#crazy huh. that death is forever

[officialtokyosan]

z

[bo0zey]

vegeterian corndogs and sausage on a stick u r my kryptonites

[forlix]

‧ ❆ ˚ 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐲 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝・h.j.

— stars flare brightest in the absence of light, and you see his clearer than day.

words・6.4k

pairing・han jisung x female reader

genres・college!au, friends with benefits to lovers, snowed in trope, smut, MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS THAT INTERACT WILL BE BLOCKED, angst, ANGST, you have been warned, hurt/comfort, i can't write normal fluff to save my life, happy ending!!!, semi-slow burn

warnings・depictions of insomnia, recurring nightmares, graphic violence, character death (in the nightmare), fears of abandonment and falling in love, alcohol consumption, humans helping each other heal. smut warnings under the cut

playlist・stay - acoustic by jonah baker・all of me by big gigantic・babydoll (speed) by ari abdul・oasis by exo・volcano by han

a/n・hi, here's my second installment of winter falls. writing this was immensely challenging and twice as meaningful, so feedback would be greatly appreciated. thank you to my may for being so fucking instrumental in piecing together this rollercoaster—this one is for you, i love you. thanks to my sahar for everything, always and forever. and thanks to all of you for being here. happy new year ♡

smut warnings・spitplay, unprotected piv, please practice safe sex!!!, car sex, dirty talk, jisung's dick game is kinda crazy, squirting, lots of aftercare

Every time Jisung closes his eyes, he sees somebody’s back.

It’s leaving. Traipsing somewhere he can’t follow. He tries to chase it—he always does, he never learns—but the premise doesn’t so much as surface before the ghosts circling around his ankles go for his throat instead. They snare him by the shoulders, force him to his knees, slam his forehead into the permafrost hard enough to break bone. They make sure the next time he tries to move will be the last.

So he remains, keeled over in the cold, until tearwater clings to his lower lashes in small icicles. Until bloodstained snow coats his lips like the manifestation of a curse. Until the back has disappeared.

Who does it belong to? He’s left to wonder. Where is it going?

Why can’t I follow?

Then he wakes up.

No longer does he lay awake for hours afterwards, scouring the dream’s every frame for his answers.

Now, he tosses and turns in clammy sheets until his exhaustion wins.

Now, he welcomes sleep like a miracle granted by some pitying god.

You see him.

Through a living room packed with red-faced partygoers and dissected by oscillating strobe lights, albeit, but you see him anyways. 

Jisung can barely make out the rest of your face—he blames the lighting, or the soju, or both—but your eyes alone turn him to glass. Not a fancy vase through which the world distorts, but a simple pane that puts him and his ghosts on full display.

He hopes you like horror movies.

Felix knows you, because of course he does, and Jisung has never been happier to call the extroverted Australian his friend than when you come over to say hi. You stumble out of the crowd all smudged makeup and sweaty skin, your figure hugged by a short black dress with two diamond-shaped openings just above your hips, your glossy lips curved in a drunken smile. Jisung immediately wants it against his mouth.

Instead, it disappears behind his friend as you pull him into a quick hug. A few wisps of your hair dust over Jisung’s arm, momentarily replacing the smells of grease and vodka with cherry blossoms and vanilla.

“Lix, hey!”

“Darling, it’s good to see you! Feels like it’s been ages.”

“I know, right? How are you? How is everything?”

“Good, thank you. Just happy the semester’s over.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Then you go to lift your drink and discover thin air in its place. “Or I won’t. Whoops.”

This prompts Jisung’s first contribution to the conversation—and his first effortless laugh in a long while.

“Eventful night, huh?”

He meets your gaze from all of two feet away this time, and his knees buckle under him. That gaze, fuck. So clear and true, like a prism of glass refracting light into a rainbow. He would let you refract him a thousand times over if he had any light to give.

“Maybe,” you giggle. “Seems I’m a little too happy the semester’s over.”

“Wanna not get a drink to celebrate?”

Your expression flickers. Not in a bad way, more like you hadn’t expected him to ask so soon—or for yourself to have your answer so quickly.

A strobe light catches right under your eye and refracts the color in your blushing face. A rainbow.

“I’d like that.”

He tilts his head towards the kitchen. You give Felix’s elbow a light squeeze before moving past him; he gives Felix a glimpse of his growing smile before falling into step behind you. The blonde shakes his head, throws back the rest of his beer, then swivels at the sound of someone calling his name from across the foyer.

Felix will get drunk enough to forget the sight of you leading Jisung up the stairs, two bottles of pink lemonade tucked under your arm. Nothing stronger, as promised.

Jisung asks his question an entire minute after he intends to. “Where are we going, by the way?”

“Somewhere I can see your pretty face without having to squint,” you reply, and his stomach tumbles like a schoolboy with a valentine.

You don’t stop at the second floor. Instead, you nudge open a door Jisung swears just materialized to his left and emerge into the night air.

It’s warm for December, but he’s still met with chilly winds licking down the sides of his neck. That’s not the only reason he shudders, though. Below his feet, he finds a metal platform akin to that of a fire escape. Above his head, a staircase that looks one forceful step away from dropping off the side of the building.

You turn towards it. 

In a hurry, he sputters, “I’m, uh—I’m not sure about this.”

A beat passes. Your hold on his wrist loosens, not to let go, just to trace wordless reassurance down the back of his hand. Your fingers feel perfect sliding into the spaces between his, like drops of honey in the craters of soufflé pancakes.

“It’s safer than it looks, I promise.”

Jisung heaves a sigh. It seems saying no to you is an impossible task.

You’re right, though. The iron rungs are surprisingly rigid beneath his feet, and the two of you make it to the roof with no trouble. He does stumble when you pull him up onto the gravel, but it’s intentional, a purposeful blunder to have you closer. To snag another glimpse of that blush, another trace of that floral vanilla.

“Sorry,” he whispers almost directly upon your lips. And that earns him all three.

The next hour evades him for the most part, and Jisung is pissed about it. He’s with the woman of his dreams under a sky so clear it’s almost lustrous and he’s too shitfaced to recollect when he gave you his hoodie to wear; what you said that made his lungs capsize with how hard he laughed; how you ended up so close to each other, your legs strewn over his lap, his hands tracing over your thighs.

Thankfully, he remembers a few things. He remembers how frighteningly easy you are to talk to; he remembers your habit of smacking his stomach when you get flustered; he remembers you getting flustered a lot. He remembers the timbres of your different laughs and how your stunning features crinkle with each. He remembers feeling like a pane of glass in front of you, just like he had downstairs, and he remembers liking it, somehow. Liking the way you see through him, the way you allow him to just exist as he is. Liking the way you acknowledge his ghosts with such nonchalance, inviting them over for tea and biscuits.

He wants to remember everything about you.

It’s not often he wants to remember anything.

Eventually, your conversation comes to a natural close. In its absence, Jisung notices that the alcoholic sludge in his brain has largely diffused; with it, the rumbling bass of the party below. The full moon hangs at its highest point, blanketing the two of you with anticipatory silence, nudging you towards the only topic you’ve yet to breach.

He meets your gaze again, from all of two inches away this time, and his insides twist.

“You’re still drunk, aren’t you?”

You blink at him, not following. Then he leans his forehead against yours, lets his eyes flicker to your mouth with such unbridled want that you’re instantly dizzy—and no longer confused.

Regret pools in your eyes moments before they close. “Yes, I think so.”

Your lips are so, so close that he can feel the air shift between you when they move, can feel the soft warmth emanating from them. Jisung pulls away before he does anything stupid.

You do the stupid thing for him.

You push his shoulders to the plaster behind him, push yourself onto his lap with a swing of your body and a slotting of your legs on either side of him. 

The plush of your thighs hugging his hips, the curves of your breasts pressed against his chest, Jisung tries to stare up at you, perplexed, aroused. But you’re so close that he can’t, so he settles with whispering upon the underside of your chin, “what are you—”

“Gimme your lemonade.”

The authoritative words come out in a slurred haze, and he all but hastens to oblige. 

You pluck the plastic bottle from his wavering grasp. His empty hand hovers as if uncertain where to go. But matters as trivial as hand placement drop off his mind’s precipice as he watches you unscrew the cap, the slope of your neck illuminated by spindly moonlight, and without thinking he pushes his hands beneath the hem of your—his—hoodie.

The skin of your waist is warm and smooth where his fingertips are cold and calloused, the juxtaposition unimportant in your reciprocal desires to touch and be touched.

“Open,” you murmur.

His jaw goes slack, firstly from pure disbelief. Then, obedience. The dark locks that obstruct his vision of you fall away as his head meets the brick half-wall behind him, as if the midnight breeze itself mandated their removal.

You pour some of the pink liquid past Jisung’s parted lips. Stray rivulets slip down his cheek and vanish beneath his neckline. You break eye contact to follow their path with dilated pupils and fluttering lashes. With unadulterated desire.

He swallows, gently, and feels the sweet substance surround his tonsils.

He swallows, forcefully, when you wrap your lips around the bottle, the plastic still slathered in his spit.

The swig you take is long, deep. Your throat bobs and your eyes close as if you’re savoring a finely-aged nectar. Then your lips are popping off the opening with a soft thwock, leaving a thick strand of saliva to suspend, suspend, suspend until the very second it’s about to drop, which is when you collect the residue with a deft swipe of your tongue.

“A placeholder,” you breathe, and Jisung’s head careens. A shared bottle. An indirect kiss.

“You’re a monster,” he croaks.

You giggle and lean down, curling a hand around his cheek, pressing a wet kiss to his Adam’s apple.

“Tomorrow, if we’re both sober…”

One, two, three pecks up the length of his jaw.

“...and you still remember my address…”

A suckle to the lobe of his ear.

“...you can kiss me, for real.”

A trembling breath.

“And then some.”

Jisung moans, loudly.

Thankfully, he remembers a few things.

He shows up at your place shortly after sunset the next day. You swing open the door, your face already alight with your world-ending smile.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

Then he’s kissing you like a man famished.

Jisung learns to love your back, that night. He loves its dips and curves, loves its rise and fall. Loves how it arches into him, how it looks drenched in his cum. It’s the back of his dreams.

The back in his dreams keeps walking.

Jisung has never liked winter.

He has never liked its winds, whispering woefully as if mourning something unnamed and unseen. He has never liked its palette, whitewashing the world as if refracting a rainbow in reverse.

He has never liked cracking open his eyes and seeing the scenery of his nightmare outside his window. Nor does he like trudging over the sleet as if weighed down by the same ghosts that break him time and time again in his dreamscape. They love winter. 

And this winter, he swears, is the bitterest yet. On the nights when he’s allowed to sleep, the nightmare comes in such sharp relief that he thinks he’d rather anything else, the ghosts meaner, the blood redder, the silhouette slower. It’s an act of mercy when he’s still awake by the time bleached sunlight perforates the curtains, resting upon his salted cheeks and balled fists.

This winter, it is not just dislike that he feels towards the gray winds—it’s hatred. A maelstrom of loathing so large and dark that Jisung no longer knows where it’s headed or what it’s directed to. Or who.

When winter break comes to an end, he’s probably the only person who’s happy about it.

His friends certainly aren’t, looking like a line of angry nutcrackers with their folded arms and thunderous faces standing outside Greem Cafe.

Jisung calls out a greeting as he jogs towards them, and cue the grumbling.

“What is there to smile about? Enlighten us.” That’s Hyunjin. “I have to deal with four finals and three essays in the next five days and this guy is smiling.”

“He’s accepted his fate, I reckon.” That’s Felix. “We should do the same, boys. Let ourselves down easy, y’know?”

“No, no, he’s smiling because he remembered to bring me his chem notes.” That’s Jeongin. “You did, right? Please say you did.”

Jisung is stunned into silence. “Can I not be happy to see my friends?”

“No,” Hyunjin and Felix reply in unison.

“My bad,” he sighs.

“My notes,” Jeongin repeats.

“I have them, dude. Let’s sit down first.”

The younger boy shouts an impassioned “THANK YOU” at the sky like the clouds just saved his GPA. Jisung reaches for the door to the café, then stops at the sound of Felix’s voice.

“We’re waiting on one more person.”

He turns towards the blonde with puzzled eyes. He’d been under the impression the study session would comprise just them four.

“Who?”

Felix’s response falters on his tongue when he catches sight of something in the distance, and his face changes in a way Jisung’s seen before.

“Look behind you.” Felix shuffles past him, raising his voice to shout, “yo!”

Jisung glances away from the newcomer as quickly as he sees her. It’s not until his eyes pivot to the fire hydrant across the street that he processes her identity.

In one second flat, his mind clutters full. He thinks back to that party, when all it took was the sight of your smile for him to theorize you were the most exquisite thing ever made. He thinks back to the next evening, when he kissed you and verified his hypothesis. He thinks back to what followed and would continue to follow in the few days that remained before break: entwined tongues and emblazoned hickeys, whitened knuckles and whiny praise, snapping hips and shaking bedframes.

This winter, Jisung swears, is the bitterest yet.

But seeing you, the scarf wound multiple times around your neck doing nothing to hide your gorgeous smile, feels like catching a fragment of summer in his frozen hands.

“Thank god,” Felix groans before embracing you. Collapsing on you, more like. “I’m saved.”

You reach around to pat the boy on the back, your eyes brimming with laughter. “Lower your expectations, please. I did well on one exam.”

“You aced the midterm. That automatically makes you a rocket scientist,” Felix corrects, his voice muffled into the shoulder of your coat. A few beats of silence pass. Then, “this is comfy.”

“Okay, okay, let’s go get some caffeine in you,” you giggle. “We have a lot of ground to cover today.”

Felix straightens up sleepily. And sadly. “Superb.”

Jisung hangs back as you introduce yourself to Hyunjin and Jeongin. He doesn’t even notice his growing smile until you’re standing directly in front of him and for the first time in three weeks there’s the smell of cherry blossoms in the air and a rainbow shining on his face again.

“Hi,” he offers.

“Hey,” you reply.

Hyunjin is the one to shatter the prolonged silence that follows. “Are you guys betrothed?”

Felix and Jeongin stalk into the café snickering. You and Jisung trail behind with flaming cheeks.

It takes Jisung two and a half hours to talk to you again. At that point in the afternoon, Felix is napping on the second practice test you’ve given him; Hyunjin has downed three shots of pure espresso and is currently viewing his screen with concerning intensity; Jeongin is at another table on a quiet Zoom call with his chemistry T.A., Jisung’s notes clutched to his chest like a life vest. And you’re leaning back against your seat opposite to him, scrolling through your phone in what he presumes to be a well-deserved study break. As good a time as any.

He opens up his texts with you. His fingers fly across the keyboard.

Jisung: do you have plans after this?

Your eyes stutter to the top of your screen, linger there for a moment, and lock onto Jisung’s from across the table.

He presses his lips into a thin line to suppress his smile. You let yours spill over in full form, and with it comes a soft giggle that would be worth getting his number fucking blocked just to hear one more time.

Three gray dots appear before elongating into a prompt response.

Y/N: I was gonna ask you the same thing…

He’s the one who laughs this time. Fuck, you’re cute. You’re so cute.

Jisung: can i take you to dinner? Y/N: Yes, I’d love that :) Y/N: When should we leave? Jisung: 9? Y/N: Sounds good~ Jisung: cool Jisung: it’s a date Y/N: It’s a date! Y/N: Excited 💛

With that, you put your phone face down and return to work, though your lips remain privately upturned. Jisung wants to kiss them again.

He also wants to turn you into a mess on his cock again.

Or both.

He doesn’t get much studying done after that thought surfaces.

Jisung: me too <3

When nine o’clock rolls around, you and Jisung begin cleaning up your work stations in near-perfect simultaneity. There’s confusion written all over Hyunjin’s and Jeongin’s faces as they watch you swing your backpacks over your shoulders—but Felix’s expression is a blank slate as he sips from his macchiato. Your ingenuity isn’t the only reason he invited you today.

As you make your way out of the café, your shoulders brush once, twice, and then Jisung drops his hand into the space between the two of you without uttering a word. You scoop it up in your own without missing a beat.

He steps into the freezing night feeling warm all over.

“You know what I realized?” You say as you walk towards his SUV.

“What did you realize?”

“We’ve never had a sober conversation before. Can we change that tonight?”

Jisung has broken hearts before.

There’s no euphemistic way to describe his tendency to abuse the sensitive organs, to wring them out and throw them away like irrelevant trash. To juggle and drop them with a sheepish laugh like they’re nothing more than props in a circus act.

He doesn’t do it to save himself or his partners from getting hurt or any self-ingratiating bullshit like that. It’s for himself, all for himself. All to unload his balls and his mind for fifteen blissful seconds. 

There’s blood on his hands. He never cared to wash it off.

Except you are the one asking for his heart this time around, a dash of hope in your smile as you do so, and he thinks it would be his life’s greatest honor to be discarded by you.

“Sure,” he answers.

He doesn’t even last until he’s inside the car.

Your back meets the door to the passenger’s seat, guided there by his hands on your hips. From millimeters away he watches your surprise morph into understanding, then darken into lust.

“I like when we don’t talk, though.”

It’s the most annoying thing in the world to remove so many layers in such a cramped space.

Combined, your clothing forms a tower high enough to block out the driver’s window completely. An unnecessary blockade.

The glass fogs up anyways.

“Fuck, Ji, yes, right there, oh my god.”

You have your legs spread open and the back of your neck digging into the cupholder on the door. It’s not comfortable. You’re too busy getting fucked open to care.

Jisung detaches his lips from your neck to ask, “here, baby?”

The head of his cock hits that gummy spot again, harder, sweeter. You convulse, your hand scrambling for purchase in his raven locks.

“Yes, yes, yes, don’t stop, please.”

Please. The word plays over in his fuzzy mind.

It seems saying no to you is an impossible task.

His cock slips out of you and you lament the loss of contact with a high wail.

“W-why’d—where’d you go?”

He can’t help but chuckle at how incoherent you’ve become. He cradles the back of your head with a tender hand and lowers your upper body onto the leather seat, adjusting himself to your new elevation.

“Right here, beautiful. Didn’t go anywhere—promise—” 

He expels the final word through gritted teeth as he slams into you again, and the new angle is glorious. Your bodies keen in flawless harmony. Profanities tumble from his lips in a steady stream before they turn back into syllables.

“Would never go anywhere. Would never leave without making this pretty pussy cream like it deserves—holy fucking shit, baby.”

You clench around him at his words and then he’s setting a new, relentless rhythm, rocking the whole vehicle with every hearty smack of his hips against yours, your wet walls squeezing him so dreamily he thinks he sees nirvana with every thrust.

You’re enjoying it just as much, if the bubbles of spit in the corner of your mouth are any indication, and Jisung is viciously proud to be the cause. Unbelievably lucky to feel your breasts jiggling under his chest and your nails digging into the back of his neck.

“Good?” He whispers, and you nod blissfully.

“So—good, Ji, so fucking good. Your cock is perfect, fuck, I can’t even—can’t even think.”

“You’re the perfect one. Can’t believe how well your cunt takes me, shit. It’s like it was fucking made for this.”

“It was,” you breathe, and he nearly shoots his load into you at this alone. “It was, it was—oh, god, I think—think I’m gonna come—”

“Do it,” he rasps. “Come for me. Come on this cock and it’s yours.”

“R-really?”

“Really.”

“Then, I will. I’ll come on your cock—make it mine. Need it so fucking bad, I’m so fucking close, oh—please—”

He anchors himself in place with a hand against the windowsill and the other travels down your body to rub fast, tight circles into your clit. You let out a wanton, prolonged moan, tilt your head back to expose him to your fluttering throat. And then you’re pulling his lips onto yours again, and the following kiss is sloppy beyond belief, the kind that can only antedate the happiest of endings.

“My cock,” you sigh into his mouth. “Mine.”

“Forever,” is the breathy response he doesn’t know if he means, the response he gives you anyways.

And then you curl your fingers in his hair. Clamp your teeth around his lower lip. Clench your thighs around his waist. There’s liquid everywhere. Tearwater spilling down the sides of your face. Release gushing all over his dick and pelvis and backseat.

He catches up the moment he realizes what’s just happened. Pulls out of you. Presses his head against the roof of his car. Spits on his hand. Pumps his pulsating cock. Sends himself over the edge you’ve just finished tripping over.

Eventually, he regains feeling in his limbs.

He opens his eyes, surveys the damage, and grins.

