#for someone who says she's antisocial she be yapping

[zinhuan]

"that makes the two of us then." she responds, holding up two fingers along with a sheepish smile. the gesture lingers for just a moment before she drops it hastily, as though embarrassment has caught up to her a second too late. her gaze flickers briefly before returning to him, an awkward laugh slipping past her lips. "good thing it's me who found you. otherwise … " she trails off, face scrunching up just a little in mild dismay, "let's just say there's a very nasty security guard working here. i've once even been accused of stealing even though i was just working overtime."

ze lan gives the other a quick once-over, head tilting slightly as though trying to piece together how he ended up here. she faintly recalls something her coworkers often say when guiding visitors through the museum: if you find yourself lost in a museum somehow, it’s because the art has called to you. the thought lingers in her mind, as the curator's curious gaze drifts from the other to the artwork hanging in front of them.

a pleased smile appears then, "i'm starting to think it really must be fate that we cross paths here." her tone is light, almost teasing, but there’s a glimmer of sincerity in her eyes as she steps closer, hands clasped loosely in front of her. “you know, i was the one who wrote the small introduction info board there,” she continues, gesturing at the small description at the bottom of the art. “let's just say i'm probably the closest to an ... expert in old chinese mythology in this entire museum." it is not without some tiniest guilt when she said this, when she couldn't even find answers to her ... situation that is likely more entwined with the myths than any scholarly research could ever capture.

"and this?" lan points at the painting then, voice softening just a bit, "beautiful, isn't it?" old paintings that feature the beast like the one they're staring at usually hints at power and courage, and she tells him just so. "did you know that tigers are considered as a divine beast in old myths? they usually bring good things with them. they look scary sometimes, but good."

(...) she hasn't meant to sneak up on the other like that, realizing a bit later that she could have had startled them, and a sheepish apology is quick to come, "sorry, hope i didn't scare you there." a glance around their quiet, empty surroundings, the absence of the bustling gala making the moment feel oddly comfortable, despite the presence of another stranger just within reach. "so ... as an employee of the museum, i feel obligated to ask. is the party not enjoyable for you too?"

‎ ‎  ⋆ — 𝐣𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬. . . he hadn’t expected to be approached in the midst of losing himself in an old chinese painting — ink and color on paper, brushstrokes carving out the elegant, coiled form of a tiger. the artist painted the face mischievous and sinister, with a cheshire-cat smile, big eyes… all its monstrous detail rendered with care, giving him an odd feeling in his chest. he tears his gaze away with a start, breathing in. “nooo, no, it's great,” he’s quick to reassure. “i’m just, uh… antisocial, i guess.”

jesse hadn’t come to the museum for the gala. it was more of a last-ditch effort to… reconnect, maybe. stare at old artwork his ancestors might’ve made about the other spirit in his body, try to learn more about it before it swallowed him whole. he knows he's under-dressed for the part, ratty sneakers poking out underneath starchy black pants, but if he'd taken any longer getting ready he might've lost his nerve on the way.

he eyes miss museum employee for a brief moment. she’s dressed smartly, and if she hadn’t mentioned her status here herself, he would’ve guessed it by the way she carries herself with quiet grace. to soften his nerves he swallows a gulp of his bubbly champagne, snagged off some random table.

“you know a lot about this?” jesse waves a vague hand out over the exhibit. “i’ve been trying to get more into, um... the stuff about - like…” he doesn’t know why he’s nervous. it’s not like somebody was going to point at him and say, you’re only looking at this stuff because some ancient chinese tiger spirit likes making you its puppet sometimes! you freak! jesse breathes out. “...about old chinese mythology. the stories and the monsters and stuff.”

[applejuiceism]

applejuiceism talks about her mime ocs that only she cares about cuz theyre trapped in her brain and not talked about like, anywhere else

huge chunks of text warning ... i only go over POP, SNAP PEA, COPYCAT and BIP

POP is the first mime oc i ever made, based around 80s glamrock fashion and general 'glam' motifs. they (they/any) are extremely energetic and outgoing, willing to spark up conversation with anyone, even the most awkward and antisocial people. somebody could silently stare at them, or be clearly uninterested, and they'd still yap away non-stop. this extroverted-ness is a blessing and a curse however, because they tend to not pick up on social cues that indicate the person is uncomfortable; therefore, they have a tendency to overwhelm folks by trying to push them into talking, without meaning to!! their true color is a PASTEL GREEN, which they're ashamed of, and actively hide by pretending their true color is a hot neon pink. the only traces of their true color is in their eyes, tongue and hemolyph. they shut down and their personality takes a 180 when it's pointed out to them; it's a huge topic of insecurity.

