#experimenting with color and sketchiness today

[revelisms]

lachryma mv got me feeling some type of way

[hanistry]

WELCOME TO THE MASQUERADE | HAN JISUNG.

genre | fantasy au, magic au / meet cute

synopsis | after receiving a strange recruitment letter in the mail for a barista job, jisung decides to fill it in despite his suspicions because he desperately needs a job.   

word count | 10k+

warning | brief mention of war, death, injuries / mentions of burn, pain, blood, suffocation 

world | two

Jisung had no idea how much louder his world would become when he entered the coffee shop. 

With nothing but multiple rehearsed speeches prepared and a nearly empty bag that stored only his tablet for note-taking, he let the door behind him close gently before fixing his eyes on the environment of, hopefully, his future workplace. A deep sigh left the confines of his chest as the familiar operating noise of coffee machines hit his ear. 

He gave the week’s notice for his previous barista job a month ago.

His charms and perfect speaking ability left after he had gotten hired the day of the interview. Part of him knew the manager was desperate for workers, and he understood why. The pay was laughable, the hours were horrendous, and some customers hit the nail on the head with being the group of people most undeserving of anything good in life.

Besides those, let’s be honest, being a barista is not a worthy enough experience for the future careers any student would want to pursue. 

He had no expectations for maintaining any friendly work relationships back then. Although his silence was not kept, the continuous ‘‘How are you today’?’ chain with his colleagues was not precisely material for making friends. He had gone to work and gone home on every shift. In the end, he left the place without adding a friendly contact.

The joke of his life writes itself. He quit the last barista job because it was a dead-end path in a poor work environment just to, a few months later, end up interviewing for another one. This job listing was nowhere on credible search engines or semi-sketchy recruiting websites. He found it in an advertisement letter addressed directly to him in his mailbox. 

Despite all the suspicion, he applied anyway, because the joke of his life writes itself. 

The shop smelt of coffee beans and stunk of natural wood previously rained on. Instead of a modern and popular beige color scheme, the structure maintained an old-fashioned brown tone, with vintage furniture and little to no alternative vibrant colors. Customers lined up before a long wooden counter with no opening to enter besides jumping over the surface.

On top of it, behind a glass panel of appropriate height, sat multiple steam machines shoving out coffee heat, either waiting to be or already being used. 

The accent wall attached in the center of the primary wall behind the cashier counter was made out of auburn red bricks and cement instead of ancient wood. The primary wall was lined up with tiny drawers, like stackable cabinets. Slapped in the middle of the brick wall was a fireplace with an ominous key cabinet stuck in the middle just above it. 

Jisung squinted at the fireplace. He swore he saw some colored dust on the logs. 

You made a mental note to sweep the fireplace after humorously following Jisung’s gaze toward it. 

You had already rung up all the customers’ orders this morning before Jisung could snap out of his trance. Determined to startle him a little to make up for the dull morning, you waited by the side of the counter with your arms folded and leaned against the edge. It took Jisung a minute, but eventually, he turned his head away from the brick wall and jumped when he noticed your stare. 

“Good morning,” you greeted.

“Good morning,” he returned politely with a casual bow. He cleared his throat of his nervousness. It remained, so he pushed it behind a well-crafted facade of confidence. “I am here for the interview!”

You raised a brow with intrigue. 

That was a surprising turn of events. There was hardly any deviation from the usual routine. You were usually on top of everything as well: the cleanliness of the coffee house, stocking ingredients, tending to request letters, and remembering information communicated to you by the Entities. You cannot for the life of you remember ever hearing about the coffee house receiving a new hire.

You have been working alone for three and a half years. If there were such groundbreaking news, you would remember.

Jisung pursed his lips patiently when you raised a finger, signaling him to give you a moment. In the meantime, he stood on his spot and recounted everything that had led him up to this point—the advertisement letter, replying to the advertisement by mailing a response letter (as he was instructed to), getting an irregularly quick decision back that told him to come to this location for an interview.

He made sure he double-checked the location before coming here. He could not have been wrong.

His eyes followed you as you moved toward the back, where the wall of drawers was. Sniffing to get the nervous itch out of his nose, he reached a hand up to pinch the tip. He wasn’t sure why he felt out of place. When you pulled open one of the drawers to peek inside and closed it shortly after, he realized they were not decorations. He wondered if the ones lined up to the ceiling could also be opened.

You touched your hand to the empty spaces between each storage row to find a spot. When you did, you banged the space with your fist twice and stepped back.

The ground shivered, startling Jisung. A pair of drawer rows separated themselves from the wall with visible vertical lines. Then, like a revolving door, it turned to the side and revealed an accent wall identical to the brick wall in the middle. There was a rotary dial phone on top of an antique table. 

You picked up the phone and dialed a number. Jisung has no idea what happened. 

His best guess was that it was a deliberate design choice, but that assumption was quickly defeated with two counters he thought too quickly of. 

First, corporate design choices are almost always made to maintain the old or garner new consumers. He knew that much as someone who has always been heavily involved in the inner workings of the mainstream music industry. He had a phase where he pretended being independent was better. With the fabricated authenticity people value today, it still is better.

But everything takes money, including breaking into the industry or just making an album in general, so he did care about corporate to an extent. 

Even though he had never heard of this coffee shop before, there was no way the store structure was not crafted to invite more customers except for the changing telephone booth, which was shown when there were no customers around. It was just a function of the architecture that an employer could use, which made no sense. What can a cool feature be worth if the money spenders never see it?

Two, that kind of architecture must have cost a fortune to build. But Jisung had just heard of this coffee shop when he was offered to apply for a job there.

When he was doing some research online before accepting the offer, he found no information about it either. A coffee shop as secretive as this one could be one of two things: a soon-to-be vacant spot or a top-secret hideout for the ultra-rich. Considering its mundane location—just across the street from a plaza with various fast food joints—Jisung settled with the first thing. 

Funnily enough, he would not put it past people who could wipe their snot with dollar bills to be bored enough with their life that they decided it would be fun to open a coffee shop down the street. To fit more into the ordinary atmosphere, they have decided to hire only one employee and pay them the most undeserving salary too! It was anything to live like poor people without actually doing it!

Jisung shook his head off the millions of assumptions popping up. He was thinking too deeply about this. All he had to care about was getting the job, or not getting it. He planned to figure it out as he played along. 

“I don’t know. He doesn’t look too fine to me,” you spoke into the receiver while stealing glances at Jisung. “He looks zoned out. All I’ve shown him is the turning wall, though.”

The other end laughed heartily with a joke you would have understood once, but you giggled with them nonetheless. Afterward, the person confirmed they hadn’t gotten a visitor at the shop without prior notice. You heaved a relieved sigh. Something must be off with the Entities. 

After you hung up, you knocked on the same spot on the wall to turn it back to the drawer row. Your hands flew to rub against your apron to clean off the cement feel, and then you habitually smoothed it down. 

Looking up from the ground, you caught Jisung’s eyes and smiled at him. He returned it with a much lower intensity because he was still confused about the sudden wall change. You headed to the side of the cashier counter and kicked it once. An entryway opened up, and you walked out from behind the register. 

Jisung tried his best to hold back the furrow of his brows. As confusing as everything had been, he was still making an impression that would get him hired.

But he swore on God that there was no visible entryway when he walked through the door. And, of course, he swore on God because he did not believe in such things, so there would be no real repercussions if he made a mistake in his swear. 

You did walk out from behind it. He was not taking any chances.

“Sorry for the wait. I was not aware that we would be getting new hires,” you said as you held out your hand. 

He immediately reached out and gave your a firm handshake. “No worries! My name is Jisung!”

“Y/N,” you returned. “You are a little early, Jisung. You came during rush hour.”

“The letter I received told me to come at this time, though,” he informed, motioning at his bag as if he had the letter with him and could bring it out for evidence if you doubted him. 

You hummed in acknowledgment. The letter could only have one sender: the Entity in charge of the coffee shop. Since the Entity also has access to the shop’s customer walk-in hours, if it specifically instructed Jisung to arrive at the time of serving, it could only mean that the Entity strongly desires him to become a barista.

It was a chance for him to catch you working, after all. If the Entity was unsure of its choice, it would have arranged for him to arrive when the shop was empty instead.

“I see.” You acknowledged to yourself before making eye contact with Jisung again. “You caught me at a terrible time. I just rang up all the customers’ orders but haven’t made them their drinks yet.”

Jisung smiled with uncertainty. He knew you were the only employee working, but he didn’t think you would also be the person to interview him. He assumed someone of a higher position must be lazing around at the back and was charged to consider his application. 

Were you the only person here? Were you the manager who sent him the reply letter? What about the time clash? What kind of lousy management was this? This was even worse than what he had to deal with last time! 

He shouldn’t work here!

You ran a hand through your hair as you turned your head. Your lips pursed and smacked inaudibly as your mind was riddled with thoughts about the next steps. When you looked at Jisung again, you politely smiled at him. It was a pretty smile. At least, he thought it was.

Maybe he should work here.

“Would you like to come to the back to help, or would you want just to wait around while I finish with this batch of drinks?” you asked, pointing behind your shoulder at the register. Jisung didn’t look confused, but you added anyway. “You were already hired when the response letter was sent to you. You didn’t come here for an interview. You came here for an explanation, which will help you determine whether you want to work here.” 

He breathed out an unsteady laugh. “Oh, I’m just looking for a part-time job. I am fine with anything… even though I quit my last job, so clearly I wasn’t fine with anything…” The last part was mostly silent. After beating himself up enough, he perked up and nodded. “I think I will work here and see for myself. I’m sure you guys don’t have any policies I haven’t seen before!”

You raised your brows and smirked at his response. “This is not an ordinary coffee shop.” 

“You guys sell coffee, no?” he questioned.

“Hmm…” You hummed with a mirroring of his questioning pitch. “We sell more than that.” 

“Oh, is this one of those–“ Jisung snapped his fingers to conjure the right words. “Marketing schemes? Where you guys say you’re selling coffee and something cheesy, like a homey environment?” The air quotes beside his head lingered for a moment.

You scoffed. “No, but I’m glad you think this place is homey.” 

“Actually, that was just an example. I think this place can use a bit more domesticity,” Jisung said, seemingly building up his confidence with each word he spoke. He rubbed his hands together as if in deep thought, and then he made a noise when he finally settled with an example to his suggestion.

“Maybe somebody like me? I’m friendly, and all the neighborhood aunties tell me I am adorable, like a stuff-cheeked squirrel.”

You couldn’t understand why the Entity wanted him unless it chose personality over competence this time. It would be harsh to judge Jisung so quickly, which you knew. His ridiculousness overshadowed any specks of assumption you have that he could be very competent at this job.

Not that this job requires much real effort daily, but when there comes a time when that effort is needed, absolutely nobody can slack behind, or the result will surely be bloody. 

Jisung responded to your judgemental eyes with a blushed smile. You sighed inwardly.

At least he’s cute. 

“Come help me,” you said with a wave. 

Even though you explained that he was practically hired at this point, he got the feeling you were asking him to get on board.

Jisung loved to pride himself on being a fast learner, and he was! 

He wasn’t brilliant, but he was clever and quick-witted. Thanks to his years of being a curious and rebellious child and having adults around him who cared too much, he often had to weasel his way out of lectures and punishments. The point stood as he grew older, with his teachers, co-workers, and (some) managers, with variations of him easily escaping problems. He absorbed his surroundings and people, and he knew how to manipulate them.

Not this time. Mainly because he was confused about what he was absorbing. 

After agreeing to help You with the orders, Jisung anticipated being told the steps to make standard coffee orders. The easier ones, at least, like the Espressos and Americanos. But you had him on customer duty instead, which was intriguing at most. He realized nobody was waiting around the area for their order. When he asked about it, you told him it was because the process of making a drink was better off staying confidential.

He had worked as a barista for so long and seen so few variations to making the same caffeinated drinks that he could hardly believe there was anything special about the menu. Besides, customers were usually not perceptive enough to stalk the process of a barista making their coffee, let alone steal the recipe or complain about it. He had seen some of those people before, but they were a rare breed!

He begrudgingly agreed to serve the customers, even though he was unsure why he was being defensive about the task. The agreement invited even more interesting rules of the coffee house. 

Firstly, he was told not to introduce himself or make unnecessary conversations. Initially, Jisung thought it was an issue regarding work culture—chatting with a customer for too long will delay the working pace! He understood that. He didn’t care much about talking to the customers anyway. Except You added clarification that he would not want any rare but possible mishaps in memory erasure when the customers leave.

Secondly, as he watched you make the drinks, he learned one of two things: the tiny boxes on the wall hold lumps of colorful dust, and you mix them into the drink. The first thing you did for every cup was add the dust that looked like craft shop dust glitters. Nothing about it looked drinkable to him.

Everything about it looked like the materials pre-schoolers will slap on a Mother’s Day card. When he asked about it, you said they were personality dust, and it would do him nicely not to inhale nor taste them. 

Lastly, there was nothing on the cups. There were no labels, no names, and no order abbreviations. There were only patterns. Each coffee cup has a unique design: chalk stripe, pinstripe, checkers, plaid, and whatnot.

You informed him that every customer has a charm bracelet made of patterned pearls around their wrist. The patterns on the cups reflect the ones on the bracelet identically, so all he needed to do was to obverse and hand the drinks out. No calling names, no asking about anything. Just serve the drinks and leave.

These were a set of exceptional rules. Bizarre ones! Most of what he was cautioned not to do was against the customer service etiquette he had spent years honing, and how the customers behaved was also abnormal. Everything so far has made a point to tell him working here would be easier than usual but also unfamiliar. Extraordinarily unfamiliar. 

“How are you doing, Jisung?” you asked after you collected all the bracelets from the coffee plates left by the shop's back exit. Customers were instructed to drop them off when they left. “You seem unwell.”

“That’s harsh. I don’t think I look that worn out,” Jisung muttered. 

“Not worn out,” you said as you approached the fireplace and reached for the key cabinet. You hung the bracelets on their respective slots before closing it. You turned back to Jisung, your expression monotonous. “Just confused.” 

“I am confused,” he replied as he crossed his arms. He regarded your with faint distaste. It was a misplaced judgment of his feelings about everything he had learned about this coffee shop. “You guys have interesting rules here.” 

“This is not an ordinary coffee shop.”

“Yeah, okay–” He pursed his lips shut and heaved a deep breath. Whoever was behind this marketing scheme to be different and unique has got to quit it because authentic things can only stay authentic for a maximum of two months before becoming annoying. This whole extraordinary concept you were selling him was getting on his nerves. “That is not remotely true about anything these days.”

“What is? Extra ordinem?” 

“What is that?”

“Latin.”

“Oh, my sincere apologies! Public school didn’t exactly teach me a dead language,” he said with a few nods of false acknowledgment. “Is that a requirement? Do I need to be fluent in an obscure language to work here? Something like Sanskrit?”

“Oh, I’m learning Sanskrit.”

“Of course you are.” It came out as a defeated whisper. Jisung rubbed his eyes and thought using humor as a defense mechanism against whatever he felt would do well. “Actually, let’s switch the roles for a bit. I want to talk to your manager about something.”

“You can’t do that until you have officially signed the contract to work here,” you said, giving him a brief glare for his snarky remark as you turned to the counter. “I was getting to that until you interrupted me.” 

You kicked the counter once and walked through the space. You moved toward where you last brought out the dial phone, which Jisung recognized, and repeated the knocking motion to turn the wall around. He counted how this operation unfolded: two knocks, the ground shakes, and the wall turns.

But, instead of a dial phone, what came about this time was a podium with a comically oversized leather notebook. 

Dust filled the nearby air when You closed the notebook. It was as heavy as you expected; you never had to take it off the podium. Holding it to your chest, you turned around, noticed the steam machine, and paused with a forgetful gasp.

You had forgotten to key in the code for the teleportor. Shifting to the side, you put the notebook on the counter before going to the steam machine. 

