally tormented souls- this is Hell, not the McDonald’s ball pit ffs

-Things did not improve for him lmao, by the end of the first week he had already ripped out a good chunk of his hair because of you

-“MC, you should know by now provoking demons like this for no good reason is only going to make life harder for you. Keep this up and you’ll get killed in no time because of your behaviour.”

-“Great, can we have a hip-hip and a hurray?”

-In the span of one day, he’s had to come to your rescue six times (approximately) because you’re too nonchalant about your surroundings around literal creatures of hell

-He doesn’t have enough coffee or will to live for this bs

-“Lucifer, I found this dead plant and brought it here because it reminded me of you.”

-“…..sigh. Why? Why does it remind you of me?”

-“Because it’s cold and unresponsive.”

-He made the consecutive decision to ignore you

-(low-key kept the plant tho)

-Honestly, you get on his nerves a lot and he has definitely contemplated killing you in the past but at the end of the day he really can’t bring himself to do it

-We both know he tried a few times lmfao

-“I will tear you limb from limb, human-“

-“Can I finish my tea first.”

-“You…wait, what?”

-“You’re crazy if you think I’m letting this tea get cold. Try to kill time before I’m done and I’ll smash this cup against your head.”

-If you try hard enough, you might even elicit a laugh out of him, especially if your shadiness is directed at any of his brother which results in him patting your head affectionately

-Nowadays he’s just concerned because you seemed to have made an alliance of sorts with Belphagour and Satan and that’s not a good sign

-For his sake, if not yours, at least try to survive the year without getting chomped on by a random demon please

-He’s too stubborn to let you die just because you’re unbothered by everything so cut him some slack and help out damn it

Mammon:

-“Oi Lucifer, how come I’m stuck babysittin’ this stupid human?”

-“And how come I’m stuck with this asshole for a tour guide, with his fake ass designer shoes and no brand sunglasses. That’s a lot of smack talk from someone with crow shit stains covering the back of his jacket. Also, did you stick your hair in a bucket of mayonnaise?”

-……..

-He was so offended lol

-Normally, humans like you cower in fear whenever demons are as much as mentioned because of the whole “I can eat you whole” thing

-And here you are; insulting the Avatar of Greed and one of the princes of Hell himself just because you didn’t like his attitude

-Don’t worry tho, he warms up to you in less than a fucking month simply because you still come to his rescue whenever his brothers start insulting him and wow, look at that, his heart is now combusting on the floor

-“Y’all have no right to criticise Mammon when he has the most self control out of all of you.”

-“Since when does Mammon have any self control? He can’t keep himself from nicking anything that looks shiny.”

-“Motherfucker, I don’t see him trying to choke me to death, respectfully pls shut the fuck up. I don’t want to say I have favourites but if I do, it’s definitely him.”

-While Mammon’s in the background, with hearts instead of pupils in his eyes like ❤️👄❤️

-He doesn’t even mind running around after you anymore (will still complain about it though because your ass is in constant danger and he’s had enough)

-Honestly, you keep starting shit with random demons, some of which are quite powerful mind you, and you don’t back down even when he’s there to step in

-Would low key love to watch you fight one of your classmates at RAD and organise a ticket selling booth for the event but Lucifer will hang him a new one if he does

-So for now, he sticks to baring his teeth at the aggravator in question and you’re there, giving the same demon the middle finger

-The way you sometimes match his energy gets him so hyped up lmao

-“Mammon, did you steal Levi’s money again?”

-“T’s none of her business human. Now go away, shoo!”

-“Bitch, don’t ‘shoo’ me, I ain’t a bird. Now tell me, did you?”

-“…..Why do you ask?”

-“Because a new flavour of instant noodles just got announced, called ‘Super Hell-Sauce Flavour’ and I thought you might be more interested in that than wasting the money on gambling.”

-“….ok but only if you come with me to buy some.”

-This…this is true love right here

Levi:

-Oh no, now there’s two of you

-Why do I feel like his energy would match MC’s almost immediately? Maybe it’s because he spends too much time in his room on the internet like the rest of us do

-“What do you want, you stupid normie?”

-“300…..”

-“….300 what?”