SNAP PEA is sort of the second one i ever made? based around cows. he's (he/him) friendly and understanding, willing to be a shoulder to cry on for anyone who needs it. he tends to be a little awkward sometimes, not at all blessed with natural charisma, but he tries his best either way. when you're around him, you're bound to likely enjoy your time—even if theres moments of silence because he doesn't know what to say. unlike most mimes, SNAP PEA is VERY living-oriented. he is basically the biggest advocator for their safety, and he makes that very known. with his dangerously high levels of strength and durability, he easily wipes out any mime who is deemed hostile towards the living. his mime kill-streak is ... pretty high. he doesn't actively seek out mimes to snuff out, but if one happens to cross his path and isn't apart of Light's Cooperative or is otherwise 'safe', they will not be around long. despite all of this, he's still a good guy (objectively), and a great leader when he's allowed to be. also he's HARVEST GOLD.

COPYCAT is sort of unknown lol. i forgot when exactly i made her in order. she's (she/her or any) rude and mean, often spitting out random insults just to give you a taste of her annoyance. it's not very hard to aggravate her, and while she won't physically attack you (she can't, really, her hemolyph is too low for the risk), she will indeed call you a plethora of names and give you the dirtiest looks. ignoring all of this, she's not 24/7 bitchy, and more often than not she's simply snappy. no matter who she's with, she tends to talk their head off; going down rabbit holes of random topics until she's either decided she's had enough, or you're clearly not interested. she, obviously, prefers to be around people who are willing to listen to her. her opinions are very strong as a front, but it's easy to wilt her feelings and make her question herself. she LOVES the living; wishing she was one of them rather than a mime. as a mime herself in general, she is a copycat of one of the living cast, and as a result she has a lot of moral dilemmas surrounding it. but that's a whole can of worms in of itself. she's WINE RED.

BIP is one of the most recent mime ocs i have. he (he/him) is literally the worst guy ever. wish i was joking. he is hated by almost every single one of my ocs, both living and mimes, with the exception of just roughly three (mind you, i have like 10+ ocs in cq). and it's for a good reason—aforementioned, he is awful. he likes to piss people off to a degree of purposefully overstimulating them, and often will make them so upset they want to harm him. which never works. he's physically strong, and sometimes he uses them 'initiating it' to kick someone's shit in for fun. the only mimes who like him are his wife DAME (she/they), his 'friend' PRAIRIE (she/her), and his sister DOROTHY (xe/xem). it's all mostly tolerance, besides his wife, whom loves him as much as he loves her. they're inseparable. anyway; BIP is incredibly hard to be around, and likes making people suffer, so there's no use in trying to talk sense into him. people have tried. he is PASTEL PURPLE.

thanks for coming

[mayhem-is-aether]

My CoD oc Pat Rebenawitz!

I love her so much, she's also just an oc in general, but I'm labelling her as a CoD oc just because I can

Below the doodle with be a yap session about her story

Something that has always fascinated me, is how Pat's story initially feels like it has no coherency, she goes from this antisocial little girl, to someone who has recognized her place in this world at such a young age.

Pat is desires control. In her childhood, she had little control over who she was supposed to be, she's told to be this perfect image of what a young girl is supposed to be, but that was never her. When she has this unforeseen, and arguably unjustified, snapping point; She runs away, she gains some control in doing so. Taking back control over her life subconsciously.

As she grows, she becomes more self-aware, she knows what makes her tick, what frustrates her, and she controls it. Manages herself, her emotions. She hates physical touch partially because she cannot control the situation, she'd have to initiate so she can have control over that situation.

Everything she does and says is done with a specific intent, every aspect of her as she grows and matures becomes calculated. And this isn't just for no reason, it's so she can be perceived as normal, perceived as unassuming. She doesn't want to be something special, something more.

Pat desires to be part of something bigger than herself, which I feel like actively conflicts with her desire for control. She enjoys hunting, not because of the thrill of the kill, but because she feels like she's part of an ecosystem, something bigger than herself. It's why she finds a strange and twisted comfort in the battlefield, while she often lacks control over any given situation, it's the feeling of being part of something bigger than drives her.

Another thing I find so interesting about her, is how fast she matured. She was essentially forced into a life she had no general understanding of at 12, she developed this survivalist mentality, taking the hunting lessons and bits of wisdom her adoptive father told her before he passed to heart. She never, not for one single second, views herself as the hunter, in her eyes she will always be prey. Because cornered prey is more dangerous than the hunter cornering it.

I sometimes feel like her story is edgy or cringe, but I mostly feel that way because of the overarching plot, not the small details that go into make Pat Rebenawitz herself.