There was a sequence of buttons to push, to what degree to turn the dials, and when to pull on its handles. Jisung noticed it through some obscure form of rhythmic measure he could hear from how you handled the steam machine.

The machine whistled with an airy heat, like the starting of a steam locomotive. When you were done, the fireplace ignited with a burning flame. The flame blew out as abruptly as it started, startling Jisung for the second time. 

He stared at the fireplace with big, jittery eyes. But the way you slowly pulled the notebook back to your chest and left the counter did not go unnoticed.

You made your way near the fireplace and turned around, beckoning him over to your. Jisung furrowed his brows and fidgeted with his legs as if debating if he wanted to move anywhere near a self-igniting fireplace.

“Let’s stop stalling,” you urged just a beat before he jogged over, causing him to scoff with irritation. 

“I wouldn’t stall so much if you give me a thorough explanation of what is happening around here,” he retorted. “I don’t want to work in any unsafe work environment.”

“That complicates things.” You pointed into the fireplace, giving him dull eyes and ignoring his comments. “Crawl through the fireplace.”

“Wow! You are just full of surprises!” Jisung clapped his hands loudly. His smile looked delirious. “Did you not hear what I said about an unsafe work environment? I don’t want to have to sue you guys!”

You rolled your eyes. There should be nowhere more notorious than the cosmic stores regarding a hazardous work environment. If Jisung had been worried about safety, the Entity would have never set eyes on him in the first place, which meant he had other qualities that were overwhelmingly beneficial to this chain.

Hence, the Entity decided to take a risk and recruit him. However, if he was worried about safety, you would not recommend signing any contracts today. If anything, he should make his way out now.

But you must explain everything for him to make an informed decision, so it was through the fireplace willingly or—you pursed your lips together. You glanced at Jisung’s displeased sneer and decided to implement a slight change of plans.

“Fine,” you sighed with a shoulder slump. 

You clicked the heel of your right shoe against the ground, scraping it more than landing it. Then, with much effort, you slapped your hands twice.

The ground rumbled, but this time, the floor began to spiral in addition to the Earthquake. Sounds of rusty gears reverberated off the walls like a stereotypical factory, moving something out of sight. Most things stayed in place, not at all bothered by the shaking. 

Jisung went on his tip-toes in response to the spinning floor, but he soon realized that while the ground under his feet was moving, he was not. He gawked at you in disbelief when he saw you were only patiently standing off the side, waiting for a result he couldn’t imagine.

Then he thought that perhaps you were used to this. But the only reason he could fathom this being a common occurrence was that the phenomenally expensive design of this coffee house was made to attract customers. 

He had rejected that assumption an hour ago.

A pair of single vinyl sofas and a tall, round coffee table rolled into the room. When they were set near where Jisung was standing, the back of the couch close enough to nudge his hip, the ground stopped shaking. 

Jisung whipped his head from the sofa to you. For some reason, he decided not to run for the door. Something told him that if this was the level of abnormality the coffee house could produce, the door leading outside must not be outside. 

Not to say he came to that conclusion because he believed in magic. He didn’t. Jisung believed in a well-practiced production team and the greatness of technology. With a full head of modern, sensible options, he decided this must be the second coming of that famous movie about a live broadcast. Or something like that, at least. 

He wondered if he would get compensated for this. Maybe he should sue, just not for the poor workplace environment. 

“Sit down, Jisung,” you asked after you set the notebook on the table. “This must all be confusing to you–“

“Is this a prank show?” He cut your off with a twirling finger pointed at the ceiling. When you bewilderedly gave him no response, he sucked in a notable breath and leaned back against the chair. He crossed his legs and shrugged, almost smugly, as if it was a huge accomplishment to bust this little broadcasting scheme.

“I have to say! This is all very well done. But I think I’ve acted like an idiot enough for thirty minutes' worth of content, so please ask the editing team to blur my face, or else I will sue!” 

“You can’t sue us,” you said, with deadpan eyes and a deadpan tone. This has dragged on long enough. “We don’t exist anywhere on the government registry.” 

“What? You guys are independent?”

“Technically,” you nodded, “we work for the higher-ups.”

He hummed lowly, his eyes barely rolling away. “So, the government.”

“Think high as in literally.” 

He tilted his head then, his frown depleting seconds longer because he was thinking deeply about this. “Like,” he grumbled, “God?”

“There you go. There are actually two of them.” You clapped your hands in soft mockery. “Not directly, though. We work for Entities, who are discarded fragments of Gods.” 

He opened his mouth, debating what he should say. If growing up in a religious school has taught him anything, it was that God is not real. Let alone there being two of them. It could be a gross case of misplacing his hatred for the school system and, in general, the school itself that made him come to that conclusion.

But he has generally never broken out of that realm of thought, and he didn’t think he ever would in the future. Today was not going to be the day his belief got questioned. 

“I am not religious,” he informed.

“Okay. That means nothing to me, and I reckon it means nothing to them too.” You shrugged dismissively. “You don’t have to believe in them. You just have to abide by them.”

He tilted his head in unwilling agreement. If anybody here should know about abiding by values they do not believe in. Out of fear, shame, or any outrageous emotions, it should be he who the less-than-gracious societal standards have touched. He has been doing that since he began his studies at the religious primary school. He could humor this.

“Okay,” he said and crossed his fingers. “What do you have for me?”

“A thorough explanation,” you replied. “And a fair warning to please listen carefully to what I say in the next few minutes because I hate repeating tedious information. Once you sign the contract, you cannot terminate it unless of exceptional circumstances.” 

Jisung hummed. Somebody should really sue this place. 

Jisung was not religious. 

You were not asking him to be, but it felt like you were. Either that, or you must think he’s stupid. Not just out of a strange dislike but a genuine opinion, both of which left a bad taste in his mouth. 

However, this was going too far and too specific in detail, and it was out of place to settle it all using ’a scam’ as a solution. If this wasn’t a scam, then this must be a cult. A cult that believed in cosmic energy and a higher power. However, not even internet tarot readers would go as far as renovating an entire shop to sell a belief. There was no way.

That left him with one last impossible option: this must be real. 

From the Goddess’s sacrifice in a war from a time he couldn’t begin to date back, to the creation of this coffee shop and a chain of other shops under the same magical premise, to the powerful beings with no forms that were basically in the position of a branch manager—this whole shebang must be real.

On second thought, the most outrageous thing you have said so far was that he, who does not have a fulfilling life mapped before him, was chosen to serve here. 

“What was the war about?” 

“The war is inconsequential,” you replied with a brief smile, finding it hilarious that the war was what Jisung decided to ask about first.

“Didn’t a lot of people die from the war?” he questioned with an incredulous but still righteous-sounding whisper. “That is why the Goddess sacrificed herself, wasn’t it?”

“But did you die in the war?” you asked rhetorically before shrugging. 

He grimaced. “I don’t have to suffer from it to care.”

“You would have never known of it,” you said. “It didn’t occur in a world you live in. You having that knowledge does not benefit anyone or the cosmos, so spare me the energy.”

“It’s still history. A tragic one at that,” he argued while maintaining his previously low tone. 

He eyed you carefully, trying to access you more than you were letting on for him to see. You looked human, but he was still unaware of what you were. He wanted to know. He wanted to find an excuse behind that seemingly apathetic demeanor. 

“Yet you can learn nothing from it, and you can do nothing to prevent it if it happens again,” you said with a raised brow. You had not meant for the mood to dampen, but you would take no attitude from any boy with a false sense of heroism today. “What is history worth if it’s just some story?” 

Folktales, fairy tales, and fables. Raconteurs do not tell lessons from pure imagination. Everything children have ever read was real somewhere within this vast universe.

They were all history—Cinderella’s dream coming to an end, the flock of sheep that died because of a boy’s deceptive mischief, and Thumbelina’s home being turned into a fuming factory. 

The original story is always history, and the subsequent renditions result from creativity, which was still one of the greatest gifts the God of Creation has ever given mankind. Yet they are not important. They are nothing more than a colorful and lengthy hearsay. 

“I did not mean to say the war is unimportant in the foundation it set for the world to be where it is now,” you added. “But this is not human history. This event occurred above the sky where you will never be. You have not been living in the consequences of the war long enough to care.”

“But I do care,” Jisung said after a moment of silence. He looked determined; the answer did not come out of spite. “You told me what happened, and I am in the know now, so I care.” 

History matters because story matters. Stories of humanity, stories of people; they all matter. He was born in this generation because people cared enough about each other to keep each other alive and going. There were old stories about strangers he had never met because someone once loved them so much that they could not contain their legacy in memories alone. 

History matters because story matters because love matters. 

You debated against telling him the little impact his care has on the world. You looked at Jisung, remembering this was the first time you ever conversed with someone who had never been touched by the cosmos before.

Ever since you woke up in the coffee house without recollection of your past, you have been instructed never to reenter Earth. But you read stories about the planet and the people living there and knew little about empathy. 

You have empathy, too, as your colleagues always told you. Or at least you used to. 

Taking a mental step back, you slumped against the sofa and nodded in agreement with yourself to seal that thought.

“I don’t know,” you replied. 

Jisung looked up from his lap, recognition fading into his eyes. You pursed your lips apologetically. You assumed there must be a book at The Repository that detailed the war, but it was locked away with other classified materials. 

You visited the library tower often. There was nothing else you could do when you had limited access to locations, so you would turn to reading.

It was safe to call yourself an avid reader knowledgeable enough to understand most of the books in The Repository. But Seungmin, the librarian, never granted your access to the forbidden halls.

“It’s called the Foreign War for a reason. Nobody knows what happened, only that it did, and it was catastrophic,” you continued. 

Jisung nodded slowly. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” you said. “Do you have any more questions for me?” 

“Are you going to answer it?” 

“About the job,” you shifted in your seat, “not the cosmos.”

Jisung perked up. That was fair. He supposed if he needed more information about the cosmos, he would eventually come to know of them as he worked longer. If he decides to work here. 

He flashed his determined eyes at You due to his previously one-sided, agitating conversation. He quickly bounced from the brewing distaste onto his usual humorous demeanor. He cleared his throat and mimicked rolling open a very long scroll. The scroll would be full of questions, but much different than the performative ones he would ask at an actual job interview. 

“What is the compensation for working here?” He wiggled his brows at you with a smile. 

“Anything reasonable and within the limits of what an Entity can or is allowed to do. The kick is that it doesn’t have to be money,” you replied with a snap of your finger. “One of my colleagues, Chan, asked to extend a day by five hours so he can spend more time with his kids.” 

“Chan,” Jisung mumbled the name with intrigue. It danced on his tongue with familiarity, and then he tilted his head. “Chan, as in Bang Chan? As in the rockstar?”

You blinked and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know who he is?” Jisung exclaimed. “He’s one of the world’s most famous rockstars!”

You pursed your lips apologetically, the corner of your lips twitching faintly to release an awkward smile. You shook your head. “I don’t listen to music.”

He slumped against the chair with a disbelieving sigh, finding it ironic that he met someone who had never once dabbled in the field he had spent four years studying and being told to stop pursuing. At least he could imagine a life without working in the music industry, but a life without music was a nightmare. 

As the stressless silence closed in, he finally realized there was never any background music in the coffee house. He has been so entranced by everything else, from the job interview to the architecture, that he didn’t realize how dull the air was. He looked at you. You’s been living like this, in a world where you could hear your footsteps out loud.

“There is going to be music here in this coffee house,” he said, shooting up from the seat. He raised a finger at the ceiling, pointing at it accusingly. “I’m going to play music in the background!”

You looked up at him and nodded. It didn’t matter.

“Good!” He sat down again and dusted his hands. “Next question! Do I get to do all those house tricks you did?” 

“You would have to,” you replied with a shake of your head, unsure why he even asked the question. “Additional to the tricks, you will also be granted special abilities.”

“I was getting to that!” Jisung slammed the imaginative scroll close. For a moment, his expression flattened with seriousness. This part was important to him. Although, the excitement to obtain superpowers (a childhood dream of his, one could say) overwhelmed his curiosity to understand the need for him to have them. “We need those abilities because of unforeseen attacks, right?”

“Yes.” 

“Do you know why they happen?” he questioned.

Those were not the details that existed in books residing in The Repository. Most of them consist of concrete, observable accounts. Books of Life describe actions and events but do not discuss emotions and thought processes. Why did this person do this? Why did this person choose a particular someone? The books do not detail the reason, just the action. Reasons can only be found in a reader’s interpretation. 

To answer Jisung, you have no idea. You could only guess, and you had developed an elaborate assumption long ago. You just has no wish to indulge Jisung in it today. 

“Why do people do anything?” you countered. 

Jisung sighed. His best guess was for power. It seemed to always lead back to that. 

“The Entities have a protective barrier around all the cosmic shops to prevent attacks, so we are mostly safe. But the barriers are useless if faced by a creature whose power is on par with them.”

Jisung deduced the rest by himself. He has read enough comic books and watched enough movies to understand what you meant. Suppose any creature is to barge into the store. In that case, there is a high likelihood that the creature would be of the same caliber as an Entity. Hostility paired with high power—he did not need a demonstration from celestial beings to predict the chaos that particular duo could cause. It was already happening on Earth. 

“Has anyone ever died from an attack?” he asked. 

“Not that I know of. Heavily injured? Yes. Died? Not sure.” You shook your head. “We don’t talk about it. If you really want to know, you best consult the librarian.” 

“A librarian, like from the… you know,” he waved his hand as if gesturing at a God standing behind him, “non-human library? Is there one?”

“Yes. It’s called The Repository. It is the only all-knowing thing in this universe.” You laughed briefly at his thoughtful expression. Then you began to hum. “Our current librarian is a human boy. The previous librarian stepped down and is now practicing alchemy in the tower instead. His name is Walbeart. He is an owl.” 

His eyes widened with intrigue. “Does the owl talk?”

“He does.”

“Do you think he will let me record him if I ask politely?” Jisung joked, but some degree of his voice showed that he was seriously anticipating agreement from you. This was all new to him, but the excitement of welcoming a magical world into his existence could not be contained with disbelief alone. 

You snorted at the idea. The owl was but an old man in animal form. There was not one menacing bone in its body. “He loves flattery, so that might be the way to go.” 

He grinned. He didn’t plan to videotape the talking alchemist owl. Come to think of it, how fascinating it would be to get a taste of alchemy? Let alone meeting an owl that has enough intelligence to practice it. That would be cool. It sounded fake; Jisung still had lingering doubts about everything. Reacting so calmly and floating with the process like this was extraordinary of him. 

A timid corner of him wanted to be part of something greater, something magical, something untouched by regularity. Because throughout his life, he has been underwhelming.

Nothing valuable comes from a boy pursuing a creative future that would bring him nowhere because he was unlucky and not good enough. That was it for him—a mistake made during freshman year in college that would soon dictate the rest of his life.

Unless he chooses to be a barista at an otherworldly coffee shop. 

“So…” Jisung muttered with his eyes on his hands. He played with his calloused fingers, fading wounds on his skin from guitar strings reminding him how his life could be more significant. He slowly peeked at you as he finished his sentence, “When do I start work?” 

You clenched your fists together. Jisung wanted to work here. That signaled the end of an era of you working alone, facing monsters alone, and being alone. A spark of excitement ignited within you like you hadn’t heard good news in a while. You contained it professionally and sealed the vault with a thankful smile. Its sincerity took him aback, and a sudden blush crept onto his cheeks. 

He knew this from the moment he saw you; time hasn’t altered his opinion. 

You were very pretty to Jisung. 

“They will send you the work schedule after you sign the contract and get your gift from the tree,” you informed as you touched the leather notebook on the table. You opened the spine to reveal two pieces of paper stuck to the back. They were employee profiles. You turned the book around and pointed at Jisung’s profile sheet. “Check your details and give me your hand.”

Jisung schemed through the information. He never checked them once throughout his life, not at the doctor’s office, not when he was applying to university, and not even when he was renewing his passport.

The odds that there would be an error are too low. Nodding and humming in mindless agreement, Jisung paid more attention to the profile structure than the information printed on top and gave you his hand. 