Your stomach is covered in ropes of white, your expression hidden behind your hands. You start shaking your head in profuse embarrassment the moment you feel his eyes on you.

“You squirted,” he says.

“I know,” you almost yell, and his grin erupts into a laugh.

He lowers himself back over you, takes your wrists, and removes them from your blushing face. He doesn’t think he’s seen you so flustered before and it has him palpitating in ways he never thought feasible.

Maybe he did mean the damn thing after all.

He pushes off the strands of hair clinging to your damp forehead and replaces them with a gentle kiss. “It was sexy as fuck and you’re everything.” 

There’s a certain softness in your eyes when he pulls away. He hopes, for your sake, it’s all in his head.

His car is in need of aftercare most of all. You shrug on your clothes with considerable effort and get to work, all while sharing comfortable chatter and easy laughter.

Those things persist during your dinner date at a nearby Chinese restaurant and the drive back to your place, which Jisung knows well enough to no longer need his GPS. Those things persist until he kisses you goodbye on your doorstep, because he would have to be fucking crazy not to after you gave him the best night he’s had in so long.

After you reminded him that he’s still capable of comfort and ease, in spite of it all.

Snow comes a few weeks into the new year. 

This winter, it falls late, and it falls hard, like a gust of breath expelled from drawn lungs at the very last minute. Held there as if lying in wait for something unnamed and unseen. 

The gust of breath is too quiet to be heard over the one Jisung lets out against the shell of your ear. “Wait here.”

He goes to roll off you. You don’t let him just yet, darting your hand around his wrist and bringing his face back within centimeters of yours.

Han Jisung is beautiful. You knew it for the first time at that houseparty and you’ve known it every hour of every day since. But it’s always clearest to you in the afterglow, when his bare skin is golden and sticky and his delicate lips bitten to bright fuchsia. 

When his irises have gone black and you see stars, flaring in the absence of light.

You close the distance that remains between you. Your lips part with a content sigh. Your hands drift over the slant of his neck; his find home in the dips above your waist.

He breaks away once you’re both out of breath, and the pad of his thumb wipes lightly at your lower lip.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” you reply shyly. “I couldn’t help myself.”

The smile this brings to his face reminds you of a candle’s flame. Soft on the eyes and scalding to the touch when he presses it back against your lips. Once, twice.

“Can you wipe your cum off me now?” You whisper, and he laughs straight into your mouth.

The mattress lifts. His footsteps grow quieter. You shiver in his absence.

Only then do you notice the blizzard.

You stumble off the bed to throw your curtains aside. Snow descends from the sky like spools of unraveling yarn. The streetlights have been reduced to foggy specks, the parked cars to blurry heaps. Every sidewalk and rooftop in sight has already been slathered in ivory.

Jisung announces his return with a disbelieving whistle.

“Am I dreaming?” You murmur.

“When did that happen?”

“I have no idea.”

You don’t even notice the wild smile on your face until you turn to him and catch his reaction to it. He looks like he’s asking himself the same question.

“C’mere,” he hums, and you oblige.

He laves the warm towel over your breasts and stomach, as well as the places his release has trickled since you flung yourself to your feet. All while supporting the small of your back with a touch fatally careful, an expression wholly adoring. All evidence of just how blurry the line between sexual escapade and lover has become in two short months.

Your ribcage fucking throbs.

“You don’t seem excited,” you say.

He finishes cleaning you off. You give him a distracted thank you, noticing the sudden shadow draped over his face like a netted veil.

“I’m not,” he answers, not unkindly.

“You don’t like snow?”

“Not really.”

“Why?”

He circles around the bed to get dressed. You bend to pick up the clothes tossed aside earlier and drop them into your hamper, then slip into a clean pair of underwear and sweatpants.

“It’s a long story.”

Just as you reach for a top, a bundle of cloth travels in an arc across your bedroom and hooks itself around the crook of your arm. His T-shirt. 

You glance at Jisung. He’s already looking elsewhere, but his private smile makes its way onto your face as you slip it on.

“Well, I have time.” You sink into your mattress, now surrounded by his muted musk, his papyrus and petrichor. “We’ll be stuck here a while, after all.”

“Stuck?” Jisung repeats, the lanyard of his car keys dangling from the pocket of his hoodie, his feet turned towards the door.

A pregnant pause commences. His intentions dawn, and you gape.

“You’re not driving right now.”

He breaks eye contact.

“Right?”

That was the plan, you read in his expression.

You know better than trying to reverse a river’s current by kicking up rocks. You know better than trying to curtail the flight of an albatross by clipping its wings.

You know better than asking someone who thinks he was made to leave to stay.

And you won’t.

“I have somewhere to be early tomorrow morning,” he stammers, the lines terribly rehearsed. “The snow’s not heavy, I’ll be—”

“Stay.”

You’re not asking.

Jisung looks at you, startled, as you glide across the bed. You place your feet on the hardwood and circle your arms around his waist. Lace your fingers upon the hollow of his back. His pulse goes uneven at your abrupt proximity.

Akin to the drag of a feather, you mouth at his cheek, then the side of his neck.

“You can stay, Jisung.”

He shudders at your words, and you’ve got him.

It’s oddly normal, the sight of him clambering into your bed in your clothing—a pair of old sweatpants and your favorite crewneck—like this isn’t the first time you’re sleeping together in your two months of sleeping together.

In fact, the only indication of anything unordinary is the floaty feeling in your stomach when your head hits the pillow and discover Jisung’s face only inches away. He drapes an arm over your waist, gathering you close. You nuzzle into the crook of his neck.

The inevitable question follows.

“Can I save the story for another time?”

“Sure,” you return, keeping your voice small. He doesn’t hear your disappointment this way. “Should we go to sleep, then?”

“We should.”

Your foreheads touch. Your noses bump together. Your eyes cross, watching the adoration pull at his. You dimly register your hand threading in his fluffy locks, his thumb running over your cheekbone. Your lashes narrowly miss the surface of his eyes, and then he tips your face up by millimeters.

You don’t remember when you fall asleep. You only recall the hour beforehand that you spend with Jisung’s lips traversing yours, like you are the ocean and he’s uncovering new waters with every bruise he prints against your throat, every suckle he leaves around your tongue.

In your dream, the roles reverse and you are the one exploring him, mapping out his constellations with wide-eyed wonder.

You wake to a black hole.

For the first five seconds, you see nothing. You hear nothing. You feel nothing. You only blink in the darkness, your mind kicking into groggy gear to ask the very good question of why you’re conscious again.

Instinct moves your hand across the mattress. Empty space greets you where Jisung should be. Unfounded dread shoves your back off the bed. You gasp, the sound seeming to echo in the cavernous silence.

Your eyes adjust enough to discern light in the crack beneath your door, and you’re wide awake.

The following events go by in a blur. You stumble out of bed and into your closet, fastening your fingers around the thickest piece of fabric you find. You fly into the living room, where the lamp by the couch is left on and the pair of worn black Converse on your doormat have gone missing.

The front door is cracked open, and through the narrow inches you spot someone hunched on the stairs outside, his dark hair dyed platinum by the awning light’s fluorescence.

Your heart stills in relief, then quickens with anxiety.

You’ve tried wearing this crewneck in January enough times to know you can’t. In fact, you suspect that it somehow soaks up the temperature, lets it seep in between its every seam until it becomes one with the bitter winds. 

But he isn’t shivering, you notice as you take a seat next to him, draping the puffer over both of your shoulders on your way down. He’s simply staring off into the bleak storm, snowflakes sitting atop his head like a coating of ash, their color matching that of his frozen skin. He’s becoming one with the bitter winds. 

At first, you don’t recognize the man in front of you.

You’re well familiar with those ring-laden hands and the whetted jawline thrown into shadow, those remnants of cologne clinging to his frame. But you have never seen that gaze before, bloodshot and bleak and belonging to somebody new. Somebody who isn’t completely here, straddling the partition between the realms of people and phantoms.

Then he lifts his eyes and you see stars, flaring in the absence of light. Your stars.

And you recognize him for the first time ever.

You drop your hand to your hip, and his fingers feel stiff and cold and perfect, sliding into the spaces between yours.

“Why don’t you like snow?” You ask.

Jisung’s eyes return to the swirling sleet, but he moves your interlocked hands to rest on his thigh, and you know that he’s with you.

He’s been having this nightmare.

It takes place in a small clearing. It’s winter, and everything is covered in snow. Not the gentle kind that you can catch on your tongue, but the unyielding kind that’s hard and dense and covered in cracks, like a lake newly frozen over.

Somebody is in front of him, walking away. He can only see their back. He wants to chase after them. He doesn’t want to be left behind. But there are ghosts nearby, and they’ll split his skull open on the permafrost and tie his windpipe into a pretty bow if he so much as dreams of pursuit. He always does. He doesn’t know how not to.

Normally, the back leaves, and he can do nothing but remain. He can direct his loathing only to the snow into which he bleeds. 

Normally, he waits for the dream to end with something bordering on boredom. He’s seen this movie too many times. He fucking hates how it ends.

This time, though, the snow tastes like something.

After the flavors deliquesce upon his tongue, his head shoots up, his eyes blowing wide as they latch onto the retreating figure. He knows who it is.

His feet scrabbles against the ice with his attempts to rise to them. He lunges forward with frenzied resolve, and that is when the ghosts snap his neck.

He wakes up.

“Cherry blossoms and vanilla.”

You blink, tearwater streaking from your eyes in silent, steaming trails.

“That’s—”

My shampoo.

A broken sob escapes you in lieu of the rest of your sentence, and Jisung laughs, a flimsy facade that crumbles when he lifts his hand to dab at your moistened cheeks and it’s trembling.

“Silly,” he murmurs. “I’m used to it now.”

“I don’t want you to be.”

“I don’t want you to cry for me.”

“You died.”

“And I would do it again.”

This response comes without an shred of hesitation.

You first realized you had something to confess, that night in the the back of Jisung’s SUV. You’ve kept it locked away for your sake and his, even moreso. You see how fear clings to him like an unshakeable wraith, and you refuse to feed the parasite.

Now, your confession explodes from its fortress in the center of your soul and rises up your larynx. You panic like an inept security guard letting their only prisoner bolt free. Is it really the right time? Do you know what to say? Have you really thought this through? 

Too late. It’s rushing to the point of your tongue already. You suppose you’ll find out.

He saves you the trouble.

“Honestly?”

Your confession stills. 

“I don’t know if I’m okay, and I won’t try to convince you otherwise. You’d call my bluff. You’re good at that.

“But everything feels okay when I’m with you. You see me. You allow me just to exist as I am. You make me feel human again—you make me want to feel human again. You empty my mind.”

You feel as if you’ve been ejected into space naked, griping for air where there is none.

“I never believed in having somebody to lose,” he utters, gently leaning his forehead against yours. “But I would rather disappear than watch you go.”

You cradle his jaw with shaking fingers, trying and failing to quell the violence of your emotion.

“Don’t go,” he exhales.

You kiss him.

It should feel the same as before. You reach for the slant of his neck, him the dips above your waist. You sigh into him, parting your lips, and he moves into you deeper, harder, dipping into your mouth with his tongue’s pliant swipe. But there’s something new in the way you hold each other, in the seal of your mouth against his.

The line between sexual escapade and lover vanishes as if swept off the sand and into the sea. His stars come out of hiding at last and they bathe you in their residue, light your heart aglow.

Your confession resurfaces. It wants to stargaze also.

“I love you too,” you breathe.

The night comes and goes.

The two of you spend it entangling, sweating, your lips glued the expanse of his neck and the arcs of his shoulders, writing over the ghosts’ injuries with bruises of your making.

Only when the winds have faltered outside do you attempt to rest again. You are curled up in balmy bliss, utterly depleted. Jisung’s arms around your middle and legs threaded among yours bring you that much closer to slumber’s cusp.

You attribute it to your exhaustion when he mumbles something against you, and you have no idea what it means: “Thank you for refracting me.” 

Your confusion is palpable in your silence. His laugh hits the nape of your neck with a gentle puff, and he kisses the spot just beneath your ear. “Never mind.”

🔖 (send an ask to be added)・@astraystayyh・@like-a-diamondinthesky・@fire-08・@starsandrqindrops・@txtxlz・@laylasbunbunny・@strayghibli・@nuronhe・@seungminsapuppy・@vivisoni・@skzms・@moon0fthenight・@sweetpickledjins・@svintsandghosts・@nhyunn ・@liknws・@hotgorloikawa・@randomwimp・ @automaticpersonabatpaper・@aceofvernons・@linos-kitten

© 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐱 (est. 090323) · 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤? please consider reblogging, commenting, or sending me an ask to let me know; or, read my other writing here. thanks so much for the support!

[ohisms]

✱˚｡⋆ ↪ 𝐌𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐘 𝐂𝐀𝐍'𝐓 𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐏 ! ( a collection of sentence starters from season  1 of nbc's “ good girls ”. adjust phrasing as necessary . will be updated in the future . mature themes are present . )

specificity is good , but that's over the top .

chill , i'm like two minutes late .

alright , everybody be cool and nobody gets hurt .

do you think i could make it in L.A. ?

i don't need all that . i just want to be super famous .

you know , i'm just not really much of a church person .

maybe next time you'll take security more seriously .

oh my god , can you please just listen to me for one damn minute ?!

shame on you . shame on all of you .

move it before i shoot your face off , let's go !

you should probably get yourself a lawyer .

why is it so crazy ? i mean , it's a victimless crime .

can't you have my back on one thing , ever ?

this is me helping you not ruin your life .

damn . that was a good sell .

i should have been more careful , i panicked .

no ! i mean ... i don't know . maybe .

we're gonna rob that store .

have you lost your mind ?

we can't sit back and let everything be taken away from us .

no one's gonna fix this . we have to do it ourselves .

[ name ] ... hello ? are you okay in there ?

how did you have the money for all of this ?

i'm here to clean up a mess , [ name ] .

it's not a knock , we all have our strengths and weaknesses . you're a beautiful dummy . it doesn't make you a bad person .

this is five grand . enough for a plane ticket , and to get you started .

i guess you won't mind if i go to the cops , then . right ?

i handled it because you couldn't .

you've got a little ... on your face , kind of looks like blood .

what am i looking at right now ? WHAT am i even looking at right now ?

[ name ] , this is life or death .

i choose death . GIVE ME DEATH .

i have ... sort of a favor to ask .

it's not like you can't afford it .

what do you need that much money for ?

thank you for making me completely humiliate myself for no reason .

this is what winning feels like .

i'm gonna need you to say it with me . we are winning .

it's not like you're gonna kill me .

you don't have the guts . you're not killers .

thought you'd pull a fast one , huh ? make a quick buck ?

girls like you , you never think things through .

you've done this your whole life . you make these big messes and expect everyone else to clean it up . then you just ignore it .

you can't leave me here forever .

you are an incredible liar .

when bad things happen to good people , everyone goes crazy .

if it could happen to us , it could happen to anyone .

roll the dice . tell them to pull the trigger . see what happens .

hey , looks like we've got a survivor .

i am going the speed limit . i don't wanna get a ticket .

where does he think he's going ? boy , this is hard to watch .

if you go to the cops , so will i .

i thought we were done with this .

oh ! you'd rather just declare a kilo at customs ?

– or we could just steal it .

are you hearing yourself right now ?

do not call me crazy .

what if we get caught ?

there's always a choice .

dude , it's never gonna end . unless we end it .

i'm not gonna shoot him , i'm just gonna scare him a little !

forgive me lord jesus , i did not mean to shoot that man .

are we supposed to knock or something ?

i wanted my music for the road trip .

how long has it been bleeding like this ?

i need to take you to the hospital , i think you need stitches .

i wish everything could go back to the way it was .

i had no damn idea how good i had it until it was gone .

i know you hate me right now .

i'm sorry . i suck .

i had to do something really , really important .

what's more important than me ?

is there something you want to ask me ?

just making conversation .

you know the tradition is jordans over a phone line , right ?

be outside in two minutes or you're dead , i mean it .

it's so crazy , even saying it .

you asked for this ? you ASKED for this ?

you can't sign people up for criminal activity like it's a bake sale !

that is NOT what i meant when i said i'd do another job .

so you think you get to pick and choose what you do and when you wanna do it ?

no , i'm sorry . that is not gonna work .

what's your gut say ?

i can prove it ! i mean i can't ... but i want to .

why should i apologize ?

chill out with the cayenne .

maybe we need like , smelling salts or something .

well , i want him to not die in my house .

i am so tired of almost dying .

hey ! ... don't be mad .

you're a dead man .

shut up , just don't say anything . i will handle it .

just say you're sorry .

i wanted to do something nice , so that maybe we could start fresh .

i'm not proud of my part in everything .

oh , yeah ? what does that mean ?

[etoilesbienne]

Forever's Entire Proposal to BadBoyHalo q!BBH Analysis + Transcript below the cut.

Before I start, I want to make clear this is from BBH's perspective + mentality, and I do not speak Portuguese, as well as none of this is intended as character writing criticism. I really like the direction both of these characters are going in, I just want to highlight how much of a horror show this scene is! I'm starting much earlier than what's shown in the clip at the top, unfortunately Tumblr's file limits exist :/ Timestamp for the entire clip I'm using is at here in BBH's vod.

Some preface for everything going on in this scene and context:

For one, Forever's current drugged arc has continued references to the Vargas Era in Brazilian history, which, to heavily oversimplify, is a period when culture was suppressed by Getúlio Vargas, a 1930's Brazilian dictator, and made to look very perfected to the outside world to cover up the many issues from the government at the time. (I really recommend looking more into the Vargas Era on your own, I can say I've found every reading on this topic to be both interesting, as well as gives Forever's current arc a really good layer of historical reference with his presidency. It's a good topic to look into!)

Mostly, it's a representation of how fucked Forever's mental state currently is. Not only is he erratic from the drugs he was put under - He's actively been washed over with nationalistic propaganda. That's fucking horrifying for the President of the island to be under! It gains another layer of horror as well, because to all of the islanders, Forever is the only community member with any perceived sort of power. Him becoming erratic - pulling a gun on Phil, forcing other people to sign up for the drugs and medical procedure he went under - it's something that carries weight in terms of the island being united and working together, and is currently reinforcing the concerns the French group had with seeing him as unfit for power, with BBH included in all of these presidential coup meetings as being a sort of "honorary french" deal.

On Bad's side, however, is the known fact he finds marriage overrated, and meta-wise cc!BBH has mentioned he's playing a "more aromantic approach" because he doesn't want to be another character stuck in the shipping boat. (This isn't a knock against shipping, I just think it's good knowledge to have about q!BBH's character/stance on romance going into this.) And then finally, when the link timestamp starts, but before Forever has truly begun his serious conversation, BBH does this:

He switches out his regular Totem of Undying to specifically a Death totem. It's very quick, but I think it sets up his mentality going into this... I think he expected Forever's final reaction.

Forever: Here, Bad. BadBoyHalo: Hello. F: Hello! F & BBH, simultaneously: So, uh - BBH: Do you know where any of the kids are? F: I know where Richarlyson is, but, oh uh maybe we should go a little bit further there's a translator screen. BBH: Okay. F: Otherwise, I want my chat to know what we're talking about.