[cosmic-hearts]

sunshower | lee jeno

lee jeno x reader 

genres; fluff, romance, very slight angst 

warnings; real cringey and cliche tbh (but otherwise none)

summary: a sunshower is a meteorological phenomenon in which rain falls while the sun is shining. 

You always knew you were a child of the rain. In fact, the day you were born, the city was struck by one of the heaviest thunderstorms ever in history, and for the first few days of your life, lightning bolts would clash in deafening roars and hail would descend, spiralling sharply through the chaos under the grey skies as you slept soundly through it all. Born of storms and raised by thunder, you felt most alive when the cold wind nipped at your ears and icy droplets of rain pricked at your skin, sending spurts of electricity shooting through your system. 

You also knew that not everyone liked the rain. In fact, some others hated it. This fact irked you very much— after all, who could detest of the feeling of sweet little drops of coolness kissing one’s skin lightly, like sprinklings of stardust, of the misty, elusive wind gently nuzzling one’s hair like the touch of a familiar lover?

Well, apparently Lee Jeno did. 

If you were the heiress of the storm, Lee Jeno was the descendant of the sun. 

For into his veins were woven sunshine and daylight, and when he smiled, his eyes morphed into sunbeams, casting rays of light so unbelievably bright. The only thing dark about him was his hair, but even so, it was a luxuriant sort of black that shone under the sunlight, giving it a dappled glow. His very being exuded warmth, drawing people to him like moths to a flame. Unlike the storm which holds a more covert, concealed sort of charm people find harder to uncover, the sun’s glory is highly visible, its warm rays easily felt and indulged in. 

That was Lee Jeno. The polar opposite of you. 

And you were perfectly happy to stay clear of him like you always did; after all, how could the sun and the storm coexist? 

He couldn’t seem to do the same, though. 

The clashing of elemental forces began when he caught you playing truant during gym class. In your defence, you simply couldn’t help yourself; the skies had darkened to a lovely silvery hue and a light, hazy drizzle had begun. This kind of rain was one of your many favourites, because it meant that you could frolic freely within its depths without fear of getting too wet and therefore sick. You had tried going out into a massive storm before, and it hadn’t gone down well with both your immune system and your parents. 

So the weather was simply irresistible, and the rain had called enticingly out to you in sweet, seductive whispers. You couldn’t miss this opportunity. And so when you thought no one was paying attention, you slipped quietly out of gym class and headed straight for the rooftop, where you could bask in the pure, unadulterated joy of being alone with the one thing you love most. 

All was well, until a voice struck you out of your reverie, and that’s when you looked up to see Lee Jeno coming towards you with a frown on his usually cheerful face. 

“What are you doing out here?” His voice is muffled slightly by the pitter-patter of raindrops colliding onto the cement beneath your feet.

Truth to be told, this is the first time you’re seeing him upset. Usually he’s always smiling, and nothing seems to faze him. 

“I could say the same to you,” you shoot back, annoyed that your peace has been disturbed. You’re not antisocial—at least, you wouldn’t admit you were—but you just really treasure your alone time. Being with people drains the energy out of your system, but for Lee Jeno, it seems like he thrives off being around others, like a leech feeding off their energy. 

“I followed you,” Jeno says matter-of-factly, “I was curious.”

You roll your eyes and swing your feet over the ledge, dangling them over the cityscape below you. Jeno’s eyes widen at this and he immediately rushes to your side, placing his hands firmly on your shoulders, steadying you. 

“What are you doing?!” He exclaims, visibly shaken by your bold action. 

His touch sends heatwaves of shock burning through your skin and fizzing through your nerves. Perhaps it is because he is the sun and you are rain, so his touch feels extra hot to you. So warm and foreign is this feeling that you almost flinch under his palm. 

“Look, it’s fine. I do this all the time,” you say curtly, moving your shoulder ever-so-slightly to shake off his hold. 

At this, Jeno sighs, resigned to your unwavering obstinance. “Okay, fine. But you’re gonna catch a cold if you stay out here for too long.”

“Jeno, why do you care?” You weren’t trying to be a smart mouth, but you genuinely could not fathom Lee Jeno’s sudden interest in caring for your welfare. You two had never been close, nor was he responsible for you in any way.

“I’m class president. It’s my duty to look out for my classmates,” he says robotically, and it sounds rehearsed to your ears. 

You smirk a little. “Go look after the rest of them at gym class then. Make sure they don’t get hurt.” 

Jeno sighs, before crouching down on the ground and taking a seat beside you. He crosses his legs, though; he harbours no particular desire to fall to his death. 