You huffed at his carelessness but said nothing. Taking the first page of the notebook between your fingers, you guided Jisung’s thumb to the slit of the parchment paper and swiftly nicked his skin with it. He winded with a strangled yell, surprised and pained.

Retracting his hand, he held his thumb and squeezed to numb the pain. He panicked when more blood trickled out, and his next instinct was to get it away from his clothes. 

“What the fuck?” he accused. 

“You need to sign the contract. I already told you,” you replied with a point to the end of his profile sheet. “You also need the blood for the tree.” 

“This is a lawsuit waiting to happen!” he hollered as he stamped his thumb to the paper, leaving a print. Unlike his expectations, nothing happened. It was just a bloody thumbprint. 

You ignored him as you shut the notebook. Standing up, you briefly gestured for him to follow your before shuffling away. You quickly ran behind the register counter to return the logbook to where it belonged. Then, you approached the fireplace and pointed at it for another attempt.

“Crawl through the tunnel,” you demanded.

Jisung scoffed, and one side of his lips quirked with unwilling smugness. He kicked his feet and glared at you as if telling you he would do it anyway, so you should have asked him nicely. You rolled your eyes as he knelt before the pit.

He grimaced when his hands touched the burnt wood, but he continued through and squeezed his small shoulders through the fireplace. You then followed behind him. 

It did not take long for them to come out the other side. Jisung could already see the brightness inside the tunnel, but his eyes still needed a short adjustment when his head popped out through a tree hole.

He forced his body out of the hole and carefully stood up, his eyes still squeezed shut to accommodate the sudden sunlight. You did the same but with more familiarity and dusted your apron like you always did after crawling through the tunnel. 

Jisung rubbed his eyes harshly a few times and blinked to process. The wind picked up behind him as his sight welcomed a never-ending meadow like a fairy-tale garden or an enchanted forest.

Flowers grew on all grassy surfaces, with tender trees lodged far and between. A curved walking trial could be seen leading up to what seemed to be the most enormous tree he could find in the area. When he squinted, he could find a picnic table with several chairs around it. 

“Come on. We need to get to the tree,” you urged with a tap on his shoulder. 

Jisung followed behind you. There was a pattern in his steps; he admired the scenery, and sometimes, he would stop to check something out before hustling to catch up with your pace. He wanted more time to take everything in, or maybe even more to explore this place, but he supposed work would always be work. 

“Where is this?” he asked after his third time catching up to you. 

“This is the Glory Garden,” you replied. “Do you remember the drawers behind us on the wall? We get the personality dust we store there primarily from this place.” 

He kept a confused smile on his face. “Personality dust?”

“Yeah, that is what we sell,” you said casually. “I planned to tell you once you start training.”  

“You guys sell personality dust?”

“No, we sell personalities.” 

Jisung stopped in his tracks with a head tilt, squinting at your. 

First of all, like almost everything that has happened, that sounded fake.

Second, that was a significant part of the coffee shop operation that you conveniently omitted from the explanation. He wasn’t sure if the sales aspect of this business was anything important to mention, but should you not have told him anyway?

Third of all, selling personalities? Give him a break!

“You can’t sell personalities,” he laughed. 

You turned around to face him. There was not one ounce of argumentative gleam in your eyes, only exhaustion and perhaps a mildly irritated speck. With a face like his, it was a waste for him to be so upsettingly redundant. 

“This is where you draw the line?” you asked. “You just crawled into a fireplace, through a tunnel in the fireplace, and out to a meadow that doesn’t exist on Earth. But this is where you choose to use your critical thinking skills?”

He furrowed his brows. That felt like a personal attack on his intelligence. “I don’t like your tone.”

“Start liking it then,” you retorted quickly before spinning on your heels and walking away. You added with a wave of your hand, though, just for some self-entertainment. “You can do it. You’re smart.”

Jisung snorted in disbelief as he watched your back. He pointed accusingly after your, faint curses flowing from his lips like a waterfall. But there was a smile on his face. 

Running a hand through his hair, Jisung licked the corner of his mouth and pulled his lips into a grin because he secretly liked it. He wasn’t sure what he liked. The subtle distaste they have for each other? Your irritation with him and his utter lack of trust in you? The kind of light-hearted rivalry he read so much about in comic books? Perhaps. 

Or it could be his crush on you making the judgment.

He chased after you, jogging along the only walking path in the meadow. You soon led him to a flower bed filled with various flowers: sunflowers, tulips, peonies, lilies, and many more he could not recognize.

But the most intriguing about the flower bed was that all of them were abnormally tall and squeezed closely together. The further the bed went, the higher the flowers were, starting from his waist and over his head.

There was an opening in the middle of two overhead roses. You had to push them apart to open the path up ahead. The more Jisung saw it, the more this flower bed felt like a trap. A human catching device of sorts, he was imagining. Something the fantasy people created to catch intruders who did not have the purest of hearts!

“Stupid… stupid… stupid…”

“The flowers can read your thoughts,” you told him without looking back. “They’re calling you stupid.” 

“I would make a problematic joke, but I’m walking inside you guys right now–” Jisung pursed his lips when he processed what he said. He shook his hand before his mouth to forgo his poor word choices mentally and also his horrible thoughts of cutting this whole flower bed down with a construction truck. He hasn’t learned how not to think whatever he wants to yet. “Please don’t kill me.” 

The flowers continued with their one-word insult until the end of the path. Coming out from the other side was the beginning or the end of a cave with heavy moss vines hanging over it like a door. Jisung peeked through the gaps as he walked out of the cave, and his brows raised. He turned to look behind his shoulder; all he could see was darkness. 

This place felt hollow. It was under the same sun, but the ancient trees dimed the lights with no gaps between their leaves and branches. Sounds of cicadas filled the forest, mixing with the gentle swings of wind against the surface of all the plants in this place. Everything was quiet, old, and humid.

This was the type of place people go to for peace of mind or to end their lives. There must be a lake here somewhere that somebody has jumped and drowned in. 

A refugee, a God, a girl and a boy.

“Do you see that tree there?” you asked gently as you pointed upward.

Jisung trailed after the direction and faced up. He could see it, but seeing only parts of a colossal log hidden behind the fog was weird. 

“That is where we’re going,” you said. 

You two walked. Jisung tested himself on his memorization to find out he was directionally challenged. Still, he pushed back against the defeating thought with the excuse that not only was this forest enormous, but he was also still in shock, and this was only his first time here. He should redo the test when he has done enough exploration. He reckoned he would do much better.

After a few minutes of non-stop walking, you finally stopped. Before them was a wall of thick fog. Jisung could not begin to try to see into it. You rubbed your hands together to combat the sudden cold created by the mist. Then you turned halfway around to alert for his attention. You reached your hand out to him, waiting.

“Take my hand,” you said. “You’ll get lost in there.” 

“Is that true, or are you flirting with me?” Jisung said with a loud chuckle.

“My friend almost died in there.” 

Jisung’s hand flew into hers with a solemn nod. He apologized under his breath, not quite meeting your eyes after the foolery he unknowingly pulled. You found his reaction amusing, mostly because you lied.

The fog never kills. It only loses people. 

You remembered the first time you arrived at this place with your colleague at the Portrait House—Hyunjin. You came across each other at the flower bed path leading to the forest—called The Green Hallow, you later learned—and decided to walk together for company.

After heading into the fog, you separated and became increasingly lost as you attempted to find each other. Once you did, he grabbed your hand and did not let go until they reached the other side. 

You did the same with Jisung. His hand was soft in hers as they walked straight ahead without changing the angle of their steps. Keep straight, do not falter, and go through the fog.

Coming out the other side was The Oak Fort—a sanctuary separated from the rest of the forest, protected by the power of the most ancient oak tree in the universe. This place was different from the forest; it was quieter but tranquil, and gentle sounds of wind chimes were in the air.

Jisung looked above and noticed the twisting branches poking out below the clouds, circling the fort like a dome. The most ancient tree, the wisest tree, the most powerful tree. 

You let go of his hand. He reacted by staring at the sudden cold that hit his palm. He threw off the feeling and followed you. He stepped across the narrow stream of water near where the tree’s root submerged into the ground and met you in the middle. 

“Touch the tree with your palm. Make sure your blood gets on it,” you instructed before taking a few steps back to give him privacy. 

His helpless eyes lingered on you, and part of him relaxed when you smiled faintly. He looked back at the tree and heaved a deep sigh. He thought he was hallucinating blood spots on the wood, marks left behind by previous workers.

This was what he wanted. This was what he agreed to! He had already signed the contract, so he couldn’t get out of it even if he wanted to now. 

Press his palm, and his life changes forever, for better or for worse. 

Biting his lower lip slightly, he abruptly flatted his palm against the tree branch. 

You watched with anticipation what would happen. From your experience, when you and Hyunjin received their respective gifts, the tree produced a different reaction. They deduced that whatever happens during the process reflects the gift that the tree grants. Your research on the oak tree in the library later confirmed that assumption. 

Looking forward at the tree, you see that there doesn’t seem to be much happening.

Jisung looked up with confusion. A sudden recoil of dread salivated in his mouth then. Could this be rejection? Was the tree refusing him a position at the shop? Could the tree even decide that?

Well, of course, it can! It is the most ancient tree ever! It must have been through countless wars and seen numerous generations! It could probably even fish out the fact that he sucked! If anything has a say in who could work in a store made out of pure magical bullshit, it would be the tree! 

Jisung abruptly choked on thin air, grasping for oxygen. His body struggled against sudden immobility. He was too busy arguing with his head. Even if he wasn’t, this was all too sudden for him to react anyway.

Your wide eyes fixed on him, unclear of the usual violence you were seeing, until you took a risky step forward and squinted your eyes. They were barely visible but, wrapped tightly around his limbs and throat, was spider silk. 

They were not soft. They were cold and threatening, like metal wires thin enough to cut someone’s head off cleanly. After a moment, they began to burn at his skin like splatters of boiled water he could not avoid.

It hurt. The burning hurt. Jisung could barely breathe. Unbeknownst to him, the spider silk glowed a faint gold color as it submerged into his skin, giving his vein the natural magic the tree had taken out of itself. 

That was where the burning came from, not the submersion but the magic. The magic was where the pain came from. 

When the gifting process was done, Jisung dropped harshly to the ground and sobbed.

“What the fuck! What was that fucking shit! What–“ He got thrown into a coughing fit simultaneously as he sucked in as much oxygen as he could. When he felt You near, he snapped his head up, tears rolling down his red eyes. “Fuck you! What was that? That sucked balls!”

“Do you curse this much regularly?” you muttered as you helped him up. 

“What–screw you! I thought I was going to die!” he retaliated while accepting your help. The redness on his face slowly faded as reality returned to him. “Damn it! I thought it was going to be butterflies and rainbows.” 

“With magic? Never,” you snorted. “Magic always comes with a price, especially when people who normally wouldn’t have it use it. We all went through the same thing when we got our abilities, and we all have to look after the possible consequences of using them.” 

Jisung eyed your with narrowed eyes. That made him feel better. He thought he was, embarrassingly, the odd one out, the only one who got his bones and pipes knocked out of him by a tree. An ancient magical tree, but still a damn tree nonetheless! Sighing audibly, he asked, “What was yours like?”

You hummed. “I was suffocating until the tree was done. Not gasping for air, suffocating. No air in or out of me at all.”

“That sounds better than what happened to me,” Jisung scowled. 

You rolled your eyes. It was not a competition, but if you had to pick someone who got it the worst? 

“I think Changbin got it the worst,” you said grimly. “He works at The Quartet. He got a tree branch shoved down his throat.” 

Changbin began working for the cosmic stores after you. You were not there during their gifting process, but you were there in The Repository when he barged through the doors while dragging a heavily wounded Chan on the floor.

One of the creatures that emerged from the fog after the process led them through the hidden cave in the middle of the oak tree, which directly led them to the library tower. 

Walbeart was the one who tended to them. You remembered it giving Changbin a cup of dark green goo to drink, instructing that it would be needed to get the wood residues out of his body. You made friends with him, and you two toured the library. It was to help him swallow down the disgusting drink.

“That’s a lawsuit,” Jisung mused under his breath to combat the disgusted itch clambering at his throat by simply imagining what you had just told him. He rubbed the base of his neck after he caught a glimpse of your deadpan, and he smiled. “It’s not funny anymore, huh?”

“It never was.” 

“Oh.” He rolled his eyes and whistled. “Harsh.” He liked it. “So, what now?”

“You’re done. Now you go back to Earth and wait for your schedule,” you replied. “Before I forget. This should go without saying, but do not use any of your abilities outside,” you waved your arms about, “this setting. Unless you are coming to work. You are allowed to use magic to get any door to lead here.” 

“The superpowers work outside of,” he mimicked the waves of your arms, “this setting?”

“Yes,” you sighed in defeat. “Please don’t use it outside of this setting.”

Jisung hummed in agreement. There was a lower chance of him attempting to use magic on Earth if you never even told him he could in the first place. Besides, who would believe him? Nothing is what meets the eye these days, even if they are real. He wouldn’t, though. He would listen to your.

“Okay.” A small smile peeked at the corner of your lips. “Welcome to The Masquerade, by the way. That is our shop’s name. Masks, personalities, you know.”

“Haha…” Jisung let out a wiggle of laughter that died down quickly. Not because he felt awkward but because he was deep in thought. It took him a short moment to speak. “A Masquerade, a mask parade.” 

You blinked with pity. Jisung pursed his lips together and forced a grin on his face. 

It would be a tough crowd from now on. 

[icefox8155]

Ch 4: Getting the Hang of it

Masterlist

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You stood outside a cozy little bakery, its warm, buttery scent drifting out through the open door. It was a small place, tucked between a café and a bookstore, with pastel-colored walls and a large display window showcasing rows of freshly baked pastries. The bakery, which is called “Sweet Crumbs,” seemed inviting. you had spent the last few days wandering the streets, looking for some way to ground yourself in this new reality, and finding a job seemed like the best way to do that.

After mustering up the courage, you had walked in earlier that morning to ask about any open positions, and to your relief, the owner, a kind middle-aged woman called Mrs. Kang was happy to give you a chance, despite having a sketchy looking resume. The bakery wasn’t huge, and Mrs. Kang mentioned that she could always use an extra pair of hands, especially during the morning rush. Your only real work experience back in the other world had been a mixture of odd jobs, thankfully a bakery was one of them so you weren’t totally going in blind.

Now, you stood behind the counter, the apron Mrs. Kang had given you, and was already lightly dusted with flour from kneading dough. The job was simple but oddly comforting. You were mostly in the back baking pastries and sometimes going up front to replace any that were running short. The tasks felt repetitive in a good way, almost therapeutic as your hands moved, not giving your mind a chance to wander. 

The hours flew by as you worked, and you found yourself growing fond of the bakery’s atmosphere. The soft hum of the ovens, the clink of coffee cups, and the warmth of the freshly baked goods brought a sense of peace. Mrs. Kang, who was a cheerful and grandmotherly figure, would occasionally pat you on the back, praising her for learning quickly.

"You're a natural," Mrs. Kang said with a grin, handing you a Bungeo-ppang to snack on during a quiet moment. "Most of my other hires usually struggle a bit, but you've got the hang of it already."

“Haha thanks, I worked in a bakery before, so this is nice.” you reply with a similar grin.

Working here will be a good distraction, keeping you from overthinking about the dangers looming in the near future. For now, you could focus on blending in, making yourself useful, and building a life that felt somewhat real, even if it wasn’t the world you had known.

And maybe, just maybe, you could carve out a little corner of peace for yourself away from hunters, dungeons, and the chaos that was soon to come.

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The morning sun filtered through the curtains of your apartment as you sipped your coffee, mentally preparing for the day ahead. It had been a few weeks since you moved into this world and, somehow, you had settled into a comfortable routine. Your interactions with Jinwoo and Jin-ah had become more frequent, especially with it being summertime and Jin-ah out of school.