[Break for when they move the benches again]

F: Here, nice, nice, nice. F: OH! It's even better! BBH: Yay. F: It's perfect, I would say! BBH: So, you don't - F: Yeah, I don't know where the eggs are, Bad, but I'm really - there's something I know, okay? BBH: Uh-huh. F: I can tell you. BBH: Tell me. F: They are just good and fine, okay? BBH: What do you mean? F: They're fine! They're well! BBH: Look, what do you want, Forever? F: Ah, I want to get married! BBH: No, I mean, like, what do you want? F: Why? BBH: Like, if you know what happened to the - F: Why… don't we just get married! BBH: Do you know what happened to the eggs? Do you know where they are? F: Let's get married. BBH: What's happening, Forever? Etoiles: [mumbling] Fit: Hooray. Tina: Hip Hip Hooray! F: Let's - Let's just get married. Fit: Hooray. Tina: Hip Hip Hooray! Fit: Hooray. Wooooooo. Tina: He saved us. That's crazy! BBH: Okay. Oh, hey Etoiles. You - You're not focused, Forever. Tina: It's probably the most beautiful battle ever! Of all time! In a rose field! F: Yeah, I'm totally focused! I'm happy! Etoiles: Thank you, Tina! Tina: Yes! BBH: No - No, you're focused on the wrong thing - Etoiles: You see, I clicked well! I clicked well! F: Guys, can you give me and Bad a moment, please? - Tina: [Overlapping with Forever] I'm so sorry - F: - We are having a deep conversation, I am asking him to get married! Tina: - I'm so sorry Mr. President, I didn't know. Etoiles: Okay! Okay, Forever, what I, Forever, I - I don't understand, like, there's the code who's attacking us, and you don't give a shit, but you are the president? F: Where - Where is the codes? I want to help you guys! Everything will be perfect! Tell me. Pierre: Congratulations Badboy and Mr. President, congratulations F: If the codes are not here right now, Etoiles, you are just being inconvenient, because I want to get married, and you are just in the way, man - Etoiles: Okay - F: - Go away, please! Etoiles: Okay, okay, I will go away. Okay, okay. F: If the codes show up, you will tell me, okay? BBH: [short confused laugh] F: [cheering as Etoiles walks away] YES! BBH: [looking around at the sky] F: See, Bad? This is how we solve problems. Isn't that perfect? Pierre: Can I be your best man for the wedding? BBH: What? No? There's not gonna be a wedding - F: He asks me for drugs all the time, Bad, he just asks me for drugs. BBH: - okay? F: [laughing] Pierre: Huh? BBH: He's obviously not in his right mind, AyPierre. Pierre: Yes, look at this smile! Must use a lot of uh… BBH: A smile doesn't mean a whole lot. F: Pierre, I will, I will tell Cucurucho, man, I told you already. Pierre: Yes, I want to be happy… F: Cucurucho will come to you and he will put the smile on your face! Pierre: Yes! F: Now go away, I want to get married. Pierre: I want it! F: (Portuguese as Pierre leaves) F: Oh my god, finally some silence. So Bad, BBH: mhm. F: Don't you think this place looks beautiful? BBH: I guess. F: Oh my god, they're still around so the translator is just crazy. Let's change it again please. Sorry, but - F: (Portuguese, I am assuming it is more ooc focused, my apologies. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me!)

[Break for when they move locations, this is where the clip above begins.]

F: So Bad, BBH: Yes? F: What is it going to be? Are you going to get married, or not? BBH: Why do you want to get married? F: Yeah, because everything's perfect, right? A marriage would be perfect, as well! BBH: Why do you think everything's perfect? F: Why don't you think everything's perfect? BBH: Because we don't have our kids, Forever. They're gone. F: No, no they're just fine, man! You are not seeing the world the way you should, Bad, and I'm going to tell you - BBH: How should I be seeing it? F: I'm here for you, buddy. I'm here for you, buddy, okay? BBH: Is anyone here for you? F: And I'm going to tell Cucurucho that he should help you! Like he did to me. BBH: I don't want his help. F: You need his help, Bad. Just - BBH: I don't need his help, Forever. F: - Bad, you are looking bad, Bad, - BBH: I feel fine. F: - you know? BBH: You know what would help me, Forever? F: So let's get married! BBH: Forever. You know what would help me? F: Hm? What? BBH: Tell that white puffball to give me my son back. To bring back all of our kids. F: White puffball? What does that mean? BBH: Cucurucho. F: Okay. BBH: What does he want? What does he want, Forever? Does he want diamonds? F: Why do you think Cucurucho is the one with the eggs? Why do you think Cucurucho is the one with your child? BBH: I know it was him, Forever. F: What are you guys getting from exploding the whole city? Why did I become the president that's trying to help everyone, and you guys are just exploding everything? This is funny man, this is perfect. [laughs] You know? You guys are just too crazy! [laughs] Man, you guys are exploding stuff, and you all are saying that I need help? [laughs] That's funny, man, that's funny! BBH: We need our kids back, Forever. That's why. We'll stop, all Cucurucho has to do is return the eggs. I want Dapper back, I want Pomme back, all the kids back. F: Why do you think Cucurucho is the one with the eggs? BBH: He obviously is the one with the eggs, okay? F: What proof do you have? BBH: Remember - F: Cucurucho's great, Bad. BBH: - I saw - F: Uh huh. BBH: - It was a strange person in the federation building, Mysterioso or whatever his name was? F: [laughs] Yeah, he doesn't like [I cannot figure out what he says here] BBH: I saw him at the federation building. I bet that's the same person who gave Sofia's plans to Maximus. F: [laughing] BBH: That means the Federation was responsible for Sofia. F: Okay, okay. BBH: That means they're behind everything! There's not anything they don't know about. F: Did Maximus tell you that that man is the same one that gave Sofia to him. BBH: He said it was a mysterious hooded figure, and there's only one - F: There's only - Can only be one - BBH: - mysterious hooded figure. F: - It can only be one. BBH: If the federation does not - did not take the kids, they know who did, and they know where they are - F: Ohh. BBH: - I just want them back, that's it. F: Yeah.

BBH: What do they want - What do they want, Forever? Mr. President? You're in contact with them, what do they want? F: Well, Bad, I can tell you something, you know? This is actually quite funny, this is actually quite funny. BBH: What's funny about it? F: So everyone on the island thinks that I, being the president - me, being the president - means that I'm working for the Federation, but do you know what you guys don't see? BBH: What? F: I am the only one working for you guys! A favor(?), you know, the federation does what they want. I'm the only one that tried to represent the people of the island. BBH: So you're trying to get our kids back? F: Oh, they're just fine right now. BBH: Where are they? F: I don't know, sleeping maybe? BBH: How do you they're fine? F: Cucurucho said it's classified! Isn't that funny? BBH: Do you believe it? F: That it's classified? I don't know, is there anything to believe in that? BBH: [sighs] BBH: What happened to you, Forever? F: What? BBH: What happened to you? What did they do to you? F: Uh, I don't know what you're talking about, Bad. I'm just feeling so good, 'cuz everything's so good man. BBH: This isn't like you. You're not acting like yourself. F: Why? Why, I'm happy? I'm not happy? You say I'm not a happy person? BBH: That's just it Forever, you wouldn't be this happy with Richarlyson missing. F: Richarlyson's okay, he's just - BBH: Is he? Is he? F: - sleeping a lot. BBH: Has he gotten up? Has he danced around? Has he put any signs down? Has he said anything to you? Have you built any projects with him recently? Have you done anything with him at all? F: [Deep sigh that turns into a laugh] No, no. BBH: Then how is he fine? F: [long pause] Bad, I have something I would like to show you. Or maybe test on you. BBH: What? F: You know, you guys are just so funny with that clock joke. BBH: Clock joke? F: Yeah, I want to test something. F: Don't you want to get married? BBH: I want my son back. I want Dapper, Pomme, F: [begins launching mines] BBH: [evades, throws health potions] F: STOP THAT FUCKING CLOCK NOISE. BBH: You like your mines, Forever? BBH: It won't bring Richarlyson back.

To start from the beginning, BBH is under no pretenses that this would be a marriage proposal of all things. All he is aware of is that Forever wants to have a serious discussion with him. He's also gone out of his way to put himself on a Death totem, meaning he has every possibility to be downed if Forever were to successfully attack him.

With Forever's current mental state and reinforcing a societal idealism & a desired performance of aggressive happiness and "normalcy" - his character now desiring something like a marriage can be read multiple ways. For one, an imitation of how one of his closest friends, his ex-husband no less, was recently married and is currently considered one of the best federation workers (albeit begrudging on Cellbit's part). For two, a marriage is a pretty huge symbol of a plastique performance of a perfect life. Especially in this context, it's saccharine, it's a status symbol, everyone wants it. With the medication as well, we don't truly know if Forever genuinely feels strongly about BBH to want to marry him, or if he feels he has to be in a marriage for a "perfect" life with BBH being "the best option" as a spouse. (Again, this is not a criticism of Forever's character, this is a very symbolically rich move for him to do, and I, personally, cannot get enough of it.)

Now back to BBH, this is a guy who is admittedly not looking for romance, not trying to romance anyone, and is currently in the middle of a character arc having to do with how pissed he is at Forever for not running the government in a way he approves, and then getting wrongfully jailed by Forever. I do not think BBH is in any way afraid of Forever as a person, but I do think BBH has concerns about what he may be forced to do in an attempt to get his children back. BBH as a character in general has very, very little regard for his own life, watch a pov of himself in a dungeon and just see how many totems pop, but he does care about his kids more than anything else in the world. The way his character goes about his care for his kids isn't something that often occurs in more masculine-presented characters like him either, frankly I think a lot of more ship oriented readings of him end up hyper-feminizing him* because of this "maternal" archetype.

In a return to Forever's saccharine performance of perfectionism, I find the moments Forever makes the both of them move across the rose field - The rose field, previously quite literally stained by blood as Etoiles had just finished another battle with the code there, tensions are running high and everyone is still distressed from the eggs going missing - I realize it's because cc!Forever ooc wanted to move to not have the chatbox be interrupted by other people speaking, but it's just so good thematically. He keeps moving to have a better view of roses. It's never perfect enough. They have to keep moving. They have to be alone. Nobody else is allowed to be around when he corners BBH with the marriage proposal. Nobody can get in the way.

Speaking of people interrupting, the other members appearing in the middle of the conversation adds to the fridge horror that's been subtly happening all the way through. Nobody pauses and makes sure BBH is okay throughout this scene, everybody is extremely sure that he is fine and can handle himself. The only person to even make a criticism of Forever is Etoiles, over being somewhat irritated that it looks like Forever has been doing little to nothing as President to aid new members or former islanders (despite this technically not being true, Etoiles has seen none of it, and has been giving new players items continuously in an effort to help them, as well as has had little time to do anything except fight code entities).

And then onto the rejection, BBH never agrees to the marriage at all, because why would he? I've seen quite a lot of discussion thus far that he doesn't reject Forever outright, but I disagree, it's a little moment in there, and I couldn't get it in the video posted itself, but he explicitly tells Pierre "there's not gonna be a wedding," and then is cut off by Forever. It's quiet, I don't think many people heard it outright, but BBH is right in his assertion Forever isn't in his right mind to be asking for marriage in the first place.

The other side of that, however, is that BBH is very well aware Forever didn't want to hear an outright rejection either. BBH knows what Forever is capable of, and he knows this version of Forever is not his usual self. It's not an easy situation, especially when he's fully under the impression Forever does have some power with the Federation, and fully believes the Federation has the eggs. Whether or not this is actually true doesn't really matter to Bad's perspective here, he's deadset in this belief. With that belief in mind, how is someone supposed to respond to being cornered about marriage - a concept he has little interest in - but the person cornering him is 1. known to be volatile due to recent events, 2. potentially has some form of contact to the people currently holding the eggs captive, and potentially put his children more at risk than they already are, 3. the literal only person in power on the island.

I don't think BBH ever believed he had the option to outright tell Forever no, he's in a depressed state as is, his kids might be dead for all he knows, and he has the impression Forever could bring harm to them.

Admittedly it is interesting how many outright untrue facts BBH holds onto, but cannot change his belief in them. His opinion and perspective of Forever is one thing, but it's much, much more obvious when he brings up the connection between the new Mysterioso and the previous masked person who gave the plans for Sofia to Maxo, those were two separate unknown figures as we know as the audience, but Bad does not know this, and does make assumptions and connect dots in his own right, tending to his own detriment. This is all intended here, he's wrong about Forever factually, but to his knowledge he's acting in the best way he can. He's under the impression Forever is just not telling the full truth to him about everything with the eggs disappearing, and believes the federation is lying. I think it's made even more obvious he's prioritizing the eggs over everything else here, especially with his final statement about Richarlyson. BBH believes the eggs are the only true way to every player's heart, and blatantly ignores the actual romance aspect of what marriage implies, because romance genuinely does not matter to him at all. He doesn't have time to worry about being in a relationship if his son might be dead.

Mostly, I find this scene to be a great relationship horror set up, because damn if I haven't been on dates like this, where I feel like I can't say no or something might happen. I understand the paranoia and anxiety surrounding q!BBH's mindset in the moment. It isn't a rational response by any means, no, but it is a very aggressively human response to this situation for a demon to have.

Basically, I don't think BBH is a fundamentally romantic character in the first place, nor do I think he'd ever be happy in a cutesy marriage position anyway, he never once responds romantically to any of this, and solely prioritizes the eggs, the final Richarlyson line cements this fact. It's not a dig at how Forever will never have BBH romantically - it's a dig at Forever based on what BBH's priority is, his kids.

*I want to be clear this statement is meant to be a neutral fact, it's just worth mentioning in an analysis like this that BBH as a character is more typically set on the feminine side by the fanbase, and how his character's interpretations are influenced by that reading.

[cyberdragoninfinity]

wild dana spotted howling and barking about yugioh arc-v out in the parking lot

oh BOY oh boy it's bout that time again. i can't believe it's been OVER A YEAR (?!?!?) since i last did one of these 'i just finished a yugioh here's my little rambly retrospective about it' posts but we are BACK!!! Finished my first ever watch-through of Arc-V last Tuesday after some 8 months of it putting me through the spin cycle and now as it's wedging itself permanently into my psyche i need to talk about its Everything or i will explode. so LET'S SWING INTO ACTION!!! I'M TAKING CONTROL OF THIS DUEL STARTING NOW!!!

[SPOILERS ahead for this decade old anime, of course]

WOW. YUGIOH ARC-V, HUH. before i started it watching it, I knew two things: A.) every single bit of knowledge I'd learned about it from Duel Links events or otherwise had me so, so, unbeliebable fucking hyped. I was absolutely certain this Yugioh was going to be so full of Danabait and completely fry my brain like an egg on the griddle. I had to physically restrain myself for TWO YEARS to keep from jumping the gun and watching Arc-V before I'd finished all the series before it (a decision I'm ultimately thankful for--Arc-V hits kind of fuckign crazy as a chaser to four other yugiohs.). And also, B.) when people Talk About Arc-V they always talk about it in a Very Particular Way. like. it's hard to describe. I feel like you know it when you see it. There is the full range of human emotion in the way people talk about Arc-V. People talk about Arc-V like its a confusing, malicious specter haunting their living room. And this admittedly got me even more hyped to watch it.

And then I watched it and here I am and I KNOW NOW. I KNOW NOW WHY PEOPLE. TALK ABOUT IT LIKE THAT. FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. SLASH POS. SLASH NEG. SLASH SECRET THIRD THING.

Arc-V is a fucking MESS. It starts out SO strong and then it starts setting plot threads on fire and writing conceptual checks it absolutely cannot cash. It falls down the narrative stairs like it has a goddamn death wish. It introduces 342052805 characters and then forgets to do anything with 99% of them. It does things to its girl characters that makes the back half of 5Ds's girl writing failure look like the height of feminist theory. If the stories I've heard about its deeply troubled production are any indication it is some kind of MIRACLE this show got made and aired at ALL. IT'S LIKE WATCHING A CAR WEAVING THROUGH TRAFFIC AT 90 MPH ONLY TO PLOW DIRECTLY INTO THE SIDE OF A PARTY CITY.

and goddamn if I didn't have a FUCKING BLAST watching it. GODDAMN IF I DIDNT HAVE SO, SO MUCH FUN. goddamn if Arc-V might very well end up being my FAVORITE yugioh out of ALL of them when all is said and done. WHOOOOOPSSS!!! 🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴

like. imo Zexal is absolutely from a quality/art direction/narrative/everything standpoint leaps and bounds better than Arc-V. Definitely one of my favorite cartoons I've ever seen period, and most people should give it a shot. Such a beautiful work of art. But Arc-V....... girl they put something In this one. My pre-show hype was absolutely warranted. This show is just one blast of Shit That Makes Dana Crazy after another. Every character absolutely delights me and is my best friend. I'm going to be losing my mind over Yugioh Arc-V for the rest of the year and maybe forever.

As usual I primarily watched the dub, with some sub episodes sprinkled in if I got tipped off about a big change, or just if I wanted to see what was going on back there. (glad I did, of course, for a number of reason--least of all that Arc-V's OPs and EDs are SO fun and so charming!!) (THOUGH SIDE NOTE: THE DUB OPENING SHREDS SO HARD IM SORRY. IT'S UP THERE WITH THE GX DUB OPENING FOR ME. CAN YOU FEEL THE FUCKING POWER!!!!!) Anyway, gotta say, really was blown away by this dub!! It's tied with Zexal for what's imo the 'best' yugioh dub--the majority of the voice performances were just fantastic (truly all the love in my heart for Michael Liscio Jr.'s performances as the yuboys, they all have such unique and charming voices and im OBSESSED WITH THEM.) and having watched some sub eps side by side with the dub it's really cool seeing a dub that genuinely tried to faithfully translate Most of the Original. idk it's just a really solid localization to me!! I loved it a lot!! ALSO IT'S EXTREMELY FUNNY. I SAY THIS ABOUT EVERY DUB BUT IT'S TRUE. there are line reads in the arc-v dub that have me SOBLAUGHING.

anyway. I like to do these little subsection breakdowns in these little retrospective roundups, so let's get into the weeds with it:

Stuff I Didn't Like: loooooooooong inhale through my nose. looks at you with mildly pained eyes. alright. let's get this one over with.

though I did really try to go in as blind as I could/avoid most spoilers with this one, I did inevitably get spoiled by some things from Duel Links, but in the case of. uh. Riley Getting Turned Back Into a Baby At the End. 👶🏼 I AM glad I had that spoiled for me, so I knew it was coming. Because if I didn't know that was going to happen and that clocked me over the head I would have been on the NEWS. I WOULD HAVE BEEN, SO MAD. HEY, YUGIOH: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼 WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO RILEY!!!!

"character gets permanently turned back into a baby for Critical Plot Reasons" has gotta be one of my LEAST favorite tropes in anything, it's NEVER GOOD. AND IT'S ESPECIALLY BAD HERE!!! Riley is such a good character, he's got such an interesting arc going on, and THEY JUST RIP THAT TO PIECES. SO RILEY'S JUST FUCKING GONE NOW I GUESS. COOL. ALRIGHT. SURELY THERE COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER WAYS TO DEFEAT ZARC. SURELY. just. good GOD. it was a small miracle to me when this happened like 8 episodes before the end, it was like ripping the bandaid off early, it was like "oh thank christ i got past that. ok well whatever happens it cannot possibly be as bad as the shit they did to riley"

^ (and imo it wasnt. thank GOD. actually let's talk about that)

LIKE. MAKE NO MISTAKE ARC-V'S ENDING IS CONFUSING AND CLUMSY AND SO STUPID AND NOT GOOD. WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH DOES THIS SERIES NEED EIGHT EPISODES AFTER ITS BIG BAD DUEL.WE COULD HAVE WRAPPED THIS UP IN 2-3!!!! it feels like watching Chopped and the contestant has 20 seconds on the clock left and theyre like "i gotta make my whipped cream" like WEEEE DONT NOT HAVE TIMEEE FOR THAT!!!!! WHAT ARE WE DOINGGGG. why are we dueling jack AGAIN. FOR TWO EPISODES. EVERYONE IS YELLING AT YUYA LIKE ALL OF THIS IS HIS RESPONSIBILITY AND FUCKING IS IT??!?!??! HE'S 14. AND THEN THOSE EPISODES HAVE THE GALL TO THROW SO MANY COOL IDEAS ON THE TABLE (Gong fully exploring dueltaining, the Dimensional Highway, etc) AND IT'S LIKE. COOL!! WISH WE COULDVE HAD THIS ANY OTHER TIME THAN THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND!!! WHAT ARE WE DOINGGGG

BUT all that being said, the way people talk about that fucking last episode I was expecting some genuinely godawful 'zuzu is yuyas mom again like in the manga' tier absolute nightmare scenario. i literally made a secret prediction chart of what insane plot twist i assumed the last episode was going to drop on me.