“I was just worried, all right? I mean, who goes out to the rooftop in this weather?”

You ignore his yapping by your ear, instead holding out your hand, imagining resting all your burdens and troubles on your palm. With every raindrop that comes into contact with your palm, you feel life’s worries being washed away into oblivion, gifting you with a clean, fresh slate that’ll last until the next rainfall. You’d been doing this since you were young; it amused your parents to no end, but no one understood the significance of this little ritual you held dear to your heart.

“You’re noisy,” you say, your tone not biting or sharp but more factual. “You talk a lot, Jeno.” 

At this Jeno stops rambling, opting instead to scratch the back of his neck with his hand. “Ah, really? I’m just… trying to fill the silence, I guess. You’re really quiet, you know.” 

You smile slightly and turn your head to the side so that Jeno can’t see it. 

“I have to go now. I’ll just… tell Mr Kim that you’re not feeling well.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You’re not going to report me?”

At this, Jeno chuckles lightly. “Hey, I can’t fault you for hating fitness conditioning, can I? Who in their right mind likes burpees?”

You actually don’t mind the burpees, but you decide not to tell him the real reason you’re skipping. Not that you mind, but he’d probably brand you a freak if he didn’t already think you one. Again, not that you mind.

“But I will report you if you really get sick in the rain. Here,” Jeno says, shrugging off his jacket and placing it around your shoulders, as if it were the most natural thing to do. When his fingertips accidentally brush against your neck you feel a warm, crimson blush creeping across your cheekbones and you’re momentarily dazed. Every time he touches you it feels like you’ve been grazed by a ray of sunlight— so warm and gentle it feels that you honestly can’t find it in yourself to complain. Plus his jacket feels so cosy, and despite it being oversized it somehow manages to be a perfect fit for you. And you’re a sucker for oversized sweaters, especially during the rainy season.

“Much better,” he declares in satisfaction, “I’ll see you in class later.”

—

You don’t know what came over you when you caught sight of Lee Jeno a few weeks later stuck at the school gate, unable to go home because of the pouring rain, and instantly deciding that you couldn’t just pretend to not notice him and leave. 

You take a deep breath, braving yourself for the sacrifice you were about to make.

Marching right up to him, you thrust your only umbrella into his hand, before turning immediately on your heel and running off into the embrace of the heavy downpour, hearing Jeno yell your name amid the howling winds but refusing to look back.

I must be the greatest fool ever, you think to yourself as you feel your clothes beginning to cling to your skin, and cringe at the feeling of water seeping into your shoes and permeating through your socks. You weren’t exactly the most self-sacrificing person, and you have no idea what possessed you to act like an impulsive, idiotic teenager incapable of rational thought.

Cheers to getting a hell of a dressing-down from your mom about running in the rain. This wouldn’t be the first time, but if she knows you did it deliberately to help someone else, especially since it’s not like you forgot your umbrella or anything… You couldn’t even begin to fathom the consequences.

You reach the traffic light, where unfortunately you have to wait in the rain for the light to turn green, and in the meantime, the cold begins to ooze into your bones. The harsh wind pinches the tips of your ears and an involuntary shudder passes through your body. It’s especially cold today; you really don’t get cold easily and in fact you revel in it most times, but this is just too much. 

Suddenly the rain pouring over you seems to cease; it’s as though an imaginary umbrella has been held over your head. When you look you, you realize that it’s not an imaginary umbrella but a real one, and with a jolt you realize that it is in fact your umbrella and Lee Jeno is towering over you, his expression dark, perhaps even darker than the clouds marring the sky. 

“You’re so stupid, Y/N,” he says in a chiding tone, and you feel like a scolded puppy, but at the same time you can’t ignore the feeling of his warm breath hitting your cheek as he wraps an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close to him. The chill in your bloodstream begins to abate, replaced by a tingling sense of warmth that Jeno’s body heat provides. 

“Why the heck did you do that? Shit, you’re cold as ice. You’re gonna get sick tomorrow,” Jeno says, eyebrows furrowed deep with lines of worry. You looks even more upset than when he did when he caught you on the rooftop, and it scares you a little since Lee Jeno is never upset. 

“I-I’m fine,” you begin to stutter but you can barely squeeze another utterance in when you break out into a violent sneeze, and Jeno tightens his grip around you, pulling you impossibly closer to him.

“I’ll walk you to the bus stop,” he says, tone softer now, eyes gentler, too. You can barely hear him against the sound of rain lashing against the sidewalk but you know that his voice is strong and firm and strangely enough it comforts you, makes you feel safe. 