Life had become a little less daunting, but your mind was constantly plagued with thoughts about Jinwoo’s dangerous lifestyle as an E-rank Hunter. It didn’t sit right with you. You know about the hardships Jinwoo would face before his reawakening, but being sort of there while it happens makes you uncomfortable.

A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. Setting the coffee down, you padded over and opened the door to find Jin-ah grinning at her with a familiar twinkle in her eyes.

"Unnie! Can I come in?" she asked excitedly, already stepping past you without waiting for an answer. 

"Of course," You said, slightly exasperated, still tired from waking up. "Come on in."

Jin-ah set her pink bag down on the couch and plopped down next to it, her energy seemingly endless. "Oppa’s working late again today," she said with a sigh. "He said it might be another long raid."

Your face frowned slightly as you leaned against the kitchen counter. "Is he doing okay?" you asked carefully.

Jin-ah shrugged, her face drooping slightly. "He doesn’t really talk about it, but I know it's hard. He gets so tired, and sometimes he comes home really hurt. He tries to hide it, but I always see the bandages."

You felt a pang of sympathy. you had been hesitant to get too close to the Sungs, knowing that Jinwoo’s life would take a drastic turn soon. But seeing Jin-ah’s concern for her brother, and Jinwoo’s quiet determination to provide for her, made it impossible to distance yourself. 

"Well," You said, trying to lighten the mood, "why don’t we spend the day together? I’m off from the bakery today, so we can hang out."

Jin-ah’s eyes lit up immediately. "Yes! We could go shopping or watch movies!"

You smiled at the girl’s enthusiasm. It was easy to forget sometimes just how young Jin-ah really was. She was still a kid, despite being mature and dealing with more than most people her age should ever have to.

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An hour later, you and Jin-ah were wandering through the local shopping district, the streets bustling with people going about their daily business. The sun was high, and the warm breeze carried the faint scent of food from nearby stalls. 

"Unnie, look! Isn’t this cute?" Jin-ah tugged on your arm, pointing at a small dress displayed in a shop window. It was a light blue summer dress with delicate lace trim, perfect for the season.

"It is," you agreed with a smile. "You’d look adorable in it."

Jin-ah grinned but then her expression became wistful. "But it’s too expensive," she muttered under her breath. "We don’t have money for stuff like this."

You felt her heart clench at the girl’s admission. Jinwoo’s financial struggles were something that readers had always known about from the beginning of the story, but hearing Jin-ah speak about it so openly made it hit harder.

"Maybe we could find something similar in one of the thrift shops," you suggested gently. "There are some really cute things there too."

Jin-ah’s face brightened. "You think so?"

"Definitely. Let’s go check it out. Come on it’ll be my treat"

As they continued to walk through the streets, Jin-ah began to open up more. The conversation started light, but gradually, it shifted into deeper topics about her brother’s exhausting work as a Hunter and the financial strain their family was under.

"Oppa works so hard," Jin-ah said quietly as they sat down on a park bench to rest. you kicked her feet absentmindedly, staring down at the ground. "He never complains, but I know it’s really dangerous. I just wish… I wish things were easier for him. He deserves a break."

You stayed silent for a moment, feeling the weight of Jin-ah’s words. It was a familiar sentiment one you had felt while reading the story. Jinwoo was always sacrificing himself for his family, and now you could see the toll it was taking on him.

"Jin-ah," you began softly, "Your brother is definitely stronger than you know. And I’m sure that things will get better for him."

Jin-ah looked up at you, hopeful. "You really think so?"

you nodded, offering a reassuring smile. "I do. He’s doing everything he can for you and your mom, and you’re supporting him just by being there and by doing good in school. You’re doing great, Jin-ah."

The girl smiled, her spirits lifted a little by your words. "Thanks, Unnie."

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By late afternoon, the duo returned to the apartment building, bags in hand. You had managed to find a couple of cute outfits for Jin-ah at the thrift store, even getting a few darker clothes for Jinwoo, Jin-ah had mentioned that Jinwoo was running out of clothes that didn’t have holes in them.

As they entered the lobby, they spotted Jinwoo coming in from the other side, looking weary and worn out from the day’s raid. He had dark circles under his eyes, and there was a faint limp in his step one he was clearly trying to hide.

"Oppa!" Jin-ah called out, running up to him.

Jinwoo glanced up, offering a tired smile. "Hey, Jin-ah. You’ve been out all day?"

"Yeah! Y/N-unnie and I went shopping," Jin-ah said excitedly, holding up one of the bags. "Look what we found!"

Jinwoo chuckled, though it sounded a bit strained. "That’s nice."

You hung back, observing the two siblings. The toll of being an E-rank Hunter was starting to show more clearly on him, he was clearly exhausted, and looked as though he was run over by a car.

"Jinwoo," you called softly as you approached, your tone careful. "Are you okay? You look tied."

He blinked, looking a bit surprised by your concern. "I’m fine," he said quickly, brushing it off. "Just a long day."

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Later that evening, Jinwoo joined Jin-ah and yourself for a quiet dinner in your apartment, something that had become a bit of a routine whenever he wasn’t working late. He was still reserved, but he seemed to be a bit more relaxed, maybe he took pain pills.

You found yourself more at ease with the two siblings, the two becoming more like human to you instead of being fictional characters. You, of course, had worried initially about getting too involved, but at this point, it was too late. Jinwoo and Jin-ah had become important to you, and you just didn’t care that much if you affected the timeline. Well you did but you don’t you could change much of it by just being nice to them.

Right?

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[lurkingshan]

There was so much to love and scream about in today's episode of Blue Canvas of Youthful Days, but because I'm me I am going to focus on Qin Xiao's words in my favorite scene:

Just sitting here makes me feel like, whether its people from my neighborhood or people from yours, everyone takes a walk here. Everyone enjoys the same mist, same smell, same colors. It's moments like these that make me feel I am also the owner of this city. This is my home, too.

Translation approved by @thisonelikesaliens.

The sound I made when Qin Xiao said this was undignified. And I loved it for a lot of reasons. First, Qi Lu was talking about how their age gap is not that big, and Qin Xiao's mind immediately went to the gap between them that weighs most on him: their wealth and class disparity. It's something he can never forget. Second, now that he's accepted his feelings for Qi Lu, Qin Xiao is looking for the ways they are the same rather than insisting on their differences. He wants to have shared experiences with Qi Lu, and to believe that they can connect, even if it's through simple things. And third, Qin Xiao is claiming ownership of his town, and his life, in a quietly defiant way.

When you're poor and left behind in the way Qin Xiao is, you can grow up feeling like nothing truly belongs to you. You're constantly under threat of the things you hold dear being taken, either by debt collectors or those who want to prey on your vulnerability or even just by virtue of those around you having more privilege and access to the things you want. He is fighting every day just to have access to the kind of basic opportunities Qi Lu takes for granted, and he can't slip up or the consequences for his life will be huge. People with wealth and privilege just straight up don't have to think about this stuff; they walk around with an easy confidence that they belong everywhere, that they can command any space, that the world is theirs for the taking and that they will be fine regardless of their effort. We saw Qi Lu himself display some of this attitude when he entered the art school; despite his experiences of abuse, he wears that privilege like armor, and it's a kind of protection Qin Xiao will never have access to.

On top of his awareness of this difference between him and people like Qi Lu and his family, Qin Xiao also has the local gang breathing down his neck, trying to force him into sketchy work he doesn't want to do. And they can do this because they know he's so vulnerable; the gang leader is just waiting to catch him in a moment of desperation or despair so he can prey on his weakness and drag him down into the pit with him. Qin Xiao is constantly on guard from all of these people who think they own this town and can force him into their idea of his place in it.

So to hear Qin Xiao reject that, to say clearly: this is my home, too, and I get to decide my place in it and what I will do and who I will love, was so moving. For Qin Xiao to recognize that even if he doesn't have the same privilege and power as others around him, including Qi Lu, he walks these same streets and lives his life alongside them and gets to own it, too, is powerful.

[the-last-thread-of-my-sanity]

Hello!! For the ask game: 3, 6 and 25 🤗

Yay! I love these!

(I actually answered this earlier today on sketchy public wifi and tumblr ate it so here goes round two)

3- Three films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of

See, I love the wording of this question because it’s not a critically objective ranking- it’s just answering honestly about what I constantly rewatch 😂

First I have to say ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’- it’s my most rewatched Ghibli film. That movie feels like a warm hug. Is it the *best* one? Probably not, but I put it on all the time and it instantly reduces my stress. I love the colors, the score, the message.. and it’s clearly my most beloved Ghibli because I have a tattoo of the star children 🤩

Next would have to be ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’- it’s great for a good cry. Who doesn’t love a queer coded Southern Gothic made in the 90s? Plus, it features Kathy Bates having a totally valid crash-out in her local Winn-Dixie parking lot. I love how it depicts the beauty of living long enough to age and the almost spiritual bond women can have with each other through all the stages of life. Towanda!

After that, I think I chronically rewatch Sofia Coppola’s ‘Marie Antoinette’ because it’s an absolutely gorgeous movie to look at. Like a freakin’ pastry dessert of a cinematic experience. Pair that with the fun 2000s pop rock music which makes a biopic about a French monarch feel like a teen-angst film and I’m sold. It did awaken and stoke the flames for my hyperfixation with the French Revolutionary era also.

6- What’s the best and worst part of being an online creator?

The best part is definitely the people you meet and the different ideas and experiences and cultures you’re exposed to! I’ve been interacting in fandom spaces since like 2009 (I come from the Deviant Art and FF.net days 💀) and it has made me feel so interconnected with so many people. That’s an incredibly lovely thing.

The worst part is probably the moments where my hobbies start to feel like self-imposed chores. The little guilt that comes with taking a break from updating a fic, for example. But I’ve gotten a lot better about allowing myself to rest and only really engaging in fandoms that are positive and respectful and encouraging, etc.

26- Fave colour and why?

I love this deep teal green- not quite turquoise but something that feels a little more lush, with a little more depth.

I painted my home office/study this color and filled it with plants and trinkets and books and mismatched rugs and it is my happy place. It looks good in both dark and sunny lighting too!

I don’t often wear this color though- I wear a ton of black and sage green tbh

[thewandererh]

when you get this, you have to answer with 5 things you like about yourself, publicly. then, send this ask to 10 of your followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool)

YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE (out of ten)

:0!!! im honored 😭💛 and this came at a perfect time because i am not doing good rn (my school is starting tomorrow chat) but!! this will help make me feel better :]. thankie sm i promise to properly wake up after this. i swear i would’ve found something happy to focus on anyways, but this was delightful and definitely & unexpectedly fit that bill. im so grateful💛💛

OH LMAO I WROTE DOWN 10 INITIALLY I MISREAD IT but im doing ten anyways 💥💥 bonus >:3

✨10 things i’m proud of about myself:✨

my self control and my decision to not escalate a situation with anger

how i recognize how external stimuluses make me feel

my healthy coping habits, and my strive to build myself up more

my recent study and approach to breaking perfectionism (sketchy colored drawings)

my goals being realistic and achievable (summer ones are done babyyyy🎉🥳)

my art style + my mental evolution and development

being persistent and strong

CHOOSING to have good experiences

becoming more responsible of myself and my chores

being consistent with a gratitude journal the whole summer, and how it’s effected my life :]

thanks you SO MUCH for this 😭💛💛. i have autism so this got really introspective lol /lh, but this really did make me feel better :]. I WILL uhm send this question to other people but later. it will be today though (i hope).

cheers to enjoying my last day of summer!!!!!!🔆✨

have a summer emoji combo because i did them earlier in summer but haven’t done one in a while

🍉🌴🩴🐚🔆

[sharmila03]

Digital Painting Online- Tips, Tricks and Tools for Artists

Digital Painting Online- Tips, Tricks and Tools for Artists

Introduction

In today's fast-paced digital world, traditional art forms collide with technology to create a new artistic medium — digital painting online. A new-type artistry that employs digital tools for painting, sketching, and designing without the associated supplies of normal art-making techniques. If you wish to learn the basics because you are a beginner or just want to improve your professional prowess as a painter, the world of digital painting online is endless possibilities of creative expression. Reasons for Doing Digital Painting Online

The reasons as to why digital painting online has really gained momentum in the past years include:

Accessibility: Anyone can create easy art with a tablet or a computer and the appropriate software.

Cost-effective: Pay less-time and time again rather than incur the expense of obtaining canvases, paints, and brushes.

Undo and redo: Mistakes can be corrected quickly, inviting experimentation. Essential Digital Painting Equipment to Paint Online

The exact tools you need to paint online with digital media depend on you. Again, let me clarify the various kinds of equipment here.

Hardware:

Drawing Tablets: Wacom, Huion, and XP-Pen may be considered to be the makers of those high-quality drawing tablets that suit beginners and professionals alike.

iPads with Apple Pencil: Great for those wishing for an all-in-one solution in terms of portfolios.

Stylus Pens: They must have a decent level of pressure sensitivity to replicate real-world brush strokes.

Software:

Adobe Photoshop: Fantastic for getting a professional digital painting job done.

Procreate: Popular among iPaders because of its intuitive design and complete brush library.

Krita: Free-to-use, open-source software that works for artists wanting to keep their costs down.

Clip Studio Paint: Great for comic art creation and illustrating.

Portability: An artist can work from anywhere, be it the comfort of home, a coffee shop, or on the road.

Smoothness of an array of tools and effects: From custom brushes to layer blending modes, digital platforms provide tools that, essentially, cannot be replicated using traditional media. Beginners' Guide to Online Digital Painting

1. Understand Layers:

This type of application allows you to separate different elements in an artwork. You can sketch, color, shade, and detail on different layers. This enables you to edit certain parts without affecting the whole painting.

2. Master Brush Settings:

Another feature of each software is a variety of customizable brushes. Try playing with brush size, opacity, and flow. Custom brushes can offer significant effects on your artwork.

3. Use Shortcuts:

Using keyboard shortcuts can improve your workflow. Master some of the most important keyboard shortcuts: undo (Ctrl + Z), zoom (Ctrl + + or -), and brush size (use the square brackets [ or ]).

4. Experiment with Blending Modes:

Blending modes alter the way layers work together. For instance, they can add depth and vibrancy to your artwork and options like Multiply, Overlay, and Soft Light.

5. The Importance of Color Theory:

In creating digital painting online, color theory has an important place. Use complementary colors, work with gradient effects, and explore color wheels in finding harmonious palettes for your art. 6. Build a Reference Library:

Make a personal reference library that consists of textures, poses, and color palettes-this inspires your work and propels accuracy forward.

7. Zoom In and Out Frequently:

Shift between details and zoomed-out views for correct proportions and composition.

8. Customize Your Workspace: Most digital painting software lets you set up your toolbars and menus. Customize your workspace to suit your own workflow, keeping the most-used tools handy.

9. Practice Line Confidence:

When making a line drawing, don't hesitate. Use long strokes, instead of sketchy short strokes, to create a more confident and smoother stroke.

10. Save Your Workand Don't Forget to Back it Up:

Remember to save every so often and always back up your work in the cloud or on an external drive. You never know when software may crash, and that could lead you to lose several hours' work.

Train Yourself with Online Courses on Digital Painting

Structured learning must not take the backseat when it comes to furthering skills. Online courses in digital painting with Udemy, Skillshare, and Domestika come handy. These usually consist of video tutorials, downloadable content, and assignments to practice skills. Mistakes That Beginners Make in Digital Painting Online

Ignoring the Basic Tools:

Do not go for complicated illustrations on your computer without learning how to draw sketching, shading, and human anatomy first.

Neglecting To Refer:

Even artists describe their references. Photo or 3D-model references help refer one to draw accurate and proportionate pictures.

Overusing Effects:

Effects really keep your artwork doing wonders, but if used too much, they can simply be a synthetic figure. Effect subtly.

Not Organizing Files:

Do save your work and name each file in a way to find later on. You should think about saving on the cloud. Expanding Your Digital Art Career

Once you have perfected your online digital painting techniques, it will be time to monetize your passion:

Freelancing: Turn to sites such as Fiverr or Upwork to offer custom illustrations, concept art, and portraits.