AND THEN THE LAST EPISODE WAS JUST. FUNNYBAD. just a run of the mill whimper at the end of eight episodes we KIND OF REALLY DID NOT NEED. THE SHEER AMOUNT OF RELIEF I FELT. like absolutely i think going into it completely blind/encountering that ending watching live I would have been pissed, folks are rightfully frustrated with it, but I WAS TRULY. EXPECTING MUCH WORSE. IT ENDS LIKE A FAKE TUMBLR POST. "AND THEN EVERYONE CLAPPED" ASS ENDING. I DO HAVE TO LAUGH

^ YIPPEEEE SIX CHARACTERS HAVE EFFECTIVELY STOPPED EXISTING YAAAAAYY (😬😬😬😬)

ALSO, IN GENERAL. SPEAKING OF. GOD. THE BRACELET GIRLS. YALL ARE SO COOL AND THEN POOR LULU AND RIN DIDNT GET TO DO A GODDAMN THING EXCEPT HAVE WORMS IN THEIR BRAINS!!!! HELL ON EARTH!!!!!! WHY DID THEY DO THATTTT GAHHHHH again!! show that introduces SO many characters, so many FUCKING COOL CHARACTERS, and then does NOTHING with them. Or hits them with PARALYZING NERVE GAS FOR 20 EPISODES. CHRIST!!! WHY DO ARC-V GIRLS SUFFER MORE THAN JESUS. LEAVE MY GIRL ZUZU ALONEEEEE

TO THAT END, ARC-V JUST MAKES; SO MANY CONFUSING CHARACTER DECISIONS. AND CHOICES. why is Yuto just out of the picture for like 60 episodes!!! Let him be Yuya's brain buddy!!! WHY WASNT HE. DID YOU NOT WANNA ANIMATE HIM FLOATING NEXT TO THE DUEL RUNNER??! BE REAL. It's like. GRAHHH In general Arc-V has a pacing problem that is like. Atrocious even for yugioh's bad pacing problems. This series needed to be 400 episodes long. I like the IDEA of a yugioh with a big cast, spending episodes cutting between different groups of characters like some kind of bulky YA fantasy novel, but in practice it got. Real Muddy. RIP Xyz dimension arc you shoulda had so much more to you. And then there's that combined with this way it's trying Really Really hard to ape the themes of the past yugiohs ('dont forget to have fun,' grief/moving on after loss, classism) but it's hitting every damn branch on the way down and just completely fumbling ALL of them, it's not actually doing much to Earn being able to have those kind of themes resonate properly. IT'S SUCH A BAFFLING SHOW. IN THE THEMES DEPARTMENT. AMONG OTHER THINGS. "DONT EVER BE VISIBLY PUBLICLY SAD" IS A FUCKING INSANE MORAL. AND IT TAKES THAT SHIT WITH IT TO THE BITTER END. WHY IS THE FATE OF THE WORLD HINGED ON YUYA MAKING A BABY LAUGH. WHERE AM I!!!!

god. god. ok. ok im calm now. im sure in the coming weeks i'll have more barking about arc-v's various fumbles. but i'll leave it at that for now, i wanna talk about stuff i DID like now lol

Favorite Season/Arc: ok well. this actually is a hard question. um. hrm. LIKE. I'LL GET SHOT BY SNIPERS IF I SAY IT WAS SYNCHRO ARC BUT ALSO

IM SORRYYYYYYYYYYYYY I GOT THAT DOG IN ME (A BACK HALF OF 5D'S LIKER'S SOUL.) and unfortunately I WILL go in there and think about it that hard (the absolutely fucked to hell sociopolitical situation happening in Arc-V New Domino City and how it contrasts with the NDC in 5D's) (one thing about me I love weird fucked up yugioh old people I love those bitchass old centrists apparently governing the entire dimension and doing a piss poor job of it it's just like contemporary American politics!!!!!!) ROGET WAS JUST REANIMATING DEAD PEOPLE AND PUTTING MIND CONTROL CYBERNETICS IN THEM AND WELL YEAH SURE I'LL BE NORMAL GRIP ABOUT THAT. NORMAL. i need to make an arc-v AU Aporia so fucking bad THEN YOULL ALL SEE *talking to empty room*

YES synchro was way too fucking long. but regretfully i love turbo duels and will never not be charmed when yugioh puts guys on motorcycles that have no business being on motorcycles. DAMN I JUST FUCKING WISH YUYA AND YUGO GOT TO ACTUALLY TALK AND MEET IN THE SAME ROOM THOUGH!!!! BUT ANYWAY!!!!

im. kidding at least a little, I actually thoroughly enjoyed like...all of Arc-V's seasons/arcs at least a little (barring a lot of the Weird Post Zarc Duel 8 Episode Dead Zone.) The first 50 episodes really are just peak banger Yugioh, I do love action duels to absolute bits (though Action Spells. Uh. Need Some Workshopping 8| If I See Evasion One More Time Im Gonna Lose It) and the shit especially that first season does with the crazy Action Fields is AWESOME. GENUINELY. GO DUEL IN THE VOLCANO. DO A FLIP. RIDE YOUR MONSTER. it's practically running on Pokemon universe logic i cant NOT love it. And well Fusion Dimension arc does just have a whole lot of episodes that make me go cuckoo bananas crazy. Truly something for Dana in every crevice of Yugioh Arc-V.

Favorite Characters: god I do think like a solid half of why I think Arc-V may be becoming my top fav Yugioh is that the cast is just, really Really fucking good. Like yes so many of them are underutilized but the time we Do get with them really just shows off what delightful characters they all are. Half the reason it took me so damn long to finish was I was having so much fun and was going to miss seeing them!! IT'S GENUINELY HARD TO PICK A TOP LINEUP OF FAVS. THERE'S SO MANY DANABAIT GUYS IN YUGIOH ARC-V. YES EVEN THE SYNCHRO ARC GUYS. LUCAS SWANK I MISS YOU SO FUCKING MUCH.

The Lancers alone are SO good, theyre up there with Team 5D's in terms of Favorite "Main Yugioh 'Friend Group'/Organization". Group of guys who kind of have horrible synergy and only like 3 of them are actually competent. Declan came up with it when he was 13. Funniest group of teenagers imaginable, I love them all. LIKE .YUYA MAY BE MY FAVORITE YUTAGONIST??? IM NOT SURE YET BUT. I DO LOVE HIM A LOT. HE'S A PATHETIC WET PAPER TOWEL AND I WANT TO GIVE HIM A NOOGIE. SLASH POS.

And I mean I'm always gonna be Z-one biased but I do like Zarc as a Big Bad a lot too... damn if I don't love Just Some Guy Has Become God and Is a Huge Tool About It <3 WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE THIS!!!!

ah. but. of course. i'd be remiss if i didn't bring up. Rainbow Carrot Rock Your World.

hey guys. why'd it happen again. why'd the Yugioh Carrot and Company get in my head and completely fry my brain AGAIN!!!!!!!! ORANGE CARROT. PURPLE CARROT. YELLOW CARROT!!!!🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕 YUGO ISNT EVEN MY TOP FAV BUT HE'S IN MY HEART AND IN OUR HOUSE FOREVER NOW. meanwhile i dont want. to talk about what yuri is doing to me. if i think too hard about this little purple freak i'll start going bonkers ballistic chewing my leg off. I like all the yuboys but he is especially. Gripping Me. La Cucaracha Loca. My shithead gay son.

dennis needs his own post he's just. a Lot. may very well be one of the funniest yugioh characters ever. Among Other Things. his dub VA's performance needs to be marked as culturally significant. AND THEY JUST KEPT BRINGING HIM BACK.

IN GENERAL, AS I WAS COMPLETELY EXPECTING, FUCKED UP AND EVIL DUEL ACADEMY REALLY DID ME IN I love you Fusion Dimension kids I love getting sick in the head thinking about card game child soldiers.My Actual favorite Arc-V character may just straight up be Sora..... I just like him a lot. He's got a really solid character arc, his deck rules, he's a little fucker AND an absolute real one. Just 10/10 little guy.

GOD WHAT EVEN IS MY TOP FIVE FAVORITES. UHHHH Okay Sora and Yuri for sure, and Declan, I love Declan. Yugo..... god. GOD IS THE FIFTH ONE DENNIS FOR REAL. I FEEL HIM IN MY BRAIN SO BAD. AAAAUUGHHHH (Runners Up: Yuya, Yuto, GONG MOTHERFUCKING STRONG!!!!!!, Rin my girl my badass mechanic girl IM ON MY WAY. I'LL THINK ABOUT YOU THAT HARD., Riley, Arc-V Aster unfortunately a Dana Guy ever. Why Is He Here. He Didnt Even Go to DA in GX. But all of this is subject to change in coming months as the entire cast continues to hit me with weapons. An honor and a privilege to induct these characters into my Blorbo Hall of Fame)

Favorite Duel: HEY QUICK QUESTION: WHY ARE ARC-V'S DUELS SO FUCKING WEIRD. LIKE. NARRATIVELY. There's like 4352984589 ties and duels that get cut short and DUELS WE JUST NEVER GET TO SEE THE FULL OUTCOME OF ON SCREEN?!?!? WHAT WAS GOING ON THERE. It feels like another symptom of arc-v just desperately trying to bite off more than it can chew 😭 Frustrating!! And god I LOVE the zaniness of Action Duels, but we neeeeeed to do something about Action Spells... GRABBING AN ACTION SPELL SHOULD NOT BE THE CRUTCH OF YOUR WHOLE DECK.........

coughs. anyway. My actual honest to god favorite Arc-V duel is Yugo vs. Celina in the Friendship Cup <3 IVE ALREADY TALKED ABOUT IT BEFORE BUT IT'S JUST SUCH A FUN ONE. It's got some great character moments on both sides, a yugioh girl Getting to Be Cool, the colors are gorgeous, it's SO funny, I just get such a kick out of it....I think part of what I Do like about the Friendship Cup is it really shows this sense of kinetic energy that the WRGP in 5D's really needed. I also really like the Shay vs. Dennis Friendship Cup duel for just going completely off the rails. Blow Up This War Criminal and The Whole Stadium With the Giant Bird Satellite Cannon. DOES NOT GET MORE YUGIOH THAN THAT!!

for all its weirdness Arc-V has a LOT of really fun duels that i enjoy--Shay vs. Sora is beloved for a reason, it also goes hard as hell. So many Season 1 duels are just a goofy blast, I really need to rewatch the quiz show one. For as much of an unnecessary mess as those last 8 episodes are, I DO really like Yuya and Dennis's duel too (THAT GETS REALLY REALLY GAY AT THE END???!?!? ARE WE ALL SEEING THIS.)

Hell even the Zarc duel started making me kind of sick in the head--watching Yuya's friends passing around his pendulum necklace while trying to save him makes me turbo emo WHAT CAN I SAY!!!

Arc-V also has the thing I had with Zexal where there's just some individual episodes that are absolute bangers for me. i love the Prison Break episode, it's fucking INSANE. HIP HIPPO SAID FUCK COPS FUCK THE PRISON SYSTEM!!! I love the episode where Gong and Dennis duel. FOR HOW LONG IT DID DRAG SYNCHRO HAS SOME REALLY FUN ONE-OFF EPISODES which I just really enjoy. Also love when Zuzu and Sora beat the shit out of a pack of cops. Based for that for real.

i do also love Yuri and Yuya's duel. Of course.

Other Miscellaneous Gushing/Shrieking/Losing My Mind About Yugioh Arc-V For Good and Bad and Everything in Between: arc-v arc-veeeeee yugioh arc-fiveeee theres just so MUCH. TO TALK ABOUT. THIS ONE'S GONNA BE IN MY HEAD FOR EONS I FEAR. THINKING ABOUT THE EVERYTHING. The sheer amount of narrative traits that make me specifically lose my mind (in a good way. as opposed to. the babyfication making me lose my mind. in a Real Bad Way :////) that they crammed into this. It's like digging in the treasure chest of elaborate fanfics I was writing in my brain in freshman year of high school. The Sick and Twisted Evil AU Version of Duel Academy. The Trained to Be Weapons Child Soldiers. Mind Control Reanimated Corpse Brain Chip. Alternate Dimension Selves. All of the Split Different Dimension Bullshit. Soul Splitting and Soul Fusion Framed as Fucking Terrifying. It's good I didn't have Arc-V growing up it would have been doing IRREVERSIBLE THINGS TO MY DEVELOPING CREATIVE BRAIN. INSTEAD IT'S DOING THEM TO ME NOW.

(side note, re: terrifying soul fusion: Arc-V is SO FUCKING SCARY SOMETIMES?!?? Like "ohh i wish yugioh was still a horror story" DAWG ARC-V ROUTINELY HAS SOME OF THE MOST DREAD-INDUCING CONCEPTS GETTING FLUNG AT YOU AT 90 MPH. SKIP BOYLE FORGETS HIS DAUGHTER EXISTED AND IT'S ONE OF THE MOST HEARTBREAKINGLY HORRIFYING THINGS IVE EVER SEEEEENNNNN )

The shit Arc-V does with Yugioh's themes of identity, these "when does a piece of yourself stop being you and start being their own person?" "what happens when multiple free standing people are one person" type ideas, you KNOW that makes my Aporia Turbofan ass go CRAAAZYYYY. AND THEN IT HAD RELIGIOUS MOTIFS TOO <3333 YOU'RE ME AND IM YOU AND IT DOESNT MATTER WHO DOES WHAT THE DEVIL WILL COME BACK REGARDLESS 😊💞💞💞

Arc-V takes such bold swings at things and 95% of the time it misses the ball entirely and spins up and out and directly into the fireplace but that 5% of sheer genius and thematic weight hits like a truck. Is Arc-V good? FUCK IF I KNOW. PROBABLY NOT. BUT ALSO YES IT IS. BUT ALSO IT'S NOT. BUT ALSO IT'S SOMETHING SO SPECIAL, AND I LOVE IT. That first like 50 episodes makes for such a good yugioh starter course tbh, the way it goes over different summoning methods and is very engaging and energetic, and then the rest of the show is an 18 car pileup of Card Game War that makes me automatically like DONT. START WITH THIS ONE. WATCH ANOTHER YUGIOH OR TWO FIRST AND THEN COME MELT YOUR BRAIN IN HERE. AND THATS SUCH A WEIRD DICHOTOMY TO HAVE WITH ONE YUGIOH. weird like everything else with arc-v i suppose. :,)

For all the mess and all the madness there truly is so much I love, though. I love the character dynamics, even when the show isnt doing much more with its cast--Yuya and Gong's friendship may be one of my favorite 'yutag and best friend' bonds, it's SO sweet and I'm going to be mad forever that Gong isn't more popular in western ygo fandom. I love the DUEL MONSTERS!! Performapals are SOOOO sillygoofy I have to adore them, the dimensional dragons all kick so much ass I love you Clear Wing my big legless weirdo. I love Shay's increasingly bigger Bird Guns. I LOVE FRIGHTFURS!!!! I LOVE D/D/DS!!!!! SO HAPPY TO SEE THEM ON ESPECIALLY SCREEN AFTER PLAYING THEM FOR MONTHS IN DUEL LINKS. MY FREAKY DECLAN DEMONS. I love the miscellaneous callbacks to past iconic monsters and funky weird AU retrains of the Legacu character's decks. Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend my friend Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend

I also do love that Arc-V in theory is trying very hard to be a celebration of past Yugiohs, but it's also instead being completely fucking insane with its 'tributes.' Oh you like Heartland City from Zexal? It's a carpetbombed warzone now! LIKE... HUH!!! When Lazar showed up at the end of season 2 i SCREAMED. I WANT TO KNOW THE LOGIC OF THESE CHOICES. THEY DONT MAKE ME MAD OR ANYTHING REALLY IM JUST FASCINATED BY THEM. i cant really be too angry at arc-v I'm just. transfixed. at every baffling choice it's ever made. I've really truly never seen a show that's so thoroughly felt like some kids doing a roleplay on a forum somewhere, players dropping in and out and mods not really knowing what to do with the lore anymore as things become more and more convoluted. I watch arc-v scenes and i can picture the text RP in my head, the players' forum signatures and all. It's truly some kind of feat to achieve that inherent vibe, that's for sure.

ok im running out of steam i think... what else. god. Yugioh Arc-V is just.... such a teetering Jenga tower of a show, a complete nuclear meltdown of clumsy writing and fantastic vocal performances (dub and sub) and confused handling of its own lore and occasionally some of the fucking coolest most intense expressions and gorgeous shots of any yugioh

I held out on watching it for so long cuz i just fuckin KNEW it was going to grab me by the brain and swing me into the wall and WELL!!! I WAS RIGHT!!!! SHES A MESS BUT SHES MY MESS BABEYYY!!! IS ARC-V GOOD? MAYBE NOT BUT, BROTHER, I FUCKIN LOVE WHEN YUGIOH IS BAD ❤ ive been a disciple of Bad Yugioh for 20 goddamn years and im not stopping now!!!!! I love you Pendulum summoning you insane busted ass mechanic. I love you all four completely fucked up dimensions. I love that they localized Maiami to Paradise City. I love the little nods to past yugioh things (like fusing with a motorcycle <3 Primo Moment...2!) I hate you Leo Akaba explode and die forever (though 'parent going mad trying to bring their child back' do also go me a little bananas.) I love the kickass shots of Yuya's monsters being set in the pendulum scale.I love Sora's relationship with Yuya and Zuzu. I love every fucked up crazyass expression Yuri makes. I love the sense of character design in this show. I love the Action Duel start chants. I love seeing the Synchro Math again and the Overlay Units and the deeply unsettling fusion hand gesture kids use with Polymerization. I love that third ED thats just the Lancers dicking around in different locations and having fun. I love Declan and Riley's complicated but deeply loving bond. I love when characters RIDE THEIR DUEL MONSTERS!!! AND I LOVE THAT DESPITE EVERYTHING I ALREADY WANNA SEE THESE CHARACTERS AGAIN. THEYRE MY FRIENDS!!!!! THEYRE IN MY BRAIN!!!!! MY KIDSSSSS

I KNOW NOW. WHY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT ARC-V LIKE THAT. AND IM ABOUT TO START TALKIN LIKE THAT TOO. YUGIOHHHHHH!!!!!

[aakaneeee]

ROUND 26: AKANE VS. TOV

Everything is shaking. Around her, nothing is clear anymore, lines blurring like watercolor, colors dissipated as if they were particles of dust, the blinding lights shining between the clouds. She can barely hear: everything is loud, too loud, and it's ringing in her ears like the buzzing of a thousand muttering aliens. It feels like they are judging her: no, them. Her opponent was no different: they both had the same fate of losing everyone in the blink of an eye.

If she dies, Naz will go crazy. She'd change completely. She sees her as pure: or at least, purer than her. She doesn't want that to change. If she survives, the next round won't give her certainty. It's something she's learned long ago: in this competition, tomorrow is never certain. She never knows what will happen. She just wants to rest: bury herself in the comfort of something soft, like a cloud, be softly illuminated by stars so as not to be left in complete darkness, and of course, stay together with Naz: forever. And know that eternity is promised.

But no: never has she considered a life where everything is perfect. It's out of her league, out of her possibilities. The heavy fog around her life will never rise. She's older than most contestants, she'd know best escape is impossible.

No.

Escape is possible.

But not for her.

Never for her.

Beneath the muffled sounds of still playing instrumentals, that were already blending in her ears, she hears the scores tallying. She doesn't dare to look back: she's afraid of what she'd see. She wants to die not knowing what is happening to her, if she loses. The sound of the verdict calculating is foreign to her compared to her opponent. Her second round was stopped because of a double kill, and she was left without the experience. It feels new to be on the stage, despite not being.

Her eyes gently closed, sparkly white makeup in it's full glory, adorned by the stage lights. Her performance was good. Was it good enough? She could almost feel Kiba's scrutinizing gaze on her. They were already upset with her, because she cut her hair without permission and mauled the original dress she was given, choosing her own white gown, like a bride to the altar, like a corpse to the funeral. It could mean anything. Nothing and everything at once. It would start up controversies: perhaps that's what her owner wanted her to do anyways. She's already brought them enough fame. And unfortunately, their mannerisms got to her. She's even chosen a calm song. But no: it was for her own peace of mind. It felt like the lyrics were familiar, like a warm embrace of her lover, guarding her from the scarred world.

I promise you, soon, the autumn comes.

She reached for her pocket. Just in the case. Her finger placing itself oh so gently onto the trigger.

To steal away each dream you keep.

The sound stopped, foreshadowing the announcement.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Curiosity killed the cat.

And so, her face fell. 50/50, huh?

Anything can happen. But she knows what will. And she knows what she wants.

She begins walking: slow, but long purposeful strides along the stage, down the stairs, her eyes stuck to a certain someone. They escaped for too long: death was imminent. She didn't want to go down alone, so simple. Everyone should have imagined that an "ANAKT honor student" would not fall without a fight. No, it wasn't a fight. Because she knew she was about to win everything she wanted, and yet, lose it all, too. She didn't have anything except Naz and her own life, anyways.