For the first time, you learn what it feels like to bask in someone’s warmth and company, even if no words are exchanged. Sometimes, silence deepens relationships the same way conversation does.

Honestly, It feels nice. 

It feels even better when Jeno hands you his sweater afterwards, a big grey oversized thing which smells warm and lemony and fresh, and makes sure you’re all snugly wrapped up before leaving you. 

That same day, after the cessation of the storm, a dazzling rainbow breaks through the saturnine clouds and you feel your heart lift with wings of hope. 

—

You hold two freshly washed and dried, neatly folded sweaters in your arms as you walk towards Jeno’s locker, where he’s standing with his back against the metal door. 

Just as you’re about to call out to him, a girl walks up to him and when Jeno sees her he breaks out into the largest smile you’ve ever seen, as if he’d just struck gold. It struck you then, how good they looked together; they both had that million-dollar smile that could light up the world and give direction to all the lost planets of the universe; they both had beautiful, bright smiling eyes, and they both looked like the world around them had dissolved into oblivion as they basked in each other’s company. 

You watch as the girl slips something into his hands, and his smile grows impossibly larger; it’s almost blinding. He places his hand on top of her head, ruffling her strawberry blonde tresses while she pouts in pseudo-annoyance.

If Jeno was your sun, this girl had to be his.

A slight, painful twinge seizes your heart. It’s slight, but it’s sharp. 

For you were perfectly aware that you could never be his sunshine.

Eyes downcast, you turn away from them and slip back into the shadows, just as huge storm clouds begin to loom in the overhead sky.

—

“I knew I’d find you here.”

The chilly winds that whipped your hair into tousled, tangled locks ceased the moment Jeno snuck out onto the rooftop to find you, armed with a big grin and his usual cheery countenance. You give him a feeble smile in return. 

“Here, take this. It’s good for colds,” Jeno says, thrusting a thin tea packet into your hands. 

“I’m not sick.”

“Hey, just take it, all right? I literally had to beg my sister for it; this is her favourite tea and she refuses to share it with anyone. After you braved that storm yesterday you’re bound to get a cold sooner or later.”

“Your… sister?” 

“Yeah, my little sister. She’s a selfish little brat, but I managed to convince her to give me one. Promise me you’ll drink it, I have to do all her chores for tonight in return,”Jeno says, insistent, as he curls his lips into a pout. How adorable. 

“O-Okay,” you say, still reeling slightly over the shock of having discovered that the girl that nearly caused you to lose your composure, was, in fact, Jeno’s younger sister. That explained the undeniable genetics.

“Thank you, Jeno,” you say sincerely, slipping the little packet of ginger tea in your coat pocket, “Help me say thank you to your sister as well. She’s adorable. You’re really lucky to have her.” She’s really lucky to have you. 

Jeno’s eyes widen at this and he nudges your shoulder in disbelief. “Hey, what are you saying? She’s lucky to have me as her older brother! The things I do for that little rascal. There was this one time she…”

You would have liked to say that you were paying attention to Jeno’s words, but unfortunately you were only paying attention to him; you get sucked into the gentleness of his gaze and it’s hard for you to focus on the utterances leaving his cherry lips. His eyes are beamy black, like pools of obsidian ink, yet their shine is so impossibly lustrous that it captivates you in a stronghold and refuses to let you go. 

And that’s when you realize that you’ve fallen irrevocably in love with the sun. 

—

With the cognizance that you had fallen in love with Lee Jeno, the boy who had been handcrafted by Apollo himself, came the crushing realization that your feelings would amount to nothing. 

He would never like you in that way, not when you two were polar opposites, elements of nature that should not and cannot coexist. He was a brilliant, vivid flame; you were the wind that snuffed it out. It wasn’t that you looked down on yourself or anything or thought that you weren’t good enough for him, you just thought you two couldn’t be more incompatible and being around him would just drive the wedge deeper into your heart, the wedge that told you that you two would never work. 

So you began your heart-wrenching struggle to distance yourself from him, to pretend that the spark between you two didn’t exist, that your feelings for him didn’t exist.

Jeno isn’t dumb; he’s painfully aware of the way you avoid his gaze, respond to his morning greetings with a perfunctory nod, pick the seat furthest away from him as possible during classes and bolt out of the classroom as soon as class ends, before he has the opportunity to get to you. He’s also deeply plagued with the worry that he’s scared you away with his advances; what if you found him annoying or worse, feared him? He’s tried his best to befriend you in the gentlest way possible, suppressing the urge within him that desires to let his true feelings out to you, telling himself not to rush things. 