-“300 mangas collected, thousands of episodes of anime watched, over 60 character figurines, plushies, body pillows, merchandise and several posters only to be called a fucking normie by a demon weeb that’s only known me for 10 minutes.”

-Boom, instant friendship

-He becomes attached to you almost immediately and now that he knows how unphased you are by DevilDom, he is seriously worried

-Hell, you’re making him consider going outside his room just to make sure you’re alive and not dead in a ditch somewhere because you decided to get on someone’s nerves that particular day

-Even during the quiz thing, when he almost kills you, you’re just sitting on the floor and awkwardly watching him as he throws a sissy fit

-Levi feels sort of conflicted with you because one one hand you’re good company and he loves having you around, you’re his Henry after all

-But on the other hand, you put yourself in so much danger it makes him paranoid so often to the point where he wants to keep you locked in his room and wrapped in bubble wrap

-Nearly had a heart attack when you almost walked right into a pit of lava like MC???? This isn’t one of his video games???? You’re not gonna respawn if you die????

-Besides all that, he gets a bit jealous of you confidence and your ability to just do whatever without fearing death or consequence

-“MC, how do you do it?”

-“Do what?”

-“How do you go about your life without a care in the world?”

-“I guess I’ll tell you my secret Levi. I’m not like other humans that’s why, I’m just so unique I do things differently.”

-“You sound like a pick me-“

-As long as you’re OK and not injured because of your carelessness, he’s indifferent about your behaviour and will even applaud you for your bravery when it comes to this sort of thing

-“lmao the human exchange student just dumped Solomon’s cooking in the trash while looking him dead in the eye 💀💀💀”

Satan:

-Your attitude towards DevilDom and demons in general kept him entertained, if nothing else

-You rarely seemed to consider how much of a threat that place really is and usually you were just running around, completely ignoring Lucifer’s rules and doing your own thing

-Which, you know, he’s all about

-I can’t say there were no incidents between the two of you

-With his short temper and your tendency to say things without caring about the consequences, there were definitely moments when he might’ve snapped on you

-“MC for goodness sake, what happened to my room?”

-“What do you mean?”

-“It’s an absolute mess! I just told you to bring me my spells and curses book, not mow through everything!”

-“It’s not my fault this place is built like a fucking labyrinth. You should be grateful I went to get it for you at all, I almost tripped and died several times on my way back. Also, you should get a new ladder for your shelves. It did the broken.”

-“MC….”

-“Yes?”

-“You are so lucky I love you.”

-Other than the fact his anger takes over him when things like these happen, he not so subtly encourages you to keep going because seeing Lucifer scowl at your antics gets him wheezing his lungs out

-I like to think Satan would be very impressed, even in the beginning, at the amount of nonchalance you can radiate at times

-I mean, you sure as hell don’t see it often and he loves how unpredictable you are more often than not

-If anything, he should probably thank you-idk how, but his patience has increased significantly every since you got here and he appreciates having some more control of his emotions

-“I’m gonna go put oil in Lucifer’s shoes.”

-“Do you have a death wish?”

-“Satan, I am old enough to make my own decisions and I concluded that this action is necessary.”

-“Necessary for what?”

-“Raising everyone’s morale! All of you seemed to feel down lately so I thought this would be fun for everybody!”

-“Except Lucifer, right?”

-“Except Lucifer. He grounded me from my D.D.D like I’m a fucking teenager who needs to be supervised-pssshht, I’m the most responsible one here.”

-“Yes clearly.”

-“Goodbye dear Satan, I may die today. But it’s for the greater good! (Dramatic exit with sound effects)”

-“WAIT MC!”

-“(pops head back in) yes?”

-“May I offer you my assistance?”

-You’re basically taking turns pranking his brothers and it’s hilarious

-Satan is not too worried about your well being simply because he knows his siblings and him are always going to be nearby to save you if you pull something stupid again

-Even so, he checks up on you throughout the day; just to make sure

-“Where were you?”

-“Running from a bunch of demons. Who wanted to go munchy crunchy on me, I assume.”

-“……”

-“Either that or people here are a lot friendlier than originally expected.”