The muttering and surprised gasps of the public grew dead silent as a gun was pointed towards guardian Kiba's head. She wanted to do it with a straight, unfeeling gaze, but the ominous tie had put her under pressure. She would've much rather to just lose with a small score, than be in the hands of fate. Fate was never on her side. Between rapidly falling tears, she realized she's not ready to die. There weren't many things waiting for her. But there was one, that was worth millions. She will anyways, so at least she should do something for the upcoming humans that would be put in a disgusting adoption center.

And she pulled the trigger.

Gasps rose again, but she didn't hear them for long, as her own fated bullet pierced through her skull. Blood gushed, and she fell to the ground, her dress' veil flowing gracefully behind her, as if it were a ghost, as if it were a star's tail when it falls out of the sky.

"I love you, Naz."

And so, a shooting star was born.

'A shooting star's meaning is the end of the beggining. Some say, it's a sign of humility, others, that it's about the vastness of the Universe. But for her, it was always the same thing. Even though it's falling, it's up in the sky, like a celestial being, and is a sign of undying love. And yet, the differences in between make such an arduous affection impossible.'

@sotogalmo @nottoonedin @junebluues @billwasnot @paradisedisconcert @4listr @lookatmysillies @solei-eclipse @apriciticreveries @ivanttakethis

[shunin-gumis]

Designs of Happiness - Track A20

L4mps Main Story Translation

Title: ep.4 Night of that school

Characters: Netaro

Summary: One night, at the old school building, Netaro asks a certain boy the meaning of the word ‘loneliness’.

Thank you aca @463ce6, myun @/myuntachis Niri @/Niri_riri and jes @/arcanecrayonn for helping me with proofing!

Location: Asunaro High School - Old School Building

Boy: No way! You’re telling me you can look like Ryo Furusawa?

Netaro: Hoi.

Boy: WOAH!! THAT’S CRAZY! AND HANDSOME!

Netaro: Mwehehe~

Boy: Oh, you’re back to your old face.

Netaro: I’m quite fond of this visage now, you see.

Boy: Ohh, so you feel some attachment too, huh? Is it modeled after someone?

Netaro: A dash of mysteriousness from Timothy Kalamet, a pinch of pretty from Lee Dohyen, a dollop of beauty from Anya Taylor-Hey and just a teensy bit of Yo Nakaizumi for that secret sauce.

Boy: That’s a crazy combination! Not to mention they’re all super characteristic! And you’ve even included a woman! 

Netaro: I picked them after consuming many movies and dramas. Isn’t my taste quite excellent~?

Boy: Well, I guess I can’t deny that… 

Netaro: You’re uncertain?

Boy: Well, you could always just turn back to Ryo Furusawa whenever you want, right? Maybe even give Tori Umesaka a try, too!

Netaro: Hm~ I suppose I could throw them into the mix next time!

Boy: Looks really are important for a first impression though, huh? Like, people don’t even bother with you if you don’t look good enough… 

Boy: You’d never have to worry about that yourself, Netaro. You’d be popular forever!

Netaro: Popular… 

Boy: Yeah! Being popular sure is nice… I was a little popular when I was on the reserve team too y’know?

Netaro: What is this “popular” that you speak of? 

Boy: Huh? Oh… It means being liked by a lot of people!

Netaro: Being favored by a lot of people… Is that what you desire? 

Boy: Everyone wants that!

Netaro: Everyone!? The entire human race wishes to be “popular?”

Boy: That reminds me, you’ve read all those books I borrowed from the library, right?

Boy: Like, you’re so fast I can’t even borrow enough to keep you occupied!

Netaro: Indeed!

Boy: How come you don’t know what being popular means when you’re so smart? …Haha, it’s kinda funny, actually.

Netaro: I have only just comprehended the fact that being “popular” means to be favored.

Netaro: But, why do you desire to be “popular”?

Boy: That’s… because it’d be lonely otherwise. 

Netaro: Lonely.

Boy: Don’t tell me… you don’t know what “lonely” means either? 

Netaro: I do! “Lonely” is a word that appears very often. In fact, it appeared in the novel I last read too!

Netaro: Here, this one. “Schoolgirl.”

Netaro: “I stood in a corner of that dim kitchen, stunned, feeling so lonely that I could die—”

Netaro: Are humans truly driven to death when they feel lonely? The definition in that dictionary of yours did not satisfy me.

Boy: “I go on about saying how pained and tormented, how lonely and sad I feel, but what do I really mean by that?”

Boy: Dazai was fond of this work.

Boy: Netaro… Do you simply not feel lonely? If that’s the case, you probably won’t understand… 

Netaro: Something I can’t understand! Ahahaha! As someone who was pushed away for being too knowledgeable, this is quite the exciting turn of events!

Netaro: Do enlighten me on what “lonely” means, and how does it poison a human to the point of death? I simply must know!

Boy: Huh? …You want me to explain?

Netaro: You are not popular right now, is that not so? And you cannot help but feel lonely as a result of that. 

Boy: …… 

Netaro: Then, is it not possible for you to teach me what it means?

Boy: Oh… Um… 

Netaro: Why do you desire this popularity? What is the root cause of this desire? Why is it something that humans cannot help but desire!?

Netaro: Tell me tell me tell meeeee~!

Boy: B-B-Becau–

Boy: Because I want to be loved! 

Netaro: Oh-hoh! You want to be loved! In other words, if you are not loved, you will feel lonely?

Boy: That’s right! Being loved by someone, thinking about each other first thing, feeling like I was born to meet this person… I want to love and be loved! 

Boy: If not, there’s no way I’d ever be satisfied with life… 

Boy: Ugh… this is so embarrassing! Don’t make me say it out loud, geez!

Netaro: And why is your face turning red now? 

Boy: I’m still going through puberty, okay…

Netaro: Eureka! I have made a connection between the words “love,” “lonely,” and “satisfaction.”

Netaro: I’m certain I’ve read somewhere that humans feel well and happy when they sense they are loved, which in turn leads to satisfaction… 

Netaro: I believe it was this book… 

*flipping pages*

Netaro: ”When humans feel happy, the hypothalamus secretes various brain chemicals, such as serotonin.”

Netaro: “Adrenaline, endorphin, GABA, and counting—over a hundred brain chemicals are secreted. Among them, one named oxytocin is responsible for feelings of love and connection," It’s this passage right here.

Boy: Huh… 

Netaro: Hmhm~ When humans interact with one another, love, and feel loved in return, the brain releases the hormone known as oxytocin. 

Netaro: That is supposedly when they achieve a feeling of happiness.

Boy: Oh, okay… That kind of flew over my head though… 

Netaro: However.

Netaro: Love comes in many forms such as romantic, platonic, or familial. Amongst these, romantic love is one that relies on dopamine release. 

Netaro: This dopamine, also known as the happy hormone, will diminish unless one is continuously exposed to stronger stimuli. Most addictions, such as dependency on alcohol, can develop due to the diminishing nature of this hormone. 

Netaro: The same can be said of love! The dopamine secreted from engaging in romantic relations enters its phase of decline around the two to three month mark. After three years, it will completely dwindle! 

Netaro: This is what is called “the three-year itch” in layman’s terms!

Boy: I-I don’t really get it– Are you saying that romantic feelings disappear after three years…?

Netaro: Indeed! According to neuroscience, it is simply impossible to rely on romantic feelings to generate happiness infinitely. 

Boy: N-No way!!

Netaro: …Hence! I recommend you pursue platonic or familial bonds - their value will not degrade over time, meaning that such bonds will continue to produce oxytocin for you. I believe this is what will lead you to accomplish your true desire. 

Boy: Platonic and familial love… 

Netaro: In that case, you will no longer feel lonely. 

Boy: …Yeah, you really are cool, Netaro. 

Boy: I was so moved you made me speechless, hehe.

Netaro: I am a genius after all~

Boy: Yep, yep. 

Netaro: But… 

Netaro: Humans do not try to understand the science that occurs in their very bodies and instead torment themselves and end up feeling lonely… 

Netaro: In some cases, they even drive themselves to their own deaths.

Netaro: Despite possessing intelligence that is quite a rarity to find in the Milky Way galaxy, you are quite the silly little creatures! Haha!

Boy: Ahaha! You’ve got a point there!

Netaro: Eureka! Yet another revelation! 

Netaro: How about I compound oxytocin and cram it into you, in place of your hypothalamus!?

Boy: Whaa— No way, that sounds too scary! Hahaha! 

Netaro: Not to worry, for I am a genius! It won’t take too long! 

Boy: Stop it already! Hahaha!

Boy: …Phew.

Boy: Hey, Netaro. 

Netaro: What is it, Ono?

Ono: …Can we do it next week? Making me disappear, that is. 

Netaro: Hm~? Didn’t you say that last time as well? 

Ono: …… 

Netaro: Not a problem.

Netaro: If we are to do it, it’s preferable to pick a day when the stars are visible. 

Notes:

The celebrities mentioned in this chapter are: Ryo Furusawa = Ryo Yoshizawa Tori Umesaki = Tori Matsuzaka Timothy Kalamet = Timothée Chalamet  Lee Dohyen = Lee Dohyun Anya Taylor-Hey = Anya Taylor-Joy Yo Nakaizumi = Yo Oizumi

Schoolgirl by Osamu Dazai

Three year itch

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Masterlist

[8myass]

.. valentine .. pairing. jeong yoonoh/jaehyun x female reader genre. angst pov. second person (you, yours, yourself, etc.) (‘y/n’ usage) synopsis. he’s not prepared to let you go just yet.  wc. 0.6k cw. yandere!jaehyun, husband!jaehyun tw. mentions death, murder of a family member, delusional jae, mentions divorce a/n. fourth work for jae’s bday!! i have a love hate relationship with this honestly.

You had realized very early on in your relationship with Jaehyun that he was a bit… unhinged? I mean, to say the least. He had threatened to kill someone who you once talked to because he had suspicions they had a thing for you, so you were forced to stop talking to them, afraid of what your possessive and only slightly crazy, at the point you had thought it was only slight, husband was capable of, given that you hadn’t seen this side of him before that incident. He hid your keys the day you told him you were leaving to go out with friends, even knowing exactly who these friends were. You even saw him laughing at the television that displayed an image of one of your male friends who you had just seen the day before, Jaehyun hadn’t approved of you going to see him, taking that into consideration, it still made your blood run cold every time you think of what he said while still laughing, pointing at his picture as he talked over the news lady describing in full detail the way he had died, “Shouldn’t have went out with him yesterday, huh?”

This Valentine’s Day didn’t feel as romantic as the last one. You have been married to Jaehyun for a little over a year now. You met him through a mutual friend, which Jaehyun had made you cut off as well, ironic enough, because he’s the only guy you’re allowed to talk to. You were positive he would go all out, just like he did the last Valentine’s Day you shared. But you, however, had something extra special for him.

He had walked into the kitchen that morning, smiling when he saw a pretty pink envelope signed with his name. He walked over to it to pick it up, opening it smoothly and pulling out the folded slip of paper. He unfolded it, reading it aloud; “Happy Valentine’s Day. I’d like a divorce.”

As soon as he read those first two sentences, he nearly crumpled the letter in his hands, but he continued, “I’m staying at my mom’s tonight, my things will be out by the end of the day tomorrow so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“No,” he growled, somehow finding his way out the front door, winding up standing in the living room of your mom’s house, blood splattered all over the once-white walls. He had only just realized that maybe he went a little crazy when he saw you walk through the door with your work bag slung over your shoulder, a fearful look appearing soon on your face, eyes filled with terror. 

“Wh-what did you do?” you stuttered out, looking at the lifeless body of your mother lying on the floor by his feet. 

He sighed deeply as he slowly walked over to your shaking figure, “You’re not leaving me.”

You took a few steps away from him, avoiding his piercing gaze as you trembled with horror. You were scared of him now, there was no doubt about that. 

“Why?” you choked out, tears bubbling in your eyes. You wanted to run away from him, but you couldn’t just leave your mom there with him. He’d probably dispose of her in a cruel and unusual way or he’d paint her out to be suicidal, like he’s done in the past with those he killed for you. 

“The moment you abandon me like that will be your last,” he smiled sweetly, hand reaching out so a gentle palm was pressed onto your cheek, causing you to flinch, eyes shutting tightly which allowed tears to fall out, “Because it’s either you’re mine now and forever or mine never and always.”

[rita-repulsa-ke]

The Reveal

Agatha feels a sudden bitterness welling in her chest, remembering her coven fastening her to a stake.

Teach me, she had begged. Please, teach me! Help me control it!

Instead, they’d chosen to die. Maybe Rio would like the same choice.

Technically a sequel to First Meeting, but you don't need to have read it. Agatha finds out Rio's true nature in the most Agatha way possible, by trying to get Rio to kill her.

After the first time they have sex, Agatha almost doesn’t say it, that’s how good Rio is in bed. But in her experience, it isn’t a good idea to drag these things out. Not that she’s worried about getting attached, but Rio is canny, as well as sexy and a little crazy. She’ll figure it out, if she hasn’t already, and so it's better for Agatha to get what she wants as soon as possible.

So she sits up, stretches lazily, runs her tongue over sore, bitten lips and says, “Wow, you are really shit in bed.”

She does get a thrill out of the way Rio’s eyes, half-closed, sated with pleasure, snap open to stare at her. Less thrilling is the way the other woman bursts into ear-splitting hysterics. “Liiiiies,” she says, scrambling to sitting to catch Agatha’s mouth with hers. It is a kiss akin to a final showdown, pistols at dawn, a duel to the death. Agatha returns it with equal ferocity, seduction is a battleground she rarely loses at, but for once, she finds that she's overmatched, left melting under the unmistakable hunger in the other woman's kiss.

It's a battle she almost doesn't mind losing.

Rio pulls back, leaves her with bruised, bitten lips and aching for more. “You’re going to have to pick a better insult than that,” Rio purrs, watching her half-lidded and smug. “You weren’t exactly quiet.”

Agatha feels her cheeks heat. “Fine. My turn, then," she says and leans down to kiss Rio.

She sees the other woman ready to meet it with force, do battle with tongue and teeth, but Agatha meets instead her with spun-sugar sweetness, delicate as a butterfly’s wing, slightly parted lips and shared breath, her hand cupping Rio's cheek like the other woman were the most precious thing in the world.

And she’d thought so before, but when she breaks the contact, she’s sure. Her new toy likes that so much. She's watching Agatha with blown pupils, her breathing coming in short, sharp bursts. "…Do that again," she whispers.

“Here, darling, let me,” Agatha purrs, savoring the power in this, as she does it over and over again, kisses as sweet as honey, soft as satin. She moves closer and pulls Rio against her, fingercombs her hair. Kisses Rio on the nose once and this is not her kind of interaction at all, she really prefers it rougher and hungrier, sex instead of affection, but the reaction makes it worth it—she’s got a trembling pile of green witch in her arms and once again, she contemplates waiting, savoring this a little longer.

But the longer you held on, the worse it was when it ended.

So she pulls back, looks into those beautiful eyes and prepares to blow it all up. “You like that, huh? No one ever nice to you? Stick with me, and I can take good care of you,” she purrs, one finger prodding Rio’s cheek. “You can be my dog.”

The other woman sighs deeply, like a sleeper being disturbed in the midst of an amazing dream. “Okay, Agatha, have it your way.”

Some part of Agatha is a touch disappointed. It would have been nice if it had lasted just a teensy bit longer.

But relationships are short-lived and power is forever.

Rio’s power blasts toward her, jagged black and green, and that’s more like it, there’s so much of it and it can all be hers—

Except when she reaches for it, her lungs lock up in her chest, her heart stops mid-beat and she’s aware of what’s happening for the space of single breath before the the electrical activity in her brain stutters to a halt.

When she jerks back to life, her heart banging around in her chest like a prisoner trying to escape, it's to Rio’s banshee shriek of a laugh. “Whoops,” the green witch says, watching Agatha doubled over, sobbing for breath, more aware of her lungs than she's ever wanted to be. “Too much for you, baby?”

“How did you do that,” Agatha gasps.

Rio reaches out and ruffles her hair, which Agatha would normally protest to, but she's busy re-experiencing what it is to be alive. “That’s your first question?”

“No. My first question is, can you teach me to do that?”

Rio stills, stares at her with something uncomfortably like delight, entirely the wrong emotion for this conversation. “I can’t.”

Agatha feels a sudden bitterness welling in her chest, remembering her coven fastening her to a stake.

Teach me, she had begged. Please, teach me! Help me control it!

Instead, they’d chosen to die. Maybe Rio would like the same choice.

She summons her magic to her, staticky purple threat dancing through the air. “Reconsider,” she says, a nasty smile crawling across her face.

“Agatha. Not I won’t. I can’t,” Rio says, gentle, patient. “Look.”

She drops the mask and Agatha’s power dissipates as she gapes, open-mouthed, at Death.

“Oh,” she says. “You’re beautiful.”

When Rio asks about this later, Agatha will deny saying it, but now she is utterly entranced by the sheer beauty of Death. She’s killed so many, but she’s never realized how breathtaking a part of the natural order could be.

Death looks mildly startled, then her skeletal features curve into a tranquil expression, the promise of a peaceful end. “You are never quite what I expect," she says, her voice a sepulchral whisper that raises the hair on Agatha's arms, but in the best way possible.

In response, Agatha leans up and kisses her, a brush of her lips over Death’s, chaste, even a bit overawed.

“…That was also really mean,” Rio adds after a number of heartbeats, each of which Agatha appreciates getting to have. “What you just said.”

Agatha snorts, more like herself. “Well, I was trying to get you to blast me. Being mean is kind of the point.”

“Still, maybe at least apologize before demanding I teach you all my secrets?”

“Should I? You did kill me over it, though. That seems like a decent enough revenge.”

”Other people might be afraid."

Agatha meets Death’s eyes and now there’s no awe, only Agatha, the smile on her lips certain to the point of madness. “I am not other people.”

Rio’s breath catches, and her mask falls back into place. Agatha isn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. “Agatha Harkness…” Rio says, and there it is again, completely unwarranted affection verging on adoration in the other woman’s eyes. No one has ever looked at Agatha like that before.

She doesn't exactly hate it.

“So what now?” Agatha asks, curling closer, pressing a kiss to the corner of Rio’s lips, playing with her fingers.

“You promised me bodies."

“I did.” Not crazy after all. Something far more interesting. “And I will provide.”

“Then I guess you’re stuck with me,” Rio murmurs.

“How will I live?” Agatha says, her smile playful, seductive. "You know, come to think of it, I was very mean to you before. Let me make it up to you."

As she leans forward and kisses Rio properly, taking her time with it, intent on making Death swoon, it occurs to her that she can't kill this one, that she might really be stuck with her. Of course, eventually she would leave on her own, when she got tired of Agatha. Everyone did.

But, a treacherous thought whispers in the very back of her mind, what if she stays?

If you haven't, consider reading the Ritual of the Rose, now on AO3. Or, for fluff, try Flirting or for more of Agatha having issues, try rio stays

[stillchuunya]

Rite Here Rite Now thoughts and reactions (spoilers below)

The performance:

-> Twenties live?? The dancers? loved them! I waited to hear Twenties Live like crazy! I do wish we could hear Swiss louder with the whispers...

-> I need that acoustic rendition of If You hHave Ghosts... the ghoulettes were amazing

-> I refuse to believe that Tutti Frutti nailed that one jump towards the end of the performance, what the heck?!

-> The searchlights in the Watcher in the Sky!

-> the use of lights to accentuate Satan's names! YES! It felt so right, it felt so cool, I loved that! Satanic imagery whenever his name was mentioned? YESSS They play fewer and fewer songs from the early albums so I wish they make some new songs that just go LU-CI-FEEER

-> The ghouls looked so good! But there was so little of Swiss :( I wanted to see him go crazy and move those hips. I caught a glimpse of him once or twice but I believe they never focused on him for long enough to let him shine. It's a pity because I love watching him!

-> I thought there would be a long scene of us getting ciriced but it was just a few moments? still cool, just a bit short

-> People are saying that the skeletons were actually people with body paint, and I fully believed that it was a body suit :0 I noticed their breasts looked good but??? how did I miss this (I do have an eyesight problem but I thought it wasn't that bad haha)

The rest:

-> the sass between Nihil and Seestor was so good? Loved seeing their interactions

-> They EMBRACED the 'Scooby Doom', the 'Scooby Doo Chase Music' allegations, the MOAC animation was surreal as heck. Tobias saw our jokes and said 'hold my communion wine and watch this'

-> We got an exclusive footage of a Papa Sock, do not confuse with the DeFroque Soq. We saw the Obscene Annointed Foot.