Yes, Lee Jeno is in love with you, perhaps even more so than you were with him. He had been deeply intrigued by your love for the rain, by the way your eyes lit up whenever there was a downpour, by the way you so intrepidly embraced the element most people shied away from. The day you sacrificed your umbrella for him, as he watched your silhouette fade away into the rain, he felt so loved, but he also felt so damn angry at you for compromising your health for his sake, and a sleepless night confirmed that this mess of emotions was symbolic of the love he harboured for you. And soon it manifested in every little thing; just meeting your gaze was enough to make him weak, every friendly touch he shared with you was enough to set his heart on fire. He wishes so badly to be able to hold you closer, but he knows that you’re too amazing to fall for a guy like him, and he’s content with just being friends and getting to see your smile everyday. 

So it pains him to no end when you avoid him, and he spends every waking moment trying to figure out why.

Then it hits him.

What if you found out?

The thought is absolutely unbearable, and as though he’s been galvanized into action by some unseen force, he races out into the pouring rain onto the rooftop, where he knows you’d seek refuge. 

Indeed, there you sit, holding out your hand to the sky, letting the drops of cool rain rinse away the worries on your palm. Unbeknownst to Jeno, today you had mentally placed on it your love for him and commanded the rain to wash it away into obscurity. Usually this ritual is a refreshing process for you, and lifts all your burdens off your shoulders, but today it simply makes your heart grow heavier, and with every drop of rain that lands on your skin you feel a sort of aching emptiness gnaw away at your soul. 

I’m sorry, Jeno.

Suddenly, your feel a strong, warm grip on your outstretched palm, and as you squint you realize that Jeno is in front of you, interlacing his fingers with yours as he brings your palm down, away from the rain and by his side. 

He takes a deep breath, and as you look closely at him you realize that his face is wet and his eyes are red, and you can’t tell whether he got soaked in the rain or he’s been crying.

“Hey,” he whispers, his voice a soft baritone, and your resolve just about crumbles right then and there. You didn’t realize how much you missed his voice, his face, his presence, his everything.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, stepping closer to you, your legs almost pressing against his torso. “I shouldn’t have fallen in love with you.”

That is when your universe ceases rotation.

“Y-You what?”

“I’m in love with you, Y/N. I know I ruined things between us by falling in love with you, and I’m really sorry. I just… I can’t help it. I know you don’t feel the same way, that’s why you’re avoiding me, but I really needed to talk to you and—,”

“Lee Jeno, stop it.”

Jeno’s eyes widen in hurt and his grip on your hand loosens, his gaze downcast. “Sorry.”

“N-No, that’s not what I meant. I have something to say.”

You suck in a deep breath, and when you take his other hand in yours, he looks up at you again, question filling his eyes.

“Listen carefully, all right? I… I’m not avoiding you because I don’t like you, I’m avoiding you because… I like you so much that it hurts being around you knowing that you won’t like me back.” 

It takes a moment for the impact of your words to hit Jeno, and when it finally registers, when he’s untangled your mess of verbalization to uncover your heart that now beats for him, he breaks out into the most beautiful smile, eyes disappearing into little crescents. 

“Will you let me show you how much I like you?” Jeno asks, puppy eyes alight with hope. 

You nod slightly, and Jeno raises both hands to cup your cheeks. His touch feels like the soft caress of warm sunglow, and you feel your cheeks burn in all their crimson glory. If Jeno noticed it, he doesn’t show it, as he’s too busy trying to calm his own beating heart. His eyes flutter shut and he presses his lips against yours, and all your thoughts halt. 

His lips are slow, sweet and gentle against yours, and yet it is more than anything you could ever have imagined. The kiss is soft and mellow, a beautiful emblem of your newfound, realised love. It is at that moment that you finally understand what it’s like to be sunkissed. 

When you two finally part you see that the sun has emerged from behind the dark clouds, casting its rays around you and Jeno in a warm embrace, but it’s still raining. The raindrops capture the sunlight during their descent, resembling little bits of spun gold fresh from the heavens. 

A sunshower.

You look at Jeno and smile. The sun and the rain can become one, after all. 

“You know, I used to be jealous of the rain that fell on your skin,” Jeno says, breaking the silence.

“Why?”

“It was closer to you than I’d ever been.” 

It’s a terrible, cheesy line, probably stolen from Tumblr, but you smile, taking his hand and lacing his fingers between yours. 