Print on Demand: Sell your designs on different kinds of merchandise at Redbubble and Society6.

Social Media: Build your fan base on Instagram, TikTok, or ArtStation through the process showcasing and showcasing finished Art.

Teaching: Design your own online course on digital painting, or YouTube tutorials. NFT Art: Create and sell NFT artwork to enter the world of digital collectibles and blockchain.

Collaborations: Partner with other artists or brands for joint projects that would expand your network and reach.

Conclusion :

The world of digital painting lets in for a plethora of expression and opportunity as a career. If the right tools are used, essential techniques are learned, and all that is practiced consistently, you are on your way to becoming a great digital artist. The art of digital painting, for personal fulfillment or professional growth, is as colorful and vibrant as the medium itself.

Are you ready with your stylus to plunge into the world of digital painting? Begin today, make mistakes-i.e., grow-a lot! 

[eienoah]

May 22 - Kyoto Imperial Palace

Today felt like an incredibly short day. I woke up a little late and ate those white tayaki again plus a cream puff. I really need to start figuring out how to use my bento to make something better. Maybe I’ll start making fried rice in the morning. After that I ran a little late so I had to actually run over to class. We took a train over to the imperial palace and had a tour. I found a small little charm I think. I can’t remember the actual name of it but I think it was like shenki. If I find the name I’ll update it right here _____. Then we had a little walk around the palace on a guided tour. I could only hear like 40 percent of what the guide was saying but it was so hot it was almost like I wasn’t listening. I accidentally wore a jacket so I was sweating like crazy but I pulled out my umbrella to make it a little bit better. People kept kicking up the gravel so the dust kept getting in my face which made it just so much worse. Recently I haven’t been drinking enough water so I was hungry, dehydrated, dirty, exhausted, and hot. Let’s just say I was a little cranky this morning. There was a garden at the palace that was really cool but the rest I was just trying to stay out of the sun so I didn’t notice that much around me. I felt very bad not getting to absorb the experience but for me it was just too bad outside. After that we went over to the train and I snuck off to a little conbini to grab pastries. I also got my first pocari sweat which was literally just a clear version of orange Gatorade. Then it was onto the museum. Some of the stuff in there was cool but I just got so used to seeing the same art. I did find one painting I really liked which was of two cranes, bamboo, and a peach tree. For some reason it just popped out to me. It might have been the way the two birds were posed or just the colors but it really stood out. The way the tree framed the birds was spot on and the bamboo offered a nice color balance. The museum ended a little fast and the usual group headed over to a little family run restaurant. We got a little lost on the way and had to find a map to figure out where the actual restaurant was. It turned out they moved down the road and we thought they were a flower store. I got just a simple nikudon but it was so much better than the ones I would buy from matsuya. The place was kinda sketchy with people smoking in the restaurant and everything but it was super good so I was happy. After that was just a trip back to the hotel and I was off for the day. 

One of the main things I realized about the palace was that I had a different picture in my head for how the shutters were. I fully pictured them to be like lots of small shutters that would all pull up with one stick in the middle. I have no idea why I pictured a completely modern type of shutter but so be it. To think it would take 6 men to lift each one is crazy though. I get he is the emperor and everything but it is absurd to make 6 men do something that you can fix with a little bit of innovation. Being able to see the garden mentioned in the reading was truly a spectacle. I could really see the craftsmanship they used to work such details, shapes and blending of colors into a multitude of patterns for the viewer to be amazed by. From the second you walk in you see the small bridge with grass growing on it that almost makes you think its been left alone for a hundred years and still remains. But it hasn’t, it is properly taken care of each and every single day for the enjoyment of what used to be the royal family. One thing I was expecting more of though was sekitei. Stone gardens to be precise. There was just a giant yard of gravel that had been swept but not into the proper form of a sekitei. It was kind of just a cleaning purpose thing.

[chills-wares]

So uh going back to my 2019 roots lol

I think about Not Close Enough a lot tbh :T

If yall don't know what that is, it was a RusAme fanfic on wattpad back in 2019, made by Markai Cat.

I kinda miss it still today, im guessing because of nostalgia. Because hoo boy. It was full of steriotypes and your regular cringe fanfic stuff. But i loved it.

Also experimented with lineart here, tried to make it more of a choppy/sketchy kinda texture to mimic this dude's old animation memes he did about it.

Wish I could go back and read it or look at the memes again, they make me super nostalgic for the summer of 2019. But this guy is amazing at scrubbing everything to the point where i was barely able to find a reference for Russia's shirt color lmao

Anyways, yall have a good day/night! :D

[pakhnokh]

Today, House of Gentians is one year old 🥳🎊🎉

You won’t believe the story of how it began….

I was 7 months pregnant, and have been suffering from intense itching in my lower legs for a month. I googled it and saw that it’s a warning sign during pregnancy and can have dangerous consequences so I went to my obgyn and he referred me to take a blood test to check it.

Fortunately it was clear from that problem, but we didn’t know the reason for the itching. He did say that some women suffered from an allergic reaction like this but he suggested that I go to a dermatologist to be sure.

So finding an appointment to a dermatologist in my country right away is a nightmare, and by some miracle I found someone who had a place for me in a few days but in another city. So I took the buss and went there and the doctor was there with a student who was working with him. Anyways he was extremely nice to me and that’s something completely odd with the doctors here, that make you feel as if you’re annoying them. He was really nice, checked me thoroughly, looked at my scratching wounds with a magnifying glass and all the while was talking with great enthusiasm to that student. Later at my second appointment I realized that the reason for this was that he treated me like a case study to show how pro he is to that student cause when he was alone in the second time, he was a complete jerk to me.

Anyways, at that first appointment he decided with great certainty that what causes my itch is scabies. And as someone who considered this possibility and checked for signs of a bug infestation, especially since I have experience with other bugs, this seemed unlikely. And I’m like, telling him of all the reasons that don’t match, like the fact that my husband sleeps in the same bed and he doesn’t suffer from it and for me it’s been an experience of a month now. Surely a thing such as bug bites would affect him too, no? But he was so determined and told me “your husband gonna get it soon probably” so he gave me a prescription for creams and told me to wash all textiles in my house at a high degree, and everything that can’t be washed, to close in plastic bags and leave the house for 3 days. And like I said, as someone who already had experience with another bug infestation this was something that I already knew how to do even if at first it sounds like a pain in the ass.

So I got home, told my husband, who really opposed this idea, but I insisted on it, especially cause if the doctor was right and there IS an infestation, then we have to treat it immediately before baby is due. So I did everything the doctor said, we packed some clean stuff and moved to live with his parents for 3 days. Like I said, later we discovered that the doctor was wrong, because nothing helped and the itching continued till the moment I gave birth, proving my obgyn was right and it was, what’s called “pruritus of pregnancy”, a severe itch that is not dangerous, but can appear in some cases. I still carry those itching scars on my legs btw, even though they’re faint now 🤣🤣

Anyways what the hell does this embarrassing story have to do with House of Gentians? It was on the first day we lived with his parents and I was working on the exclusive art I make for my patrons. I was in the coloring and rendering stage and it’s really a work that makes you be really focused on details and etc… I was already so tired, but when evening came and I was done with the piece, which is still one of my favs btw:

I still wanted to draw, something quick and sketchy to “free my hand”. I just opened a new canvas and started sketching. At first I wanted to draw yllz seducing lwj, as if he was taken to cr after all and things got hot 👀🔥 But then I changed his teasing, smug expression to a sad one, and decided that it’s gonna be a Yiling Laozu who came back to Gusu with lwj and was put in LWJ’s mother’s house as his waifu 👀👀👀 and this idea had a dark side at first, with my horny mind thinking of yllz performing the duties of a spouse with lwj 👀👀👀👀 and it’s gonna be love/hate between them both.

I was really hurrying this sketch too, because my husband was calling me to our evening quality time of having toasts while watching a series on Netflix so I posted it quickly on Twitter and left. When I opened the app again that night I was really surprised to see all the excited comments on this simple sketch I did, but they really inspired me to go on, just like your comments inspire me till this very day ❤️

And just look at it now, each week I’m working on more 4 pages, it turned to be the longest comic I did in my entire 25 years of drawing (160 pages till this day and counting) and I already have the entire plot written with like 9-10 arcs planned overall 🤣 Drawing this consistently also helped improve my art, as I look at the first drawings compared to the most recent ones I can see the progress I made and hope to continue making!

So thank you all for the love and support and the wonderful comments that inspire me to give you more parts each week!

And as a b-day gift, I give you a sneak peek to a panel from page 110 that I kinda like how it turned out

[iconicanemone]

We, as in myself and the people who seem to be surrounding me, are short selling ourselves for pennies 

This is a post mainly for the younger artists. Those who’s main source of commissions use da points or some other virtual currency. Please reblog and share this so the people who need to read this will see it.

Essay under cut, as well as more in-depth pricing by professionals linked at the bottom of the post.

TL;DR: If you take a half an hour on an art piece, price it $5 minimally. Then price your stuff at around $5 every half hour it takes. No this isn’t overpricing yourself. It’s still underpricing.

Just today as I start writing this, my sister came to me and my mom asking if we could meet up with a stranger who was buying her car, so we can get the check for her. 

I went, haha, you can pay me $20 to do that. But then my mom and sister were like ‘that’s cheap’, so I bumped it to $50, and then $75.

But then my mom turns around and asks for $200, which both her and my sister agreed that was reasonable, as it would leave my sister with over $500 net value (the amount of money you get in the end)

And that hit me. And it, along with professional suggestions that I’ve looked at in the past and absorbed into my subconscious, as well as seeing people go “I can do 200-300 da points for a ref sheet!” Made me stop, spin around, and think.

If we go by my own conversions, 100 da points equals $1. A reference sheet is one fullbody minimum. So you’re basically doing a fullbody for $2-3 bucks, or even 50¢ as I’ve seen some people.

Now, I get it. I ended up surrounded by people who are minors. Those below age 19 who don’t have experience, and who may have a stable household. But, here, let me phrase it this way.

Your clients, the people paying for your art, aren’t just paying for art. They’re paying for your time and experience.

I take 30 minutes per piece of art on average, the numbers taken from the month of August, which has a variety of a sketchy headshot, and a full scene with a background, all colored and shaded, with some as exceptions. As thus, I will be using the $ per half hour phrasing instead of the $ per hour phrasing professionals use. I will also be doing $5 a half hour. While yes, professionals such as the animators who host BamAnimations recommend $15 an hour for teenagers, half of that is $7.50. $5 is a simpler number to do math with.

So for me, the shortest timeframe I took of a Art piece was a fully shaded sketchy headshot at 9 minutes. And the highest was a fully shaded scene, with extra sketchy not colored characters in the background, at 2 hours and 3 minutes. 

As you can see, that is a wide range. You may think that $5 is too much for a 9 minute sketchy headshot, but you should agree that $5 is way too little for a piece that takes 123 minutes. And I am a faster artist, so your time may vary, but anything that takes over 30 minutes should cost more than $5.

If you still believe that the price to half hour I listed is too much, let me also point out the other thing that your client is paying for. Your experience. In this case, I’m not just talking about what you did to learn how to draw. I’m talking about that, in addition to how much time you’ve practiced drawing, as well as what you sacrificed to get to your level of drawing. That could be the cost of the equipment to draw, like a tablet or a drawing program. Or it could be a drawing related injury such as carpal tunnel.

My experience includes this. I started drawing more frequently in 2019, which as of 2022 is over 3 years. That’s the time I’ve spent drawing. I also have used my time watching videos about how to draw, which has increased my quality and time of my art. And while I may not have paid any money to make any of my digital art, I started drawing traditionally, which the sketch books I bought did cut into my budget. And on top of that, when I first dove into digital art in 2020, I made a grave mistake which injured my right arm, rendering it in pain and unusable for months afterwards. That also injured my left arm due to overuse, and I am still feeling the repercussions of that over 2 years later.

Quick tip for people who want to get into digital art. Do NOT use a laptop mousepad to draw. 

As you’ve seen, my experience should qualify me to more than that $5 a half an hour baseline. And even if you are only just now starting to get into drawing, you should keep in mind how much time you spend on a drawing, how much time did you spend learning how to draw? How much money did you spend on your drawing journey? And what other sacrifices did you make to get where you are on your drawing journey? 

The next step would be to figure out how to price things. Canonkiller (link at end of essay) has a good chart on how to price things, though they use the $15 an hour method. I sincerely recommend their document a read, as they go more into pricing, boundaries, and payment options. But I’ll be using their math here. 

Their math starts with the lowest option, a sketchy headshot, and goes to the highest option, a shaded fullbody, and only includes a halfbody/waist up as the other size option. A sketchy headshot is the base price $5. Then lines raises that price by x1.5, which is $7.50. Color raises the price x2, which is $10, and shading raises that to x3, which is $15. Then when the size bumps up to a halfbody, the sketch price goes up to x2 the base price, making it $10, and then the other math follows. This will lead to the shaded halfbody being $30. Fullbody raises the sketch price to x4 the base price, leading the sketchy price $20, and shaded price being $60.

You are probably thinking that this is a lot. And here’s the thing. It is a lot. But here’s the thing. Canonkiller used a $15 base value. Which made the shaded fullbody price to be $180. And that’s just for a shaded fullbody with a simple or transparent background. And Canonkiller said that $180 for a shaded fullbody is still underpaying. 

But perhaps $5 a half hour is a better way of decreasing the time of the pricing? Let’s take the 123 minutes from the art piece that took me longest to do, rounding the number up to 125 for easy math. It ends up to be $25. That seems like a lower number. But the math and timing you have to do to figure that pricing out probably isn’t worth it. And you may take more time than I did. But the thing is people are doing this kind of art or more for $5. At the most. You should stop doing that. Just stop it. Take down your commission prices and look up videos on money and business if you need to. And even if you still think it’s a lot, and that you won’t get any commissions like this, BamAnimations said that it’s better to take fewer commissions for more, instead of more commissions for less. It’s better for your health and your pocketbook.

Here’s the thing. I didn’t write this to babble about math, and shame you for pricing your art at 50 da points. I wrote this for the people who think that their art is worth that little. I wrote this for the people who don’t realize they are underpricing themselves. I wrote this for myself. And I wrote this for you.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go adjust my own prices accordingly. 

Please watch these guys’ videos. Not only for their pricing opinions. But for their quirky and fun videos teaching art at a professional animator level.

Bam Animation: https://youtu.be/ghQNQNzFmT4

And read this guy’s document. It not only shows a way you should price your stuff, but also it explain how minors (under 18) can get paid with actual money, and how you can set boundaries no matter what others may say.

CanonKiller: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cKFMOQiYl8hdLEFzuuQ8nsMV4Gpwd44oVF4PMstwS7k/edit 

If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. And please share this with people you think that need to read this.

[digimonghostgame]

𝕹𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖊 💭💀

Holograms, a new technology. In the near future, paranormal phenomena frequently occur. Humans began to refer to them as...Hologram Ghosts.

𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖗 𝕿𝖚𝖒𝖇𝖑𝖗,

It's been a while, hasn't it? We haven't had a single instance of Hologram Ghost activity since that encounter with Archnemon. It felt really good to kill someone as remorseless as her. 😈 I hope I get a chance to delete another Digimon again soon...I've been keeping score actually. My kill count is 2! 💪 I'm coming for your record Michael Myers. *ahem* Where was I? Oh, that's right. Things have been radio silent ever since that day, but I was certain that we hadn't seen the last of Digimon ending up in the human world. It turns out I was right, as something truly horrifying happened to Ruli and Kiyoshiro while visiting a local park full of cherry blossom trees. Finally, some action! Unfortunately, Hiro and I weren't there to see said action unfold. We went to a phone repair store for an "exciting" day of smartphone surgery, which left us blissfully unaware of their dire situation. The store was also close to the phone shop I stole my phone from a few weeks ago, so the risk of me getting recognized, even as Gammamon, was there. Curse my luck. 😒

What's even worse is we were only there because a certain Child level evolution of mine couldn't control himself. I just haaaad to make Hiro's phone my personal chew toy, didn't I? My biting habits as Gammamon have gotten out of control. Hiro has resorted to bribing me with chocolate as a reward for not biting things, it's gotten that bad. Why am I such a sucker for chocolate? And for that matter, why do I behave the way I do as Gammamon?...I'm really glad that I inexplicably become Gulus Gammamon at night these days. It gives me some much needed reprieve from those childish antics and other nonsense. 🙄 So yeah, we missed out on all the fun today thanks to that. We only got the word that those two were in trouble once Hiro's phone was working again and he saw a mountain of texts from Kiyoshiro. Bakumon flew out of his phone unexpectedly while we skimmed through Kiyo's texts, which startled us a bit! The messages looked serious, but given how far we were from the cherry blossom park, Bakumon offered to go there in place of us by traveling through a reply sent to Kiyo's phone. There was no way Hiro or I would make it to the park in time to help those two, so we took Bakumon up on his offer.

It wasn't until we got back to Hiro's dorm room that Kiyo and Ruli filled us in on everything that happened. Ruli and Angoramon took a trip to a nearby park to look at some cherry blossom trees. Ruli saw photos of these trees on social media a year ago and wanted to see them in person. Jellymon had the bright idea of messing up the flow of wealth again by starting up a "sleep tour" buisness at the park, where customers would come to experience a relaxing deep slumber under the cherry blossom branches. I'll admit, it's not a terrible sounding idea, but what made it sketchy was the fact that Jellymon was using bubbles from a Digimon called Pillomon, which, when touching someone, would send the person to sleep instantly and into a happy dream. She even had Kiyo playing pretend as a "sleep expert", with a lab coat and everything, to help sell her service. She's lucky this plan of exploiting Digimon for profit fell apart, Majiramon could have easily gotten involved. You'd think she wouldn't have forgotten about him, given what happened after the last money making stunt she pulled.

Was she really that lucky though? She didn't notice Pillomon having a nightmare, which Kiyo explained to us. Apparently his bubbles went from clear colored to an evil looking shade of dark purple. (If only I was there to see it...*sigh* 😔 I'm quite a fan of evil colors.) As one could guess, nightmare inducing bubbles were the result. Jellymon didn't notice this until several people had woken up from these nightmares; angry, frightened and sporting injuries they received during their dreams. Unfortunately, this realization was not made before Ruli and Angoramon were put to sleep! Jellymon was hoping Ruli would rave about her new buisness on her social media page, Lirurun, in exchange for what should have been peaceful sleep. This was when Kiyo sent Hiro all those text messages, letting him know about the situation. Kiyo noticed afterwards that Ruli had a scrape on her hand, and Angoramon evolved into Symbare Angoramon! They were clearly in danger...Jellymon and Kiyo decided they'd hit themselves with one of Pillomon's bubbles in an attempt to enter Ruli and Angoramon's nightmare to rescue them. Here's where things got really interesting though...Kiyo and Jellymon landed into a giant purple ocean, and rising out from its depths was...

SKULL GREYMON!! Of all the days to miss out on the action, damn...according to Kiyo, he was humongous as well! I suppose since anything is possible in a dream, Skull Greymon took full advantage of it! He kept uttering "Rot and decay", over and over, a clear reflection of the process that led to his skeletal body. Kiyo and Jellymon fled the area, with Ruli and Symbare Angoramon doing the same from where they were located in this nightmare. Kiyo noticed Symbare Angoramon in the distance running from another Skull Greymon (!!) and the four of them all ran to meet up with each other. All of a sudden, in a burst of white light, they found themselves back at a cherry blossom tree on a floating island. Symbare Angoramon explained this was the beginning of some sort of loop they were stuck in. If they got too far away from Skull Greymon, they would end up teleporting back here in an endless cycle. Not only that, but Kiyo informed Ruli and Symbare Angoramon that this was a dream, and that their injuries carried over into the real world! Thus, by extension, if they died in the dream, they'd die in real life too!! Right on cue, Skull Greymon rose up behind them after this discussion, and the four of them fled once more, together.

Symbare Angoramon put two and two together while everyone was fleeing, and figured out the nightmare they were in was Pillomon's. If they could somehow wake Pillomon up, they would escape this nightmare. Jellymon thought defeating Skull Greymon would do the trick, and the team readied themselves for the challenge. Jellymon evolved into Tesla Jellymon, and along with Symbare Angoramon, a combination of Breakin' Stream and Punischöne was thrown at Skull Greymon! Unfortunately, the attack was so ineffective that it made Skull Greymon even bigger than he already was, this time towering to the heavens!! Kiyo scurried away with a full sprint, leading the others to run after him so he wouldn't be teleported somewhere where he'd be by himself, which led to everyone being sent into a loop that threw them into the ocean...Kiyo sunk to the bottom while everyone else swam up, as Skull Greymon returned once more, right in front of Kiyo!! He wasn't afraid this time though, as he had made a stunning realization that would give him the strength he needed to overcome Skull Greymon...everyone in this nightmare was in a dream, and they were fully aware that they were in a dream...this could only mean one thing...

It was a lucid dream!! Kiyo began to use this to his advantage, lifting his bandaged hand up high and parting the ocean like Moses!! The power of lucid dreaming gave him full control of the dream world around him!! Man, I cannot believe I missed this...I'm as salty as that ocean about it! 😤 Anyways, if you thought that was wild, Symbare Angoramon cloned himself half a dozen times and shot six simultaneous Jives and Breakin' Streams into Skull Greymon!! And if THAT wasn't enough, Tesla Jellymon grew to the size of a kaiju and made Skull Greymon look like a pipsqueak!! She wound up a punch so hard it cracked his skull, and unleashed a Vorsprite so powerful that it blew him to pieces!!! With Skull Greymon defeated, it was time to wake Pillomon up. Bakumon arrived at this time after rescuing everyone else from Pillomon's nightmare, ready to help Ruli and Kiyo escape. Things seemed to be drawing to a close, when all of a sudden, Skull Greymon started reviving himself!! "Rot and decay", he uttered once more!! Everyone began shouting at Pillomon to wake up, which thankfully did the trick, waking everyone trapped in his nightmare from their slumber...

It wasn't much of a day for me and Hiro, but it sure was one for the rest of the gang. Bakumon was there too, I wish I could have been there with him. Maybe I'll be around for the next Hologram Ghost encounter...I hope I get to kill some Digimon again soon... 😈 I can't wait for the day I'm finally free again. Once Hokuto's plan falls into place, I will be. It'll be like Pillomon's nightmare, only real!! And I'll be there in place of Skull Greymon!! Mwahahaha!! *ahem* I, uh...I better wrap this up. The night is still young...there's a lot I could do before returning to Hiro's dorm...things neither Hiro nor Gammamon need to know about...perhaps I could...kill again afterall...broaden my potential prey beyond Digimon, something that coward Sealsdramon never dared to try...I think I could get away with it...I'll stir up some Hologram Ghost activity on some unlucky fools wandering the streets tonight...that sounds delightfully devilish! I'll see you all again soon...but be careful...watch your backs out there...you never know...I might be just around the corner...hahahaha! 😈

𝖄𝖔𝖚𝖗𝖘 𝕿𝖗𝖚𝖑𝖞, 𝕲𝖚𝖑𝖚𝖘 𝕲𝖆𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖒𝖔𝖓

[the-bloodrose-gemstone]

Adventures in Bike Commuting 12/12/2022 - in which I bike down to CVS, have a pleasant interaction with an old man, and then ride the [LOCAL TRAIL] home. 

Today, I needed to get in-soles for my shoes for work because my back was killing me last night, after having stood on my feet for about 9 hours. So I decided to bike down to a CVS a few miles away. The way there I ended up taking the roads, since I couldn’t figure out how to tell my GPS to use the trails (I figured it out eventually). It was kind of sketchy riding the stroads and I usually took the sidewalks whenever I could or stayed off the road. Admittedly, staying off the road was kind of... also sketchy. Ghoulie is a mountain bike and can handle off-roading but she definitely has shitty suspension. I might talk to my local bike shop about the possibility of upgrading the suspension later. Anyway, I got to the CVS and grabbed the insoles and some snacks. As I’m walking Ghoulie away from the CVS, an older man who was going into CVS stopped me and asked if she was electric. I said yes, and we talked for a few minutes about electric bikes - he has one himself, and he asked how much she was and I said “about six hundred and not worth it in my opinion.” and I talked about the problems I personally had with her. After we said our goodbyes I walked her across the street to the Mcdonald’s to grab a quick lunch and then we set off again. I figured out I could add stops for my route, like trailheads on my phone and did so. Getting to the trail was actually not too bad, since I didn’t have to go on the street. I was pretty much basically already on the trail. I took the second picture first - the one with Ghoulie, at the top of the trailhead I was on. We then went down quite a ways and through some really pretty areas. I bet it looks extremely pretty to go down in the fall when the leaves are changing color. And it probably looks good when the leaves are on the trees and green too. I also went through this underpass/tunnel on the trail that got me across the street. That was honestly extremely cool. I have a fascination with tunnels in general, always have. When I was a kid, I’d dig small tunnels in the desert with my hands for fun.  I honestly didn’t expect there to be anybody else on the trail today - it was pretty chilly about 40 F, but I saw three ladies, two of whom were sitting at a bench and a third walking her dog on the trail itself. I gave them a polite wave and continued on, where I took the first picture. Overall, riding a multi-use pathway 100% beats riding on a road with cars in my experience. The only sketchy thing about taking the trail was my battery was almost dead on my bike, but I think Ghoulie has more juice than her indicators tell me. I made it home alright. Apparently, one of the older people I live with saw me on my way down to CVS because he mentioned the tunnel I took on the way up as being part of the trail. I told him I hadn’t seen it because I wasn’t 100% taking the trail on the way down, but took it on the way back up. It was pretty cool tho, all in all. I almost cried over how pretty the trail was but I don’t expect anybody else to understand that. I just love being in nature a lot, especially after spending a decade trapped in the LA sprawl.

[janscape]

«Homeress» study

Digital Illustration

17.11.22

The first speck of snow had its descent the day before this artwork was made. I was running out of ideas and given that I haven’t been going through erudite processes in my previous ones— posting nothing but “quickies” or doodles on other sites, I decided to make at least today something that would at least make something worth exerting effort to. Though another mishap during the process was that I was suffering from an artblock due to the number of commissions I was currently handling which resulted in my created juices being extracted until its last pint. I then decided to seek some aid on pinterest and stumbled upon Mogusa Shirose’s viral photo. “This is definitely perfect for the season!” was what I thought as soon as my eyes laid on it. Given that it has been ages since the last time I did a fully-rendered colored painting, I was uncertain how the result would turn out. But I trusted the process as well as did some tricks which could facilitate the realisation of this artwork even though the organisation of layers were undoubtedly all over the place. Nevertheless, the experience throughout the study was both broadening and therapeutic. I definitely used the lasso tool to my hearts content for time efficiency as well as a softer paint brush as my sketch/lineart which was very new to me as I am much more used to the classic G-pen. Perhaps a few refinements in the eyes as well as a bit of cleaning of the sketchy lines would have enhanced its quality. If only I didn’t run out of patience (＞﹏＜)

I dedicate this to my beloved, whose warm homely embrace will be missed throughout this cold blue season.

I also dedicate this to all the blue bird developpers who finally spread their wings. 

[chatonne-rousse]

Turtle-y Awesome

@sketchy-panda sent me the following ask last week:

...and this is the story that sprang from that ask. You never know what you're going to get when you share a headcanon with me! 😉

Read it on Ao3 here.

"...et puit, quand il fut bien certain que personne ne pouvait le voir, Benjamin alluma sa veilleuse."

Adrien turns the last worn page and sets the book beside his knee on Hugo's bed.

"What do you think, kitten? Benjamin was turtle-y being a scaredy-cat, wasn't he?"

Hugo giggles, eyes bright. "He's not a cat, Papa, he's a turtle!"

Adrien nods sagely at his son. "Right you are," he says, patting the book's cover. "If this book tortoise anything, it's that Benjamin is definitely a turtle."

The number of turtle puns in the world is finite, and Hugo has heard his dad tell them all repeatedly, but he still laughs every time. The sound is music to Adrien's ears. He grins as he leans down to tuck the duvet around Hugo's shoulders and lifts his son's dark fringe to place a kiss on his forehead.

"Can we read another story, Papa? I'm not even tired."

Hugo's big green eyes scrunch shut as he yawns widely.

"Mmhmm. I can tell. You know what?" Adrien grabs another stuffed turtle from the bookcase and tucks it in beside the Carapace plushie already cradled in Hugo's arms. "Monsieur Vert looks very tired. He was almost sleeping over there! Maybe if you hold him really, really gently, that will help him fall asleep. I'm sure Carapace is tuckered out after a long day of superheroing, too."

"He is," Hugo says, nodding. He strokes his little hand up and over Monsieur Vert's soft shell. "I'll help them, Papa."

Adrien smiles even as his chest squeezes with emotion. "I know you will, my kind-hearted kitten." He can't resist pressing another kiss to Hugo's forehead and delights in receiving a loud, smacking kiss to his own cheek in return.

The turtle lamp on the nightstand is switched off and the Carapace nightlight beside the bookshelf activates, dim light glowing green through the plastic.

"Bonne nuit, ma petite tortue."

He watches his son cuddle his turtle and Carapace close as the closing door slowly eclipses the bed in shadow from the hallway light. Leaving the door open a crack, Adrien listens for a moment as Hugo gets comfortable in his bed.

He smiles as he pads down the hall toward Emma's room to join his wife for another round of goodnight kisses for their precious kittens.

*****

"Kitty, this is getting ridiculous. How is that the only thing he wants for his birthday?" Marinette shakes her head, but her grin betrays her lack of any real annoyance.

Adrien rubs his face and groans. "I know. Believe me, I know. Can you imagine if Nino knew?"

That surprises her. "You haven't told him? I told Alya ages ago when he said Carapace was his favorite." She thinks for a moment. "I don't think I've shared the, um...depth of the obsession, though."

He stares at her, deadpan, before they both laugh.

"Turtles I could handle, Mari. They're cute. They're green." He bats his eyes at her and she swats his arm playfully. "But Carapace? Carapace? When Chat Noir is right there? I don't get it."

"Awww, Chaton. Is my kitty jealous?"

"Of course not," he says, pouting, though he can't keep up the ruse and his smile breaks through. "Okay, maybe a little."

"Nino made a wonderful hero, and is the perfect holder for Wayzz, and you know it."

She scooches closer to him on the sofa and rubs his back gently. His eyes close for just a moment before opening them to find his wife gazing at him with what might just be his favorite look in her eyes - a teasing glint, a touch of heat, and an endless well of love. Everything goes fuzzy momentarily, but he catches her next words clearly.

"Besides, my favorite hero will always be Chat Noir. Always."

"Yeah?" he breathes.

She nods.

Her eyes go wide when he hauls her petite frame from the sofa beside him and settles her across his lap. She laughs as she wraps her arms around his neck and presses a kiss to his lips.

"What a coincidence, My Lady," he murmurs into the whisper of space between them, "because my favorite hero--" He pauses, kissing her again, "is also Chat Noir."

There's a beat of silence and then she's laughing, pressing her face into the crook of his neck to muffle her giggles. His arms tighten around her shaking shoulders as he laughs along with her, swept away by the sweet sound he will always love. There's no joy in the world quite like making his wife laugh.

"You know I'm kidding, Bug," he finally whispers into her hair when their laughter subsides. "Emma and I share a favorite hero. The greatest of all. Prettiest, too. Oh, wow, is she ever beautiful. And strong. And smart."

"Rena Rouge?" Marinette asks cheekily, her nose still pressed to his neck.

"Nooooo," he croons, tickling her sides until she laughs again. "It's Ladybug, jumping above, Lady magique et lady chance!"