-> Papa literally dissociates backstage :')

-> The twins? Seestor having twins?? There were two kiddos frollicking on a field loool and I always thought that Copia felt like he had a sibling or a twin but I thought it was just a crack theory!

-> I want Ashley's job

-> The twins played by Toblerone's kids are dead apparently and I doubt it will ever be explained xD

-> There was only one fart joke and I anticipated like 3 at least

->I remember seeing this meme

and let me tell you it's 100% true he does not, it's just for comedic effect and I love it, people got high fives from him and I was so jealous

-> the balloon part was so confusing and funny and the way he was actually faceplanted on the floor the whole time broke me

-> I made a joke about how maybe they'll get rid of Seestor due to all the issues they had with her actresses but there she is, transparent and glowing. they can't explain further changes with plastic surgery anymore lol

-> Copia in a position of actual power? HUH

-> He has his Cardinal makeup back!! We went to the movie wearing this exact pattern and we were so happy to see it on screen <3 And his whole new outfit is lit, I am forever in love with his Cardinal Era clothes so this one was a Treat

-> Copia was babied so much in this movie and it was just what I needed for my soul, do not @ me

-> The pentagram below Nihil and Seestor gives me hope for a certain theory the fandom likes a lot?? why was it there

-> New song good!!!

-> also, Nihil's speech seems to be a homage to all the dead performers we know and love, especially the ones Tobias looks up to and gets inspiration from and I could feel his sadness in that speech, ok. I think he wishes to be able to entertain people after his own death just like them, he wants people to play Ghost in 50 years when he's most likely dead and feel their taints tickled. I am tearing up. Life is scary and sad but I have ghosts, right?

Overall it was a very sweet and gentle way to ease the fandom into the next stage and a new Papa, which we have been opposing vehemently for the past year or so. Tobias is a softie and knows his fandom better than I expected, tbh.

[ravetillyoucry]

PUPARIA

Chapter 8 - Rain

prev - chapter 1

"Huh." Hosah stood over the dirtied, coffee-stained notebook page that sat in-front of him.

His assistant leant in uncomfortably closer, his brain left to wonder what the hell it said for far too long by now, "Well, can you make it out?"

The shifter kissed his teeth, unsure whether to tell the truth and have to read all what it said out loud, or if he should keep the team waiting until somebody else had interpreted and written it up in an email.

"No, no yeah, pretty much." To be fair, he wasn't sure of a couple of ink-smudged words, but as long as he got the gist of it, that would be enough to move the case forward.

As eyes of anticipation bore into him, Hosah realised now was probably the time to start reading. With a heavy sigh, slightly contemplating what he'd gotten himself into, he began;

"You fucking vermin. You don't know me, and frankly, I don't really know you either, but I know enough to come up with the conclusion, that you're all, fucking leeches. People worry about the rats that scurry all around the city, in the subway station, in the trash and down the dark alleyways, but the real fucking rats are right in front of us."

Eugh. Cliche. Boring. All the other adjectives Hosah couldn't quite think of right in that moment,

"But, I've found myself growing fond of you. Watching you from afar. I find myself both loving you, and hating you. The lines have blurred by now. I understand you are human, or at least, that is what you parade yourself around as, but honestly, I'm not too sure you're anything at all. Completely devoid of life. Just an empty pit of nothing hiding in a cold, flesh shell. I see you sitting alone at bars on a Friday night, and I have to really stop myself from sitting down next to you, buying you a drink, taking you home with me, keeping you forever. But I'm not that selfish. Maybe later. You make me furious, because I love you. And I shouldn't, that's what you want, after all, you act cute and helpless, vulnerable and fragile, that's what draws everyone in, you've got that ginger prick hanging on your every word, and look at you. Hot and cold, nothing that you say is what you really mean, you work people up just to run away when they start to act on feelings they thought were returned. It's cruel. But, I can be crueler. We would've made the perfect pair, if you didn't drive me so crazy. You're going to be the death of me, Hosah Seung Levi. And the death of many, many others. I don't know, see how I feel once this gets to you. Let's talk more over drinks next time, though."

Ew. Was this really the type Hosah attracted? Serial killer stalkers? I mean, sounded about right. Some of the note seemed pretty heartfelt, some downright offensive, and some offensively corny. If the whole murder aspect wasn't the main thing that put him off, it'd be the cheesy way they spoke about him.

"I've never even told anyone my middle name." The shifter's voice shook, clearly disturbed by the contents of the letter, despite not wanting to admit to being so.

Teddy leant back in his chair, hands rubbing his face in disgust, not saying a word, just groaning endlessly.

"Man." The giant pushed himself forwards again, eyes fixated on the paper, "Got ourselves a next level freak."

If you were to listen closely, a small, unsettled 'Hmm' could be heard from the tiny man sitting before the sheet. There was so much information to rack his brain on. Hosah hadn't even been to the bar in weeks, meaning this killer had been at the whole stalking game for a while now. He wondered if it was just the fifteen they were guilty of, or if years worth of unsolved homicides were all on their hands. Maybe he'd have to take up the offer to chat over drinks, just to pry all of this information out of the twisted individual with his bare hands.

He wondered about what specifically he’d done to attract this kind of attention. If anything, the shifter thought he’d been keeping his head down lately, staying out of trouble, but it seems the more he tries to avoid these kinds of people, the more attracted to him they become.

The contents of the note echoed in his head, everything else becoming white noise. Vermin he could handle, Rat he’d heard a million times before, but there was something far, far more hurtful about the brutal reality of the situation;

Whoever wrote this, was completely right.

Thinking back to how he’d previously behaved, his cold attitude towards Teddy for no other reason than he felt threatened that there was an off chance of him opening himself up to someone again. It was all true. Sure, Hosah wasn’t a serial killer of any kind, but god did he have it in him to be cruel.

Hit with an unexpected punch in the gut from a little something called shame, the shifter couldn’t help but hang his head down, letting out a troubled sigh,

"Should send this all off to the police. Let them know about the painting and shit. Report the stalking. Get a protection order of some kind. I don't know.. Anything, nothing, I.. I'm just tired to be honest." Hosah sat, cross legged, burying his face in his hands, brushing through his hair as he usually did under stress.

Teddy agreed, "God, yeah definitely, shouldn't reported the painting yesterday. Shit. Well, they'll be over later in the day, can lay down the basics then." In all honesty, nobody knew why they didn't come the day prior, it's not like Jeanne didn't try calling, unlike that useless security guard, so the reason for their no-show was seemingly a mystery.

God, as the days went by, Hosah felt more like Fred Jones rather than any Sherlock Holmes, all he needed was a talking dog and a brightly coloured mini van.

As the shrunken man lost himself in his thoughts, a finger reached over, giving him a gentle rub on the back. The touch almost made the shifter jump out of his skin, but it only took a split second for him to melt into it. Surprisingly, it did its job pretty well, easing Hosah's mind, just a little.

"I'm glad I can be of help for you. Keep you safe and stuff. Just not sure if your secret admirer is all too on board," the giant teased, although it wasn't the best of times to be cracking jokes.

Hosah didn't care to get offended, or to laugh either, instead focusing on making the most of what little physical contact he'd gotten to receive in months. He was too tired to care, really. The whole ordeal tuckered him out. Just the thought of being where he was, working for another few hours, almost lulled him straight to sleep. Sure, being stalked by someone that had a kill count possibly in the twenties was probably about as interesting as his life was ever going to get, but Hosah really didn't have any damns in him left to spare.

Thinking back to his dreams, he wished he could be at a little cabin on the lakeside. Spending his days fishing, collecting firewood for his makeshift oven and heating system, his evenings cooking his catch of the day, and his nights watching the stars, skidding rocks over the surface of the crystal water, looking at the moon in its clear reflection. Summers could be spent riding his horse companion around the forest, herding the sheep on the mountain side, making sure they weren't eaten by any wolves when the sun went down. That was the life he was destined for. Maybe he could spare a couple days of the year to paint such a scene, although it'd have to wait until he could safely return to his own apartment.

Teddy rested his head in his folded arm on the desk, much closer to the shrunken figure, with a much better view of him. He looked tired. At least, more than he usually did. The pronounced fat under his eyes always gave him that sort of sleepy look anyway. The giant felt very, very bad for him. The kind of sympathy you feel guilty just for feeling towards someone. Pity was probably a better way to put it. He was sure Hosah could carry himself as well as anybody else in the building, but his assistant just wanted to crawl inside of his brain and figure out just about everything there was to know. What secrets he kept, what he dreams about, what he thinks of everyone he meets, the songs that get stuck in his head.

Teddy seriously had no idea how anyone could miss just how blatantly human the tiny man is. Maybe the killer had gotten their names mixed up, because it was the 'ginger prick' that felt as though he were a dark, endless pit of nothing, using a human shell to disguise himself.

"What are you thinking about?" He asked, this was just about as close as he could get to opening up Hosah's skull and crawling in, and he'd take what he could get.

The shifter shrugged, burying his face deeper in his knees, "This dream I keep having." , he waited for Teddy's 'Hmm?' of approval to continue, "Living by lakeside, never having to work again, spending every day fishing, or painting, reading, just thinking.. It's been my dream ever since I could remember. To do nothing."

"Fishing, painting and reading doesn't sound like nothing."

"You know what I mean, not paying my way in society, living off the grid," Hosah sighed, satisfied with the idea. "Would you come with me? Once this is all over, at least."

Yes. Of course, a thousand yes's. "Haha.. We'll see"

-~-

The rest of the day, Hosah spent on edge. Not that he wasn't constantly in some state of fear anyway, but the whole devocoale had sent him down a spiral of anxiety. In the taxi back to Teddy's place, he convinced himself the car behind them was following him, a creek in the old apartment buildings hallway must've been someone scoping the place out and preparing to break in, the people sitting out on the benches outside must be waiting for him to come out so they could grab him. In summary, Hosah was not having a fun time.

As the shrunken figure sat at the windowsill, watching out of the cracks in the blinds, his eyes squinting to make out any activity in the poorly lit streets, he wondered what kind of person had written him the letter. Obviously, he knew what they were roughly, a monster capable of causing large scale tragedy for the likeness of New York's shifter population, but on the surface, it had to be someone he himself wouldn't peg as such a threat.

He thought about everyone he'd ever interacted with, or at least, within the past month or so. Cashiers, strangers on the tube, people in cars giving him the right away to cross the street. Anywhere he could find any sort of answer, Hosah thought about intensively. The shifter felt his breath shorten as he got himself more and more panicked, he'd felt fear before, the kind of fear that the breath you'd just taken would be your last, but nothing like this. The kind of fear that comes before fight or flight, the lingering feeling that something is extremely wrong. His heart in his throat, Hosah reluctantly closed his eyes, trying to steady his readily increasing heartbeat and his uncontrolled breathing.

"Hey. All good there?"

The voice took him out completely, the shifter momentarily feeling his soul come out of his body as he frantically gasped for air, "FUCK, don't.. sneak up on me like that.." Hosah clutched his chest with one hand, the other wiping he sweat that had built up on his brow, "Scared the shit out of me."

Teddy didn't quite understand the gravity of the situation, as he laughed instead, "Sorry, sorry. You looked lost in thought," the giant leant in closer, his elbows at either side of the man before him, "Something bothering you?"

'Oh, nah, just the fact he'd learnt he was the victim of intensive, violent stalking', was what Hosah really wanted to say, but he didn't want to make any more enemies after learning such a fact.

"Just that note. Trying to remember everyone I've got bad blood with, s'all.." If that was all, he wouldn't be such a ghostly white colour right now, starkly contrasting his usual sienna-adjacent tone.

His assistant turned, lifting himself up to sit on the window sill besides the tiny man, "Never really thought you were the type to go around making enemies," Teddy commented.

"God, not now, no.. But definitely in my early twenties." Ah, the good old days, as most would put it. For Hosah however, these were probably the worst years of his life.

The shifter had tried his best to keep everything he got up to around this period a secret, but of course once he'd gotten settled at his first position when first joining the agency, Jules had to and spread exactly the kind of things he got up to around the office like wildfire. 'Just to break to ice' , as she put it.

He winced at the memory, adding, ".. You've probably heard it around work. Always resurfaces every couple of months. Everyone in that place is so fucking bored man, I mean, isn't homicide enough for them?"

"I haven't heard anything, actually. If you don't want me to know, I'm okay with that. Sucks to have your dirty laundry aired out. I know the feeling." Teddy's eyes lingered on everything else that wasn't the shifter besides him, although his hand seemed to inch closer and closer by the second.

Maybe the two were more alike than they'd initially bargained for.

Hosah shrugged, despite knowing he wasn't being looked at, "It's not that bad. I was just a bit of a.." his hand brushed through his hair, pulling on the strands just a little, as he tried to think of the best way to both vaguely and accurately put it.

"A twenty year old? Hah, we all did shit we regret back then. I'm not gonna judge you for any of that, I know I'm not the same person I was like, five years ago."

Not wanting to push the topic any further, the shrunken figure moved himself directly in front of the hand, leaning over and resting his upper body against it. All he could mutter was a quiet, almost unheard, 'I'm tired,' , his eyes instinctively closing once more. He was definitely going to struggle to get a good nights sleep after the day he had, but it was worth a try.

It turns out, going through emotional turmoil does in fact tucker oneself out, as Hosah seemed to have slipped into unconsciousness right then and there, only now awaking after a night filled with the type of dreams he could only assume to be bad omens.

The dream that awoke him however, was one he recalled clearly, although this time, there seemed to be a twist.

None of that mattered though, as Hosah was back to his full height of five foot seven. The only problem is, he must've stripped off as he was so used to doing whilst in a between state of both awake and asleep, leaving him with no size appropriate clothing.

There was only one option for the shifter, unfortunately.

"..Teddyyyyy,"

The yell was immediately met by a creak in the bedroom door, as if his assistant had been stood outside of it this whole time, waiting for the OK to enter.

Teddy covered his eyes as he walked in, making his way straight towards the wardrobe and throwing the first things he grabbed at the shifter.

"I know, I'll go over and get some of your stuff in a few minutes. Just.. put these on for now whilst I make breakfast."

Ew. Hosah didn't get it. Beautiful people should wear clothes that are of the same level as beauty as the individual, but, in all honesty, the guy dressed like shit. The tattered t-shirt only just hung on to the shifter's slender shoulders, and the pants were a complete lost cause. Instead, he opted for the classic 'My shirt will cover all it needs' look, wandering his way into the living area, where he could smell something cooking in the next room over.

The, for once, regular human sized man peaked over the hollow door frame, watching as his new found roommate flipped the final pancake onto its uncooked side, listening to the sizzling of the mixture against the hot pan rather than starting any kind of conversation. He wondered if things would be different, now that they were on equal grounds to each other.

It didn't take long for Teddy to feel the eyes boring into the back of his head, turning to greet his single audience member, "Morning," He froze for a second, looking Hosah up and down.

Teddy knew he was taller than most, but he didn't expect the shifter to still be so small even when at his regular size. Not only was he much shorter than himself, but he was also much thinner, his knobbly knees poking out from each side of his legs, and his collar bone extending all the way out and to his shoulders where it stuck out like a spike of sorts.

Still, the stark difference in his height from what Teddy had grown used to was definitely going to throw him off. He almost found himself reaching his hand out, the same hand the shifter once lounged in less than a day ago, comparing it to his current size.

"Smells good," Hosah commented after a brief moment of silence, whilst his assistant took in the change of perspective.

It took him a second to get his words out, his train of thought being halted by the sudden spark in conversation, "Yeah, thanks. Should be done by now. Then I'll go and pick up some of your clothes."

He tried his best not to look the shifter in the eye, as he felt his face become progressively redder with every word that came out of his mouth.

Hosah, more casual than ever, just propped himself up on the countertop opposite his assistant. "Cool."

As his eyes fixated on everything else in the room, Teddy couldn't help but compare the countless trinkets and decorations he kept laying around the place to the, once tiny, man.

As the day went on, he found himself seeing Hosah in all different kinds of places. A butterfly resting on a flower as he walked past the park, countless erasers lying around on his desk where the shifter sat not so long ago, without even realising it, Teddy had been staring at his hands for the last five minutes. He should really get back to work.

"Here's what I'm caught up on, how the fuck does this guy know my middle name? It's literally only on like.. My legal documents. That's it."

The shifter's words took Teddy out of his trance, "What?"

"The note." now leant against the desk, Hosah sighed, "I'm just thinking about who would even have access to any of that stuff. Jules is the only one with the skeleton key for all the filing cabinets and shit,"

"Is it on your ID, maybe?"

Eyebrows furrowing, the shifter thought about the question for a second, ".. Shit. I don't know. Maybe? Fuck, yeah, since in the note it said about the bar.. But I don't even get ID'd anymore"

"I don't want to scare you but.. Could be premeditating for longer than you'd think." Teddy instantly regretted the words as soon they left his mouth, "Maybe. It's just an idea. Might be wrong too."

He looked at his hand, then back at the shifter, and then back and forth a few times more, not really listening to whatever was being spoken at him. The clothes on Hosah's body hung loose on his frame, despite them being his own, maybe this wasn't his full height after all, or maybe he just hadn't had the chance to get more form fitting options for a while. Something about the bruises Teddy had noticed scattered across the shifters legs, and the fact he could now see his sunken features much clearer, evoked an urge to protect him.

Hosah had made it clear to him that he was in no need of protecting. Just watching him make his way around the apartment when he was a mere three inches tall solidified that fact, but that still didn't stop the assistant from wanting to help him. He could want all he wanted, despite the fact it's not what he necessarily needed, which sort of made Teddy feel better about pitying the man.

Instead of focusing on Hosah’s chatter, his assistant couldn’t help but reach for the phantom weight in his pocket. There used to be someone in here, but now he’s not, and that hurt Teddy’s heart, just a little.

".. Anyway, I'm gonna go see my doctor tomorrow. Im due a visit. I'll meet you back at your place, if... if you still think it'd be better if I stayed." The uncertainty in his last few words concerned the assistant slightly, only just know focusing back into the conversation.

"Yeah, yeah, no I don't think you should risk staying at your own place for a while. At least not alone, anyway." Teddy reached his hand out for Hosah's, trying to give a reassuring touch, but instead, he became focused again on his size change.

The hand that once held his entire form could now only wrap around his wrist, and that Teddy did. He didn't even realise it until Hosah commented,

".. What are you doing?" the shifter asked, arm raised as the hand gently grabbing it had pulled it in closer.

Noticing the fact, he let go, muttering a quiet 'Sorry' , his face now burning up.

Fortunately for the assistant, Hosah did not take offence, or get annoyed at, the action. He didn't even lower his hand, instead, he just smiled.

"It's ok. It's weird right?" the shifter spun on his heel, leaning over Teddy in his seat, placing his hand down next to his assistant's resting one, "Just yesterday, I was right here. Aha."

It's almost as if he took pleasure in seeing the seated man become progressively more and more flustered.

As Hosah's fingered inched closer to the other person's tightly closed fist, he also began to think about the shift in perspective. He also thought about telling a white lie the next morning, making it out that his shrinking had been just so unpredictable lately, forcing him back into the same hand that rest besides his own.

No, not yet, at least. He had stuff that needed to be done at this height still. Besides, he hadn't pulled that trick since he was much younger, when he wanted to spend the day home from school, or to get out of any kind of family gathering he wasn't particularly bothered to attend. Those were the days. Lounging around on his dad's shoulder, spending the day doing nothing at all productive. Just hanging out, sometimes not even speaking, and enjoying the silent presence of each other.

Ah, there's another thing he had to do, call his dad.

"Well," Hosah stood back up to his full height, his hand now moved to pat his assistant on the shoulder, "Back to work."

Right, work. The shifter still had about an hours worth of security footage to try and make out. Why Scotty wasn't doing this, he had no idea. Hosah always seemed to get saddled with the short end of the stick when it came to big investigations like this one, even if he himself was a highly regarded target to the killer.

So far, there was nothing. Almost as if the package just appeared out of thin air. The fact the computers ran at what seemed to be a frame-per-second wasn't helping either. Rewinding took a whole minute, then the footage would buffer like crazy. He should've really just brought a notebook to jot these things down in, as Hosah thought of a new objective that needed to be met; complain to Jules about the dated technology they were saddled with in the shifter specialised unit.