“Not anymore, my sun.”

a/n; aye its my first full-blown nct dream oneshot! hope you guys like it even though i cringed sooo hard when i was proofreading this and i legit regretted writing it lmao but i still wanted to put it out,,, feedback would be much appreciated :) also i haven’t forgotten about the jaemin fic i promised... like ages ago lmao i should really get down to it

[newlyy]

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When I saw that post a few days ago about “does your family have a curse” I was immediately like yeah, my dads side has mental illness. My dads brother (Uncle T) hasn’t really ever held a job. He lives alone in a very big very old house. He doesn’t talk to much of anyone. He doesn’t have a lot of money. He married my aunt (Aunt K, the woman I was close-ish to, who sent me postcards regularly), but they divorced decades ago and my parents always said that she divorced him not because she no longer loved him, but because he was a liability she couldn’t take on. So my aunt and uncle stayed very close, neither ever remarried or had kids, they saw each other regularly. She was the only person he saw, really. And then in December of last year, she committed suicide. And to simplify a more complex situation, she left him in a financial bind based on her not properly drafting a provision of her will that would have provided him something and therefore the provision being disregarded. So he lost his only friend, the woman he still loved, and now is probably going to lose the house he’s lived in—that he lived in with her—for decades. I saw him today for the first time since I was a kid and he just breaks your heart, really. He’s very down, he’s in a bad place mentally and financially. He’s slightly odd, just socially, I think he’s been alone for too long. He’s earnest, he’s not trying to guilt trip anyone, he’s just being honest. But he kept talking about how Aunt K was his only friend, how seeing her gave him something to look forward to. He blames himself for her death, says that she was determined towards the end, but maybe there had been a time a year or two before, when she started to get into a funk, that he could have done more, as he said, held her hand, been there all the time, like a husband.

He showed my mom and me old photos of her, old photos of everyone in our family, really, and old postcards she had sent him (I have my own pile of postcards she’d sent me). you can tell how lonely he is, he would’ve talked for hours if we’d let him. And that’s another thing that makes him come off as “odd;” he just talks and talks and talks when most people would say “sorry, I’ve been yapping your ear off” and he kind of knows that, he kept saying sorry I just don’t have anyone to talk to, but he couldn’t help himself, he just kept talking about everything and anything. It made me want to cry talking to him today. You should see the house he lives in, it’s gorgeous. A very old very beautiful house and so many rooms with all of this antique, beautiful furniture that are mostly unused and then, in the midst of this beautiful house, he has a room upstairs where he sleeps on an old couch, despite having I think at least four queen size beds in his house. He’s an eccentric character, but he’s just sad. I know he views his life as a waste and I hate that. I want to help him, but I really can’t. And part of my feelings about him are that he reminds me so much of my dad. He lives a block away from my apartment and he said he would come over to say hello and, again, bear in mind that I hadn’t seen this man since I was young, and I just saw a guy walking outside and I knew from the way he walked that he was related to my dad. I never thought of my dad having a signature walk, but there it was on this man I couldn’t even make out. He looks like my dad, too, but an alternative universe version, a version that didn’t have my mom or his children to help him. And that makes me so sad. My desire to save him is the desire to save my dad. I know my dad and I know my brother and I know me and I know that part of ourselves that we all have that, if we don’t push back against it, if we don’t have someone to help us out of it, leads us to just freeze. To start doing the bare minimum of living. I recognize that in my uncle. And he also reminds me of my brother, who is also somewhat antisocial and unemployed and aimless. I look at uncle T and I worry that I’m looking at my future brother and I don’t want my brother to rot in an old house, surrounded by my parents’ old furniture when they die. It’s nice to go back to my dads hometown and see these relatives again, but I’m also feeling a weight and today made me so sad.

Went to take some more boxes up to my new apartment and met with my family that lives up there again, including my uncle this time, who’s the ex-husband of my aunt, the one who recently killed herself. Lots of feelings around that and around family history and family “curses,” and I want to write more about it later but I’m just processing.

[obnoxityzen]

Why I feel like an outcast manga reader (a very personal opinion)

Eh. I am actually an outcast wherever I am.

I am weird, antisocial, conceited, insensitive, immature. In case you haven’t noticed, my blog name actually indicates something about me.  Hehe.

But, you know, as I said in my bio… manga is my only consistent hobby. But I still don't see it is easy for me to feel like I know much about it too.

I once talked to a friend about how when I was younger, my school friends would say I am weird because I read manga. It was not weird really. It’s just, not a lot of people around me read manga.

Anyway, my friend said that I should start writing a blog about manga. Or find people somewhere to talk about manga.

Oh I did find some. On Tinder. And OKcupid. Lol. And elsewhere. But I found myself stuttering on the very basic question: “What kind of manga do you like?” I don’t know what to answer. Or when I did answer, the conversation stopped just at that because we could not find anything in common. Or perhaps it was just my social anxiety.