"Kitty, no!" she begs through her giggles, "Don't get that in my head!"

"Too late!"

He silences the last of her laughter when he captures her lips with his, twin sighs mingling in the late-night quiet of the living room.

With forever in his arms and their shared future asleep down the hall, Adrien simply loses himself in this blissful moment, forgetting that their baby will turn five next weekend, that the passage of time is as inevitable as the dichotomy of creation and destruction. Wrapped up in his wife, time seems to stop altogether. Marinette - her love, her care, their unshakeable bond - is eternal.

But of course, the clock still ticks. And when they part a few minutes later, after one last kiss and a nuzzle of her nose against his, he still has to ask.

"So we're really throwing Hugo a Carapace-themed birthday party?"

She nods. "Yep."

"And we're buying him the new Shell-ter Secret Hideout Super Bunker, complete with Carapace action figure, power-ups, costume changes, a Turtle-mobile sports car that Nino never had, and four different colored shields that he also never had?"

"There's a jet, too, for some reason. But...yep."

Adrien nods slowly, a smile spreading across his face. "He's going to love it."

"Oh, he is," she affirms, her grin matching her husband's. "And so is Uncle Nino."

He snorts a laugh and pulls her close once more, breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo.

"This'll be hilarious."

Marinette smiles against his shoulder.

"Yep."

*****

Everything is green.

Their normally colorful apartment seems to have transformed into an emerald dreamscape that doubles as a turtle sanctuary.

Everything is green, and there are turtles everywhere.

Sea turtles, tortoises, turtles of all kinds - including a certain turtle-themed superhero - adorn every surface. Adrien had been surprised by the amount of Carapace party merchandise he was able to find online. He's used to the numerous Carapace items in Hugo's bedroom, pieces he's added to his collection one by one over the past year or so. But this, his best friend's face dangling from streamers, emblazoned on little party hats, is just a little weird.

He's proud, though. A little jealous, a lot amused, and very, very proud. No desperately sad, pitifully lonely teenage boy has ever found a better friend than Nino Lahiffe. He's the brother of his heart, the mellow to his anxious, the staunch protector of their little group of best friends and hero teammates. Adrien has to admit that Hugo has great taste in favorite superheroes.

Someday he'll discover that his idol is also his Uncle Nino, but today is not that day. Today, the magic and wonder still shines in his son's eyes, and it's a beautiful thing.

Adrien putters around the kitchen making last-minute preparations to the food and drink selection, making sure there are plenty of cups and plates (all printed with a Carapace action scene, of course) stacked on the island. Oddly, he couldn't find Carapace napkins to go along with the other paper goods, but Marinette had saved the day by snagging a pack of sea turtle patterned napkins that coordinated perfectly in a pinch.

He smiles at the thought of his resourceful bug, his grin widening as he hears her welcome guests at the door. This is followed by a squeal of glee when Hugo and two of his classmates run off to his bedroom to play. Adrien shakes his head, still smiling. He'll have to lure them out in a bit with snacks and the promise of gifts and cake.

It's not like he doesn't already know from several years of experience that children's birthday parties are mostly adults mingling and intermittently making sure the kids don't get into too much mischief as they play together.

He takes the spinach quiche from the oven where it was warming up and sets it on the table with the other food, rebelliously placing a black potholder with a neon green pawprint pattern under the hot ceramic dish.

A towering, tiered tray of green macarons has pride of place on the dining room table, the top half of each cookie painted to look like a turtle's shell in edible glittering gold. They look almost too pretty to eat, and the same goes for the expertly-decorated turtle cake nearby, made by Hugo's grandparents and brought straight from the bakery for his big day.

The vegetable plate is an array of green, from broccoli to peppers to celery. The party has barely begun, but the celery is already running low, thanks to Emma's clandestine snacking in the hours beforehand.

Everything is green, and Hugo loves it. And that's what it's all about, really.

*****

Adrien is on his way back from checking in on the now half dozen kids playing in Hugo's room when he hears Alya's laughter from the entryway. Clearly she's spotted the party decor. He rounds the corner to find Marinette hugging her best friend, Alya's pregnant belly only getting in the way a bit and not stopping her from throwing her arms around Marinette's shoulders.

"Sorry we're late, Mari," she says, then pitches her voice to a stage whisper. "I had to pee. Twice." She leans back from the hug and cradles her bump. "Actually, I'm just going to..." She points down the hall, and Marinette laughs.

"Go for it, Als. We've all been there."

Nino is still crouched by the door, helping his daughter out of her jacket and shoes. He just shakes his head and laughs. She races off to find her "cousins" and Nino stands, kissing Marinette on each cheek and wrapping Adrien in a hug.

Surveying the apartment over Adrien's shoulder, he claps him on the back and says, "I love what you've done with the place. Very inspired design choice."

Adrien rolls his eyes and all three of them laugh.

"Hugo is obsessed with turtles. You have no idea."

"Oh, I think he has some idea, Minou." Marinette smiles at her husband over her shoulder, linking arms with Alya when she joins them again and ushering her into the green-bedecked living room.

He glances sidelong at Nino with a sheepish grin. "This isn't too weird for you, is it? It was all Hugo's idea. He hasn't stopped talking about his 'Carapace Turtle Party' for weeks," Adrien says, air quotes included.

"Nah, mec, it's cool. Kind of flattering." Nino raises an eyebrow and laughs. "What do you think he'll say when you tell him someday?"

Adrien just shakes his head. "Probably ask if you can adopt him and be his dad instead." His smile is teasing but just a touch rueful.

Nino laughs again. "No way, man. Number one, I've already got enough kids. Number two, you're the best dad. They love you like crazy, bro. Seriously."

His chest fills with warmth. Nino is such an incredible friend. And he's right (about the last bit, at least).

"They're incredible, Nino. Being a dad is..." He trails off, unable to find the words.

"I know, dude." He claps Adrien on the shoulder. "They're a pain in the ass, but they make up for it by being totally awesome."

Nino glances around, finally spotting the table full of green food and turtle-themed treats.

"Wait. Bro. Is that a turtle cake?"

*****

"You know," Nino says a few minutes later, washing down a matcha macaron with a swig of turtle punch, "I could get used to this. It would mess with my head, but after a while--" he looks at the cup with his face on it and shrugs, "it's not so strange. Better than having my face plastered on a billboard outside the Galeries Lafayette."

Adrien groans. "Et tu, Brute? Why would you remind me of that?"

"Because I can." Nino takes another bite of macaron and nudges his best friend's shoulder, laughing.

*****

As the kids snack and carry on, Adrien finally decides it's time to let his best friend see the Carapace shrine that is his son's bedroom.

Nino takes in Hugo's completely green, turtle-filled bedroom as Adrien waits with bated breath beside him for his reaction.

It is, as usual, relatively chill.

"Little dude has good taste!"

"Indeed." Wayzz peeks from Nino's collar with a pleased smile on his face. "The turtle has always symbolized wisdom, strength, and longevity." His tiny smile widens. "I'm also partial to the color green."

Nino steps farther into Hugo's room to examine the bookcase. "I...did not know they made this much Carapace merch."

"Believe me, there's more. We have to draw the line somewhere." Adrien closes his eyes and sighs. "Although he does brush his teeth with a Carapace toothbrush."

Nino's laugh starts as a snort and builds when he spots the Carapace wastebasket beside Hugo's bed and the Carapace plushie propped against his pillow. It turns positively raucous when he sees his best friend's face.

"Holy crap, dude," he wheezes. "This is hilarious. You must be so jealous."

"I am not!"

"You totally are."

"Well--" Adrien sputters, "Marinette is, too!"

"Not as much as you are, Kitty!" she calls from the living room.

Adrien throws his hands in the air. Nino doubles over.

"Chat Noir is cool, too," he mutters, petulant.

A still-laughing Nino pats his arm consolingly. "If it makes you feel any better, Chat Noir is my favorite hero...after Rena Rouge."

That actually does make him feel better, but he's not telling Nino that. Instead, he just grins a sly half-smile at his best friend. "Good save, man."

"Hey, I know which side my bread is buttered on, mec. Don't act like you don't."

Adrien is helpless to the smile that spreads across his face.

Nino groans. "You've been married for seven years, dude. Are you ever not going to go all gooey just thinking about Marinette?"

Adrien quirks an eyebrow and glances sidelong at him. Nino nods once and pats Adrien's shoulder.

"That was a dumb question, wasn't it?"

"Yep," Marinette says from the hallway behind them.

Adrien's heart beats faster at the twinkle in her eye. He wonders how much she heard. Probably all of it - she always did have sonic hearing, but motherhood seemed to ramp it up to eleven. Not much escapes his wife.

"Time for cake and presents," she announces. "Nino, you can revel in Hugo's Carapace shrine later."

"And I will, don't you worry," Nino says with a laugh as he turns to head back to the party.

Adrien throws an arm over his best friend's shoulder and smiles brightly at Marinette.

Hugo has merch, but Adrien has a real, live Ladybug who promised eternity to her Chat Noir. He holds his own favorite superhero in his arms every night, and nothing, nothing compares to that.

*****

Surrounded by wrapping paper and bows, the birthday boy sits on the floor with one last gift in front of him. The box is taller than he is when seated, and he has to stand up on his knees to tear the paper off the top. As soon as he can see what's inside, he shouts with glee and jumps to his feet. Overjoyed, he scampers around the coffee table to his parents, first thanking Marinette with a hug and kiss, then getting swept up in Adrien's arms for a bear hug.

The fact that Hugo doesn't push away from him to return to his barely-unwrapped gift is not lost on him, nor is the fact that he abandoned it and thought to thank them first in his excitement.

Sometimes Adrien feels like he's been given so much more than he deserves. Marinette alone is a blessing beyond his imagination, but Emma and Hugo, too? It's too much and he knows it, so he holds them close and relishes every single moment like this one with his little boy hugging him tight and murmuring thanks into his neck.

A few minutes later finds Hugo examining every detail of his new treasure (after Adrien wrangled all the parts out of their plastic-encased prison).

He claps his hands when he sees that this set comes with a bonus Chat Noir action figure in addition to Carapace and his shields of many colors.

"Maman!" he cries, jubilant, holding Chat Noir above his head so she can see. "Look! It has Chat Noir! You love Chat Noir!"

Blushing, Marinette pointedly avoids looking in the direction of the two moms of Hugo's school friends who've stayed for the party but smiles widely at her son. "I do. He's my favorite superhero of all time."

Hugo nods, turning to his dad where he sits beside him on the floor, struggling to snip the tiny plastic anchors holding each piece to the cardboard backing.

"See, Papa? He's Carapace's sidekick."

"Hey!" Adrien says indignantly. He looks up from the mess of cardboard and plastic in his lap as Marinette, Alya, and Nino laugh.

Nino, best bro that he is, chimes in. "Nah, little man, Chat Noir is no one's sidekick. He's way too brave and cool for that." He grins at Hugo and points first to the Carapace action figure on the coffee table and then to Chat Noir in his hand. "They're a team. Best friends and superheroes at the same time. That's why they're so awesome."

Hugo looks at the Chat Noir figure for a long moment. "Wow," he breathes. "Chat Noir is as cool as Carapace." He says it like a revelation that's rocked his entire worldview.

Alya sniffles and Marinette hands her a tissue.

"Okay, but Ladybug is still the coolest," Emma pipes up from Hugo's other side.

All the adults besides Marinette nod. Adrien reaches around Hugo to pat Emma's back.

"You're absolutely correct, kitten."

Marinette blushes again and Alya blows her nose.

Hugo tucks Carapace into the driver's seat of the Turtle-mobile with Chat Noir beside him as his passenger, racing the sports car across the rug toward his friends so they can play with his new toys, too.

Adrien looks from his son to his own best friend, and Nino gives him a thumbs up and a grin.

*****

Later, when the dishes are washed and their living room looks slightly less like a turtle habitat, Adrien sits on the sofa with a cup of tea and watches Hugo play with his new, treasured birthday gifts. The Shell-ter Secret Hideout Super Bunker is open, its many accessories strewn around Hugo where he sits cross-legged, Carapace in his left hand and Chat Noir in his right.

"I'll protect you!" "Carapace" cries, Hugo's voice pitched to sound brave and true but still carrying his sweet child's tone.

"Thank you for keeping My Lady safe, Carapace!"

Adrien snorts a surprised laugh into his tea. "Chat Noir" speaks in a husky growl, though Hugo gives him a note of cheery confidence, as though he truly appreciates Carapace's brave deeds, as though Chat Noir can take the decisive cataclysmic swing knowing his beloved partner is safe from harm.

And honestly, Hugo has the right of it. Adrien wonders how his son could possibly know that this exact scene - with slightly different dialogue, of course - played out many times over, years before he was born.

Hugo mimics the sound of an explosion, then an "oof!" as Chat Noir falls to his back but springs up again quickly. Just as Carapace returns to Chat's side with a confident, "What can I do to help save the day, Chat Noir?", Marinette's hands snake around Adrien's shoulders from behind, surprising him.

He sets his mug on a coaster on the end table and wraps his hands around her forearms, pulling her in closer. Leaned over the back of the sofa, she nuzzles his cheek with hers before pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"I think we pulled off the dream turtle party pretty well, don't you, Chaton?"

"Oh, we turtle-y did."

Adrien delights in the huff of laughter she exhales against his cheek. That might be the most overused pun in the house, but sometimes it still lands just right. They watch Hugo play, matching grins making their cheeks press closer together.

"Looks like that was one shell of a gift, eh?"

He swoons dramatically, his head falling to the back cushion of the sofa so he looks at Marinette upside-down. "My Lady, you know what it does to me when you pun."

"Oh, I do," she says, completely unapologetic, and boops his nose.

He just has to lean up to kiss her because, well, she's so beautiful and he loves her so much and she's right there.

They break apart a moment later when they hear Emma call for Marinette from her bedroom. She plants one last upside-down kiss on his forehead and lets her hands drift slowly across his chest and shoulders as she stands.

She gives him a wry smile. "Duty calls."

"Hmmm," he hums thoughtfully, picking up his tea and taking another sip. "And here I thought her name was Emma."

Marinette groans at him as she walks away, and the sound catches Hugo's attention.

"Papa? Will you play superheroes with me?"

Of course. Always. I will never, ever be too busy for my kittens, he thinks.

"Sure, buddy," he says instead.

Finishing his tea in one big gulp, he slides from the sofa and scampers on hands and knees like a giant cat to where his son is playing. Hugo giggles at his dad's ridiculousness.

Adrien takes stock of the many accessories scattered around the play set and asks, "What are Chat Noir and Carapace up to today?"

Hugo explains the situation, the bad guy's motives, and what the heroes need to do to save Paris from disaster. Adrien listens carefully. Looking up at him with green eyes that match his own, big and wide and crinkled at the corners with his happy smile, Hugo offers the Chat Noir action figure to his dad.

"Will you be Chat Noir, Papa? He's Carapace's best friend in the world and they need to work together to save the day."

Adrien cradles the action figure in one hand and gently pats the pocket where Plagg hides with the other. His kwami presses a paw against his chest in return. Overwhelmed, all he can do is grin at Hugo and try not to cry.

"It would be my greatest honor," he vows grandly, holding up a hand in oath. "I purr-omise to be the best hero I can be. Cat's honor."

Hugo laughs. "You said honor twice."

"So I did. That's because it's very important."

His son nods solemnly, then reaches for Carapace's super jet. He places the hero in the cockpit and flies the jet around his head, making zooming noises.

"Are you ready, Chat Noir? I'm coming to pick you up!"

The jet has only one seat, but that doesn't seem to bother Hugo. Adrien readies the tiny plastic baton in Chat Noir's hand and uses it to vault from his own knee into the imaginary sky over Paris.

"Meow-velous!" he crows, delighted. "This cat is ready to be whiskered away in your very realistic jet! Allons-y, my turtle friend!"

Hugo giggles, Adrien's heart melts, and they set off on a grand adventure together.