-You can be such a handful and it really tests him, especially when he’s angry enough to begin with

-But despite your amazing talent at either getting completely lost around Hell, purposely walking into a prohibited place just because you felt like it or riling up others with how blunt you are, he still cares about you deeply

-You may be a pain the ass, but you’re his pain in the ass <3

Asmo:

-He should’ve known something was up with this particular human when you stood there, completely calm and collected, while Beel salivated at the thought of eating you on your first day

-Asmo just brushed it off for a while but it kept happening???

-The first time Lucifer ever told you off, you really went and said “Or what? Are you going to eat me? If so, you can go ahead and start with-“

-He came to your rescue and covered your mouth before you got to finish and before Lucifer unleashed his wrath on to everyone in that house

-“OOPSIE! I think MC has been spending too much time with me. Sorry Lucifer, we gotta run now! We have a party to attend, don’t we MC darling?”

-“You mean the one hosted by the guy that tried to kill me because I shoved into him on the hallway at school and then proceeded to tell him to go fuck himself right back into whatever hell hole he was born in before you came and charmed our way out of it?”

-“Yes.”

-“Ah OK. “

-You’re tiring for sure but you’re not exactly unlikeable

-You have a certain charm hanging about you that Asmo loves

-“I almost died like…30 minutes ago.”

-“WAIT WHAT?? WHY?? WHAT HAPPENED-MC ARE YOU OK???”

-“Yeah, I almost drank some poison today because someone told me it was water. It smelt off though so I didn’t.”

-“….”

-“Anyway, I got you this bracelet on my way home.”

-He really does wish you would take things a bit more seriously

-This is your life on the line, you know? What would he do if you died?

-“MC, you’re not immortal, you can die so much more easily than I can, you know that right???”

-“I don’t care.”

-“Well I do! And you should too….”

-A lot of people don’t see past his vanity tbh, because he can be such a caring person towards the people he loves

-The amount of videos he has of you appearing to be completely calm while pure chaos is descending in the background is pretty impressive

-Every time he uses his charm on you to try and get you to commit his sin, it just doesn’t work???? For some reason???? And even if it’s just with simple, innocent affection for now, he is determined to tempt you into it

-“MC~gimme a hug!”

-“But that’s social interaction and I don’t support it- do you have a charger for my D.D.D by any chance?

-Or at least die trying to ig

-Asmo loves having you around but you’re giving him wrinkles and that’s not okay >:(

Beel:

-The moment he realised how carefree you actually were, he sort of started checking up with you quite frequently throughout the day

-It’s his way of protecting you but if he could, he would follow you around all the time

-Becomes your body guard because you may not care enough about your safety but he certainly does so get ready to be carried everywhere

-You will not get hurt nor will anyone mess with you if he has a say in it and let me tell you, he does

-Thing is, his brothers mostly know him for being slightly dense in some aspects of day to day life

-He’s not perceptive of things that don’t involve food or his loved ones

-And because you most definitely are a loved one of his, he does notice how careless you are really often

-And it scares, rather worries, him because DevilDom is an incredibly dangerous place-even with all the precautions they had taken when you came

-“MC get down, you could fall.”

-“But Beel, look-I’m finally taller than everyone else! Taller than you even! Hey, should I do a backflip?”

-He has no idea why you thought jumping from 60 meter high cliff into a small river of squashed demon blood was a good idea but he wasn’t going to risk anything just because you felt like showing off your diving skills

-Proceeds to carry you away, completely unfazed

-In this case, I feel like Beel is not someone who gets bothered by the horrible things happening around there either

-As long as he has food and his family is safe and happy then he’s also happy, as mentioned above

-But he knows he’s alright with DevilDom because he’s been living here for centuries now

-A bit curious as to why you’re so unbothered

-And even more curious as to why you weren’t terrified of him transforming in his demon form after he lost control when he found out you ate his pudding

-Or more like Mammon did and pushed the blame on you

-“YOU. ATE. MY. PUDDING!”

-“Beel I love you but if you did not just see Mammon shoving the damn container in my mouth two seconds prior to this, then you might need glasses.”