But I tried to check tumblr, reddit, or twitter accounts about manga.

Or randomly recommend manga titles to my friends when I feel like they can relate to the stories. But I still feel like an outcast.

Here is why:

People around me don’t like manga!

My siblings actually read manga. Well, there are reasons why people develop certain kinds of hobby and usually, it started from home. But when people grow up, high chance they also drift away from home. Jobs, marriages, the illusion of independent adult life.

Most of people I meet don’t read manga. Here are their reasons: “I don’t like reading books with pictures.” “I don’t read.” “Aren’t those for children?” “I don’t know how to read it. I finished a whole book and thought how weird it was… but turns out I read it from behind. (And I don’t want to try again).” “…Japanese are weird.”

That last one, I think some people are just not accustomed to the fact that there are different kinds of cultures out there.

I only read completed manga

I used to love reading ongoing series too. When I started working, however, I had so little time at hands and I found it difficult to keep tracks on series I were following.  I went to bookstores only to find that I missed a few volumes of some titles, and those volumes were no longer in the market. There are even cases when I remember following some series in, like, 10 years after I read then the latest chapter.

I have another reason, tho. And I think this is actually common for fellow manga readers: I cannot handle the wait. Moreover, it is not once or twice that manga I had been following went into a hiatus. Or, in case of scanlated manga, the scanlators dropped the titles. An no one is interested to pick them up. In those cases, I feel like I am hanging on a cliff. And someone brutally steps on my hand.

I don’t do fangirling

I might be wrong. But I think one of the recipes of mingling into manga communities are by associating yourself into certain groups of fans.

I have nothing against fanboying or fangirling. If I could, I would do it too. But my most favorite manga is usually the latest manga I read. I am ever-changing.

I want to be obsessed, too. But I lack loyalty and my interests wane way quickly. I tend to forget titles or characters in few days after I finished reading them.

When I was younger, I thought I like Westlife. But after a few months, my friend asked me whether I like Westlife. I said I don’t. She asked me whether I like Boyzone. Or ‘Nsync. Or Backstreet Boys. I said I don’t.

She, annoyed, asked for the final time, “THEN WHO THE HELL DO YOU LIKE?”

I was like, silently, asking myself, “SHIT, YEAH! WHO THE FUCK DID I ACTUALLY LIKE? I THOUGHT I LIKED THEM ALL!”

Even I got confused

I am failed to become a fangirl right at the doorsteps.

I no longer read shounen and shoujo

I once stopped reading manga for around five years. Not completely. I still read now and then, but I just could not dedicate my time to reading. Especially with so few people around me know about manga, I had so few reasons to read.

When I came back to manga, my taste has somewhat changed. My views on life has somehow altered and this influences my reading preferences. I tried to pick some shounen or shoujo titles I used to love but, I found them so hard to relate.   

“What, that does not make sense!” “Didn’t guy just try to rape you? Why are you so forgiving?” “Why are you falling in love to a jerk like that?” “Seriously? You let those people trample on you? Why don’t you fight back?” I was baffled.

The thing is, shoujo and shounen seem to dominate online manga forums or conversation about manga in real life.  I think if I did not stop reading back then, I too would still love to read them.

I don’t even watch anime!

Yap. I am one of those annoying people who won’t watch a movie before reading the book (if I am interested in the book, of course). But I don’t think the same reason of me not watching a movie applies with me not watching anime. It is just a matter of preference, I guess. If I have time to watch some moving pictures on screens I prefer watching ordinary Hollywood or world movies.

I am not familiar with Japanese and Korean terms

Nani? I don’t understand a thing. Ottoke… T_T

I am too whiny, too picky

Yes! If you read point 1 to 6 you will understand what I mean. I am quick to dislike. I am too rigid. I complain a lot. And I might have not tried that hard. I can always try watching anime or learning foreign languages, but I do not strive hard to do it (time constraints, tbh).

Ehehe.

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I do believe not everything I said is right. Perhaps, nothing is right. But to be honest, ignoring over 1000 words I poured into this writing, I am not actually bothered. For me, what important is loving what I love. Knowing what I don’t. I might say that I find some genres are not relatable, but since everyone is living a life different from others, I fully understand that “relatable”, just like other adjectives, is subjective.

By the end of the day, I do understand one thing: If I have to define a thing about myself, it is that I don’t like to be defined. That is perhaps why I feel like an outcast everywhere, or at the other hand, why I feel like I can talk about everything with almost everyone.

I genuinely think that everyone has the right to be anything they like, as long as it doesn’t harm others. You can be an otaku. A fujoshi. Whatever. You can be nothing too. And nothing is wrong with it.