[findingmarvinchavez]

Flowers in the Concrete

mayans mc au. three first meetings. biker eddie/odd job worker buck. rated m for a brief instance of physical assault (not between buck and eddie). 3.4 k. mostly fluff with a smidge of angst.

Two guys, each on the run from his own past, wash up in unlikely Santo Padre, aka bumfuck nowhere. This is the story of three chance meetings that might just be the breath of fresh air they've both been missing, a connection found without actually looking for it.

read on ao3.

Was my heart beatin' in my chest? And was I even alive before the day we met?

Evan Buckley had left home on a quest to get as far away from there and everything he was leaving behind as possible. How his series of odd jobs had brought him to the small town of Santo Padre, also known as bumfuck nowhere, however, was a mystery even to him.

It was not as if  Buck had expected any sort of glorious wild west experience from working as what the newspaper ad had labeled a  "hardy vineyard worker.” Apart from a handful of coffee shops, three of which were more like corner stores that offered outside seating, for daytime leisure and a couple of sketchy dive bars for a night out, this town really was a case of dust and crickets. Young people mostly seemed to flee the place as fast as they could and if they didn't manage that, they resigned to a life without any real prospects just as quickly.

Of course that was just the general drift and like everywhere, Santo Padre was home to its very own kinds of life, to people worth meeting, and places that were unlike anywhere else Buck had been before. He had found his favorite corner store where he spent his afternoons off drinking Tommy's strong filter coffee, black and with lots of sugar, whiling away long hours in the Californian sun. Sometimes Marj, who tended the nicest bar around most nights, joined him and sometimes she brought a couple of friends. 

Today, however, Buck was sitting accompanied only by his coffee cup and an unnervingly colorful tabloid newspaper. He half-heartedly told himself that he was reading stuff like this on occasion to keep up with the outside world at least at some level, but the truth was that he enjoyed the senseless drama from time to time.

He was deep into a frighteningly detailed article on Chryssi Teigen's journey through pregnancy and motherhood when the roar of tuned motorcycle engines made him look up and across the street.

There they were, the representatives of another one of the scarce career options available in Santo Padre: the local branch of the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club. Every now and then, these guys (Buck had the impression that only guys were allowed to ride with the crew) would pull up dramatically in front of an establishment and two or three would enter it looking like they meant business while the rest would wait out front on their rides just asserting presence or whatever their task out there was.

In any case, Buck rarely had the opportunity to study them as closely yet inconspicuously as today. There were just four of them, and two had already vanished into the butcher shop across the street. Of the other two, one was typing away at his phone furiously, oblivious to the outside world, which left the fourth guy to pass the time just lounging on his bike, scanning the street occasionally but mostly just looking at nothing in particular. He was wearing dark sunglasses though, so Buck couldn't be sure if he had his eyes closed when he was just doing nothing.

Actually, he was trying to determine just that when the biker suddenly seemed to sense that someone was watching him. Buck was so intent on the man's frankly very handsome face that he failed to look away before the other's searching gaze met his own. In a futile attempt to salvage the situation, Buck hid his face behind his newspaper. Only to realize that presenting the current Us Weekly cover to the guy who had caught him staring was pretty much the opposite of preserving his dignity. Exasperated with himself, Buck sighed and slowly lowered the newspaper again. He just caught the other man turning away from him. Buck thought he was smirking, but actually not in an unpleasant way. A little self-assured, maybe, but the man didn't look annoyed or even particularly judgemental.

He had turned to greet his biker friends as they emerged from the butcher shop. Without much fuss, all four of them got ready to ride off. Sunglasses guy, as Buck had baptized him, didn't make any more motion toward Buck, so Buck felt safe as he observed the gang's exit. Only for sunglasses guy, who rode at the end of the formation, to turn and look straight at Buck as the group passed the corner shop. Buck might have felt more annoyed about this next faux-pas if that man in his black leather jacket and black shirt and black jeans and his damn sunglasses, with his pretty face and wind-ruffled-yet-soft brown hair hadn't looked like a vision straight from a cheesy hollywood movie.

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There was really only the one grocery store in Santo Padre so that's where Eddie Diaz went to get his groceries. Today, as he turned the last corner toward the checkout aisle, Eddie found his way blocked by someone who he first registered as "tall". Next he took note of sun-kissed skin partially covered by a light green shirt that could have been either pastel or sun-bleached and then the face… A familiar face, currently expressing a mix of confusion, concentration, and something that resembled defeat. The tall guy was standing in front of the magazine stand and appeared to be studying the contents of the kids section with the utmost commitment. The setup was too good for Eddie to miss out on.

"No Us Weekly for you today?"

"I'm sorry, what…"

Following the tall guy's face journey as it went from startled to confused to surprised was worth the cheap shot at starting a conversation, Eddie found.

"Oh… Right. I'm just, so I'm actually supposed to pick up a magazine for my employer’s… uh… daughter. So that's why…"

Tall guy finished his sentence by vaguely gesturing toward the variety of kids' magazines. For some reason he couldn’t put his finger on, Eddie didn’t feel like letting the other man off the hook just yet, so he decided to push his luck just a little further.

"Yeah. I'm afraid I'm no help here. Maybe if we were talking gossip magazines…"

"About that… I didn't mean to stare the other day. Sorry.”

Eddie wondered how a grown man could possibly make the boyish apologetic smile that tall guy gave him seem as genuine as it did. And yet, watching that little duck of his head, shoulders drawing in just slightly, Eddie suspected that this one right here was usually pretty good at getting on people’s good sides, even when the offense was a little more serious than being caught staring. Not that eddie would let any of these whimsical observations show in his reply, though:

"I get it. There really isn’t much to look at around here most of the time."

There was a short pause in which both of them seemed to ponder the meaning of this statement. The store’s freezers hummed and some Tejano country tunes filled the air-conditioned space. Eddie moved to raise the half-filled shopping basket in his right hand.

“Anyway. I should probably leave you to your sacred duty. I'm sure I'll see you around…”

Eddie made the last sentence sound like a question.

“Oh, Buck. I mean, it’s Evan Buckley, but people just call me Buck, usually.”

“Alright then, Buck. I'm Eddie. I'll see you around, Buck.”

“Yeah, see you around, Eddie.”

It took Buck a moment to realize he had to move for Eddie to be able to walk past him, so they parted with another somewhat awkward smile on each of their faces. It wasn’t the bad kind of awkward though, Eddie thought as he awaited his turn at the cash register. Having turned his attention back to the magazine stand, Buck stood with his back toward Eddie, giving Eddie the opportunity to be the one watching from a distance this time around. And he had to admit that he didn’t mind this new angle of otherwise deadbeat Santo Padre at all.

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In retrospect, Buck recognized that it might not have been the most sensible decision to walk home from a bar several miles when he had definitely had more than his share of whiskey shots. On the other hand, walking was a good way to clear your head before going to bed, and being a tall able-bodied white guy, Buck usually had the privilege of not having to worry too much about what might happen to him out on the streets at night. Well, life has no guarantees, and today appeared to be Evan Buckley's unlucky night.

He sensed somebody following him, even in his drunken state, for several minutes, before he turned around for the first time. Two dark figures were walking behind him. They were still at a distance that could have also been pure happenstance. Apart from himself and the two others, nothing was moving along the moderately well-illuminated street that led from downtown toward a more residential area. Feeling suddenly exposed and defenseless, Buck picked up his pace. He was still walking, but briskly now, definitely not strolling along any more.

This acceleration turned out to be more of a symbolic action, however, and the next time Buck turned around, his face met with a fist right colliding hard with his left cheekbone. The impact sent his already destabilized body spiraling around and down. Buck managed to catch himself on two hands, coughing blood onto the gray pavement. Before he could form a clear thought, his head was ripped upward by his hair. He couldn’t clearly make out the face he was looking at underneath the guy’s dark hood. Buck felt another person’s boots pressing down on his calves and another fist in his hair on the back of his head. Everything felt sort of surreal as his dizzy mind tried desperately to become as alert as the situation demanded it. Bad guy nr. 1, in front of him, spoke:

“Wallet. Watch. Anything valuable you have on you.”

“W…”

The robbers didn’t seem to be in any way inclined to take Buck’s intoxication and resulting dimmed wits into consideration, Buck learned as an unrelenting kick to the stomach had him double down again.

“Ok, blondie…”

The tone of voice suddenly shifted from aggressive and demandin to aggressive and bewildered:

“…what the hell?”

Buck felt at least one hand let go of his hair as another commotion started, this time not involving him.

“Hey!”

The shout came from behind him.

Then the weight on his lower legs was lifted and Buck slowly raised himself to see the two guys that had assaulted him locked in an altercation with another man. One wearing black pants and something leather. The single guy clearly had the upper hand, however that was possible. Finally, Buck’s presumed savior had pushed the two assailants back enough to show them something on his jacket and to say a couple of words that sent them off positively running down the street.

Next, Buck found himself face to face with…

“Eddie?”

“You okay, Buck?”

Eddie, sunglasses Eddie, grocery store Eddie, was kneeling right in front of Buck. Unlike the robber’s face, the streetlights painted Eddie's face in stark contrasts. It appeared to be screwed up with worry as he scanned Buck in his admittedly not very fortunate position.

“Eddie, what…?”

“Are you feeling ok? Can you stand up?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Buck said the words as tentatively as he pushed himself onto his feet. He was swaying slightly and his arms wrapped themselves around his bruised abdomen seemingly of their own accord. Eddie stood up right next to him, and steadied him by gripping both his arms, firmly but not too tightly. Buck made his best attempt at a reassuring smile:

“Some of it is also the alcohol. I've gotten pretty hammered tonight.”

Eddie's concerned expression softened somewhat at that statement, and keeping eye contact, he smiled back at Buck.

“Yeah well, you’ve still been beaten up by a couple of idiots, so let’s make sure they didn’t leave any permanent marks, ok? Give me your address and I'll take you home, if that’s ok with you. Or do you need a hospital?”

Apparently trying to answer his own question, Eddie traced Buck's bruised left cheek carefully with his fingertips. Buck had to suck in a couple of breaths but all in all nothing seemed to be seriously damaged.

"I think I'm ok. Also feels like I still got all my teeth."

"Good, Good. How about your ribs? Your stomach? Are you breathing all right?"

Buck took a few deep breaths and lifted his shirt to feel along the big red spot on his left side where the robber's boot had connected with his torso.

"I mean, it hurts like hell, but it doesn't feel like anything's broken. Should be ok to wait until tomorrow to see if I need a doctor."

"Alright, Buck. Home it is then?"

"Yeah. that sounds good."

"It's just down this street. About a mile or so."

"Can you try to sit on the bike?"

Eddie looked away from Buck to indicate the huge black motorcycle parked at the side of the street. Buck thought that he must have been really preoccupied to not have heard the engine approaching but then again being violently assaulted while being boozed-up might do that to a guy. He nodded.

“I’ll try.”

"Great. I'm gonna sit down in front first, you'll have to climb on behind me. Take care to keep those long legs off the ground. And let me know if it hurts too much, then we'll walk."

"Ok, Eddie."

Buck tried for his own sake as much as Eddie's not to sound as if he was secretly planning to lie down on the concrete and suffer in silence as the adrenaline rush from the robbery finally died down and he became painfully aware that his bruises were just about to really start showing their true colors. Not to mention the drunkenness.

Still, Eddie appeared to realize that he had set Buck a task that was pretty challenging in his current condition. From his seat on the bike, he gave Buck an encouraging smile:

"Just a few minutes and you can lie down and let the painkillers do their job."

Buck brazed himself before swinging his right leg over the black leather seat behind Eddie. Careful to make the most of the limited space between Eddie and the rear wheel, he dropped down and found that the seat was surprisingly comfortable. It took a bit more coordination to position his feet on the footpegs.

"You good?"

"I think so, yeah."

"Ok, Buck. You'll have to hold onto me. Other than that, just try to relax and keep your feet and butt where they belong. We're not going fast and we're not going far, but remember to tell me if you don't feel alright. Sound good?"

"Yup."

As he put his hands gingerly on both Eddie's sides, Buck, for the first time since he had left the bar, was actually kind of glad for the last of the alcohol still circulating his system. Even though this was by far the most normal thing to happen in the last half hour or so, it still was a pretty awkward position, Buck found. Both he and Eddie were relatively big guys, and Buck at least was entirely lost on how to best position himself on a motorcycle. Eddie didn't seem fazed, though. Intentionally or not, his apparent calm helped center Buck in the moment, and to trust that he would be in the safety of his own home in just a bit.

As promised, Eddie rode along carefully until Buck told him that they were there. When Buck had stepped off the bike, they looked at each other in silence for a moment as they both tried to figure out what would be an appropriate good-bye after this particular meeting. Finally, Eddie said:

"Would you mind if I gave you my number? So can you tell me if you're still feeling ok tomorrow?"

Buck took his phone out of his jacket pocket, glad to see that it hadn't been implicated in the night's events. He held it out for Eddie to take.

"Go ahead."

As he watched the other man type, Buck realized that had no clue how to thank someone who had just saved his bacon from god knows what danger. Accepting the fact that he wouldn't come up with anything remotely worthy given how his head, hell, his whole body was feeling right now, Buck decided to keep it simple and true. When Eddie had finished saving his contact info and passed the phone back to him, Buck said:

"Thank you, Eddie. I really don't know what else to say, so thank you."

Eddie smiled up at him from the bike, another of those patient and sweet smiles that changed everything about his tough-guy appearance.

"Of course, Buck. Just be sure to check in on yourself before you go to sleep. I'll hear from you tomorrow, ok?"

"Definitely. Good night, Eddie."

Buck watched as Eddie started the engine, kicked off, and started riding down the street. Only then did he turn around and enter his house. Despite his bone-deep fatigue, he gave himself a moment to slide down with his back against the front door and let the turmoil inside him ravage the very last of his energy. When his body was finally all out of adrenaline, Be willed himself to walk to his medicine cabinet and down a couple of painkillers. He made sure to check his breathing and pain levels before he stumbled onto his bed. Buck was asleep before he even hit the mattress.

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Last night, Eddie had waited until he could check that Buck's front door had safely closed behind him before really beginning his ride home. He was glad for the cool night air clearing his mind and the headwind's white noise. Despite how relaxed he had appeared while Buck was around, the whole situation hadn't passed Eddie by without leaving a trace.

Since Buck had been down when Eddie had arrived, it had been a two-on-one fight after all. Or rather, it could have been. There had been no way to know for sure whether showing those guys his patch and threatening them with its implications would make them back off or become even more aggressive. Eddie thanked god for at least mid-sized mercies as he replayed the events in his head before sleep finally caught up with him.

The next morning, Eddie kept checking his phone even though he knew Buck probably should take all the sleep he could get. Finally, at about 11, there was the ping indicating a new message:

“hi eddie, it's buck. just wanted to let you know that apart from some big bruises, everything seems intact. i really can't thank you enough for stepping in like that. let me know if there's ever anything i can do for you! you have my number now :). other than that, i'm sure i'll see you around, hopefully under much different circumstances next time. take care! buck."

Eddie let out the breath he'd been holding since opening the message. It was then that he realized that he was actually smiling at his phone. Like a damn teenager texting their crush.

In his defense, this was the first real contact he had made outside the MC since he had arrived in Santo Padre. And Buck was right about seeing each other around. As hard as it was in an obscure small town like this to stumble upon real connection, its limited size also meant that you would meet people time and time again. For some mysterious reason, Eddie felt that he would get along pretty well with the guy he only knew from a couple of looks across the street, one awkward run-in, and saving him from robbers at 2:30 at night.

Buck, with his heartfelt and infectious smile, had washed up at the same unlikely place Eddie had. So, for the first time since he had joined the local chapter to try and escape his Texas past, the joyful rush of anticipation bubbled up in him. When he stepped out into the hot SoCal sun, Eddie felt his heart beat in his chest as he thought of future meetings and blue eyes.

note: title from love is a wild thing by kacey musgraves. introductory quote from i can't remember me (before you) by brothers osborne. more music in my buddie playlist as linked in bio.