As he sat, staring at the forever spinning wheel that was the computer loading screen, Hosah could only think of one thing, just how badly he wished to be tiny again. The thought had never crossed his mind before, but now, being reintroduced to the feeling of being held in a single hand, the shifter found himself longing for that touch.

He knew he should’ve just kept his guard up, stuck to what he knew and kept Teddy at an arms length, but Hosah always found himself in these kinds of situations. Finding love and warmth in all the wrong places at all the wrong times.

And when you have a crazed killer out to get you, you should probably avoid becoming distracted with meaningless things like touch deprivation. After all, there are bigger things to focus on, and, despite his height, Teddy was not one of them.

[emmatgc]

Wonderful World Chapter 14 - Finale

"Never Again"

"May she forever rest in peace", the priest said.

Soo-hyun, Su-ho and his wife, Yu ri are in attendance. Yuri held Soo Hyun's hands tightly. The funeral service has ended. I was an intimate one with only selected and close family and friends were invited and present. It has been 3 days since the terrible day her Mother died. While she was visiting Goon wu, Seon Yul came and they ended things. They ended their relationship. Soo Hyun believes part of the reason her Mother died was this is some sort of punishment to her for having a relationship to the son of the man she killed. No matter what Seon yul told her, she wouldn't listen anymore.

Soo Hyun looked at her phone, a text arrived. "I am here, let's talk. I promise not about us but about Kim Joon". Seon Yul was there, looking at them from afar. He doesn’t want to make a scene. He doesn’t want to make things harder for her. They have broken up and he has to accept and live with that. But his love is greater than hers. He wants to put an end to this, no matter what he will save her. "It is time to go, sister"..Yuri said. Then she saw Seon Yul and nodded, understanding the situation on hand. "I will see you, later" she added.

How are you doing? Seon Yul asked. Soo Hyun hesitantly answered "I am fine. Let's talk about Kim Joon". She doesn't want to answer him honestly, for the truth is she wants to throw herself to him and cry. She cannot do that anymore. She doesn’t want to be weak in his eyes. She made this decision. It is better alone. Just her. Seon Yul continued and said "I know what you are thinking. Don't do it. You told me once that revenge is death upon its door already. It will ruin you.". I am dead already, Seon Yul. What is there for me now? I lost the one thing I want to protect., she replied. As much as it hurts him to hear that her Mom is the only one she things she wants to protect, it doesn’t matter and he as always, understood. Family first, that is her motto. "He killed my son, and now my Mother. What else will he take, huh? She is angry and it is driving her crazy. Seon Yul wants to comfort her but his feet won't move. He knows the boundaries now. So, he does what he does best. "Let me do it. Let me seek justice for you, again. Leave it to me. Or we can work together, one last time, Soo Hyun. I promise, you won’t see me again after this are all over. I am sorry for causing you pain. That is the last thing I want, you know that. Just don’t do it. Let me help you. Like the way you helped me. Don't ruin yourself for that evil monster. All Seon Yul wanted to do at this moment, was wash away her tears, her pain, her hurt and kiss her, caress her face, hug her and just be there for her but he cannot anymore, not the way he wanted. He respects her too much to force her into considering her decision. The day ended and they planned to meet again when things get settled.

At home, Soo Hyun still can't believe her Mom is gone. She went to her room and saw the pictures. She touched the photo frame and kissed her Mom while sobbing and putting it in her chest. Her world has been shattered again. Yu-ra entered the room and saw her. She hugged her and they both cried. Meanwhile, as the night goes by, they decided to watch the TV. "In other news, the Mother of the famous but embattled author and Professor, Eun Soo Hyun has died and has been buried today. Of course many of you knows the scandal she is facing right now. Kim Joon has appealed his case saying both Soo Hyun and Seon Yul planned his downfall for their relationship to prosper as lovers", the anchor said. The channel is her ex-husband's employer. Before she can curse, Yura threw the remote control to the screen and shouted "What the hell? Signaling to call So Hun to demand an explanation of what they just heard on TV. "When will this end? Soo Hyun said, in a whisper. Then, she cursed and shouted again "when will this end?" I cannot take this anymore! She broke a glass and wounded herself. Numb of the pain, she couldn't care less.

For weeks, So Hun, Yura, Seon Yul joined forces once again for Soo Hyun's case. They meet at the orphanage, sometimes at So Hun's office. The backlash is massive especially for Soo Hyun. She has no job now, same with Seon Yul. Both were forced out. To the frustration of many, it seems they believe that things like what they had, their relationship was still a taboo and that even if they continued, they would never be at peace. Four of them dig dipper onto the case once again and presented the reasons why Kim Joon doesn’t deserve to have a parole. So Hun used her platform in exposing Kim Joon again on his TV show. Adding, "Soo Hyun and Seon Yul are two people who are bounded by their trauma and experiences. It is not our business who they become and ebcame to each other. We live in a harsh society. Harsher to these people rather than real criminals out there. We need to change". Inside the studio, Soo hyun was there and they hugged each other after the show.

The next day, is the day of reckoning. The case will be heard and a decision will come to place. Kim Joon looked at Soo Hyun with his evil smile and smugness. Very confident with the system he once held on to power and believes the sentiment of the people was on his side. A decision has been made. The Judge decided there will be no parole and change in his sentence. Soo Hyun and company was so relieved, they cried and hugged each other. Seon Yul as always, was far back, watching Soo Hyun smiling again. His heart was breaking that for weeks, she wasn't able to smile. Kim Joon can't believe what he heard. He lashed out at the Judge and suddenly, his chest tightened, and he collapsed. He was then rushed to the hospital.

One by one people left the court until there was only two. Seon Yul and Soo Hyun. "We did it", she said with a smile in her face. "Yes, we did. So, this is it? It is all over. He replied. She nodded in agreement. "I am here to say goodbye, Soo Hyun. As promised. I am leaving, maybe for good this time. I need a break. Some fresh air. The hospital wanted me to come back but I said no, and I want to go back to Germany instead. They want me there. Soo Hyun was taken aback. Everything is happening so fast she feels. She knows this is coming. The separation but it never gets easy. "I hope I'm not the reason you are leaving. I am sorry that I hurt you, Seon Yul. That I was the one who told you not to let go but here I am, letting you go." Seon Yul formed a smile. He knew deep in his heart she tried; they both did. "I am not leaving or running away because of you. I won't be able to run away from you, ever. I will always remember you and you will always be in my heart. No matter what, he replied. "Ever wonder what would happen if we only met in different circumstances? Like no drama, no tragedy just two people falling in love, regardless of age. She laughed softly. But Seon Yul didn't. "No. He answered firmly. For it means, I wouldn't have met you. I wouldn't trade it for the world. Maybe in another life we are together or in another universe, but I would always choose the present. I will always choose you. The You that I found and fall in love with". Her heart is breaking apart. Her chest is overflowing with emotions. Her brain is freezing. "This is the place I saw you the 1st time. Not the cemetery. Here, at the court. Here we will say our last goodbyes, too. Please do me a favor? When you get married again, just don’t inform or invite me okay? I am a sore loser and ex-boyfriend. Both laughed. She replied "then do me favor, too. Find a good girl for yourself in Germany and make yourself a family. You deserve it and more". Seon Yul held his hand to shake hers, and hesitantly, she shook his hand. Goodbye, Soo Hyun. Goodbye, Seon Yul.

As Seon Yul was leaving, Soo Hyun was watching him this time around until she can no longer see him. So Hun entered the court. He saw Soo Hyun crying and hands on her chest. He knew she loved him. He knew it long ago. "Why are you letting him go? You deserve to be happy. He makes you happy., he said. Soo hyun answered, "We are cursed by this love of ours. We bring only ruin to each other and others. We shouldn't be together". Bullshit, he raised his voice. That boy is in love with you. Crazy and madly in love with you. So Hun handed an open letter to Soo Hyun. "Read that. He throw it away and I saw it. It is open and so I read , at least half of it. That idiot. That is what he really wanted to say. Soo Hyun got the letter and started reading it.

"Run away with me, Soo Hyun. I am lost with you. But for you I will try. But no, let's leave everything here. Away from everything. The noise. I know I am being selfish, but I am always selfish with you. You deserve everything that is good. You deserve to be happy. Let me make you happy. We can be happy again."

Soo hun added, "the kid is right, you know. You can leave. Let yourself for once be the priority, Soo Hyun, Choose yourself. Choose your happiness this time.

Soo Hyun's hand was shaking "I can't. The orphanage needs me". I can take care of that, we can take care of that. Don’t think about the future, just think about the now. Your mom and our son would want you to be happy. Live a little, Soo Hyun. Open your heart again and choose to love again.

After 2 weeks, Seon Yul was set to go to Germany. The hospital pleaded for him to go back but they hurt him and thus, he can't choose them for now again. Maybe in the future, but now he wants to get out of this God forsaken country he thought. His friends went to the airport with him. "Have a safe flight and guard safely your heart this time, Seon Yul." He was confused what it meant but nevertheless, this is it. Goodbye, Korea, until we meet again. His flight was dreadful. He arrived early in the morning. It was a good thing it was the same apartment he was in. When he arrived, there was suitcases in front of the gate. Standing, smiling was no other than the love of his life, Soo Hyun. " I heard you need a roommate. I am here to apply, she said. It takes everything in his will power not to rush towards her, hug her and kiss her. "Oh, I am not sure, you are a girl and a beautiful one, Maam. Perhaps, it is not proper, and I might get distracted all the time", he answered with smile curving his lips. She closed their gap. "Aren't you a little bit conservative? We are not in Korea anymore. I am no maiden afterall. Why didn't you tell me what you really feel back then?

Seon Yul smirked at her "Sometimes, I can't understand you. One minute you said don’t let go, next minute, you are breaking up with me. You are so complicated. He sighs like he is surrendering and added, I wrote it but didn’t give it because I would die if you rejected me". So, how do we do this thing here? Pointing to her suitcases and the apartment. Are you sure you want to be my roommate? I only have one room. This is a bachelor's pad in case you don't know. It would be a problem sharing one bed. Plus, if you say yes, never again will you leave, and never will I let you leave my side. Deal?

Hmmmm, Soo Hyun touched his face. I have a better idea. She whispered in his ear "then I guess, we have to get married for you to allow me to stay in your bed forever". Welcome home, Seon Yul.

The end.

Note: We did it!! They made it. ❤️😭🌹I know. I know. It has come to an end. I am so happy with you staying with me in this journey. Do not fret, as promised. There will be an epilogue. Their life now, together, in love and married, or will they? hahaha. The proper ending and future. The title is inspired by the song "Never Again OST". I love you all. Thanks for sticking with me! I hope I made you happy with my story, their story.

[xmads-omensx]

CHAPTER 3 - I'M THE ONLY FUTURE YOU'VE GOT

Word Count: 5,482 Content warnings: Swearing, angst, weapons, enemies to lovers, kidnapping, blood, fighting, mentions of a strip club type location, semi-nudity, violence, mentions of death, murder, mentions of torture but no actual torture Tag List: @dominuslunae

NOAH

“Get ready to run, princess.” I said menacingly.

Vania turned away from me and began running up the last three set of stairs. I waited the agreed twenty seconds, which were the longest twenty seconds of my life, then began to run after her, making light work of the stairs as I ascended them.

When I was approaching the last set of stairs, loud footsteps boomed behind me. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Alarm bells rang in my head. Fuck. Was Vania okay?

Before I had the chance to speed up and bound up the last set of stairs, a hand forcefully grasped the back of my tank top, pulling me backwards and causing me to land ungracefully on my ass with a loud thump.

Groaning, I looked up to see the one and only JT Cavey smirking down at me. Before I had a chance to react, he brought his heavy boot up and kicked me right in the face.

Pain shot through my skull as my ears rang. The smell of blood filled my nostrils as I brought my hand up to my face, only to be greeted with slick, red blood coating my hand.

Standing up, I pulled my right fist back and swung it right into JT’s smug face. The impact made him spit blood. Smirking to myself, I took a step back and readied my next attack. I installed electric gorilla arms a couple months back and hadn’t yet had the chance to put them to the test. A hum of electricity filled the stairwell as JT recovered from my punch. He turned to face me but I was quicker. I landed my fist right into his stomach. Electricity flowed through his body as he flew up the stairs. A crack echoed when he landed.

When he stood back up he grinned at me. Fucking grinned at me. Like what I had just done hadn’t affected him in the slightest. Then I knew why. His eyes flickered with an electrical current as his head cocked to one side. He had absorbed the shock. Fuck.

Before I could even register what was happening, JT grappled me and I fell to the floor. Pain shot up my spine as I cried out. Faster that lightning, JT stood up and picked me up by the straps of my tank top. He then proceeded to pick me up and throw me like a ragdoll. Fuck, he must have got some crazy upgrades since the last time I saw him.

I bounced off of the wall and landed on the stairs below. Agony shot through my body as I groaned in pain. JT just chuckled and turned and continued up the stairs.

Vania.

She was in danger.

I made to stand up to run after JT, but fell right back to the ground. The stairwell spun round me. The bright, white lights disoriented me even further.

I couldn’t move. I was helpless. Worse, I couldn’t help her.

If anything happened to her, it was on me. I was supposed to be the one protecting her. I failed her. Fuck.

Footsteps descended the stairs. I was still unable to stand. I looked up and saw JT smirking at me yet again, but this time with a limp Vania in his arms. Yep. Fuck was definitely the right word. I made a move to grab his ankle and trip him, but he noticed. My arm erupted in pain as he stomped his boot back down onto my hand. I screamed in agony, but to no avail.

“It’s no use screaming, Noah.” JT smugly laughed. “I killed that couple upstairs. No one else in this building will help a low-life like you, idiot.”

And with that, he whisked Vania away from me.

I managed to crawl over to the elevator and press the button to go back down, but it wasn’t working. Fucker really thought of everything, huh?

Sighing, I began to crawl my way back down the stairs. They seemed to go on forever. I felt like I wasn’t making any progress at all as I made my descent. I was in some form of purgatory. Everything looked the same. The same bright, white lights. The same white walls. The same white, marble stairs. The same sterile environment until I reached the bottom. I threw myself onto the floor after reaching the bottom step. It felt like heaven.

Hands reached under my armpits and pulled me up. Arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me forward. I was far too out of it to pinpoint who exactly had grabbed me. I was placed into some sort of vehicle. Then everything faded to black.

My head pounded as I tried to open my eyes. The dim red glow of the LEDs that illuminated my room comforted me. They were the like the ones I had in my room. Sitting up slowly and rubbing my eyes, I now had a chance to survey my surroundings. I was in my room. Great.

I moved to pull the covers from off of my legs and get out of bed, but my entire body screamed at me in protest. I ignored it and pushed through the pain.

I slowly dragged my body to the door of my room, before heading to the room at the end of the hall to try and see if I could find where the others were at. With Folio and now myself injured, this job was going to take a significantly longer time.

I was greeted by all the rest of the OMNS crew gathered around the table. It was good to see Folio on his feet, albeit that he was standing very tentatively.

“you should be in bed.” Matt scolded without looking up from the map.

“Whatever.” I replied. “What are you guys looking at?” I gestured towards the map in the centre of the table.

“Possible locations JT could have taken V to. We have narrowed it down to……” Matt’s voice trailed off as a sense of realisation washed over me. Holy shit. JT had taken Vania. I failed.

In a fit of rage, I turned and kicked a chair that sat nearby. It bounced off of the wall with a loud bang. None of the  guys flinched. This wasn’t the first time I had done that. The chair wasn’t supposed to be sat where it was, but it kind of became custom for it to be there considering how often I resorted to kicking it.

“Dude relax. We’re getting her back. Besides, it’s not like you really liked her anyway. If she short-circuits, more credits for us.” Jolly added with a scoff.

“Fuck you!” I screamed at him. “Sure she’s not my favourite person in the world, but we are stuck with her. She is one of us. She’s family now.” Silence fell upon everyone as the new gravity of the  situation sunk in. Whether she liked it or not, Vania was part of OMNS. She was family.

Regardless of how much she irritated the fuck out of me, she made me feel… I don’t know… different. I couldn’t shake her from my brain. Since I first met her six months ago when her old crew stole a job from under my feet.

SIX MONTHS AGO

OMNS was initially offered a job to go and take down the leader of Thousand Below, a much grittier crew that was causing issues with shipments of upgrade deliveries in the Underground. They were stealing deliveries and killing the guys who were making the drops. Generally causing chaos in the formerly smoothly running Underground.

We went to meet our job fixer, Ash, at Poppy’s but he was nowhere to be seen. We looked around the entire bar, but we couldn’t find him anywhere. Our attention was swiftly drawn to a large group of people in the booth in the far left corner. There, sat a well-built, man with long blonde hair pulled up into a low bun wearing a suit, who I would later come to know as Karius.

Next to him, on his left, sat a man with short darker blonde hair with a beard, tattoos covering his arms. He adorned a lot of cyberware that looked gnarly. It wasn’t done well, and his frequent twitches gave that away. The man looked like he was on the brink of going full-on cyberpsycho. I would later find out his name was Steven.

Next to Steven, sat a taller girl. She had dark hair with blonde pieces in the front. She had modified eye optic upgrades that glowed yellow in the darkness of the bar. She was called Alana. She had tattoos mainly on her legs. I couldn’t tell If she had any one her arms due to the leather jacket she wore. Her legs had clearly been upgraded. God she would have been fast. You would never be able to outrun her.

Opposite them sat tow figures, the one closest to the wall was a man with long dark hair, with two lighter parts be his ears. Much like the others, he also had tattoos covering most of his body. He wore dark sunglasses that covered his eyes. He must have an illegal upgrade, I thought to  myself. That was the only reason I could think of that would mean he would be wearing sunglasses inside the bar, especially one as dark as Poppy’s. Folio had told me that his name was Davis. He was the crew leader.

The last person sat at the booth was a woman. She was much shorter than the others. Her large black jacket engulfed her and I could barely make her out. Her pale blue eyes glowed brightly in the darkness that surrounded her. Those eyes were green now. She had long pink and black hair that was tied up out of her face into two high pigtails. Two strands hung down and framed her face perfectly. Her pale skin was smooth, save for the parts that had been modified by upgrades, which were perfectly fitted together like a jigsaw. Her cyberware wasn’t visible because of her jacket. All I could see was her optic upgrades. Since then, she had gotten Lynx Paws installed. She was beautiful. As soon as I heard her name, I knew it would plague me for the rest of my life. Vania.

We could hear them talking as Karius wasn’t exactly known for being quiet. His loud, booming voice carried over to where we stood about fifteen feet away. It was a surprise he was never caught. But then again, no one in Poppy’s would rat him out as there was always the risk that they would be caught themselves.

“They are messing with deliveries in the Underground.” Karius explained to the crew sat opposite him.

“So what, we take them out?” Davis questioned.

“Yeah. Thousand Below shouldn’t be hard to take out. They are relatively weak and have little manpower, but god they are sneaky.” Karius answered.

“Anything else we need to know about?” Alana asked, looking bored of the conversation.

“Nope. That’s about it.” Karius replied after thinking for a second.

That was our job. Our fucking job.

I stormed over to the booth without a care in the world. I was enraged. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.

“None of your fucking business.” Steven snarled.

Vania rolled her eyes at me.

“That’s our fucking job!” I yelled in frustration.

“Not anymore pretty boy.” Alana smirked at me. Vania laughed. It was an intoxicating laugh that consumed my being. Bitch.

“Who are you anyway?” Davis questioned, leaning back in his seat and looking me up and down.

“Noah. I’m the leader of OMNS.” I replied. Also eyeing him up and down.

Karius burst into laughter.

“What’s so funny asshole?” I demanded.

“Ash gave you the job?” He grinned.

“Yeah. Why?” I asked bluntly.

“Ash is… let’s say… not working anymore. The job belongs to The Outsiders. Nothing you, or anyone else, can do about it.” He smirked.

“What do you mean Ash isn’t working anymore?” I asked.

“Asshole short circuited about two days ago. ERRA got him. It was only a matter of time anyway.” Vania finally spoke up. Her voice piercing my soul.

“What?” Nick then spoke up from next to me.

“Yeah dude. He’s gone.” Davis spoke.

Vania laughed at me. She fucking laughed at me.

“Something funny, Princess?” I sneered at her.

“No.” She shook her head rapidly.