-He apologised to you later for it but even so, you didn’t seem to mind like at all and he didn’t really understand why

-Unless you end up explaining why exactly you feel so indifferent about your life being in potential danger, he won’t really pry

-But now he has even more reason to follow you around like a lost puppy

-Since it’s clear you don’t really care about protecting yourself

-So now it’s his job to do it

-MC protection squad? Mostly Beel and Mammon

-ahhh he cute

Belphie:

-Oh

-You piss him off so much

-He’s trying to have his moment, you know?

-Finally getting that glimmer of satisfaction after killing a human as a way to avenge his sister’s death

-Trying his hardest to make it as miserable as possible because he has so much rage in him, he needs you to suffer

-“Harder Daddy-“

-“Oh fuck off.”

-Nah but for real, what the fuck MC

-Why does he even bother, he feels like he should be sleeping instead of dealing with your bullshit

-Even afterwards, when your future self shows up and he tries to kill you again, you look more thoughtful than irritated???

-Lucifer and Beel are literally holding him back from doing another Chocky on you and you’re standing there, looking at him with your eyebrows raised

-“Hey Belphie, I have a quick question. I know you’re trying to kill me and everything but do you like the colour blue?”

-“HUH??!?!”

-“It’s a simple yes or no question Belphie. Do. You. Like. Blue?”

-“WHAT DOES IT MATTER???!!!”

-“BELPHAGOUR, AVATAR OF SLOTH-YES OR NO, JUST FUCKING ANSWER!”

-“YES! FUCK YOU!”

-“Ah ok thanks. I like blue too :)”

-????????????

-Pls he felt like sticking his foot down your throat

-As of late, he’s kind of glad he didn’t manage to scare you away that day and that he didn’t traumatise you or something

-At the time, he was mad because he didn’t understand why you weren’t scared but now he just wants to make it up to you

-“You didn’t deserve any of that. I’m sorry MC, I won’t blame you if you decide to stay away from me now.”

-“Stfu dipshit, what’s gotten you so depressed? Did you have another fight with Beel? I told you not to eat the last slice of cake.”

-“Rude ass, I was trying to apologise for my past mistakes-let me repent will you?”

-“Said no demon ever. Now let’s go hang out you emo bitch.”

-Y’all vibe together on a spiritual level once that shit gets sorted out

-But he’s kinda scared you might pull out a knife on him ngl

-Obviously, you’re still annoying as fuck with that indifferent attitude of yours but he can live with it

-He appreciates the fact that you’re not scared of him, even after what he’s done

Diavolo:

-Ah yes, the future King of DevilDom himself

-He’s very enthusiastic about the idea of you having fun this year…..and to keep you alive….

-He, of course, expected a range of reactions from you when he first summoned you here

-None of which were “Ok but could you not have given me a heads up? Before the whole teleportation thing? I face-planted your onto marvellously polished the floor and now I think I lost even more brain cells than before.”

-He felt so bad gagajajahahwgehhsb

-He apologised for bringing you out here without any warning like that and then proceeded to introduce you to everyone

-Diavolo is actually kind of relieved to see you’re handling everything pretty well

-He thought that maybe DevilDom was too much for a human to deal with

-Meeting Barbatos also went incredibly smooth

-“Barbatos? The one that cleans the floors right? Big fan of your work, I could eat off the floor of the main hall.”

-He’s so glad to see you getting along with everyone and not getting intimidated by the brothers

-It gets him excited thinking about how the exchange program is gonna work and all three realms will be united

-But he’s not stupid so don’t think he’ll allow you to stumble around, getting up to all sorts of mischief

-He always has someone watching you because he would hate to see you die, despite being pretty fond of your carefree attitude

-“MC, please be careful. Most demons here aren’t all that nice.”

-“Aye aye Captain.”

-He fears that many demons would take your indifference as a challenge and try to assert dominance or something by kidnapping you

-As far as creatures of hell go, they love installing fear in people

-So he always keeps an extra eye open for you

-And he’ll be there to help you if something goes wrong

-But other than that, he’s pretty chill as well and he finds you so hilarious, it’s been a while since he’s seen someone as eccentric and dramatic as Mammon and Asmo

-Idk what else to add here, Diavolo is very accepting and as long as you don’t get hurt, he’s glad you can get used to your new surroundings so easily

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Al~