“Then why are you laughing?” I angrily snapped.

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for a breath. She tried and failed to find the words that she needed to recover from what was happening.

Satisfied, I turned and walked away. The door to leave Poppy’s creeping closer and closer. Suddenly, I felt a small hand grip the bottom of my bicep. I turned around to be greeted by that pink-haired beauty who had just shoved red hot pokers not my chest.

“I’m sorry about your friend. I tend to laugh when I shouldn’t. Tension isn’t really my jam.” She giggled. To her credit, she did seem genuinely sincere in her apology, but I was angry. My friend was dead, and she laughed.

“Yeah, well, work on your timing, princess.” I huffed out before turning my back on her.

“Wait.” She called, grabbing my arm again. “I’m being serious. I don’t want to start shit.”

“Okay. What do you want?” I said bluntly.

“I don’t know. A truce? A start-over?” She suggested.

“Fine.” I agreed. “Let’s start over.” I stuck my hand out towards her. “I’m Noah.”

She grasped my hand in her much smaller one. “Vania.” She replied with a smirk.

 In that moment I knew, She was going to ruin my fucking life. And I was going to let her.

PRESENT

“Noah, seriously dude you need to chill.” Matt spoke calmly. “We will never find her with you flying off the fucking handle.”

He had a point.

“Okay. Okay.” I sighed.

“We don’t think JT took her back to ERRA HQ. It’s far too obvious, and besides, this doesn’t really seem like ERRA’s style.” Bryan explained.

“The going theory is that JT took her to a different location. One that isn’t connected to ERRA at all.” Matt continued.

“Cameras show JT taking her out the back door. Why we didn’t think of that earlier, I have no clue.” Nick glared at Matt. “Then he takes her and puts her in a purple car. Then we lost him.”

Matt pulled up the footage Nick was talking about. It showed a slightly bruised JT carrying an unconscious Vania over his shoulder and lifting her into a purple car that looked similar to my own. The footage followed the car for a couple of minutes before it vanished underneath a bridge and didn’t seem to come out the other side.

“So what, we just need to figure out what’s under the bridge and follow him?” I asked in a slightly frustrated tone.

“Well, that’s the idea. The only problem is that there are like three different entrances into the Underground under that bridge, and who knows what else is down there, let alone which tunnel he took.” Matt replied.

“Then I suggested we get to it. And fast. We can’t waste anymore time. We need to get her back asap so we can get into that party next week.” I snarled.

“Noah, I’m not too sure that you’re in the position to come with us. You’re pretty beat up.” Nick interjected.

Nick had been by best friend since we were young. He was practically my brother. But regardless, he worried too much, and usually for good reason. But reason isn’t exactly in my vocabulary and I needed to get Vania back. I need that one million credits as much as she does.

“Nick. I’m fine. Just a bit bruised.” I replied.

“Fine. But it’s on you if you fuck up because you’re in too much pain.” He caved. He knew not to fight me on this. I was far too stubborn.

“Alright.” Matt sighed after a beat of silence. “Let’s go get our girl back.”

The drive to the bridge was silent. Tension consumed the air around us as we drove. I felt like such a failure. How did I not notice that we were being followed? JT was hardly the sneakiest guy out there. Fuck. He must have been planning this for a while. But how did he know that we would be in the Martinez’s building? He must have been stalking us. But then ERRA would have taken us all out by now. Unless… JT wasn’t working with ERRA on this.

He was alone.

This was either absolutely brilliant news, or the worst thing that could possibly happen.

If JT was alone, he would be significantly more unpredictable. We had no intel on him. No tabs on his movements. We had nothing. He had everything.

I rested my head back onto the  window as it swam with the worst potential outcomes of what could have happened to Vania. Was she even still alive?

I started to regret the way that I had been treating her.

Had I been too mean?

Was the start-over worth it?

Did we really even start over?

The longer I sat and thought about everything I had ever said to her, the anger and rage also crept in. She was infuriating. Why did she never listen? Why was she so abrasive? Did she hate me? What did I do to her?

“Noah, dude. You good?” Matt called into the back, looking into the rear-view mirror.

“Yeah, I’m good.” I replied with a sigh. Knowing full well that I had not convinced him. “Just enjoying the peace of mind I’m getting before Vania comes back and kills it.”

“Noah. You are the one who pushed this rescue mission. What the fuck is going on with you?” Jolly asked.

Frowning, I shook my head. “Nothing. Just remembered how infuriating she is. That’s all.” I replied.

The guys responded with a mix of eye-rolls and sighs. They didn’t get it. Vania knew what she did. I didn’t need to justify my distaste for her to them.

“Okay guys. Cut that shit out. We’re here.” Matt sighed from his position in the passenger seat.

A small metal door embedded into the wall of the tunnel came into my view. It was relatively difficult to spot if you weren’t looking for it. If you were trying to hide, this would be the place to do just that. The Underground.

The Underground was home to every single illegal implant you could dream of. Most of us in this line of work went here to get our upgrades installed, simply because it was all off the books. No traces left behind. You didn’t have an identity here. You were just credits in the eyes of the many Installers who made a living giving people upgrades. Sure, it was risky getting one to install your shit well, but if you were willing to pay, you would be fine.

Jolly approached the door, and opened it slowly, emitting a loud creak as he did so. He would be taking the first entrance and would start the search for Vania here.

Nick was next. The second door was a ten minute walk from the first one, and was identical to the first.

“Wish me luck asshole.” He laughed as he opened the metal door.

“You don’t need it.” I replied with a grin.

“See you on the other side then.” He replied with a mock salute before entering the door and closing it  behind him with a loud bang.

The third door was another ten minute walk from the second one. I took a shaky breath before gripping the handle and pulling it towards me. The door opened with a loud creak. Luckily the cars passing overhead drowned it out. This really was the perfect place to disappear. We were greeted with a long, dark hallway that was illuminated by dim, flickering lights that hung precariously from the ceiling. The hallway was dirty and smelled like sewage. Sadly, this was the same for all three entrances. The less appealing it seemed, the less unwanted people coming in.

My footsteps echoed off of the narrow corridor as I ventured further into the darkness. The only thing I could think about was finding Vania in one piece. As much as I hated her, I didn’t exactly want her to be suffering. She’s human too. She doesn’t deserve that. As much as she hurt me, I didn’t want her to hurt more than I had.

Realisation dawned on me as I realised that if I found her, then it would be the first time we had been alone together since what happened between us. Obviously we were somewhat alone back at the house, but the rest of the guys were still nearby. We would have no one around but each other. Was that good? Probably not, knowing Vania.

I couldn’t let myself be distracted with anything other than finding her. Not now. Not when she was still missing. Not when she could be being tortured. God. This was all my fault.

 I was so completely lost in my own head that I didn’t notice that I had reached the end of the corridor and was now standing in front of the final door that stood between myself and the Underground.

This door was identical to the one at the other end of the corridor. However, the only difference was the small letterbox-shaped opening that sat about eye-level in the metal. I knocked on the door and the flap quickly lifted up.

“Name.” A voice demanded as two orange eyes glared through.

“Noah Sebastian.” I replied with urgency.

“Crew.” The voice demanded yet again.

“OMNS.” I answered flatly.

There was a beat of silence before the flap snapped shut and the door opened slowly. Noise filled my ears as I stepped through the entrance to the Underground. Music and singing blared loudly from the festivities that always seemed to be happening down here. There was always a part. Always some sort of festival.

Lights in various colours illuminated the space. Various garage doors lined the walls, some open some closed, which were home to the installers who surgically implanted upgrades. The floor was covered in an array of stalls and cars which other people were selling upgrades and implants out of.

The throng of the crowd pushed and pulled me in different directions as I tried to keep my eyes peeled for any possible places JT could have taken Vania to, or any potentially useful intel on their whereabouts. My eyes caught sight of a girl with black and pink hair. She was on the shorter side, and had her hair pulled into two high pig tails, her black jacket almost completely engulfed her as she fought her way trough the crowd. My heart leaped out of my chest as it started rapidly racing at an inhuman pace. That’s her.

I pushed my way through the crowd towards Vania. I reached out my arm and tried to grasp her shoulder, but missed by a hair. Fuck. I was so close. I picked up my pace as I fought forwards through the bustle of people towards the building in the middle of the cave that the Underground was situated inside.

Gaining closer yet again, I reached out to her. My large hand grasped onto her small shoulder, but something felt off. She whipped around, whipping me across the face with her hair.

“What the fuck are you doing!” The woman screeched. Too high pitched and nasally to be Vania.

I looked at her, my shoulders dropping in defeat when I saw black eyes instead of Vania’s enchanting green ones. It wasn’t her.

“What the fuck is your problem!” she screeched again.

“Sorry I thought you were someone else.” I replied, trying to regain my thoughts.

“Fuck you asshole! Don’t touch me freak.” She snarled before stalking towards the large building in front of us.

I looked in the direction she had walked in and beheld said building in front of where I was stood. The sign on its roof read The Drain, it was similar to Poppy’s in the sense that it was an escape for us criminal low-lifers, but much larger. I had been to The Drain only once before, I met Ash for a job there about a year ago. That was when I had first heard about Davis. One of Vania’s old crew members.

ONE YEAR AGO

The Drain was dimly lit, even more dim than Poppy’s. I could still make out where Ash was sat, mainly because of his glowing yellow eyes that always seemed too bright. He was sat by the bar which stood in the centre of the large space. He raised his hand in greeting as I walked towards him.

”Hey man, long time no see.” Ash greeted with his signature smile covering his face.

“Yeah it has been a while hasn’t it.” I laughed in reply.

“Yeah. Look, as much as I would love to sit here and catch up with you, I have a job.” He laughed back.

“Okay, what’s up?” I asked.

“You know Oli, from HORIZN right?” Ash began. “He has recently gotten himself into a bit of trouble with a guy called Davis. You know him?”

“No I haven’t heard of him before.” I replied with a shake of my head.

“He’s the dude with that illegal Sandevistan isn’t he?” Folio answered.

“Yeah exactly! Have you met him?” Ash responded.

“No, I’ve just heard stories. That dude is lethal. Plus that chick he hangs with is scary.” Folio replied.

“Yeah, she’s nuts. No one knows anything about her. Not even what she looks like.” Ash replied with slight disbelief in his voice.

“So what’s the job?” I interjected.

“Oli needs backup with getting Davis to fuck off essentially.” Ash replied. “He needs you guys to work his club, Kingslayer, and act as bodyguards for the night.”

“So what do grunt work?” I scoffed.

“Kind of. Basically, if Davis shows up at the club, get him to stay away. Beat the crap out of him. Scare him off.”

“What’s the pay?” Nick piped up.

“Two grand each, plus a month of free drinks at Kingslayer.” Ash replied.

“Sounds good.” I answered.

We showed up at Kingslayer that night, but Davis never showed. No one saw him at Kingslayer or anywhere near any of the guys in HORIZN ever again. We all thought he had died until we saw him again in Poppy’s six months ago.

PRESENT

The interior of The Drain looked exactly the same as it had a year ago. Sure, I had been to the Underground since then, but I hadn’t been back to The Drain. It was busy. Much like Poppy’s there was a stage against the right hand wall with cyborg women dancing up there. Men and some women had gathered around and were sitting on the stools placed next to the railing watching the girls on the stage.

The LED lights were bright enough to see what was around you, but faces were hard to make out, which was precisely the point of a place like The Drain. You came here to escape what you still couldn’t escape from in a bar like Poppy’s.

I looked around carefully, trying to make out JT or Vania herself. It was times like this when I wished that I had invested in some optic implants, but the idea of my eyes being removed and replaced always freaked me out.

I couldn’t make out either of them at the bar or in any of the booths. I was just about to leave to search somewhere else when a flash or pink hair caught my eye. On the stage dancing alongside three other women, wearing a tiny black lingerie set, was Vania. Her hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders. Her eyes locked onto mine as her hips swayed from side to side. I had never seen her so vulnerable like this.

I moved towards the railing by the stage, not breaking eye-contact with her. She subtly shook her head and tipped it in the direction of the backstage area. Peeking round the curtain was JT. He was staring at her with no indication of stopping. He really was torturing her, just not in the way I has pictured. Luckily for me, he hadn’t seen me yet, so I still had time to come up with a plan before he noticed me.

I didn’t have enough time to call the guys for backup, and besides, that would draw too much unwanted attention if all of the guys showed up. Fuck.

Vania, luckily, hadn’t given me away as she continued to dance around the pole on the stage. Rage flooded my veins as I looked at all of the men watching her. Like she was an object. God, JT really was torturing her.

Looking further around the bar, I tried to come up with a plan. She couldn’t run through the backstage as JT would be there to grab her. The only option we had was for her to just jump towards me over the railing, so we could make a run for it. However, JT probably had a gun on him. And the railing was too far to jump from the stage, she would have to jump off of the stage onto the floor, and then jump over the railing. But that would give JT, or the security guards pacing the floor between the stage and the rail, enough time to grab her. Ut that was our only chance.

I stalked towards the railing as fear consumed Vania’s green eyes. I tried to blend in and seem like I was just watching the show in front of me, which a part of me was enjoying, but I would never admit that to anyone.

By the time I felt I was blended in enough, twenty minutes had past. I mouthed jump at Vania. She shook her head. Trust me, jump. I’ve got you, I mouthed at her again. She glanced over at JT then back at me. Still dancing. Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion as Vania threw herself towards me. Thank god for her Lynx Paws, which I had forgotten she had, as she easily cleared the railing and landed in my arms. I put her down and told her to run.

With a hand gripping her forearm, we sped out of The Drain as gunfire tore through the bar from backstage. JT was trying to shoot us.

“Noah!” A dep voice called out to me. It was Jolly. I pushed Vania towards him as I began shooting back at JT and the security that had followed us out of the bar. Looks like we wouldn’t be showing our faces here again.

“Noah come on!” Vania’s angelic voice filled my ears.

“Go!” I yelled. “I’m right behind you! Go!”

Jolly grabbed her arm and pulled her after him.

Pain erupted in my shoulder as I ducked behind a stall to my left. I had been hit. Fucking JT. I peeked over the top of the stall and saw JT aiming his gun back at me. I hastily re-loaded my own gun and began to return fire at him. I got his bicep which made him briefly drop his guard. I took that chance to release another two shots, getting his knees. He fell to the ground with a grunt of pain.

I jumped out from behind the stall and ran over to him, shooting him in the stomach. I was going to kill this fucker.

I knelt above him after kicking away his gun and pressed my knee to his chest.

“What the fuck did you do to her!” I roared.

“What she deserved.” He choked out. Blood spurting from his lips.

“Why!” I demanded.

He didn’t reply. He only smirked.

“Answer me fucker!” I screamed, pressing my gun to his head.

“She’ll get what’s coming to her.” JT choked out with a strangled laugh.

“For what!” I demanded.

“It’s her fault. She ruined everything.” He said. He spit his blood in my face.

“Talk some sense you fucking idiot!” I demanded.

“V.A.N.” He spluttered. “Ask her about that. I’m sure she would just love to tell you all about it.”

“Go fuck yourself.” I roared. “If she wants me to know she would have fucking told me asshole.”

“You’re gonna regret not asking her fucker.” JT muttered before his eyes glossed over and his breathing stopped.

He was dead.

Chapter 4 Anything > Human Masterlist Main Masterlist

[archiveikemen]

'Promising Eternal Evil To The Villain' Special LINE Messages

I do not own any of the Ikemen Series content being uploaded on this blog, everything belongs to CYBIRD. Please support them by playing their games and buying stories. Not 100% accurate, expect mistakes.

read this before interacting with my posts

🖤 Promising eternal evil to the villain 🖤

— Will you promise him your forever?

William Rex

"You're a very brave little robin for choosing to promise me your forever.

Thank you. I'm glad you made this decision with such determination. ... I love you too.

Until the day we will meet our end— let's enjoy our life together to the fullest."

Harrison Gray

"You really do have some unusual tastes, promising a liar like me your forever.

Your judgement skills aren't too bad, maybe?

You know, I was thinking of choosing you as well. I guess I've unexpectedly fallen in love with you."

Liam Evans

"I'm so happy that you chose me, I feel like... the amount of joy is about to drive me crazy.

I'll get rid of anything that makes you unhappy, and give you everything you want.

... Therefore, let's keep loving each other until the day we stop breathing."

Elbert Greetia

"Thank you... I was hoping that you would choose me. ... I've been wanting your forever to be mine.

I love you too. I love you so much that I want everything about you. I will never let you go... forever."

Alfons Sylvatica

"Very reckless of you to choose me.

I like how you're still making such foolish decisions, despite not trusting me.

There's no helping it, hm... then let's have a fun and amusing time together until the day our feelings for each other change."

Roger Barel

"Forever, huh. You made such a promise to me so easily.

Well then, from this moment on, your fate will be to endlessly be played with and brought to tears by me.

Haha, there's no turning back. You belong to me from now on."

Jude Jazza

"Forever? Does that mean you'll stay by my side till death do us part? You seriously are missing some crisis management skills.

... Fine, whatever. If that's what you want, then I'll be pushing you around until the very end. I won't let you run away, so you best be prepared to serve me well."

Ellis Twilight

"... You're really okay with me? ... Mm, I want to be together with you too.

I believe that I can make you more, and more, and even more happier.

Stay by my side and feel loads of joy. And... we might find our forever."

Victor

"You have amazing taste for choosing me! As expected of my little robin.

Because you have choosen me, I must reciprocate your love with sincerity.

Are you ready to be loved by me, a man who has fully devoted himself to evil?"

[arcadiabaytornado]

Live Playing Double Exposure Chapter 1 Part 2 (Except I’m not live playing because I forgot to post this when I was live playing. 😅)

A: Theory: It’s an alternative universe version of Max leaving the polaroids around.

B: I hate the owl imagery given the last time we got owl imagery it was during the barn in the first game.

C: The sound design on this game is great. I don’t know how I feel about the actual songs, but the sound design is great.

D: Safi just…sitting slumped over like that after getting shot was super fucking eerie holy shit.

E: Man. They’re really rubbing Chloe and Max’s “forever” in our noses huh.

F: It’s so sad to know that Chloe and Max were never the same after the storm. I mean, you know they wouldn’t be, but it seemed like they were doing okay in LIS 2. :(

G: “If I could undo your death I would do it without a second thought” I’m going to analyze the hell out of this line later because holy shit it’s crazy for Max to say that.

H: Max’s avoidant tendencies are stressing me out. Don't get wrong they make perfect sense for her characters, but I'm still stressed all the same. Like, PLEASE let people share in your grief. PLEASE talk to Safi's Mother.

I: Max having a dark room made my stomach drop. I know it’s perfectly normal for a photographer to have a room like that, but to see the words “dark room” in a LIS game made my stomach flip. It sure is a character note that it's not a "dark room" "dark room" though, it's more of a laundry room.

J: What??? So Max just saw her friend get murdered and now she's getting dressed up cute for her crush??? I'm glad we get to see Max's house...but that was a...weird scene transition.

K: I have so much to say about the journal, but I'm going to have to make a full post on it because I just can't quickly sum up my feelings here.

L: Okay. So Chloe broke up with Max due to storm trauma basically. Because that’s what I’m taking from this.

M: YEARS. Max and Chloe have been broken up for YEARS?? I can’t think clearly about the timelines right now but does that mean they broke up not to long after LIS 2?

N: “You need to eat Max” I’m won over.

O: “Friend?” The way Max says that is devastating.

P: There’s celestial stuff all over the box! That seems relevant.

Q: I feel Reggie on a spiritual level.

R: I love that you can decide if Max is a tea or coffee drinker. I choose tea!

S: “You’re the real storm.” Max flashbacking to her nightmare. :((((((

T: It feels so cool to see Max’s work around campus. But seeing that Max’s first photo outside of Arcadia was one of a ruined dinner kills me considering she was likely thinking of Joyce and Warren.

U: Did Max just say “chucklefucks” LMAO

V: I feel like this game is going to age poorly given the amount of meme references.

W: Does Max have some chemistry with Vinh or am I insane??

X: Already love Gwen. In fact I’m so in love with her that I found her book in the library immediately, but decided to pick the lock to impress her.

Y: I’m also down to romance Vinh, and I think he’s a love interest? If he is then I’m going with Amanda in this save, but Vinh will get a flirty Max in the other one!

Z: It makes me laugh so hard that you can choose whether Max is ACAB or not.